Free Republic

And what of the Great Disappointment of 2013? In the promiscuous blending of politics and culture that characterizes our age, the launch of the Obama campaign in 2007 marked the beginning of a politico-spiritual movement that promised a new beginning and a transformation of the nation. It was to be the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal [when we] restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.” Faith in the leader knew no bounds. Obamaism spilled out from the college campuses and tony enclaves of Manhattan and San...

New York's Democrat governor Andrew Cuomo recently told listeners of WCNY radio that "extreme conservatives" who are "pro-life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay" have "no place" in New York State because "that's not who New Yorkers are." Cuomo later tried to cushion the impact of his words by claiming they were aimed solely at "extreme conservatives" among state politicians, and not at New York's mass public. Even if true -- and WCNY's transcript of Cuomo's blast makes that claim dubious -- one wonders what New Yorkers with the "wrong" policy opinions are supposed to do when they have no politicians to support....

Germany's Constitutional Court ruling last Friday marks a significant escalation in efforts to rein in the European Central Bank. The ruling's message? Either the European Court of Justice has to stop bond purchases or German justices will. It is also a clear indication that Germany's highest court is extremely skeptical of the ECB. Draghi's 2012 announcement that the ECB would embark on unlimited sovereign bond purchases from ailing euro-zone member states, the court found, is incompatible with European law. The ruling notes that OMT "exceeds the mandate" of the ECB and "encroaches on the responsibility of the member states for...

The Justice Department on Monday will instruct all of its employees across the country, for the first time, to give lawful same-sex marriages sweeping equal protection under the law in every program it administers, from courthouse proceedings to prison visits to the compensation of surviving spouses of public safety officers. In a new policy memo, the department will spell out the rights of same-sex couples, including the right to decline to give testimony that might incriminate their spouses, even if their marriages are not recognized in the state where the couple lives. ... “This means that, in every courthouse, in...

That's why it's pretty chilling to hear Vladimir Putin hurling accusations at the West and pointing out that what's going on is identical to what went on when communism was established and religion was completely expunged from the Soviet Union. Between 1917 and 1937, almost a quarter of a million Christians were executed, and churches that survived destruction were converted into things like museums of atheism. Russian President Putin, who hasn't been shy about expressing his disapproval of homosexuality and has banned what he defined as "homosexual propaganda," had this to say: Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their...

New York City mayors excel at banning everything from salt to carriages, but they are not very good at cleaning up the streets after a snowstorm. There are two ways of looking at any major city; as a mechanical problem of buildings, streets and sewers whose infrastructures need to be maintained or as a social problem of misbehaving people. The mayors of the mechanical problem understand that they need to clean the streets, but the mayors of the social problem think that they have to fix the people. Mayor Bloomberg flubbed the snow challenge badly. Instead of preparing road salt,...

We are reminded as we pass the 41st anniversary of Roe v Wade of where the immoral godless extremism of the liberal/progressive movement leads. Roe is responsible for the slaughter of more than 55 million babies in our country - more than 1.3 million a year. Life has been the standard for all civilized societies throughout the history of mankind. With few exceptions, only in godless totalitarian societies run by ruthless kings or dictators would you find governments wantonly slaughtering millions of its own citizens. In modern times that would be leftist/fascist dictators such as Lennon, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol...

The “troika” of international lenders, which sets the terms of eurozone bailouts with little or no democratic oversight, should be replaced by an EU system which is accountable to the European Parliament, MEPs say. “All European instruments that are not based on EU law are provisional. EU instruments should be based on the community method, with the European Parliament acting as democratic legitimator and control body,” Austrian center-right deputy Othmar Karas told press in Strasbourg on Wednesday (15 January). Karas is drafting a report together with a French Socialist colleague, Liem Hoang-Ngoc, on the work of the troika. The name...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service should take steps to restore public trust in its work, including adopting a taxpayer bill of rights that clearly states individuals' rights to fair treatment from the tax agency, an IRS watchdog said on Thursday. With its reputation for political neutrality hurt by a 2013 uproar over its treatment of conservative political groups, the IRS needs to reassure Americans of their tax rights, said the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an oversight arm of the agency.

Much of the political history of the extended twentieth century is that of massive extinctions of citizenries by their dictatorial governments.  Take the engineered mass starvations, torture chambers, firing squads, and gulags of Lenin and Stalin; Nazi gas chambers; Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killing fields; the genocides of Mao's "Great Leap Forward"; and the tyrannical North Korean Sung dynasty, and one will find that over one hundred million people have been slaughtered.       Systematically murdering millions to create an imagined earthly Eden is clearly irrational.  In this sense, leftist ideology has the look of a religious inquisition.In his introduction to Eric Voegelin's The New...

One of the most disturbing things about Barack Obama's reign of lawless executive power is that it has people fantasizing about outright totalitarian dictatorship, and not in a faculty-lounge-B.S. kind of way. We've always had to put up with the likes of Thomas Friedman at the New York Times rhapsodizing about the joys of Chinese authoritarianism - provided a duly accredited Democrat gets to be America's temporary dictator, of course - but now we've got Jesse Myerson at Rolling Stone daydreaming about hard-core communism as the solution to America's ills. He's not fooling around, either. He wants the government to...

Fifty-five years after the Communist takeover in Cuba, residents there can now buy new and used cars without a government permit, but with the massive mark-up on new car prices by state-run retailers, most ordinary Cubans won’t benefit from the new rules, reported BBC News. A new Peugeot 508 model, for example, is selling for $262,000 in Havana at a dealership, and even used VWs are selling for more than $60,000. …

SEATTLE — People are used to liberals running things around here. But nobody reckoned with Kshama Sawant. Ms. Sawant, a 41-year-old economics teacher and immigrant from India, took a left at liberal and then kept on going — all the way to socialism. **SNIP** But Kshama Sawant (pronounced SHAH-mah sah-WANT) heartily embraces the label. Ask her about almost any problem facing America today, and her answer will probably include the “S” word as the best and most reasonable response. Socialism is the path to real democracy, she says. Socialism protects the environment. Socialism is the best hope for young people...

Greggs the baker is being forced to change the name of its best-selling Cornish pasty under new EU laws because the product contains peas and carrots. The new rules mean manufacturers must follow the traditional recipe of beef, potatoes, onions, swede and seasoning, if they wish to use the name. […] Cornish pasties were awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in 2011 after a lengthy campaign by the Cornish Pasty Association to see their delicacy’s name protected. Protected Geographical Indication status prevents anything that is made outside the designated region from using the traditional name. …

President Raul Castro issued a stern warning to entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of Cuba’s economic reform, telling parliament on Saturday that “those pressuring us to move faster are moving us toward failure.” Castro has legalized small-scale, private businesses in nearly 200 fields since 2010, but has issued tighter regulations on businesses seen as going too far or competing excessively with state enterprises. In recent months, the government has banned the resale of imported hardware and clothing and cracked down on unlicensed private video game and movie salons. …

One of the oldest notions in the history of mankind is that some people are to give orders and others are to obey. The powerful elite believe that they have wisdom superior to the masses and that they've been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Their agenda calls for an attack on the free market and what it implies — voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, free markets are replaced with economic planning and regulation that is nothing less than the...

The European Commission should be slimmed down, with only a handful of commissioners handling the bloc’s main portfolios, according to a plan put forward by the Dutch foreign minister. Speaking with reporters after Monday’s (18 November) meeting of foreign affairs ministers in Brussels, Frans Timmermans explained that governments should create a division of a and b-level boards for the EU executive. Eight “a-board” members would take the lead on Brussels’ biggest portfolios, such as the internal market, economic affairs and justice and home affairs. They would also be solely responsible for initiating new legislation. Meanwhile, the remaining “b-board members” would...

Under Obamacare -- as it is being implemented under a regulation issued by the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) -- a middle-aged member of Congress who earns an annual salary of $174,000 from the taxpayers, and who has a wife and children, will get a $10,000 subsidy from the taxpayers (over and above his $174,000 salary) to buy a health insurance plan that a regular citizen making almost $80,000 less than the congressman will not get. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as Obamacare, included language mandating that members of Congress and their staff buy their now-mandated...

While European leaders are busy expressing public indignation over reports of American espionage operations in the European Union, the European Parliament is quietly considering a proposal that calls for the direct surveillance of any EU citizen suspected of being “intolerant.” Critics say the measure—which seeks to force the national governments of all 28 EU member states to establish “special administrative units” to monitor any individual or group expressing views that the self-appointed guardians of European multiculturalism deem to be “intolerant”—represents an unparalleled threat to free speech in a Europe where citizens are already regularly punished for expressing the “wrong” opinions,...

European Union lawmakers have pledged rapid approval of a draft EU law to regulate market benchmarks such as LIBOR, though they sparred over how comprehensive the new regime should be. Big fines for Barclays and other banks over the past 18 months for rigging interest rate benchmarks such as the London Interbank Offered Rate or LIBOR, prompted the European Union to propose the rules to supervise such indexes for the first time.The draft law proposes that an administrator is appointed to oversee how each major benchmark is compiled, ensuring there is a record of who contributed to it. …