Free Republic

In less than a week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) managed to round up thousands of conservative protesters on the front lawn of the Capitol after simply inviting them there on national television. On Thursday, they came en masse, waving signs, yelling chants, and… getting arrested. Twelve protesters who went to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office were cuffed by Capitol Hill cops and charged with unlawful entry inside of her office, unlawful conduct in the hallway outside, and disorderly conduct outside of the room. They, and a crowd of other protesters, had torn up her 2,000-page health care bill and left it...

In 2006, the minority party in Congress issued a dire report on the "unprecedented erosion of the democratic process." Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter, then the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, authored the scathing document. She blasted the majority Republicans' violations of "procedural fairness," short-circuiting of debate, and late-night meetings "to discourage members and the press from participating" in legislative deliberations. My, how history repeats itself. Fast-forward to 2009. The Imperial Congress has returned. The oppressed have become the oppressors. Democrats have met the enemy of deliberative democracy, and it is they. Three years ago, the Democrats complained of...

For the Blue Dogs, Tuesday was a fire bell in the night. Virginia Republicans led by Robert McDonnell crushed the most conservative Democrat nominee in decades, rolling up a victory that rivaled Ronald Reagan's rout of Walter Mondale. New Jersey GOP nominee Chris Christie, whose campaign had been the despair of its backers, won a 5-point victory over Jon Corzine, despite huge Democratic advantages in money and voter registration, two visits by Barack Obama and the presence on the ballot of a third-party candidate who took votes away from Christie. Maine has gone Democratic in five straight presidential elections. Yet...

... Buried in Nancy Pelosi's health-care bill is a provision that will partially repeal tax indexing for inflation, meaning that as their earnings rise over a lifetime these youngsters can look forward to paying higher rates even if their income gains aren't real. In order to raise enough money to make their plan look like it won't add to the deficit, House Democrats have deliberately not indexed two main tax features of their plan: the $500,000 threshold for the 5.4-percentage-point income tax surcharge; and the payroll level at which small businesses must pay a new 8% tax penalty for not...

Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008...

The negative spiritual and intellectual consequence of believing two mutually exclusive concepts is "cognitive dissonance." Our interaction as a society with Islam is a direct cause of "cognitive dissonance" for us as individuals and as a culture.  Resolution of the contradiction requires the rejection of one of the concepts as false. If we continue to ignore our cognitive dissonance about Islam the consequences are dire: we will lose our civilization. Islam is much more than a religion; it is a complete civilization that includes politics (caliphate), jurisprudence (Sharia law), war (jihad), and a deliberately misleading "religion of peace." The doctrine...

In an attempt to control the aggregate healthcare costs that will be shouldered by taxpayers under his proposed system, President Obama has pushed increased reliance on preventive care for all eligible Americans. His argument is that, because preventive care is normally much less expensive than later surgeries, increased use of these earlier, preemptive treatments will entail radical cost savings. As with many of the president's healthcare promises, this argument falls apart under rigorous examination. The Economics of Prevention The logic behind increased preventive care is simple; if an individual knows he will be afflicted with some serious and expensive malady,...

Tens of thousands of people from across the country made a "House call" on the west side of the Capitol yesterday. These Americans traveled to Washington to register their objections to the mammoth government health care bill that Democrats are rushing through Congress. The size and spirit of the rally were a testament to the explosion in grass-roots activism opposed to the expansion of government under President Obama's and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's watch. The silent majority is silent no longer.

In Ohio, citizens marched to the polls on Tuesday and voted to allow gambling casinos in the state. This was obviously a message to President Obama that independent voters are not happy with the way the health care bill is going. Really, I don’t see how else you can interpret it. Ohioans were looking forward to the lower insurance costs that would come with a robust public option, and if the president can’t deliver, they’re planning to pay their future medical bills with their winnings at the roulette wheel. Also, people here in Cincinnati rejected a proposal that would have...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Does India like gold, or dislike Washington's anti-gold dollar domination? Let Mary Anne and Pamela Aden tell the story. Their Aden Forecast first came to fame in the great gold bull market 30 years ago. The Adens are careful and adroit traders, and have a strong track record according to Hulbert Financial Digest, but they were speculating that gold might ultimately reach $5,800 when I last looked. ( See Oct. 8 column.) Last night they wrote in a hotline: "Gold is the big news this week. It hit another new record high today, quickly closing in...

I saved three lives yesterday morning. No, make that four; possibly five. You see, I was driving my car to work and there were these people crossing the street in Times Square. And I could have run them over but I didn't. So, I'm claiming that those four people, possibly five, are here today because of me. Got that twisted logic? Now let's talk about tomorrow's report on jobs in this country. The Labor Department's monthly tally of employment and unemployment is dangerously close to being an incomprehensible mess. For one thing, the government now admits what I've been telling...

Democrats have some thinking to do after Tuesday's elections, but Republicans don't have time to think. They're too busy trying to survive the party's internal purge and avoid being shipped off to political Siberia. Will loyal members inform on others for harboring suspiciously moderate views? Will anyone judged guilty have to wear a sign saying "Republican In Name Only" as penance? Will there be re-education camps? Will deviationists face the Enhanced Interrogation Technique of being forced to listen to the wit and wisdom of Glenn Beck, at ear-splitting volume, for days on end? Or worse: When Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going...

Leadership: As Palin jousts with Biden on energy independence, the government reports that we lead the world in energy reserves. From oil to gas to coal, we are sitting on prosperity. So why are we importing anything? One of the interesting sidelights of the NY-23 race was an exchange on energy independence between Vice President Joe Biden and the former governor of energy-rich Alaska, Sarah Palin. Biden, who came in to campaign for Democrat Bill Owens, was reminded of the issue of energy. "The fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin thinks the answer to energy was 'Drill, baby,...

Fox has interviewed someone who worked with him at Ft. Hood (Terry Lee) who says he was a harsh critic of U.S. foreign policy who said Muslims had a right to stand up and fight against the aggressor in Iraq and Afghanistan — i.e., us.

Politics: Despite the whipping they took in Tuesday's election, congressional Democrats are moving fast on cap-and-trade and health care. Are they politically tone-deaf, or is this some kind of desperate strategy? Our guess is that Democratic leaders, having gotten a very negative message from the off-year balloting, are moving as fast as they can to pass the main big-spending items on their unpopular agenda. If they don't act now, the know their radical agenda is dead. On Thursday, Senate Democrats hustled the cap-and-trade bill out of committee without so much as a hello-and-howdy to the Republicans — knowing full well...

Public Option: Congressional Democratic leaders insist on a government health coverage option. But if it's so great, why won't they themselves be covered by it? If you thought Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., caused a stir when he yelled, "You Lie!" during the State of the Union, just watch him expose the hypocrisy of liberal Democrats in Congress. Democrats want a government-run health insurance scheme to "keep the insurance companies honest." But Blue Cross/Blue Shield warns of dire consequences: • "Millions of people would lose their current private coverage they are happy with ..." • The federal government "will underpay providers...

Leadership: As Palin jousts with Biden on energy independence, the government reports that we lead the world in energy reserves. From oil to gas to coal, we are sitting on prosperity. So why are we importing anything? One of the interesting sidelights of the NY-23 race was an exchange on energy independence between Vice President Joe Biden and the former governor of energy-rich Alaska, Sarah Palin. Biden, who came in to campaign for Democrat Bill Owens, was reminded of the issue of energy. "The fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin thinks the answer to energy was 'Drill, baby,...

Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of ObamaCare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008. In the aftermath of last year's Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics — most prominently, rising minorities and the young — would bury the GOP far into the future. One...

This is the eighth installment in a nine-part series excerpting the chapter on medical care from the latest version of economist Thomas Sowell's "Applied Economics."The most stringent of all price controls is permitting no price at all to be charged. That is the legal situation in the United States and in various other countries, when it comes to people who donate one of their own organs to be transplanted into the body of someone else whose liver, kidneys or other organs are badly malfunctioning. It is illegal in these countries to charge for donating one's organs, though it is legal...

Leftovers from Tuesday's elections: Ohio voters approved a measure permitting casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo. They hope the casinos will boost the economy, create jobs and balance the state budget. Based on Connecticut's experience, Ohio voters are about to be bitterly disappointed. n Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate in New York's 23rd House District who quit the three-way race and endorsed the Democrat when it became apparent she was going to finish last, is pro-abortion, supports homosexual marriage, voted for bigger govern- ment and higher taxes, backed the "stimulus," opposes secret-ballot voting for union-certification elections and was endorsed...

Shortly after Major Malik Nadal Hasan and two other unnamed shooters allegedly opened fire at the largest U.S. military installation in the world, Ft. Hood in Texas, President Barack Obama held a press conference to address the issue. Before getting around to the shooting that has already claimed a dozen lives and wounded at least 31 people, he began his remarks by saying: I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow (ph) was around, and so I want to give a shout out to that Congressional...

November 05, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Republican Civil War?Our experts respond. An NRO Symposium The NY-23 race has political commentators abuzz: Is there a Republican civil war going on? If so, who started it, and can there be a truce? If not, why is everyone saying there is one? National Review Online asked a few close observers of the Right to report in on these rumors of war. KEN BLACKWELLDede Scozzafava’s record in the New York State legislature was pro-tax, pro-abortion, and anti-marriage. She even accepted the endorsement of ACORN. But she got the local party elders’ support, based on...

WASHINGTON -- The Palestinians had hoped they would see a new day coming after the Bush administration’s eight-year capitulation to all that Israel wanted. But they were wrong. The Obama administration is moving down the same Bush road -- perhaps a little slower -- but nonetheless still enabling the Israelis to continue to violate international law and the U.N. Charter by annexing occupied Arab land. First, the new administration made it clear that U.S. policy opposed new Jewish settlements on the West Bank. This declaration was met with a thumping rejection from the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Then,...

November 05, 2009, 0:00 a.m. Small MiracleHow one tiny, endangered nation became an economic giant. By Clifford D. May People forget how small Israel is. Its entire population is a little more than 7 million — smaller than Lima, Peru. Its land area is about 8,000 square miles, smaller than New Jersey or Belize. By comparison, Jordan, its neighbor to the east, occupies 35,000 square miles; Egypt, its neighbor to the West, covers 386,000 square miles. There are more than 20 Arab states, which have a combined population of 325 million, and more than 50 majority-Muslim states, which have...

very ironic announcement that I just got in my Harvard email announcing a forthcoming lecture: HARVARD UNIVERSITY EDMOND J. SAFRA FOUNDATION CENTER FOR ETHICS Eliot Spitzer, former Governor and Attorney General of New York, will deliver a public lecture as part of the 2009/10 Labs Lectures on the Question of Institutional Corruption. Thursday, November 12 at 4:30pm Emerson Hall, Room 105 25 Quincy Street, Cambridge This is a ticketed event.

"UH-O" Drudge Report headline over a photo of President Obama on Wednesday -- Drudge's interpretation of Tuesday's elections. On the Sun-Times' Web site on the night of Nov. 4, 2008, and then in the paper on the morning of Nov. 5, the headline over my column read: This was a great day to be an American I was writing, of course, about the election of Barack Obama. Strange how our perception of elapsed time can expand or compress depending on the context. I was talking to a friend on Halloween, remembering a costume party we attended in '08, and I...

As President Obama decides whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, we should remember that most of the conventional pessimism about Afghanistan is only half-truth. Remember the mantra that the region is the “graveyard of empires,” where Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, and the Soviets only three decades ago inevitably met their doom? In fact, Alexander conquered most of Bactria and its environs (which included present-day Afghanistan). After his death, the area that is now Afghanistan became part of the Seleucid Empire. Centuries later, outnumbered British-led troops and civilians were initially ambushed, and suffered many casualties,...

We strongly object to the President creating a two-tier system of justice for terrorists in which those responsible for the death of thousands on 9/11 will be treated as common criminals and afforded the kind of platinum due process accorded American citizens, yet members of Al Qaeda who aspire to kill Americans but who do not yet have blood on their hands, will be treated as war criminals. The President offers no explanation or justification for this contradiction, even as he readily acknowledges that the 9/11 conspirators, now designated "unprivileged enemy belligerents," are appropriately accused of war crimes. We believe...

Media Release Thursday, October 29, 2009 The Blair Witch-hunt Project -- Abuse of Authority? Toronto Police Chief Blair's much touted "Project Safe City" is nothing more than a witch-hunt targeting firearms owners, seizing their private property without compensation and describing them as "criminals." Their crime? Allowing their Firearms Licenses to expire. In his latest "media event," he paraded out a valuable collection of firearms seized from a collector with an expired Firearms License. Using this event as his podium, he proceeded to make very inaccurate comments about the proposed federal Bill C-391 that is scheduled for second reading next week....

Actor Jon Voight and nationally-syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin are joining Cong. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn), Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga), Cong. Mike Pence (R-Ind), Republican House leadership and other Republican members at noon today to welcome citizens coming into town from all over the country today to make calls on their representatives. Their message is to kill this turkey of a government-takeover of health care. Action is important today because Speaker Nancy Pelosi has hinted at a floor vote on the Dems’ massive bill this Saturday. Thousands are expected to join in the rally and the...

Welcome to California government, 80 percent-style. This is the first of 12 weeks in a row that the state will shut down every Friday. Between unpaid furlough days and paid holidays off, most California civil servants won't work a five-day week again until Jan. 29. But how much will the public notice – or care? We've had nine months to adjust to a part-time state government. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger started furloughing workers two days per month in February and upped it to three "Furlough Fridays" in July. Meanwhile, the public's most acute fiscal pain is closer to home. "Cities, counties,...

LifeandLibertyReport.com “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.� – Psalm 118:8 It may shock some these days to know that our American form of republican government was founded in a belief that men are intrinsically wicked power-mongers, but it’s true. “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,� Lord Acton famously said a century after our nation’s founding, but the men who framed the American republic already understood this truism well. This knowledge was rooted in their understanding of the Bible, of history, and of fallen human nature. Which is why they set up...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations sent out its usual roundup Tuesday of news stories alleging the mistreatment of Muslims in America. There was a story critical of the FBI harassment of Muslims in Queens, N.Y., in the wake of the arrest of a suspected terrorist. Another story concerned calls for an investigation into an FBI shooting that left Detroit Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah dead. There were also notices of CAIR banquets. There was no story about Noor Faleh Almaleki. Her father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, has been arrested for running down his 20-year-old daughter, as well as the mother of her...

After losing Virginia's governorship for the first time in eight years, some Democrats are trying to console themselves that Virginia is at its core a "red" state. This ignores not only that they won back-to-back governorships but also that Democrats defeated a sitting senator in 2006, took control of the state Senate in 2007 and won an open Republican Senate seat and three House seats in 2008 while carrying Virginia's electoral college votes for the first time since 1964. Some in the White House are trying to deflect blame for the defeat by saying that Sen. Creigh Deeds lost because...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations sent out its usual roundup Tuesday of news stories alleging the mistreatment of Muslims in America. There was a story critical of the FBI harassment of Muslims in Queens, N.Y., in the wake of the arrest of a suspected terrorist. Another story concerned calls for an investigation into an FBI shooting that left Detroit Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah dead. There were also notices of CAIR banquets. There was no story about Noor Faleh Almaleki. Her father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, has been arrested for running down his 20-year-old daughter, as well as the mother of her...

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was pulled down to the consternation of leftists, who still had faith socialism could work with the right leaders, and to the delight of conservatives, who believed that socialism and communism guaranteed mutually-shared poverty. Two years later, the Soviet Union crumbled. Soviet communism might not have endured for 70 years had it not been for enablers in academia, religion and journalism. Lloyd Billingsley has written about them in "The Generation That Knew Not Josef," as in Stalin. When the wall fell, leftists could not bring themselves to admit they had been wrong, much...

Nien Cheng, 94, whose memoir "Life and Death in Shanghai" was widely praised as one of the most riveting accounts of the Cultural Revolution, died Nov. 2 of cardiovascular and renal disease at her home in Washington. At a time when China's Communist leader Mao Zedong was trying to purge political rivals and reassert his authority, Mrs. Cheng, the wealthy widow of an oil company executive, was one of untold numbers of professionals who were evicted from their homes by the Red Guard. She was arrested in August 1966 and falsely accused of being a spy. Mrs. Cheng endured 6...

The ABC News headline this week said it all: “U.S. Must Lead Way in Clean Energy Technology, Agency Heads Say; Administration Officials Push for the Swift Passing of Kerry-Boxer Climate Change Legislation.” It’s that second part—about the need for swift passage of global warming legislation—that tells the whole story. Of course President Obama wants quick passage. For months the public has focused on the bruising health care fight taking place in Washington. Along with congressional allies like John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi, Obama would like nothing better than to rush global warming regulation through congress before the public...

Barack Obama held out hope of overcoming partisan divides, lowering the temperature and bringing Americans together. How's that working out? Not well, it appears. One year after he was elected, Americans look more polarized than ever. In a special House election in upstate New York, a Conservative Party candidate, backed by Sarah Palin, took on a moderate Republican whom his supporters called a "radical leftist," forced her to withdraw and then lost to the Democrat. It's entirely possible that in the Senate, not a single Republican will vote for an administration-supported health insurance overhaul. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., laments that...

The peace process is in deep trouble because the US administration launched it the day after taking office without being fully prepared. Hillary Clinton's rescue mission last weekend to breathe life into the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process was either a failure or a success, depending on who's telling the story. The secretary of state made a quick stop in Abu Dhabi on Saturday to press Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to drop his demands for a total settlement construction freeze and return to the peace table with Israel. He refused. She then flew to Jerusalem, where she praised Prime Minister...

WASHINGTON -- Bob McDonnell's decisive victory is even more impressive if one stops to acknowledge that it came in the face of incredibly daunting opposition, misleading and low-brow campaign commercials, and a "news" organization which often advocates for left-of-center candidates and causes. To win the election, McDonnell had to defeat not only the Deeds campaign, but the DNC, the White House, and The Washington Post. Lest we forget, this is not the first time this "take no prisoners" strategy was employed by the Democrats and The Washington Post against a Virginia Republican. In fact, three years ago, not only was...

If you were watching television on Tuesday night as the election returns came in showing Republicans capturing the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, you probably missed seeing the biggest losers of the evening. You may have caught the concession speech of Creigh Deeds, who ran 12% behind Barack Obama's winning percentage of the vote in Virginia, and that of Jon Corzine who, after spending over $100 million of his own money on three campaigns, ran 13% behind Obama's winning percentage in New Jersey and got evicted from Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion in Princeton. But you missed seeing the guy...

Back in the '90s, an admittedly sappy movie was made for less than $7 million, but it reaped over $80 million at the box office. "Mr. Holland's Opus" starred Richard Dreyfuss as a high school music teacher who tenaciously plodded along the daily grind of teaching music. All the while, he was privately composing his own "An American Symphony," apparently never to be performed. In what follows below, I'd like to honor another man's life's work. His career has been in a much different field than teaching music, but his ultimate triumph reminds me of the inspiring Dreyfuss film. For...

WASHINGTON -- What strikes me about politics over the past couple of years is how obvious it all has been. In 2008, as the junior senator from Illinois campaigned across the country, demonstrating his gifts as a motivational speaker and community organizer, all one had to do was review his recent life to know that he was about to bring down on the country -- ever so incompetently -- the most left-wing government in American history. And so he has -- with the utmost incompetence. Think of the paucity of swine flu vaccine, in large part the consequence of his...

As the final votes were being counted, it was possible to draw some lessons from Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in Virginia and the close, three-way governor's race in New Jersey, never mind that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has taken to saying that the elections don't mean much. The odd-year elections -- held in the first year of a presidency -- have been meaningful over the last two decades. In 1993, New Jersey voters rejected tax-raising Democratic Gov. James Florio, despite the best efforts of Bill Clinton's consultant James Carville -- a harbinger of the losses congressional Democrats suffered...

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said that Tuesday’s election results were a direct product of the Republican Party gaining momentum, but many conservative analysts point to the corollary of that message as the primary reason’s for big conservative wins: Democratic failure. “What I am seeing in the data, that the spending, the TARP number one, the TARP number two, the stimulus package, the trillion-plus dollar deficits, are all adding up in voters’ minds,” said Ed Goeas, President and CFO of The Tarrance Group, a Republican polling firm. “They are very concerned about spending…the kinds of change that are being made are...

I spoke at a recent town hall forum. The many issues discussed included the Obama administration's attack on Fox News. Later, one of the audience members came up to me and sneered, "Well, even you must admit that Fox News is biased in favor of Republicans." Separate the opinion guys from the news deliverers. Does Fox focus on stuff that the others -- MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS -- do not? Yes. Is that stuff more critical of liberals and less critical of conservatives? Yes. The best gauge is who watches these stations. Fox News Channel, as a percentage of...

Tuesday's GOP gubernatorial sweep revealed an electorate deeply anxious about jobs, the state of the economy and the wider Obama agenda. We realize we sound like St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, but if the Democratic establishment wants to avoid a repeat in 2010 they'll dump their current ambitions and start over.--snip--Democrats entered this year well positioned to get political credit for a recovering economy, whether or not their policies had much to do with it. Yet a year later their willy-nilly expansion of government is creating fear and uncertainty that are inhibiting the animal spirits crucial to...

My Wednesday Examiner column, written as the 2009 election returns were coming in, stands up pretty well. But let me add some observations written as the course of the elections became clearer. First, in the governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey, the Democratic candidate ran far behind Barack Obama’s percentages in 2008 and the Republican candidates ran ahead of George W. Bush’s percentages in 2004. The numbers are pretty daunting. In Virginia Creigh Deeds won 41% of the votes, way behind Barack Obama’s 53% in 2008. And in New Jersey Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine won 45% of the votes,...