Free Republic

According to an Associated Press report, “Obama declared that the United States still considers Manuel Zelaya to be the president of Honduras and assailed the coup that forced him into exile as ‘not legal.’ ” So the question arises, why would Obama refer to Zelaya’s ouster as an “illegal coup?” As the AP reminds us, “The term ‘coup’ is defined as ‘a sudden, decisive exercise of power whereby the existing government is subverted without the consent of the people.’ When a country’s legally and democratically elected government ‘removes’ an individual, using the processes outlined in its Constitution, it is not...

PRAGUE (AFP) – Take a tram instead of a taxi and don't change your towel every day -- such are the rules at a two-day "carbon-free" congress of the Party of European Socialists (PES), which started in Prague on Monday. "The idea is simple: we want our congress to have absolutely no impact on the amount of carbon in the environment," said the organisers, who have made climate change one of the top items on the agenda. Hundreds of men in ties and women in sharp outfits arrived at the congress venue clutching tram tickets, distributed for free by the...

The Obama administration is using a nonprofit group to help make America more like socialist Europe, according to video aired on the Glenn Beck Program. So says no less an authority than former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean. In Paris a few months ago, Dean described Organizing for America (OFA), as “a new innovation from Obama.” He continued I think it’s a great thing for the Democratic Party. Remember I talked about the permanent campaign? Well, before I got to the DNC we didn’t have a permanent campaign. You would campaign for one year when you had a candidate...

The main statement publicized after the last IPCC Scientific Assessment two years ago was that it was likely that most of the warming since 1957 (a point of anomalous cold) was due to man. This claim was based on the weak argument that the current models used by the IPCC couldn't reproduce the warming from about 1978 to 1998 without some forcing, and that the only forcing that they could think of was man. Even this argument assumes that these models adequately deal with natural internal variability—that is, such naturally occurring cycles as El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the...

It's no coincidence that the second major vote to Nationalize our health care system takes place also on a Saturday night. The Democrats strategy here is clear. AGAINST PUBLIC OPINION, this power grab of another one sixth of our economy proceeds almost under the cover of darkness, by design on a Saturday night when their phones are disconnected and their Emails unacknowledged. TV NEWS goes largely unwatched on Saturday nights. The Dems know few are watching them on the weekends, so (just like last time) they chose this day so they could HIDE from us as they pull their dirty...

Obama Proposes Federal Takeover Of Mass Transit White House Hopes For Federal Oversight Of Safety Regulations On All Local Subways, Light Rails In US Reporting Hazel Sanchez Who should run mass transportation? If the White House has its way, New York and other subway systems nationwide could be in for a federal safety takeover. It comes as a surprise to many straphangers. Unlike airplanes and highways, the nation's subways systems operate with no federal oversight. "That makes me uncomfortable to hear that," subway rider Rhonda Jordan said. "I do take the subway quite often." One City College transportation expert says...

A radical Muslim cleric alleged to have inspired the Fort Hood gunman has been praised in the past as “a preacher of peace” by a prominent SNP candidate with close links to Alex Salmond. The FBI is investigating communications between Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the US Army base in Texas, and Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric now based in Yemen. Mr Awlaki has a large following in Britain and counts prominent mainstream Muslims among his supporters. In 2006 Osama Saeed, who has been selected as the SNP candidate for Glasgow Central for the next...

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization. Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the...

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Great Britain’s Labour (Socialist) Party program to ease restrictions on immigration from Pakistan may end up bringing more trouble than the government bargained for. While Party insiders saw the program as a way of ultimately boosting votes for the Party, some of these immigrants are agitating for the imposition of Islamic law on a society-wide basis. Former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw admitted “we sure didn’t see this coming. We thought these immigrants would eventually become citizens and, in gratitude for what we’d done for them, vote Socialist. The demand that sharia become the law of the land totally blindsided...

"For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows." -- Epictetus In a little-known book entitled Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance written in 2007 a year before the global financial meltdown, Harvard professor Rawi Abdelal tells how it was French socialists, not Wall Street or the U.S. Treasury or credit rating firms (S&P, Moody’s, etc.), that liberalized global finance. The only problem with this book is that it is not one of the many books on the financial meltdown that follows the successful pop journalistic formula of demonizing greedy financial...

Barney proves he has no clue how far gone he is. Here's the bill: For the whole series of Zero dollar bills, go here: " Flickr Archive of Zero Bills"

A new video of Jeremiah Wright has surfaced, showing Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years praising Marxism and discussing his ties to communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Libyan government. Equally important, Wright is being introduced in the video by Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, an organization which has come under scrutiny for its links to the Obama Administration and dedication to the transformation and control of the private media in the U.S. In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, "Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle," McChesney declared, "Our job is to make media reform part...

MADRID -- Spain's announcement that it will seek a major improvement in European ties with Cuba's dictatorship once it takes over the presidency of the 27-country European Union on Jan. 1 is bad news not only for pro-democracy activists on the island, but also for oppositionists in several other authoritarian-ruled Latin American countries. During a 48-hour visit to Cuba earlier this week, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said that Spain will take advantage of its upcoming six-month presidency of the European Union to try to change the group's ``common stand'' toward Cuba, in place since 1996. Under the policy,...

We know that "safe schools czar" and "Queering Elementary Education" essayist Kevin Jennings failed to oppose homosexual man-boy relationships and that science czar John Holdren has written, without objection, that "laws requiring compulsory abortion could be sustained under the existing Constitution." ...But what has not been adequately tallied is how many of President Obama's nominees and appointees are radical or just plain embarrassing. When radicalism and ethical shortcomings reach such a critical mass, it's time to broadcast the dishonor roll....The radicals: Van Jones: The "special adviser for green jobs"... Harold Koh: Barely approved to be the chief legal counsel for...

FEW tiffs are as nasty as those between old friends. A bitter bust-up between Spain’s prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the media giant Prisa, publisher of the newspaper El País, mirrors the intimacy that once reigned. It also highlights problems on both sides.

I first became aware of politics, in the ordinary sense, during the presidential election of 1948. My parents and their friends belonged to the Democratic Party and had voted for Roosevelt. It was what they called their “mass work”—going to where the people were, in order to lead them to something better. This had been the Party line since the days of the Popular Front, when under orders from Moscow the comrades abandoned their “ultra left” position and stopped calling Roosevelt a fascist. “Communism is twentieth-century Americanism,” the Party leader Earl Browder had said, promoting the spirit of cooperation...

Deepak Bhargava's partner Harry Hanbury makes docos for ANP. He recently shot this clip at a Republican National Committee meeting, which was to feature a special session to vote on a resolution to re-brand the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Socialist Party." Hanbury was obviously intending to mock the Republicans-but actually succeeded in giving me a little more confidence in the Party. These guys actually do seem to have some idea of the Democrat's destructive agenda. . . .

The history of all ancient societies is the history of class struggle. In each of these we find a complicated arrangement of people into various social, economic, and political orders. Ancient Rome had its patricians, knights, plebeians, and slaves. During the middle ages there were three orders; oratores, bellatores, laborares: this translates as "those who pray", "those who fight", and "those who work". In the 20th Century we have manage to simplify class antagonism via two distinctive groups who are hostile towards and in direct opposition to each others. They are known simply as The Left, and The Right. Therein...

ATHENS -- Greece's opposition Socialists won national elections on Sunday as voters rejected the incumbent center-right party that had been tarred by scandals and unpopular economic policies during its five and a half years in office. George Papandreou, leader of the winning Socialist party, Pasok, told supporters, "We bear a great responsibility to change the course of the country." Pasok, the Socialist party, secured 43.9% of the vote in early official results, translating to 160 seats in Greece's 300-member parliament. Under Greece's reinforced proportional-representation system, the party with the largest number of votes is awarded seats based on overall results...

Just when you might think capitalism’s global crisis would breathe new life into the left, it’s looking increasingly divided and tired. The reelection of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany a week ago is highlighting a conservative surge in her country and Europe’s other powerhouse economies - Britain, France, and Italy - where the center-right is either firmly in power or about to get there. What happened? Much of the answer lies in the nature of modern European politics, where even the most ardent conservatives can still embrace social welfare policies that would seem leftist to Americans. And in recent years,...

The main opposition Socialists will easily win Greece's parliamentary election on Sunday, as voters angered by a faltering economy and a string of corruption scandals turned against Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis' governing conservatives, exit polls indicated. Initial nationwide results, with just over 8 percent of the vote counted, gave the Socialists 43.3 percent and the conservatives 36.2 percent, while turnout was at 67 percent. Led by former Foreign Minister George Papandreou, 57, the Socialists will gain 41-44 percent of the vote, according to exit polls for Greek TV stations. If the projection is confirmed, the Socialists would be able to...

The left is poised to win the general election and buck a European trend of backing centre-right political parties Athenians sipping cappuccino freddo applaud as Athina Dretta, a parliamentary candidate with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, arrives on a motorcycle to make a 15-minute speech at the “Face Place” café. But beyond the brightly lit café strip, empty shops displaying “for rent” signs and stalled construction projects give the Neo Iraklio suburb a depressed look. “Greece was booming until last year. Now we face recession and anxiety about the future. Will our kids be able to find jobs?” asks Mrs Dretta,...

BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. -- Drivers on Interstate 70 can barely see the billboard but once they do the message has been gaining attention. The billboard is located along I-70 between the Adams Dairy Parkway and the Grain Valley exits. The billboard reads, "How do you like your change now? Obama Nation. They are coming for you! The Taxpayer. First and Second Amendments are in jeopardy. Live free or Die." There is also a hammer and sickle on the sign.

* De facto government under pressure over civil liberties * Ousted president Zelaya and de facto leader deadlocked * OAS hopeful a deal can be brokered to end standoff (Updates with protests, OAS comments, details) By Esteban Israel and Miguel Angel Gutierrez TEGUCIGALPA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Honduran police cracked down on supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya on Wednesday as the country's de facto leader came under pressure to lift curbs on civil liberties and end a post-coup crisis.

Barack Obama is failing as President and the America is transforming into a military dictatorship, says Gore Vidal, the American novelist, essayist, and intellectual . . .

(snip) "This is not easy and I would expect that the public would ask some very tough questions," Obama said last Friday. "That's exactly what I'm doing, is asking some very tough questions." Obama telephoned Senator John McCain, his Republican opponent from last year's election campaign, on Saturday to get his advice on Afghanistan. McCain supports sending more troops. "I think he has a very difficult decision," McCain told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "The base of his party, Americans are weary, understandably they're weary. And it's a very difficult decision for him. But I believe he'll make the right...

Portugal's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates won a second term in a general election on Sunday but his centre-Left party lost its absolute majority in parliament. Jose Socrates was elected in a landslide in 2005 Mr Socrates, who won about 37 per cent of the vote, has pledged to continue plans to spend his way out of the recession, promising big budget public works projects to stimulate growth as Portugal struggles with the highest unemployment rate in decades. "The people voted and they spoke very clearly, the Socialist Party was chosen again to govern Portugal," Mr Socrates said, adding it...

Hannity took on two G20 protesters from the University of Pittsburgh, one of them being a graduate student in English. Hannity worked them over and exposed the students, one of them getting a PhD in English, as communists.

As appalled and outraged as I was to learn recently that a sitting U.S. president illegally ordered a private company to stop pointing out facts about his policies (facts confirmed by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office), such blatant assaults on dissent are nothing new for this president. Of the many, many examples I have copiously documented of Obama giving liberty-minded citizens reasons to keep comparing him to Hitler, here are the top 10: 10. The fact that he enlisted law enforcement officials to "target" anyone who ran campaign ads against him that he didn't like. 9. The fact that he...

I received the email below. I don't know how I got on any Democrat mailing list. But they sure got my name wrong. Did anyone else receive these? I guess someone turned in my email addy to the White House for Obama's spies, and now I am going to get these emails from them. The "blame Bush for Obama's woes" is still going on! See the complete email below in my comments.

Asked about the antipathy aroused by his stimulus bill, health reform plans, and takeover of ailing banks, the president revealed that the stinging domestic criticism has bemused other politicians whose politics are ostensibly to the Right of his. "I can't tell you how many foreign leaders, who are heads of centre-right governments, say to me 'I don't understand why people would call you socialist, in my country you would be considered a conservative'," Mr Obama told CNN.

THERE WILL NOT BE A WORLD WITHOUT AMERICA. "REAL" AMERICANS WILL NOT LET IT HAPPEN! For those who want to feel the emotions of what America means to us and millions of others across the world who have flocked here, or long to come here! Click on the link and listen to this. The Celtic Women sing: OH AMERICA WE ARE ANSWERING, AMERICA!! WE WILL FIGHT TO KEEP YOU STRONG!! WE WILL PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTION AND OUR FREEDOMS WE WILL NOT LET ANYONE STEAL AMERICA'S SPIRIT AND LIGHT! SHINE ON AMERICA, WE WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU!!!

Here are the last names of all 75 congressmen who voted to preserve ACORN's stream of funding: Baldwin Becerra Brady (PA) Brown, Corrine Butterfield Capuano........

Facing a near-daily barrage of attacks from conservative opponents, White House officials are engaged in an internal debate over how hard to hit back, even as they have grown increasingly aggressive in countering allegations they deem to be absurd. After brushing aside criticism during the presidential campaign that they tried to keep candidate Barack Obama too far above the fray -- and with memories of the abundance of media coverage during the Clinton years -- administration officials are accelerating their efforts to anticipate and respond to the most sharp-edged charges. The White House officials are eager to avoid the perception...

Crist's popularity as governor doesn't always extend to members of his own Republican Party, and that might make him vulnerable as he runs for U.S. Senate. BY ADAM C. SMITH Charlie Crist is swimming in campaign money, and polls consistently show him to be among the most popular politicians in America. But something ominous and unpredictable is brewing in Florida, and a growing number of Republicans are starting to consider the unthinkable: the people's governor could lose his campaign for U.S. Senate. "It's rare that I talk to anyone that's got a good thing to say about the governor right...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush said in an interview Tuesday he was forced to sacrifice free market principles to save the economy from "collapse." "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision "to make sure the economy doesn't collapse."

For many years, a handful of American political leaders -- including the late senator Ted Kennedy and now President Obama -- have been trying to gain passage of comprehensive health care for all Americans. As far back as President Harry S. Truman, they have urged Congress to act on this national need. In a presentation before a joint session of Congress last week, Obama offered his view of the best way forward. But what seems missing in the current battle is a single proposal that everyone can understand and that does not lend itself to demagoguery. If we want comprehensive...

NEW YORK – Many of the people working with President Obama are Marxists or socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party, according to a socialist Columbia University professor with strong ties to Obama's radical associates, including Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers. "What makes Obama different is that he has also been a community organizer. He has read left literature, including my works, and he understands what socialism is," wrote Manning Marable, professor and founding director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University. "A lot of the people working with him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in...

Ambers ponders the import of the popular universal health insurance policy in Massachusetts. The weirdest thing about the Republicans right now is that their most viable candidate next time backed almost exactly the healthcare reform Obama is proposing. If Obama is a socialist, why isn't Romney?

In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry. Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large. The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and...

At least 44 more moderate Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record in opposition to the current health care bill in the House, a Hill source claims. Likewise, at least 57 liberal Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record saying they will vote against a health care bill without a strong public option. Unless multiple Democrats flip on their stated position on health care, Speaker Pelosi lacks the votes to pass a bill through the House on the strength of Democrat votes alone. WHIP COUNT 44 Democrats Opposed

Shortly after the announcement of Ted Kennedy's death, I had already received several interview requests. I declined them, not wanting to be uncharitable to the man upon his death. Since then, I've seen the need to step up and provide some clarification. The issue is a remarkable 1983 KGB document on Kennedy, which I published in my 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperCollins). The document is a May 14, 1983 memo from KGB head Victor Chebrikov to his boss, the odious Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov, designated with the highest classification. It concerns a...

In Obama's fascist speech to your schoolchildren, he promotes J.K. Rowling as someone to admire. Of course, she is a self-admitted "Left-Wing" Socialist who teaches kids bad morals and Socialism via her fictional characters. Gee, imagine that... Just so you know that I'm not making this stuff up, I have copied the text from the Socialist Party of Australia: Potty about Harry Potter With over 325 million copies of all seven books sold worldwide, the last four books have also been, consecutively, the fastest selling in history. They have been translated into over 65 languages and author JK Rowling has...

There were angry clashes in a city centre today as right-wing protesters fought with anti-fascist campaigners in a busy shopping street. A planned demonstration by The English Defence League in central Birmingham descended into violence as the group charged along New Street, close to the city's main train station. More than twenty men have been arrested. 'There were about 250 people in total, fighting and Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211414/Anti-fascists-clash-right-wing-protesters-Birmingham.html#ixzz0QFxinqVM

Just when you thought the culture wars were ancient history comes this news bulletin: Conservatives are up in arms over President Obama’s planned speech to schoolchildren Tuesday, the day millions of Americans return to work and school after the Labor Day holiday, touting the value of education. After a summer of stoking controversy over nonexistent death panels in healthcare plans, critics on the right are now charging that the White House -- which plans to broadcast the speech live on the White House website and over C-SPAN -- is trying to indoctrinate their innocents on issues like healthcare reform and...

A picture of a young Adolf Hitler apparently playing chess against Vladimir Lenin 100 years ago has come to light. The image is said to have been created in Vienna by Hitler's art teacher, Emma Lowenstramm, and is signed on the reverse by the two dictators. Hitler was a jobbing artist in the city in 1909 and Lenin was in exile and the house where they allegedly played the game belonged to a prominent Jewish family. In the run-up to the Second World War the Jewish family fled and gave many of their possessions, including the etching and chess set,...

The 32nd Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labour, as the association of trade unions is called, has come to a close in Rochester. Alongside the rapidly growing Socialist Party, this association is a living relic of the past: of the old craft-union, liberal-bourgeois traditions that hang full weight over America’s working-class aristocracy. On August 31, 1911, the Federation had 1,841,268 members. Samuel Gompers, a strong opponent of socialism, was re-elected President. But Max Hayes, the socialist workers’ candidate, received 5,074 votes against Gompers’s 11,974, whereas previously Gompers used to be elected unanimously. The struggle of the socialists against...