Free Republic

January 24, 2014 Obama Spending $2.7 Mil to Broadcast Communist Propaganda to Vietnam Daniel Greenfield You would think that once we were out of Vietnam, we could stop spending money on Vietnam. You would also think that the Department of Health and Human Services would have better places to spend millions of dollars especially considering the shape Medicare is in. The Department of Health and Human Services is spending $2,797,979 on a study that brings television to more than a dozen remote villages in Vietnam to study its impact on their culture and reproductive behavior.“In cooperation with the Vietnam government,...

Marxist leftists have prepared a nightmarish blueprint for American socialism in a new revolutionary "book of imagination." The new book, "Imagine Living in a Socialist USA," was edited by Frances Goldin who praises "life-enhancing socialism" in the preface. The 281 page manifesto showcasea 31 utopian essays written by dangerous criminals, prominent liberals, and self-described communists - all for just $10.11.

Twenty one days into his administration New York City Mayor, Bill De Blasio, is already making Mike Bloomberg look good. And, let’s face it, when someone makes Bloomy look like a model of fairness and honesty, things are clearly pretty bad. In fact, this occurred so quickly after De Blasio’s inauguration, I’m beginning to think Bloomberg might have mastered a win for De Blasio in a last-ditch effort to procure a positive legacy for himself after he left office. While Chris Christie faces criticism for his office closing a few lanes on the George Washington Bridge, the New York City...

First Lady Michelle Obama says Jane Fonda is one of her role models, and that she admires her political savviness. During an interview with People Magazine, Obama listed "Hanoi Jane," as one of the people she would like to look and live like when she's 70 or 80 years old. "There’s Jane Fonda, a beautiful, engaged, politically savvy, sharp woman," Obama said. The comment is likely to enrage Vietnam War veterans who still remember how Fonda, now 76, went to North Vietnam in 1972 and was photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft battery. Fonda denounced U.S. military leaders as "war criminals"...

National Review published a rather overheated piece the other day that contained an entertaining line: “Russia has become the Soviet Union with a better suit”. The idea that Russia is fundamentally the same as the Soviet Union is a popular one, particularly on the political right where “Soviet” has for decades served as a synonym for “bad.” Barely a day goes by without someone bemoaning Putin’s “Soviet” character or the “neo-Soviet” policies that Russia pursues in its part of the world. However this idea is deeply mistaken and extremely misleading, and can only be held by deliberately ignoring a huge...

Kerry: 'Root Cause of Terrorism' Is Poverty 'In many cases...' Jeryl Bier January 15, 2014 7:12 AM Secretary of State John Kerry covered a broad range of topics with his counterpart Pietro Parolin at the Vatican in Rome on Monday. Besides Syria, the Middle East peace process, Sudan, and Cuba, the subject of poverty came up during their discussions. In remarks following the meeting, Kerry linked poverty not only to terrorism, but to the "disenfranchisement of millions" [emphasis added]: We talked about the common interest of Pope Francis and President Obama in addressing poverty and extreme poverty on a global...

For a long time, the communist left has used the word "progressive" to cloak its agenda. This phenomenon is hardly new. It has gone on since at least the 1930s, not long after the American Communist Party was founded in Chicago.I know this well, having written at length on the subject. You might have thought this strategy died with the USSR, when we won the Cold War and once >defeated communism. Unfortunately, thanks to the left's takeover of education and media, it continues unabated, and is moving full steam ahead in Barack Obama's fundamentally transformed America, where the far left...

Amiri Baraka died Thursday after weeks of failing health, a family spokeperson confirmed. He was 79. A playwright, poet, critic and activist, Baraka was one of the most prominent and controversial African American voices in the world of American letters. He was born Everett LeRoi Jones on Oct. 7, 1934, in Newark, N.J. A gifted student, he graduated from high school two years early and went to college at New York University and Howard University. After serving in the Air Force for more than two years, Baraka -- then Jones -- was dishonorably discharged for reading communist texts.

First, read the post at Twitchy and then decide if you want to give the unintentional Marxist satire at Rolling Stone a click. I’m not going to link to Rolling Stone’s capitalist website out of solidarity with the communist author.Here’s a very brief sampling of the highlights in “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For”: 1. Guaranteed Work for EverybodyUnemployment blows. The easiest and most direct solution is for the government to guarantee that everyone who wants to contribute productively to society is able to earn a decent living in the public sector. [...] 2. Social Security for AllBut...

Actor Andy Serkis is set to direct an upcoming movie adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm. But there will be a slight deviation from the story’s original focus: rather than serve as a cautionary tale about Communist totalitarianism, this updated version will address Hollywood’s predictable, go-to embodiment of evil, the Darth Vader of our time: corporate greed. Orwell’s brilliant allegory Animal Farm was written during World War II as a satire on Soviet Communism (and very nearly wasn’t published, critical as it was of our Russian ally). It has since been adapted to film twice, a British animated...

There isn't a majority that opposes the Affordable Care Act because it's too liberal, in fact, a good number of Americans don't think it's liberal enough. Today’s CNN poll (PDF) on the Affordable Care Act seems like a blow to supporters of the law. When asked if they “generally favor or generally oppose” the president’s health care overhaul, only 35 percent say they “favor.” The large majority—65 percent—say they “oppose.” For Republicans who have staked their entire message on opposition to Obamacare, this looks like vindication. Not only was the rollout a disaster, but now, the public has turned decisively...

Elian Gonzalez, the focus of a bitter international custody dispute after he was rescued at sea as a child, left Cuba on Friday for the first time since 2000, when the U.S. government returned him to the island. Gonzalez, who also turned 20 on Friday, traveled to Quito, Ecuador, as part of a 200-member Cuban delegation to a weeklong youth conference there. "Fidel Castro for me is like a father," Gonzalez said in the recent interview. "I don't profess to have any religion but if I did my God would be Fidel Castro. He is like a ship that knew...

Cruz’s father, Rafael, fled Cuba and the Castro regime for the U.S. as a teenager. | AP PhotoClose Sen. Ted Cruz said while there are some differences between President Barack Obama and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Obama is displaying “dictatorial” tendencies as president.During an interview by Jorge Ramos on Fusion, the Texas Republican was asked about comments his father has made comparing Obama to Castro and whether the analogy was “fair” and if he’d like to draw a distinction between the two.“Obviously, there are enormous differences; the United States is not imprisoning and torturing political dissidents,” Cruz said...

Like the Golden Calf the Children of Israel made while Moses was receiving the law at Sinai, Obama is making a new God for the masses to worship – big government, the Golden Calf state. "Praise Washington from whence all blessings flow. Praise it all peons here below." The president's policies are designed to maximize dependency – government as the source of all blessings. Under Obama, the food-stamp rolls increased by 33% (to 44.7 million – a record one in seven Americans). The number now receiving Social Security disability payments reached 11 million. (Costs increased from $56 billion in 2000...

This week in Washington, Senator Marco Rubio accused a fellow American of treason. Edward Snowden drew the Republican's ire by informing hundreds of millions of innocent people that the NSA is spying on them... Anyone familiar with the Snowden story will understand why Rubio's comments are misleading. Americans are concerned about their civil liberties because of the accurate information the former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor leaked. He isn't responsible for any conspiracy theories, except in the sense that a conspiracy is "an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act," and he exposed NSA and GCHQ cooperation on...

Elian Gonzalez, the object of a 1999-2000 custody squabble involving Washington, Havana and family members on both sides of the Florida Strait, holds a piece of U.S. legislation directly responsible for what he endured then, Cuban official media said Monday. "They were very sad times for me, which marked me for my whole life. I was never given the chance to have a moment to think about my mother, who as a result of that (U.S.) Cuban Adjustment Act died at sea," the now-19-year-old Gonzalez said last weekend during a Union of Young Communists event. ~snip~ The 1966 Cuban Adjustment...

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Newman was traveling with a group out of Beijing on a tour bus through North Korea. On Oct. 26, what was to be Newman's last day in North Korea, he was taken off of a plane set to leave the country and detained by authorities. The United States Department of State refused to confirm the detention, but said the U.S. has updated its travel warning for North Korea, recommending against all travel.

Retired police officers have warned they could be forced to reveal information which would undermine the peace process during any truth commission into Northern Ireland’s past. The warning from The Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers’ Association (NIRPOA) came in a 64-page submission to the Haass Commission for dealing with the past. The submission makes it clear that the body represents officers who have been involved in what was known as the “shoot to kill” policy, a term they reject, and it is also known to represent many retired Special Branch officers. …

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday declared that a nearly 200-year-old policy which had governed Washington's relations with Latin America was finally dead. Known as the Monroe Doctrine after it was adopted in 1823 by former US president James Monroe, the policy had stated that any efforts by European countries to colonize land in North or South America would be views as aggressive acts and could require US intervention. “The doctrine that bears (Monroe’s) name asserted our authority to step in and oppose the influence of European powers in Latin America,” Kerry told an audience at the Organization...

(Update: Adding more on opposition to Core, where Duncan spoke) U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.” Yes, he really said that. But he has said similar things before. What, exactly, is he talking about? In his cheerleading for the controversial Common Core...