Free Republic

A turning point in US history has come; either the Elites who advocate for the statist cause for control prevails or the self-governance by the citizenry prevails. We are at the tipping point of government micromanagement versus individual responsibility (power). Unless you have been living as a hermit these past few years most people now recognize the stark choice that is before the country. Will the government be allowed to usurp individual choice and responsibility without opposition by reason of clever arguments by those who claim they know better or will the people rise up and clean house in the...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Gone are the hot breakfasts in most dorms and the pastries at Widener Library. Varsity athletes are no longer guaranteed free sweatsuits, and just this week came the jarring news that professors will go without cookies at faculty meetings. By Harvard standards, these are hard times. Not Dickensian hard times, perhaps, but with the value of its endowment down by almost 30 percent, the world’s richest university is learning to live with less. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard’s largest division, has cut about $75 million from its budget in recent months and is planning more....

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AFP) – President Barack Obama, three former presidents and the nation's elite gathered Saturday at a grand Catholic funeral for Edward Kennedy, America's legendary political patriarch. A who's who of the country's movers and shakers, including much of the US Congress, crammed into the pews of the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a historic church in Boston. Obama was to deliver the eulogy at the Mass, after which Kennedy's flag-draped coffin was to be flown to Washington for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, alongside his assassinated elder brothers John and Robert. Earlier, Kennedy's widow, Vicki, fought...

Following the 2009 G20 summit, plans were announced for implementing the creation of a new global currency to replace the US dollar’s role as the world reserve currency. Point 19 of the communiqué released by the G20 at the end of the Summit stated, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250 billion into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are “a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund.” As the Telegraph reported, “the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global...

Maybe the finest 12 minute video commentary explaining the crap from the left and the crap from ELITES on the right. Whittle makes it clear that there is a war on between fly over country and the inside the beltway elites. He ends with a story about Marines on Gaudacanal and Japanese war rules that are traps for decent people. This is a fighting words video well written and not afraid to punch elites in the nose.

Return to the Article July 24, 2009Hating Sarah Palin - and UsBy Stuart Schwartz Any way you look at it, it's us vs. them. The media elite hate Sarah Palin with a passion -- the same passion they have used for decades to rant about us. We are the "primitive strain," the "booboisie," or, as The New York Times put it, the "Philistines." We are a people, according to Times columnist Maureen Dowd, that displays a "reptilian American desire " for prosperity and an innate disrespect for culture and our betters, who are the political and media elite that...

his is a fascinating article that will make you think. Is the banking cartel that controls the world financial system going to hit the reset button in the next few months and start over? If so, the ruling elite in the know will be taking actions today that will insure they are still rich after the reset. The common people will be screwed because they don't know it is coming. At first it seems farfetched, but if you step back and examine the facts it actually seems logical. The worldwide banking system is insolvent. The ruling elite are trying to...

Many took it on FR and did very good on the test. Trying to find it. Can anyone remember?

ALBANY -- Eleven of the state Senate's highest-paid staffers received raises of up to $32,000 when it appeared likely Democrats would lose control of the chamber during the five-week leadership fight. The combined increases will cost taxpayers $200,000 annually. Since the June 8 Senate coup, dozens of staff members from both sides of the aisle have received raises, but the elite group received raises ranging from $10,000 to $32,000 annually, state Comptroller's office records show. The beneficiaries include top aides to Senate President Pro Tempore Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, and Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn. Because many of the...

Many years ago, political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion. And on some issues, they clearly do. But on some issues, they don't. Two examples of the latter phenomenon are conspicuous at a time when Barack Obama enjoys the approval of more than 60 percent of Americans and Democrats have won thumping majorities in two elections in a row. One is global warming. The other is gun control. On both issues, the elites of academe, the media and big business have been solidly on one side for years. But on both, the American public has...

The problem didn’t begin when the stock and real-estate markets crashed. The problem didn’t begin when confidence men ripped off their clients’ life savings. The problem didn’t begin when the ship of state actually started to sink. No, the problem began years earlier, when the officers − the “elite” − abandoned the ship spiritually, emotionally and intellectually, though not physically. Their bodies stayed at their posts on the bridge. But their hearts were far away, in some imaginary place where perfect justice and perfect equality were doled out by…you guessed it, them.

Note: Hope = Truth People of good intentions and progressive predilection are scratching their heads wondering just how President Barack Obama managed to turn himself into George W. Bush Lite with sugar-on-top just twelve weeks after that fateful walk down the US Capitol's east stairway to the waiting helicopter. I'm hardly the first observer to note that Mr. Obama's actions in the face of an epochal finance fiasco and economic collapse are a mere extension of the pre-January-20 policies, carried out by much the same cast of characters. The assumption up until now was something about the reassuring value of...

I see they are all there.THIS SHORT STREAM is REALLY a study in contrasts. Who amongst us will truly be surprised, though? The anti-American MSM double standards should be clear for all to see.Two years ago, lawbreakers on our soil are praised; yesterday, decent American citizens out in support of the Constitution are ridiculed, slandered or abused.TRUE Americans are made to feel like lawbreakers on their own soil by these buzzards.

Our choice, last fall, was between an angry 73 year old with a legislative record far from consistently conservative, who nominated as his running mate a know-nothing religious extremist; on the other side was an appealing, thoughtful man who--for a brief shining moment--seemed to be more than the sum of his ideological parts. If I had to vote all over again, I'd pull the same lever. Maybe I'm obtuse. Or maybe I just haven't yet entirely given up on the old audacity of hope.

Why did the 60's Generation get it so wrong in so many areas of life?

For anyone who doubts the Commission's continuing influence on Obama, consider that he has already appointed no less than eleven members of the Commission to top-level and key positions in his Administration. According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only 87 members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other regions). Thus, in less than two weeks since his inauguration, Obama's appointments encompass more than 12% of Commission's entire U.S. membership. Is this a mere coincidence or is it a continuation of dominance over the Executive Branch since 1976? (For important background, read The Trilateral...

When House Republicans planned their annual winter retreat, they extended an invitation to Alaska Gov. Sara Palin, hoping the party's 2008 vice presidential nominee would give a morale-building speech to the more than 130 Republican members of Congress gathered this weekend in Hot Springs, Va. Retreat organizers tell ABC News that Palin politely declined, giving a perfectly understandable reason. According to the Congressional Institute, which hosted the conference, Palin said she simply could not make it to the retreat because pressing state business made it impossible for her to leave Alaska this weekend. So where is Palin this weekend? She's...

When I see the $170 million Inaugural celebrations, I am reminded of “Belshazzar the king of Babylon. [He] made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand. While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God...

The Pattern Arnold Kling   Actor The Promise The Reality Financial Executives Brilliant Risk Management Catastrophic Losses Eliot Spitzer Mr. Clean, Financial Reformer Celebrity Prosecutions, Real Abuses Untouched, and Not So Clean Sarbanes-Oxley Financial Responsibility Large Costs, No Apparent Benefits Basel Capital Standards International Coordination, Sound Banks Worldwide Banking Collapse Fannie, Freddie Stable Mortgage Credit Fed the Boom, Stuck Taxpayers with the Bust TARP Unclog the Financial System Zombie Banks Big Fiscal Stimulus Put the Economy on a Better Path Wait and See The pattern is big egos, big money, and big power offering big promises, getting big media...

"Obama is merely a fop for the global elite" Have you ever wondered how capitalism was pushed over the edge of the cliff just six weeks before the American presidential election? According to financial experts, the world, as we know it will change dramatically by the year 2012. People, who provided for their families only three years ago, will be desperately searching for food. The story of the economic meltdown of 2008 begins and ends with the United Nations and its carefully managed One World Order. Behind the curtain of this dark chapter in human misery are ogres Maurice Strong...

A Gore victory in November would, of course, have many consequences for the nation and the world. It would also, however, have a larger historical meaning—in the sense that people looking back on it a hundred years hence might say: "Ah, that represented ..." What? What larger trend would be embodied in a Gore victory? We have all internalized the consequences of past elections. Andy Jackson—the dethroning of the old coastal gentry elites; Teddy Roosevelt—victory of Progressivism; FDR—dawn of the welfare state; and so on. We know roughly what a Gore victory would mean in particulars; what would it be...

Madoff's firm sent clients performance statement riddled with inaccuracies and other suspicious signs that should have raised red flags.......a Nov. 30 performance report suggests Madoff's outfit purchased Apple at $100.78 on Nov. 12. However, even accounting for a usual 3-day settlement period, the stock never traded at $100 a share.....trading range was between $90.01 and $92.43..... Others note Madoff used outmoded bookkeeping method to record performance data, and that his presentation, lacks details...... "These look like statements from the mid '90s..." said attorney Ross Intelisano, who's been retained by Madoff clients..... The lack of transparency is surprising since Madoff was...

The Capitol Visitors Center, which opened this morning, may have tripled its original budget and fallen years behind schedule, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid found a silver lining for members of Congress: tourists won't offend them with their B.O. anymore. "My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway," said Reid in his remarks. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true." But it's no longer going to be true, noted Reid, thanks to...

"I blame the central banks," growled the bond trader, stabbing the air with a forkful of raw steak. "If Alan Greenspan hadn't kept interest rates so low at the start of this decade, we wouldn't be in this mess. Talk about refilling the punch bowl when the party guests are already as drunk as skunks!" "We told you we were not in the business of identifying bubbles, let alone trying to puncture them," replied the central banker, nibbling at a lettuce leaf. "We warned you that credit spreads, emerging-market yields and volatility in stocks and bonds were all too low,...

It was only a matter of time. First Sarah Palin and the Wasilla hillbillies were charged with spending John McCain's political capital faster than they could max out credit cards at Neiman Marcus. Now blame for the Republican electoral debacle has been extended to all the rubes who are said to populate the religious right. Even some right-leaning pundits are getting into the act. Beliefnet's Steven Waldman warned before the election that "religious conservatives will have to grapple with their role in electing Obama" since they supposedly vetoed pro-abortion Joe Lieberman, whom Al Gore found to be a sure ticket...

by Gina L. DiorioBarack Obama may deserve a new address, but it sure isn’t 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, Beverly Hills would be more fitting, as his actions in recent days and weeks are more suggestive of an egotistical – and rather spoiled – Hollywood starlet than a man who would be president of the United States. Take, for example, his confrontation yesterday with reporters while walking with his daughter in his Hyde Park neighborhood. When journalists approached the duo, an irritated Obama stated, “That’s enough. You’ve got a shot. Leave us alone…. Come on, guys. Get back on...

The definition of theory from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary 1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another 2: abstract thought : speculation 3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art 4 a: a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b: an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory 5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena 6 a: a hypothesis assumed for the...

CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago officials say Barack Obama's plan to spend election night outdoors will cost an estimated $2 million.

Pretty funny video about Canada luring rich liberals from America if McCain wins. Who knew Slate could poke fun at their own readership? Link:The ELITE plan

When it comes to politics, it's often smart to bet against the elites -- on the left and right. Bet against them about Sarah Palin. Palin is the latest in a long line politicians who have been discounted by those comfortably ensconced in positions of power and privilege. Since, at least, the early 1800s, the chattering classes, especially, have managed to bet against men who went on to notable, if not historic, presidencies. They disparaged Andrew Jackson and ridiculed Abe Lincoln. In recent times, elites turned noses up at Truman and Eisenhower. And, of course, they disdained Ronald Reagan as...

The abuse being heaped on Sarah Palin is such a cheap shot. The complaint against the Alaska governor, at its most basic, is that she doesn't qualify for admission to the national political fraternity. Boy, that's rich. Behold the shabby frat house that says it's above her pay grade. (snip) The stoning of Sarah Palin has exposed enough cultural fissures in American politics to occupy strategists full-time until 2012. We now see there is a left-to-right elite centered in New York, Washington, Hollywood and Silicon Valley who hand down judgments of the nation's mortals from their perch atop the Bell...

There were over 20,000 competitors in Sunday's Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco. And 24-year-old Arien O'Connell, a fifth-grade teacher from New York City, ran the fastest time of any of the women. But she didn't win. It doesn't get much simpler than a footrace. All it takes is a starting line, a finish line and a clock. You fire the gun and the first person to the end of the course is the winner. However, as the marathon officials said to O'Connell - not so fast. While O'Connell had the greatest run of her life and covered the course...

Christopher Buckley’s endorsement of Barack Obama — followed by his abrupt departure from the back page of the magazine his father founded, National Review — has caused a ripple of contempt from the conservative Right. Nay, make that a tsunami of hostility. An avalanche of venom. A cataclysm of ... well, you get the idea. People are mad. Good riddance, they say, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. ↓ Keep reading this article ↓ Beard: Freedom, Justice, and Rock ’n’ Roll Blyth: Sarah Style Skelly: Unearthing the Weather Underground Whittle: Steady, Now … Kudlow: An...

“One-hundred-and-sixty-six academic economists signed a letter opposing the government bailout. In a commentary, one of those economists said the talk of Armageddon was scaremongering,” NBC “Today” host Matt Lauer said Oct. 1. Cramer said the experts didn’t know what they were talking about. “Today” host Matt Lauer had cited a commentary authored by Jeffrey Miron, the director of undergraduate studies for the Harvard University Department of Economics. “‘The current credit freeze is likely due to Wall Street’s hope of a bailout; bankers will – don’t laugh yet – bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20 cents on the...

Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen to rally for Sen. Barack Obama in Philly on Saturday -- for a last minute push to register rockers, young and old to vote. The concert takes place this Saturday and voter registration deadline is the following Monday.

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine...

The same day a John McCain surrogate dismissed economic woes from a nation of "whiners," Barack Obama's wife quipped that the $600 tax stimulus check could be used for a pair of earrings.

Summary: AMAZING ANIMATION, Shame they wasted it on rank socialist agitprop

Washington elites, pontificating pundits and media types would be very surprised to know: There is life outside the beltway. Millions of largely invisible, average Americans live there. And these Americans are living lives totally alien to the thousands of so-called experts and talking heads who claim to represent them. For instance: These Americans, (I'll call them 'we' Americans, as I belong to their ranks), aren't waiting breathlessly for the latest word on high from Hillary. We really don't care what she says, having learned long ago that much of what comes out of her mouth is designed for political expediency,...

RUSH: Tim Russert passed away before the program ended, but the news on Friday didn't happen until afterwards.  I actually got the news at about a quarter of three Friday afternoon in an e-mail that said "Not For Reporting" because it hadn't been confirmed.  A very, very, very sad thing.  I knew Tim Russert, and he was just a prince of a guy. But I have to tell you, folks, this orgy of coverage from about four o'clock Friday afternoon on ceased to be about Tim Russert and instead it's been about the media and who they are and how...

PITY the poor word “elite,” which simply means “the best” as an adjective and “the best of a group” as a noun. What was once an accolade has turned poisonous in American public life over the past 40 years, as both the left and the right have twisted it into a code word meaning “not one of us.” But the newest and most ominous wrinkle in the denigration of all things elite is that the slur is being applied to knowledge itself. ...The assault on “elite” did not begin with politicians, although it does have political antecedents in sneers directed...

Recently Barack Obama got into trouble by explaining to an affluent San Francisco audience why the cash-strapped, mostly white, working classes in Pennsylvania and the Midwest do not logically vote for his brand of economic populism, but instead cling to issues that sophisticates can see are extraneous to their economic plight. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. That sentence has been analyzed to death. But a single word struck me —...

The odor of elitism is like onion breath: It’s quick to acquire, hard to mask. Try as he might, Barack Obama cannot camouflage the political stink he exhaled when he dissed small-town Americans as “bitter” Neanderthals “clinging” to their guns, faith, and belief in strict immigration enforcement. It wasn’t the first time the effete Snob-ama revealed himself. In Philadelphia, he passed up the hometown cheesesteak — gloppy, artery-clogging, and blue-collar (yum!) — for a nibble of Spanish-imported, $100/pound ham. In Iowa, he moaned to voters about the price of arugula at Whole Foods. (Fun fact: There aren’t any Whole Foods...

Jonah Goldberg has defined correctly what Americans are upset with in Obama's San Francisco speech. Goldberg said today on Fox News that elitism can be good (for instance, you want the best, most elite surgeon to do your surgery) and using the word "bitter" isn't the problem with Obama's speech; however, the problem comes with Obama's use of the word "clinging" in describing small town America's reverence for God and support of the 2nd Amendment. So, the problem with Obama is not so much elitism but arrogance.

In case you haven't heard the Barack Obama quote surreptitiously taped at an April 6 San Francisco fundraiser, then broadcast on Huffington Post, here it is: Obama noted that in many high-unemployment small towns, jobs have been gone for decades and neither the Bush or Clinton administrations helped restore them, so "it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." You've heard this song sung before. Before he became Democratic National Committee chairman, Howard Dean...

Has Obama written his political epi-gaffe? April 15, 2008 Recommend STEVE HUNTLEY shuntley.cst@gmail.com The ebb and flow of the Democratic presidential race is an amazing thing to watch. Just when Barack Obama starts narrowing the gap in Pennsylvania and appears close to having Hillary Clinton on the ropes, a landmine explodes under him. While it's not the only thing disturbing his campaign in recent days, Obama's major gaffe about small town America poses the most serious threat to what has seemed to be the inevitability of his capturing the nomination. One of his challenges has been connecting with working class...

... Because the manipulable masses are easily given a "false consciousness" (another category, like religion as the "opiate" of the suffering masses, that liberalism appropriated from Marxism), four things follow: First, the consent of the governed, when their behavior is governed by their false consciousnesses, is unimportant. Second, the public requires the supervision of a progressive elite which, somehow emancipated from false consciousness, can engineer true consciousness. Third, because consciousness is a reflection of social conditions, true consciousness is engineered by progressive social reforms. Fourth, because people in the grip of false consciousness cannot be expected to demand or even...

ELDORADO, Texas - The secretive and insular community established near this West Texas town by a radical offshoot of the Mormon Church is considered by the sect's members to be a holy shrine populated by its most fervent adherents and is propped up financially by members of the group living in other states, according to law enforcement officials and former members. Interviews with law enforcement authorities and former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints depict the Yearning for Zion Ranch, which was raided last week by Texas authorities, as an outpost whose adult residents...

  April 13, 2008   This cartoon/graphic is free for noncommercial use in emails, blogs, and forums.  iowapresidentialwatch.com

"John!" called my brother from the living room. "Are you coming out or not?" He and my sister-in-law were eager to start the movie we had rented, but I, lurking in my parents' darkened study, waved them off. While they and the rest of the family were distracted, I had private business to attend to on the home computer. It was December 2001, and I was a New Yorker. Of the innumerable moments of surreality accompanying Sept. 11, 2001's fracturing of our daily lives -- fighter jets circling the city, a pillar of ash rising to the stratosphere, New Yorkers...