Free Republic

It was difficult to miss Ian Jacobson at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Known as Rooster, he was 33, with an ample beard, earrings and a towering orange-and-aqua spiked Mohawk haircut. But he also sported a pinstriped suit, French cuffs and a natty contrast collar. Mr. Jacobson’s sartorial contradictions matched those of his politics: He is among the young Republicans who are pro-free market on fiscal issues and libertarian on social ones. While his views represent a potential growth wing for a party that is losing among other demographic groups, they also show an emerging tension with the older social...

The use of heroin has risen over the past few years in the Hudson Valley. In part one of News 12's special report "Hooked on Heroin," Tara Rosenblum speaks with parents who have lost children to the drug. After Renee Hustins lost her son Benjamin to an overdose three months ago when he was 23, she met other parents who have lost children to heroin. The parents now all rely on each other for support. The parents Rosenblum spoke to all say they never would have expected their children to become addicted to heroin. Some of them also shared their...

There may be no way for the United States to reverse the Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. The Obama administration still has the opportunity to send a strong message to Russian President Vladimir Putin to punish Moscow for this aggression in response to the ouster of one of their stooge in Kiev by a popular uprising. Indeed, he would do well to listen to the advice of Senator Marco Rubio who outlined eight steps the U.S. should take in response to the crisis. But whether or not the president acts appropriately now, it’s probably too late to preserve the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)DENVER — Colorado welfare recipients are using ATMs located inside marijuana retail shops to withdraw cash. The money was given to them by taxpayers to help their families survive, but an exclusive Fox31 Denver investigation found some cash benefits most likely going toward marijuana purchases. FOX31 Denver asked the Colorado Department of Human Services for its “Quest card” database of Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cash transactions for the month of January, 2014. That is the first month in which Colorado marijuana dispensaries were regulated and open for recreational sales. The FOX31 Denver investigative team matched the addresses of EBT cash...

The permanent political class in D.C. won't listen. So, let's start putting our efforts behind good new candidates who will go to Washington not to line their pockets, but to help restore our country. It's time to put inspiration, ingenuity, and integrity over incumbency in the GOP.

Please enjoy my pithy posts from Facebook. They’re brilliant, or reasonably insightful, or at least not stupid in most cases. If a male politician found a sugar mommy to pay his way through school, and to accept and raise his children as her own without him, he wouldn't dare make heroic single daddy-hood the centerpiece of his identity and campaign. If he tried, the media would slaughter him. If he were a Republican, anyway. Liberals think people are too flawed to make it in life without paternalistic restraints and controls. Conservatives think people are too flawed to be trusted with...

It is Super Bowl week; Time for a football analogy to politics: The best defense is a good offense. Yep. Perhaps the most successful head-fake tactic of the left has been political correctness and I think that it is high time that we got our defense off the field and start throwing some play-action post routes of our own. The leftist playbook includes instructions to accuse the right of being cruelly unfair in response to every assertion of a conservative standard. Reducing taxes is to “fund the government on the backs of the poor.” Opposing Obama’s takeover of health care...

Mr. Norris, with Washington and Colorado recently legalizing pot smoking and their football teams (Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos) being in the Super Bowl, some have asked whether there is going to be added marijuana use during this year’s Super Bowl. And President Barack Obama recently said that he doesn’t think marijuana is as dangerous as alcohol. What do you think, Chuck? Is it? – “Trying to Make Sense of Sensimilla” in Seattle I understand the arguments for the legalization of marijuana: It can generate tax revenue. It can reduce illegal supply and demand. It can strip power from cartels...

From at least the time of the 1980’s, the Republican Party and the “conservative movement” have been dominated by, not conservatives, but neoconservatives. The so-called “libertarian” influence in the party is growing—and neoconservatives are none too pleased by it. Libertarians, neoconservatives assert, are “isolationists,” “naïve,” even sophomoric, idealists whose detachment from reality borders on being “unpatriotic,” for libertarians threaten to compromise national security, making citizen and soldier alike unsafe. After all, when his own country is in the midst of a protracted, bloody war, a person who uses his considerable influence to convince large numbers of Americans that their country...

A few times each month, a couple dozen House Republican lawmakers gather in a meeting room in a building adjacent to Capitol to discuss ideas and legislative proposals that focus on limited government, reducing the debt and maintaining individual rights. The group considers itself conservative with a libertarian emphasis. They call themselves the Liberty Caucus and believe that in order for the GOP to win more elections in the future, the party must begin embracing their libertarian-minded philosophy because voters are beginning to demand it, particularly in the wake of government data collection revelations that some believe infringe on privacy...

In the inaugural speech for his second term of office, N.J. Gov. Chris Christie vowed to end the ineffective “war on drugs.” “We will end the failed war on drugs that believes that incarceration is the cure of every ill caused by drug abuse. We will make drug treatment available to as many of our non-violent offenders as we can and we will partner with our citizens to create a society that understands this simple truth:  every life has value and no life is disposable,” Christie said Tuesday at the War Memorial in Trenton. Christie generally tried to strike...

I had previously authored a vanity piece on this topic, hoping that I might have been overreacting or misinterpreting Glenn, but the recent antics are the final nail in the coffin. Glenn Beck has actually moved closer to Robert Sarvis' politics than those of any conservative I know. Just wait till he starts pushing eco-crap. No, better to just load up a compilation of Alex Jones and Michael Savage's greatest hits. That will essentially give you Glenn Beck, minus the left wing turn. I'd post links to the content I refer to, but I wouldn't want to drive more traffic...

How did we end up in a world where Big Gulps are being banned in New York while the welcome mat for potheads is being rolled out in Colorado? How is it that cigarette smokers are pariahs, while people smoking weed are being cheered? This is despite the fact that potheads are almost universally recognized as unmotivated, low class, degenerate – and, yes, smelly failures. Even the ones that get somewhere in life, like Barack Obama, usually turn out to be mediocrities. Moreover, we all recognize that smoking is a dirty habit that makes you die younger and while drinking...

I don't know if Penn Jillette actually said this, but it's very well said and echoes conversations I've had with others on the topic that drew the very same conclusion.To me coerced giving through confiscatory means isn't just immoral, it actually degrades society because real compassion begins to atrophy..."why should I care about my neighbor when the government pays a  nameless, faceless bureaucrat to do it for me."

Saturday, I had the opportunity to interview Texas Comptroller candidate, Debra Medina, about her race and discuss her ideas on issues such as cronyism, tax policy, immigration, and House leadership. Debra Medina has three Republican primary opponents, including Harvey Hilderbran, Raul Torres, and Glenn Hegar. Check out all of our interviews with candidates here. Disclaimer: Hardhatters is a non-partisan political research organization, and we do not support or endorse any political candidates

I have always been resentful of authority, with an attitude to 'the authorities' of 'who died and made you God?' I've always believed that freedom is only possible within the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck told CNN's S.E. Cupp that he would stand with the gay advocacy group GLAAD in the fight against the criminalization of homosexuality in Russia. Beck said it’s ridiculous that Americans were so wrapped up in “Duck Dynasty” and the race of Santa Claus in December. “What are you nuts? That’s the conversation we’re having?” Meanwhile in Russia, he said, “last week one of their biggest stars on television said that homosexuals should be put into the ovens alive.” “I didn’t think you could make the Holocaust worse,” he said, “but he’s like ‘Why the...

While substituting for Sean Hannity recently, Neal Boortz went into another of his "libertarian" rants against "social" conservatives. Taking note of the recent flak involving Phil Robertson of "Duck Dynasty," while pleading that the fate of the republic may depend upon Republicans retaking the U.S. Senate, Boortz forebodingly predicted that Republicans would fail in this task because, "they [Republicans] simply cannot resist the urge, the impulse to get into this social conservatism." Long known for his disdain of the "social" (I prefer "moral") issues, like many others, Boortz masquerades as libertarian while in reality being nothing more than a liberal...

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown issued 127 pardons on Tuesday, the vast majority of them to people who had been convicted of drug dealing, cultivation or possession. Typical of the handful of crimes that were not direct drug offenses is that committed by a Humboldt County woman, who was convicted in 1995 after she broke into a home to steal food so she could feed her children. A statement from the governor’s office said all those granted pardons had completed their sentences and had been released from custody for more than a decade without committing additional crimes. The Democratic...

Priceless indeed. Who knew that liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams considered himself a libertarian? Twitchy: Juan Williams calls himself a libertarian; Hilarity ensues