Free Republic

I mourned the untimely passing of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman for the very personal reason that I hoped he would one day get to play Whittaker Chambers in a film version of Chambers’ 1952 masterwork, Witness. Short, heavy set, permanently rumpled, Hoffman would have made a near perfect Chambers to George Clooney’s Alger Hiss, the smooth, handsome, establishment golden boy. Chambers’ 800-page story of his life and their encounter remains the great political book of the twentieth century. Chambers was a deep thinker, a dazzling writer, and a reluctant participant in the most riveting political drama of the era. No...

Vice President Joe Biden used a Black History Month event at his official residence Monday night to decry the rich, both white and black, for stunting economic growth and suggested that “emancipation” is in order. “A lot of wealthy white and black people aren't bad but they control 1 percent of the economy and this cannot stand,” Biden told about 100 guests, including past civil rights activists and NBC weatherman Al Roker. “It's not fair because the business experts are saying that concentration of wealth is stunting growth. So let's do something that's worthy of emancipation,” said Biden, according to...

Does anybody really buy the Left’s faux outrage over former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani’s opinion, offered at a private event for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker last Wednesday, that President Obama does not love America? After all, it’s a matter of orthodoxy on the right that Barack Obama’s opinion of America ranges from mild disapproval to outright hatred. In my own estimation, it is somewhere between. A thought experiment for you: How do you think a spouse, a friend, or a colleague would react if you suggested — in your nicest voice — “I think you’re wonderful, but I...

It’s a timeworn tactic of the Cuban Communists, something any good magician quickly learns: diversion is your best friend. On Monday, as American administration officials, members of Congress and exiles were making lots of noise about the weekend arrest of some 200 dissidents on the island, Raul Castro and Communist Party Central Committee were meeting in Havana to decide the political fate of the nation.

Interesting discussion by Mark of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Starts at 26 minutes, 5 seconds. The List: (from The Best of Beck) Saul Alinsky’s 12 Rules for Radicals Here is the complete list from Alinsky. * RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with...

Yesterday’s news became big news on the Fox News Channel last week when former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani brought up the name of President Barack Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. It was almost seven years to the day when we published our seminal piece about Davis, “Obama’s Communist Mentor.” Davis was a member of the Communist Party and a suspected Soviet espionage agent. He was included in the FBI’s security index, meaning that Davis could be arrested or detained in the event of a national emergency. The FBI file on Davis documents his anti-white and pro-Soviet views,...

Rudy Giuliani had the unmitigated gall last week to question President Obama’s love of country. This has been a standing question about Obama since he ran for President in 2008. How can you love a country that you believe needs to be fundamentally transformed? It’s not like Obama wants to fundamentally transform the United States into some romanticized version of the past. He wants to fundamentally transform the country into his own image. In many ways he’s been successful. We have a large number of Americans who believe court orders are mere suggestions to be ignored and that the executive...

Was the real reason for Obama’s Executive Order opening Cuba to the United States his desire to fulfill the imprimatur of the Weather Underground to establish Communism in America? A FOIA request forced the FBI to open its top secret archives on the Weather Underground movement. Founded by several urban 1960′s revolutionaries including the husband-wife team of Bill Ayres-Bernardine Dohrn, the WUO grabbed the nation’s attention with its bombings, attacks on police and police headquarters and various acts of domestic terrorism. “The example of the Cuban revolution became the guide for the emerging American student revolutionary” states this FBI vault...

Rudy Giuliani received a brutal backlash of criticism when he claimed on Wednesday that President Obama doesn't love America. But not everyone disagrees with the former New York City mayor. Here’s why.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) On Wednesday, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani went onstage and said that President Barack Obama does not love America. Speaking at a private dinner, Mr. Giuliani said: “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” according to Politico. “Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so...

On Saturday, the New York Daily News reported that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani doubled down on his criticism of Barack Obama, saying the president has been influenced by communism since childhood. According to the Daily News, Giuliani said Obama has been immersed in the statist ideology since he was about nine years old. “The ideas that are troubling me and are leading to this come from Communists with whom he associated since he was 9 years old,” the former mayor told the Daily News. MSNBC host Al Sharpton responded by calling the statement racist, despite Obama's own admission...

A loose accusation of his being a socialist has trailed Obama for years.... But the evidence exists, if not in plain sight then in the archives — for example, the archived files of the Democratic Socialists of America.... That, along with some misleading admissions in [] Dreams from My Father, makes it clear that Obama attended the 1983 and 1984 Socialist Scholars conferences.... A detailed account of these conferences (along with many other events from Obama’s radical past) and the evidence for Obama’s attendance at them can be found in my new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story...

In late October 2008, when I wrote here at National Review Online that Obama had been a member of the New Party, his campaign sharply denied it, calling my claim a “crackpot smear.” Fight the Smears, an official Obama-campaign website, staunchly maintained that “Barack has been a member of only one political party, the Democratic Party.” I rebutted this, but the debate was never taken up by the mainstream press. Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed...

Climate change is a threat to our very existence. Wherever we live and whatever we do. We all contribute to it. And we all have a responsibility to do something about it. But there is hope. Last week at the Geneva Climate Change Talks, 194 countries came together and agreed on a negotiating text as the basis for the final agreement they hope to reach at the Paris Climate Summit in December. Every country's position has been included. A good foundation for a collective global pledge to confront the threat to our future. It is about your life. Let's help...

Trying to explain his controversial comments that President Obama doesn’t love America, Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he believes the President has been influenced by communism and socialism. “Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so whatever he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influence of communism and socialism” than to his race, Giuliani told the Daily News. “I don’t (see) this President as being particularly a product of African-American society or something like that. He isn’t,” the former mayor added. “Logically, think about his background. . . The ideas that are...

BUSTED: We Have Axelrod’s Father’s Communist Party Membership #ObamaLovesAmerica Gotnews.com has exclusively discovered David Axelrod’s father’s Communist Party membership. David Axelrod’s book, “Believer: My Forty Years in Politics,” details his very close relationship with his father, Joseph. He repeatedly told Charlie Rose that his father believed in the American dream. In fact, Axelrod’s father, Joseph, was a card-carrying communist. He’s listed as a member of the Communist Party for the 1936 general election. Axelrod briefly mentions his father’s Communist views in his book but only in passing and in a section about how he got to visit the former Soviet Union. Axelrod...

A New Jersey-based company has struck the first publicly announced deal under reforms enacted this year that allow U.S. telecom firms to do business with Cuba. IDT Corp.’s deal with Cuban state telecoms firm ETECSA will affect its sales of international calling cards to immigrant communities in the U.S. and its business connecting calls between phone companies in different countries, CEO Bill Pereira told The Associated Press on Friday. […] Outside experts blame the high cost of calls in and out of Cuba, among the world’s most expensive, on the country’s use of its monopoly on telecommunications to generate badly...

We understand that Nancy Pelosi is married to a very successful businessman in California. We are very happy that the Pelosi family has enjoyed the fruits of capitalism. Of course, they've enjoyed those fruits because they live in a country that respects property rights and does not confiscate businesses. This week, Rep Pelosi went to Cuba and stayed at the Hotel Saratoga. Let me share this from our good friends at Capitol Hill Cubans: "The Hotel Saratoga is a beautiful neoclassical structure in Old Havana. It was purchased in 1939 by Blanco Lopez and Co., headed by Jose Blanco and...

Russia agreed to provide military training for three leftist regimes in Latin America and increase military visits and exercises following a visit last week to the region by Moscow’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, Pentagon officials said. Shoygu met with defense and military leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and signed several agreements on warship visits and military training during the visit, which ran from Feb. 11 to 14. It is not clear whether any new arms deals were completed during the visit. Defense officials said the Russian leader is seeking bases in the region for strategic bomber flights that Shoygu...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

The primary reason Communism doesn’t work is that it goes against the very nature of man. In Communism there is simply no motivation for anyone to work hard. When there is a zero correlation between the amount or quality of work you do and the compensation you receive, your motivation to work hard, or maybe work at all, simply evaporates. This is particularly true given that the compensation for the slacker at the next desk is equally without correlation as he continues to get the same salary regardless of whether he actually gets anything done or not. And while Communism...