Free Republic

The Constitution, for example, specifically charges Congress with the passage of a budget for the federal government. This year, the Democrats refused to pass one because the astronomically out-of-touch numbers and policies exposed in the process of doing so would inevitably adversely affect the Democratic Party during an election year. The Constitution also specifically grants Congress the plenary power to tax. It’s right there in Article I, Section 8. And yet, faced with the reality that January 1, 2011 could bring with it the largest tax increases in American history with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the Democrats...

Let’s be honest for a minute. John Thune is a great United States Senator from South Dakota. But the only reason people talk about him for President is because he’s a good looking guy in a city full of lesser looking people, is tall, and has an attractive wife. Other than that his greatest accomplishments are doing nothing. But he gives a great talk about biennial budgeting, the topic of choice for establishmentarians who want to show a little leg. The other day, Thune went on record dinging Jim DeMint for helping conservatives get elected. Thune also sided with Lisa...

Attorney General Eric Holder’s frightening refusal to even acknowledge the existence of radical Islam as an example of precisely why the House GOP’s Pledge to America is relevant and will work to effectively define GOP policy going forward. Certainly, with the Democratic Party virtually imploding on their own, there was a considerable risk in saying or doing anything at all over the next six weeks, even considering the left’s mantra, equal parts meritless and clueless, that the Republican Party is little more than the “party of no.” Play Holder’s video again. Please. Internalize, if you will, what you feel as...

Furthermore, will the Iraqi government have a strong partner in the United States, as President Obama suggested? For the foreseeable future, perhaps, but surely the Poles believed us to be a strong partner until President Obama stopped the missile defense program for which Poland had previously stood fast against Russian influence. Surely Israel believed us to be a strong partner until President Obama, not even three months into his presidency, sent $900 million in aid to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for the purpose of rebuilding after Israel defended itself against unprovoked attacks from Hamas fighters. What’s to say that this...

Now, while Snooki did not bother to mention that the administration’s institution of the tax on tanning services is an overt breach of the president’s campaign promise to ensure that no one making less than $250,000 per year will see a tax increase, nor did she mention that the tariff likely violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as it applies to one segment of the population but not another with the disparity based upon race (though she did note that John McCain is “pale” and “would probably want to be tan” while Obama “doesn’t have that problem,...

I’m tired of it. Sure, we’re frustrated. Sure, we’re angry. But for the most part, we have a different way of showing it. Look at the two videos above. Considering the second one, really listen to the tone, to the anger, to the inability of some to reach the right words through all of the seething hatred. The difference is incredible, especially considering that the first video is held up as a glowing example of the anger and intolerance on the right. Show this to everyone you know, because I’m just getting tired of pointing out the obvious all the...

According to Robertson, the legal question at hand when considering the situation of terrorist detainees is when that detainee was considered “part of al-Qaida.” In this case, while “[t]he evidence does show that he provided some support to al-Qaida, or to people he knew to be al-Qaida,” Robertson noted that “[s]uch support was sporadic … and, at the time of his capture, non-existent.” Here’s the important part, as it relates to the ongoing prosecution of the newly-acronymed operation formely known as the Global War on Terror as a routine criminal exercise. According to Robertson, the government’s attempts to prove Salahi’s...

AR: Characterize the divide that currently exists between the mainstream Republican Party and the resurgent sense of conservatism that we’re now beginning to experience in this country. JD: That’s a great question. It seems as though we’re seeing a lot of people in the Republican Party suddenly turning around and labeling each other RINOs [Republicans In Name Only]. The trouble is that the Republican Party wants the proverbial “big tent,” but the question is whether that tent should include big government Republicans. This is another reason why I became involved in politics. I was furious with my own party. We...

A standstill order is expected today from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on the case of Lower Merion School District’s alleged practice of spying on students in their own homes through the use of school-issued, webcam-equipped laptop computers. The order is designed to provide all sides with a chance to better assess the technological issues facing this growing controversy. While the language of the order is still being worked out at this time, a hearing into the plaintiffs’ Motion for Issuance of a Emergency Temporary Restraining Order and Permanent Injunction, filed on Friday afternoon by Mark Haltzman, attorney for Harriton...

According to the Associated Press, by way of the local Philadelphia ABC affiliate, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has tossed its hat into the ring with regard to Lower Merion School District’s alleged surveillance of students in their own homes by way of remote access to webcam-equipped laptop computers issued by the district’s two high schools to all 1,800 high school students. [...] Parents should be outraged. Students have every right to feel violated. And every American who may have been concerned about “big brother” but considered issues like the remote activation of webcams a little too close to the...

Furthermore, in the statement released a few hours ago, Lower Merion School District not only admits to the existence of the remote access capability (“[t]he laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops”) which had indeed been active (“[t]his feature has been deactivated effective today”), but also admits to exactly who has the discretion to activate the feature (“the feature was activated by the District’s security and technology departments”) and comes clean on the lack of student or parental notification alleged by Robbins in the complaint:

The complaint, filed by minor high school student Blake Robbins and his parents, alleges that the school district has been spying on the activities of students and students’ families through the “indiscriminant use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students,” all without the knowledge or consent of any of the students or parents involved. How the capability was discovered should be enough to put any who value civil liberties and privacy on the edge of their seat. From the complaint (emphasis mine): "On November 11, 2009, Plaintiffs were for the first time...

Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe III, the independent filmmakers behind the series of videos which swept the nation in 2009 and exposed internal corruption and illegality within ACORN Housing Corporation, were sued today in federal court in Philadelphia by an ACORN employee featured in one of the pair’s films. The plaintiff is Katherine Conway-Russell, a Philadelphia resident who has worked for ACORN since March 2008 as an office director. It was Conway-Russell who met with Giles and O’Keefe, posing as a prostitute and pimp as they had in ACORN offices nationwide during other installments of the undercover video series, for...

Besides, in a stroke of strategic brilliance from an otherwise dim bulb, Pelosi played to the social conservatives and made fools of them using their own hottest-of-buttons issue--abortion--against them. As I wrote yesterday morning here at America's Right, and as I guessed almost perfectly on October 30, Pelosi and the Democrats used their lack of respect for unborn life as a shell game of sorts. Those who stood opposed to this bill got suckered, big time, by the woman in the blood-red body condom. She and her flunkies included, in the 2,000-plus pages of H.R. 3962, a provision which would...

You want another, more frightening example? If Harry Reid decides it’s worth it--and giving the polls in Nevada he very well might--he’s going to use the reconciliation process to ram the health care proposal through by a simple majority without the chance of a Republican filibuster. Why can Harry Reid do this? Because he’s the Senate Majority Leader. Why is he the Senate Majority Leader? Because there are more Democrats in the Senate than Republicans. You can't get a more conservative Democratic Senator than Ben Nelson of Nebraska. He has supported the mission in Iraq, voted to lower taxes, and...

As if things weren't bad enough for House Democrats, what with the defections from Obamacare and the growing pressure on Speaker Pelosi to investigate Charlie Rangel's tax inconsistencies, Now, it looks like the Mother of All Ethics investigations is coming and, this time, the House leadership might not be able to turn it aside.

That the GOP should somehow do whatever it takes to become more moderate, to build a bigger tent over those in the center and on the center-left, is exactly the wrong answer for the party and, more importantly, for the country which depends upon its traditional common sense, values and restraint. The Republican Party must instead patch the holes in the proverbial tent over those on the political right who have been left out in the rain since George W. Bush began his second term. Republicans must focus intently on the proper role of the federal government with regard to...

Newt Gingrich, once the leader of insurgent conservatism, seems annoyed that we conservatives cannot do the partisan math: NY 23 is a Republican district; the special election is to replace a Republican; if conservatives fail to fall in behind Scozzafava, then a Democrat will win the special election and Republicans will have one less procedural vote to stop Nancy Pelosi. The problem for conservatives is that other than being a Lincoln Chaffee, Jim Jeffords, or Arlen Specter "Republican," Scozzafava has very little in common with the philosophy of those whose votes she seeks. One of the reasons why Republicans are...

I saw this today, and thought it was a pretty good assessment of the core of the debate. It DOES go deeper than just topical stuff like coverage of illegal immigrants and doctors chopping off feet for money. It really is a systemic debate.

It's not enough that our own president gave the speech that he did yesterday. It's not enough that he sounded like a Central American dictator, or that if another leader had come from another country and said what Obama said about America at the United Nations, our own delegation would likely have stood up and walked out (in better times, at least). Now, Andy McCarthy over at National Review is reporting that the president has requested the State Department to contribute $400,000 to a foundation operated by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's two children. Read more...