Free Republic

The unfolding IRS scandal is a symptom, not the disease.For decades, campaign-finance reform zealots have sought to limit core political speech through spending limits and disclosure requirements. More recently, they have claimed that it is wrong and dangerous for tax-exempt entities to engage in political speech. The Obama administration shares these views, especially when conservative, small-government organizations are involved, and the IRS clearly got the message. While the agency must be investigated and reformed, the ultimate cure for these abuses is to unshackle political speech by all groups, including tax-exempt ones, from arbitrary and unconstitutional government regulation. Beginning in March...

It’s safe to say not too many zeroes are handed out to students who have actually completed their assignment and have handed it in. Most flat-line marks are due to, as seen in the Dorval case, required work the student failed to do. If there is nothing to grade, it stands to reason no grade is given.

In the first months after the Benghazi attack, the most urgent question, and one only rarely asked, was "What were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton doing during the seven and a half hours between the initial emergency communications from Benghazi and the final American deaths?" A negative answer was provided in February by Leon Panetta: they were not engaging with their subordinates; they were not contacting anyone to discuss options; they were giving no orders for action; they remained entirely uninvolved. We are left to speculate about the positive answer to that question. Were they sleeping? Curled up by the...

Wealthy Californians would like to thank you for buying them expensive automobiles. Didn’t know you that generous, eh? In fairly recent political history, left-of-center ideologues and other special needs people have advocated “public/private partnerships”. Once opposed to anything corporate, alleged progressives now embrace funneling tax funds to corporations of every ilk that sustain their ideology, regardless of how insane the plot sounds to common folks with common sense. No less of a man than Bill Clinton (and given his serial freelance philandering, there is no lesser of a man) has focused his face into television cameras proclaiming that government funded...

What are “progracists”? Progracists are people who continually classify individuals by “race” and yet can’t see how that is racist. Progracists hate Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of an America in which people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” because progressive policies are based on race consciousness, ethnic division, and identity politics. Progracists keep minorities addicted to government benefits and entitlements specifically to make sure they remain poor and economically enslaved, and therefore a reliable voting bloc. Progracists always seek to restrict everyone‘s freedoms because they think that’s the...

Monday, May 06, 2013 The Burglar-Terrorist Alliance Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog 0 Comments (The following is an adaptation of a talk that I recently gave.) Every act of violence has two sides. The side of those who carry it and the side of those who let it happen. When a burglar breaks into a home and kills two people, we don't just discuss what made him do it, but why it was allowed to happen. That's a conversation we rarely have about terrorism. The left wants us to talk about terrorism as a reaction to...

I have set the link to start at the point where Evan really gets going. Evan Sayet is a genius. If you have never heard him talk or read his book 'The Kindergarten of Eden' you are truly missing out. Listen to him and the illogical reasoning of Progressives and political correctness will become clear. The Laws of Modern Liberalism 1. Indiscriminateness – the total rejection of the intellectual process – is an absolute moral imperative. 2. Indiscriminateness of thought does not lead to indiscriminateness of policies. It leads to siding only and always with the lesser over the better,...

In the health-care insurance debate, one of the mantras of the left is to condemn those evil, greedy insurance companies that would charge higher rates to people with "pre-existing conditions." But in a commercial aired on last night's Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, there was "Progressive Insurance," whose chairman Peter Lewis is a huge donor to liberal causes including Moveon.org, condemning as "rate suckers" people with bad driving records who drive up good drivers' rates! View the video here.

In The Republic, Plato argued that philosophers must be made kings for the ideal city-state to be born. In the pages of The New Republic, Cass Sunstein argues for the benevolent paternalism of the nanny state and its philosopher-kings. It’s an old Sunstein theme and the one that brought him to the attention of politicians who dearly love to imagine themselves in the roles of those philosopher-kings. One of those politicians, Barack Obama, even made Sunstein his Regulatory Czar. Sunstein debuted as the philosopher-king of the technocrats with his book Nudge. Now having left his D.C. Czardom, Sunstein is back...

This blog post searches for the philosophical foundations of left-wing politics, asking this question: The conservative movement rests on a series of great thinkers: Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Burke, Mill, Hayek, von Mises, etc. Where are the intellectual foundations of the Left?...There is an intellectual tradition behind the contemporary Left, stretching back to Plato’s Republic and including Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Marcuse, Alinsky, etc. But it’s a deeply totalitarian tradition. It’s the political philosophy that dares not speak its name in an election season, for it would garner few votes, and for good reason. The real intellectual vacuum underlies not the...

Margaret Thatcher was “barbaric” and “a terror.” She “hated the arts … hated the English poor [and] hated Greenpeace and environmental protectionists.” That’s the pronouncement of singer Morrisey, who has also come up with such astute political assessments as “If more men were homosexual, there would be no wars, because homosexual men would never kill other men, whereas heterosexual men love killing other men.” That’s certainly debatable. Morrisey is hardly alone in hating someone he brands a hater. A Labour candidate expressed disappointment Thatcher hadn’t been killed in a 1984 hotel bombing. And leftist politician George Galloway, who bears the...

Forward, in practice, means, and has always meant, the same things: death to multitudes of innocents; economic collapse; spiritual degradation; widespread poverty; a drudgerous, machinelike existence for "the masses," leavened only by mindless amusements designed to palliate the senseless waste of time that is life without genuine hope; and forced debasement in compulsory retardation and indoctrination centers (aka government schools).

Democrats and Republicans are debating whether an overhauled tax code should be as progressive as the current one, after the latest House GOP budget set up an aggressive framework for tax reform. Top Democrats are pushing to maintain the current progressivity in the code, after the party scored its long sought-after tax rate increase in the fiscal cliff deal. But with the top individual tax rate now 39.6 percent, some Republicans aren’t nearly as concerned about progressivity as they look to lower tax rates and eliminate tax preferences. “If this was easy, we’d have it done already,” said Rep. Pat...

Is an unborn baby “a life worth sacrificing?” The question is horrifying, but the argument was all too real. In a recent article, Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com conceded what the pro-life movement has contended all along — that from the moment of conception the unborn child is undeniably a human life. And yet, Williams argues that this unborn human life must be terminated if a woman desires an abortion. The child is a life, but, in her grotesque view, “a life worth sacrificing.” The abortion rights movement has always had a problem with language. The average American still hears...

Have you ever wondered why Fascism (essentially socialism) and Nazism (again, essentially socialism) are considered to be right-wing political philosophies? It's because the left-wing and its obedient lap-dog, the MSM, have gone to great lenghts to recast them as right-wing philosophies. In an effort to create as much distance as possible between Hitler and his socialist principles, Hitler has deliberately been mislabeled as extreme right wing by the socialist movement. Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists (the Nazi party) represented extreme left wing politics. Leftists are quick to cite the fact that one of Hitler's first actions was to get...

Seldom do I ever use anything in my post that originates from an e-mail, and I do mean its is rare. However I came across an e-mail I had previously read.This particular e-mail has around in cypher-space since 2006 and the essay has found its way back to my inbox once again. The e-mail essay was written by a squared away Retired Marine, Sgt Major J. D. Pendry.Snopes indicates that the essay was properly attributed to, and the content is authentic. After much consideration I decided to post the essay. In view of the upcoming sequestration, I felt the essay...

Forget that The Daily Caller is reporting Progressive USA’s claim that NRA donated $10,000 to Debbie Halvorson, and that the contender for the Congressional seat vacated by disgraced anti-gun head case Jesse Jackson Jr. calls for “Universal Background Checks and registration of all firearms … Making sure that background checks work so people do not fall through the cracks in the National Data Base [and] Ending the Gun Show loophole” on her campaign website. Those who play political chess will tell us Halvorson opposes banning semi-autos and some such, while hard-liners will point out the prospective ban is likely to...

Today the Jewish people celebrate the holiday of Purim. It’s an old and familiar story: An intolerant Jew-hater named Haman hatches a plan to annihilate the Jewish people in the ancient kingdom of Persia. It’s That Genocide Thing. Again. Most of the Jews in this multicultural Persian kingdom have been enlightened to the point where they enthusiastically attend royal feasts and gorge themselves off the golden plates and cups looted from the holy Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. But these court Jews have evolved past that old, tired Judaism. They’re all new-agey, progressive, and they know that Jewish history has moved...

Blueprint NC is “a nonprofit that coordinates the activities of liberal-leaning nonprofits” in North Carolina and when this 501(c) group’s communications director Stephanie Bass forwarded a strategy memo to member organizations, she included a disclaimer: “CONFIDENTIAL to Blueprint, so please be careful – share with your boards and appropriate staff, but not the whole world.” Oops. The memo got leaked to reporter Mark Binker at WRAL in Raleigh. The contents are quite disturbing and clearly partisan: “The most effective way to mitigate the worst legislation is to weaken our opponents’ ability to govern by crippling their leaders (McCrory, Tillis, Berger,...

<p>The Associated Press on Thursday updated its stylebook so that married individuals will be referred to as husband and wife, regardless of whether they are in a same-sex marriage. The change comes a week after the AP received criticism for an internal memo designating the word "partners" for individuals in same-sex marriages.</p>

It's been 80 years since Stalin's brutal reign. Close to 150 years since the end of slavery in the States. But now we have progressives arguing a way back to slavery and communism...for our own good of course: (h/t JeffG) ...[John Stuart] Mill offered a number of independent justifications for his famous harm principle, but one of his most important claims is that individuals are in the best position to know what is good for them. In Mill’s view, the problem with outsiders, including government officials, is that they lack the necessary information. Mill insists that the individual “is the...

Stop the Confirmation of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of DefenseClick here: https://www.votervoice.net/JBS/Campaigns/30628/Respond Confirming Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense may harm U.S. defense considering his record, words of praise from the Communist Party, and ties to far-left progressive organizations. Chuck Hagel a Committed Internationalist The New American 11 February 2013 The confirmation vote for Republican former senator of Nebraska Chuck Hagel (shown) to replace outgoing Leon Panetta as secretary of defense was postponed by another week after Hagel failed to meet the expectations of his former Republican colleagues during last week's Senate confirmation hearings. Even more troubling than Sen. Hagel's...

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. The IRS's assumption that the cheapest plan for family of five will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan. “The annual national...

For those of you who didn't catch the tail end of Mark Levin's show Tuesday night, here's what he discussed in the last 5 minutes.(mp3) At the Constitutional Convention, July 17th, 1787, delegate Gunning Bedford of Delaware made the following proposal: Mr. BEDFORD moved that the 2d. member of Resolution 6. be so altered as to read "and moreover to legislate in all cases for the general interests of the Union, and also in those to which the States are separately incompetent," or in which the harmony of the U. States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual Legislation."...

President Obama’s inaugural address was eloquent and moving in parts. It was also deeply partisan and polarizing, something that is unusual for a day normally devoted to unity and common purpose. But not in Barack Obama’s America. In his inaugural speech he did what he seemingly cannot keep himself from doing: portraying himself and his followers as Children of Light and portraying his opponents as Children of Darkness. You are either with Obama–or you are with the forces of cruelty and bigotry. In Obama’s world, there is no middle ground. He is the Voice of Reason; those who oppose him...

In his second inaugural address, Obama makes clear that it’s fight night in America. snip Indeed, Obama’s second inaugural address was a liberal wet dream: It pressed all of the Left’s erogenous zones: • Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Obama vowed not to change or reform them — even though they are driving us toward financial insolvency, and even though they provide workers with a relatively lousy return on their investment. • “Climate change”? It is real, and it must be addressed — now! • “Sustainable (read: green) energy”? “America cannot resist this transition. We must lead it” — now!...

There seems to be a common theme among the pundits and talking heads this morning, as they discuss the 2nd coming inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. I first heard it on NPR, as one of newscasters described Obama's speech as progressive. As quoted by Hot Air, a former White House speechwriter described it this way. Atlantic Editor James Fallows, a former White House speechwriter, tweeted that the address was “the most sustainedly ‘progressive’ statement Barack Obama has made in a decade.” Admittedly, I have yet to watch Obama's speech. I will probably watch portions of...

With deep condescension, my professors informed me that we live in a post-religious world. Religion, I was lectured, was the opiate of the people. I wondered, but never had the courage to suggest, that perhaps Marxism was the opiate of the elites.

In 2013, conservatives can offer no greater tribute of respect to our Founding Fathers and our fellow citizens than to resolve, from this day forward, to relentlessly expose, ridicule, deride, mock and publicly shame arrogant progressives in a manner that, for the first time in our adult lifetimes, communicates this one undeniable founding truth: America was never supposed to be this way. The progressive left's ultimate weapon of choice in emasculating America's strength has clearly and undeniably been outed as radical debt accumulation. Progressives have masterfully promoted the toxic falsehood that infinite government money, services, and benefits exist simply for...

1   'Seniors love getting junk mail. It’s sometimes their only way of communicating or feeling like they’re part of the real world.'   -Harry Reid  2   'I’m asking everybody here, I’m asking everybody watching this nationwide to waste your vote on me.'  -Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson 3   'It’s very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth-or-sixth-most interesting person.'  -Barack Obama  4   'First of all, give an honor to God and our lord and savior Barack Obama... Barack Obama.'   -Jamie Foxx  5   "(Obama needs to) work like a 3rd world...

Adapted from an interview by Hugh Hewitt conducted on the day after the election, November 7, 2012. [T]oo few prominent conservatives are skillful at explaining the problem of the modern bureaucratic state. This form of government proceeds by rules, and rules upon rules, and compliance with those rules becomes a key activity of the entire nation. That results in bureaucracy, and in the inefficiencies of bureaucracy. Constitutional government, on the other hand, proceeds by clearly stated laws. Not grasping this is an important failure of conservative statesmen today. During the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney...said that business and prosperity require...

This will surprise few readers: A group of House Democrats has formed its own “Gang of Six” to push for progressive tax reform — in which the expiration of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthiest Americans is “just the beginning.” This is the platform of a group of "progressives" in Congress. “In response to the call for progressives to draw a red line in the fiscal cliff sand, here is our big picture stance on corporate and individual tax reform,” Rep. Michael Honda (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “Six progressive tax principles from a new Gang of Six. The...

It is never too early to think ahead about the Presidential Election of 2016, and as pundits start debating and arguing about potential candidacies for President, it turns out that several states could witness a battle for the nomination among their own office holders, as witness the following: New York–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand–all Democrats Florida—Former Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Rick Scott, and Senator Marco Rubio–all Republicans. Virginia—Governor Bob McDonnell, Republican, and Senator Mark Warner, Democrat. Massachusetts—Governor Deval Patrick and Senator Elizabeth Warren–both Democrats. New Jersey—Governor Chris Christie, Republican, and Newark Mayor Cory...

In Washington, Americans have two-party government, with a Democratic president and Senate and a Republican House. We had it before November's election and will have it again for the next two years. Looking back from 2014, we will have had two-party government for most of the preceding two decades, for six years of Bill Clinton's presidency, three and a half years of George W. Bush's and four years of Barack Obama's. But in most of the 50 states, American voters seem to have opted for something very much like one-party government. Starting next month, Americans in 25 states will have...

GRAHAM, N.C. — In this southern mill town, tortillas and bolillos are as common as Carolina barbecue sandwiches. Spanish-language advertisements tout Latino-owned restaurants, garages, churches and used-tire lots, and banners lining the downtown streets proclaim, "Preserving our heritage — promoting our future." But protesters who gathered downtown last month in Court Square, near the statue of a Confederate soldier, delivered a different message: "We Want Respect" and "Terry Johnson Stop Lying." Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson's approach to fighting illegal immigration has raised tensions among Latinos in the community. A two-year investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, released in September,...

 Though many of the state margins were narrow President Obama ran the table winning every swing or battleground state with the possible exception of Florida where votes are still being counted as of 5:30 this morning.President Obama also won the popular vote by 2 million votes.  The President won 303 electoral votes to 206 for Romney. We knew about 11 pm that the President had won when Ohio was called for him.Democrats also held the Senate.  Elizabeth Warren won with a good margin in Massachusetts. Claire McKaskill won in Missouri beating Akin-he of the legitimate rape comment. Joe Donnelly...

Scavengers who illegally collect bottles and cans from recycling bins in San Francisco are being blamed for recent window-smashing burglaries at the Civic Center Community Benefit District offices on Van Ness Avenue. Jim Haas, a board member for the district, a nonprofit tasked with making the area safer and cleaner, believes the break-ins are payback for his organization’s recent efforts to crack down on the seedy recycling trade and the mess it leaves behind. On Saturday morning, Haas said, thieves smashed the window of the district’s office at 234 Van Ness Ave. and stole a desk and computer. “None of...

Bring your favorite puppet 11/3 to Lincoln Park, Washington DC at 10am ET with a march to Capitol Reflecting Pool by 1:00pm ET for rally.

....That's right: the big, exciting announcement is nothing to do with Obama at all. It's that Donald Trump is still a birther-conspiracist weirdo. What it really reveals, of course, is that we – the media, the world, everyone – are all idiots for listening to anything this implausibly coiffured buffoon has to say, ever. Millions of people will watch his ludicrous video, millions more will go to his pointless Facebook letter, and every single one of us who does so will lose a tiny space in our brain that we could have stored a memory of, say, our first kiss,...

There was a time when the far left wing of the Democratic Party in San Francisco stood for something. Sure, they could be shrill, exasperating and self-righteous, but they took a stand. [snip] Because right now it looks as if their only commitment is to whatever is politically expedient. Ross Mirkarimi and District Five supervisor candidate Julian Davis have some serious defects. Each has been accused of mistreating women. But, hey, progressives say, they're our bad guys.

......The UAW also advocates strongly for specific policies. In particular, it has lobbied Congress to pass Obama’s American Jobs Act, extend aid for the unemployed, refurbish urban transportation systems, update public school facilities and vacant apartment buildings, embrace progressive taxation, and provide funds to state and local governments. A fourth and final strategy involves investing in green energy. The UAW has been vocal in its support of the 2017-2025 Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which reduce U.S. oil consumption by 12 billion barrels, slash greenhouse gas emissions by 6 million metric tons, and incentivize the purchase of electric and...

“The past is never dead,” William Faulkner said, “it’s not even past.” The progressives’ fury over Obama’s meltdown in last week’s debate, and their desperate efforts to get him reelected by any means possible, have to be understood in the context of the long history of the left’s attempt to impose its ideology on the United States. Though successful at capturing the universities, schools, popular culture, and most churches, the left still lusts for the presidency, where the real power lies to change America in line with their ideology. Yet for the last four decades, the left has seen what...

..............In the Right-wing's dreamworld, the Obama Phone Lady is a "surplus" person with no place in an Ayn Rand fantasy, what is the Tea Party GOP's dystopian soon-to-be made true reality. Culture is also transmitted through historical memory. The white gun shop owner who believes that Obama is a socialist usurper represents a type ofwhiteness that is not benign. While white folks imagine themselves through the lens of white privilege (where they are kind, innocent, and good). For others, Whiteness (and by implication, white people) has been a harbinger of violence, death, destruction, and exclusion. White men with guns who...

I finally think I figured out why a Liberal prefers being called a “progressive”. They are a cancer on America and cancer is very progressive.

CHICAGO — Battling mental illness and personal financial troubles, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is a heavy favorite for reelection Nov. 6 despite a surreal campaign from which he has been absent for almost four months. Jackson, 47, who disclosed this summer that he has bipolar depression and has undergone weeks of hospitalization, is convalescing in Washington and meeting occasionally with aides. He has been absent from the House of Representatives since June 8. Whether he will campaign at all is in question. His reelection bid is being led by his wife, Sandi Jackson, who turned down interview requests....

The Castros, Julián, Rosie and Joaquín, pose for a portrait on Sunday, April 23, 2006. Photo: Helen L. Montoya, San Antonio Express-News / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS The segregated barrios of the city's West Side a half-century ago were an unlikely inspiration for Maria del Rosario Castro, the daughter of an orphaned Mexican immigrant who as a girl picked ticks from white families' cocker spaniels. She grew into a firebrand, the matriarch of a new political generation, from the broken streets of her youth that flooded when it rained. The neighborhood starkly contrasted the picturesque Alamo Heights homes that her mother...

Legal challenges to New York City's ban on sodas larger than 16 ounces are unlikely to be successful, and the ban could spark similar moves in other cities around the country, according to experts. Thursday, after the city's board of health formally prohibited restaurants from selling sodas larger than 16 ounces after March 12, 2013, organizations around New York City said they would consider suing the city to get the ban overturned. Laura Palantone, a spokesperson for New York City Beverage Choices, a group against the ban, says the organization will "carefully review the regulation and explore our options now...

The chairman of insurance giant Progressive Corp. this year provided another $465,000 for a ballot question to legalize medical marijuana in Massachusetts. Peter B. Lewis, who supports medical marijuana, has now contributed $990,000, including $525,000 last year, to the Committee for Compassionate Medicine, the organization leading the effort to legalize medical marijuana in Massachusetts. Lewis is nonexecutive chairman of Progressive, which is based in Mayfield Village, Ohio. ccording to reports filed with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance last last week, the Committee for Compassionate Medicine has raised $512,850 this year and spent $405,825. Including last year, the...