Free Republic

Dear Ms. Haley: Has it dawned on you that you cannot – repeat - Cannot placate a mob of leftists bent on the destruction of freedom? That should have been obvious to you BEFORE your pandered to the masses. But alas, it should be readily apparent to you NOW. You could have simply waited a few news cycles and the whole thing would have blown over with the media chasing after yet another squirrel. This is what Communists on the Country’s left do all the time – they Stonewall (oops! Can I even use that expression any more?) delay and...

An open letter to the Dear leader and blame thrower extraordinaire.So far you’ve shown yourself to be utterly incompetent in everything you touch, but you’ve always had ready made excuses: It was President Bush’s fault OR Racism OR Global Warming OR obstructionism or whatever was the excuse de jour. But now it seems you’re going to make a move so inept and so vast it boggles the mind. A move that will be ALL YOU. Seems like you want to capitalize on the border invasion crisis YOU created and initiate a virtual coup d’état. This would be the granting of...

As of now, the books are open at Hot Air! Those who want to add their voices to our comment sections can now register to join our community. We’ll keep it open until 4 pm ET today. First read our Terms of Service, and if you agree, register through this link and follow the steps. Here are a few things to keep in mind. When you register, we will e-mail you a password. It may take a while (anywhere from a couple of minutes to an hour or so, depending on the traffic this open registration creates) to get your...

<p>Rhode Island state senator Josh Miller (D-Cranston, Warwick) and his apparent cameraman — though henchman may be more appropriate in this case — told Dan Bidondo of Truth Radio Show to “go f*ck” himself after the conservative talk-show host asked for comment on Second-Amendment rights, according to a video posted to YouTube Monday.</p>

Make a guess and place you bets – we all know it’s on it way, the next crash is going to happen sooner or later, it's just a question of what the left will try to do to not waste another “serious crisis” Think about it – the Fed is Printing money.. .excuse me “Digitizing” – they can’t even go through the motion of spitting out worthless paper that diminishes our savings, they have to add insult to injury with that sort o chicanery Let’s face it, somewhere in the deep dark crevices of the leftist mind, they have their...

One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian state is that there are so many laws and regulations that no one can possibly know what they are, let alone obey them. Thus everyone is a criminal, and only the despot’s discretion separates the solid citizen from the criminal. Unfortunately, the United States is rapidly approaching–if it has not already reached–this dystopian status. So Glenn Reynolds’s great column in USA Today should be a starting point for lots of conversations. Glenn offers several suggestions for how this situation might be remedied, which, again, are a starting point for discussion. But the real...

If you want to know the back story of the Ukrainian revolution, The Soviet Story tells exactly what happened to Ukraine during the Soviet era - and a lot more.It's the best educational film on the nature of communism, which should be shown to all high school students in America to immunize them against the lure of the “great” utopia. However, I doubt most teachers will do so in today's political climate. This 2008 documentary tells the story of the anti-human ideology the way I see it myself. That was rather surprising, because in today's “progressive” media climate, such...

By way of introduction – let’s just say I’m one of Millions of formally loyal supporters of the GOP. We are the people who donate small amounts and volunteer to make phone calls and knock on doors and do a myriad of others things we don’t like to do just to support the Republican party. We are the ordinary folks you ignore or openly insult – the people you are taking for granted. We’re also the folks who are standing by dumbfounded as you’re doing the Democratic socialist’s bidding of creating a whole new underclass of Dem voters granting amnesty...

I’ve been red-flagging this most explosive homeland security scandal for you for more than a month. Independent citizen journalists, inside whistleblowers, and relentless GOP watchdogs on Capitol Hill led by GOP Rep. Darrell Issa and GOP Sen. Charles Grassley have kept up the pressure on the Obama administration to come clean on this deadly, stimulus-funded border nightmare. And now, the fit is really starting to hit the shan on the Project Gunrunner story. The latest? Top DOJ officials have been nabbed in the drive to find out who exactly knew what and when.

On The Laura Ingraham Show today, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) of Iowa discussed the operation to smuggle weapons to Mexico with Laura and decried the lack of answers coming from the Obama administration.

Last night, a reporter from Univision asked President Obama about the subject of a CBS News investigation: allegations that ATF allowed traffickers to send weapons to Mexican drug cartels in an operation called "Fast and Furious." Insiders call the strategy letting guns "walk." In response, the president said neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder approved the operation.

The next time gun-control advocates point to violence in Mexico and call for more restrictions on gun sales or a revived assault-weapons ban, they should consider that the problem may not be with the laws on the books, but with those who enforce them. Edit Rocket-propelled grenades and newly manufactured machine guns are not available at gun shows. Further gun control imposed on typical American buyers would have no effect on the ability of the cartels to purchase these military-grade weapons. Edit To acquire such weapons, the cartels put up recruiting billboards to persuade Mexican soldiers and police officers to...

Project Gun Walker, also known by the case name “Fast and Furious” and “Operation Gunrunner,” was a plan in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives would deliberately allow guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, in order to “see where all the guns ended up, build a big case, and take down a cartel,” as whistleblower agent John Dodson explained to CBS News. Exactly how was this boneheaded plan supposed to work, anyway? It doesn’t seem as if those guns were implanted with any sort of tracking device, and you’d need the starship Enterprise to track...

Well, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) can scratch Janet Napolitano off of his witness list right off the bat, can’t he? The chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee told San Diego talk-radio host Roger Hedgecock that he already has four investigators working full time on “Operation Fast and Furious” to determine what happened and how two American law-enforcement agents got killed with weapons that the US government allowed to move across the border to Mexico.

“We must seek agreement on gun reforms,” a guest editorial in the Arizona Daily Star by President Barack Obama declares. Snip “I'm willing to bet,” he says, “that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few - dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example - from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.” If by that he means take people who have been adjudicated menaces to society and segregating them from those they would harm, not many would argue. But that’s not what he means. He wants to end private...

Janet Napolitano appeared on Capitol Hill to answer questions about “Operation Fast and Furious,” the ATF “gun-walking” scheme that allowed guns to flow across the border into Mexico in an attempt to pin drug-cartel warlords with weapons trafficking charges. The operation literally blew up in the ATF’s face when the cartel used the weapons to kill American agents. Not only did Napolitano not know about the ATF operation, she claims, she still doesn’t know today whether the allegation that the two agents were only allowed beanbag guns to protect themselves is true or not,

One of Reagan’s most famous and witty lines was, “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.” Obama spoke expansively of doing all three in his State of the Union address. Reagan said that “concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.” Barack Obama is, without question, an advocate of concentrated power, and thus an enemy of liberty. He may sincerely believe his statist agenda is best for the people he governs, but he wants to...

Democrats are howling about the new Republican majority’s decision to read the Constitution in its entirety on Thursday. You are not “free” when the collective demands of favored citizens can place unlimited demands on the fruit of your labor. You are not “free” if your choices are meaningless. You are not “free” if you are not allowed to dissent. There is only one governing principle that properly respects the freedom of all citizens: ironclad obedience to a clear and concise document that identifies their inherent rights, and forbids the State from compromising them, under any circumstances. The Constitution does not...

A look at the growing Marxist movement in New York City. Even though they read Marx and Stalin, organize protests against Israel and play a board game that equates capitalism with barbarism, they shy away from calling themselves “socialist”. As one member puts it, “It’s more positive to say progressive or left.”

It was a nefarious year for nettlesome nosy-bodies employed by the Nanny State. Here are the top power-grabbers of 2010 who just can't leave us alone …Snip.. The architects of Obamacare. After ramming a trillion-dollar package of unconstitutional federal health mandates down our throats, they said children and seniors would be saved, we could keep our doctors, costs would go down, and the economy would be boosted. Reality: Premiums have continued to skyrocket. Insurers nationwide have dropped child-only plans in the individual market. Obamacare taxes forced the AARP to raise its members' rates. Hospitals have stepped up layoffs and shutdowns....