Free Republic

The Washington Times, a newspaper that has served the nation's capital and a worldwide readership for 28 years, has been sold to a group operating on behalf of the paper's founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The new owners promised the paper will continue to provide a robust voice in current affairs.

During his recent speech in Ohio, President Obama made it clear his administration will soon raise taxes on those in the top marginal income tax bracket. While not surprising given the administration’s penchant for redistribution, the manner in which President Obama made his declaration brings cause for concern: “This isn’t to punish folks who are better off – it’s because we can’t afford the $700 billion price tag.” Not only will such tax-the-rich policy hamper U.S. economic growth, principally among small businesses, but the statement itself is a clear indictment of the president’s broader philosophical belief: Earned income is the...

... The terms of the Constitution originally were clear. Section 8 of Article I enumerates the exact powers the federal government, through Congress, can exercise - and, by doing so, excludes all other powers. As James Madison, the chief conceptualizer of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist 39, "the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several states a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects." Madison wrote this before adoption of the 10th Amendment, which restates, "the powers not delegated to the United States by...

[snip] ... But there are differences between 1994 and 2010. For one, this time around "the Democrats can see what's coming." They didn't see the Republican wave rising in 1994 until it was too late. "When you see something coming a mile away, you can build a ditch to keep it away." Democrats, he says, have put aside a lot of money for negative ads in the last days of the campaign. "For a year, Democratic strategists said 'We'll pass health care, they'll love us.' 'Recovery summer, they'll love us.' 'We'll run against Wall Street, they'll love us.'" These "narratives"...

Around the world, the fight against "climate change" and carbon dioxide e emissions is costing literally hundreds of billions of dollars - and this at a time when the Western world is ravaged by recession. We can ill afford these sums. Many scientists think CO2 emissions have a trivial effect on climate, but even those who support the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) generally agree that the efforts we are making will result in changes so small that they cannot even be measured. Given that China is building a new coal-fired power station every week, with India not far...

Is ObamaCare constitutional? "If you ask any constitutional law professor whether Congress can do something, the answer is always yes," says Randy Barnett. But Mr. Barnett, who teaches legal theory at Georgetown, isn't just any law professor. A self-described "radical libertarian," he is the author of a 2004 book, "Restoring the Lost Constitution," that argues for a fundamentally new approach to jurisprudence. Since the New Deal, Supreme Court justices have generally assumed a law is constitutional and overruled it only when it infringes on an individual right that is enumerated in the Constitution (free speech) or not (privacy). "If you're...

It's wedding bells for Rush Limbaugh – for the fourth time. The conservative firebrand, 59, exchanged vows with Kathryn Rogers – a blond bombshell half his age – in a lavish Hawaiian-themed wedding bash headlined by none-other-than Sir Elton John Saturday in Florida. It's an odd pairing considering El Rushbo's history of anti-gay commentary on his conservative radio show and the openly gay "Tiny Dancer" singer's longtime commitment to gay rights. The Palm Beach Post reported the British superstar will pocket $1 million for playing the wedding reception at the posh Breakers Hotel Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/06/05/2010-06-05_rush_limbaugh_to_wed_gal_pal_kathryn_rogers_today_in_lavish_palm_beach_ceremony_.html#ixzz0q490iSOa

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking ways to "reinvent" journalism, and that's a cause for concern. According to a May 24 draft proposal, the agency thinks government should be at the center of a media overhaul. The bureaucracy sees it as a problem that the Internet has introduced a wealth of information options to consumers, forcing media companies to adapt and experiment to meet changing market needs. FTC's policy staff fears this new reality. [snip] In other words, government policy would encourage a tax on websites like the Drudge Report, a must-read source for the news links of the...

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has used the power of government to seek documents from the University of Virginia regarding its former professor and Climategate figure of "hockey stick" fame, Michael Mann. Mr. Cuccinelli is investigating whether Professor Mann engaged in fraud to obtain taxpayer money to fund his research. The civil investigation is making some people sweat, and raised howls of protest from sources ranging from the liberal Washington Post to the libertarian Reason. Academicians are protesting it as a threat to academic liberty. Daniel Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center, penned a letter calling...

[snip] U.S. fiscal policy has been going in the wrong direction for a very long time. But this year the U.S. government declined to lay out any plan to balance its budget ever again. Based on President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates a deficit that starts at 10.3% of GDP in 2010. It is projected to narrow as the economy recovers but will still be 5.6% in 2020. As a result the net national debt (debt held by the public) will more than double to 90% by 2020 from 40% in 2008. The current Greek...

'We all should have done a better job." So said Senator Chris Dodd yesterday in discussing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in what ought to go down as the understatement of the young 21st century. Yet such general and less-than-abject remorse wasn't enough for Mr. Dodd and his fellow Democrats to vote to reform the money-losing government-owned companies and clean up the mess they made in the mortgage market. As Banking Chairman, Mr. Dodd was declaiming on the Senate floor that the toxic twins absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, need to be reformed—just not yet. He thus opposed Arizona...

European stock markets pushed sharply higher Monday, while sovereign debt markets slumped, as market participants reacted to news of a hefty €750 billion ($955 billion) rescue package to stabilize the euro and prevent the Greek debt crisis from affecting other member countries.

... Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, was a leading opponent of the insecticide DDT, which remains the cheapest and most effective way to combat malarial mosquitoes. Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," misleadingly linked pesticides to cancer and is generally credited with popularizing environmental awareness. But other leading greens of the period, including Nelson, biologist Paul Ehrlich and ecologist Garrett Hardin, were also animated by a belief that growth in human populations was harming the environment. "The same powerful forces which create the crisis of air pollution also are threatening our freshwater resources, our woods,...

WASHINGTON -- Sections of court papers filed by scandal-scarred former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich that were mistakenly made public show a deeper involvement by President Obama in picking his Senate successor and call into question the president's public statements on the case. According to passages in the papers filed Thursday by Blagojevich's lawyers -- which were blacked out under a judge's order but made visible by a computer glitch -- Obama, then president-elect, spoke directly to the disgraced governor on Dec. 1, 2008. But just one week later -- on the day Blagojevich was indicted -- Obama told reporters flatly,...

Free markets depend on truth telling. Prices must reflect the valuations of consumers; interest rates must be reliable guides to entrepreneurs allocating capital across time; and a firm's accounts must reflect the true value of the business. Rather than truth telling, we are becoming an economy of liars. The cause is straightforward: crony capitalism. Thomas Carlyle, the 19th century Victorian essayist, unflatteringly described classical liberalism as "anarchy plus a constable." As a romanticist, Carlyle hated the system—but described it accurately. Classical liberals, whose modern counterparts are libertarians and small-government conservatives, believed that the state's duties should be limited (1) to...

Different Americans have different and often intense preferences for all kinds of goods and services. Some of us have strong preferences for beer and distaste for wine while others have the opposite preference -- strong preferences for wine and distaste for beer. Some of us hate three-piece suits and love blue jeans while others love three-piece suits and hate blue jeans. When's the last time you heard of beer drinkers in conflict with wine drinkers, or three-piece suit lovers in conflict with lovers of blue jeans? It seldom if ever happens because beer and blue jean lovers get what they...

House Democrats last night passed President Obama's federal takeover of the U.S. health-care system, and the ticker tape media parade is already underway. So this hour of liberal political victory is a good time to adapt the "Pottery Barn" rule that Colin Powell once invoked on Iraq: You break it, you own it. [snip] We have never understood why pro-lifers consider abortion funding more morally significant than the rationing of care for cancer patients or at the end of life that will inevitably result from this bill. But in any case Democratic pro-lifers sold themselves for a song, as they...

Has there ever been a political spectacle like the final throes of ObamaCare? We can't recall one outside of a banana republic, or, more accurately, Woody Allen's 1971 classic "Bananas." Capitol Hill resembles nothing so much as that movie's farcical coup d'etat in San Marcos as Democrats try to assemble the partisan minimum of 216 House votes—if only for an hour or so at some point on Sunday—and no bribe is too costly, no deal too cynical, no last-minute rewrite too blatant. View Full Image Getty Images .Yesterday, Democrats defeated 222 to 203 a GOP resolution that would have required...

No bill can become law unless the exact same text is approved by a majority of both houses of Congress. Democratic congressional leaders have floated a plan to enact health-care reform by a procedure dubbed "the Slaughter solution." It is named not for the political carnage that it might inflict on their members, but for Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, who proposed it. Under her proposal, Democrats would pass a rule that deems the Senate's health-care bill to have passed the House, without the House actually voting on the bill. This would enable...

[snip] Liberals are making a bid to restore the "public option," ObamaCare's most controversial and destructive inspiration. Some 18 Senators as we went to press—led by Colorado's Michael Bennet and growing to include New York's Chuck Schumer on Thursday—have endorsed slipping this government-run insurance entitlement in the reconciliation process that would let Democrats abuse Senate rules to hustle ObamaCare into law with 50 votes. Vehemence among House progressives is also at a fever pitch, though it always is. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius joined the mob, telling MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that if the public option is "part of...