Free Republic

How are they doing it? How are the Liberals winning, forcing their social agenda on America and winning elections despite an economy that employs only 60 million of more than 300 million and has 48 million on food stamps? How do they keep winning when the nation is 17 trillion in debt and their policies are destroying the health care system? It is almost more generally accepted than global warming that the American economy is default. The most recent article on Nolan Chart asks the question "Do you want to boost our economy?" Though extremely brief in substance, the article...

In the video that you can see by clicking on the "Enza Ferreri Blog" link above, entitled "Incentives for Immoral Behavior", the American economist Professor Milton Friedman explains how there are fundamentally two types of law: those that are regarded as moral and just by the vast majority of people, and those which are not. The former group of laws are generally obeyed because they speak to the inner moral sense of the population, the latter have a high rate of violations. Obviously, the greater the number of laws and regulations, the higher the number of them that will be...

The Roman legal maxim Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Ominibus, meaning one who testifies falsely on one thing cannot be trusted on anything, may be a bit of an exaggeration. But what about Falsus repeatedly, as Barack Obama has been?How can we let a president who has lied dozens of times about our healthcare negotiate something as cataclysmic as nuclear weaponry with Iran? How can we possibly trust him?And yet that is happening before our eyes. The Wall Street Journal is reporting: Iran and world powers expect to announce an initial deal as early as Friday to curb Iran’s nuclear...

On September 30, just one day before Healthcare.gov went live, a pre-launch test was underway. Despite the Obama administration’s projections of 50,000-60,000 users at a time, it was found the website could only handle a mere 1,100 simultaneous visitors– or about 2 percent of projections.

Discussion about the recent panic by bank tellers in Adelphi Ohio,  where they saw some people trade a couple of firearms from the bank window, raised questions about where the traders parked.   Some readers envisioned a mall parking lot.  Some imagined the parking lot of a stand alone bank. With a little research, there appears to be only one Kingston National Bank in Adelphi, at 11811 Main Street.  With a Google search we can see how the street is arranged.   The bank building is in the middle of the block that is west of the large building with...

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is giving a jolt to the congressional probe of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups with a new subpoena that was issued late Thursday night. Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have for months sought documents from the Treasury Department that they say would detail a wide range of interactions with the IRS well before the public learned that conservative groups were singled out for extra scrutiny. The subpoena, the second that Issa has issued since the controversy broke, came as House Republicans are struggling to find any officials outside of the IRS...

The right loves to demonize unions, but economic factors are much more important to success in the classroom Google the phrase “education crisis” and you’ll be hit with a glut of articles, blog posts and think tank reports claiming the entire American school system is facing an emergency. Much of this agitprop additionally asserts that teachers unions are the primary cause of the alleged problem. Not surprisingly, the fabulists pushing these narratives are often backed by anti-public school conservatives and anti-union plutocrats. But a little-noticed study released last week provides yet more confirmation that neither the “education crisis” meme nor...

I suppose the danger of AJ Schnack’s immensely entertaining documentary “Caucus” is that it retells all the hair-raising twists and turns of the 2012 Republican caucus in Iowa as human drama, with the things we’re supposed to care about – the ideology, the “politics” – stripped away. We know for sure that none of these clowns will ever be elected president, so we’re free to view them as flawed, interesting, crazy and sometimes even sympathetic characters in a larger narrative that’s beyond their control. I would argue, in fact, that this gripping and grotesque portrait of retail politics in the...

Democrats pulling for Wendy Davis to turn Texas blue in 2014 should hope she has developed a thicker skin since her first run for public office nearly two decades ago, which ended in a bizarre lawsuit against a local newspaper. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Fort Worth city council in 1996, Davis sued the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, along with parent companies ABC and Disney, for libel, alleging that the paper’s coverage of her campaign had been biased and “demonizing,” caused harm to her physical and mental health, and infringed on her “right to pursue public offices...

This article is the first part of a reply to the comments on my speech What is Uniquely Good about Western Civilisation Derives from Christianity. Most of them have been positive, in agreement with what I said. This is something we should take more notice of. Militant atheists and anti-Christian people are very vocal, but they only represent a minority of ordinary people's views. Very few persons have disagreed with my speech. One commenter, though, has sent me observations that, as well as highly critical of the position I take there - even to the point of suggesting that...

A growing body of research suggests that we are a nation divided not only by partisanship or how we view various issues, but also by dramatically different cognitive styles. Sociologists and psychologists are getting a better understanding about the ways that deep seated emotional responses effect our ideological viewpoints. Last week, Moyers & Company caught up with Mother Jones science writer Chris Mooney, host of the Inquiring Minds podcast and author of The Republican Brain: the Science of Why They Deny Science – and Reality, to talk about what this research may tell us about the attitudes of those involved...

Excerpts: "CORNISH: Now, one of the criticisms that people level about this turnaround is that it's left people behind, that the poverty rate in California is higher than the national average, currently 23 percent. And while the unemployment rate is down, for instance, the percentage of people who are looking for work, who want full-time jobs, is still quite high - 19 percent - one of the worst rates in the country. BROWN: Well, that's true because California is a magnet. People come here from all over the world - close by from Mexico and Central America and further out...

Exit polling just published shows that 30 percent of Virginians who voted for Democrat Terry McAuliffe classify themselves as pro-life. The fact anyone has to make the following point speaks volumes of the level of ignorance and delusion of these individuals: If you vote Democrat, you are undeniably pro-death. Abortion is the unholy centerpiece and altar of the Democratic Party, and their mountain of aborted fetuses is the only hill this party has been unwaveringly willing to die on. These "pro-life" Democrat voters are like atheists who profess a belief in Christ - obviously too stupid to even know what...

Okay let’s get this right out: I don’t believe New Jersey Democrat Barbara Buono was a serious candidate. I believe she took one for her team. I believe she was a kamikaze who was supposed to get destroyed by Chris Christie as she did 60/40. I believe the New Jersey Democrats took a look at the landscape in the Garden State and decided even if they brought Franklin Roosevelt back to life and ran him against Christie even he would lose. Once they came to that realization they also recognized that it made little difference whether they lost to him...

I travel a good bit, and I like to stop at small gun shops along the way.   Most people can buy long arms in most of the U.S. without a problem, and if a handgun is worth the effort, it can be transferred to a dealer in most home states. You never know what you will find, and often, there are interesting items. I recently visited RCH Firearms in Hayward, Wisconsin, a good ways from the beaten track.   I must have driven by this shop a dozen times before the sign in the window proved of enough interest...

".......[snip]........ But still I must be. And so must you. Your impatience cannot be made patient unless you are still. I speak from personal experience. You cannot control what you do not control, but you can be still and know that God controls. Friends, I realize this is an esoteric topic to start your Thursday. But I have friends demanding strategies for this, that, and the other, I have things I myself want to move forward and can’t, some of you have similar things in life and are frustrated, and all of us just need to stop. We will not...

Thomas de Waal reviews Saakashvili’s presidency in Foreign Affairs. He recounts how his American cheerleaders enabled some of his most reckless behavior, including the August 2008 war: American support served to insulate him from some of the domestic criticism — but eventually it proved to be his undoing. Although Americans and Georgians had adopted the habit of using the word “ally” to refer to each other, there was never a formal alliance between the two countries. Saakashvili allowed his judgment to be skewed by his glowing testimonials from the Bush White House. Saakashvili’s miscalculations were tragically exposed in August 2008,...

This is the type of restraint that is expected of armed citizens.   From The Advocate Messenger of Kentucky: A self-described “gun advocate,” Smith never had to fire on Collins. He said he didn’t want to harm the man but had determined he was not going to be a victim. “People have asked why I didn’t shoot him. I didn’t feel threatened,” Smith said. A county sheriff then gives this appropriate by not  commonly published comment: Smith “acted appropriately by arming himself, met the gentleman and told him to stay where he was until officers arrived,” Elliott said.  The perpetrator escaped...

The cloture vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) Monday drew the support of seven GOP senators. Eight other Republicans did not vote. Ken Cuccinelli II (Steve Helber / Associated Press) It is remarkable that so few Republicans would agree with the overwhelming number of Americans who disapprove of workplace discrimination. In September, a poll showed 68 percent of voters supported a law like ENDA. Among Republicans, 56 did. Those numbers go to 88/84 percent approval for this statement: “Companies should hire and fire based solely on a person’s qualifications not quotas — gay and transgender employees should have an...

Part I: What it IsObamacare's enrollment fiasco has provided endless opportunities for pointless blather from the unwashed masses of the American "right." Talkshow celebrities and the delicate young men who blog for magazine websites cannot contain their outrage. One of them yesterday, the editor of an actual print magazine of moderately large circulation, trumpeted his revelations to the world. The President has lied to us! The more prudent John Boehner, who unlike the pundits and columnists, has a job involving political responsibility, was content with suggesting merely that the President had misled us.The great misleaders, alas, are the political leaders...