Free Republic

More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data. The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million). President Francois Hollande's Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual's overall taxation at 50 percent of income. The...

One of the problems with positive rights though, which conservatives and libertarians tend to point out, is that in order for them to mean anything in practice, someone else will inherently have to provide the means by which they are given. For example, if you have the right to health-care, then a doctor or nurse will have to at some point, render that care. Either the medical practitioner will have to be paid for his or her rendering of care, or he or she will have to be compelled to render it. This is manifestly different from a negative right...

"The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it." That's taught to University of Hawaii students by Professor Haunani-Kay Trask. Richard Falk, professor emeritus at Princeton University and the U.N. Human Rights Council's Palestine monitor, explained the Boston bombings by saying, "The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world." Professor Falk has also stated that President George W. Bush ordered the destruction of the twin towers. University of Southern California professor Darry Sragow preaches hate to his students in his regulation of elections and political finance class,...

hey do not like conservatives very much. In fact, they come to an immediate boil when we enter their admittedly limited range of perception. It all began back in the 1960s when radical thought gained a footing with American liberals. By 2012, the left, led by their leader, the improbable president Barack Obama, completely took over the Democratic Party. These people are not like the liberals, who, while condescending to conservatives, did not hate us. These left-wingers really do hate us. That is why not much in the way of compromise can be achieved in Congress. I know we are...

Susan Rice went on Sunday talk shows on September 16, 2012 to proclaim that there was no evidence linking the attacks in Benghazi to terrorism... She told ABC on September 16 (emphasis mine): "But our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated." And she...

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It's clear that that the press has turned. I'm not sure how permanent it will be but this is surely different than what we've seen over the four years being acolytes and cheerleaders and really supine. And the reason I think, a, is the accumulate of scandals all at once and the remarkable coincidence that the president was speaking early on about conspiracies and don't worry about government, tyranny, you know. The IRS scandal, which is the second most powerful agency in government as an agent suppression of political speech is almost a definition of tyranny. But that...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that he believes President Barack Obama owes the American public explanations for both the seizure of Associated Press phone records by the Department of Justice and the IRS targeting of conservative groups. “I don’t think anyone truly believes that the president has given us a sufficient answer for America, much less the press,” Rangel said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think this is just the beginning and the whole idea of comparing this with Nixon, I really think is just, it doesn’t make much sense. But the president has to come forward and share...

The past several weeks have been interesting and troubling, all at the same time. We have seen the Obama administration hit by scandal after scandal. It started with Benghazi and the revelations that there is much more to the story than just political hype by the Republicans. Follow that with the realization that the IRS has been targeting conservative groups (this has been known for quite some time and was kept under wraps) and that the Department of Justice has seized phone records from the Associated Press, just to find a whistle blower, and you can easily see it hasn't...

Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation of whether Internal Revenue Service employees broke the law when they targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status — the latest setback for an agency that is the subject of withering bipartisan criticism and multiple congressional inquiries. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that the Justice Department and the FBI began the probe after the IRS acknowledged that it selected conservative groups with the words “tea party” and “patriot” in their names for special reviews. “We are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations,” Holder said at a news...

Sometimes it is better to show a scandal than to explain it. SHARE this exposure of the Benghazi cover-up!

The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups sent confidential information on 31 conservative groups to the well-funded liberal nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, according to a revelation made by ProPublica Monday. “The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year,” according to the ProPublica report. “In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications...

Hey, liberals! Obama thinks you are stupid. Yeah, he really does. He knew Benghazi was terrorism before he didn't know it was terrorism. Addressing a question about Benghazi in his press conference Monday, May 13, 2013, Obama's "logic" really made an impression: "The Day after it happened I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism." "What we have been very clear about throughout, was that immediately after this event had happened we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were. It happened at the same time we had seen attacks...

As the IRS controversy over targeting The Tea Party grew even more troublesome over the weekend, Barack Obama and the Democrats were nowhere to be found. No statements. No Comments. No condemnation. Fox News is reporting that the IRS may have been casting an even wider net, saying agents could have unfairly targeted groups that touted better government economic policy and debt pay-down. Also among the targeted: Groups that tried to educate about the Constitution or government policy critics, Fox News said. Unlike the Benghazi scandal, which the mainstream media virtually ignored for eight months, the IRS controversy already has...

A US ambassador in Syria was bloodily murdered on September 11, 2012. In the immediate aftermath, the Obama Administration knowingly put forward erroneous talking points and intelligence, likely in the hopes that their mishandling of terrorism would not hurt the President's reelection campaign. The IRS, starting as early as 2010, scrutinized and targeted Tea Party groups. The Administration dismissed these claims for three years; yet, as the Tea Party has been vindicated, President Obama is scrambling to save face, saying that only lower-level employees knew about this partisanship. Today, it was also revealed that the Obama Administration is secretly wiretapping...

When South Carolina’s Republican Senator Jim DeMint resigned to head the Heritage Foundation most “outside the Beltway” conservatives were at first apprehensive about the net effect it would cause. The thinking on DeMint’s move slowly evolved to “Jim can do things outside of the system he can’t do/say while in the Senate.” It sounded reasonable – after all this was Jim DeMint. Since he took over Heritage DeMint has been an irritant to the Gang of Eight as they fight to destroy America by erasing our borders, but time has shown that alas he is not the “all in” warrior...

Montgomery County residents handed over 111 guns, 11 BB guns, 10,000 rounds of ammunition and a grenade at Saturday's statewide gun turn-in day, according to county police spokeswoman Lucille Baur. Among the 111 guns were 68 hand guns, 27 rifles -- including at least one AK-47 -- 15 shot guns and a tiny pen gun, Baur said. In addition to the guns, police also received a sword and two canisters of tear gas, which were turned in by a former D.C. police officer who told police they left over from riots in 1968. "A successful day," Baur said. ---snip--- But...

THE capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show “Scandal” as damage control that goes like this: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” The conservatives appearing on Benghazi-obsessed Fox News are a damage patrol with an approach that goes like this: “Lies, paranoia, subpoena, impeach, Watergate, Iran-contra.” (Though now that the I.R.S. has confessed to targeting Tea Party groups, maybe some of the paranoia is justified.) Welcome to a glorious spring weekend of accusation and...

What are “progracists”? Progracists are people who continually classify individuals by “race” and yet can’t see how that is racist.

Is every liberal an immoral, nasty tempered, habitual liar who accuses people of racism for fun and trashes his own country because he thinks it makes him look sophisticated? Of course, not! On the other hand, is that a fairly accurate description of most liberals in politics? Yes, it is. Most of them aren't evil per se, but as Margaret Thatcher said, "Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is...

Almost every country leads the World in some single field. Tiny Sweden does not have the best cuisine on the planet, neither do we Swedes enjoy the highest salaries on Earth and Sweden could not, rightfully, claim to house the World's most beautiful landscapes. Italians eat better (forget about France, Italy has a way better climate for nearly every kind of food production and Italians are even more concerned when it comes to "mangiare bene"; eating well). Danes are paid higher wages than any other people including the Norwegians and the Swiss (but having traveled around some in Denmark, I...

A Paradigm Shift is needed – Urgently. It cannot be provided to you, you must develop it within your own mind – and you’d better do it quick; or you will lose.If you are a regular reader of our site (The Last Refuge) you are generally a person who engages in intellectual discussion on daily events and more than likely a root cause thinker. Meaning you are able to grasp events at their cause and not at their consequence. But for some reason, even those who understand big picture dynamics are still comfortable sticking their heads in the sand...

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio.) issued the following statement: The fact that Americans were targeted by the IRS because of their political beliefs is unconscionable. The Committee will aggressively follow up on the IG report and hold responsible officials accountable for this political retaliation.

NEW YORK (AP) — In a significant victory amid a push for paid sick time laws around the country, city lawmakers voted Wednesday to make businesses provide the benefit to an estimated 1 million workers who don't have it now. Saying they hoped that requiring sick leave in the nation's largest metropolis would set an example, City Council members positioned New York to become the most populous place to approve such a law during a campaign that has scored several victories but also a number of defeats. A mayoral veto is expected, but so is an override.

I'll start by mentioning that I saw Led Zeppelin at Madison Square garden for two of the three nights during the Song Remains the same. Oh la, ain't I cool. They were good, almost great. John Paul Johns and John Bonham were the voice of the Norse Gods. Page was in top form and Plant couldn't hit the high notes. Those shows were Led Zeppelin in their prime. What most of the later generations of music fans don't seem to understand is that Led Zeppelin was just another band. They were not the Beatles. They were not the beginning and...

Monday, May 06, 2013 The Burglar-Terrorist Alliance Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog 0 Comments (The following is an adaptation of a talk that I recently gave.) Every act of violence has two sides. The side of those who carry it and the side of those who let it happen. When a burglar breaks into a home and kills two people, we don't just discuss what made him do it, but why it was allowed to happen. That's a conversation we rarely have about terrorism. The left wants us to talk about terrorism as a reaction to...

MAY 6, 2013 Glenn Reynolds CBS NEWS: Official: We knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack “from the get-go.” But the Administration still blamed filmmaker Nakoula, who is still in jail. They did this to keep the Benghazi debacle from exploding before the election. It worked. And filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail. ........ But here are some further lines of investigation. Some Obama-defenders will note that Nakoula was jailed for probation violations, of which he may have even been guilty...The question is, why, exactly, were they so eager to put Nakoula away?The fast-tracking of Nakoula’s jailing was highly irregular. Among...

Dan Savage is an author, advice columnist, and founder of It Gets Better, an anti-bullying project. If you’ve ever seen one of those videos of a celebrity telling gay teens “it gets better,” that was Dan’s idea. A noble goal, to be sure. But when he says things like this, it makes me wonder just how noble he is: Woke up to Sarah Palin’s voice. She’s taken up chewing tobacco now cuz LIBRULS or Bloomberg or something. Now seeing upside of oral cancers. — Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) May 4, 2013 And yes, that’s the real Dan Savage. His Twitter handle...

This is a Call to Action for a Non-Hierarchical Occupation of Monsanto Everywhere Whether you like it or not, chances are Monsanto contaminated the food you ate today with chemicals and unlabeled GMOs. Monsanto controls much of the world's food supply at the expense of food democracy worldwide. This site is dedicated to empowering citizens of the world to take action against Monsanto & it's enablers like the FDA, USDA, EPA, GMA, BIO, and the processed food companies that use Monsanto's products. We urge you to help organize and attend the closest March Against Monsanto taking place on Saturday, May...

Congressional Democrats on Sunday distanced themselves from the Obama administration’s explanation of the Benghazi, Libya, attacks in the immediate aftermath of the fatal strikes, amid mounting evidence that suggests the information was revised to intentionally mislead Americans. The original explanation of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, was written by CIA officials, then revised by State Department and White House officials, according to news reports and witness testimony made available to Fox News. Removed from the CIA's so-called talking points were references to “Islamic extremists” and Al Qaeda in Libya And five days later,...

There has been a lot in the news the last two days about Joanne Deborah Chesimard who is the first woman ever placed on the “FBI Most Wanted Terrorists” list. Joanne’s connections with the Weather Underground and Obama mentor Bill Ayers have been much publicized. Rather than beat that story into the ground I thought I would take a moment to make a point that fails to be made often enough. With all the constant rhetoric about the dangers of the American Patriot and right-wing-Christian terrorists, the facts still remain. The current list of “FBI Most Wanted Terrorists” contains 32...

An Inside Look at Left-Wing Social Science Gun Research March 20, 2013 by Dan Mitchell In a presumably futile effort to change their minds by learning how they think, I periodically try to figure out the left-wing mind.Why, for instance, do some people believe in Keynesian economics, when it is premised on the fanciful notion that you can increase “spending power� by taking money out of the economy’s left pocket and putting it in the economy’s right pocket?I actually think part of the problem is that folks on the left focus on how income is spent rather than how it’s earned,...

Leo Johnson, a black man, has never received an apology from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Not a word. Which is passing strange for a group that proclaims itself to be “a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.” Johnson, the African-American building manager and security guard for the Family Research Council (FRC) was shot and wounded last August 15 by an angry gay activist, Floyd Corkins. Corkins was angry over the FRC’s support for heterosexual marriage. Researching the group on the Internet, he found that...

“I now agree that it’s fruitless to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are so obviously corrupt, so clearly malevolent, so bent on hurting innocent people for their own sick gain,” Aurora Sentinel editor Dave Perry wrote in an April 25 editorial. “No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. “When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice?” he asked. “Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in...

Politico reported today that net income at The Washington Post Co. dropped an astonishing 85 percent from the first quarter of last year to the first quarter of this year. The newspaper division posted an operating loss of $34.5 million over that period. It looks as if the Post, like many other newspapers around the country, may have entered an age of decline. Newspapers just aren’t as profitable as they once were. The proliferation of online news outlets has given consumers a plethora of free news sources to choose from. But another factor may be the Post's persistent liberal bias,...

OMG, Is this really the kind of society we want? Because this is what we get when people who are hell-bent on being politically correct all the time get their way. Blame them. Because they deserve the blame.

“It is plainly true that in our society blacks have suffered discrimination immeasurably greater than any directed at other racial groups.” These were the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, written in his concurring opinion in the 1989 Supreme Court case Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. The city of Richmond, Va., was sued over its policy of requiring that a certain percentage of city contracts be set aside for minority-owned businesses. Do these words written by Justice Scalia in the Croson case sound racist? Obviously, they are not. Yet, somehow Justice Scalia has been deemed a racist for... Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/3/a-slur-against-scalia/#disqus_thread#ixzz2SEcZLdox...

Film Studios Say New York Gun Law May Ban Props ALBANY — The sweeping gun control measure signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and hailed by Democratic leaders has a surprising critic: Hollywood. Officials in the movie and television industry say the new laws could prevent them from using the lifelike assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that they have employed in shows like “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and films like “The Dark Knight Rises.” Twenty-seven film and television projects, including programs like “Blue Bloods” and “Person of Interest,” are now in production in New York State using assault...

Author’s Note: Campus liberals who crave free stuff can find it on www.letterstoayoungprogressive.com. Not all liberals are created equal. Some make an occasional stupid remark. Others have the capacity to make a lot of stupid remarks without reloading. An example of the latter is my boss, UNC Chancellor Thomas Ross. As a former Professor of Public Law and Government, he cannot be accused of mere bias when he makes demonstrably false statements about matters of public policy. Instead, the public must recognize that he is not just biased but also grossly incompetent. Because his incompetence threatens the safety of all...

Back in 2011, I wrote about how George Creel's plan with the Committee for Public Information (CPI) was to make journalists associates of the state. Here is in part what he wrote: (page 17) With the nation in arms, the need was not so much to keep the press from doing the hurtful things as to get it to do the helpful things. It was not servants we wanted, but associates. Better far to have the desired compulsions proceed from within than to apply them from without. And from page 18: My proposition, in lieu of the proposed law, was...

This is just breaking on CNN so no article yet -- CNN reporting sources say legal talks are underway for the Boston Bomber to avoid death penalty in exchange for information!!

In an interview with AlterNet this past week, America’s most well-known left-wing intellectual slammed President Obama for his inexplicable “attacks” on civil liberties in the forms of various laws expanding upon the executive powers set forth by President George W. Bush. Speaking with the liberal blog’s Mike Stivers, Chomsky expressed dissatisfaction with the current president’s record on civil liberties: “I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors. The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother, officials said Saturday, days after the U.S. government finally received details about the call. In another conversation, the mother of now-dead bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, officials said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was glum after background checks went down April 17. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) A week after gun legislation suffered a stinging defeat in the Senate, an uncomfortable realization has settled over the Capitol that it will likely take another mass shooting or similar tragedy to reignite momentum for gun control. President Obama called last week’s vote “round one.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pledged that it was “just the beginning.” But gun-control advocates, both inside and outside of Congress, have identified no immediate path forward to alter a political landscape that left them five...

Officials found guilty in Obama, Clinton ballot petition fraud: A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.

Every thinking American, whether conservative or liberal knows that when the feckless Republicans in the Congress fold and stab us in the back by erasing our borders Democrat Party control of our lives will be assured forever. The sad truth is that we are reduced to hoping that the horrific terror attack on Boston will defeat the Democrats’ plans to swamp our country with ready- made Democrat voters because there seems to be little reason to hope the Republicans will do so. There are several reasons we should be concerned about the Democrat plan to erase our borders. Nevertheless, we...

Liberals called for the death of George W. Bush in the wake of the opening of the Bush Library on Thursday. I wish I could say this was unexpected from a group of people who have declared themselves "civil," but alas, who was I kidding? ...A quick internet search produces a bevy of death threats and calls for murder of President Bush. Some are very angry: Some don't really make sense:

As much as liberals had their fingers crossed after the Boston Marathon bombings -- please don't let it be a Muslim, please don't let it be a Muslim -- that's who the terrorists were. All that wishing and hoping is based on the very ugly premise that "middle America" is a cesspool of bigotry and hate, a sentiment shared by Muslim terrorists. Their quickest stereotype is that the vast majority of Americans traffic only in stereotypes. The hayseeds outside the elite media and universities don't have the brains to make nuanced distinctions between the Tsarnaev brothers and say, Muslim winners...

VIDEO at link. Family Researh Council employee Leo Johnson who was shot by a gunman but still managed to subdue the shooter on Aug. 15, 2012, in the lobby of the conservative organization's building in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com) –Domestic terrorist Floyd Corkins told the FBI that he found the Family Research Council as a target because they were listed online as an "anti-gay" group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Corkins walked into the FRC's Washington, D.C., headquarters last Aug. 15, carrying a pistol, 100 rounds of ammunition and knapsack filled with 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. He later admitted that he...

So what is it about liberalism that makes it so difficult for it to take a clear, critical look at Islam, even while liberals have no problem excoriating Christians for every imaginable historical evil? I believe I can give at least a partial answer, if we take a big step back from the present scene and view the history of Western liberalism on a larger scale. Liberalism is an essentially secular movement that began within Christian culture. (In Worshipping the State, I trace it all the way back to Machiavelli in the early 1500s.) Note the two italicized aspects: secular...

A generous estimation of the crowd size would have been about 100 people, including members of the media.