Free Republic

I’m a Republican. I’m also a compassionate conservative. That’s why I’m troubled by remarks this week by Maine Gov. Paul LePage suggesting that the unemployed are jobless by choice. “To all you able-bodied people out there,” he said, during a speech at his state party convention, “Get off the couch, and get yourself a job.” Well, I understand that the cost of providing unemployment benefits to Maine’s 51,000 jobless is taxing the state’s treasury. But, I simply don’t believe that most of those out of work in the Pine Tree State– including the able-bodied of whom LePage spoke – prefer...

Gay-rights opponent Santorum stands by outed aide BY STEVE GOLDSTEIN Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The senior spokesman for Sen. Rick Santorum, R- Pa., Friday confirmed to a web log that he is gay. According to PageOneQ, an online gay and lesbian publication, director of communications Robert L. Traynham, said that he was an "out gay man who completely supports the senator." Santorum, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate leadership has been an outspoken opponent of homosexual rights and a leading proponent of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Santorum, who was traveling in Pittsburgh, released the following...

The people of Britain have spoken, and the Labor party is back in power with a comfortable, if much diminished, majority of seats in parliament. The leader of the Conservative party has said he will step down, forcing the Tories to their fourth leadership election in eight years.* The victorious Labor party got 36 percent of the vote, the Conservatives 33 percent, the Liberal Democrats (a Naderite Green-Left party) 22.5 percent, and "other" (Scottish, Welsh, and Irish parties) 9.5 percent. The real victory here is Margaret Thatcher's. By annihilating the old statist ideological Left in the 1980s, she forced the...