Free Republic

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio went down to Washington, D.C. today to meet with President Barack Obama, emerging emboldened that a “progressive movement” was sweeping the nation. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, which included 15 other newly-elected mayors, Mr. de Blasio said it was clear to him that the fight against inequality–which formed the centerpiece of his campaign–was gaining steam far beyond the five boroughs. “You can’t have a room full of mayors–literally every corner of the country–all spontaneously saying to the president of the United States the same exact things from their own experience: Something’s going on here …...

ByStephanie Condon CBS News December 13, 2013, 6: 31 PM Sebelius dodges question about whether she offered resignation Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday refused to say whether she's offered to resign in the wake of botched rollout of the new Obamacare marketplaces. "I'm not going to discuss what I talk about with the president," Sebelius said from Miami, where she was promoting the new marketplaces. Earlier this week at a congressional hearing, Sebelius acknowledged to lawmakers that the launch of HealthCare.gov, the Obamacare website, was "flawed and failed and frustrating." She hasaccepted responsibility for the failed...

OF ALL the institutions of modern China, the one that most famously reflects the Communist Party’s determination to control its population is the one that literally does so: its one-child policy. The enforcers of family planning (the bureaucracy numbers about 500,000 now) have been a formidable presence in every town across China for more than 30 years. Now those enforcers will be processing a different kind of paperwork: couples where one parent is an only child (as opposed to both) will be allowed to have a second child. The change, decided by the Communist Party Central Committee at a plenum...

Earlier Tuesday, NBC News reported that President Barack Obama had shaken hands with Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. However, the UK Telegraph's Josie Ensor reported that Obama "was asked to take his seat just before reaching Mugabe." Complicating matters, another article in the UK Telegraph also claimed that Obama had shaken hands with Mugabe--in very similar terms to those used in the NBC article. Breitbart News caught the discrepancy--and suddenly the NBC News article was corrected, with no notice. Before: On his way to the rostrum, Obama also shook the hand of Robert Mugabe, the strongman ruler of Zimbabwe, and hugged...

House Speaker John Boehner went off on outside conservative groups Wednesday morning for pushing against the new budget deal. "They're using our members and they're using the American people for their own goals," he said. "This is ridiculous." Several key conservative groups are against the sequester relief within the new budget deal. "Though conservatives support more spending restraint, the discretionary spending limits defined in the Budget Control Act represent a promise to the American people to marginally slow the growth of government," reads a letter signed by the heads of Heritage Action, the Family Research Council, and the American Conservative...

It appears that AIM and blogger Trevor Loudon are among the few sources highlighting the official statement of the South African Communist Party (SACP) confirming that Nelson Mandela was a high-ranking member. SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila is quoted by a South African magazine as saying it was denied for "political reasons." The communist Workers World Party, which supports North Korea, has also reprinted the official SACP statement about Mandela. The communists are proud of Mandela and what he accomplished. His false claims of being a non-communist fooled South Africa and the world (except for his domestic and international...

Shortly after Nelson Mandela died, the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress both released statements acknowledging that “Comrade” Mandela was indeed a Communist Party leader who served on the Soviet-backed organization’s Central Committee. South African Communist Party Admits Mandela's Leadership Role The New American 08 December 2013 Shortly after the death of South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela, the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress both released official statements acknowledging what was already well-known among experts: “Comrade” Mandela was indeed a Communist Party leader who served on the Soviet-backed organization’s Central Committee. According to...

KIEV, Ukraine — Protesters in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, toppled the city’s main statue of Lenin on Sunday and then pounded it into chips with a sledgehammer as a crowd chanted and cheered. The destruction of the statue was a cathartic moment in the biggest day of demonstrations so far against President Viktor F. Yanukovich’s turn away from Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians filled the streets of Kiev on Sunday, first to hear speeches and music and then to fan out and erect barricades in the district where government institutions have their headquarters. Carrying blue-and-yellow Ukrainian and European...

“The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” Last night, the millions of the people of South Africa, majority of whom the working class and poor, and the billions of the rest of the people the world over, lost a true revolutionary, President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Tata Madiba. The South African Communist Party joins the people of South Africa and the world in expressing its most sincere condolences to Ms. Graca Machel and the entire Mandela family on the loss of what President Zuma correctly described as South Africa’s greatest son, Comrade Mandela. We also wish to use...

Pro-life leaders urge caution, while Pope, Cardinal Dolan praise controversial Nelson Mandela CAPE TOWN, South Africa, December 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The death of South African former President Nelson ‘Madiba’ Rolihlahla Mandela on Thursday has led to an outpouring of glowing praise for the man most known for ending apartheid – a system of racial segregation. However, pro-life leaders have warned that praise from Christian leaders is inappropriate given Mandela’s role in bringing abortion-on-demand and homosexual “marriage” to South Africa. According to official statistics, nearly a million unborn children have been killed in South Africa since President Mandela signed legislation...

A Martian visiting earth this week, coasting TV channels and perusing papers, would have to conclude that among the items that most interest this planet’s news bureaus is the plight of former political prisoners, especially black ones. Well, many Cubans (many of them black) suffered longer and more horrible incarceration in Castro’s KGB-designed dungeons than Nelson Mandela spent in South Africa’s (relatively) comfortable prisons, which were open to inspection by the Red Cross. Castro has never allowed a Red Cross delegation anywhere near his real prisons. Now let’s see if you recognize some of the Cuban ex-prisoners and torture-victims: Mario...

Nelson Mandela with South African Communist Party head Joe Slovo Revolutionary leader Nelson Mandela died late Thursday, December 5, and presidents, dictators, and the press from around the world are in mourning, but it should be remembered that the U.S. government labeled his group a terrorist group for a reason. In Death, as in Life, Truth About Mandela Overlooked The New American 06 December 2013 With the widely anticipated passing of South African revolutionary leader Nelson Mandela late Thursday, December 5, presidents and dictators from around the world -- as well as everyday people, and especially the press -- are...

In 2000, the American Jewish Committee canceled a Washington luncheon scheduled to honor Mandela after he said that 13 Jews tried for “espionage” in Iran were receiving a “fair trial”. Mandela laid a wreath on the grave of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Iranian revolution, warmly greeting his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We are indebted to the Islamic Revolution”, Mandela proclaimed. It is the same Mandela who claimed that Communist Cuba had achieved the “systematic eradication of racism”. In 1990, Mandela likened Israel to a “terrorist state” and declared that “we do not regard the PLO as a terrorist...

I have heard over and over how great he was; but what did he DO? All this rambling about him as an "icon" is frothy and full of adulation, but I have YET to hear how he CONCRETELY made anyone's life better. I guess he helped institute a better voting process and government in South Africa....but REALLY could he have done it without de Klerk's support? And what was his RECORD as a chief executive? The media keeps talking about how he was SA's first black President. Big whoop. Clint Eastwood made a movie about how he helped some soccer...

As noted by Mark Levin on his radio show yesterday, Nelson Mandela could have easily become a dictator-for-life in South Africa... yet he ultimately resisted, unlike what you hear from the American left re. Obama 3rd term (Heaven forbid). Mandela seemed to have understood the value of a (another) smooth transition of power, making clear he was 'no messiah'... He also didn't get into the heavy redistributionist themes seen in other socialist basket cases throughout sub-Saharan Africa, as well as from the ANC commie morons that proceeded Mandela in Pretoria (and who have driven the country into the ground).  According...

I got a little nauseous tonight after I learned of the passing of Nelson Mandela. Some of the sources that I would expect to give that "fair and balanced" reporting they promise, definitely failed in that regard. That is my opinion. Check out these headlines: Fox News: Global leaders hail Mandela as towering force for justice Krauthammer: Mandela 'never took the power to his head' The Blaze: 'WE'VE LOST OUR GREATEST SON': NELSON MANDELA HAS DIED TOUCHING TRIBUTES TO NELSON MANDELA POUR IN FROM AROUND THE WORLD I could go on with this list. The question is, are people are...

So I am sitting a local sports pub/bar, you know the ones with all sorts of games and sports shows on big screens everywhere.... all of a sudden, I look up and see Barack Hussein Obama speaking LIVE from D.C. "What is going on?!" I asked my companion.... Sure enough, it is an extended statement from the worst occupant of the Oval Office in 100+ years, and it goes on and on and on....then the Sports Center talking heads continue to ramble about the death of Nelson Mandela. On a sports network. About sports news.

Nelson Mandela, the revered statesman who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead South Africa out of decades of apartheid, has died, South African President Jacob Zuma announced late Thursday. Mandela was 95. "He is now resting. He is now at peace," Zuma said. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father." "What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human," the president said in his late-night address. "We saw in him what we seek in ourselves." Mandela will have a state funeral. Zuma ordered all flags in the nation to be...

Former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, has died. In an announcement today, a spokesman stated that he “departed… in the presence of his family.” “He is now resting, he is now at peace. Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father,” he added. Mandela was 95.

Contrary to what you might have heard, there really was a world communist conspiracy.Its purpose was not just agitation but propaganda. To bring it about, V.I. Lenin recruited a special corps of propagandists for what was to become the Communist International. For a fanatic like Lenin, it wasn't enough merely to have a communist revolution in Russia. He wanted communism to take over the world, the fulfillment of Marx's exhortation "Workers of the world, unite!" according to Stephane Courtois and Jean-Louis Panne, authors of "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression," published in 1999. Lenin also feared that unless...