Free Republic

Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is making a long-awaited push to help her successor, Democrat Ron Barber, in his closely watched race against Republican Martha McSally. Starting Wednesday, Giffords’ pro-gun control super PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions, will start airing two TV commercials criticizing McSally for her opposition to legislation expanding background checks. The commercials are the first for the group, which Giffords formed last year.

Schadenfreude, taking in pleasure in others’ suffering, is a nasty emotion, one I take no pride in confessing as I watch Democrats attempting to dodge responsibility for foisting Barack Obama upon us. Nevertheless, it is certainly satisfying to see Dems scurry away from Obama as he visits their states. Adam Edelman in the New York Daily News:

On the home page of the Communist Party USA it says “A better and peaceful world is possible—a world where people and nature come before profits. That’s socialism. That’s our vision. We are the Communist Party USA.” No, it’s not Socialism, which is a watered down version of Communism. Real Communism is the kind that was practiced in the former Soviet Union. It can be found in Cuba and North Korea where the state controls all power and property,and the people have none.

Hardly a day goes by without the media raising questions about the influence of powerful GOP megadonors, but five liberal billionaires have been pouring money into politics in recent years with nary a peep from the Fourth Estate, according to new report from the Media Research Center's Business and Media Institute and provided exclusively to Breitbart News.

Labor unions fear that if Republicans win a majority in the lower house of New Mexico’s legislature, they will push for a right-to-work state. Democrats have only a three-seat majority in the New Mexico House of Representatives and if they lose those seats, the Republicans are more than likely going to make right-to-work a primary issue, Albuquerque Business First reports. Beverlee McClure of the New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry has said that New Mexico’s lack of right-to-work policies hurt the state’s ability to recruit businesses.

As I sit watching the wall to wall coverage of the events that are taking place in Ferguson, Missouri, I can’t help but wonder how different things might be if an African-American police officer had shot and killed an unarmed white teenager. If there were video evidence showing a hypothetical white teen stealing merchandise and strong arming a clerk in a convenience store prior to being shot, would the media coverage be anywhere close to what we are seeing? I think not. The coverage would not be nearly as rabid. First of all the racial element would be non-existent. You...

The Great Society and similar policies screwed black people to the wall. It was racist to the core without knowing it. Nobody used the N-word. In fact, it was forbidden, unless you were Dr. Dre or somebody. But it did its job without the word and did it better for being in disguise. Those misbegotten kids running around Ferguson high on reefer and wasting their lives screaming at cops are the product of all this. Stop it already. No one has said this better than Jason Riley, author of Please Stop Helping Us. Listen to Jason if you want to...

It is long past time to speak the truth. The blacks rioting and looting in Ferguson, Missouri, are not oppressed, frustrated people. They are a pernicious and hardly secretive camorra. The rioters and looters didn’t steal food, or medicine for sick children; they stole televisions, clothing, DVDs, CDs, jewelry, cigarettes and the like. There exists no acceptable excuse for their behavior. Ergo, there remains only the truth: They are an ungodly, stiff-necked lot given over to rage and evil behavior. Even more egregious is the fact that they are encouraged and given emotional sanctuary for their condemnable actions by those...

The Berlin Wall is something I grew up talking about. It's a little bit different for my sons. In fact, our 3rd son, now serving in the US Army, was born the year after the Wall came down in the fall of 1989. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and the first casualty came 52 years ago today:

Recently, as my friend and I were waiting in line at a farmers market in Pennsylvania, we chatted with a man also waiting in line. As we left, she and I discussed the appallingly short memory span of many today. She and I discussed how the gentleman in line with us had blamed President George W. Bush for Americans dying in combat, claiming, “Bush led those boys over there to die.” But, like many, he conveniently forgot the history of lives lost under Democratic presidents. A close friend escaped Castro’s Cuba with his family. Today he is a successful businessman....

The American Left used to be patriotic. In its heyday, Eugene V. Debs never attacked America, and the socialist vision he advocated was in his eyes a way to realize the promise of America. As for the American Communist Party, in reality the tool of Stalin’s USSR, it pretended in the 1940s to be pro-American, and its chairman, Earl Browder, coined the slogan “Communism is 20th century Americanism.” This pretense came to an end during the Cold War, when the Left supported the Soviet bloc and all of its policies, and argued that America was in the process of becoming...

“This whole talk about impeachment is coming from the president’s own staff, and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. … We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans. …” – House Speaker John Boehner, July 28, 2014 We’re well aware that Barack Obama has committed impeachable offenses. He has indeed abused the powers of the executive branch, nullified separation of powers, as well as having bypassed Congress and legislated from the Oval Office. There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the fact that most of the talk of impeachment lately has come from...

Union president, Lee Saunders, of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees sent a letter to the United Negro College Fund President Michael Lomax announcing that the union was severing ties with UNCF because he accepted a donation of $25 million dollars from Koch Industries and the Charles Koch Foundation and spoke at a Koch-funded summit. In a letter, Lee Saunders wrote that he was “deeply troubled” by Michael Lomax’s decision to accept $25 million from David and Charles Koch. He assumed that by accepting those funds Mr. Lomax was “in no way supporting or lending the name...

Philip Gara LaMarche is a secretive political operative who funnels billions of dollars from undisclosed donors to nonprofits and astroturf groups. But you won’t hear unhinged Harry Reid railing Queegishly about him on the Senate floor. Why? Here’s why: LaMarche is a militant leftist philanthropist. He’s a protected elite — Columbia University grad, former ACLU leader and Human Rights Watch official — with ready access to the White House. He and the Left’s other dark-money managers preach transparency and openness while plotting behind closed doors to secure power at every level of government.

On Sunday, Lincoln Center Out of Doors hosted the third of five days of “New York City Honors Pete Seeger,” or Seegerfest, as the events are called. This was the festival’s main event. A concert featured artists singing songs Seeger was associated with, like “The Hammer Song,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and, of course, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” The artists included old-time folkies like Judy Collins, who opened the program, Fred Hellerman of The Weavers, the popular children’s singer Dan Zanes, banjo master Tony Trischka, Tom Chapin and the Chapin sisters, and Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. The artists...

A Kauai man was sentenced to one year probation and a $200 fine on May 29, 2014 for letting his 8-year-old son walk one mile home as punishment for getting in trouble at school. I wondered what the progressive courts would do to American parents who would allow their minor children to trek unaccompanied across Mexico, hanging on trains, on buses, walking with a coyote, in order to arrive in a more prosperous country where welfare and economic security would await them through the generosity of a president who decided to nullify the southern border? Social services and progressives don’t...

I recently had someone accuse me of sounding like an “angry republican,” based simply on the facts that I have researched and written in my articles. As a result, I have decided to write a response to this accusation and set the record straight! Let’s get one thing clear…. I don’t consider myself a republican, a tea partier, an independent or a libertarian. What I do know is that I am NOT a Democrat or a Liberal, I am not a racist or a flat-earther or a bigot or a terrorist, as the President of the United States has described...

Some remarkable - and frightening - photos of President Obama that show just how disengaged he's become. As crisis at home and around the world mount, the president is withdrawing and making it plain to those willing to see that the presidency doesn't interest him anymore. Peggy Noonan's July 4 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal laid out the case for the president's apparent ennui:

The idea of a Constitution of Opportunity is both refreshing and relevant. For too long, progressives have allowed conservatives to monopolize claims of fealty to our unifying national document. In fact, those who would battle rising economic inequalities to create a robust middle class should insist that it’s they who are most loyal to the Constitution’s core purpose. Broadly shared well-being is essential to the framers’ promise that “We the people” will be the stewards of our government.

While Democrats attempt to use the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision as a political weapon against Republicans, the fact is women can purchase birth control for as little as $3.77 per month.