Free Republic

When Tim Morris got his mail last week he found a pretty big surprise, a document asking his dog Mozart to register to vote. Not only is Mozart a dog but he's been dead for two years. "I opened it up and looked at it and I just laughed," Morris said. "I thought it was a joke at first and it turns out it's real." The form is addressed to Mo, the family's nickname for the dog. What amazed Morris is that if Mozart was human he would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 2012. "He...

I came across an absurd USA Today story from last week that I just couldn't let pass without reacting to. From the very first lines I struggled to keep my jaw from dislodging from my face and falling to the dirt. Summertime can mean danger for children on farms. An 18-year-old Amish man died from oxygen deprivation and his 14-year-old brother was injured last month as they worked in a neighbor's farm silo in Pennsylvania. Also last month, a Maryland man and his sons, 18 and 14, died of asphyxiation while working in a farm manure pit. The federal government...

Parties are worlds apart on how to fix economy CONNIE CASS Associated Press WASHINGTON Millions of Americans are desperate for work, runaway government spending clouds the future and Democratic and Republican candidates are busy making one thing clear: They're light years apart on what to do about it. They do agree that in this election, the economy is everything. President Barack Obama calls it "the defining issue of our time." But for voters wishing Washington would come together in a time of crisis, Obama, his Republican rival Mitt Romney and their congressional allies don't offer much hope

President Obama's latest political ploy — granting new "rights" out of thin air, by executive order, to illegal immigrants who claim that they were brought into the country when they were children — is all too typical of his short-run approach to the country's long-run problems. Whatever the merits or demerits of the Obama immigration policy, his executive order is good only as long as he remains president, which may be only a matter of months after this year's election. People cannot plan their lives on the basis of laws that can suddenly appear, and then suddenly disappear, in less...

IXMIQUILPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Seamstress Paulina Gutierrez, an ethnic Otomi Indian, prayed every day for years for a miracle to reunite her with her two sons, who were smuggled into the United States as children and have lived in permanent fear of deportation back to Mexico. Now, thanks to a major immigration policy shift by U.S. President Barack Obama, she can barely contain her excitement at the prospect of once again hugging her two boys - and two grandchildren she has never met. Without papers to get back into the United States, Gutierrez' sons cannot visit her in Mexico. She...

Covering all the bases ahead of a momentous Supreme Court ruling, the Obama administration plans to move ahead with major parts of the president's health care law if its most controversial provision does not survive, according to veteran Democrats closely involved with the legislation.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is the Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security for the Congressional Caucus on EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) that endeavors to carry on the work of the EMP Commission. He is also the Director of the United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, an advisory body to Congress on policies to counter weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Pry has served on the staffs of the EMP Commission, the Strategic Posture Commission, the Commission on the New Strategic Posture of the U.S., the House Armed Services Committee and the Central Intelligence Agency. For those unfamiliar with...

Army First Lt. Augustine Kim’s finally got the Washington Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to return his guns after two years -- only to find them permanently damaged. The department violated its own regulations on handling firearms in evidence by engraving marks on the sides of the guns, and the city should reimburse the soldier for the loss. The Afghanistan war veteran was wrongly arrested while lawfully transporting his firearms from New Jersey to his home in South Carolina. All charges were later dismissed, but the city refused to respond to repeated requests from the national guardsman to return the $10,000...

It's easy to understand why countries like Russia, China and Iran would want to rewire the Internet, cutting off access to their citizens and undermining the idea of a World Wide Web. What's more surprising is that U.S. diplomats are letting authoritarian regimes hijack an obscure U.N. agency to undermine how the Internet works, including for Americans. The failure by U.S. negotiators to stop attacks on the Internet became known only through documents leaked last week. They concern a U.N. agency known as the International Telecommunications Union. Founded in 1865 to regulate the telegraph, the body (now part of the...

“Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation — I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.* “* Unless, you know, 224 years from now, whoever happens to president simply decides he really doesn’t want to do that.” — Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 of Barack Obama’s U.S. Constitution The Founders set the course in a simple, concise, 35-word affirmation —...

President Obama's latest political ploy — granting new "rights" out of thin air, by Executive Order, to illegal immigrants who claim that they were brought into the country when they were children — is all too typical of his short-run approach to the country's long-run problems. Whatever the merits or demerits of the Obama immigration policy, his Executive Order is good only as long as he remains president, which may be only a matter of months after this year's election. People cannot plan their lives on the basis of laws that can suddenly appear, and then suddenly disappear, in...

While I often find myself aghast at President Obama's displays of socialist/progressive leanings, there are plenty of really hardcore liberals who apparently think that President Obama hasn't been progressive enough. Robert Unger --- a bigtime Brazilian politician and former professor of Barack Obama's at Harvard law, who also served as a frequent adviser to Obama in 2008 --- posted a video of himself detailing the reasons he thinks it's crucially important that President Obama not be voted into a second term. The mind reels: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Highlights: Mr Unger, a prominent Brazilian politician and an adviser...

Why do Liberals and Progressives want you Disarmed? Following the shooting of Treyvon Martin earlier this year, liberals and progressives renewed their calls for more restrictions on firearms and repeal of Florida’s stand your ground law. Some called for the out right ban of handguns. Once again their justification is so-called public safety because they claim the police are entrusted with duty of protecting you. As I wrote in “The Police are Under No Legal Obligation to Protect You”, this assertion is patently false because courts throughout these United States have consistently held that police have no legal duty to...

Consider this Wall Street Journal editorial your must read of the day. It highlights why adding conservatives to the United States Senate is so important. This past week, Republican in the Senate, including Mitch McConnell’s leadership picks, sat idly by saying nothing while the Senate Democrats pushed forward the nomination of Andrew Hurwitz, who helped formulate the reasoning behind Roe v. Wade while a law clerk. Hurwitz is quite fond of that bit of his legacy. Andrew Hurwitz’s nomination could have been blocked from consideration had just one more Republican voted no. John McCain, Jon Kyl, and Lamar Alexander all...

Hey ya'll come to Lansing, there'll be plenty of vaginas.This whole controversy disgusts me, but hey, it's part of the reason why I'm not a Democrat. The false narrative that the media is running with on the vagina controversy in Lansing is basically what the Democrats say it's about. According to female Democrats, women are being censored on the House floor for daring to say the word vagina. So, in order to really really get those evil male Republicans to pay, the women plan to talk about taking mirrors to view the female genitalia, how the hair feels, orgasms, and...

President Barack Obama’s love of golf hit a milestone today as he marked his 100th time on the links. His Father’s Day achievement was reached at the Beverly Country Club in his hometown, the windy city. Mark Knoller, CBS radio correspondent and chronicler of all things presidential, pointed out the quiet occasion to the traveling press. Like 15 of the 18 presidents since Theodore Roosevelt, Obama has used golf as a way to unwind outdoors, but away from the prying eyes of press and onlookers. And despite the fact that he had never golfed before taking office, his love of...

Excessive civility in the face of a national crisis is tantamount to indifference. The Bush family dynasty exemplifies the patrician attitude of holding oneself above the fray after fulfilling one's pre-ordained obligation to society. This may have been fine in the halcyon days of the past, when America's future seemed limitless and those answering to the call of duty were for the most part honorable people. With Barack Obama at the helm, that is no longer the case. Never in American history has the nation been saddled with such an unethical and ideologically rigid administration, whose ultimate goal is to...

The United States will not bail out European countries if the eurozone economy falls apart under a spiraling debt crisis, Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney said Sunday. (Full article at link)

Something strange is going on in the election campaign. Former president Bill Clinton seems to look for every opportunity to undermine the sitting president of his own party. His former political aides publish a memorandum saying the White House message strategy is failing. The morning reports have the press corps dismissing President Obama's supposedly major speech in Ohio Thursday as a windy nothing-burger. Everyone agrees that the president has had one bad day after another, beginning more or less with Gov. Scott Walker's victory in the Wisconsin recall election, the first governor in American history to survive a recall effort....

<p>PHILADELPHIA — Anthony Paradiso had attended his last political event more than four decades ago. But there he was, in line three hours early for a glimpse of Michelle Obama.</p> <p>“She’s a motivator,” said Paradiso, who went to the rally just two days after he’d been discharged from a hospital after surgery. His last event: a Hubert Humphrey rally in 1968.</p>

Crews in northern Colorado braced for powerful fire-fanning winds as they battle a blaze that has scorched about 85 square miles of mountainous forest land and destroyed at least 181 homes, the most in state history. The destructiveness of the High Park Fire burning 15 miles west of Fort Collins surpassed the Fourmile Canyon wildfire, which destroyed 169 homes west of Boulder in September 2010. PHOTOS: High Park Wildfires Whip Through Colorado More than 1,630 personnel worked on the fire Saturday, officials said in a late-night news release. That was an increase of more than 100 firefighters from a day...

Unless celebrities were invisible or shipped in from the roof through a chimney, the Obama fundraiser at Sarah Jessica Parker’s house last night was not so star-studded. From every report filed, the main star who attended was Meryl Streep. Unless, she’s suddenly changed her entire past practice of political donorship, it’s unlikely that Streep donated $40,000 to anything. Aretha Franklin stopped in for a few minutes, and then headed off to the Songwriters Hall of Fame dinner uptown. That left a few fashion people, and a sighting of Olivia Wilde, an up and coming actress who’s given some money to...

Faced with falling support among blacks, Jews, women and every other group of supporters President Obama is making a play to boost his popularity among Latinos by doing an end run around Congress again. Unable to pass the Dream Act for the past two years, Obama has ordered his Department of Homeland Security to halt deportations of 800,000 young illegal immigrants who overstayed their visas or snuck into the country when they were 16 or younger. In the next 60 days, Homeland harridan Janet Napolitano announced, DHS will begin handing out two-year renewable work permits to illegal youths who haven’t...

June 15, 2012 Are We in Revolutionary Times? Victor Davis Hanson Legally, President Obama has reiterated the principle that he can pick and choose which U.S. laws he wishes to enforce (see his decision to reverse the order of the Chrysler creditors, his decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, and his administration’s contempt for national-security confidentiality and Senate and House subpoenas to the attorney general). If one individual can decide to exempt nearly a million residents from the law — when he most certainly could not get the law amended or repealed through proper legislative or judicial...

Today, the Senate has two hearings scheduled on the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). The Senate will have had three hearings on the LOST after today—yet, not for the purposes of educating Senators on the flaws versus the benefits of the treaty. These hearings are a pretext for a lame duck strategy to railroad the treaty through the Senate after the November election.The first hearing today is titled “Perspectives from the U.S. Military.” Witnesses include Admiral James A. Winnefeld, Jr, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and representatives from other government stakeholders in navigation on the high...

First the LGBT lobby extracted an about face from Obama on marriage equality, moving him to declare his support for same sex marriage. Then today, Obama responded to the needs of the Latino community by allowing students in the U.S. who are already in deportation proceedings, or those who qualify for the DREAM Act, to remain in America without threat of deportation. This means that President Obama just instated the Dream Act, at the behest of the Latino community, all by himself. If you’re black and you don’t feel stupid, then you haven’t been paying attention. And many pundits, commentators,...

I recently found myself in a discussion about America’s youth with a small group of conservative activists. They were in unanimous agreement that conservatism and libertarianism will never be “cool,” that young people just don’t relate to the conservative or libertarian message, that no amount of outreach could be successful, and that we have to just face it–liberalism appeals to young people and eventually they’ll grow out of it and see the light. I couldn’t disagree more on every level. The good news? They’re wrong. As a former teacher, student adviser, dean, and private tutor, I have had the pleasure...

The U.S. has never before had a President who thinks so little of the American people that he imagines he can win re-election running on the opposite of reality. But that is the reality of President Obama today. President Obama's own 2013 budget shows that as a result federal debt held by the public will double during Obama's four years as President. That means in just one term President Obama will have increased the national debt as much as all prior Presidents, from George Washington to George Bush, combined. But this 2012 election is defined for the voters by the...

The Libertarian party probably rejected any claim to normalcy from the get-go by holding its convention in a casino. The Republicans and Democrats hold their conventions in Tampa and Charlotte in a few months, but America’s third largest political party held its nominating convention from May 2-6 at the Red Rock Resort on the edge of Las Vegas. Delegates selected former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson as their presidential candidate. News of Johnson’s nomination garnered a few obligatory headlines but was mostly met with a collective shrug by the political media. The lack of interest in the Libertarian party is...

Last Thursday's same-old, same-old economic speech, which turned even liberal journalists on President Obama, came just days after a memo from Bill Clinton consigliore Jim "it's the economy, stupid" Carville and his pollster associate Stan Greenberg on "Shifting the Economic Narrative." The spin was that the memo was practically Reaganesque in its advice that Obama look forward. But read it, especially its wild observation that "It is elites who are creating a conventional wisdom that an incumbent president must run on his economic performance — and therefore must convince voters that things are moving in the right direction." The Great...

O'Reilly: "... How can you blame kids when they're dragged to the USA from wherever? If you're a fair person you can't. It's not the childs fault immigration laws are broken, it's the parents who did it; thus the new policy is humane..."

(CNSNews.com) - At a White House reception held Friday evening in honor of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Pride month, President Barack Obama celebrated a 1969 anti-police riot that started in what the New York Times reports was an illegal Mafia-owned bar for transvestites. “Now, each June since I took office, we have gathered to pay tribute to the generations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans who devoted their lives to our most basic of ideals--equality not just for some, but for all,” Obama said. “Together we’ve marked major milestones like the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, when...

At the annual Right Online conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, former Governor Sarah Palin took the stage and wasted no time in mocking President Obama for “snortin’ cocaine” and eating “Fido.” Palin has been criticized in the press for eating wild game such as Elk and Moose, yet Obama got a pass from the media after admitting that he ate dog while living overseas.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus framed the presidential election as a moral "battle for the freedom in this country" in a fiery speech Friday to the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Priebus, not known as a bomb-thrower, said the country is facing a stark choice in November between President Obama and Mitt Romney. "It's time to end the Barack Obama presidency before this presidency ends our way of life," he said to loud cheers from the audience of religious right leaders and supporters. "We have to win this election, or we're going to lose this country,” Priebus said. “Collectivism will...

President Obama’s claim that he can refuse to deport 800,000 aliens here in the country illegally illustrates the unprecedented stretching of the Constitution and the rule of law. He is laying claim to presidential power that goes even beyond that claimed by the Bush administration, in which I served. There is a world of difference in refusing to enforce laws that violate the Constitution (Bush) and refusing to enforce laws because of disagreements over policy (Obama).

Mitt Romney today announced the support of five former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See. The Ambassadors wrote the following letter in support of Mitt Romney: “We the undersigned former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See...are united in our wholehearted support for the candidacy of Mitt Romney for the Presidency of the United States because of his commitment to and support of the values that we feel are critical in a national leader...We also know that Mitt Romney is a staunch defender of the principle that every human being should be welcomed in life and protected by law from conception...

As Spain deals with a bailout to "save" the economy and the country, and while the country is engaged in its worst financial crisis in recent memory, the Spanish Parliament took time this week to push for adoption of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. This is the Treaty that will infringe on the US Constitution, the Second Amendment, and your right to self defense. The United Nations and specially invited anti firearms rights groups who want to eliminate our firearms freedoms will be convening at the UN July 2nd through the 27th to draft a Treaty to accomplish the...

Sloppy George Orwell, Photo: WikipediaSloppy language works for cheats and charlatans. In the search for the truth only accurate language will do. Orwell understood the power of language to change the way we think, indeed to fence off some possible options completely.Roger Pielke Snr put out a call today asking for precise definitions and protesting about the misuse of the term “climate change”. But when did this nonsensical term start? Where else, but with the UN. All the way back on May 9th 1992, UN defined “climate change” as man-made. See The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, (paragraph 6):“Climate...

Introduction by Philip Watson The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is mired in controversy, rumor, and misinformation among both gun-rights activists and anti-gun crusaders. Jeff Moran of TSM WorldWide has been monitoring this situation along with several other groups including the Second Amendment Foundation and the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR). In “Dishonest Humanitarianism? The invalid assumptions behind the United Nations’ small arms control initiatives,” Moran cites numerous examples of propaganda used by the supporters of the anti-gun treaty. Moran details the specifics of the ATT, and invalidates the generalizations associated with global small...

Bradford County and approximately a dozen other counties across the United States are establishing an association that will advocate for the safe and responsible development of natural gas, the chairman of the Bradford County commissioners said. Increasing the production of natural gas and oil in the United States will accelerate the economic recovery, and the safe and responsible development of natural gas and oil "is critical to powering our nation's future," the Bradford County Commissioners wrote in a resolution that they plan to pass today, which will make Bradford County a member of the association. There is "a lot of...

Obsession with income redistribution is destroying U.S. productivity President Obama’s re-election prospects dim by the day. When it comes to all-important pocketbook issues, Americans quite simply are worse off now than they were when this administration moved into the White House. The Federal Reserve released its latest “Survey of Consumer Finance” on Tuesday, which confirmed widely held sentiment with hard data: Americans are poorer today than they were in 2007, when the Great Recession hit. The difference between now and then is massive. The median household saw almost 39 percent of its wealth evaporate, and real income (that is, the...

Obama bemoans ‘people hurting out there’ at Sarah Jessica Parker’s $40,000-per-person fundraiser Mark Knoller ✔ @markknoller At the 4-story brownstone that is the home of Sarah Jessica Parker & Matthew Brokerick, Pres Obama addressed 50 ppl paying $40K per. 14 Jun 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reported from the glitzy $40,000 a person Obama fundraiser at the home of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. Yes, you read that right, $40,000 each.  Ponder that as you read this next tweet: Mark Knoller ✔ @markknoller Pres Obama said he knows there are "still a lot of people hurting...

Ladd Everitt, the Director of Communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, is earning his pay once again. His latest screed, Why ‘Stand Your Ground’ is really ‘Kill at Will’, is a breathtaking example of the antis’ stock in trade: half-truths, untruths and flat out lies with a liberal sprinkling of logical fallacies. To wit: “What do you call a law that allows a person to shoot and kill another human being when they could otherwise walk away safely? I can only call it immoral.” When he starts the journey that way, you know it’s going to be a...

The normally-reserved Yves Smith asks whether Obama should be impeached over it. Democratic Senator Wyden – the head of the committee which is supposed to oversee it – is so furious about the lack of access that he has introduced legislation to force disclosure. Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is so upset by it that he has leaked a document on his website to show what’s going on. What is everyone so furious about? An international treaty being negotiated in secret which would not only crack down on Internet privacy much more than SOPA or ACTA, but would...

In a 2001 radio interview, Barack Obama spoke about failures of the Warren court during the civil rights movement. He said “...generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties” (what government can’t do to you, not what it must do on your behalf). He lamented that the Supreme Court never ventured into redistribution of wealth and political and economic justice in society. Hundreds of years ago, the founders saw Obama coming and intentionally limited intrusive federal powers like these in the Constitution. Read Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law” at (bastiat.org/en/the_law.html). Learn why we have laws and why socialism must inevitably...

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday argued against ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty, calling the royalties that U.S. companies would have to pay under the pact “a new idea of enormous consequence.” Under the treaty, industrialized countries would pay royalties to lesser developed nations for profits made while exploiting unclaimed energy resources, Mr. Rumsfeld told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. He said this type of wealth redistribution is a “novelty with no clear limits” that also could be applied to space resources in the future.

To his sworn enemies, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker's victory last Tuesday over Democratic challenger Tom Barrett by 53 to 46 percent has been as hard to spin as it has been to accept. There's no getting around it: The unions lost. It was public-sector unions who led the effort to recall Walker following passage by the legislature last spring of a fiscal reform plan that included tough limitations on union bargaining power. Unions and allied groups by this January had gathered nearly a million signatures to put the recall on the ballot. During the entire campaign, some 50,000 volunteers...

If President Obama loses in November, the new numbers out showing a calamitous drop in Americans' median net worth--we lost 20 years' worth of prosperity in the Great Recession, folks--will tell a good part of the story why. Bottom line: he lost the middle class. According to the Federal Reserve, a broad group of Americans loosely defined as the middle class saw its net worth plummet from a median of $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. It's hardly fair to blame Obama for what began in 2007, but there's no reason why he shouldn't also be saddled with some of the...

New FBI data shows that violent crime rates are improving across America, but among cities with the highest crime problems, murder rates continued to rise in 2011. The FBI finds that violent crime dropped 4% in 2011, compared with a 5.5% drop in 2010. The 2011 FBI crime data shows that violent crime rose in more than half of the cities that have among the highest rates in the country. In seven of the 10 cities, murder rates increased. In eight of the 10, burglary went up. Many are cutting police forces through planned layoffs and attrition. More than half...

The Obama campaign apparently didn't look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, "Forward" — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism. Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name "Forward!" or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called "Forward (generic name of socialist publications)." "The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications," the online encyclopedia explains. The slogan "Forward!" reflected the conviction of...