Free Republic

To reform a religion is to change it and what we seek in Christianity today is to restore our understanding of truth, not to re-form it Is there such a thing as a “reform” religion? Given some thought, a number of questions crop up regarding what is actually a reform religion, particularly when applied to the mosques, synagogues and churches that claim to practice their faith under the auspices of newness. Starting with this: If one believes in the religion, yet thinks it must be reformed (changed, re-“formed”) in order to be applicable to their lives, then is not the...

“This bill is about people being terrorized in their own home.” Those were the words of Wisconsin State Rep. state Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, (R-New Berlin) last night at the state legislature debated a bill that would limit the power, scope, and length of the state’s “John Doe” procedure. I’m sure by now you’ve seen the exciting news – as our Wisconsin bureau chief, Matt Kittle,emailed me in the wee hours of this morning to let me know that the bill passed both houses and is headed to Gov. Scott Walker’s desk. I wanted to take a moment to thank you...

Part 267 of 265 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War MADISON, Wis. — Get ready for more fireworks Wednesday as the Assembly takes up two bills aimed at reforming Wisconsin’s troubled campaign finance law and overhauling its even more troubled political speech regulator. Under a Republican proposal, the state Government Accountability Board would be split into two commissions, an elections entity and an ethics operation. The six election commission members would be partisan, evenly appointed by both parties and the governor, and the directors of the commissions would be appointed to four-year terms, subject to reappointment. Created in 2007 with...

Besides doing something about certain lawless decisions made by our black-robed masters, something must also be done about how we came to such a place where they can cast their gaze across the fruited plain and whatever catches their fancy becomes the law of the land, indeed higher than the Constitution. Roe was bad enough, a joke of a decision made out of whole cloth after Justice Blackmun consulted with phony history and the opinion of his young daughter. But Obergefell is much worse, coming as it does after twenty years of everyday Americans making their views abundantly and overwhelmingly...

Give him credit. Most elected officials are content to tinker at the edges, but Governor Jindal of Louisiana actually wants to solve problems. Look what he’s done, for instance, on fiscal policy. He sought to abolish his state’s personal income tax, a step that would have dramatically boosted the states competitiveness. That effort stalled, but he actually has been successful in curtailing state spending. He’s amassed one of the best records for frugality of all governors seeking the GOP presidential nomination. And he’s now joined the list of presidential candidates seeking to rewrite the internal revenue code. Since we’ve already reviewed...

MADISON, Wisconsin — Despite word that some members were getting weak-kneed about sweeping reform, GOP Assembly leadership is rolling out an overhaul of the state Government Accountability Board — a bill aimed at decentralizing a rogue agency its critics charge is run by left-leaning bureaucrats. Sources tell Wisconsin Watchdog the proposed bill, to be laid out Wednesday afternoon, will replace the existing accountability board with two separate and distinct commissions — ethics and elections. The GAB’s six presiding retired judges will be replaced. Under the proposal, the Legislature would appoint four citizen members of the Elections commission, two from each...

I n April a BMW racing through a fruit market in Foshan in China’s Guangdong province knocked down a 2-year-old girl and rolled over her head. As the girl’s grandmother shouted, “Stop! You’ve hit a child!” the BMW’s driver paused, then switched into reverse and backed up over the girl. The woman at the wheel drove forward once more, crushing the girl for a third time. When she finally got out from the BMW, the unlicensed driver immediately offered the horrified family a deal: “Don’t say that I was driving the car,” she said. “Say it was my husband. We...

This is a HTML LIST version of full text of TAX REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN [Full text of Trump's Tax plan]. Personally I find it easier to get information when the entire document is in a kind of outline format. Hover underlined words for definitions.

Some may find this interesting and germane to today's immigration issues.. it's from various sources and covers IMO important events in the efforts for "immigration reform" from Mexico's perspective.

 Well, I see Ben Carson, just like a number of our establishment Republican candidates, is supporting a continuance of the socialist experiment of laying and collecting a federal tax calculated from profits, gains, salaries and other lawfully earned incomes ___ and he even has invoked God in support of his proposed damnation! In addition to circumventing our Constitution’s command requiring all direct taxes to be apportioned among the States, Carson’s tax reform keeps a patently evil power in our federal government’s hands that has been used over and over by our federal government for nefarious purposes, and has proven to...

Our unsustainable predicament Democrats, along with a number of equally feckless Republicans, are extolling the virtues of “comprehensive immigration reform.” Such jargon obscures their real agenda, which is the abandonment of the rule of law in favor of a political expediency that benefits the ruling class and its campaign contributors. A ruling class and campaign contributors who seek to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” into a nation where progressive power is permanent, and cheap labor is plentiful. Hence, while those virtues are put front and center before the public, the vices associated with illegal immigration are relegated to...

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) is putting the blame for Congress's failure to move immigration reform squarely on the shoulders of President Obama. The House Speaker said he's been pushing immigration reform since he took the gavel four years ago, but the president has "poisoned the well" with his executive actions on the issue. "He's stirred up the American people in such a way that it would almost be impossible to do immigration reform, given the environment that we're dealing with," Boehner said on CBS's "Face the Nation" program, which aired Sunday morning. "I want to do immigration reform and the...

Now that Donald Trump has the American People’s attention, will he support tax reform which will end the nefarious and slavish socialist experiment allowing Congress to lay and collect taxes calculated from profits, gains salaries and other lawfully earned incomes? Will he work for real tax reform and move us to a federal tax system which taxes consumption as our founders intended? Carly Fiorina was correct when she said about our current system “The complexity and lack of transparency only benefits the powerful and connected while crushing small businesses and innovation. The result is crony capitalism–because only big businesses can...

MADISON, Wisconsin — State Rep. Rob Hutton led the Assembly effort this session to kill Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law, the wage inflator that has cost taxpayers untold billions over the past 8o-plus years. But the Brookfield Republican, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall — or the lack of votes in the Senate for full repeal — is getting behind a compromise amendment he says would go a long way to reforming prevailing wage. On Monday, Hutton announced he is co-authoring a proposal by state Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, that would repeal prevailing wage for all local units of...

It should come to no one’s surprise that we have way too many federal laws. It’s to the point where–on average–we break at least three of them every day without ever knowing it. Conservatives may complain about out tax code–and they should–but our criminal code is also out of control. At the recent conference on justice reform hosted by FreedomWorks in June, our criminal code was subject to a prolonged discussion regarding how outrageous it has become There are at least 5,000 federal criminal laws, with 10,000-300,000 regulations that can be enforced criminally. In fact, our entire criminal code has...

AUBURN, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage pitched his plan to reform Maine’s tax system and realign the state’s spending priorities in a “town hall” forum at Edward Little High School on Wednesday. LePage announced he intends to put a statewide ballot measure before voters in 2016 that would ask them to amend the Maine Constitution to eliminate the state’s income tax for good. He told Eileen Heidrich of Turner that that way he would be sure his goal to end the state’s income tax completely could not be undone by politicians in Augusta. “We are working on the language; we’ve...

Tomorrow, the Senate will consider H.R. 2, a Medicare-reform bill that has already acquired a classic Beltway acronym, MACRA. Conservatives should give their full support: According to a report released last week, MACRA not only would pay for itself but would result in large net savings to the Medicare program over time, reducing unfunded liabilities and preventing massive new debt. To oversimplify it, MACRA does two things to Medicare. First, it replaces a 21 percent planned payment cut to doctors — known as the “sustainable growth rate” or SGR — with a more durable payment system. (This is the devastating...

To defeat the extremists for good, Muslims must reject those aspects of their tradition that prompt some believers to resort to oppression and holy war

In a classic Marc Andreessen “tweetstorm,” the venture capitalist offers 16 “somewhat-less obvious ideas for how to expand the # of “unicorn” great tech startups over time.” (I have added a few links and a chart.) Taken together, I think, Andreessen’s ideas point toward a more dynamic, competitively intense economy which (a) generates both more entrepreneurs and more creative and innovative workers with deep expertise, (b) provides easy and open access to ideas for entrepreneurs and low barriers to starting and growing their firms, (c) offers a safety net that encourages work and mobility and risk taking. In short, just...

If you think you haven’t heard of “reformicons” or “reform conservatives,” don’t sell yourself short. You are already familiar with this latest movement within the Republican Party, albeit under different branding. This piece, entitled “The Good Right” (as compared with … ?), sums up the Reformicon agenda this way: Yuval Levin, one of reform conservatism’s brightest thinkers, told Sam Tanenhaus that “a shrinking or scaling-back of government” was not his aim. He sought “an entire reimagining of it.” He argues that “a true Burkean conservatism would recast the federal government as the facilitator and supporter of local institutions who are...