Free Republic

During Wednesday night's presidential debate, Newt Gingrich could barely restrain his amusement as co-moderator Maria Bartiromo defended the liberal media's reporting of the economy. Bartiromo took umbrage after Gingrich's asserted, "What is amazing to me is the inability of much of our academic world and much of our news media and most of the people on Occupy Wall Street to have a clue about history." The CNBC journalist responded by huffing, "I'm sorry, but what is the media reporting inaccurately about the economy?" An incredulous Gingrich mocked, "I love humor disguised as a question. That's terrific." [ See video below....

Occupy may be gone, but it is clearly not forgotten. The people protesting Eric Garner’s death in New York City were marching to a slightly different drum beat in 2011, but they seem to have returned, having learned something from their previous mistakes.

In a development that may portend extended disruptions, veteran street organizer Lisa Fithian, previously dubbed “Professor Occupy,” recently trained Ferguson protesters how to “simulate chaos.” Fithian is a legendary organizer who once announced she seeks to “create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.” She was one of the luminaries of the Occupy Wall Street movement and was a lead organizer in the infamous 1999 Seattle riots against the World Trade Organization that descended into violence. The 1999 WTO event in Seattle devolved into widespread rioting in which more than 40,000 protesters, some using violent tactics, descended...

Have you ever wondered what happened to all the POWIES, the People of Occupy Wall Street? You know, all those pathetically sad people who signed on to the Progs’ last populist class warfare movement?It was the story of the year in 2011, and you may recall it was also the story that gave MOTUS her international creds. My post, The People of OWS: like the people of Wal-Mart, only not as smart, was Instalanched and picked up by the Daily Mail Online and read ‘round the world: I’ve been kind of a big deal on the Internet ever since. A...

Establishment Republican Neel Kashkari (R) has pulled ahead of controversial California state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R) ahead of Tuesday's all-party primary, according to a new poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times. ADVERTISEMENT Kashkari leads Donnelly among likely voters with 18 percent of the vote to 13 percent, the first time the former assistant Treasury secretary has had a lead in the Republican field. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) was at 50 percent in the live-caller poll, conducted for the Times and the University of Southern California by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. Some Republicans have been panicked about having Donnelly...

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – KMOX News has learned Ferguson protestors are seeking St. Louis Rams tickets in the hopes of getting into the Edward Jones Dome and disrupting this Sunday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys. We first heard about the threat Tuesday at the St. Louis County Council meeting. “It’s not going to a fun day Sunday at your beautiful Rams game,” one protestor said. Speaking with KMOX hosts Debbie Monterrey and Michael Kelley on Thursday morning, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said he’s well aware of those threats and is working on plans to counteract them. “We are...

... As 'Domestic Extremists' In FOIA'ed Emails An activist is a terrorist, at least according to Senior Police Officer Justin Berry of the Austin Police Dept. While the terms aren't mutually exclusive, a person can be one without being the other. In Berry's mind, they're both, and he feeds off the FBI's paranoia to reach his conclusion.

Anti-war protesters have been demonstrating in Newport, as South Wales prepares to host the Nato summit. Around 1,000 people gathered outside the crown court before they made their way through the city. As well as a strong Welsh contingent, demonstrators came from as far as the US, Belgium, France and Ireland. Police are expecting more demonstrations this week including one on Thursday that may be "something a little more challenging" as protesters try to get to Celtic Manor Resort, which is the focus of the summit. Among those taking part in Saturday's march was veteran CND campaigner Bruce Kent. He...

Think of every area where the GOP has strayed from its conservative roots. The bailouts. TARP. Out-of-control government spying. Job-killing corporate cronyism. There is one man in Congress consistently saying “no” to making government bigger and less accountable. His name is Justin Amash, and the establishment has taken notice. Big business wants to ensure voters elect Republicans who will keep the perks flowing -- from taxpayers’ bank accounts and right to their pockets. They’ve even created a feel-good way to describe such a Republican: Pro-business. And that’s exactly the kind of guy they’ve found in Amash’s primary challenger. Amash goes...

Every. Damn. Time. Tucked away in their backstory of anti-social behavior, an inconvenient nugget of truth about the couple responsible for killing three people, including two police officers, in Las Vegas:

Suburban Albany is not known for its rip-roaring weekend scene, but this most recent Saturday night, it was the momentary center of the political universe, as an underfunded political party was using its quadrennial convention to try to force America’s most powerful and best-financed governor to submit to its demands. Though the Working Families Party’s conventions are typically low-key affairs, this one had drawn 800 activists and operatives and most of the New York press corps—all to see if the party would endorse conservative Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo or run a third-party candidate against him. In the end, when the...

There has been a lot of talk in the blogs and in local and national news about the heckling and boos that Eric Cantor received when he gave his speech at the 7th District GOP convention this past Saturday. Many felt it was unseemly and disrespectful. I personally don’t like booing even when a referee makes a bad call, but I think you can better understand the response from this past Saturday if you have context: Eric Cantor has made it abundantly clear to all his constituents that town hall meetings are beneath him. His consultant, Ray Allen, once told...

Big Journalism has learned that the Occupy Washington DC movement is working with well-known media members to craft its demands and messaging while these media members report on the movement. Someone has made the emails from the Occupy D.C. email distro public and searchable. The names in the list are a veritable who’s who in media. Journolist 2.0 includes well known names such as MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, Rolling Stone’s Matt Tiabbi who both are actively participating; involvement from other listers such as Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald plus well-known radicals like Noam Chomsky, remains unclear.

Some folks involved with the annual Burning Man festival plan on staging a counter-standoff to the one currently taken up by Bundy in his ongoing challenge to the feds over grazing rights. The video below posted by progressive activist Sean Shealy details the plan for a month-long shindig to be held after the official Burning Man proceedings that will take place directly across from Bundy Ranch. The "anything goes" action promises hundreds of bands, as many as 50,000 revelers, "total freedom," and of course full nudity. "You're free to let it all hang out right there, just like Bundy's cattle,"...

The rich are not the problem, the greedy are not the problem, the crooked are not the problem - the problem is the system that brings them about. If the system is ours, the system means by the people, of the people, for the people, then now it is time to take it back. Now it is time to demand that it would be changed.

We're better than those damned Russians and their Putin; we have democracy! Well, maybe not. Quote: Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. Lots of big words in that paragraph. Let's distill it down -- the argument presented is that America is really no different than...

FROM THE 'DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND': A new low for the far left: a post titled, "Why I Hope the Bloodshed Continues in Iraq." I kid you not.  DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND DECIDES TO EDIT: Hmmm. After I linked to a truly hideous posting celebrating bloodshed in Iraq, they take the page down. I should have copied the page. First CBS. Now DU. Shine a light on them and they scram. - 11:42:12 AM  THE POST: Here's what Democratic Underground didn't want you to see: I Hope the Bloodshed Continues in IraqWell, that should bring the bats out of the attic with fangs dripping....

For Immediate Release: Contact: Rosanna Pulido April 14, 2014 Rick Biesada tel. 773-771-3927 Chicago, IL – The head of the Illinois Minuteman Project and former Republican candidate for Congress, Rosanna Pulido, announced that her group, along with The Chicago MInutemen Project group and grassroots organizations, is holding a “SAVE THE AMERICAN WORKER RALLY” at 1:00 pm Tuesday, April 22, at the corner of Michigan and Van Buren Streets in downtown Chicago. Pulido said the rally is being held to protest a gathering of well-heeled Republican politicians, lobbyists, and corporate CEOs pushing amnesty for illegal aliens at the nearby Chicago Club...

Guess who's all of a sudden standing up for law and order? Why, it's radical environmentalists, who despite their general disdain for lawful behavior have felt compelled to speak out in support of the Bureau of Land Management's attempts to round up Cliven Bundy's cattle and ultimately force the Nevada rancher to abandon his family's century-old business. Martin Griffith at the Associated Press relayed the comments of one such group in a Sunday report in the aftermath of the BLM's abandonment of its roundup efforts, in Griffith's words, "after hundreds of states' rights protesters, some of them armed militia members,...

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the current bull market on Wall Street, making it one of the longest and strongest in history. Yet U.S. stock ownership is at a record low and less than half of Americans trust banks and financial services. And in the last two weeks, the New York attorney general and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission in Washington have both launched investigations into high-frequency computerized stock trading that now controls more than half the market. The probes were announced just ahead of a much anticipated book on the subject by best-selling author Michael Lewis called...