Free Republic

A cancer is eating away at a once Grand Old Party, and if the party doesn't wake up and take precautions, it may wind up only a shadow of its better self -- a hollowed-out refuge for haters and paranoids and the kind of ideological parasites that can reduce a major party to a minor one. The historian Richard Hofstadter spoke of a "paranoid style in American politics," and noted its "sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy." He called it "an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life," one that it isn't confined to left or right....

Once mocked and derided -as conservatives are today- JBS warnings now appear to have been prescient... The John Birch Society was founded in 1958 by Robert Welch, a retired candy manufacturer who saw collectivism as the main threat to western civilization. What he feared and intended to fight on the home-front were useful-idiot-type liberals serving as what he called 'secret communist traitors'- these fellow Americans were providing cover for a move towards one-world socialist government (stuff that used to sound kind of crazy at most any point in time prior to the bizarre Obammunist era). The organization took its name from an...

Gun-free zones are invitations to mass murder, gun-rights advocates argued after a lone gunman's shooting rampage at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, Friday left 20 children and six adults dead. John Lott, author of the controversial 1999 bestseller More Guns, Less Crime, said in an interview with Newsmax.com Saturday it is no coincidence that mass shootings with multiple victims occur repeatedly in designated gun-free zones such as schools, shopping malls, and movie theaters. "The problem is, whether it is the Portland [Oregon] shooting earlier this week, or the Connecticut shooting Friday, or the Sikh temple attack in...

The family of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry is suing federal officials and a gun shop over the botched “Fast and Furious” gunrunning operation that remains a dark stain on the Obama administration’s disgraced Justice Department. Terry was shot and killed on December 14, 2010, during a firefight north of the Arizona-Mexico border between border agents and men who had crossed the southern border to rob a group of drug smugglers. Assault rifles obtained by a straw buyer for the gunrunning ring targeted in the Fast and Furious operation were found in the aftermath of the firefight. To add...

“Anyone who embarks on a study of Abraham Lincoln … must first come to terms with the Lincoln myth. The effort to penetrate the crust of legend that surrounds Lincoln … is both a formidable and intimidating task. Lincoln, it seems, requires special considerations that are denied to other figures.” — Robert W. Johannsen Lincoln, the South, and Slavery Indeed, it would not seem a safe time to critique the wisdom, motivations, and character of Abraham Lincoln. Steven Spielberg’s reverential motion picture epic Lincoln fills screens across America. The public increasingly accepts him as America’s greatest leader. Academics from the...

Fifty years ago today, the life work of Alger Hiss came to fruition. Hiss, a US State Department official, served the United Nations as its acting Secretary General during its founding conference in the spring of 1945. On October 24, 1945 the United Nations Charter became effective as a majority of the countries that had signed it ratified their signatures. Several years later, Hiss went to a federal penitentiary for committing perjury when testifying that he was not a Soviet agent. His personal career was over, but his most important work, the United Nations, lived on. Globalists everywhere are today...

As the nation faces a crucial election in a little over six months, the Republican Party appears to be caving in on a social issue that many conservatives consider of major import: same-sex marriage. What the GOP felt strongly enough about some 16 years ago to lead the fight for passage of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), many members are beginning to consider an issue open to compromise. Not only do many Republican House and Senate members consider “gay” marriage a “dead issue,” according to Politico.com, but Republican leadership has “evolved” to the point that it has quietly...

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is under fire in South Carolina for touting his alleged pro-life beliefs but voting to subsidize abortion and Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in America, while serving in the U.S. Senate. He has also backed pro-abortion candidates and voted for legislation that is being used to federally prosecute peaceful pro-life protesters who demonstrate outside of abortion clinics. Critics are outraged.The once top-tier Republican candidate, who surged into the spotlight after an unexpected strong finish in Iowa before a disastrous showing in New Hampshire, defended himself against the attacks by lashing out at fellow...

In a recent article published by The Daily Beast, its Washington bureau chief, Howard Kurtz, reasoned that if “moderate” Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination for President, he’ll need to choose a running mate with the conservative bona fides to balance the ticket. While the notion that Mitt Romney is "on the verge of sewing up the Republican nomination" is still just a neo-con fantasy (especially in light of Ron Paul’s surging poll numbers and his respectable showing in Iowa and New Hampshire), pundits and soi disant opinion makers have suggested that the former Governor of Massachusetts choose a VP...

I received the link to this video clip in a recent email and I don’t know what to make of it. Years ago I remember my Dad (God rest his soul) contributing to the John Birch Society whenever possible. They seem to be pro-conservative and pro-Constitutional. Pardon me if I am among the last to learn all the information contained in this video. I find it quite disconcerting. I’m one of the ones who just loved (and prayed nightly) for Sarah Palin and thought for sure she was going to run. When that didn’t happen, I then looked to Bachmann,...

John F. McManus anaylzes the voting record and actions of former Congressman Newt Gingrich, revealing that Gingrich is not the conservative he portrays himself to be.

50 years later,  history is proving them right- as it will soon enough the TEA Party The John Birch Society was founded in 1958 by Robert Welch, a retired candy manufacturer who saw collectivism as the main threat to Western Civilization, with useful-idiot-type liberals serving as "secret communist traitors" that provided cover for a move towards world socialist government   The organization took its name from an American Baptist missionary (and US intelligence officer) who was shot dead by Red Chinese forces in August 1945, therefore it was that John Birch was honored as 'first fatality of the Cold War'.  The agenda was...

The article focused on Perry’s comments at a Border Summit speech in south Texas (8-22-01), days before the 9-11 attacks, about bi-national health insurance — Texas-funded coverage for both U.S. and Mexican border residents. The governor’s statement favored a study, required by the Legislature, about "the feasibility of bi-national health insurance.” The DMN continued, "Katherine Cesinger, spokeswoman for Perry’s campaign, downplayed the topic of bi-national health insurance. 'A bill was passed by the Legislature that authorized a study to look into this issue, which ultimately concluded there were numerous barriers to accomplishing that idea, and the Legislature took no further...

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Industrialists who own private company with annual revenues of £62bn have channelled millions of dollars to rightwing causes It likes to present itself as a grassroots insurgency made up of hundreds of local groups intent on toppling the Washington elite. But the Tea Party movement, which is threatening to cause an upset in next month's midterm elections, would not be where it is today without the backing of that most traditional of US political supporters – Big Oil.

This Matthew Continetti  cover story — on Glenn Beck, Rick Santelli, and the Tea Party — from the latest Weekly Standard has recently been the locus of a bit of internecine warfare on the right.One of Beck's producers called it "intentionally misleading," a "collection of lies," and "a hit piece barely worthy of Media Matters." He also provided a toll-free number readers could use to cancel their subscriptions to TWS (while bizarrely claiming that he didn't support boycotts).Now, Beck and his associates have been known to avail themselves of the full emotive power of the English language to press home...

Things that are going on today with the economy, and how the goverenmet is handling all of it, was specifically predicted back in 1958 by Robert Welch.

On March 19, 2010, Jerome Corsi’s weekly financial strategies newsletter, "RedAlert," reported that Canada‘s Manitoba province is devoting a portion of its website to promoting Canada’s portion of the NAFTA Superhighway system, the Mid-Continent Trade Corridor. While interested parties, especially the State of Texas and many national publications, have downplayed or denied that plans even exist to build Superhighways from Mexico through Canada, our northern neighbors have gone full steam ahead with their plans to augment this system. The website displays a map showing the connection of the Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor with the much-vilified American NAFTA Superhighway (IH-35)...

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill that would allow the President to imprison an unlimited number of American citizens (as well as foreigners) indefinitely without trial. Known as The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, or S. 3081, the bill authorizes the President to deny a detainee a trial by jury simply by designating that person an “enemy belligerent.” The bill, which has eight cosponsors, explicitly names U.S. citizens as among those who can be detained indefinitely without trial: An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent...

Watching my fellow members of the media try to dissect the tea party movement is endlessly amusing. They tend to seize on the first thing they encounter and then employ it to describe the rest. The effect is that of a man approaching a smorgasbord, picking out the boiled potatoes, and then deciding Swedes must be vegetarians. As a connoisseur of conservatism, I like to sample from all the plates. So when the tea partiers congregated on the steps of the Statehouse Thursday, I gravitated to the John Birch Society table. Like the tea partiers, the Birch Society is something...

Israel receives military and financial assistance, and also some diplomatic support at the United Nations, but the US puts pressure on Israel to surrender parts of the homeland... It seems to me a Ron Paul presidency would be good for Israel and for the United States. Its foreign policy non-interventionism and its concern to protect national sovereignty would provide Israel with a greater impetus to increase its own independence and sense of national honor. I hope American Zionists will resist the immediate, meretricious attractions of American financial assistance for Israel. Ron Paul would both end this infantilizing, and even corrupting,...

At the recent CPAC conference, Birch Society President John McManus and the Senior Editor of the Birch Society magazine, The New American, spoke with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC when she dropped by their CPAC booth. Video of Maddow at JBS-CPAC booth: http://www.libertynewsnetwork.tv/?p=101 Since December 2009, Rachel has devoted three segments of her TV program to the Birch Society. During two of those segments, Rachel discussed the Birch Society position on the fluoridation of water supplies. The Birch Society subsequently dismissed her comments as a typical "left-wing smear" of the JBS. It is totally understandable that JBS President John McManus now...

When Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced her support for three prominent Republicans, her Facebook statement entitled “Ride the Tide with Commonsense Candidates” resounded with laudibles such as supporting those who offer “commonsense government,” and those “who promise to fight FOR the people and AGAINST politics as usual.” by Bob Adelmann SOURCE:http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/2806-sarah-palin-enigma

"...G. Vance Smith, a committed Mormon, now leads the Society. Vance Smith is systematically removing people from leadership positions within the John Birch Society and replacing them with Mormons. One gathers that Smith does not feel that he is accountable to the membership concerning his reasons for the replacement of longtime leadership. There seems to be no accountability factor. Longtime Birchers are leaving the Society en masse. There seems to be a major concern that the Society is fast becoming a puppet for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One document that I received suggests that Smith's course...

...Romney’s argument with the Iowa talk-radio host starts with the two discussing their shared affinity for W. Cleon Skousen. “You and I share a common affection for the late Cleon Skousen,” the radio host says. The former governor agrees, affirming Skousen was his professor." Who is Cleon Skousen you might ask? In answering that question, it’s hard to even know where to begin. Skousen was by turns an FBI employee, the police chief of Salt Lake City, a Brigham Young University professor, consigliore to former secretary of agriculture and Mormon president Ezra Taft Benson and, well, all-around nutjob. Skousen was...

Palin announced late Thursday that she would attend SRLC, joining Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as announced speakers. Interestingly, Palin also announced on Thursday that she would not be speaking at CPAC, a gathering of conservatives in Washington in mid February -- a decision, according to those familiar with her thinking, due at least in part to the fact that the John Birch Society is one of the sponsors

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow launched an error-riddled attack against the John Birch Society in her December 18 show, nominally because the John Birch Society has become a sponsor of the upcoming February 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

The John Birch Society Announces CPAC 2010 Cosponsorship JBS to provide leadership, educational presence at nation's top conservative gathering APPLETON, WIS.—December 15, 2009—The John Birch Society announces it is cosponsoring the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2010, to be held in Washington DC, Feb. 18-20. JBS will have a double booth with half dedicated to offering educational and promotional materials and the other half housing a TV studio that will stream live video from the booth and broadcast onto JBS LibertyNewsNetwork.tv, a website that will feature archived JBS video and live video streams. Last year, more than 8,000 attendees were...

Many years ago, John D. Rockefeller, Sr. famously stated, “Competition is a sin.” He preferred a monopoly, the very antithesis of economic freedom, in order to increase profits. A monopoly accomplishes for its creator the opportunity to gouge the public, a consequence generally well-known, and generally despised. There is, however, one commodity existing as a monopoly that the public does not loathe, the creation of money. This monopoly seems to most Americans to be the only way to proceed. They are unaware that our nation once had competing currencies and this competition led to honesty in the field of money....

New York Republican congressional nominee Dede Scozzafava withdrew last weekend from the special election that will take place Tuesday and endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens, in a race where a third party candidate, Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, has become a major contender. Yes, you read that right. In one of the most Republican districts in New York, one that borders Canada, Scozzafava ran up against a mass revolt by mainstream Republicans who charged that her long list of liberal credentials made her a “RINO” or Republican In Name Only. The 23rd congressional district race is this year's only congressional...

Recently declassified documents obtained by Wired magazine reveal a massive Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data mining operation. It already possesses over 1.5 billion records from government and private-sector sources. That figure is expected by the FBI to balloon to over 6 billion within a few years. And it is not just terrorists they are after.  According to the documents, the National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) is being used to pursue multiple types of non-terrorism domestic investigations. It is also meant to be able to sort through the data — everything from health and travel records to credit card...

Many prominent young bloggers say its time conservatives altered their fortunes and cast off those intellectual dead weights who stir up irrational fear. Time to throw off those whose intellectual bankruptcy has left the conservative movement with no credibility in the eyes of the American people. No, they’re not calling for the removal of those writers and political leaders who told us that if we didn’t give the Treasury $700 billion to distribute to corporate America, the world as we know it would end, thus undermining free-market economics. Rather, the talk from young political guns Patrick Ruffini and Jon Henke...

"This isn't a policy speech. It's a speech designed to encourage kids to stay in school," an Obama administration spokesman told the Cable News Network in response to the uproar over the president's planned webcast and TV speech to the nation's schoolchildren on September 8. "The goal of the speech and the lesson plans is to challenge students to work hard, stay in school and dramatically reduce the dropout rate." But many parents have denounced the planned speech as an exercise in propaganda and "brain washing" and some have said they will keep their children out of school that day....

Meacham: So how bad is it, really? Your title doesn't quite declare conservatism dead. Tanenhaus: Quite bad if you prize a mature, responsible conservatism that honors America's institutions, both governmental and societal. The first great 20th-century Republican president, Theo- dore Roosevelt, supported a strong central government that emphasized the shared values and ideals of the nation's millions of citizens. He denounced the harm done by "the trusts"—big corporations. He made it his mission to conserve vast tracts of wilderness and forest. The last successful one, Ronald Reagan, liked to remind people (especially the press) he was a lifelong New Dealer...

People used to say politics makes strange bedfellows. These days, calling any kind of bedfellows strange might qualify as a hate crime. It is probably safer to say that the political highway allows for frequent U-turns, as politicians discover that policies and programs they once decried as ruinous to the republic are now true and righteous. This is nowhere more apparent than in the announcement by the Republican National Committee of a brand new "Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors." The statement calls for legislation to protect Medicare from cuts, ensure that seniors may keep their current coverage, prohibit...

A friend of mine warned that the April 15 tea parties may be infiltrated by the left. Indeed, it would be easy to subvert the tea parties by either using them as Trojan horses to promote conservative-sounding candidates whose intent is to infiltrate, or at least compromising with the left or New World Order. How do we defend ourselves? First we must identify the enemy, which is not necessarily a person or group. It is just as likely to be an idea or trend. Currently there is an insidious trend for even "conservative" media and politicians to avoid mention of...

lthough he officially abandoned his presidential bid last summer, Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s star continues to brighten. Once shunned by the mainstream media and marginalized by the national leadership of the Republican Party, the modest pediatrician-turned-congressman has become something of an éminence grise these days, feted and fawned over by the likes of Fox News, which once dismissed him as a quack. The reason? Dr. Paul’s unexpected fundraising prowess during his presidential campaign turned more than a few heads, and the bestseller status of his book The Revolution: A Manifesto attracted further attention. But besides the growth of his Campaign...

Parts 2 and 3 are below. McManus is President of the Birch Society and he narrated the really cool documentary making the rounds about American government. Interesting to note all the gold China is buying right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dQWmCZDU2c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoPjPgnIgok

Thanks to President Barack Obama, the family of Sgt. Brian McDonnell of the San Francisco Police Department may finally get justice. The Weather Underground, led by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, police believe, murdered McDonnell when they detonated a bomb at the city's Park Police station on February 16, 1970. So during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Obama was revealed as a disciple and associate of Ayers, the bomber's past was resurrected, and now, the San Francisco Officers Police Association and the group America's Survival are publicizing the case to bring Ayers and Dohrn to justice. Says a letter from...

Glenn Beck, Fox News' deranged media personality, has been telling a national television audience that the Obama administration might be setting up secret "concentration camps" to lock up conservatives. The president, Beck believes, may be using FEMA in this conspiratorial drive towards "a totalitarian state." Beck, who has already voiced his affinity for the John Birch Society, is also distributing Birchers' literature to his audiences. If he were just some random right-wing blogger, it would be easier to laugh this off.

Governor Mark Sanford (R) of South Carolina has been a vocal critic of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan and in the process has become one of the most prominent fiscal conservatives in the country. Recently, he made national news when he announced his plan to accept the stimulus funds but sought a waiver from the President to use 25 percent of it to pay down state debt rather than spend it on suggested programs (the other 75 percent is determined by formulas). If Obama doesn’t grant the waiver, Sanford has said he will reject it. Before Sanford was governor, Sanford...

What began early last year as a "credit crunch" and an "economic downturn" is now being characterized as a "long, severe recession." Once upon a time, such a crisis was known as a "depression" before Americans became squeamish about such stark language. As with our reluctant semantic retreat from "credit crunch" to "recession," the reality of another Great Depression will probably not be acknowledged until years after the fact. But America and the rest of the modern world, by doggedly pursuing the same mistaken policies of the 1920s and '30s, have made a full-blown depression — lasting years, not months,...

Yesterday, January 22, saw a veritable army of pro-lifers participate in the 35th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. This demonstration of public sentiment was first held in 1974 to mark the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. In that decision, of course, the Supreme Court ruled that all state laws prohibiting abortion were unconstitutional. Since then, an estimated 50,000,000 babies have been killed in the womb in the United States. As we observed yesterday, ever since the Roe v. Wade (and the less publicized Doe v. Bolton) decision, the primary strategy among pro-life people...

President Barack Obama opened his presidency with an inaugural address laced with glittering generalities designed to get heads nodding in agreement, but outlined no specific agenda anywhere in the speech. What is he for? The speech outlined a complete catalogue of things he wants to accomplish as president. He wants to ...•    reaffirm our enduring spirit•    carry forward … the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness•    pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America•    create new jobs•    lay a...

A report released this month by the U.S. Joint Forces Command is warning of the potential for “rapid and sudden collapse” of the Mexican government due to the corrupting influence of criminal gangs and drug cartels. The Joint Operating Environment 2008 document (pdf) also lists Pakistan as the other of two large and important states that “bear consideration,” explaining that these would be “worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world."“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely [than the possibility that Pakistan's government collapsing], but the [Mexican] government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained...

Don't pay any attention to your frozen thermometer. Never mind that your city is shivering under a record-setting cold wave, paralyzed by another record-setting snowfall. Do not think twice about your mounting heating bill, electricity blackouts, or reports that heating oil deliveries for your area are not available. Even if your teeth are chattering, concentrate only on one thing: global warming, Global Warming, GLOBAL WARMING. Just wrap yourself in a blanket and re-watch Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. And remember, be very, very afraid ... of global warming.That seems to be the message coming from much of the overheated "mainstream"...

This topic reminds me of the story about the national politician who campaigned on a party platform promoting the Welfare State. His stump speech was filled with promises of all the government services that he would fight for, if the voters would just elect him to Congress. He promised to meet all of the people’s needs relating to childcare, education, nutrition, housing, transportation, healthcare, pensions, and good-paying jobs for every citizen. Finally, at one town hall meeting, a boy raised his hand and asked, “Why would we need jobs?”  Yes, just as when we were children, everyone wants to ride...

Neoconservatives are elated with Obama's appointments, recognizing that the new guard is very much like the old.  Some traditional conservatives were hoping that with Bush leaving office and Obama coming in, the neocons would be put out of power, but sadly, they're not going away that easily. Contrary to the public's perception of President-elect Obama as the peace candidate, he has been extremely hawkish in his appointments. The selection of Joe Biden as a running mate was a sign that the globalist and hawkish wing of the Democratic Party (where the neocons originally hailed from) was going to be strongly...

On January 5, the nation's new media learned that President-elect Barack Obama would nominate former congressman and Clinton administration official Leon Panetta as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Obama's choice reportedly caught some veteran Democratic senators who had not been briefed of the decision off-guard, and some voiced their skepticism that that Bill Clinton's former chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget possessed sufficient experience in the intelligence field to handle the job. The New York Times reported on January 7: "Mr. Panetta's lack of experience had drawn the sharpest criticism on...

The rise of the neoconservatives within the GOP has not only discredited the Grand Old Party but tarnished the image of conservatism. The Republican party suffered an overwhelming electoral defeat this past November. The establishment media were all too quick to proclaim that conservatism is dead and we're now at the dawn of a liberal age. Peter Beinart, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), wrote in Time magazine that we are facing the dawn of a "new liberal order." In making this proclamation, Beinart overlooks the fact that the public was not voting...