Free Republic

No more tax increases: Why Grover Norquist is right Richard Moore Investigative Reporter There was quite a dust-up in the Republican Party this past week when Georgia U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss uttered the unthinkable and said he would no longer adhere to the famous Taxpayer Protection Pledge conceived by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. Chambliss was blunt in renouncing his commitment not to vote to raise taxes: “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge. If we do it his (Norquist’s) way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a...

In the lead up to modern redistributive social justice, the preceding movement used to call itself the "social gospel". This has proven to be a particularly hard shell for me to crack, but thankfully I'm not the only one out here trying to learn the history of progressivism and show it to others. An article by Dr. Richard M. Gamble titled "Savior Nation: Woodrow Wilson and the Gospel of Service". Here's the PDF downloadable version, and here's the Google Docs directly viewable version lays it all out pretty well. Here's an example: The United States had preserved its own liberty...

TORONTO, November 29, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homeschoolers are incensed after Anna Maria Tremonti, host of CBC’s The Current, decided to air what she called the “last word” on her show discussing homeschooling. Following her November 14 show, a two minute skit cast homeschooling mothers as incompetent, uneducated, and sexually irresponsible. The home-schooled teenage male—who was cast as unchallenged, resentful, rebellious, and delinquent—suggested at one point that he would rather not have been created than homeschooled. “OK, so I’m supposed to learn geometry from a lady who never graduated college and wasn’t smart enough to use condoms?” rants the teenager in...

[Snipped pretty severely to meet posting guidelines.] Congressional auditors say doing away with dollar bills entirely and replacing them with dollar coins could save taxpayers some $4.4 billion over the next 30 years. At a House subcommittee hearing Thursday, the focus was on two approaches: —Moving to less expensive combinations of metals like steel, aluminum and zinc. —Gradually taking dollar bills out the economy and replacing them with coins. Equipment would have to be bought or overhauled and more coins would have to be produced upfront to replace bills as they are taken out of circulation. Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo.,...

Businessweek points out a staggering study suggesting that the delays and hassle caused by post-9/11 TSA airport screening procedures encouraged travelers to go by car rather than the far safer choice of flying – resulting in thousands of extra road fatalities which would not have otherwise occurred, a death toll dwarfing that of the attacks on the Twin Towers: Created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Transportation Security Administration has largely outlived its usefulness. These days, the TSA’s major role appears to be to make plane trips more unpleasant.

Perhaps the Bureau of Economic Analysis was hoping that today's cornucopia of ugly income and spending data would be enough for those who keep track of the US government's Department of Truth shennanigans and ignore the meat behind the numbers. Whatever the reason, the real story in today's Personal Spending data was not the consumer weakness, but the unceremonious revision of historical data, which as the chart below mysteriously whacked away a whopping $40 billion in real (i.e., inflation adjusted) disposable income. Because as the chart below shows, somehow, somewhere starting in March and continuing through the last month just...

David Horowitz brings us a very disturbing report on the extent to which the traditional harvesting of votes by parties has degenerated into massive, uncontrollable ballot manipulation by Democrats. Traditional "vote harvesters" have as their mission the gathering of "... unthinking collectives of potential voters -- nursing home residents, college students, skid-row dwellers, recent immigrants -- and get them to vote[.]" Mr. Horowitz is a red-diaper baby and a former "Marxist intellectual"-turned-militant conservative who here recounts a conversation he had with his "... brother-in-law, Henry, who has lived most of his life in a home for the mentally disabled and...

AUSTIN – Texas tied for the third highest high school graduation rate in the country for all students.....

AUSTIN – Texas tied for the third highest high school graduation rate in the country for all students.....

By Mr. Curmudgeon:People living in the western Serbian village of Zarozje are on the lookout for Sava Savanovic. Village Mayor Miodrag Vujetic warned the people of his small hamlet that a vampire (Savanovic) was freed from an ancient mill situated along the Rogacica River when the structure collapsed. Mayor Vujetic urged the voters to "put a Holy cross in every room in the house," ABC News reported.Needless to say, sales of crucifixes and garlic have been brisk."People are worried," said the mayor, "everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for...

GALT, Calif. (AP) -- An unarmed animal control officer was shot and killed in Sacramento County on Wednesday while trying to retrieve pets from a home whose owner was evicted the previous day. The officer had gone to the home to rescue dogs and cats authorities thought had been left behind, a day after Joseph Francis Corey was served an eviction notice and a sheriff's deputy changed the locks. The officer - Roy Curtis Marcum, 45, of Elk Grove - and a bank employee knocked on the door when Corey fired a shotgun through the door, striking the officer in...

Texas Sen.-elect Ted Cruz advised the Republican Party to rebrand itself under a banner of “Opportunity Conservatism” during a sweeping speech Thursday night that will only stoke speculation about a 2016 presidential run. Speaking before the conservative American Principles Project dinner at a downtown Washington hotel, Cruz said the GOP’s thumping in the 2012 elections was more the result of poor messaging and communication than the wrong ideology. “Why did we lose? It wasn’t as the media would tell you: because the American people embraced big government, Barack Obama’s spending and debt and taxes. … That wasn’t what happened. I’m...

Two lucky individuals won $587.5 million last night by matching all six numbers in the Powerball lottery. This represents the second-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history. To put this amount in perspective, and to shed light on the United States' spending problem, the math below shows that the federal government's pace of deficit spending would consume this amount in just four hours. In fiscal year 2012, the debt of the U.S. government increased by $1,275,901,078,828.74, according to the Treasury Department. That equals about $3.5 billion per day, or $2,430,555.00 per minute. Based on these numbers, the federal government would blow...

One of the many persistent lies we hear from the Left is Whites are no longer the majority of America. Citing a US Census report the New York Times said the latest Census showed that just over 50% of Americans under 1 year old are non-White. This was an example of the liberal media disregarding the truth to write a story that fits its narrative. The Census Bureau is not the definitive source of data about the race of babies born in America. That role is filled by National Center For Health Statistics (NCHS). The NCHS reports something very different....

York County, Va. – The man dubbed the “fake-beard bandit” has hit more than 30 businesses on the Peninsula. Each time, the MO is the same: He walks in, flashes a gun and takes off with the cash. But this time, an AutoZone employee decided he was going to take action! “I was in fear of my life as soon as he walked through the door and I see the gun. Your heart just starts pounding,” says Devin McClean, a former Auto Zone employee. Devin McClean decided to take action after recognizing the Fake Beard Bandit. “I waited for him...

“ Blessed be the Name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise, And knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him. “ I thank You and praise You, O God of my fathers; You have given me wisdom and might, And have now made known to me what we asked of You, For You have made known to...

President Obama met with the newly elected President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto yesterday. While the press focused on the Administration’s talking points for discussions on a wide range of issues from energy to climate change, the real concern is that the Mexican economy is far out performing the U.S. and the new immigration concern is increasingly from Americans illegally moving to Mexico. Nowhere is this trend more challenging than in California, which was just awarded the booby-prize by 24/7 Wall Street survey, as the “Worst Run State” in the United States. The State has unemployment: 10.1% (2nd highest), Budget...

Jerry Finkelstein, who made a fortune in business, real estate and newspapers, including The New York Law Journal and The Hill, and for many years was a self-styled Democratic power broker in New York City, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 96.

I see the fiscal cliff has given us an opportunity to return to Big Guy’s WINNING! negotiation strategy that I call the  “How about you give me your new car for my old shoes?” scuffle. For some reason it’s been working for him for a long time. Portrait of a young man with an old sole…and a big plan Maybe it’s because those old shoes always come in handy for kicking the can down the road. Assuming there is a road…at the end I mean. Danger: road may end at the cliff’s edge (Snip)Charles Krauthammer explains how Big Guy’s 2%...

In the aftermath of the 2012 election, in which Republicans garnered a shockingly low percentage of the Hispanic vote, Republicans have begun to rethink their position on comprehensive immigration reform. In the short term, many Republicans are looking to take measures that seem more immigrant-friendly. But even as Republicans look to reshift their framing, Democrats continue to demagogue on immigration. One of the most positive and uncontroversial Republican efforts is the STEM Act – STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math – which is designed to elevate visas available for foreign-born graduates with advanced technical degrees from US universities....