Free Republic

Senate Dems’ Ignored America’s Opposition And All Voted For Government-Run Health Care, But They’ll Finally Hear The People In November ALL SIXTY DEMOCRAT SENATORS JUST VOTED FOR REID’S BILLEvery Democrat Senator, With No Republicans, Voted For Cloture. (Motion To Invoke Cloture On The Reid Amendment #3267, Roll Call Vote #385, Agreed To R: 0-40 R; D: 58-0; I: 2-0, 12/21/09)THEY DIDN’T LISTEN TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLEPolling Confirms The Obama-Reid Bill is “A Piece Of Legislation That Large Swaths Of The American People Neither Want Nor Think Will Work.” “The White House -- as we wrote yesterday (see link in comment...

Our president is quite the angry man these days. Perhaps his heart is two sizes too small, or maybe he just hates the residents of Who-ville (and “bitter Americans clinging to guns and religion” here in America.) Perhaps being forced by public opinion to retain the “religious” aspect of White House Christmas decorations has placed our man in Washington in a foul mood. Perhaps, it is the fact that he is now the most unpopular president ever recorded this early into a first term. Perhaps it’s because his “stimulus bill” that in his mind has been so successful it calls...

Have you taken a second look at Sarah Palin lately? Maybe we conservatives should. Hey! I'm JUST SAYING......! I must tell you that anytime a conservative, candidate or not, strikes fear in the hearts of the Socialists, Marxists, Communists, and Progressives in the Congress, the White House, and the leftist Mainstream Media in America, we conservatives are selling ourselves short -- if we do not sit up and take notice and, at least, try to determine what, about this particular conservative, is driving "those people" mad. Of course, like so many other conservatives it bothers me , greatly, that she...

Leadership: Alaska's ex-governor asks a question we'd like answered: Why is California's current governor pushing the same policies in Copenhagen that helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? The movie series that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name involved cyborgs traveling through time to alternately try to destroy or save one John Connor, who would grow up to be the leader of the resistance against a race of machines that ruled the planet. Prominent in the series was his tough cookie of a mom, Sarah Connor. Another Sarah has taken the lead in another resistance against another group...

In the Grand Ceremonial Hall of the University of Copenhagen, a splendid Nordic classical space overlooking the Church of our Lady in the heart of the old city, rows of repellent, blue plastic chairs surrounded the podium from which no less a personage than Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, was to speak. I had arrived in good time to take my seat among the dignitaries in the front row. Rapidly, the room filled with enthusiastic Greenies and enviro-zombs waiting to hear the latest from ye Holy Bookes of Ipecac, yea verily. The official party shambled in and perched...

Regulations: The Clean Water Act is being rewritten to give a government bureaucracy the power to regulate every body of water from the Mississippi River to a rain-flooded field. The first casualty may be American coal. With all the concern for the harm that cap-and-trade and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant might do to the American economy and free markets, the Environmental Protection Agency is doing quite enough damage with an existing law on the books — the Clean Water Act. Congress plans to revise it to make it an even more powerful bludgeon against industry, energy producers and...

Politics: If the Democrats' stitched-together Frankenstein monster of health care reform gets the 60 votes to get through the Senate, it will have been done through an assortment of bribes and brass knuckles. (snip) Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, has also been critical of the buy-in and public option, but he has an additional issue about whatever comes out of the Senate not involving public funding of abortion in any way. Michael Goldfarb on the Weekly Standard blog quotes a Senate aide as saying the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the...

<p>"Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment?" Palin wrote on her Facebook page. "Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation's only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change."</p>

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is delivering his big speech in Copenhagen right now -- but before he took the stage he offered an opening salvo -- a whack at fellow Republican Sarah Palin who has expressed skepticism about global warming. The FT, which is on quite a roll: The California governor has become an environmental standard bearer for the Republican party, which is split on the merits of curbing emissions. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, has attacked cap and trade and questioned any link between man-made emissions and global warming. “You have to ask:...

Climate Control Zealots want to force the U.S. into 3rd world status and forcibly reduce and control the population of earth...what they say: “My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.” “Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.” “The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.“

TEA PARTY II - APRIL 15, 2010. Tax Day Tea Party II: April 15, 2010 in D.C. It all started with Tax Day Tea Party 2009, which brought approximately a million Americans out to support the American liberty movement and oppose the outrageous growth of our federal government and the associated threats on our long-held American liberties. On April 15, 2010, the movement continues at the U.S. Capitol and Washington Mall in Washington, D.C. with Tax Day Tea Party II. Quite simply, Tax Day Tea Party II will be the largest Tea Party ever held, and we expect it...

Organizers of the conservative Tea Party movement are forging plans to translate the anger that fueled nationwide anti-tax rallies and town hall protests into an electoral force that can boot incumbents in next year's midterm elections. Their targets range from big names like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to county assessors. The East Bay Freedom Fighters, a Tea Party group based in the Pleasanton area, is already vetting 43 Bay Area candidates, many of them first time office-seekers. Other branches in California are gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would restrict the political...

There are very few brave politicians in the world. Most of them mince their words and tell you what they think you want to hear. Brave politicians are ones who speak their mind. They tell you exactly how they feel, consequences be damned. Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King is among that rare breed.

Law: American heroes are arraigned for allegedly punching a terrorist in wartime. What happens to Tiger Woods isn't vital to our country's future. What happens to Matthew McCabe, Julio Huertas and Jonathan Keefe is. People are more likely to recognize the names of Tiger's alleged bimbo eruptions than the names of these three Navy SEALs we sent into battle. They are not household names in a nation consumed with Climate Gate, the public option and the antics of billionaire athletes. An administration consumed with apologies has said the architect of 9/11's massacre, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, must be given all the...

Eminent Domain: Four years after the Supreme Court told a Connecticut homeowner that no one's house is safe from developers, Brooklyn homeowners may lose their homes to a pro basketball team. On June 3, 2005, by a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively repealed the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, deciding that your constitutional right to be secure in your home didn't matter if your state or community decided your property could produce more revenue as a shopping mall or condominium development. Pfizer coveted Susette Kelo's working-class neighborhood for an office park and condominium complex. The city fathers...

Palin Derangement Syndrome was on full display Monday evening when HLN's Joy Behar invited the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan on to trash the former Governor of Alaska. At issue fully fifteen months after Sarah Palin was thrust into the limelight as John McCain's running mate was whether or not Trig is actually her son. Behar began the segment: "Sarah Palin may have been coy on the Oprah Show about a possible White House run in 2012. But new poll numbers show she`s a contender. Oy." This evoked laughter from crew members on the set. Behar then introduced her guest, and after...

Two weeks ago, an Iowa poll showed Palin trailing Huckabee by just two points, 70% to 68%, in favorability ratings among Iowa Republicans. She easily outdistanced Mitt Romney, who garnered only 58 percent. Despite a media onslaught attempting to spin the Clemmons story, Huckabee's credibility has taken a serious hit. Even those who boosted him to victory in the 2008 Iowa Caucus are questioning the former Arkansas governor's judgment.

WASHINGTON – Officials tell The Associated Press that the Environmental Protection Agency has concluded greenhouse gases are endangering people's health and must be regulated. The EPA will announced its findings at a news conference Monday. The announcement is timed to boost the Obama administration's arguments at an international climate conference — beginning this week — that the United States is taking actions to combat global warming, even though Congress has yet to act on climate legislation. Under a Supreme Court ruling, the so-called endangerment finding is needed before the EPA can regulate carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases released...

Here is a list of 2012 candidates. Generally, I am dwelling on the negatives as this is what is going to limit them in their ability to win but will mention any unique positives. Please share your thoughts on these or any other potential candidates. Romney - Romneycare is an albatross. He is a Mormon which impacts appeal. Is popular in Michigan due to his father. Sometimes comes across like a used car salesman. Is probably more conservative than his record and gets a bad rap due to his need to make compromises to get elected in The People's Republic....

Union Violence: An African-American is beaten up at a political rally by thugs shouting racial epithets, and after three months his assailants are charged with the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Why wasn't it a hate crime? The beating of Kenneth Gladney by people wearing the purple shirts of the Service Employees International Union outside a Missouri health care town hall meeting three months ago met all the classic definitions of a hate crime. Time was, the beating of a black man outside a protest rally, and the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, would be headline news. Gladney was working...

Sarah Palin may or may not run for president in 2012, but she is already the overwhelming favorite in the Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck primaries. In a new Washington Post poll, Palin beats other GOP leaders on two questions: who best represents the party's core values, and who Republicans would vote for if the presidential nomination battle were held today. But she has particular appeal to the loyal followers of Limbaugh and Beck, two of the most popular conservative talk show hosts in the country.

Originally I just saw a "thread pulled" message, but now it has: "Site has links to trutherism, don’t post it here again" So now content is banned because the site *links* to objectionable content? I'd suggest that's true of most major news outlets for one thing. "Free"republic should support "free speech", it's one of the cornerstones and strengths of our system. Censorship is the antithesis of the American system.

War On Terror: As Khalid Sheikh Mohammed receives the benefits of U.S. justice, three Navy SEALs face court-martial for allegedly punching a captured terrorist who hanged Americans from a bridge in Fallujah. Apparently our efforts to impress the world about the marvels of our criminal justice system require us to give foreign terrorists such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the man who invented the manned cruise missiles that flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and plowed into a Pennsylvania field on its way to the Capitol Building, the full rights and protections of the American citizens he conspired...

The Obama Administration burst onto the presidency with a historic wealth of good will, hope and change. It is now marked by one failure after another. Unfortunately, these failures are not without costs. The heavy burden is born by consumers, taxpayers and to generations yet to come. Nearly one year later we have an economy heading in the wrong direction, unemployment rising, a deficit that will double, banks failing, a war command which is virtually ignored, 911 terrorists given all the rights at a civil trial and an Administration hell bent on destroying rather than "reforming" the world's best health...

RASMUSSEN: Obama Poll Drops to New Low: -15 Strongly Approve 27% Strongly Disapprove 42% Total Approval 45%

Yesterday you undoubtedly saw my letter to The Chinese Premier. Today, it's your turn. You could have made quite a splash over there in China - and made a difference for all Americans. But instead, you did nothing of the sort - you simply continued the sell-out that has been going on for the last two decades in the so-called "strong relationship" between China and America. That "strength" has included selling China advanced radar technology allowing them to shortcut 20 years of development time off their ICBM targeting, making their nuclear weapons far more lethal to potential targets - including...

Obama was the subject of many a pundit’s admiration. So smart! So worldly! Harvard Law Review. And so eloquent. That his speeches upon further reflection were practically unintelligible or self-parodies (are we the ones we have been waiting for? are the oceans really going to recede?) didn’t much matter. He was so smart.

I don't typically watch Oprah. But I won't miss Monday's interview with Sarah Palin. The appearance is supposed to be about Ms. Palin's new memoir, but a lot more will be riding on the encounter than book sales. After last year's brutal presidential campaign, Ms. Palin is now reintroducing herself to the American public. Nothing less than her future in American politics—and a possible run for the White House in 2012—hangs in the balance. Ms. Palin has two problems. The first is that she's become one of the most polarizing figures in the country. The second is that voters continue...

Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a "climate emergency." As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the "trigger" placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee. As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points...

Obummer said this morning that his policies have saved or created 1 million jobs. NOTE: No one can verify this fuzzy math. Obummer's HOPE and CHANGE = VAGUENESS and AMBIGUITY at best which does not bode well for Americans. With rel unemployment at 10% (many contend it is much higher) and rising this guy is now suggesting a December Jobs summit at the Whitehouse so they can TAAAAALK about job creation some more. Pathetic, just PATHETIC!

Federal Bench: Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution. Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also another in a series of activist judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is not...

Former President Bill Clinton told a room full of Democratic senators Tuesday that passing health care reform — which he failed to do 15 years ago — is not only a moral issue but also “an economic imperative.” Clinton argued that even “the most cold-hearted person” ought to support health care reform simply from an economic standpoint. He reminded Democrats of the political momentum their failure to pass reform in 1993 delivered the House of Representatives to the Republicans the following year… Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Clinton described the ongoing tea party protests against the Democratic agenda as a...

Health Care Reform: Failure to buy health insurance in the just-passed health care bill could get you five years in jail with a $250,000 fine. How can violating a law that's unconstitutional be a felony? The passage last Saturday night of the House health care measure by a fragile 220-215 margin may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. In polls, townhall meetings and tea parties, Americans have shown they don't want a "reform" that costs a staggering $1.2 trillion yet fails to meet the left's desire of insuring all the uninsured. And they certainly don't want a bill that...

We just saw the worst terror attack on America since 9/11. And Obama couldn’t adjust his schedule to support our grieving troops. Instead, we got his subtle defense of the perp: Unwilling to use the word “terror,” let alone the phrase “Islamist terror,” Obama warned us not to “rush to judgment.” Let me kill the harassment myth right now: Political correctness rules in today’s Army. We even protect our enemies these days. Had any soldier harassed Hasan because of his Islamist nuttiness, that soldier would’ve disappeared faster than a Franklin on a Times Square sidewalk. Any snarky remarks directed toward...

President Barack Obama will leave the country for a four-nation tour of Asia starting Wednesday despite a host of domestic concerns, including the massacre at Fort Hood, a sharply rising jobless rate, his health care legislation stalled in the Senate and his Afghanistan troop decision still pending. He planned his Nov. 11-19 trip around the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Singapore, but added stops in Japan, China and South Korea. The itinerary reflects the growing importance of East Asia — especially China — to everything from financing U.S. debt and powering the global economic recovery to climate change, disease...

Like many Americans, I’m very concerned about the efforts underway to rush through the 2,000 page Pelosi health care bill this weekend. Why the rush? That’s a lot of pages to read. Why not give everyone the chance to read it and debate it? How much will this bill cost us? It’s unclear because the figures coming out of Washington keep changing – and always in the direction of costing more, not less. The latest numbers show it will cost more than a trillion dollars over the decade, but when has a government program ever come in on or under...

For all that's transpired since his election as president, public opinion has not moved on the big issue, the current economy. The question a year later is how long Obama's got until it goes up, or he goes down – possibly with his party in tow. Health care reform draws a divided public response as well, with support for a variety of initiatives coupled with significant concern that they could do more harm than good. Some of Obama's best ratings lately have been in handling international affairs, contrary to questions during the 2008 campaign about his readiness for the global...

IBD has a very important article on the fool Biden and how Governor Palin could not be more correct on US energy needs and reserves. This is the most significant security issue facing America and demonstrates why the left is so dangerous and anti-American. 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...

WASHINGTON – Ignoring a Republican boycott, Senate Democrats pushed a precedent-setting climate bill through a key committee Thursday. Rep. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, had delayed the crucial vote for days because of a Republican protest over whether the cost of the legislation had been fully examined. But the California Democrat moved quickly to pass the bill, which for the first time would set mandatory limits on heat-trapping gases, without any of the seven GOP senators on the panel present. The measure cleared the panel on a 11-1 vote. Boxer said the Republican demand...

Junk Science: The oracle of climate disaster has a new book out on global warming that should be on the fiction list. He asks us to commit economic suicide while he rakes in millions from his green investments. 'Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis," Al Gore's sequel to his 2006 tome "An Inconvenient Truth," came out Tuesday. Printed on recycled paper using low-VOC (volatile organic compound) ink, it will undoubtedly be a best-seller and on the desk of every attendee at next month's climate change conference in Copenhagen. In a press release announcing the book, the Oscar-...

President Obama is pursuing a "radical" agenda that is putting the economy and national security in peril, talk show host Rush Limbaugh told "Fox News Sunday," giving the young president failing grades across the board and standing by his sustained criticism of the administration. The conservative radio host assailed the administration for its economic stimulus package, health care reform plan and alleged uncertainty over the way forward in Afghanistan. In a wide-ranging interview, he called Obama a "child" driven by his "out-of-this-world ego." And he predicted that Obama, who built a broad-based majority over Republican candidate John McCain a year...

AYN RAND AND THE WORLD SHE MADE By Anne C. Heller Illustrated. 567 pp. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. $35A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt. In Ayn Rand’s libertarian epic “Atlas Shrugged,” Galt, an inventor disgusted by creeping American collectivism, leads the country’s capitalists on a retributive strike. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it,” Galt lectures the “looters” and “moochers” who make up the populace. “We have no demands to present you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise...

Is the New IRS Wealth Squad Coming for You? Smart Money, Oct. 27, 2009 Being wealthy has its downsides, chief among them the higher risk of an IRS audit. Now, amid the continuing debate over whether the government is doing enough to combat financial fraud, comes news that gives the uber-wealthy – or maybe even the “merely” wealthy – yet another reason to fear Uncle Sam’s attention. In a speech before the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, or AICPA, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman announced the recent formation of a new unit, dubbed Global High Wealth Industry Group, which will focus on the...

Health Reform: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says it's constitutional to mandate insurance coverage. Congress, he insists, has "broad authority" to make us buy things to provide for the "general welfare." Democrats' Alice In Wonderland interpretation of what they consider to be a "living Constitution," where words mean what they say they mean based on political considerations, gets more bizarre by the minute. (snip) We've been down this road before. In 1994, Hillary Clinton's secretive health care task force was trying to nationalize health care. "A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of...

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. The...

First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio. Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it. Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions...

Mafioso, Goon Squad, Communist, Nazi, Jihadi, Democrat politics as usual--whatever you want to call the thuggish tactics of the Obama administration, the very public threats they are making to the news media to not follow the lead of Fox News in questioning Obama's policies and personnel is a direct threat to the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.This morning on the Sunday talk shows, speaking on behalf of President Barack Obama, senior Obama advisers David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel carried on the war initiated by White House communictions director Anita Dunn last week on CNN.Axelrod appeared on ABC News' This...

Media Bias: Not long after pro football welcomed a convicted felon back on the playing field, Rush Limbaugh is dropped for his opinions from a group seeking to buy an NFL franchise. Won't someone throw a flag? When even Keith Olbermann says back off, you know the politically correct critics of the conservative icon and megaradio talk host's proposed part ownership of the St. Louis Rams are guilty of piling on. The prospect of the leading conservative voice in America participating in the purchase of a football team sent the liberal elites into cardiac arrest and into a frenzied campaign...

Politics: Democrats say Rush Limbaugh is running the Republican Party. Better Rush than George Soros, who is running the Democrats. At least Rush believes in freedom, capitalism and letting you keep what you earn.The cover of the March 7 issue of Newsweek shows a picture of conservative icon Limbaugh with a piece of tape covering his mouth and the word "Enough!" So much for disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it. Voltaire could never be a contributor to Newsweek. But David Frum is, and his inside cover story, "Why Rush Is Wrong,"...

Public Discourse: Our energy secretary applauds and encourages companies to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its position on climate change. Should any Cabinet secretary, with the powers of government behind him, be threatening U.S. companies? Part of the climate-change mantra is that the debate is over and the science is settled. Just to make sure, environmental groups have sought to pressure businesses to go green or at least keep silent. Now it would appear the whole weight of the federal government is being thrown behind this campaign to coerce and silence real and potential opposition. On Thursday, Steven...