Free Republic

Just days before a historic state Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8, the Legislature approved a resolution Monday declaring that voters alone did not have the right to adopt the gay-marriage ban.

You don't have to be a genius to realize the failure of Marxism. Even before 1989 one could have realized that Marxist regimes were not built on Marxist ideologies and theory, but were built on the rather strange foundation of tens of millions of bodies of the proletariat who disagreed with the regime. The foundation of the Marxist governments of Russia and China was two cemeteries. Dorothy Day left the left. She realized as a young woman that the world's economic problems were not solved by socialism and Communism. She resigned from the left because of its lack of profundity...

Adam Smith’s described the phenomenon of people pursuing their own self interest resulting in the common good as the free market’s “invisible hand”. It seems counter intuitive to think that a diverse set of individuals, pursuing their goals and self interests (in other words: chaos), can achieve a broader common goal. Yet, that is exactly what happens. In his essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric Raymond ponders the workings of the free/open software movement (which, among other things, produced the Linux computer operating system.) Why would thousands of people spend their time and effort to produce and support software...

Inside the corridors of power in Washington, a 21-page document has been getting a lot of attention. It is marked confidential and titled “A.I.G.: Is the Risk Systemic?”The report, prepared for regulators by the American International Group, examines the economic apocalypse that would follow if A.I.G. failed. This document may help explain why the federal government just rescued the insurance giant for the fourth time in six months — and why the government was willing to spend $30 billion more of taxpayers’ money for very little return. The government, which owns nearly 80 percent of A.I.G., not only did not...

Likely voters in the May 19 special election initially support six ballot measures designed to complete the budget recently approved by lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to a Field Poll released Tuesday. But the poll found voters aren't thrilled with the spending plan and are in a pessimistic mood that could haunt backers of the budget fix. The most crucial fiscal component, a $5 billion California Lottery borrowing plan in Proposition 1C, has the weakest support among the six measures, with only 47 percent of likely voters for it. And when told that the "rainy-day" measure, Proposition 1A, triggers...

According to Bill O’Reilly, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, supported late term abortions by vetoing a bill that would have forced late term abortionist Dr. George Tiller (who has killed thousands of 3rd trimester fetuses) to provide a specific medical reason for destroying a viable fetus. O’Reilly has uncovered a list of monies that Dr. Tiller gave to Governor Sebelius in donations, making this a most reprehensible political relationship, destroying human life for money. And Governor Sebelius is the best the Obama administration can do for Secretary of HHS?

Most of his "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.

"I think he overestimates his ability to take people .. and, sort of, charm them into being nice," Barney Frank, has famously said of Barack Obama. And while America's Charmer-in-Chief has worked his magic with the Women from Maine and some of the Blue Dog Democrats, not so much with the Rump Republicans in the House. And not so much, it would appear, with the Investor Class, both here and overseas. The Dow Jones industrials fell 4 percent yesterday, dropping below 7,000. The market barometer is now down a whopping 30 percent since Election Day, including an 18 percent drop...

Saints preserve us! We in Colorado have a new conversational no-no, another s-word. And it's not an updated colloquialism for poop. If you want to toss a verbal hand grenade, the incendiary word-du-jour is "sin." In 1973 George Carlin's hilarious 12-minute monologue, "Filthy Words," caused the FCC to puzzle over "indecent but not obscene" speech. This year the Academy Awards crew was relieved that Mickey Rourke lost the Oscar race because of his penchant for dropping the F-bomb in his acceptance remarks. But "sin" looks to be the latest hot-button projectile.

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 7 July 1785

Glenn Beck Mentions FEMA Camps on Fox & Friends

First in NHL: Foreward-thinking Washington Capitals discover that women love hockey, and hockey players - a fan base that is fierce, loyal and adoring.

Steel and chemical factories, once the muscle of Ukraine’s economy, are dismissing thousands of workers. Cities have had days without heat or water because they cannot pay their bills, and Kiev’s subway service is being threatened. Lines are sprouting at banks, the currency is wilting and even a government default seems possible. Ukraine, once considered a worldwide symbol of an emerging, free-market democracy that had cast off authoritarianism, is teetering. And its predicament poses a real threat for other European economies and former Soviet republics. The sudden, violent protests that have erupted elsewhere in Eastern Europe seem imminent here now,...

Even before the election, various media outlets hammered home the comparison between Obama and Robin Hood. A very brief Google search reveals hundreds of "Obama Robin Hood" hits, beginning with comments from Bob Barr. From the Wall Street Journal to the New York Post to Bloomberg to the Sydney Morning Herald it goes on, ad nauseum. (My personal favorite is the Barack Obama Robin Hood doll.) While some of these comparisons are intentionally critical (such as Barr's), likening Obama to such a well-known and well-loved folk hero as Robin Hood clearly sheds an overall positive light on both himself and...

Obama Administration to Deny Healthcare to 'elderly'.... The largest generational cohort in American history, the Baby Boomers, will be the first Americans to be denied available effective life-saving treatments for reasons of cost. The seeds for this mass liquidation have already been planted.

March 03, 2009 Bingo! Call It Communism By Randall Hoven I once wrote that we could play "Communist Manifesto Bingo": once President Obama enacts or strengthens five planks from the Communist Manifesto, yell "bingo" and you win. One month into President Obama's first term, BINGO! I did change my own game rules just a tad. Instead of using the exact planks from Marx, which can be ambiguous for some people, I'm using a more detailed list from the current Communist Party USA. The CPUSA provides its platform on its website . Find "Election 2008" and go to "Click here to...

From our friend David: I am sure you have all seen the video "The Shout Heard Round the World" from Rick Santelli that started the "Tea Party Movement." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA I sat around and watched other cities throw tea parties and I waited for someone to organize a Salt Lake Tea party. When no one did, I decided to do it myself! So, I am organizing a "Salt Lake Tea Party" on the West Stairs of the Utah State Capitol to protest the out-of-control spending and the squandering of our country's future. The "Salt Lake Tea Party" (in honor of the...

"The warmists set off on their march just as it began snowing again. Unfortunately, from that point on I could not record any interviews about the imminent inferno of global warming because my pen froze."

Also in the News: White House abandons YouTube Mar 02, 2009 Privacy complaints force a change in plans With complaints by privacy activists stacking up, the White House has quietly dropped YouTube as the supplier of embedded videos on the White House home page, according to CNET news. Instead, the Obama administration will use its own Flash-based solution. The decision came following growing criticism of Google-owned YouTube's use of tracking cookies. The White House counsel recently issued a waiver to the long-held no-cookie presumption of privacy for visitors to the White House Web site, a decision challenged by privacy groups...

rar42 writes "Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill, currently being debated by the UK Parliament, would allow any Minister by order to take from anywhere any information gathered for one purpose, and use it for any other purpose. Personal information arbitrarily used without consent or even knowledge: the very opposite of 'Data Protection.' An 'Information Sharing Order', as defined in Clause 152, would permit personal information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across government and the public sector — it would also reach into the private sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across...