Free Republic

How do I find my state specific Freeper list? Judy in NM

A look Back People just don’t disappear. Look at Germany in 1946 or Athenians in 339 B.C. They continue, but their governments and cultures end. Aside from the dramatic military implosions of authoritarian or tribal societies — the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the end of Nazism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the annexation of tribal Gaul — what brings consensual states to an end, or at least an end to the good life? The city-states could not stop 30,000 Macedonians in a way — when far poorer and 150 year earlier — they had stopped 300,000 Persians descending on many...

Did anyone else watch Chris Matthew's Hardball show tonight and notice that Senator Schumer of NY had a facelift? It was a dramatic difference from the last time I saw him on TV. Is this where we are headed? Politicians trying to be Hollywood stars? It used to be that a few facial lines added a sense of maturity and wisdom to a speaker. Howard Fineman just noted that 'Schumer is going to play a big role in Obama's 2012 campaign.' Perhaps that is the reason for the lift.

There's an old sea story about a ship's Captain who inspected his sailors and afterward told the first mate that his men smelled bad... The Captain suggested perhaps it would help if his men changed their underwear occasionally. The first mate responded, "Aye, aye sir, I'll see to it immediately!" The first mate went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced, "The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear." He continued, "Pittman, you change with Jones; McCarthy, you change with Witkowski and Brown, you change with Schultz." THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Someone...

I must confess that every time Representative Michele Bachmann uttered the phrase “as president of the United States” during Thursday’s Republican presidential debate I blacked out a little bit, so I’m sure that I missed some things. Enlarge This Image Damon Winter/The New York Times Charles M. Blow Go to Columnist Page ».Multimedia Graphic Wrong Direction.Related Times Topic: Republican Party Related in Opinion Editorial: Magical Unrealism (August 13, 2011) Andersen: We, Robot (August 13, 2011).Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (117) » But one thing that I didn’t miss was the moment when all...

NBC News' newest broadcast journalist just keeps out doing himself. Enjoy tonight's must-see moment.

Quite often a brief news story sums up the collective pathologies of postmodern American society. Here is a recent tragic news item from my local paper, followed by some commentary: Police call slaying of Hanford woman a random act Posted at 6:04 p.m. on Thursday, July 28, 2011 By Paula Lloyd / The Fresno Bee A woman found slain at a Hanford car wash this week was killed randomly when a 17-year-old gang member happened to see her while taking a walk, Hanford police said Thursday. Denise McVay was washing her car — something she did several times a week...

Borrowing Is No Longer Stimulus? The Congressional Budget Office not long ago forecast that Barack Obama’s $1 trillion-plus annual deficits — scheduled over the next decade — would result in almost another $10 trillion in aggregate debt. Going back to the pre-Bush tax rates this time won’t balance the budget. Slashing discretionary spending will not. So large has the splurge become, and so hooked are the constituencies of federal money, that massive cuts to entitlements necessary to stave off financial implosion may well prompt Greek-like protests. That staggering sum was apparently conventional wisdom until the November 2010 election. But now...

As NewsBusters previously reported, Friday's "Real Time" on HBO contained some of the most vile political talk ever broadcast on national television. In one panel segment, gay sex advice columnist Dan Savage said of Republicans, "I wish they were all f--king dead" (video follows with transcript and commentary, extreme vulgarity warning):

“Reckless Fiscal Policies” Why did Obama only enumerate George W. Bush’s big spending as responsible for the out-of-control $14 trillion-plus debt, while not mentioning his own contribution of $5 trillion? Why is there a debt limit standoff now, rather than, say, in 2009 or 2010? Why did this latest $1.6 trillion Obama budget prompt the current crisis? Why did not Obama earlier start debt limit talks the moment that his own hand-picked Simpson-Bowles commission presented their findings? Why did Obama just recently submit, and have rejected, a budget that would have scheduled even larger deficits of the sort he is...

The Democrats’ position in the negotiations to raise the debt limit and deal with runaway government debt can be summarized in one mantric phrase: the rich must “pay their fair share” in taxes. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, for example, said a day before the Obama’s Sunday summit with Congressmen that any deal requires a “balanced approach that asks the very wealthiest and special interests to pay their fair share.” Earlier this year, Illinois Congressman Jan Schakowsky introduced legislation called the Fairness in Taxation Act, which she justified by saying “It’s time for millionaires and billionaires to pay their...

The First Symptoms of Hatred—2004 to 2008 For about seven years the nation lost its collective mind—and was only partially coming to in November 2010. During the years of insanity, Al Gore won both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award for his propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth—before the disclosures of climate gate, new data on everything from the Himalayan glaciers to polar bear populations, realization that temperatures had not risen in the last 12 years, and the rather blatant and various money-making scheme of Gore, Inc. (that parlayed green advocacy into a billion-dollar, medieval exemption/carbon offset empire, several homes,...

During the 2008 campaign Barack Obama ran more against lame-duck President Bush than against his Republican opponent, John McCain. The campaign is now long over, and yet President Obama still seems haunted by the ghost of his predecessor. Last week, for example, he was railing at the Bush phantom, whom he blamed for his received economic mess. In the world of Barack Obama everything he inherited was someone else’s fault — unless he believes past policies offer him some advantage and thus are to be claimed as entirely his own. The stock market is sliding. Gas and food prices are...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - New Mexico’s appeal to foreign criminals eager to exploit a state law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses is increasing. However, state investigators are trying to blunt that trend by using new tools to track the license requests and identify possible fraud before the licenses can be issued. “This problem is only growing bigger by the day,” said Alvan Romero, who heads up a team of fraud investigators for the state’s Taxation and Revenue Department. That department oversees the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division. A change in state law in 2003 allows foreign nationals to obtain...

A recent report in The New Yorker suggested that the Obama’s administration’s weird sort of/sort of not foreign policy is now gleefully self-described as “leading from behind.” Not exercising leadership is a reflection, the article suggests, of Obama’s view that the US is both disliked and in decline. Decline? Here are some tidbits from the Ryan Lizza adulatory piece. The following I think is meant as a compliment: The one consistent thread running through most of Obama’s decisions has been that America must act humbly in the world. Unlike his immediate predecessors, Obama came of age politically during the post-Cold...

545 vs 300,000,000 People By Charlie Reese Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code,...

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and others have noted that President Obama seems a few beats behind things; unable to anticipate things as they develop, and awkward when forced to catch up. When he responds, his answers seem lacking. Good politicians are in tune with their times, great ones foresee them, but Obama seems out of step with his times, and behind them. He is in the right job (he thinks), at the wrong moment, handed a crisis he never expected, and is doing his best to ignore. He was told, and believed, he was the new FDR at...

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The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.

This was in the ABQ Journal today: CYFD Ignored Rule of Law Albuquerque Journal By By Hal Stratton And Heather Wilson Former Attorney General Former Secretary of CYFD May 20, 2010 Read online at: CYFD Ignored Rule of Law After over 30 years of observing government in New Mexico, it is difficult to be shocked by incompetence or illegal acts on the part of some that serve in state government. However, the recent debacle by the governor and the state Children Youth and Families Department cannot go without comment. This agency reports through its spokesman that in 2006 then secretary...