Free Republic

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is "absolutely" convinced Democrats will hold on to their majority when voters go to the polls in November. Pelosi told members of the Democratic caucus she has faith in the caliber of the party's candidates going into the fall elections, The Hill reported Wednesday. "They won their districts before and they will win them again," Pelosi told her first meeting with her caucus since the August recess. She said Democrats will provide a clear contrast to their Republican opponents who want to take the country back to the "failed" economy of the Bush...

Few icons of the American way of life have suffered more in recent years than homeownership. Since the bursting of the housing bubble, there has been a steady drumbeat from the factories of futurist punditry that the notion of owning a home will, and, more importantly, should become out of reach for most Americans. Before jumping on this bandwagon, perhaps we would do well to understand the role that homeownership and the diffusion of property plays in a democracy. From Madison and Jefferson through Lincoln’s Homestead Act, the most enduring and radical notion of American political economy has been the...

I plan on sending in my latest RNC request for funds with an empty tea bag enclosed. It's obvious they don't get the hint otherwise!!! Feel free to join me.

A few years ago, I asked a political operative what he did for a living -- as the answer is often less obvious than you imagine. "We isolate an issue," he explained. "Then we isolate the enemy and we try and destroy them." If given a chance, politicos will almost always opt to personalize a debate. Case in point: the White House's nonstop efforts to convince voters that John Boehner is really some kind of Sith Lord. (As if we needed to be convinced.) Sometimes, though, it can backfire. And if Republicans begin incorporating the festering obsession with President Barack...

Carl Paladino loves to bluster about going after Albany's powerbrokers with a baseball bat, but the only thing he's likely to beat to a pulp is the state GOP's credibility. Or what's left of it, anyway. Paladino's brand of ill-informed Tea Party rage sold well with the minority of Republicans who turned out for Tuesday's primary, letting him humiliate a lackluster Rick Lazio. But it spells almost certain disaster for his fellow Republicans in November - and beyond. Why? Because the reckless statements, hollow promises and dumb ideas that have been coming from the Buffalo millionaire's mouth ... [snip]...

Liberals don't like the Laffer Curve. If you have any doubts, Google "‘Laffer Curve' +discredited" and peruse the 13,400 hits you get. Well, if Liberals hate the Laffer Curve (and they do), they are really going to hate the Woodhill Curve. Professor Laffer originally stated his principle as follows: "For any tax, there are always two tax rates (a high one and a low one) that will produce the same revenue." The example he cited was that tax rates of zero and 100% would both bring in the same amount of revenue-namely, zero. The Woodhill Curve extends the concept of...

PARIS—France risked the wrath of the Islamic world on Tuesday by banning burqas and other full-body robes worn by some Muslim women, in a long-debated move that shows the depth of concern over the rise of Muslim culture in Europe. The vote—passed primarily by the center-right party of President Nicolas Sarkozy, with most opposition Socialist Party lawmakers abstaining—came as a number of European countries are trying to figure out how to reconcile the values of modern Europe with more assertive expressions of Islamic faith. Switzerland, for example, banned the construction of minarets after a referendum last year. Belgium and Spain...

When U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker struck down California’s Proposition 8, the subsequent hubbub centered primarily around whether the decision was an example of judicial activism. Whether Walker, or any federal judge, is within their jurisdiction to rule on a state’s constitution is an entirely separate argument from whether the institution of marriage ought to be redefined. No matter which side of the latter issue you support, it is of greater importance to the integrity of our republican jurisprudence that we all embrace the correct answer to the former. It is the purview of the states to craft...

American voters by a wide margin, 60 to 28 percent, disapprove of the way President Barack Obama is handling illegal immigration, and by an even wider margin, 68 to 25 percent, they favor stricter enforcement over integrating illegal immigrants into U.S. society, according to a new national poll by Quinnipiac University. The poll also showed that American voters, 48 to 45 percent, oppose birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens who are born on U.S. soil. A total of 1,905 voters were interviewed for the poll, which was conducted Aug. 31 – Sept. 7. Among the number of voters...

Time To Choose: Sacrifice Power For Principles Or Sacrifice Principles For Power? 84rules September 15, 2010

Christine O’Donnell versus Bush’s Brain? The new Republican nominee for United States senator in Delaware said this morning that Karl Rove, the Republican strategist who had predicted her defeat, was “eating some humble pie.” In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, Ms. O’Donnell responded to withering criticism by Mr. Rove on Fox news late Tuesday night, in which he called her dishonest and plagued by scandals that will make her unelectable in November. He also said of her: “There’s just a lot of nutty things she’s been saying that just simply don’t add up.” Ms. O’Donnell...

Is the recession's great irony that government spending killed Keynesianism? With economists, bankers and investors perplexed over the economy's continued funk, we cannot be blamed for looking in odd places for answers. Could it possibly be that continuously increasing spending over eight decades has left little ability for government spending to affect the economy? How could increased overall government spending have priced stimulative spending out of the market? To understand what has happened, we must look back to the 1930s. The New Deal was a concerted effort for government to take up the economy's slack. In 1930, federal government spending...

*** A well-known imam voices his concern that animals are given much more attention than neighbours in MoscowMoscow, September 15, Interfax - The lack of mosques in Moscow may drive Muslims to visit Orthodox churches, imam-hatyb of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque Ildar Ayautdinov expresses his concern. "Moscow is the only place in the world where over one million Muslims are served in only four mosques. We lack premises for praying. Muslims are allowed to conduct their religious ceremonies in Orthodox churches, but we would rather avoid this extreme measure," he said in an interview to the Moscow issue of Metro...

When I click on the FR "Activity" tab, rather than listing the posts in order of most activity, I get the following error message. Your query returned no results. What am I missing?

"Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won’t change — whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan.” “First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" President Barack Hussein Obama “Cynics beware, I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. … The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times.” (Donald Berwick)

Should the GOP give Christine O'Donnell a chance?

In this supposedly enlightened, modern world of ours, many people take a perverse pride in mocking those symbols and beliefs that other people hold dear. Judaism and Christianity are among the most popular targets of today’s iconoclasts, embodied in the stupidity of Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” through the deadly serious Zionist conspiracy theories that permeate the highest levels of the United Nations. Yet, somehow Jews and Christians endure these slings and arrows, remaining confident and secure in their faith in spite of the insults. At the other end of the spectrum, we have one major religion in the world so...

Karl Rove and Sean Hannity duked it out tonight over Christine O'Donnell's win in the Republican Senate primary in Delaware, with Rove, surprisingly, calling some of O'Donnell's remarks "nutty" and conceding that "this is not a race we're going to be able to win." "This was about Mike Castle's bad votes," Rove said tonight on Fox News. "It does conservatives little good to support candidates who, at the end of the day, while they may be conservative in their public statements, do not evince the characteristics of rectitude and truthfulness and sincerity and character that the voters are looking for."...

It is hard to know where to begin with Iran these days. Many commentators are telling us that there is considerable “infighting” within the regime, which is certainly true. But so far I have not seen anyone point out that these conflicts are not merely political. We are witnessing, I believe, a struggle for survival, both within the regime and between the regime and the opposition. All those explosions — big explosions — at the natural gas pipelines running from Iran to Turkey, to Russia, and to Afghanistan cannot possibly be accidents. The latest took place last night (I haven’t...

In the holy month of August, The Houston Chronicle published a generic article about Ramadan... Within the article even when clear reference is made to Allah, “God” is referenced, “It was a hot, tiring day, I have a headache, but alhamdulillah, it's all worth it, it's all for God.” “Alhamduillah” is also sometimes translated generically as “Praise to God” but clearly specifically means “Praise to Allah.” The fact that some will still want to argue grammar shows at least two things: 1) USA’s culture is attempting very diligently to bend over backwards to please Muslims and 2) Islam is continuously...