Free Republic

Flattus wrote: It's funny to watch Cons attempt to portray this disaster in Iraq as Obama's issue. Sorry, no sale. Thinking Americans know whose war this is. But it's not surprising to see you run from it.From Ron Paul's column today, referring to Necons:"They cannot admit they were wrong about the invasion being a ‘cakewalk’ that would pay for itself, so they want to blame last week's events on the 2011 US withdrawal from Iraq. But the trouble started with the 2003 invasion itself, not the 2011 troop withdrawal. Anyone who understands cause and effect should understand this."-- Welcome Our...

ormer Vice President Dick Cheney fired back Sunday after Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) criticized his position on Iraq. In an appearance on ABC's "This Week," Cheney argued Paul, who is widely seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, is an "isolationist" who doesn't understand the "absolutely essential" need for America to be involved in the Middle East. "Now, Rand Paul and — by my standards, as I look at his — his philosophy, is basically an isolationist. That didn't work in the 1930s, it sure as heck won't work in the aftermath of 9/11, when 19 guys armed with...

Sen. Rand Paul has suddenly become aware of facts that do not exist.  “Immigrants are drawn to the magnet of free market capitalism here in the United States,” he wrote in an op-ed last week.However, over half of Hispanics are literally telling us that they reject “capitalism,” and the two largest immigrant groups (Hispanics and Asians) are voting overwhelmingly for the more anti-capitalist of the two major parties. A 2011 Pew poll asked, “[D]o you have a positive or negative reaction to the word… Capitalism [or] Socialism”?  Fifty-five percent of Hispanics reported having a "negative reaction" to the word “capitalism.”...

[SNIP]"...Deep divisions notwithstanding, there are a number of principles that unite the movement. The most important of them is a devotion to subsidiarity, which holds that power should rest as close to ordinary people as possible. In practice, this leads Tea Party conservatives to favor voluntary cooperation among free individuals over local government, local government over state government, and state government over the federal government. Teatopia would in some respects look much like our own America, only the contrasts would be heightened. California and New York, with their dense populations and liberal electorates, would have even bigger state governments that...

Mike Lee calls for "a new conservative reform agenda" based on "three basic principles," one of which is federalism. "The biggest reason the federal government makes too many mistakes is that it makes too many decisions," the Republican senator from Utah explained in a speech at the Heritage Foundation last year. "Most of these are decisions the federal government doesn't have to make -- and therefore shouldn't." So why on earth is Lee co-sponsoring a bill introduced last month that would ban online gambling throughout the country, instead of letting each state decide whether to allow Internet-assisted poker? The...

In the wake of Rep. Eric Cantor’s stunning primary defeat Tuesday night, many conservatives have rushed to declare the outcome a referendum on Republican efforts to pursue immigration reform, a key wedge issue in the race. But tea party hero Sen. Rand Paul isn’t buying it. In a teleconference with Grover Norquist, a conservative champion of immigration reform, Paul told reporters Wednesday he wouldn’t back off his position on the issue. “I still am for it,” Paul said. “I say everywhere I go that I am for immigration reform.” He argued that Cantor’s loss to a little-known conservative economics professor...

Both libertarians and conservatives want to keep America safe. We differ on how best to do that. Most libertarians believe our attempts to create or support democracy around the world have made us new enemies, and done harm as well as good. We want less military spending. Some conservatives respond to that by calling us isolationists, but we're not. I want to participate in the world; I just don't want to run it. I'm glad Americans trade with other countries -- trade both goods and people. It's great we sell foreigners our music, movies, ideas, etc. And through dealing...

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) voted against the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill last year, but on Wednesday he plans to “discuss the need for immigration reform.” Mr. Paul will join former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Partnership for a New American Economy’s monthly series on immigration reform hosted by Grover Norquist.

A bushy-eyebrowed pizza deliverer from Durham, N.C., might keep Republicans from winning the Senate. Sean Haugh isn't a household name and probably never will be. But he's a libertarian candidate for Senate in North Carolina, and his name is on the ballot, and recent polls shows he's doing, well, not terrible. They also show that he siphons off votes from the Republican nominee. So Democrat Kay Hagan, one of the Senate's most vulnerable incumbents, potentially stands to benefit a lot from Haugh's candidacy. Haugh’s central goal is to get onstage for debates.

WASHINGTON — Taking direct aim at libertarian policies promoted by many American conservatives, the Honduran cardinal who is one of Pope Francis’ top advisers said Tuesday (June 3) that today’s free market system is “a new idol” that is increasing inequality and excluding the poor.

Rep. Jared Polis will gladly visit a marijuana dispensary in his home state of Colorado. He’ll stand in a fluorescent-lit room with hundreds of skunky plants, discuss the different types of high someone gets from Willie’s Wonder versus Super Lemon Haze (one’s a “creative upper,” the other “uplifting and euphoric”) and ruminate on the local ban on edibles. Just don’t try to take his picture in the grow room. “It’s like, that could go viral,” Polis says, leaving Choice Organics in Fort Collins. “I don’t shy away from the issue; we talk about it, whatever. But the problem is, we...

A retired engineer and volunteer firefighter who joined the race against Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers on Friday said he’s unimpressed with the five-term incumbent and others in House Republican leadership on issues ranging from immigration to health care. Tom Horne, 65, of Nine Mile Falls, said he wants to replace the Affordable Care Act with a better system but questions House Republicans’ multiple votes to repeal it, only to have the bills die in the Senate.

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Jerome Elam.Behind the green curtain is where my world began to end. It was where my innocence was forever washed away in a porcelain pan filled with developer. Grainy images brought into strong relief on white paper that would become forever etched on my soul. It all began at the age of eight when my mother enrolled me in an after school program. My parents were divorced at that time, both with demanding careers, and the time we spent together was subject to the requirements of their jobs. An after school counselor began...

NEW YORK (AP) — A slice of the New York City area mainstream — a police officer, a fire department paramedic, a rabbi, a nurse, a Boy Scout leader — used the Internet to anonymously collect and trade child pornography, federal officials said Wednesday. The six were among at least 70 men and one woman charged in a five-week operation by the Homeland Security Investigations arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Federal officials, who planned to announce the arrests a news conference later Wednesday, call it one of the largest local roundups ever of people who collect images of...

Conservative comedian Evan Sayet explained why the American left is so opposed to argument or debate, arguing that liberals view thought as so inextricably bound to race, identity and orientation that they “have actually turned thinking into a hate crime.” Sayet spoke at the Unite IE Conservative Conference in Riverside, California this weekend, where he discussed how liberals consume and process information very differently from other political ideologies. “Liberals only do well when they lecture to you,” he asserted. “They do just fine on the 23-minute nightly news, where [NBC's] David Gregory dictates the truth to you. Take those same...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says in a new interview that Republicans should embrace a more tolerant view of those who don't hold conservative positions on social issues."I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues," Paul told vocativ.com. "The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues."Paul's comments harken back somewhat to former...

It's wedding season! More Americans get married in June than in other months. Why June? The timing seems pretty arbitrary if you look up its history. Some claim it's because June was named after Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. Others say it's because in the 1500s, people took their annual bath in May, which meant they probably smelled best around this time of year. (Be thankful for modern times.) A third and more plausible explanation: If a bride got pregnant in June, she wouldn't be too big during summer to help with growing and harvesting food. Whatever the reason...

For a country where the national flag flies from front porches and convenience stores and where children recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning at school, we’re remarkably resistant to the notion of being governed. In the fall of 2013, the Pew Research Center found that only three in ten Americans trust the federal government to do what’s right ‘most of the time’. The self-conception of most Americans, with their visions of pioneers and plucky underdogs fighting for independence, is all about freedom. The flip side of that vision, however, is all about distrusting government. And ‘government’, in US political...

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum dismissed Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s 2016 presidential ambitions, claiming “the Republican Party is not a libertarian party” and suggesting few GOP voters would be swayed by Paul’s small government message. Santorum swiped at the senator Monday during an appearance on CNN’s “Crossfire,” where he told left-wing host Van Jones that Republicans “need a positive agenda” to win in 2014 and 2016. “So positive agenda,” Jones replied. “Rand Paul, who now seems to be everywhere. He’s the frontrunner in your party. Do you agree with his ideas, are you going to support Rand Paul?”...

Despite the complete failure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, war-mongers and even self-proclaimed libertarians don't understand what is going on in the Ukraine, why it's none of our business, or even how the civil war in Ukraine started. A friend sent me an article today from the site Conservatives for Liberty called Confused libertarians are Supporting Putin by Gabriele Stakaityte. Supposedly the site is an "independent libertarian, free market and socially liberal campaign group". It is difficult to judge a site on the basis of one article, but there is a difference between supporting Putin and saying Ukraine...