Free Republic

I’m a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat my entire life. I used to utter those two sentences with pride and would shout them from the highest rooftops. Now, I’m almost embarrassed to say those words. I almost can’t articulate my political affiliation in public (or on the radio) without immediately offering an apology and an explanation. How did I get here? I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately. The more I ask it, the more I come to the realization that I haven’t changed all that much. Sure, I’m a little older … OK, a lot older. I...

The past few years have shown us that our political system is operating like a well-oiled machine, assuming that machine's primary purpose is to function horribly while producing nothing of value.. Stubbornness and disagreement have been raised to art forms, and the American people have made it clear they rate Congress only slightly more favorably than "scorpions in pants." The president isn't viewed much better, with an approval rating hovering around a dismal 40 percent. There's ample blame to go around — leftward, rightward, centerward (which isn't a word, but should be) — but a new poll homes in on...

As she expands her political network in advance of an expected presidential run, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband have been cultivating an important ally who some believe could become her vice presidential running mate. Former president Bill Clinton invited Julian Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and incoming Obama Cabinet secretary, to the Clintons’ home in Washington last week for a private dinner that friends described as a chance for Democratic leaders from different generations to become better acquainted. Castro, 39, who is scheduled to be sworn in Monday as secretary of housing and urban development, traveled to New...

A Martha’s Vineyard photographer quietly deleted photographs of President Obama dancing during a birthday party after they went viral online. Editorial and fine art photographer Elizabeth Cecil posted two photos of the president on her Instagram account from the party that was closed to the press. The photos featured President Obama dancing and one of him offering a birthday toast to Ann Jordan at a party at the Farm Neck Golf Club. The party included about 150 guests, including former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton. The photo of the president dancing was discovered on Instagram early Thursday...

Obama bundler Jodie Evans, far left, protests in Yemen with al Qaeda tied group al Karama, June 17, 2013. Photo via al Karama. Obama bundler Jodie Evans and Code Pink, the leftist group she co-leads, have been found to be working with a group whose leaders have recently been declared terrorists and al Qaeda supporters by the Treasury Department. This is not the first time the Democratic Party allied group has been caught in bed with terrorists. As this writer has reported over the years, Code Pink works with terrorists, state sponsors of terrorists, the Democratic Party and President Barack...

Breitbart.com reports that b/c of an increasingly hostile political landscape, Democrats are resorting to whining---asking voters to believe they have suddenly "seen the light" and are now conservatives. In districts across the country, Democrats are campaigning as "true believers' in tax cuts, balanced budgets and for rolling back big government's harmful regulations. They're even bleating about guns, fracking and coal....trying to appeal to the conservative heartland. The list of Democrats carving out more conservative positions is too lengthy to mention. In fact, breitbart.com reports, it would be noteworthy to find any Democrat in a competitive election running on the platform...

Evan Goldstein, a social media coordinator for College Democrats of America (CDA) believes those who support Israel’s right to defend herself are “dou#@*bags” who should “go f&^k” themselves. He is secure in this knowledge because he is a perfectly formed liberal Democrat. To be a Democrat in 2014 is to hate America and Israel as our main ally in the Middle East. This hatred must extend to anyone who dares defend America and/or Israel and must be expressed in the vilest most personal manner in order to prove how truly progressive one is. More than this, to be a really...

In a discussion regarding a bill in Louisiana’s health and welfare committee, Representative Katrina Jackson expressed her distaste for the large number of African-American abortions. House Bill No. 388 would require abortionists to provide more information to pregnant women seeking abortion, as well as new regulations for abortion practices. One group arguing against the bill said that it would help minority women, especially African-American women who “don’t have necessarily the same access to contraceptive use that higher income women do.” Jackson strongly disagreed, saying: I’ve heard it thrown around by the young ladies at the table today, that this [HB...

Recess is in full force in Washington, D.C., as national lawmakers vacation around the country, but both political parties are fighting intense political battles on the ground in states nationwide as several statehouses are up for grabs in what’s shaping up to be a landslide pro-GOP election year. “Republicans, who had appeared to hit a high-water mark in control of statehouses in recent years, are seeking to pick off another half-dozen chambers this year, taking advantage of President Obama’s persistent unpopularity, anxiety about the economy, and a history of anemic turnout among Democrats in nonpresidential election years,” the New York...

Two California Catholic universities–Santa Clara and Loyola–want not to cover “elective” abortion in their health insurance policies. That won’t do! After first giving its OK, California may now try to force them. From the San Francisco Chronicle story. The state Department of Managed Health Care is conducting “an in-depth analysis of the issues surrounding coverage for abortion services under California law,” said Marta Green, the department’s chief deputy director. What the department is reconsidering, as first reported by California Lawyer magazine, is whether the universities are violating a 1975 state law that requires managed health plans to cover all “medically...

Neither the Ebola outbreak nor the ongoing Boko Haram crisis in Nigeria prevented U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden from raising the issue of homosexuality during last week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington. The American leaders, along with other current and former Obama administration officials, capitalized on economic concerns to encourage African leaders to expand legal protections and privileges for homosexuals and call for cultural acceptance of homosexuality. Asked repeatedly by African leaders what the continent’s largely war-torn, impoverished nations can do to promote economic growth and development, Obama and Biden both said African countries need to...

(CNSNews.com) - At least five House Democrats are participating in a nationwide “Be Bold Road Trip” this month in an effort to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the federal government from directly subsidizing abortions. Starting August 9 in Los Angeles, the bus tour will run until mid-September and end in Washington, D.C. The 10,000-mile itinerary covers eight states and 12 cities. As part of the bus tour, Representatives Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) will speak against the Hyde Amendment in their home states, according to the Huffington Post....

With a population of 177 million, Nigeria has long been a target of population controllers. It is listed in NSSM 200, the infamous Nixon/Kissinger document which launched the war on people, as a country of special concern. As such, it has gotten more than its share of the abortifacients, sterilizing agents, and contraceptives that the American government has poured into Africa over the past few decades. Still, it is not enough, at least according to the Obama administration, which wants to increase the current shipments.[1] Their excuse is that maternal mortality in Nigeria is still too high, and if they...

5 Race Riots in Obama's Post-Racial America by Ben Shapiro 11 Aug 2014 Riots and looting in Ferguson, Missouri, over the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer represent just the latest spate of race-based mass violence to break out in President Obama’s post-racial America. When Obama was elected in 2008, many Americans hoped that racial conflict in the country would calm. Instead, precisely the reverse seems to have occurred. Not all riots across the country have been racial in nature, of course. Occupy Wall Street participated in riots repeatedly in 2011, and May Day protesters rioted in...

Mayor Lou Mavrakis drove slowly through Monessen, block by block, pointing out one vacant, blighted building after another in the city of 7,700 along the Monongahela River. “That belongs to me,” he said, pointing to a house with a collapsing roof that has become the responsibility of the city and the mayor. Tax records show the building is one of 264 structures and lots in the city that have been abandoned by their owners. More than 26 percent of the city's 734 blighted properties are owned by people from 24 states and five foreign countries, beyond the legal reach of...

“Immigrants aren’t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity”—President Obama recently stated in an interview with The Economist, while making a larger point about Russia’s receding role in the world. While much of his commentary on the overall state of affairs in Russia was accurate, his comments on a lack of immigrants in Moscow revealed a blind spot in his view of global-migration movements—immigrants have been rushing to Moscow for the last twenty years, and not only to Moscow, but to cities all over Russia. According to UN Population Division estimates, as of 2013, the Russian Federation was second only...

Earlier this year, the press was shocked to learn that President Barack Obama’s rhetorical opposition to divisive gender-based discrimination in the workplace was not matched by his administration’s actions. After months of pushing the misleading and inaccurate statistic that women are paid just 70 cents for every dollar a man makes in similar occupations, the political media learned that the same calculation implicates the White House in that very same discrimination. As recently as July, reporters noted that the administration has been slow to correct their own pay discrimination problem. “The average male White House employee currently earns about...

It’s one thing for Democrats running in red parts of the country to sound like Republicans on the campaign trail. It’s another when Democrats running in purple or even blue territory try to do so. Yet that’s what’s happening in race after race this season. Faced with a treacherous political environment, many Democrats are trotting out campaign ads that call for balanced budgets, tax cuts and other more traditionally GOP positions. Some of them are running in congressional districts that just two years ago broke sharply for President Barack Obama. The Republican-flavored ads provide an early glimpse of how Democrats...

For those of you, who perhaps aren't dialed into the onset of Football season and all the terminology appurtenant to it, "the rock" is slang for the football. Polls confirm that voters are set to hand the Republican party "the rock" - i.e., take the ball away from Democrats. Each day it looks more like an avalanche for the Pachyderms, although, as I note in today's post, the GOP can always be counted on to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. If you're strongly of the sentiment that Republicans embody everything that is virtuous on...

Black leftwing writer Chris L Robinson over at the Daily Kos recently took me to task for my article "Why Black Americans Should Vote Republican" published here at American Thinker. He began his article by first disparaging the American Thinker and Honorable Colonel Allen West. Recently, I responded to a tweet from disgraced LTC Allen West asking who benefitted more under President Obama, blacks or gays? The tweet contained a link to an article on right-wing dumpster fire, American Thinker, by Patricia L. Dickson, a black Republican.  After reading his article, I noticed that he had not included a link...