Free Republic

An Encounter Too Close    In 1995 after the victory celebrations concluded, Republicans got down to work on passing the various provisions of the Contract with America. The terms of the Contract were simple. Republicans promised to bring ten proposed laws to the floor for an up or down vote within the first hundred days.     The Republicans signing the Contract did not promise to vote for or to pass each of the ten provisions, only to bring them to the floor for a vote. Importantly and with this consideration, the order of voting on the ten items was prioritized and...

Where is the Instant Replay? "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke    Given that good people generally know the risk and potential result of doing nothing, and given the fact those same people commonly know where the socialists with "good intentions" are going to end up leading us, it is essential to understand why those same people which includes the "right people", almost invariably refuse to seek office. Key to learning how to recruit sufficient numbers of the right people is a thorough review that will allow us to understand...

Another Ronald Reagan?Was Ronald Reagan truly unique? How exceptional was it that a small select group of men came along at just the right moment in time to become the Founding Fathers of what would prove to be the most extraordinary nation in the history of the world? Between the federal, state and local governments, there are thousands of elected public officials. Can you identify the ones that you believe have the characteristics or attributes of another Ronald Reagan or the Founding Fathers? Can you identify even one that you believe to be equivalent to Ronald Reagan or the Founders?...

This story is the first in a weeklong series on Gallup.com on Americans' views on the role and performance of government.PRINCETON, NJ -- A record-high 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed, adding to negativity that has been building over the past 10 years. Nearly Half Now Say Government Poses Immediate ThreatAmericans' sense that the federal government poses an immediate threat to individuals' rights and freedoms is also at a new high, 49%, since Gallup began asking the question using this wording in 2003. This view is much more pronounced among Republicans (61%) and...

Round One of The Great Debate"Government is not the solution; goverment is the problem!" President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural, 1981.    The first step toward solving the problem of government requires challenging, and then changing the simplistic thinking of voters who accept the flawed premise put forward by most politicians, "Government should tax the rich so that it can help the poor and the less fortunate," when in fact, nothing can be farther from the truth.    Economist, Dr. George Reisman, introduces the last chapter of his epic book, CAPITALISM: A Treatise on Economics, with this statement, "The principles and theories presented...

Market Based Management Applied to Politics"We've learned to articulate the ideas of liberty a lot better, but we haven't learned to turn that into political effectiveness." Charles KochTo the Messers Koch: Sadly, your conclusion is still compatible with Ronald Reagan's fateful 1964 prophecy, "We have come to a time for choosing; we will preserve for our children this the last best hope for man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.....history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent...

Ron Paul Can Win By Robin Koerner, on September 17th, 2011 It’s hard to tell if the idea that Ron Paul cannot win in 2012 is more ignorant, in its complete lack of historical sophistication, or more arrogant, in its claim to certainty amid all the complexity of 300 million lives and the myriad issues that affect them.Sometimes, perhaps once in a few generations, a nation can undergo what a mathematician or physicist would call a “phase change.” The classic example of such a thing is a pile of sand. Every grain you add makes the pile slightly steeper and...

Renaissance Executive Summary    Government evolved from the need to protect life and property from predators and plunderers. Socialism is the freedom-destroying economic cancer that was developed by political predators seeking to harness government's power for their own purposes. Politicians uniformly promise more than they can tax making debt and monetary debasement the source of government's power. Politicians and bankers are natural allies and co-conspirators."Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812)"Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks...

Map To A Renaissance"We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again." Thomas Paine 1776     The Founders lived up to Paine's premise, but they compromised some important principles that made it possible for politicians to sequentially corrupt that noblest and purest Constitution. Paine's proposed constitution provided for term limits, but the Constitution as passed, did not. By 1912, politicians and bankers had gained the time and experience needed to begin stripping the Constitution of its...

This clip is just under five minutes in length and has to be seen to be believed. The lame-main/stream media is beginning to get it.

As of Friday morning, there's no deal to raise the debt ceiling and both parties want everybody to know it.... "The real problem is not the partisanship, it's the ideological divide," he says, suggesting there are a "disproportionate" number of Congress members who either either "far right or far left" and don't want compromise. Unfortunately, political ideology is preventing some in Congress from being "realistic about what needs to be done now and what ultimately has to be done over time," Walker says.

What could really happen if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceilingFrom Dan Ferris in Extreme Value:Until June 30, investors were focused on what would happen in the wake of the end of the second installment of quantitative easing, the Federal Reserve's eight-month, $600 billion, money-printing, Treasury bond-buying operation. Luckily, not much happened after June 30. But now we find ourselves up against another big deadline: August 2. If Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling by August 2, big things will happen on August 3. The debt ceiling is a legally imposed limit on the amount of debt the U.S. government...

Polls show that most Americans are opposed to raising the federal debt ceiling. Even when the Pew Research Center included the consequences in its question — a national default that would damage the economy — slightly more people were against raising the ceiling than were for it...Free lunchism is ultimately the problem with the no-new-taxes pledge that so many politicians have adopted. A refusal to raise taxes, no matter how principled, cannot take us back to the good old days. It would instead lead to a very different American society. For taxes to remain where they are, Washington would need...

According to this report by the Bipartisan Policy Center, just over $500 billion in U.S. Treasuries mature in August 2011. (If you’d like, you can read the entire report right here. But for quick reference, just check out the chart on Page 33.) To “roll over” that debt, the Treasury must auction new debt in its place. They’ll use the proceeds of the new debt auction to pay off the old debt. To add insult to injury, that $500 billion rollover is on top of an August deficit of roughly $150 billion (Page 12 of the report.) Assuming, of course,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday increased pressure on Republican lawmakers to make concessions for a deal to avoid an August 2 debt default and said both sides must "pull off the Band-aid" and make sacrifices. "If not now, when?" Obama said.