Free Republic

The wealthiest Americans always have had targets on their backs, put there by politicians ginning up class envy to justify ever-more-progressive taxation and wealth distribution. But of late, "the rich" have been subjected to a relentless thrashing at the hands of leftist politicians and "journalists" for being guilty of the crime of first-degree success. The 2012 presidential campaign was all about the Top 1 Percent "not paying their fair share," even though for 100 years they've done the heavy lifting on income taxes. Today, while nearly half of U.S. households pay no income taxes, the Top 1 Percent account for...

She was 22, a sheltered, dark-haired Bronx beauty said to look like Elizabeth Taylor. He was a decade older, a suave lawyer who courted her with flowers, rides in his powder-blue Cadillac and trips to glittering Manhattan nightclubs. He was married, though not to her. Before long, tiring of his unfulfilled promises to divorce his wife, she ended their affair. He hired three men, who threw lye in her face, blinding her, and went to prison for more than a decade. Afterward, she married him.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Cookie sent me a sound bite. I was going to go to the phones. I beg you for your indulgence and patience... I just finished explaining how it was this program who sought to come to the aid of the disrespected and shabbily treated Hillary Clinton via Operation Chaos. It was this program and your host, me, El Rushbo, who did everything we could to keep her in that primary. We did more than the Democrat Party was doing for her. And you helped. So on Fox just now, a Democrat activist, Jehmu Greene, was on with...

An interesting little factoid has emerged from a new Fox News poll of U.S. voters: Personal sentiments are strong and defiant among many U.S. gun owners. Question 46 in the wide-ranging survey of more than 1,000 registered voters asks if there is a gun in the household. Overall, 52 percent of the respondents said yes, someone in their home owned a gun. That number included 65 percent of Republicans, 59 percent of conservatives, 38 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of liberals. But on to Question 47, addressed to those with a gun in their home: "If the government passed...

A fifteen-year-old New Mexico Latino teen who later told police he had homicidal and suicidal thoughts grabbed his parents’ assault rifle from their closet and killed his mother, a brother and two sisters under the age of 9, before waiting several hours and then killing his father. Like in the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, the New Mexico teen, Nehemiah Griego, had no history of violence. And like Newtown, Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza, Nehemiah Griego simply took his parents’ AR-15 assault rifle to kill his own family members. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan...

During Thursday's announcement of a new assault weapons ban, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) displayed guns as props during her. However, the guns on display break Washington, D.C., gun laws- as reported by CNN.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – A rising chorus of congressional Republicans are calling on President Obama to acknowledge that the pop singer Beyoncé lip-synched during his inaugural festivities on Monday and resign from office, effective immediately. “By lip-synching the national anthem, Beyoncé has cast a dark cloud over the President’s second term,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). “The only way President Obama can remove that cloud is by resigning from office at once.”

WASHINGTON - A Georgia congressman who has challenged D.C. gun laws in the past wants to allow active duty military members to carry their firearms within the District, a move that Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton calls an attack on home rule. Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey introduced a non-binding resolutionTuesday that says the highly trained members of America's service branches should be allowed "to exercise fully their rights under the Second Amendment." "Unless these individuals are granted a waiver as serving in a law enforcement role, they are subject to the District of Columbia's onerous and highly restrictive laws on the...

National Democrats are taking steps to create a large-scale independent group aimed at turning traditionally conservative Texas into a prime electoral battleground, crafting a new initiative to identify and mobilize progressive voters in the rapidly-changing state, strategists familiar with the plans told POLITICO. The organization, dubbed “Battleground Texas,” plans to engage the state’s rapidly growing Latino population, as well as African-American voters and other Democratic-leaning constituencies that have been underrepresented at the ballot box in recent cycles. Two sources said the contemplated budget would run into the tens of millions of dollars over several years - a project Democrats hope...

(CNSNews.com) – Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it was “unacceptable” for the Defense Department to leak news about lifting the ban on women serving in direct combat positions prior to briefing Congress. News reports on Wednesday citing “senior defense officials” said that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was lifting the ban, put in place in 1994. Specific details were not provided but it was reported that Panetta would make an official announcement on Thursday.

Two-time Academy Award winner Jane Fonda will be honored at the upcoming 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival in a two-part celebration of her career. The upcoming three-day extravaganza, which takes place Thursday, April 25 through Sunday, April 28 in Hollywood, will feature Fonda having her hand and footprints enshrined in concrete in front of TCL Chinese Theatre. And the star of such memorable films at Klute and Coming Home, will help introduce a screening of 1981 theatrical On Golden Pond, which gave her the opportunity to work with her legendary father, Henry Fonda, for the first and only time. “We...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) displayed guns as props during her announcement of her proposed assault weapons ban. However, the guns on display break DC gun laws- as reported by CNN. Sen. Feinstein got special permission and does not have to abide by the law.

Three cheers for Owen Groesser, an eighth grader with Down Syndrome who became an overnight social media star after he sunk two 3-pointers for his junior high basketball team in Rochester, Michigan. Thanks to his social media fans using the hashtag #GetOwenOnSportsCenter, he made it on ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10 Plays. This is such a beautiful reminder of what gifts from God these children really are. Too often they're not given a chance because of fear -- fear of the unknown, as any shocked parent feels--myself included--when hearing the diagnosis. But giving life a chance in these perceived less than...

On Monday, renowned author and humanitarian Dr. Jim Garrow made a shocking claim about what we can expect to see in Obama's second term. Garrow made the following Facebook post: I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that Obama is using a new “litmus test” in determining who will stay and who must go in his military leaders. Get ready to explode folks. “The new litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US citizens or not.” Those who will not are being removed. So, who is the source? Garrow replied:...

Gun-control advocates have recently been throwing around an impressive new number. President Obama used it last Wednesday, claiming: “as many as 40 percent of guns are purchased without a background check.” Vice President Biden and everyone from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to USA Today repeatedly use it. That “fact” provided the principal support for his first announced gun-control proposal, “universal background checks.” But unless you include family inheritances and gifts as “purchases,” it is simply false.The Brady Act background checks currently prevent someone who buys from a federally licensed dealer from buying a gun...

Earlier this morning, Democratic lawmakers gathered in Washington D.C. to unveil the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, which is legislation that would ban “military-style” assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips. The press conference announcing the bill featured New York Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, the legislation’s House sponsor, as its first speaker. Needless to say, Ms. McCarthy–whose husband was killed in a 1993 shooting spree on the Long Island Rail Road–made it clear it wasn’t going to be a speech that stuck to the script. “This battle has been a very lonely battle for many, many years,” Ms. McCarthy began. “You know,...

Ancient artifacts in a British museum have been reclassified as Roman toilet paper. Previously they were displayed as gaming pieces until researchers took another look at them. The artifacts are made of ceramic, and would have been rather - uncomfortable. LONDON, ENGLAND (Catholic Online) - Dr. Robert Symmons, curator of the Fisbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex, has announced that new research indicates the ceramic disks, once identified as gaming pieces, were used as sanitary devices, the ancient equivalent of toilet paper.....

Britain's bailed-out banks need billions of pounds more capital to shore up their balance sheets and support the economy, senior Bank of England officials have warned. UK regulators have given Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group until March to begin dealing with a black hole that Brooks Newmark, a Tory member of the Treasury Select Committee, suggested could be as large as £30bn. Bank officials refused to quantify the capital shortfall in evidence to the TSC yesterday, but they confirmed it was substantial. Michael Cohrs, a member of the Bank’s Financial Policy Committee, said it was “a big...

Picture of the large crowd lining up for the Inauguration Of President Obama. hehe

The First Amendment provides, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Emphasis added.) As the free exercise of religion comes to be considered old fashioned, irrelevant to daily life and to be opposed "progressively" -- and as political correctness becomes an increasingly common, "modern" and often successful opponent of free speech -- the bright colors of the First Amendment fade into muted...