Free Republic

Vision for Economic Growth •The natural state of our economy is prosperity. Freedom ensures that. •We must get the government off our backs, out of our pockets and out of our way in order to return to prosperity. •Policy uncertainty is killing the economy. Economic Guiding Principles 1.Production drives the economy, not spending. ◦We can not spend our way to prosperity. ◦Government spending IS taxation. ◦Government spending is like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of the pool, pouring it in the shallow end. Then they HOPE that the water level will CHANGE. 2.Risk taking drives growth...

Does anyone feel just a little bit skeptical, a tiny bit suspicious that as Eric Holder is about to be subpoenaed in the Fast and Furious debacle, as Obama and his *house of cards* is so close to falling, that all of a sudden there’s an evil plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador brought up and SPLATTERED all over the news? Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old U.S. citizen who also holds an Iranian passport, was charged along with Gholam Shakuri, who authorities said was a Quds Force member and is still at large in Iran. The complaint filed in federal court...

Just in case Barack Obama still held out hope for Eric Holder's portion of the cover-up, the Issa committee released their subpoena today. Oversight Committee Subpoenas Attorney General for ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ Communications and Documents WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) today announced the issuance of a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. for Justice Department documents related to the "Operation Fast and Furious" gun walking scandal. "Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," said Chairman Issa. "The...

Fox News analyst reveals what's really behind the outspoken opposition to Republican Candidate Herman Cain.

In July 2010, some 15 months ago, I had a chance to interview Herman Cain, who is now at or near the top of the polls of Republican presidential candidates. At the time his name was starting to be seen on lists of possible presidential candidates. Following is what I wrote at the time. Herman Cain: "Conservatives should dream, be united, informed, inspired" At this weekend’s RightOnline conference at The Venetian in Las Vegas, businessman and radio talk show host Herman Cain delivered an inspirational message to the audience of some 1,100 conservative activists from across the country. Cain has...

"It was a joint operation in which DEA knew more than ATF." It was a brutal weekend for the Obama administration: Gunwalker continued unraveling at a faster pace, with new developments suggesting that Attorney General Eric Holder may not be the only Obama appointee destined for a political fall and possible criminal charges. In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa revealed for the first time that the Drug Enforcement Administration was far more involved in running the operation than the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives: It...

The anti-gun media latched onto the figure the GBAV authors conjured up—740,000 global deaths per year from “armed violence”—and ran with it. The report was intended to exaggerate the deaths associated with weapons, and create public hysteria. The scam was easy to see—if only one would actually read the report. That’s hardly surprising for those who follow the standard practice among gungrabbers to rely on lies, damn lies and statistics in order to bamboozle the ignorant into accepting their own disarmament. Recall the “90%” lie exploited to blame U.S. gun laws for Mexican cartel violence—a figure some evidently thought needed...

It was in 2008, during their inappropriately celebrated “War on Scientology,” that the hacker collective known as Anonymous first began using the phrase “We are Legion” in their communiques. Not being a Christian myself, it is usually hard for me to get too worked up over this sort of ham-fisted, pop-culture pseudo-Satanism. In most cases it is window dressing designed to distract people from the vapid and lazy “thought” that too many young people think is provocative. With Anonymous however, it’s different. Anonymous, often heralded as heroic defenders of freedom and transparency, have a history of activities that go beyond...

Scout Sniper (MOS 0317, formerly 8541) is a specialist in the United States Marine Corps whose mission is to deny the enemy freedom of movement by killing enemy leaders, crew-served weapons operators, radiomen, observers, messengers, and other key personnel with single, well-aimed shots. In addition, scout snipers also provide close reconnaissance and surveillance to the infantry battalion. Scout Snipers attached to Marine infantry battalions fall under the Surveillance and Target Acquisition units, usually a reduced platoon with the headquarters company. Marine Corps Scout Snipers are widely considered one of the elite forces of the US military and all branches of...

File this under “disconcerting.” No matter what military computer technicians do, they can’t seem to remove a virus from the computer systems that control military drones. The virus infecting ground control stations at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada was identified by military’s Host-Based Security System two weeks ago. It is reported the virus is tracking everything the drones do as they fly over areas like Afghanistan. "We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But...

CBS reports: Obama to embark on bus tour to sell Jobs Act. "North Carolina and Virginia." Hmmm. Folks, it is time to dog Obama's ass in public about the Gunwalker cover-up. Any and every Threeper, Second Amendment activist, Tea Partier, and unaffiliated patriot who can get a piece of cardboard and a magic marker ought to line the bus route and the speech venues of Obama with signs that say "Holder lied and people died!" or whatever other sentiment you wish convey related to the Gunwalker Plot. Obama shouldn't be able to show his guilty face in public without somebody...

It is 24 March 2009. Earlier that day as reported in "In at the Beginning," Part 1, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano held a press conference. That same day, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff asks the question: Why is Attorney General Eric Holder backing away from an assault weapons ban? According to sources, the NPR debunking of the 90 percent myth did not go over well with Hillary when it was dutifully reported to her by a subordinate. There was some sense, say the sources, that the 90 percent meme should...

Class warfare may be getting out of control: Several influential New York state lawmakers have received threatening mails saying it is “time to kill the wealthy” if they don’t renew the state’s tax surcharge on millionaires, according to reports. “It’s time to tax the millionaires!” reads the email, according to WTEN in Albany. “If you don’t, I’m going to pay a visit with my carbine to one of those tech companies you are so proud of and shoot every spoiled Ivy League [expletive] I can find.” State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos reportedly received...

Reid appealed a ruling from the chair that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not need consent to force a vote on a motion to suspend the rules to consider an amendment after cloture has already been approved. The maneuver is highly arcane but momentous. If a simple majority of the Senate votes to uphold Reid’s appeal, the Senate’s rules will have been changed by the unilateral action of one party. Republicans had considered using this maneuver, dubbed the “nuclear option” in 2005, to change Senate rules to prohibit the filibuster of judicial nominees. Democrats decried the plan and...

This is sad. Really sad. Evidently there just aren’t enough losers, ingrates and enviers in the country to fill out the ranks of the supposed “99%” of Americans who prefer class warfare to work. The S.E.I.U. is teaming with the Daily Kos to beg for bodies to occupy Wall Street and any business district out in the heartland. From the S.E.I.U. email that just landed in my hotmail box: By now you’ve seen the thousands of brave students, workers and the unemployed occupying Wall Street. But did you know that as of yesterday, there are over 300 solidarity “occupy events”...

Nothing there about gunwalking is there? Nor is there any mention of Fast and Furious, which had yet to be launched as part of the surge described. But that is the point, say my sources. Policy is strategy enunciated. Tactics flow from strategy. The policy that got the Obama administration into trouble was the surge and the desire, in the words of Napolitano, for "more prosecution of actual arms dealers who are intentionally and knowingly putting arms into the hands of the smugglers." This fit with the Obamanoids preconceived notion -- promoted by the Brady Campaign, the Mexican Government and...

President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice will ask the Supreme Court this week to eliminate a long-standing legal precedent that protects religious organizations from government regulations. The department “is going against what almost every court has decided … it has has taken an outlier position,” said Richard Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law & Religion at Emory University. “It does seem to do that,” said Barry Lynn, who has run Americans United for Separation of Church and State since 1992, after working for the...

According to Judicial Watch, Rep. Edolphous Towns (D-NY) has introduced the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2011. That bill would do with Obama’s presidential records what Obama has already done to his personal and collegiate records: Seal them up. In an obvious effort to protect President Barack Obama, a group of congressional Democrats has introduced legislation to create an official process that will allow the commander-in-chief to keep presidential records secret after he leaves office. Ironically, Obama revoked a similar George W. Bush order in one of his first official acts as president. In 2001 Bush penned an executive order...

Most Americans first heard of seven-term liberal Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik in the aftermath of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others in January of 2011. Dupnik immediately blamed conservative “rhetoric,” and declared Arizona a “mecca for racism and bigotry” — he was thoroughly wrong. In the Jose Guerena case, he would be wrong again. If anyone knows how the extended family of Jose Guerena, a two-combat tour Marine and father of two young children, came to the attention of drug agents in the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, they’re not telling. But members of his family by...

Five Republican presidential candidates are boycotting a proposed Univision debate due to allegations that the Spanish-language media giant tried to strongarm Sen. Marco Rubio, a vice-presidential shortlister, with a controversial story about a relative. Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann all issued statements saying that Univision needed to make amends before they would appear at the debate, tentatively scheduled for two days before Florida's Jan. 31 primary. The five made their separate announcements throughout the day at the behest of three Florida Hispanic Republican lawmakers who noted that the senator’s office and Univision insiders said...