Free Republic

While we were all focused on the New Hampshire presidential primary yesterday, President Obama introduced his final budget plan complete with a whopping $3.4 trillion dollar tax hike for American families. ATR has the details: The President's adjusted baseline predicts revenues of $43.1 trillion over the ten year window, while his proposed budget calls for revenues totaling $46.5 trillion - an increase of $3.4 trillion. The Obama budget will result in massive new taxes on already overtaxed American families. Many of Obama's new tax hikes violate the spirit - if not the letter -- of Obama's "firm pledge" against "any form...

...Bernie's speech was delivered with profound sincerity and conviction, and his supporters were wildly enthusiastic. His delivery was excellent. It was the content I found to be not just troubling, but frightening. I've never in my life heard such unapologetic, full-throated socialism in American politics. Sanders is the real deal. He's so left-wing he practically makes Obama look like the chairman of the Republican National Committee. At least Obama felt compelled to lie about the true extent of his leftism. Sanders doesn't - and he isn't kidding around. This is damn near Clement Attlee and Fabian socialist-type stuff. True, he's...

The old politician saw is: “The most dangerous place for you in Washington – is between (fill in name of pol) and a camera.” We’ll coin a government saw: “The most dangerous place for you anywhere on the planet – is government between you and the free market.”Any and every tax, law and regulation – is government placing itself between you and the free market. And, conversely, between the free market and you. And, of course, it makes the market less free. It’s inherent. The bigger the tax – the less money you have for the market, and the less...

Iowa and New Hampshire dominate the early campaigning, the early reporting and the early punditry in every four-year presidential cycle. But Iowa and New Hampshire have spoken, each in its own unique accent. Now the race moves to two states quite different from the first two, and also quite different from each other. In Nevada, the contest takes on a Spanish inflection for the first time. The Democrats will be here first, for Saturday caucuses on Feb. 20. Clinton has had a lead in the limited polling done in the state, and Sanders has yet to have much of a...

While a TSA agent pawed my hair bun this weekend, presumably on high alert for improvised explosive bobby pins, I pondered the latest news on the Somalia airplane terror attack. Intelligence officials released video footage of airport employees in Mogadishu handing a laptop to a jihadist suspect before he boarded Daallo Airlines Airbus Flight D3159 last week. The device allegedly contained a bomb that exploded on the plane, which created a massive hole out of which the bomber was fatally sucked. Two other passengers were injured in the blast before the pilot successfully made an emergency landing. Several airport workers...

One in five Americans do not get equal justice under the law ... because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is simply too large, its scope is too wide, and it has long passed its ability to provide equal justice and to contribute as a functional court system... [T]here are 65 million people living within the boundaries of the Ninth Circuit. That represents 20 percent of the total population of the United States -- one in five Americans. That is almost two times as many people as there are in the next biggest circuit in the U.S....

As I was saying at the dawn of this day: 1) Trump; 2) Kasich; 3) Rubio; 4) Bush; 5) Cruz. Number One and Two were correct, and at this hour Numbers Three, Four and Five are all jostling together at 11 per cent, but with Cruz third and Rubio fifth. On the Democrat side I noted the midnight vote tallies from Dixville Notch, Hart's Location and Millsfield: Sanders 17 Clinton 9 [snipped text about Dem race] On the Republican side, Trump won yuge: 35 per cent in a nine-man race, and more than twice as many votes as the second-placed...

One trillion dollars—that’s how much the government spent last year on means-tested welfare aid, providing cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor and low-income individuals. The food stamp program is the nation’s second largest welfare program. The number of food stamp recipients has risen dramatically, from 17.2 million in 2000 to 45.8 million in 2015. Costs have soared over the same period, from $20.7 billion in 2000 to $83.1 billion in 2014. The most rapid growth in the food stamp caseload in recent years has been among able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). These are work-capable adult recipients...

Despite Donald Trump's victory in New Hampshire, what is the chance that Republicans will nominate Ted Cruz and that he will go on to win the presidency? The website ElectionBettingOdds gives Cruz a 14.5 percent chance of winning the nomination -- his victory in the Iowa caucuses and what looks like a third place showing in New Hampshire notwithstanding. It puts his chances of actually winning the presidency at 4.3 percent. But let's say Cruz beats the odds and wins the nomination. One of the most conservative members of the Senate, Cruz would test the argument made by leaders of...

The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that it identified an automated attack on its computer systems aimed at getting information that could be used to steal tax refunds. The agency said identity thieves last month used personal data of taxpayers that was stolen elsewhere in an attempt to generate e-file personal identification numbers to file fraudulent returns and claim tax refunds.

Bernie Sanders’ campaign has finally threatened Hillary Clinton’s winning margin enough that the mainstream media can no longer ignore him. However, much of the their discussion on Sanders still revolves around asking the same, tired question: Is America ready to elect a socialist? Putting aside the tired refrain that Bernie’s actually a Democratic Socialist — which Sanders and Larry David joked on SNL last weekend is a “huuuuuge difference” — recent polls actually have some surprising things to say about American’s attitudes towards socialism, suggesting that “socialism” is not quite as toxic of a word as the media seems to...

Will the GOP establishment steal the 2016 nomination from Donald Trump even if the magnate arrives in Cleveland with the most pledged delegates but short of the 50 percent he'd need to be nominated? Is a back-room deal in the works to have a "brokered convention" to deny Trump the GOP nod? I think there is such a plan and it must be exposed. Donald Trump is our last hope to make Washington work for us - not the lobbyists, special interests and billionaire donors who control the corroded two-party system. As Trump says: "America is going to hell!" I...

Weekly Standard founder Bill Kristol was once again the butt of the political joke on Tuesday after his latest faulty prediction — in this case, his take on the New Hampshire GOP presidential primary. Last week, Kristol forecast a win for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) not too far behind in second and Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich bringing up the rear, tagging his Twitter prediction #NoGutsNoGlory, as seen below:

Recalled one attendee: 'She [Hillary] sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director.' Mrs. Ted (Heidi) Cruz IS a Goldman Sachs managing director.

Our judicial branch of government is irrevocably broken, even more so than the other two branches. To begin with, the entire premise of the judiciary being the final arbiter over constitutional questions is wrong. They have usurped power beyond the imagination of our Founders, even those who were skeptical of Article III. Worse, they refuse to use the Constitution as originally conceived as the guideline for determining the constitutionality of laws. Finally, even when applying the Constitution or statutes to relevant cases, they are incapable of divorcing their political views from legal arguments. ...overturning Obama's executive amnesty is the quintessential...

The D.C. fire department's medical director, hired last year to help reform an agency beset by failures in response times and patient care, is resigning, saying her proposals have been blocked and that "people are dying needlessly because we are moving too slow." Jullette M. Saussy is ending her eight-month tenure by delivering a scathing indictment of the District's new fire chief and what she calls his refusal to end a culture of indifference that she contends endangers residents' lives.

NEW YORK -- When Hillary Clinton spoke to Goldman Sachs executives and technology titans at a summit in Arizona in October of 2013, she spoke glowingly of the work the bank was doing raising capital and helping create jobs, according to people who saw her remarks. Clinton, who received $225,000 for her appearance, praised the diversity of Goldman's workforce and the prominent roles played by women at the blue-chip investment bank and the tech firms present at the event. She spent no time criticizing Goldman or Wall Street more broadly for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. "It was...

Hillary Clinton’s White House campaign is going negative against her left-wing rival Bernie Sanders — and a lot of unaligned Democrats think that’s a bad idea. Her husband, former President Clinton, is leading the charge, hitting Sanders supporters as sexist on Sunday while accusing the Vermont senator of muddying facts. The attacks come as Hillary Clinton faces a defeat — perhaps a heavy one — in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, according to opinion polls.

The GOP presidential race is moving to South Carolina, which hosts its primary on Saturday, February 20. A lot can and will change before then, but one thing is clear when looking at polls in the Palmetto State: Donald Trump entered Tuesday as the frontrunner in South Carolina, and he’ll remain the frontrunner after his dominant performance in New Hampshire.

Top Democratic politicians and committees have taken tens of thousands in contributions from individuals who work at firms that lobby on behalf of Koch Industries, despite railing against Koch's influence for years, according to campaign finance filings. Charles and David Koch, the billionaire libertarian philanthropists and heavyweight political donors, have been at the center of the Democrats' "dark money" campaign finance battle in recent years. Democrats have charged that Republican politicians who receive funds from the Koch network are "beholden" to their political agenda. However, individuals who work at firms that actually do represent Koch interests have also poured money...