Free Republic

HOUSTON - It's a tea party unlike any Houston, and perhaps the entire country, has ever seen. The first Black Tea Party held its inaugural meeting Tuesday night in the Third Ward. Organizers of the Crispus Attucks Tea Party are quick to point out that anyone is welcome and it's not a political party. Their mission statement reads in part: "To build a strong base of conservative Black entrepreneurs, elected officials and constituents that provide Black conservatives a viable way to express and implement their conservative values politically." Co-founder Anita Moncrief says the party is also looking to overcome stereotypes....

The Pentagon will have to cut spending by $78 billion over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, forcing the Army and Marine Corps to shrink the number of troops on active duty and eventually imposing the first freeze on military spending since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The surprise announcement from Gates was a reminder for the military establishment - which has benefited from a gusher of new money over the past decade - that it will not remain exempt from painful austerity measures that federal lawmakers say will be necessary to control the soaring...

The States Versus ObamaCare As new state attorneys general take office in the coming weeks, I expect an increase in the number of states challenging the law in court. This week begins the inauguration and swearing-in ceremonies for newly elected officials all over the country. One thing many of us have in common is that the voters rewarded us for our outspoken opposition to ObamaCare. The electorate's decisive rejection of the Obama administration's policies reveals a pervasive concern over the federal government's disregard of fundamental aspects of our nation's Constitution. No legislation in our history alters the balance of power...

The Russian Duma delivered two embarrassing blows to the Obama administration over the holidays on the START treaty, one of which may end up scotching the deal altogether. First, the Russian legislature refused to do what Barack Obama insisted of the US Senate, which was a quick ratification. More importantly, however, the Duma will do what Senate Republicans wanted, which was to amend the treaty to clarify the relationship between START and missile defense. However, the Duma’s changes will link the two and recast START into a de facto anti-missile defense pact: The State Duma (the lower house of the...

After abandoning on Thursday night a $1.3 trillion omnibus Senate spending bill, Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid filed cloture for the DREAM Act and a stand-alone repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - both of which are now expected to reach the Senate for final votes as early as this weekend. Reid, faced with receding Republican support for the spending bill (not to mention threats to read it aloud in its 1,924-page entirety), turned his attention instead to two bills that liberal Democrats hope to push through in the final days of the lame duck congressional session. The Senate is...

Feds Force Okla. Bank To Remove Crosses, Bible Verse Federal Examiners Say Religious Decoration Inappropriate PERKINS, Okla. -- A small-town bank in Oklahoma said the Federal Reserve won’t let it keep religious signs and symbols on display. Federal Reserve examiners come every four years to make sure banks are complying with a long list of regulations. The examiners came to Perkins last week. And the team from Kansas City deemed a Bible verse of the day, crosses on the teller’s counter and buttons that say "Merry Christmas, God With Us." were inappropriate. The Bible verse of the day on the...

DADT vote in the Senate this Saturday? Anybody know?

Officers will start random bag inspections on the sprawling Washington subway system, the Washington Metro Transit Police said on Thursday, a week after a man was arrested for making bomb threats to the rail system. Metrorail police officers plan to randomly select bags before passengers enter subway stations and they will swab them or have an explosives-sniffing dog check the bags, according to the Metro police.

I would like to contact my Congresscritter.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says it will not back down from its decision to label the Family Research Council and other socially conservative groups as hate groups, on par with the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations, for their views about homosexuality. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins recently asked SPLC to retract the hate group designation, but SPLC Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok told The Daily Caller that will never happen. SPLC’s Winter 2010 edition of its “Intelligence Report” magazine lists the Family Research Council as a hate group alongside the American Family Association, the Traditional...

Video at link courtesy of The Blaze's Naked Emperor News.

Press coverage of the new Pentagon Don't Ask Don't Tell report suggests that large majorities of U.S. servicemen and women wouldn't mind the repeal of the military's current policy on gays. Don't believe it. What the report actually shows is that the military is deeply divided over the policy, both between the service branches and especially between those who have served in combat and those who haven't. Did you know that 59 percent of Marines who have served in combat say repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell would have a negative effect? And that 45 percent of Army respondents who...

Free would be great. Kids age 6-16.

Not only does the ‘Donald’ criticize the President for suggesting that we want China to prosper so much that we won’t stand in their way, he also says that since we are losing so much money to China that he would welcome a trade war with them, because he says we would save a lot of money. He says that China is rebuilding themselves off our our money while devaluing theirs and at some point in the future they will destroy us:

“It is possible for us to get a financial tax around the world.”

Glenn Beck's Divine Destiny - 8/27 Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, August 27th Join Glenn Beck for an inspiring look at the role faith played in the founding of America and the role it will play again in its destiny. The audience for the event will be overwhelmingly made up of pastors, ministers and clergy: a modern day Black Robe Regimen. Tickets will be made available to the general public at no cost. So, if you are sick and tired of hearing about how divided America has become, then join us for an eye-opening evening at the historic Kennedy Center in...

Nationally, Democrats say they intend to campaign against the tea party movement. But locally, Democratic officials and activists in at least four states now stand accused of collaborating with tea party candidates in an attempt to sabotage Republican challengers in some of the closest House races in the nation. The charges of dirty tricks are being leveled in Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and Florida — and they involve more than a half-dozen contests that could tip the balance of power in the House. The accusations range from helping tea party activists circulate candidate petition sheets to underwriting the creation of...

The Politico‘s Mike Allen puts this in his morning newsletter: EXCLUSIVE: Phil Schiliro, the White House congressional liaison, has told the Senate to aim to take up an energy bill the week of July 12, after the July 4 break (and after the scheduled final passage of Wall Street reform). Kagan confirmation will follow, ahead of the summer break, scheduled to begin Aug. 9. The plan is to conference the new Senate bill with the already-passed House bill IN A LAME-DUCK SESSION AFTER THE ELECTION, so House members don’t have to take another tough vote ahead of midterms.Every Republican challenger...

The first thing law schools teach litigators is to not ask questions without knowing the answer. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) never went to law school — and it shows in this exchange from Wednesday between himself and Ben Bernanke, the Fed chair, who was testifying on Capitol Hill. Connolly wanted to slap at his Republican colleagues who want spending cuts to bring the budget into balance by getting Bernanke to say that there isn’t enough money in the budget to cut, and that revenue has to be increased to end deficits. Unfortunately, as Liberty Central notes, Connolly got broadsided by...

The economic situation today is drastically worse than a couple years ago, and the euro is doomed as a concept, Nassim Taleb, professor and author of the bestselling book "The Black Swan," told CNBC on Thursday. "We had less debt cumulatively (two years ago), and more people employed. Today, we have more risk in the system, and a smaller tax base," Taleb said. "Banks balance sheets are just as bad as they were" two years ago when the crisis began and "the quality of the risks hasn't improved," he added. The root of the crisis over the past couple of...