Free Republic

(SNIP) As it turns out, the preponderance of journalists are Democrats. And socialism, with its idyllic, “progressive” programs, has formed an increasingly important role in Democratic policies. Who wants to investigate a possible dark side of your own party’s plank? (SNIP) Unsurprisingly, self-selection plays an important role in choosing a job. People choosing to do work related to prisons, for example, commonly show quite different characteristics than those who volunteer for work in helping disadvantaged youths. Academicians have very different characteristics than CEOs—or politicians, for that matter. Harry Stein, former ethics editor of Esquire, once said: "Journalism, like social work,...

It is often said that ridiculing Christians and their beliefs is the last acceptable form of bigotry. Ultra-secular critics on the left, of course, usually scoff at this notion. But sometimes an example of anti-Christian bile comes along that is so blatant, misleading and littered with judgmental smugness, that I find it difficult to remain silent. Consider the left-wing organization J Street, which claims to be a pro-Israel advocacy group, but which, oddly enough, never misses a chance to slam Israeli policies, particularly when the Jewish State dares defend itself against Islamic terrorism.

My post from Friday about “progressive” media watchdog Media Matters‘ intolerance of CNN’s Lou Dobbs use of the word “socialist” to describe “progressives” yielded plenty of interesting dialogue with our readers. One of the most thoughtful exchanges was with a commenter named Thalpy who had grown frustrated with the Left’s close-minded tactics. Thalpy said: Characterization of the Left as an assembly of true believing denominations of the one religion just about gets it, I believe. The Left is impervious to attack ( and civil discourse) because it’s based on belief, not reason. …”when talking with a leftist or debating his...

Poverty in Our Cities. City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level 1. Detroit , MI 32.5% 2. Buffalo , NY 29.9% 3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8% 4. Cleveland , OH 27.0% 5. Miami , FL 26.9% 6. St. Louis , MO 26.8% 7. El Paso , TX 26.4% 8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2% 9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1% 10. Newark , NJ 24.2% U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007 What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common? Detroit , MI (1st on the poverty rate list)...

A naive person might believe that Barack Hussein Obama was born, as he has long said he was, in Hawaii to a young American mother and a distant father from Kenya. There are notices in two local papers and the certification of birth is filed in the state of Hawaii’s records. An independent body — FactCheck.org — part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, asked to see a copy of the original during last year’s campaign. FactCheck is non-partisan and takes all sorts of politicians’ claims to task. Here’s its take on Obama’s birth certificate:...

Supporters of a women's refuge were 'shocked and stunned' to be told it is being closed - because it does not cater for men. The emergency shelter was set up 13 years ago for women and children and adult males are not allowed to stay. But council officials have now ruled that, because it does not serve both sexes equally, the money used to run the home would be better spent on an 'outreach service' to help battered husbands as well as wives in their own homes. Brian Ellis, a councillor who helped set up the refuge in Weymouth, Dorset,...

So “progressive” media watchdog group Media Matters decided to take a shot at CNN’s Lou Dobbs for his interpretation of Barack Obama and congressional Democrats‘ policies: CNN’s Lou Dobbs has touted himself as politically “independent,” and CNN president Jonathan Klein has reportedly referred to Dobbs’ CNN show as “a relatively straight newscast.” But echoing others in the conservative media, Dobbs has repeatedly used his radio and CNN programs to attack President Obama and other progressives, claiming or suggesting that they or their policies are “socialist,” “fascist” or “un-American.” The main thing that Media Matters is ticked about is that Dobbs...

I received this in an email. I don't necessarily endorse all that said here, but there is food for thought. ------------------- Friends, When the storm finally hits (and it will), those of you who supported the Obama administration will be affected as well. It won’t just be us gun owners or Flat Taxers, or Pro-Lifers that get hit. You’ll be right there next to us. You see, you all thought the Conservatives were nut cases. You know, all of us who believe in God, small government, the Second Amendment, etc. And you thought you could just go back to sleep...

“America is a stupid country.” Those were the arrogant words disparaging the intelligence of the American people, uttered on CNN by the clown who hosts his own HBO talk show, Bill Maher: “WOLF BLITZER: Do you think [Sarah Palin]has a future nationally as a presidential candidate? BILL MAHER: I don’t know about a presidential candidate, but I would never put anything past this stupid country…. BLITZER: So, uh, people are already complaining that you’re calling the United States a stupid country. I’m giving you a chance to clarify. MAHER: I don’t need to clarify. It is. BLITZER: Tell me why...

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice." If we can be so easily stampeded by rhetoric that neither the public nor the Congress can be bothered to read, much less analyze, bills making massive changes in medical...

Things are looking up for the Republicans, relatively speaking. President Obama's poll numbers have dipped, GOP recruitment for the 2010 elections is going better than expected, and the health-care battle has been rough on the Democrats. On top of that, the surveys show Republicans now leading in this year's two major governor's races, in Virginia and New Jersey. There's just one problem: The country still doesn't like Republicans. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week captured the public's mixed verdict. The headlines focused on growing doubts about Obama's health-care plan and the drop in his approval rating, from 60...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's largest state employees' union voted on Saturday to approve a strike authorization measure to protest furloughs of state workers and pressure state officials to ratify its labor contract.</p>

Today, President Barack Hussein Obama announced his first list of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. And while it’s ironic–since most of the choices have contributed to taking away our freedoms, the choices aren’t shockers. They’re quite predictable. For the most part, it reads like a far-left who’s who: two gay activists, four feminists, two far-left Hollywood actors, an anti-Semitic fan of Arafat and defender of Palestinian terrorists, a Muslim, a bloated drunk driver, and a token liberal Republican. Yes, there are a few token deserving awardees, like Stephen Hawking, Janet Davison Rowley, Pedro Jose Greer, Jr., and Joe Medicine Crow....

Below Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck explains the Apollo Alliance on his July 28 show. Beck mentions the Obama administration’s “stimulus” blueprint, “The New Apollo Program: Clean Energy, Good Jobs,” which you can read here.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A former official at a San Francisco charity has pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing more than $132,000 over three years. Jason Ramon Sanders, 38, of San Francisco, will be sentenced Aug. 26 for stealing $132,600 from the Tides Foundation from 2005 to 2008. Sanders, who was a philanthropic adviser for the foundation, pleaded guilty March 25 before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco to a count of theft within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, because the charity is in the Presidio.

MOSCOW -- An interview U.S. Vice President Joe Biden gave to an American newspaper was front-page news Monday in Moscow, where his characterization of Russia as a weakened nation hit a raw nerve. Biden said Russia's economic difficulties are likely to make the Kremlin more willing to cooperate with the United States on a range of national security issues. "I think we vastly underestimate the hand that we hold," he said in an interview to The Wall Street Journal published Saturday. Biden's comments appeared to catch the Kremlin by surprise, coming less than three weeks after President Barack Obama said...

Blum is currently a founder and co-chair of Health Care for America Now, which is leading the fight for quality, affordable health care for all. He served on the steering committee of Americans United to Protect Social Security, which led the successful campaign to stop Social Security privatization, and co-founded two coalitions to safely and responsibly end the war in Iraq. In 2006, USAction helped elect seven new Members of Congress who are members of USAction’s state affilates. In 2004, USAction Education Fund registered 570,000 new voters and conducted GOTV among 1.3 million voters in 2316 precincts. Blum’s experience in...

I have received a number of e-mails over the years from disgruntled parents griping about the left-wing indoctrination their kids are forced to undergo at colleges and universities all over America. One minute, it seems the kids are sane, or at least as sane as one can expect of 18-year-olds, and the next thing you know they’re parroting the likes of Ward Churchill, William Ayers and Noam Chomsky, bad-mouthing America and yodeling the praises of such left-wing troglodytes as Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers and Barack Obama. I feel their frustration. Even if the little nincompoops can’t do long division...

The death of Pol Pot, 23 years to the day after he and the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia, occasioned long backward glances at one of the 20th century's most horrific genocides. It was noted everywhere that the communist reign of terror in Cambodia lasted nearly four years and that at least 1 million human beings -- by some estimates as many as 2 1/2 million -- were murdered in an orgy of executions, torture, and starvation. "In the name of a radical utopia," The New York Times recalled in its long obituary, "the Khmer Rouge regime had turned...

Since 52% of American voters were foolish enough to buy the story that Barack Hussein Obama is some sort of "liberal messiah," I thought it would be interesting to compare the belief systems of America's father of liberalism and author of our Declaration of Independence, with the Marxist belief system of the false messiah. And since today's liberals have so much trouble properly interpreting our Founders' simple message to future generations, I am under no illusion that these facts will carry anymore weight with modern Marxists than Article II - Section I of the Constitution, which clearly states that Barack...

Why is now the time to work for change? Because we have a new president and new hope for a better America. Because we need change like never before, on everything from the economy to climate change and more. And because we know that the challenges we face, from ending our dependence on oil to winning the battle for equal rights, are huge—and the politicians and powerful interests who stupidly and stubbornly resist change aren’t calling it quits anytime soon. America’s leading advocacy groups are gearing up to meet these challenges this summer. In order to win, they need citizen...

Suddenly, size matters. That’s the central conclusion of a lengthy Washington Post article Monday that sought to assess the national security implications of Iran’s 2007 move into leftist Sandinista President Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua. The newspaper’s badly belated first weigh-in on the Islamic Republic’s most northern presence in the Americas wound up fixating on a curious detail: the physical size of the Iranian embassy there. Was it a huge mega-embassy, as some U.S. officials have said? A smallish embassy? Something mid-range but perhaps aspiring to be architecturally grandiose? The Post’s writers, offering no basis for such a wacky thesis, seem to...

Deposed Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya has called for a popular insurrection in his country so he can be returned to power after soldiers removed him at gunpoint in June. "The Honduran people have the right to insurrection," said Zelaya, speaking in the neighboring Central American country of Guatemala. Insurrection is a legitimate democratic right "when faced with a usurping government and a coup-supporting military," he added, urging his supporters in Honduras to strike, march and engage in civil disobedience because that is "a necessary process when the democratic order of a country is disrupted. I want to tell you to...

Here we go, the die is cast after using race to take down our mortgage industry and start this downward spiral in our economy with terms like "red lining" the left has turned its ruthless attack using race on liberty towards shutting down opposition voices on the air waves. WASHINGTON --A group of minority broadcasters asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Monday for financial assistance akin to the aid that has been extended to the financial and auto industries. "Minority-owned broadcasters are close to becoming an extinct species," the letter said. "Even in better economic times, minority broadcasters have historically had...

MSNBC’s David Shuster and Tamron Hall labeled the circulation of a photo of President Obama...a “right wing smear,” and singled out Fox News and Drudge as culprits. They brought on a Media Matters spokesman, who accused these sites of being motivated by a “racist stereotype of an oversexed black man being a predator.” They let this accusation go unanswered (audio clip from the promos and the segment available here). Shuster and Hall promoted the segment on the Obama picture from the start of the 4 pm Eastern hour of MSNBC’s live coverage. A graphic on-screen at the top of the...

The general counsel for the National Education Association (NEA), America's largest teacher's union, complained last week of the "conservative and right-wing bastards" that are "after" the NEA. At the same meeting, the NEA rejected a proposal that would have ceased their abortion advocacy, and went on record in support of same-sex "marriage." "We are not paranoid, someone really is after us," said General Counsel Bob Chanin in an address to NEA affiliates on the occasion of his retirement. "Why are these conservative and right-wing bastards picking on NEA and its affiliates? I will tell you why: it is the price...

Melbourne, July 09: Wikipedians have slammed a report that found them to be egocentric introverts, socially awkward, and closed to new ideas...

By ROGER SIMON | 7/7/09 4:58 AM EDT Sarah Palin violated several commandments and is now getting roasted by political mandarins and media elites. Photo: AP Sarah Palin is a sinner. She has violated several commandments and thoroughly deserves the savage beating that she is now getting from political mandarins and media elites. If it were not for one simple fact, I would say she was through in politics. And that fact is that if the Republicans were picking a nominee today, they would pick Sarah Palin. No? Don’t believe me? Who would beat her? Tim Pawlenty? Bobby Jindal? Haley...

The National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union, voted July 5 to reject a proposal officially to remain neutral on the issues of abortion and family planning. Also during its annual meeting in San Diego July 1-6, the NEA went on record as supporting laws legalizing civil unions and "gay marriage" -- it said either are acceptable -- and it backed efforts to repeal federal legislation that "discriminates" against same-sex couples, which presumably could target the Defense of Marriage Amendment. The proposed bylaw amendment regarding abortion would have invalidated NEA Resolution I-16 on family planning, which says NEA "supports...

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or "progressive" platform have been enacted: * A "living wage" ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors. * A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average. * A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members. * A powerful government employee union that does the same for its members. * A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the...

WASHINGTON'S traditional means of projecting power abroad was growing "increasingly obsolete" and its billion-dollar military hardware could be as ineffectual against future threats as the heavily fortified Maginot line was in defending France against the Nazis, a senior Pentagon adviser has warned. In a wake-up call to US military chiefs, Andrew Krepinevich, a leading architect of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, argued that the Pentagon was ill-equipped to counter rising powers such as China, hostile states such as Iran, the threat from irregular forces such as Hezbollah, and terrorists such as al-Qa'ida. It was also wasting billions on...

Seven Reasons for Leftist Anti-Semitism By: Don Feder GrassTopsUSA.com | Wednesday, July 01, 2009 Old joke: Walking down a street, a rabbi is accosted by an anti-Semite who tells him “The Jews are to blame for all of our problems.” The rabbi replies, “You’re absolutely right. It’s all the fault of the Jews – and the redheads.” Puzzled, the anti-Semite asks, “Why the redheads”? The rabbi responds, “Why the Jews”? But for the left, anti-Semitism makes perfect sense – almost as much sense as socialized medicine. Except for Islam (with which it’s increasingly allied), the left has a near-monopoly on...

PRINCETON, NJ -- A Gallup Poll finds a statistically significant increase since last year in the percentage of Americans who describe the Democratic Party's views as being "too liberal," from 39% to 46%. This is the largest percentage saying so since November 1994, after the party's losses in that year's midterm elections. Most major demographic and attitudinal subgroups show at least a slight uptick since 2008 in perceptions that the Democratic Party is too liberal. The increasing perception of the Democrats as too far left comes as President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have expanded the government's role in...

Embezzler Bernard Madoff, who swindled clients out of at least $50 billion, was sentenced to 150 years imprisonment Monday. Very few media reports have focused on the damage that Madoff did to left-leaning foundations and political causes. I wrote about this topic in the American Spectator in January. The record-breaking fraud is forcing the closing of the JEHT and Picower foundations, longtime supporters of leftist groups. Left-wing groups funded by those charities include ACORN (known for its massive voter-fraud campaigns), the Center for Constitutional Rights (a pro-Castro member of the open borders lobby), and Alliance for Justice (which supports habeas...

ON Sunday, the citizens of Honduras woke up with one president and went to bed with an other. Manuel Zelaya was forced out of the country -- replaced, with full backing from the Congress, the nation's courts, and its military with Interim President Robert Micheletti. Some have denounced this dramatic change as a "coup d'etat" and an assault on democracy. In truth, it was much more of a last-ditch effort to protect Honduras' constitutional order and rule of law from a reckless populist. Honduras and the United States have a long history of friendly relations. We signed a free-trade treaty...

President Obama, who has come under harsh criticism from gay rights advocates for not yet acting on many campaign promises on gay issues, Monday afternoon said that his administration has made some progress on behalf of gay Americans and plans to do more. "I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that," Mr. Obama said at a reception for LGBT Pride Month at the White House. "It's not for me to tell you to be patient anymore than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning...

Most of us on the right fully admit that leftists hate America as we know it. Well they do not even hide it. Watch as Democratic NY State Senators will not stand for our Pledge of Allegiance, and even stop one from doing so. Like President Obama, they are truly a disgrace to America.

Over the past year I have been going over articles about Asperger's syndrome. Asperger's syndrome is considered to be a highly functioning form of autism yet it is also considered to be a disability. Members of the autism community have worked for years trying to downplay the severity of the disorder. I first heard about Asperger's in 1998 while watching a documentary. Asperger's disorder was first invented by a German doctor named Hans Asperger. (the disorder was named after him.) Asperger did study on children who though they were bright were considered awkward. The world health organization began to use...

If conservative candidates for political office really can't find serious, successful, and foolproof ways of actually "fixing everything leftist" so that they really are conservative, pro-free market, pro-capitalistic, and long-term solutions to issues instead, then they shouldn't run for political office. Profound brainstorming for actual, pro-conservative, pro-free market, pro-capitalistic, long-term solutions on all issues really needs to be front and center, prior to the '10 and '12 elections. Too many non-leftists are still "cowering in corners" in fear of the dominant left, instead of seriously finding ways of ending "everything leftist" for good! Let's really get the political momentum successfully...

Summary: The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has become America’s most prominent leftwing community group. Little-known until now, ACORN has played a major role in the subprime mortgage mess that has undermined Americans’ support for free market problem-solving and set off a worldwide chain of fi nancial troubles. It is also implicated in vote fraud schemes from coast to coast. ACORN aims to give America change that socialists can believe in – by any means necessary. It is deliberately organized to avoid scrutiny. But with an FBI probe underway, millions of dollars in back taxes owing, and...

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) was the organizer, propagandist, and military leader of the communist seizure of power in Russia following the revolution of 1917. He was communist dictator Lenin's heir apparent, until Stalin usurped this position. Intolerant, tactless and impatient, Trotsky had an unbounded faith in Marxism, which was reinforced by his uncritical acceptance of Darwinism...

Nowadays blacklists are a silent way of trying to destroy people and their careers. And that suits those doing the blacklisting particularly if they call themselves liberal and claim to care about censorship and human rights. But some liberals forget to keep quiet and make public what is really going on. [W]e asked a number of US companies to work for us. We needed companies to make DVDs and provide translated subtitles for our new documentary Not Evil Just Wrong...it challenges liberal orthodoxy - taking a critical look at environmentalism and Global Warming hysteria. [T]he Atlanta based International Services translation...

A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn't even pass the eighth grade. As CBS 2's Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate about who's to blame. It is a debate that gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students' poor performance or do you blame their parents? The mother of a one student who failed eighth grade says she got no warning her son was struggling. The school says she was notified, and other parents insist she did...

"The administration has remained as quiet as possible during the Iranian election season and in the days of street protests since Friday's vote." -- Washington Post , Monday June 15, 2009 "We're going to withhold comment. … I mean we're just waiting to see." -- Vice-President Joe Biden "We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide." -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "Most countries appeared to be taking a wait-and-see approach, including the European Union and China, Germany, Italy...

TEL AVIV – The Huffington Post is serving as an Internet meeting place for the spread of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda, including wild conspiracy theories and vicious slurs, according to a new report. The Committee for Middle East Reporting in America, or CAMERA, monitored the Huffington Post for a brief period in March and May, finding the talkback threads that accompany the site's news articles and opinion columns routinely contained an alarming amount of hate material. The report said that while such talkbacks can also be found at other sites, such as Britain's Guardian and the Independent newspaper websites, CAMERA...

ROME (AP) — Italian police arrested six people Thursday in raids on a group of suspected radical leftists who were allegedly planning a terror attack, authorities said.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, says he won’t take any action on the controversial card check bill –– titled the Employee Free Choice Act –– until Minnesota Democrat Al Franken is sworn in as senator, Politico reports. Harkin, the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate, made the comment Wednesday on the theory that he would be able to avert a Republican filibuster against it if Franken is awarded the legally snared seat. Although union workers are lobbying for the measure, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups are ramping up efforts to defeat it. As far back as...

Obama is missing! The American People Demand to Know:  WHO SENT YOU???  Obama has lived for 48 years without leaving any footprints -- none! There is no Obama documentation -- no records -- no paper trail -- none -- this is no accident. It is being done on purpose with Media help - but to serve whom & why???  MISSING-HIDDEN DOCUMENTS: Original, vault copy of Certificate of Live Birth in the USA -- Not Released (1 version hidden in Hawaii, Original found in Kenya) Certificate of Live Birth -- Released - Proven Counterfeit (www.ObamaFiles.com) Obama/Dunham marriage license -- Not...

The man accused of opening fire at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC on June 10, James W. von Brunn, left a trail of unhinged writings around the internet. The anti-semitism of von Brunn is the first thing one notices when visiting these bizarre websites. However, like those of most "white supremacists", many of von Brunn's political views track "Left" rather than "Right." Clearly, a re-evaluation of these obsolete definitions is long overdue. For example, he unleashed his hatred of both Presidents Bush and other "neo-conservatives" in online essays. As even some "progressives" such as the influential Adbusters magazine publicly...

At least there's one place in America that's wearing like Teflon through the recession: Washington, D.C. Most corners of the economy may be struggling, but in the nation's capital it's boom times, baby. According to new data, the area's unemployment rate dropped to 5.6% in April from 5.9% in March. This is the second consecutive month of improvement for Washingtonians, and it's leagues from the national unemployment rate, which hit 9.4% in May. With unemployment for all government workers about half the private sector's rate, the Beltway has been spared the tightening elsewhere. The federal government is the second largest...