Free Republic

fringeelements | July 08, 2010 The fashion is to say "economics can't explain all political issues" - which is an absurd idea based on a simplistic view of economics. Economics can explain all purposeful action toward a given goal. What of these goals and how do they come about? That's the realm of psychology. But beyond that, economic reductionism FTW. No need to speak of "social forces" independent of economics as if King Ludd is a giant cell and men are his organelles. Solving problems by breaking them down into individual actors... is good.

I can't begin to explain how hard I laughed watching this kid. What is he, some unemployed weirdo making videos in his mommy's basement? Take into consideration he admires one of the worst mass-murderers of the 20th century. Let's watch and have a laugh.

When was the last time you heard a politician talking like Carl Paladino? Carl Paladino, a Republican candidate for Governor of New York, has come out against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. "As Governor," Paladino said Wednesday in a radio ad, "I will use the power of eminent domain to stop this mosque and make the site a war memorial instead of a monument to those who attacked our country." I like this guy. I really like this guy. If the Supreme Court could rule, in the notorious 2005 decision Kelo v. City of New London, that the...

The United States State Department has announced to the Palestinian Authority/Palestinian Liberation Organization Mission representative in the United States that its status will be upgraded from a 'bureau' to that of a "general delegation' and that this change will allow the office in which the representation is situated to fly the PLO, now also the Palestine Authority, flag at its entrance. The upgrading, besides allowing the flag to be flown, also grants certan privileges to the delegation staff, such as diplomatic immunity, although it is not equal to embassy status. The PLO's chief representative in the United States, Maen Areikat,...

Eleven years ago, like every citizen elected to serve in Congress or any person appointed to any federal position, I swore an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." I've always thought it significant that the Founders included domestic enemies in that oath of office. They thought liberty was as much at risk from threats within our borders as from outside, and French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville agreed with that warning. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the greatest threat...

Today he is at -17. On July 29 it will be 13 uninterrupted months with a DAILY negative index out of his 18 months in office. This clown has HISTORICLY LOW approval ratings. This is yesterday's graphic because today's is not up yet.

Most hospitals and doctor’s offices do dozens or at the most hundreds of abortions a year. High-volume clinics do thousands....Given the importance of the clinics, many abortion-rights physicians would like to pull them into the medical-school orbit. At the moment, universities tend to keep clinics at arm’s length. If they send residents for training, it’s sometimes for an off-site rotation that the medical-school faculty does not supervise. But the relationship can be closer.

An exercise in pronoun selection. Is Obama Claiming Credit for Gulf Spill Solution? THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the situation in the Gulf. As we all know, a new cap was fitted over the BP oil well earlier this week. This larger more sophisticated cap was designed to give us greater control over the oil flow as we complete the relief wells that are necessary to stop the leak. Now, our scientists and outside experts have met through the night and continue this morning to analyze the data from the...

Stephen Schwartz scrupulously reviews the available evidence regarding the ladies and gentleman behind the planned $100 million mega-mosque at Ground Zero. They are fronted by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a Kuwait-born cleric of Egyptian background. What does Schwartz turn up? Let's see. Here we have a support network linked to the Malaysian Jew hater Mahathir bin Mohamad. Here we have the Perdana-supported Gaza raiders. Here we have some notable servants of the Iranian clerical dictatorship, and an Egyptian property developer associated with the pro-Hamas chief of the Arab League. And here we have Feisal Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, one...

New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity. The obesity-rating regulation states that every American's electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.” The law also requires that these electronic health records be available--with appropriate security measures--on a national...