Free Republic

According to recent polls, 60 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the wrong direction. The same percentage believe that the U.S. is in long-term decline. The political system is dysfunctional. A fiscal crisis looks unavoidable. There are plenty of reasons to be gloomy. But if you want to read about them, stop right here. This column is a great luscious orgy of optimism. Because the fact is, despite all the problems, America’s future is exceedingly bright. Over the next 40 years, demographers estimate that the U.S. population will surge by an additional 100 million people, to 400...

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., today said he and 11 other House members will not vote for the health care bill unless it includes more stringent language to prevent federal funding from going toward abortion services. "We're not going to vote for this bill with that kind of language," Stupak said on "Good Morning America" today, referring to the Senate health care bill, which includes less restrictive language than what the Democratic lawmaker proposed in the House. Stupak said he is willing to take the criticism that will be hurled at him if he blocks the bill because of the abortion...

When it comes to economic policy, there's stupid, breathtakingly stupid — and liberalism. Thursday, in another mind-numbing display of ideology-driven stupidity, Senate Democrats passed new budget rules only a liberal could believe will make it harder to run up the deficit: they will make it as difficult as possible to extend the current tax cuts, or enact new ones. This is precisely what happens to people suffused with an ideologically-inflamed sense of superiority. They truly believe that both common sense — and historical evidence — are irrelevant considerations with respect to economics. For example, it doesn't matter one iota that...

It was presented as fact. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, led by India’s very own RK Pachauri, even announced a consensus on it. The world was heating up and humans were to blame. A pack of lies, it turns out. If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrarywise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see? —Alice in Wonderland The climate change fraud that is now unravelling is unprecedented in its deceit, unmatched...

A 16-year-old girl who was raped in Bangladesh has been given 101 lashes for conceiving during the assault. The girl's father was also fined and warned the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay. According to human rights activists, the girl, who was quickly married after the attack, was divorced weeks later after medical tests revealed she was pregnant The girl was raped by a 20-year-old villager in Brahmanbaria district in April last year. Bangladesh's Daily Star newspaper reported that she was so ashamed following the attack that she did not lodge a complaint....

BOSTON -- The Republican knockout victory here last night should be a Code Brown alert for President Obama. It was a political earthquake of equal magnitude to the temblor that crushed Haiti. Amid the aftershocks and bewilderment, however, it appears that Obama -- Mr. Hope and Change who was inaugurated one year ago today -- may not fully grasp just how personally responsible he is for the thrashing here in the Democratic heartland. Even before voters had finished voting, Obama's minions got busy dumping all over Martha Coakley for her terrible campaign. The instant blame game revealed a White House...

One year after his election, Barack Obama's approval rating is lower at this stage than for any US president since Eisenhower. So why has the optimism surrounding his victory disappeared so suddenly? Every Wednesday at 4.30pm : a steady human trickle rolling down a ravine in Prestonsburg, western Kentucky ­towards the Town Branch church. They come in pick-ups, on foot, alone and with families. Some stop for just a few minutes. Others linger. They come for food and warm second-hand clothes. They come because desperation in this part of America has become a routine part of life. More than a...

The Federal Communications Commission is considering aggressive moves to stake out its authority to oversee consumer access to the Internet, as a recent court hearing and industry opposition have cast doubt on its power over Web service providers. The FCC, which regulates public access to telephone and television services, has been working to claim the same role for the Internet. The stakes are high, as the Obama administration pushes an agenda of open broadband access for all and big corporations work to protect their enormous investments in a new and powerful medium. "This is a pivotal moment," said Ben Scott,...

Says Glover: “When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?” His obscene opinion would be bigger news if Glover had – in the manner of others – idiotically blamed a less-fashionable deity.

Today, while Christians around the world are celebrating Christmas, radical Muslims will be gathering in Atlanta, Georgia for the beginning of their annual hatefest. The irony of this cannot be overstated, as the group sponsoring the event, ICNA, and its followers openly denounce Christians and propagate material cursing and calling for violence against Christians. ICNA or the Islamic Circle of North America was created nearly 40 years ago as the American affiliate to the terror-related Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan. But while JI has focused the majority of its faith-based ire on Hindus, the religious groups of choice...

The US homeland security secretary has demanded to know how the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a jet had a visa despite being on a watch list. "We all want to know the answer to that question," Janet Napolitano said. She also appeared to backtrack on a widely criticised assertion that the aviation security system had worked. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arrested after he allegedly tried to set off an explosive device on board a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit on Friday. A hearing before a federal judge in the city scheduled for Monday, at which prosecutors...

"This is not an administration that takes bad news well," Jennifer Rubin wrote on Commentary's blog, referring to Robert Gibbs' fit when asked to explain the Gallup poll showing the president taking on water, sinking into the high-to-mid 40s, and losing ground fast. Neither apparently does much of the left, which, faced with cratering numbers for both the health care proposals and for global warming, responded with all of the rational discourse and respect for debate and dissenting opinion that has made them so widely beloved. First, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who emerged in the health care debate as the...

Americans' mortgage woes continued to get worse in the third quarter. Just 87.2% of U.S. mortgages were current in the third quarter, a decrease of 1.5% from the previous quarter, according to the OCC and OTS Mortgage Metrics Report released Monday. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision report covers 34 million loans totaling $6 trillion in principal balances, about 65% of the U.S. mortgage market. Serious delinquencies jumped to 6.2% of mortgage-servicing portfolios, an increase of 16.7% from the previous quarter. The number of prime borrowers in trouble continues to mount as...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Friday saw the biggest security operation ever staged in Denmark, with 115 heads of state and government, including U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, packed in one building. Danish, U.N. and other national security forces were deployed in unprecedented numbers to Copenhagen and specifically to the Bella Center, where the two-week climate talks were due to end Friday. Among the leaders to be secured were such controversial figures as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe. Nearly all of the 30,000 non-government organization and observer representatives were locked out...

PENNY Wong was frantically trying to break a deadlock between rich and poor nations after the Copenhagen summit neared collapse after a second walkout by delegates. The Australian Climate Change Minister and an unnamed co-chair from the developing nations' forum, known as the G77, were trying to mend fences on the relative size of emissions cuts offered to poorer countries and how they could be verified internationally. It is one of three major areas of disagreement. The others are the level of emission reduction pledges by developed countries, and how much money will be provided for poor countries to reduce...

President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday. He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup. Their excuse? “Inclement weather,” according to the White House... That awkward moment on speakerphone in the White House, for better...

On Thursday, it will have been 132 days since Congress broke President Obama's August deadline for a final version of his health care plan. That will be exactly twice as long as the time the president gave lawmakers to get the job done when he set the deadline back on June 2. Old political hands knew better than to take Obama seriously when he called for his national health plan to be completed before Congress left for its August recess on Aug. 7. But as he said, it's setting deadlines that's important, not meeting them. Deadlines, Obama explained, help end...

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it rejected an appeal by four former Guantanamo Bay prisoners arguing that they should be able to proceed with their lawsuit against top Pentagon officials for torture and religious abuse. The justices refused to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit by the four British citizens over their treatment at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on the grounds the officials enjoyed immunity. The four men -- Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith -- were captured in late 2001 in Afghanistan and were...

COPENHAGEN -- The Group of 77, which represents developing countries as well as large emerging economies such as Brazil, India and China, walked out of U.N. climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen on Monday, a Brazilian diplomat said. The group walked out of the main discussion group, accusing industrialized countries of an attempt to kill the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which mandates rich nations, but not developing countries nor the U.S., to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a person close to the talks said. Official discussions were suspended as an informal meeting was held in an attempt to solve the problem. The move was...

Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after developing countries withdrew their co-operation. Delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol. As news spread around the conference centre, activists chanted "We stand with Africa - Kyoto targets now". Informal talks continue, and the UN climate convention head said the formal agenda should resume in the afternoon. Blocs representing poor countries vulnerable to climate change have been adamant that rich nations must commit to emission cuts beyond 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol....