Free Republic

TRANSCRIPT: WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The town of Westminster, Massachusetts — population 7,300 — is a small, quiet community about an hour west of Boston. When the local health board holds meetings, it usually happens here in this room, where you can get advice about things like septic tanks and mosquito control. But not on this day. This meeting Wednesday night had to be moved to the local elementary school because the town is up in arms. MAN: You people make me sick! WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Why so mad? That Board of Health is proposing to make Westminster the first town in the...

Andrew Stiles contributed to these explanations.What is Truthy?“Truthy” is a research project being conducted by the University of Indiana. Proponents claim this is an apolitical study of how information spreads online through the social media platform Twitter.What is Twitter?Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to post hot takes and/or anonymous insults on the Internet.What is the Internet?The Internet is a cultural phenomenon that allows people to earn money by typing words on a computer regardless of talent or expertise. For example, you are reading this “explanatory” post on the Internet. Weird, huh?Yeah, that is weird. Told you.What is...

Assuming Gruber's message is true, it means the Obama administration deliberately evaded our democratic process to pass its signature legislation. Its justification, which Gruber makes explicit, is not only that "we know what's best for you," but also that "you are too dense to know that yourself." This arrogant, condescending approach extends far beyond Obamacare. It is an essential feature of progressive politics for the past century. From the outset, progressive politics yoked expert advice to expansive state action, especially redistributive policies to help the poor. It says, "We are experts who want to help you, the great unwashed. You...

In the early years of the 20th Century, the “science” of eugenics spread across America, from pulpits to statehouses, with religious zeal. The underlying premise of the eugenics movement was that the undesirable traits of parents would invariably be passed on to their children. While the scientific basis for this assumption had little data to support its conclusions, the new “science” was quickly embraced by the American progressive movement and many of the wealthy. Early funding for eugenics projects came from such wealthy Americans as John Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and oil magnate and founder of the 3-in-1 Oil Company, James...

Professor Jonathan Gruber of MIT, who designed the Affordable Care Act, used to be the symbol of the Democrats’ technocratic bona fides, and an example of how big government with its “scientific” experts can solve social and economic problems from health care to a warming planet. Yet a recently publicized video of remarks he made at a panel in 2013, along with 2 other videos in the same vein, has now made him the poster child of the elitist progressives’ contempt for the American people, and their sacrifice of prudence and reason to raw political power. In the video Gruber...

Which brings us to attempt three -- the “Transformation,” I guess we’ll call it. The flaw here arose from the selection of a completely uneducated and possibly ineducable candidate to carry it out. Barack Obama checked all the boxes and touched all the bases during his career without, it seems, ever learning a single thing worth knowing. The tell with this man was the fact that he utterly lacks the humility that has marked men of wisdom since Confucius and Socrates. According to Obama, he was “a better speechwriter than his speechwriters,” a better economist, better banker, better planner, and...

MIT economist Johnathan Gruber is the architect of both Romneycare and Obamacare. Speaking to a group of like minded progressives last year Gruber declared that “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.” He went on to declare “and basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.” He’s referencing, in part, the Obamacare tax. The administration and the Democrats had to hide from the American people to true cost of Obamacare. If voters knew the cost they wouldn’t support Obamacare. Thus it had to be...

Welcome to the Modern Progressive Art of Debate--A Political Storm in an Outhouse One of the most regrettable—and perhaps wholly inevitable elements of today’s life in the West is the wretched mission of liberals to eradicate any trace of intellectual disagreement with their convictions. In every conceivable arena, any non-conformist theories against progressive shibboleths—such as the current war over global warming—receive the most disrespectful and wholesale trashing. The emotional tenor is sheer disgust and fury, while those in intellectual opposition are held in the same esteem as a brain-dead fetal piglet. This politicized environment utterly discards courtesy or politeness in...

Twilight of our Republic and about to enter the sunset of liberty and the dawn of an America with a living constitution, a herd mentality, and a cradle-to-grave welfare state The Progressives in both parties may be the establishment now but they have always been and continue to be revolutionaries seeking to turn the American dream into a socialist nightmare. Since the 1890s the Progressives have worked to change our American Experiment from a federal republic operating on democratic principles that recognized our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness into a democracy where the government grants...

PARIS -- Some warped minds believe that when a nation suffers a terrorist attack, it somehow deserved it and should set about doing some soul searching. Implicit in this argument is the notion that the attacker was somehow justified in his heinous actions -- there was no other option but to lash out violently. Except that there is. Even the Islamic State could choose to exercise unofficial diplomacy through a sympathetic Persian Gulf country. But it doesn't, because the Islamic State isn't interested in diplomacy -- yet some critics expect Western democracies to suck it up whatever terrorism comes their...

As the final furlongs of the 2014 midterm election season approach, it is important that as conservatives we reflect upon not simply on polling data and the issues that drive individual races, but precisely what drives our political activism. While establishment Republicans and Tea Party enthusiasts alike fully recognize the failings and inadequacies of the GOP, we need fully recognize that our goals of a more perfect Union and the future of our children depends on electing men and women who share and reflect our values to the US Senate, Governors mansions and (possibly of even greater importance) state legislature...

It didn't take long for the left to begin carping about coverage of the shooting in Canada this morning. In fact, MSNBC's Chris Hayes got the ball rolling before word even broke that alleged shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was a convert to Islam.

Francis Fukuyama picked an auspicious publication date for his latest book, "Political Order and Political Decay." The news is full of stories of political decay: the Centers for Disease Control and Ebola; the Department of Veterans Affairs' health service; the Internal Revenue Service political targeting. Europe gives us the dysfunctional euro and no-growth welfare states. Not to mention failed states in the Middle East and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Critics have lambasted Fukuyama for proclaiming, in the title of his 1992 book, "The End of History." That's not entirely fair. His argument there was that the battle of ideas...

The progressive will continue to haunt American politics, but his current hipster incarnation is headed for extinction. Obama’s approval ratings and MSNBC’s viewer ratings are in a close race to the bottom of Death Valley. It’s only a question of which set of obnoxious hipsters with a head full of bad policy ideas and no real life experience will be fired first; the Maddow crew or the White House staff. The progressive pajama boy era is over. The asexual messenger bag toting wonk has met an ISIS Jihadist and run home to its non-traditional family. Liberalism isn’t over, but its...

Monday, October 20, 2014 The Progressive Pajama Boy Era is Over Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Obama’s approval ratings and MSNBC’s viewer ratings are in a close race to the bottom of Death Valley. It’s only a question of which set of obnoxious hipsters with a head full of bad policy ideas and no real life experience will be fired first; the Maddow crew or the White House staff. The progressive pajama boy era is over. The asexual messenger bag toting wonk has met an ISIS Jihadist and run home to its non-traditional family. Liberalism isn’t...

There once was a land, a magical land, with a chicken in every pot. And in this land, which was called Progressitopia, there were two peoples. There were those who saw the world as it was, and there were those who saw the world as they oh-so-very-much wished it could be. The former were called the Trads, and the latter, the Progs. It was the Progs who held dominion over this great land, and so it was they who wrote, or re-wrote, her history. Now, in this kingdom we must remember that Christianity, or “Christianism” as it would later be...

At the Shadow Party’s "Take Back America" conference in Washington on June 3, 2004, following a glowing introduction from Hillary Clinton, George Soros stepped to the podium to explain to the audience that when it came to electoral politics in the USA, he was a newcomer. Only his outrage over Bush’s invasion of Iraq had stirred him to get involved in the partisan struggle. "[I]t is the first time that I feel that I need to stand up and do something, and become really engaged in the electoral process in this country," Soros said.[1] This was far from the truth,...

Soros' son, Jonathon, has taken on the mantle of sponsoring democrat and independent candidates who expect to further the restriction of wealth accumulation in America To this day, most people are still unacquainted with George Soros and his agenda to foil every citizen’s access to the American dream. As a man who has exploited the worst aspects of capitalism to acquire billions of dollars, it seems inexplicable that he campaigns against the very free enterprise system that made him a money mogul, and recruits other millionaires to his cause. Soros, an international felon, has abused the currency market to create...

Most people when they think of Marxism, think of the Soviet Union and its abject failure. Indeed, most people feel that Marxism is not a threat… even the Communist Chinese have embraces Capitalism, of a sorts. Marxism, though, is not only still a threat, but is on the verge of (if it has already not achieved) overthrowing the West. It is not the classical Marxism that focused on economic aspects, but cultural Marxism, which focuses in on immanentizing the eschaton by cultural and social upheaval.It is important to out the modern-day proponents of Cultural Marxism and out them for what...

The "people's movement" is a reference to progressives working within the Democratic Party The Washington Post headline said the convoluted answer constituted “40 painful seconds of Alison Lundergan Grimes refusing to say whether she voted for President Obama.” The Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate evaded direct questions from a newspaper’s editorial board about whether she had voted for Obama. It was truly an embarrassment. NBC’s Chuck Todd basically said she’s finished as a candidate. But while Lundergan Grimes is avoiding the issue, and Obama is not even on the ballot this year, the Communist Party is openly organizing against the Republican...