Free Republic

Want to invest in your education like financial guru John Thiel, head of wealth management at Merrill Lynch? Then go to a public university. "I'm a state school guy," the Florida State University graduate told his alumni newsletter. "I didn't go to the Ivy League; I didn't go to Stanford or UCLA. I'm a CPA who went to a state school, and I run the largest wealth management firm in the world." Thiel gambled that he'd get back more bang for his buck at a public school than at a private one. By any measure, his bet paid off. And...

Small town America is the soul of our country, despite the opinion of the Seattle Weekly’s Ellis Conklin and the lamestream media. Todd and I are on our way to congratulate the graduating class in Republic, Washington, this Saturday and I’m honored and touched by their ingenuity, tenacity, and invitation to speak to these young Americans about to begin their futures. Small town America is our heart; it may not be the Ivy Leagues or what Ellis and the media deem acceptable, but these students and this town represent what is good and right about America and the small towns...

If this happens, the nation needs to collectively march on Washington, DC, burn it to the ground, and spread salt over the ground.According to the Politico, in super secret “high-level, confidential talks”, Harry Reid, John Boehner, the Obama administration, and other lawmakers are working to exempt themselves and their staffs from Obamacare.They want to rush it through, probably sneaking it through on some other legislation that no one cares about, and get it all done before anyone can say anything about it.If the Republican Party leadership in Congress goes along with this ride, there will need to be a new...

She told us so? The debacle on background checks fully exposed the president’s flawed leadership, which his Democratic rival warned voters about back in 2008. If you ever need a refresher course in just how disconnected Barack Obama is from America’s mainstream culture of guns, consider this scathing indictment: “You know, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a matter of constitutional right ... I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in this country ‘cling to guns’ ... People of all walks of life hunt—and they enjoy doing so because it’s an important part of their life,...

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle will host a star-studded roster of music legends April 9 for another glitzy installment in the “In Performance at the White House” concert series, according to a White House press released issued Tuesday. The concert comes as the White House is emphasizing cuts caused by sequestration and criticizing reporters for not paying enough attention to the hardship caused by the mandatory slowdown in the rate of spending increases. Though the White House notably canceled all visitor tours in March, ostensibly due to sequestration, the First Couple’s series of White House concerts — billed...

Have they no shame! Another month, another lavish vacation for the Obama clan. No, I don’t begrudge the first family a little down time, but considering our current economic situation, their choice of venues is just plain tacky. Ads by Google Online CMBA from FIU $10,000 scholarships available. AACSB accredited. 100% Online. cmba.fiu.edu Say No to Obama's Amnesty Don't let Barack Obama give amnesty to illegals. Sign petition! Townhall.com/No-Amnesty Obama won the 2008 election, not because he was the most qualified, but because the populous largely believed he cared about them. It was the same in 2012. Despite a dismal...

Does a shadowy group of obscenely wealthy elitists control the world? Do men and women with enormous amounts of money really run the world from behind the scenes? The answer might surprise you. Most of us tend to think of money as a convenient way to conduct transactions, but the truth is that it also represents power and control. And today we live in a neo-fuedalist system in which the super rich pull all the strings. When I am talking about the ultra-wealthy, I am not just talking about people that have a few million dollars. As you will see...

Hey, they’ve gotta have someone who can sell high-powered firearms to Mexican drug cartels, amirite? You’ve heard about the 158 weapons you’ll no longer be able to use. But what about the exemptions? "Not everyone will have to abide by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, government officials and others will be exempt." “Mrs. Feinstein’s measure would exempt more than 2,200 types of hunting and sporting rifles; guns manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action; and weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel,” the Washington Times reports.

Gates: Software billionaire Bill Gates, who previously has advocated the reduction of the human population through the use of vaccines, and his wife Melinda marked the 100th year since the First International Eugenics Congress in London with a “family planning” summit with abortionists and the United Nations. The July 11 event, co-hosted by the United Kingdom Department for International Development, included organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Marie Stopes International and the U.N. Populations Fund, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Critics pointed out the summit was held 100 years after the July 1912 eugenics conference led by...

The Blog Gregory Mocks LaPierre for Proposing Armed Guards, but Sends Kids to High-Security School 4:58 PM, Dec 23, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts David Gregory mocked the NRA's Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C. "You proposed armed guards in school. We'll talk about that in some detail in a moment. You confronted the news media. You blamed Hollywood and the gaming...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr: Fox News Has Divided America In a Way Not Seen Since the Civil War By Noel Sheppard Created 12/08/2012 - 11:13am Robert F. Kennedy Jr said of Fox News Friday, "It's divided our country in a way that we haven't been divided probably since the Civil War." This occurred during an online video interview with the Huffington Post (video follows with transcript and commentary): ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR: There’s two things happening. One is the influence of big money in politics, and the other is the right-wing control of the American media, particularly starting with Fox...

Yesterday Mitt Romney turned a previously scheduled campaign event in Ohio into a hurricane relief event. Romney asked supporters to bring canned goods and other supplies to help storm victims recover on the East Coast. He only spoke for ten minutes at the event and quickly jumped in to help load supplies. His campaign bus has been accepting hurricane relief donations since Monday in Northern Virginia. Sounds like a great idea right? Not according to MSNBC. Reporters and anchors at the far-left TV outlet were appalled at Romney's efforts to give back to the community, after all, his charity and...

The list of flacks for leftism is drearily familiar: academia, public school systems, the entertainment industry, professional organizations, nonprofit foundations of vast wealth, the bureaucracies dependent upon social grievance and mind-numbing regulations (which includes not only federal and state bureaucrats, but "experts" in private industry who would have spent their careers mastering the arcane arts of regulatory compliance), and, of course, the media.

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family.Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in.Keep reading...

The “enlightened” who claim a firm grip on the steering wheel of Western civilization see the future through a lens in which man becomes ever more perfectible as outdated religious creeds fade away. And thus the irony. For all the contempt these cosmopolitans show for religion, there is one faith beyond public rebuke. Call it Islamic exceptionalism. Public Enemy #1 right now is the man who made a ridiculously shoddy YouTube video titled “The Innocence of Muslims.” This man and his so-called “film” have been blamed with a very broad brush for every riot and protest across the Mideast. ......

Gee, and you thought Barack Obama had an inflated opinion of himself. After watching Andrea Mitchell in action, he might actually need self-esteem therapy . . . On her MSNBC show today, Mitchell rolled a clip in which Rick Santorum told the Value Voters Summit that "we will never have the elite, smart people on our side." After asking a former Santorum aide what he he meant by the "elite smart people," Mitchell declared "I think I should plead guilty." View the video here.

President Barack Obama signed a bill Friday evening that would exempt some senior-level presidential appointees from Senate confirmation. Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and cosponsored by Republicans and Democrats, the bill, now law, weakens the power of the legislature and strengthens the executive branch, critics have warned. The bill skated through the Senate three months after being introduced in 2011 and was passed by the Republican-controlled House 216-116 in July. The law now allows Obama and future presidents to name appointees to senior positions in every branch of the administration, from the Department of the Treasury to the Department...

When a ruling elite starts to fail, you'd expect this sort of thing. How dare, how dare those peasants challenge our divine right to rule?! The United States is entering a pre-revolutionary situation, where a significant faction in one of the political parties has said: "We're getting screwed; the deal's off." And that is exactly what James Piereson is arguing in "The fourth revolution" in The New Criterion. We are entering a period of revolutionary upheaval, he writes, caused not just by the Crash of 2008 and budget deficits, but by "the exhaustion of the post-war system of political economy...

Mitt Romney will begin raising money jointly with the Republican National Committee, as the GOP front-runner's campaign moves its focus from a protracted primary fight to the general election.The arrangement between the RNC and Romney camp would allow donors to contribute as much as $75,000 per person, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story. The joint committee would allow potential contributors to donate to multiple pro-Romney fundraising efforts simultaneously. Donors would be able to donate up to $2,500 to Romney's primary and general-election campaigns, $30,800 to the RNC and up to $40,000 to state Republican parties,...

Michelle Obama Wore a $2K+ Barbara Tfank Dress to State of the Union “As the President declared his intent to help buoy the 99% (“Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense,” he declared), his wife dazzled in a cobalt sheath from Barbara Tfank’s resort collection. While reps for the brand won’t reveal the item’s retail price, a similar style from the collection is currently available at Barney’s New York for $2,400.”

<p>The Obama administration is launching a new space arms-control initiative that critics say will lead to restrictions on U.S. military activities in space, a key U.S. strategic war-fighting advantage.</p> <p>Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce the initiative as early as Tuesday. The plan will be built on work contained in a European Union draft code of conduct for space that the Pentagon and State Department have criticized as too restrictive.</p>

By Jake Tapper Nov 21, 2011 Rush Limbaugh Says First Lady Was Booed Partly Because NASCAR Fans Hate Her ‘Uppityism’ On Sunday, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden visited Homestead Miami speedway to serve as ceremonial grand marshals of the Ford 400, where some in the crowd booed them. The White House downplayed the incident today, with the First Lady’s communications director Kristina Schake saying only that “Mrs. Obama was proud to join NASCAR in recognizing our nation’s veterans and military families to raise awareness of this important issue for all Americans. As she has always said, she...

George W. Bush-era energy policy wonks are finding a new home with Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor can count on support from a who’s who of former Bush officials willing to raise money, brainstorm policy ideas and generally help spread the word among the ranks of like-minded GOP energy experts. Already on board the Romney train are Jim Connaughton, who ran Bush’s White House Council on Environmental Quality for all eight years; former Assistant Energy Secretary Andy Karsner; former EPA air chief Jeff Holmstead; and former EPA congressional affairs liaison Edward Krenik. The former Bush officials all told POLITICO...

The Occupy Wall Street library has produced the first Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology. The founders seek poetry in all the languages of the world, building a “massive text of dissidence, a testament to the infinite beauty of the human spirit.”.... Poetry illuminates the soul of Occupy Wall St. A lot of people are asking, “What are the demands” and the poets voices show just how nuanced the human spirit and impossible a set of demands truly is. This occupation is about transforming consciousness and the poetry community is a major part of that process.

Herman Cain’s reign on top of the 2012 contender list may be coming to an end. That’s the impression Karl Rove gave during an appearance on Fox News this morning as he slammed the candidate as having “created an image of him not being up for this task” through a series of blunders. The conversation began with talk of Cain’s seemingly-confused stance on abortion. However, Rove then continued, pulling out an entire white board filled with missteps Cain had made thus far in the campaign. This all correlated with poll numbers that, according to Rove, show that Cain had already...

A look Back People just don’t disappear. Look at Germany in 1946 or Athenians in 339 B.C. They continue, but their governments and cultures end. Aside from the dramatic military implosions of authoritarian or tribal societies — the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the end of Nazism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the annexation of tribal Gaul — what brings consensual states to an end, or at least an end to the good life? The city-states could not stop 30,000 Macedonians in a way — when far poorer and 150 year earlier — they had stopped 300,000 Persians descending on many...

As Perry Rises, G.O.P. Elite Look Toward Romney By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL D. SHEAR TAMPA, Fla. — The rising presidential candidacy of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is stirring excitement for many Republican voters but is creating unease in some quarters of the party’s establishment, particularly over his views of Social Security, which are at the root of an intensifying competition with Mitt Romney. The decision on Monday by Tim Pawlenty, a former Republican presidential rival, to support Mr. Romney’s campaign signals the beginning of an effort by some party leaders to try to slow the ascent of Mr....

Recall, Obama was declared a genius of geniuses by the elites when he ran for president, based on admittance to Harvard Law and a few stirring speeches. Yet, once upon a time, some effort was made to connect education to that holy grail called “intelligence.” After all, wasn’t that the entire argument behind the support and development of the “Ivy League”? But as the average—meaning intellectually guileless—person now sees daily and proved by incontrovertible evidence, being an elite simply means you have been trained into sneering, illiterate idiocy. There is no longer any credible evidence suggesting elites and liberals understand,...

Rep. Anthony Weiner, the self-appointed scourge of diplomatic scofflaws in Manhattan, has racked up more than $2,000 in unpaid parking tickets around Capitol Hill. From 2007 to March of this year, Weiner's ticket total was 2,180 for violations near the Capitol and at Reagan Washington National Airport, Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, reported Tuesday. A Weiner spokesman said all of the fees have since been paid. Aides to the Queens Democrat claim that part of the problem may have that D.C. sent notices to a bad address. But Weiner "is pleased to have helped decrease the D.C. budget deficit,"...

It just keeps happening. NPR's leader ship keeps tripping over its microphone wires and then asking everybody else to plug them back in. I know everybody thinks I must be in a vindictive mood, celebrating the sudden departure of NPR CEO Vivian Schiller after her handpicked personal fund-raiser was caught on tape disparaging Tea Party activists and Jews and taking more shots at me. I'm human and do have some thoughts, but it's OK to keep them to myself: Schiller's very public missteps allow everyone to draw their own conclusions about her. I'm not being vindictive when I say that...

The fallout from the video conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released Tuesday morning has been devastating for NPR. However, Juan Williams, a former NPR analyst who was fired unjustly even according to NPR President Vivian Schiller, finally had his turn to sound off about the video, which apparently showed an NPR senior executive, Ron Schiller, making some disparaging remarks about the Tea Party, the Jewish people and Williams himself.

n the middle of a difficult re-election campaign, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on Friday was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee from a year-long investigation about whether mortgages he obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The committee, however, did scold the senior lawmaker for not being more careful in his dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid...

Wow, public-sector union members sure have a good deal. Incomes 50-100% above the private-sector average, plus generous benefits .... so, can anyone get in on this? Nope, sorry, membership is limited to just a privileged few. OK, so let's get this straight - only a small percentage of society is on the public-sponsored gravy train, and the rest of the working masses has to pay their bills. Where's the fairness here? President O'bastard, please explain why you are siding with the elitists. And while you're at it, what's your position on legislature members not showing up for work, just because...

America’s largest cities are increasingly divided into three classes: the affluent, the poor, and the nomadic class of young people who generally come to the city for a relatively brief period and then leave. New York, the aspirational city of my grandparents, now has the smallest share of middle-income families in the nation, according to a recent Brookings Institution study, with Los Angeles and San Francisco not far behind. In 1980 Manhattan, New York’s wealthiest borough, ranked 17th among U.S. counties for social inequality; by 2007 Bloomberg’s “luxury city” was first, with the top fifth earning 52 times the income...

I guess Senator Chuck Schumer didn’t take civics very serious while in school. On CNN over the weekend, Chuck Schumer boldly or stupidly declared his own version of the three branches of government to be the House, the Senate, and the President? Just imagine if Sarah Palin had said this; it would be on continuous rotation on the main stream media. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Now just in case you didn’t quite catch what Schumer said, here’s the transcript (via Hot Air): "So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strong they feel — you know,...

Barack Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to “figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” At the time he made the statement, gas cost $7 – $8 a gallon in Europe. Fact: Since taking office, President Obama’s entire energy agenda has made a gallon of gas more expensive: •Immediately after taking office in 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah. •The EPA announced new rules mandating the use of 36 billion gallons worth of renewable fuels (like ethanol) by 2020. •This summer President Obama needlessly...

We’re now less than two years away from the next presidential election, which means it’s time for 2012 presidential speculation to begin! The first This Week of the year kicked off the talk with some of the biggest names on the Republican side, and George Will seems to have found through the litany of names what he called “the President’s secret weapon”: Sarah Palin’s inability to be elected. Asked by Jake Tapper (filling in for Christiane Amanpour) to evaluate the Republican landscape for November 2012, Will began by addressing the fact that Mike Huckabee had performed particularly well in the...

Ingraham: "Is anyone going to run as a Bush Republican in 2012 and if so who?" Rove: "Every one of them is going to run as a Bush Republican by saying 'I want to continue to fight the war on terror' -- with maybe one or two exceptions -- and, 'I want to continue the Bush tax cuts Video at link.

MARION -- The eyes of the GOP are now set upon the potential candidates for the 2012 Presidential race. Many names of viable candidates have been thrown around in this discussion. Names like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, and multiple others have been mentioned. However, one name that continues to stand apart form the crowd of names is Sarah Palin. The ex-governor turned political king and queen maker has used her popularity to make a large amount of money since leaving the governor’s office of Alaska. Sarah Palin now travels around the country giving speeches at rallies and events...

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann dropped out of the race for House Republican Conference chair on Wednesday night, ensuring that the GOP’s leadership elections will go on without any serious competition. In a statement sent to a handful of reporters Wednesday evening, the tea party favorite said that Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling has her “enthusiastic support for his candidacy” for the top messaging post in the GOP. kX

It was a failure of historic proportions. With US President Barack Obama's Democrats having lost control of the House, there seems little hope for progress during his two remaining years, say German commentators. Obama himself, they say, bears much of the blame. On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama and his Democratic party were issued a stinging defeat in the mid-term elections as the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and installed themselves in 22 governor's mansio

A nation holds its collective breath. America's pivotal election is today. We will either put the brakes on the Democrat-socialists' drive to transform us into a failing European-style social democracy or we continue to hurtle toward the cliff of no return. Voters have waited through long, suffering months to make their voices heard at last. Democrats have made an unprecedented mockery of representative government, ignoring the will of the people with arrogant disdain. Elitist hypocrites who campaigned on "love" for the poor party hearty on the hard-earned money of America's producers, jet to debauchery-ridden Europe to scorn our good name,...

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is frustrated. He recently spoke to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and complained that we are in "a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don't weigh in. It's all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap-seat politics." He'd really like to elect a new people. Now, that last bit -- cheap-seat politics -- is the kicker. How truly awful it must be for the Senate's richest man -- wealthier than the Senate's Rockefeller -- to have to put up with those of us in the cheap seats. Brahmins from Boston have...

Judging by the treatment of U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell in Delaware the elite hacks of the sham two-party system are determined that the outcome of the 2010 election should send a clear message to the grassroots Americans who are reacting against the elite betrayal of their nation and its principles: when it comes to running for office people who believe as they do, and have troubles like theirs, need not apply. They especially want to make it clear that anyone who has had problems making ends meet must consider themselves unqualified to run for public office. Considering the difficulties...

AMERICAN HERO VIDEO

Just seven days after he sparked controversy by omitting the word “Creator” when he closely paraphrased the passage from the Declaration of Independence that says all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” President Barack Obama again omitted the Creator when speaking about the “inalienable rights” that “everybody is endowed with.”This time the president was speaking at a Sept. 22 fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, and his reference to “inalienable rights” was not as close a paraphrasing of the...

Bilderberg. Whether you believe it’s part of a sinister conspiracy which will lead inexorably to one world government or whether you think it’s just an innocent high-level talking shop, there’s one thing that can’t be denied: it knows which way the wind is blowing. (Hat tips: Will/NoIdea/Ozboy) At its June meeting in Sitges, Spain (unreported and held in camera, as is Bilderberg’s way), some of the world’s most powerful CEOs rubbed shoulders with notable academics and leading politicians. They included: the chairman of Fiat, the Irish Attorney General Paul Gallagher, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke,...

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express have roared right through the latest round of Republican Party primaries this week, rattling the party establishment and terrifying the Democrats. For those of you who are trained in the fastidious ways of the British ‘liberalism’ and are therefore shocked and can’t think why the American Right is gaining such strength, here’s the reason: Barack Obama. Americans are waking up to the fact that they have elected a man as president who is every inch an exotic creature. Which was rather fun at first. The problem is, America is discovering that Mr Obama...

I don't know about you, but when I paint fixtures with a sloppy broad brush, I make sure to wear my finest, most expensive designer shirts. Just like Michelle Obama.Below are photos of Michelle "Antoinette" Obama wearing a $207.90 t-shirt by Tom Binns and John Eshaya at a National Day of Service and Remembrance event at the Vinson Hall Retirement Community in McLean, Va. on Saturday.I suppose if she got paint on it she can claim it as a charitable deduction. The rich are just different from us.AP photosA woman lucky enough to have a job in the Obama economy...