Free Republic

There is a pastime among liberal pundits — the latest is Nicholas Kristof — to quote a new center left global ranking (with unbiased titles such as “The Social Progress Imperative”) and then to decry that the United States is behind its major industrial competitors in things like “Internet Access” and “Ecosystem sustainability.” The subtext of these rants is that an illiberal, reactionary U.S. does not spend enough on government entitlements to promote parity, equality and social justice among its citizenry. These pessimistic rankings increase the angst about the American condition when viewed from scowling perches in Washington or New...

President Obama was doing his favorite thing this week: talking to crowds of adoring young people who already agree with him while acting like he persuaded them about something. They also seemed to give Obama the impression that he’s a really funny guy. On Wednesday, he told a crowd of 1,400 at the University of Michigan that he visited a local deli, Zingerman’s. He proceeded to tell a long story about ordering the small Reuben sandwich, which he said was “killer.” That description got a good laugh. Then he explained how he thought the sandwich was too big, so he...

But now they’re baaaack. According to organizer David Swanson, “Awareness has grown, education has spread, and ideas have sunk in. People now know that we can’t lift up the poor without pulling down the plutocrats. It’s understood that we can have democracy or billionaires, not both. The notion of shifting priorities is even making headway; behind the screaming of ‘no cuts!’ and ‘less spending!’ there’s a steady, rising voice – ebbing and flowing like the ocean – insisting that we can move the money from the military and the oil corporations and the bankers to green energy and schools and...

Sinclair Lewis was wrong—when fascism came to America, it was actually wrapped in a rainbow flag and wearing an ascot. How else can one describe the ongoing left-wing commitment to the stamping out of free speech, whenever that speech contradicts the gay agenda, as well as other parts of the “progressive” platform? With the resignation of newly minted Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, the “progressive” Left, especially its social wing, has once again shown itself to be the enforcers a political correctness in speech and thought that ought to be chilling to any person who actually cares about individual liberty. It’s...

Agenda 21, the United Nation’s open plan for global sustainability, is widely understood to be voluntary. Critics of the scheme, however, insist the UN is engaging in double-speak, and that this so-called “volunteer” status is actually creating a world government through the interlinking of UN bureaucracies and international corporations. It is appears now they may be right, this time involving a place most households in the Western world cannot avoid, the grocery store. As it turns out, every item scanned at Wal-Mart, America’s top food reseller with an estimated 25% of market share, supports Agenda 21 through a little known...

“Common Core will be raising good little socialists, who are in tune with their feelings, not so much their critical thinking skills.” - Author unknown I have seen many educational fads come and go, trying to replace teaching methodology in our public schools with something so revolutionary and never tried before that would make teaching a “science” instead of an art and to place all children into a national standardized one mold fits all in spite of the human variability in intelligence, talent, aptitude, ability, and the desire to learn. All these fads were driven by the Department of Education’s...

A motto, a flag...and a frog? California has established an array of official state symbols, from its widely recognizable ursine flag to some state foods enshrined by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Now Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez, D-Coachella, is hopping on the state emblem game with a bill to name the red-legged frog California's state amphibian.

Buenos Aires (AFP) - Argentine President Cristina Kirchner claimed Wednesday that the Falkland Islands serve as a nuclear base for the NATO alliance in the South Atlantic. Argentina, which calls the archipelago the Malvinas, claims the British overseas possession as its own, and fought a brief but bloody war for it in 1982. The islands, she said, "constitute a NATO military nuclear base in the South Atlantic -- this is the truth that they can't continue to hide." She alleged the archipelago is "among the most militarized areas in the world," saying some 1,500 soldiers and 2,000 civilian military personnel...

France's socialist prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault resigned yesterday. Joined by his entire government following meltdown in local elections .. Resignation is huge blow to France's social President Francois Hollande. Last night, Hollande admitted mistakes and said priority was to cut taxes ... last night socialist President Francois Hollande – whose rule has become synonymous with a 75 per cent top rate of income tax – admitted to mistakes and said his priority was now to cut taxes. The government’s resignation is a huge blow to the president, who was elected to a five-year term in 2012 but whose first two...

French public debt decreased in 2013, but is still higher than expected. Total debt continues to climb and fails to meet the Maastricht criteria. EurActiv France reports. Despite austerity measures, France’s public deficit did not meet its government targets for 2013. The French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) published figures showing that it currently stands at 4.3% of GDP. The French government expected this percentage to be 4.1%, whilst the European Commission predicted 4.2%. However timid, the reduction of public deficit from its previous level of 4.9%, in 2013, is still a significant improvement. …

France's ruling Socialist Party suffered humiliating losses on a day dubbed "Black Sunday" in a local vote marked by breakthrough successes for the far-right National Front and the historic election of a first female mayor of Paris. On a day dubbed "Black Sunday" by one Socialist lawmaker, the National Front (FN) won control of at least fourteen towns, according to the interior ministry and was on track to claim 1,200 municipal council seats nationwide, its best ever showing at the grassroots level of French politics. It was also a night to savour for France's main opposition, the centre-right Union for...

Saving The Planet: It used to be said that socialism was the opium of the liberal intelligentsia. But now the drug of choice for the elite is environmentalism. The dirty little secret of the modern green movement is that it's become a luxury good for the uber-rich who espouse policies — from carbon taxes to renewable energy standards to closing down coal plants — that impose high costs on poor people who can least afford to pay the green tab.

<p>A shocking DHS document, leaked on March 24, 2014 by InfoWars, reveals who Barack Obama’s real enemy is: the military, veterans, the National Guard, and those who eschew Obama’s brand of democratic socialism. The 160-page document describes a drill going on this very minute, dubbed “Capstone Exercise 2014: Scenario Ground Truth,” whereby a fictitious anti-government group—whose stated ideology happens to match exactly that of the Tea Party—wages a cyber attack against the U.S. government after martial law has been declared in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami. Conspiring with this group—named Free Americans Against Socialist Tyranny—are elements of the military, veterans, and the National Guard.</p>

Recycling her tried-and-true American dream story, Michelle Obama gave Chinese schoolchildren the same stump speech she delivers everywhere she goes, from Ireland to Chicago. The FLOTUS has used her hard-knock life tale to justify more vacations for herself than her husband has golf balls.

Checking out Rembrandts and checking in with European allies, President Obama seems blind to the rubble around him. The U.S. leadership vacuum has left NATO as ravaged as a post-World War II battlefield. In May 1945, a sizable force of Allied bombers flew photographers over European cities to document the destruction of what was then, and remains, the worst war in history. Their images of urban craters and flattened buildings are permanent reminders of the evils of totalitarianism. One can't help wondering, if Barack Obama had been on board, whether he would have looked down and remarked on the day's...

....Diving into the thorny issue of climate change, Hillary Clinton said young people understand the significant threat of global warming and that she hoped there would be a mass movement that demands political change. She said the generation of college students and young people are much more committed to doing something to address climate change and it wasn't "just some ancillary issue" but will determine the quality of life for countries around the globe.

Appointments: America is a country of 320 million people, most of them holding to traditional values. Yet President Obama keeps mining the fringes for his hires. Does he have any friends who aren't crackpots? Seriously. The president keeps saying he champions the middle class and its values. But his choices of people to help him run the country are the most extreme in U.S. history, and his second-term nominations are more radical than the first.

**SNIP** Reed's message to liberals--especially those who invest their hopes in the Democratic Party--is stark. Since the 1980s, he writes, liberals, activists and social movement organizations (the combination of which Reed labels "the left") have been on the defensive. Instead of determining how to advance a broadly popular and egalitarian vision, this left has narrowed its "social vision" and its time horizon, keying actions to the next election cycle. "Each election now becomes a moment of life-or-death urgency that precludes dissent or even reflection," Reed writes. "For liberals, there is only one option in an election year, and that is...

Most Americans who are dissatisfied with President Barack Obama's leadership are thinking about the poor economy and the misbegotten health care law. That disillusionment is justified -- if not tardy. But the foreign policy failures of this administration are likely to be far more consequential, lasting and possibly catastrophic. What we are seeing is the collapse of American influence in the world. Permitting people like Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry to deal with the brutal realities of world politics is like putting Richard Simmons into the ring with Muhammad Ali.

Unite Here, which represents more than 300,000 workers in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse and gaming industries, was the nation’s very first labor union to back Barack Obama’s quest for the White House. It also was one of the foremost supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the signature achievement — if it can be described as such — of Mr. Obama’s presidency. So a new report by Unite Here, “The Irony of Obamacare: Making Inequality Worse,” cannot be dismissed by the White House, by Democrats on Capitol Hill, or by the left-leaning punditocracy, as a politically...