Free Republic

Do Americans share President Obama's desire to impose redistributive social justice on the well off? In liberal Washington State, of all places, voters gave a definitive answer this Tuesday: No! The resounding rejection of a punitive "Robin Hood" initiative shows that it's not just red-state Republicans who oppose extreme tax hikes on the nation's wealth generators. As Capitol Hill resumes debate on whether to extend the so-called "Bush tax cuts," the White House should pay special heed to the fate of little-noticed Initiative 1098. Its defeat by a whopping 65-35 margin doesn't bode well for Team Obama's class warriors still...

A pair of House Democrats publicly called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step down from the leadership Thursday and others suggested the same privately, as the California Democrat hunkered down in the Capitol to mull over her future. Pelosi made no public appearances as speculation swirled as to whether she would run for minority leader following the largest midterm rout in more than 70 years.

The Democrats are offended that being the Party of No is a rewarding experience. But they themselves have a different problem. Do you recall, back in the mists, when Arthur Fonzerelli would try to admit he was wrong to the Cuninghams?

Conservative Republican control of the House is step one. Taking control of the Senate is step two, regardless of whether we do it in 2010 or 2012. And step three is electing a conservative president in 2012. It will not be as easy as one-two-three, but it can be done. It must be done to take back our government.

Let's see – the election is Tuesday and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is on the ballot for re-election. So why is she planning to be in San Francisco Monday? Brewer plans to attend a court hearing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concerning portions of Senate Bill 1070, the controversial law Arizona passed, and she signed, dealing with illegal aliens in that state.

NPR faced fierce public and political reaction - most of it strongly negative - in the wake of its firing of commentator Juan Williams for comments he made on a Fox News program earlier in the week. Even NPR's own staff expressed exasperation at the decision during a meeting Friday with NPR's president, Vivian Schiller. Several of those who attended said Schiller told employees that she regretted how she handled the episode.

Of the thousands of complaints that have saturated NPR in the wake of Juan Williams’s firing earlier this week, some of the most telling have been from callers describing themselves as long-time “viewers” of NPR who warn that they are going to “stop watching.” NPR, of course, does not have viewers, it has listeners. But the public radio organization has come under severe criticism — largely from people who are not listeners, it believes — for having fired Mr. Williams, an analyst who was employed by both NPR and Fox News when he said on Fox that he felt fearful...

As House Republicans continued to call for NPR to be defunded on Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) drew attention to a large grant the company received this month from the left-leaning philanthropist George Soros. He even suggested some new shows for National Public Radio: "Dancing with the Czars" and "Socialist Survivor," to name a few.

A liberal protester at the “One Nation Working Together” march physically assaulted a HUMAN EVENTS reporter who was videotaping Rep. Charlie Rangel (D.-N.Y) at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where the liberal rally took place. Continues... What if they held a "massive," "humongous" and "mammoth" rally and nobody came? So few bothered to show up for the "One Nation" gathering Saturday that the AP claimed the "DC rally shows support for struggling Democrats." For five weeks, the nuts who organized the nearly nonexistent 'event' billed their little get-together as a counterweight to the Glenn Beck rally, which actually had...

If Washington normally blends the business of government with electoral politics, this week signifies a turn toward an unalloyed electoral brawl. Democratic Congressional leaders have sent members home without resolving their greatest outstanding disagreement with Republicans, over the Bush tax cuts due to expire at year’s end.

I was probably one of the last people in the world to learn about the attack on September 11, 2001. I was deep into revising my dissertation on Walker Percy for a committee member who ultimately had to be replaced; like many faculty members he insisted I present the dominant view of the U.S. as fascist. Three other committee members thought my original version was suitable for a book. But today’s graduate student will have even less of an opportunity to work with decent faculty members than I did. The sociopaths in charge have simply replaced such retiring members with...

Administration officials passed around the champagne Tuesday as the Congressional Budget Office reported that the $814 billion spent on the first stimulus bill created between 1.4 million and 3.3 million new jobs. President Obama's policies "put the country on a path to recovery by getting Americans back to work quickly," Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. crowed. "We've created 3 million jobs, and we're adding jobs every month." Continues... I quote, you decide "Sales of new homes declined unexpectedly in July," falling "12.4 percent from June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000. That was the lowest level in...

Two possible ethics trials of senior Democratic members of Congress are compounding the governing party's political woes and raising hopes among Republican leaders that they can make large gains in November's mid-term elections. On Sunday, Republicans sought to capitalize on the ethics troubles of Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and Maxine Waters of California. Continues... After confidently predicting approximately a million times that Charles Rangel would cut a 'last-minute deal' with the House Ethics Committee, causing the whole story to slip into a memory hole, liberals are resigned to the fact that the Rangel ethics trial will go...

The frustration and anger by conservatives about the direction of this country continue to grow. Even many moderates are starting to wake up to the failed policies and lack of leadership by the Obama administration. In the Georgia primary election July 20, Republicans cast more ballots than Democrats for governor by a two-to-one margin. The other races on the ballot also showed that significantly more Republicans voted than Democrats, but the highest office on the ticket is a most telling sign about what could happen in November. "Could happen" is the operative phrase, because Republicans could take back control of...

Sounding more like a campaigning candidate than a proud president, Obama said that voters will have to choose whether to go backward to the failed policies of the past or to go forward to the future with him. Wait a minute: Where's the choice? The failed policies of the past are precisely the same policies Obama and his Marxist majority have rammed down America's throat since the last election, which he promises to continue until he has totally "transformed" the United States of America. Let's see now … what are the most egregious failed policies of the past? No doubt,...

The economic expansion is sputtering. Private employers added only 83,000 jobs in June, the government said Friday, too few to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent from 9.7 percent, but only because hundreds of thousands of Americans dropped out of the labor force entirely. Continues... At the rate Obama's going, he'll have to re-hire all those laid-off census workers to count the number of jobs we're losing. The Bureau of Census Jobs Statistics -- er, Labor Statistics -- yesterday reported that 125,000 jobs were 'unexpectedly', startlingly, surprisingly, unanticipatedly eliminated from the...

The Washington leadership never misses an opportunity to blame the eight years of Bush policies for the economic problems that have befallen the nation. CNN news touts a poll that says 53 percent of the people blame Republican policies for the mess. Both are wrong. Republicans certainly contributed over the years, but the cause of the economic problems must be laid squarely at the doorstep of the Democrats. The root cause of the economic problem is government interference with the free market.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks slid Friday after a disappointing jobs report added to investors' concerns that the economic recovery is losing steam, ending a week of steep losses on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped for a seventh straight day after the government said private employers added only 83,000 jobs last month, fewer than the 112,000 analysts had forecast. The Dow hasn't fallen for that many days in a row since an eight-day losing streak at the height of the financial crisis in October 2008.

The train that is the nation’s economic recovery has slowed noticeably, unable to generate enough jobs in the last two months to keep pace with population growth, much less reduce the vast numbers of unemployed Americans. The United States added just 83,000 private sector jobs in June, according to the monthly statistical snapshot released by the Labor Department. The unemployment rate declined to 9.5 percent, from 9.7 percent in May. But that was a largely illusory decline, as 652,000 Americans left the work force.

Forget about the drop in the unemployment rate last month. The economic recovery has lost significant steam in the last few months. Today’s employment report is clear on that score. Job growth in the private sector has slowed — to 83,000 last month and a three-month average of 119,000. From February to April, the private sector added 154,000 jobs a month. (With the Census winding down, the federal government cut jobs last month, which explains the drop in overall employment.)