Free Republic

I am pleased that the Constitution has received a lot of attention in recent weeks, thanks to the tea party movement. The 112th Congress kicked off with a reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House. It goes without saying that Members of Congress should have read the Constitution many times, and should continue to study it. Citing the particular clause of the Constitution that authorizes newly introduced legislation is a reasonable suggestion, yet in reality it will do little to restrain unconstitutional growth of the federal government. We have had such rules in the past and no...

In the 1980’s the United States funded Iraq’s Saddam Hussein yet considered Palestine’s Yasser Arafat and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi terrorists. And they were. But so was Saddam, who at that time was terrorizing his own people, gassing Iraqi Kurds while receiving America’s financial and political support. In the 1990’s, the US declared Hussein a menace and we apparently changed our mind about Arafat, who was even invited to the White House to shake hands with Bill Clinton. In the 2000’s George W. Bush went back to calling Arafat a terrorist, went to war with Saddam, who we also began calling...

State of the Union speeches are sort of like listening to cheating husbands apologize to their wives. Not only are we told that any past mistakes are yesterday’s news and the worst is behind us, but in an effort to show how things will be different we are given a laundry list of promises that paint a rosier future. Nobody paints rhetorically better than Obama and the smooth talking president’s oratory skills were on full display this week-just as they likely will be next year when things won’t have substantively changed one bit. The most significant change Tuesday night was...

GOP Sen.-elect Rand Paul said Monday that he wants to attach spending cuts to every major piece of legislation that comes before the Senate next year. Paul (Ky.) — who won his race with strong support from the Tea Party movement — said he will "pressure" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to take simple majority votes on spending cut amendments in the next Congress. "I think that every piece of major legislation that goes forward from now on needs to have attached to it spending cuts," Paul said during a podcast with conservative blogger Ben Domenech. If Congress is...

George Orwell warned us about the use of “meaningless words” in politics, words that are endlessly repeated by sloganeering politicians until they have no meaning at all. Meaningless words certainly were on display during last week’s congressional debate over the latest tax bill. Over and over again we heard trite, empty phrases like “tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%,” “tax giveaways,” “tax earmarks,” and “borrowing money to give to millionaires.” Time and time again the same falsehoods were presented as fact, and reported as such by a credulous media. But all of these clichés about taxes are based on the...

Fox: Rand Paul Wins Kentucky

The Republican Party has a history of using desperate times to call for drastic measures and when bailing out AIG, bolstering Medicare or bombing Iraq, that party has always been willing to go big and bold on some of the largest government expansions in this nation’s history. But what about cutting government? You know, that stuff GOP politicians always talk about during election time? One might think that in a political environment in which so many are desperate to reverse what they see as unsustainable government growth, Republican rhetoric might at least attempt to reflect that desperation. But when GOP...

An Homage to Hummer Comedian Penn Jillette laments the passing of the 'big, stupid' vehicle By PENN JILLETTE There's a feeling one gets when one sits behind the wheel of a really big stupid military-lite American Hummer. You have that feeling of being strong and safe, high on your pleather throne, above the fray, above the danger, not having to listen to anyone or anything, the rumble of a too-big motor giving you a wiggle and jiggle and tickle inside you. You have the power to run over anyone else on the road, if they dare monkey with you and...

"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism." — Ronald Reagan Nonconformist: of or characterized by behavior or views that do not conform to prevailing ideas or practices. Recently Fox's Glenn Beck offered citizens a quiz to pinpoint where they fall in their political beliefs. The Nolan Chart (www.nolanchart.com/survey.php) provides questions which when answered honestly will place the responder somewhere on the political spectrum depicting conservative-libertarian-liberal-statist-centrist sections. Citizens who consider themselves conservative might be surprised to find they're somewhere between conservative and libertarian. Commentators have had a difficult time labeling tea party citizens....

Crowds cheered former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul's claim that "the revolution is alive and well in Idaho," in a speech Saturday at the Morrison Center that at times took on the feel of a revival meeting. Americans, he said, have misunderstood the definition of "rights," which are God-given and include "life, liberty and the right to keep the fruits of our labor." Those rights include neither education nor health care. "Amen!" came a voice from the crowd. That crowd included perennial political candidate Pro Life, a group wearing buttons that read "Charter Schools are Statist," and the Collett family...

With passage of last week’s bill, the American people are now the unhappy recipients of Washington’s disastrous prescription for healthcare “reform.” Congressional leaders relied on highly dubious budget predictions, faulty market assumptions, and outright fantasy to convince a slim majority that this major expansion of government somehow will reduce federal spending. This legislation is just the next step towards universal, single payer healthcare, which many see as a human right. Of course, this “right” must be produced by the labor of other people, meaning theft and coercion by government is necessary to produce and distribute it. Those who understand Austrian...

Following months of heated public debate and aggressive closed-door negotiations, Congress finally cast a historic vote on healthcare late Sunday evening. It was truly a sad weekend on the House floor as we witnessed further dismantling of the Constitution, disregard of the will of the people, explosive expansion of the reach of government, unprecedented corporate favoritism, and the impending end of quality healthcare as we know it. Those in favor of this bill touted their good intentions of ensuring quality healthcare for all Americans, as if those of us against the bill are against good medical care. They cite fanciful...

He’s running for U.S. Senate, but Republican Rand Paul helped organize a small rally Monday meant to boost opponents of U.S. Rep John Yarmuth, the Democrat who represents Kentucky’s Third Congressional District.“John needs to come home,’’ Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist said to the about 50 people gathered outside Yarmuth’s Louisville office. “There’s a tea party tidal wave sweeping across this country and we hope it’s going to sweep John Yarmuth out of office.”Tea party supporters — who oppose health care reform — were among those at the event outside the Romano Mazzoli Federal Building in Louisville.They included Sharon Stuecker...

There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan. The Center for Defense Information said a few months ago that we had spent over $400 billion on the war and war-related costs there. Now, the Pentagon says it will cost about $1 billion for each 1,000 additional troops we send to Afghanistan. One Republican Member from California told me recently that we could buy off every warlord in Afghanistan for $1 billion. Fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all this spending. Conservatives who oppose big government and huge deficit spending at home should not support it in...

Wisconsin Dells - Republicans and conservative tea party members railed against health care reform, global warming legislation and government spending at a convention Saturday that attracted about 2,000 people. The meeting, organized by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity and dubbed an unofficial tea party convention, brought together numerous Republican officeholders, party leaders and candidates in addition to national speakers like "Joe the Plumber" and Michael Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan. Speakers said they were defending America's freedoms by opposing cap-and-trade energy proposals, tax increases, health care reform and economic stimulus bills backed by Democrats. "We are...

Mitt Romney's role in overseeing passage of a universal health care plan in Massachusetts appears likely to cause headaches for the former Republican governor should he make his widely-expected run for the White House in 2012. As Matt Yglesias noted Sunday, all of the government-subsidized health care plans offered to low-income Massachusetts residents, under a program called Commonwealth Care, cover abortion.

A number of commentators have recently taken up the notion that libertarianism has become a significant force in contemporary American politics. This conviction is partly based on the assumption that, by being different from both liberals and conservatives, libertarians can enter coalitions with both, thus boosting their political power beyond their numbers. For example, David Kirby and David Boaz of the Cato Institute recently argued that, although unaware of the appropriate label for their beliefs, a significant number of Americans have “libertarian leanings” and that they are not only swing but bellwether voters; their support for Republicans, for example, ominously...

Much has been made recently about the supposed economic recovery. A few blips in a few statistics and many believe our troubles are all over. Of course, they have to redefine recovery as “jobless” to account for the lack of improvement on Main Street. But the banks have money, Wall Street is chugging along, and the administration would like to get on with other agendae. They have even set up a commission to investigate the crisis as if it were all in the past. The truth is that Americans are still losing jobs, the Fed is still inflating, and more...

Gov. Mark Sanford was back in the national headlines Thursday after CNN spotted him on Capitol Hill. And a day after making a final apology for his conduct, it looks as if the governor was turning the page. Sanford, a former congressman, was in Washington, D.C., on official business. But he took some time to go see old friends on the hill. According to media reports, Sanford spent some time with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who ran for president in 2008 and its credited with helping start the so-called Tea Party movement. Sanford's political career has been...

As we start the new year 2010, the establishment politicians, economists and Wall Street are trying to convince themselves that we have turned the corner and economic growth has once again begun. The predictions that conditions are getting back to normal come from those who never saw the crisis coming and don't have the vaguest notion what caused it. Some of them concede that it could be a jobless recovery. That will establish a new definition for a recovery. Official unemployment is at 10% but even the government knows that if everyone is counted, including those individuals that are too...