Free Republic

Much has been written, often with considerable glee, about the worsening divide in the Republican Party between its corporate and Tea Party wings. Yet Democrats may soon face their own schism as a result of the growing power in the party of high-tech business interests. Gaining the support of tech moguls is a huge win for the Democrats — at least initially. They are not only a huge source of money, they also can provide critical expertise that the Republicans have been far slower to employ. There have always been affluent individuals who backed liberal or Democratic causes, either out...

The IRS Scandal involved: At least 292 conservative groups targeted At least 5 pro-Israel groups targeted Constitutional groups targeted Groups that criticized Obama administration were targeted At least two pro-life groups targeted A Texas voting-rights group was targeted Conservative activists and businesses were targeted. At least one conservative Hispanic group was targeted IRS continued to target groups even after the scandal was exposed The Obama FBI will not file charges against the IRS for targeting conservative groups. The agency never once interviewed a single Tea Party group. The WSJ.com reported: The Journal reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is...

Dozens of Palestinians took to the streets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday to celebrate the death of former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The Palestinians handed out candy to drivers, shopkeepers and passersby, while others set fire to portraits of Sharon, the Palestinian news agency Safa reported. The agency said that the celebration took place in the town of Bani Suhaila east of Khan Yunis. Dozens of residents gathered in the center of the town, chanting “Allahu akbar” as women ululated in joy over Sharon’s death, the agency said. .....

BOSTON (AP) — Police say a woman had her toe bitten off at a New Year’s Eve party in Boston. Officers responded to a city hospital at about 5 a.m. Wednesday for a report of an apparent assault in which the victim’s little toe on her left foot was bitten off. The victim told police she made a sexual advance to another woman at the party in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood at about 3 a.m., which upset the other woman’s boyfriend and led to a fight.

Former congressman on the annual 'Wastebook' and the government study devoted to studying the cognitive skills of Tea Party members

Vid at link

**SNIP** Remaining intra-party fights only concern how extreme the shift will be, as new militants push the Dems closer to pure socialism. Conviction politicians like Obama and de Blasio have no real interest in compromise. Look at the battle between Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton. To most sane people, Clinton no longer qualifies as a centrist. Five years ago, her muscular talk on foreign policy made her allies with Robert Gates and John McCain. But her role as front lady for the Obama appease-niks turned her muscles into fat and her policy into mush. Yet Clinton is insufficiently...

No matter what the polarizing, propagandizing Left says about fiscal conservatives as it attempts to splinter this country into a pile of kindling, it's not about race, class, or anything like that... it's not even about a major social agenda about to be imposed on the country  (at least not for me). What it is about -and should be the GOP's unified, disciplined message- is the simple, straightforward idea that the American people (and the business they own/create) can do most anything better than government can... This is the foundation all effective conservative movements build-upon, and with it we can't miss...

The way the Tsimane tribe of the northern Amazon host beer drinking events offers important clues about the nature of their society, say anthropologists The indigenous Tsimane hunter-gatherers of the northern Amazon are probably the best studied native community in the world. About ten years ago, a team of US researchers began a decade-long research program to better understand the way these people develop, evolve and socialise as part of a unique farmer-forrager community . The so-called Tsimane Health and Life History Project has thrown up some fascinating insights into the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Last year, for example, the team revealed...

"Solo Mas Fina"

Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews and a handful of his teammates, as well as one ex-teammate, now have more in common than just being Stanley Cup champions. They can say they were called out by the President of the United States at the White House. Not too shabby. President Barack Obama honored his hometown hockey team Monday for its 2013 Stanley Cup championship in front of a standing-room only crowd in the East Room. During his remarks, President Obama referenced Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Bryan Bickell, Dave Bolland, Andrew Shaw and Corey Crawford in various forms of praise and...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Six in 10 Americans (60%) believe the federal government has too much power, one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. At least half of Americans since 2005 have said the government has too much power. Thirty-two percent now say the government has the right amount of power. Few say it has too little power.

How Does the Tea Party Affect the Republican Party? There is an opinion that the Tea Party Movement diminishes the Republican Party. The most important opinion is the Tea Party Patriots’ opinion. The Republican Party’s direction must weaken before achieving the Tea Party’s objective of a constitutional government. My motto if you will, “Tea Party Patriots don't make the Republican Party weaker, Tea Party Patriots make the Republican Party Conservative. The grass roots Tea Party Movement is unique because all they ask for in exchange for their vote is a constitutional government. I would love to hear every American demand...

The bullets start to fly overnight outside a birthday party in north Harris County, and one teenage boy ended up with a bullet in his face. That teen is expected to survive, but the person who shot him remains on the run. It happened at a strip center on Aldine Westfield near FM 1960. Harris County Precinct 4 deputy constables tell us it all started when a group of about 10 to 20 people got into a fight inside the birthday party. They continued to fight in the parking lot, and that's when some of the other guests decided to...

This fact marks our political age: The pendulum is swinging faster and in shorter arcs than it ever has in our lifetimes. Few foresaw the earthquake of 2008 in 2006. No board-certified political professional predicted, on Election Day 2008, what happened in 2009-10 (New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts) and has been happening, and will happen, since then. It all moves so quickly now, it all turns on a dime. But at this moment we are witnessing a shift that will likely have some enduring political impact. Another way of saying that: The past few years, a lot of people in...

A Democratic Party official in Sacramento County has resigned after sending an offensive Twitter message during a heated exchange over President Obama’s health care law. SNIP Brauer addressed the offensive tweet to Amanda Carpenter, a speechwriter for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, as House Republicans voted to defund the health care law. Brauer wrote, “May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases.” SNIP

A former NFL player’s home was broken into and thoroughly trashed by teenagers in upstate New York over Labor Day weekend. Brian Holloway, a three time all-pro lineman for the New England Patriots, arrived to his second home in Stephentown on Tuesday to find it covered in urine, graffiti and empty cups and booze bottles. While he and his family were in Florida, the area high schoolers broke into the $1.5 million house and then with the help of Twitter quickly attracted hundreds of their peers from miles around. Now Holloway, himself a father of 8, has used the same...

**SNIP** “Our peers mingled for hours while dressed as bloods or Crips while using racialized language,” accused the letter, circulated on campus. “It then turned into a ‘ghetto party’ with racialized language, speech and dress. Over 200 individuals attended this racist and classist event.” The letter went on to urge students to report the event to the Dartmouth administration “as a bias incident” using an included hyperlink. "We are asking everyone to flood the bias incident account with our call for justice, right now,” reads the email. “[O]rganizations across campus will be mobilizing for further steps. Reporting with the above...

Maybe it was something she sang? Oakland Tea Party protester Celeste Paradise used her one minute of public comment time to sing a protest song at a public meeting. That’s when the committee shut her mic off.

The pendulum swings away from Sheikh Hasina and her governmentAHEAD of the festival of Eid-al-Fitr on August 9th-11th, the two quarrelling heads of Bangladesh’s political dynasties exchanged greetings cards. But the outward signs of peace between the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, and the opposition leader, Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), mean little. A European diplomat says he has just sent two cables to his capital. The first discusses the growing chances of the League’s defeat in elections due by next January. The second is about the dynastic succession plans of the battling...