Free Republic

House Democrats have been taunting Republicans to come up with concrete budget cuts ever since the GOP rode to victory last November on a platform of reducing spending. Now, the GOP leadership has proposed an impressive $35 billion down payment on reducing spending for the remaining eight months of the current fiscal year. But don't expect any applause from the Democratic side of the aisle. House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., offered the cuts from non-Defense discretionary programs. They include hefty slices out of the budgets for education, environmental programs, food for poor women and children -- all sacred cows...

Tuesday was a great night for Republicans, but it would have been better yet had Sen. Harry Reid gone down to defeat. And while many analysts have debated the role the tea party played in a few high-profile Republican losses on Election Day, including that of Reid's opponent Sharron Angle, the real story is what happened with the Hispanic vote. Hispanics made up 18 percent of those voting in the Nevada election -- a much larger than average showing in a non-presidential election. Had Angle won as large a share of Hispanics as did the successful Republican gubernatorial candidate, Brian...

My friend Andy McCarthy suggests that those of us raising concerns about the “papers please” section of the Arizona law are either demagogues or haven’t read the law. What he doesn’t do is actually quote the section in question. I think there’s good reason why he and others who defend this law don’t want to draw attention to its actual wording. The grammar and syntax of the section are so convoluted that it is nearly impossible to discern its clear meaning, but it’s worth trying to parse. One of the bedrock principles of conservative jurisprudence is that the words of...

Judging by his actions to date, President Obama appears to have an almost visceral antipathy toward Israel. He's happy to bow and scrape to Saudi King Abdullah, to have photo ops with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and, as he made clear during the campaign, would even open his door to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Korean leader Kim Jong Il if only they would deign to sit down for a chat. But Obama gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the bum's rush on his recent visit to Washington. No photo ops, no joint press conference, no diplomatic niceties whatsoever. Why?...

I'm the kind of person who always has candles, extra matches and batteries on hand, as well as canned goods in the pantry, in case of an emergency. But I was far from prepared for the Mid-Atlantic Blizzard of 2010. We lost power for almost five days -- which is bad enough if you live in a city, but if you're out in the middle of nowhere, as we are, it can be life-threatening. Rural folks are usually better prepared than city people, but for those of us who are transplants, it's a challenge. With 35 inches or more of...

In 2007, former Bush nominee and columnist Linda Chavez published an article in which she accused Americans who stood in opposition to the Bush/McCain/Kennedy Amnesty Bill as racists. Alleging racism is the favorite tactic of the open borders crowd, as it is often used by those who find themselves on the wrong side of the argument. Let us refresh our memory...In 2001, Linda Chavez was nominated by President Bush for the Secretary of Labor position. Her nomination fell apart when it was discovered that she had long employed an illegal alien as a housekeeper. In her ensuing unofficial role, she...

Clueless. It’s the word that best describes the Obama administration’s first year in office. They’ve proven themselves clueless about creating jobs; clueless about handling growing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea; and now, most devastatingly, clueless about protecting Americans from terrorist attacks on our own soil. And with nearly one year under the belts, they can’t keep blaming the Bush administration for everything that goes awry. It is hard to imagine a more incompetent handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. jetliner. First, the commander in chief was too busy enjoying his vacation in Hawaii to...

If there was ever a more irresponsible decision by a U.S. attorney general than Eric Holder's decision to try the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attack and four others as common criminals in a civilian court in New York City, I can't recall it. He is gambling with the nation's security and providing a platform that will give aid and comfort to the enemy at a time of war. And he is doing so with no discernible benefit, least of all to showcase the strength of our judicial system. Does Eric Holder remember the most infamous criminal trial of the...

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I testify today not as a wise Latina woman, but as an American who believes that skin color and national origin should not determine who gets a job, promotion, or public contract, or who gets into college or receives a scholarship. My message today is straightforward, Mr. Chairman: Do not vote to confirm this nominee. I say this with some regret, because I believe Judge Sotomayor’s personal story is an inspiring one, which proves that this is truly a land of opportunity where circumstances of birth and class do not determine whether you can succeed. Unfortunately,...

When will the failing U.S. economy become President Obama's problem? To date, the president seems immune to criticism of his handling of the economy, except from conservatives. Job losses continue to mount, despite his promises that his "stimulus" plan would create jobs and stop rising unemployment. The housing market shows no sign of imminent recovery, with prices continuing to decline and more homeowners falling behind on their payments. Retail sales fell again in June, with even value stores like Costco experiencing drops in sales. And the federal debt has risen under President Obama to its highest level as a percentage...

One of the great dangers in dealing with a crisis is making major, long-term decisions based on the immediate circumstances unique to the problem you're trying to fix. In the case of the current financial crisis the conventional wisdom is that it is the result of poor oversight and loose regulation, so the Obama administration's answer is to layer on more regulations and greatly expand the role of the Federal Reserve. But the cure may be worse than the disease. It's not often I agree with Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, but he hit the nail on the head when he...

THE diversity crowd doesn't really believe in diversity. In fact, what it's really aiming for is conformity of opinion. This crowd expects that members of racial and ethnic groups will adhere to liberal orthodoxy, and woe to those who don't fall into line. If Judge Sonia Sotomayor were a conservative or the nominee of a Republican president, we'd be hearing that she wasn't an "authentic" Latina at all. I recall similar arguments used by my critics when I was the first Latina nominated to a US Cabinet back in 2001. You're only celebrated as the "first" by the diversity crowd...

President Obama reminds me of the fellow who's off to save the world while he ignores the disaster in his own backyard. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems facing the country -- the credit crisis and the collapse of the housing market -- he's diverting scarce resources and attention to solving health care, reforming education, and stopping global climate change. Worse, his efforts to tackle these intractable issues involve fiscal policies that exacerbate the current financial crisis. He is not only driving the deficit up to unsustainable heights, his policies will amount to a huge tax on all Americans....

Hubris is the word that comes to mind as I listen to President Obama lay out his plan to rescue the economy, create 4 million jobs, halve the deficit in four years, and give quality health care to every American. The man has big ambitions and an even bigger ego. It has been one of the most troubling aspects of his character as it has emerged on the national scene in the last two years. He seems, almost literally, to believe he walks on water. No one — no matter how talented — could accomplish a fraction of what Obama...

We're a nation of cowards -- or at least the attorney general of the United States thinks we are. In a speech at the Justice Department celebrating Black History Month, Attorney General Eric Holder said: "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." It seems a rather peculiar statement coming from the first black attorney general, moreover, one appointed by the first black man elected president. Holder's complaint is that, "We, as average Americans, simply...

By all means we need a little moral courage when it comes to discussing race — and Eric Holder was in a perfect position to begin that discussion. But instead, he simply trotted out the well-worn shibboleths about intolerance and racial division. He might have taken another course. The elephant in the room in discussions of race isn’t white prejudice; it’s the breakdown of the black family and all the attendant social pathologies that emanate from it. When 7-out-of-10 black babies are born to single women and more than half of black children spend most of their childhood without a...

President Obama is learning it is a lot easier to reverse unpopular positions of his predecessor than it is to come up with better ones of his own. On Thursday, he signed executive orders aimed at shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, which houses some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. His orders also restricted interrogation methods that can be used by the CIA to elicit information from suspects and eliminated secret overseas detention facilities run by the CIA. Earlier, he suspended military commission hearings that were established to hear cases against those held at Guantanamo, including...

When word broke that Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner had failed to pay employment taxes he owed for several years, the reaction in Washington was gentle. Politicians on both sides of the aisle defended Geithner as an excellent choice to head the Treasury in these troubled financial times and predicted that the incident would be little more than a hiccup in his confirmation process. The news media covered the breaking story, but without the hype and round-the-clock stories they've run when nominees hit a snag in the past. Does this mean that Barack Obama's ascendance to the presidency is ushering...

No one wants to talk about who is most to blame for the financial crisis that now threatens the U.S. economy, though there is plenty of blame to go around. It is far easier to blame other people -- greedy Wall Street executives, predatory lenders, President Bush, federal regulators, members of Congress --than it is to look at ourselves. For too long, Americans have been living on borrowed money they could never pay back. We've bought houses we couldn't afford and taken out loans on home equity that didn't materialize, assuming housing values would continually move upward. We've paid for...

A majority minority nation: that's what the U.S. Census Bureau is projecting by the year 2042, according to new figures released this week. By mid-century, according to the government's projections, Hispanics, Asians and blacks will outnumber non-Hispanic whites by about 32 million. The statistics make for interesting headlines -- and, no doubt, cause heartburn in certain circles -- but the fact is: they are more or less meaningless. The problem in all such predictions is that they don't take sufficient account of intermarriage and assimilation. From our founding as a nation, there have been those who worried that "foreigners" would...