Free Republic

I don't get it. I honestly don't. Call me an idiot; declare me obtuse. I can't figure out the long game of the American left. I've been struggling with the thought for a while. But the answer isn't forthcoming. I don't mean to insult. I'm genuinely asking for clues. The progressive outlook seems negative. Everyone's being cheated. Everything's unfair. And offensive. Especially that. I've lived in this country for 52 years. I never knew it was such a cynical place. Instead of seeking ways to move the nation forward, spiritually and economically, the political left is on an inequity hunt....

President Barack Obama said during a town hall meeting at the White House on Tuesday that he would never engage in a politics that was aimed at dividing people along the lines of race, ethnicity, religion or gender.

Indiana has come under fire for a bill signed Thursday by Gov. Mike Pence (R) that would allow businesses to refuse service for religious reasons. The NCAA has voiced its concern ahead of Final Four in Indianapolis next week, there are calls to boycott the state, and Miley Cyrus has even weighed in, calling Pence a name that we can't reprint on this family Web site in an Instagram post. But Indiana is actually soon to be just one of 20 states with a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, according to the National Conference of State...

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of this Slate article, “Divide and Conquer,” by Jamelle Bouie. He has done the GOP a favor by revealing the Democratic party’s strategic plan for defeating Scott Walker in 2016: smearing him as a “divisive” candidate who will send dog whistles to his white supporters and seek to run the table with the still-majority white voters to win the White House. This article is the 2015 equivalent to the Zimmerman Telegram, and the GOP deserves to lose the White House if it ignores it. Governor Walker and the RNC will repeat Mitt Romney’s fatal...

By the somewhat tamer standards of the Midwest, Scott Walker’s speech to the Iowa Freedom Summit last Saturday was a smorgasbord of red meat. In just 20 minutes, the Wisconsin governor shed the persona that brought him to the stage—the stern but affable accountant—and re-emerged as a conservative warrior who defeated the unions, defunded the abortionists, and beat back the liberals to win three statewide elections for governor. His message, in short, was that he was effective, unwavering, and uncompromising. There was no need for outreach or a “big tent.” With the right conservative message, Republicans could win elections—and win...

ISIS Says It Will Conquer Europe Soon, Undertake Religious Cleansing And Kill Ruthlessly By Kalyan Kumar | December 23, 2014 3:56 PM EST The radical terror group ISIS has claimed that it is only a matter of time before its fighters conquer Europe. The claim was made by the spokesman of the outfit to veteran journalist Juergen Todenhoefer, who undertook a risky visit to the the ISIS controlled areas in Mosul of Northern Iraq. "We will conquer Europe one day. It is not a question of we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen. But it...

Some off-the-beaten track takeaways from the 2014-midterm elections … We all know that politics isn’t for the faint of heart, that things can get nasty, especially when you’re losing. Especially when you’re desperate. So Democrats went to their playbook and did what they too often do. They consciously tried to divide Americans – along gender lines (rehashing the so-called GOP war on women) … along racial lines (with despicable ads whose unmistakable message was that a vote for the Republican candidate was a vote for killing black kids) … and along class lines (trying to convince voters that big bad...

Part of Mitt Romney's success in securing the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 bore out of the fact that he benefited from the spoils of a divided faction on the right. If Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were ever able to consolidate the sum of their supporters around one of them, Romney's path to victory could have faced great peril. This calculation is weighing heavy on the minds of social conservatives as they look for a horse to ride in 2016. With an adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz telling National Journal Monday the Texas freshman is "90 percent" likely to...

The Republican Party has entered a new era of sectarian civil wars on multiple issues that bitterly divide and dangerously threaten the GOP through the 2016 elections and beyond. These intensely emotional and ideological issues create deep fissures in the tectonic plate of Republican politics, pitting warring GOP factions against each other and creating powerful strategic advantages for Democrats. A reverse realignment, which is possible for Democrats in 2016, would be achieved by subtraction if a smaller-tent GOP implodes from within while driving swing voters and demographic wave voters to Democrats.

In the wake of the tragic Boston Marathon bombings, it took mere hours for CNN to strongly hint – without anything so significant as evidence or proof – that right-wing extremists were responsible.

(CNN) -- Last month's Supreme Court decision in the landmark Arizona immigration case was groundbreaking for what it omitted: the words "illegal immigrants" and "illegal aliens," except when quoting other sources. The court's nonjudgmental language established a humanistic approach to our current restructuring of immigration policy. When you label someone an "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant" or just plain "illegal," you are effectively saying the individual, as opposed to the actions the person has taken, is unlawful. The terms imply the very existence of an unauthorized migrant in America is criminal. In this country, there is still a presumption of...

Leadership: A business icon has ripped the administration's "divide and conquer" strategy, the president's refusal to take responsibility for his policies and for an enemies list that would make a disgraced ex-president proud. We now have the Obama Principle. It's like the Peter Principle, in which people rise to the level of their incompetence, except as redefined by this administration you refuse to recognize your incompetence and constantly blame others when things go wrong. Jack Welch, renowned former CEO of General Electric before it became the nontaxpaying sock puppet for the administration's green energy push, has penned an Op-Ed article...

I am the 50.5 percent. I am, according to the Heritage Foundation, part of the lucky half of Americans who pay federal income taxes, so that the other half (technically the remaining 49.5 percent) can pay nothing. Half of us are paying the whole bill. Somehow that doesn’t seem fair. Folks like Elizabeth Warren and President Barack Obama agree. They think we should pay more. We’re used to that, we 50.5 percenters. Every time a new “stimulus” is announced, every time a new government program to solve all our problems is rolled out, we know that a) the problems aren’t...

After a dizzying day that saw members of her inner circle threaten to pull Sarah Palin's participation in a rally Saturday in Indianola, Iowa, a source close to Palin confirmed to RCP that the former Alaska governor will in fact attend the Tea Party of America event, as scheduled. "We had some long discussions with the organizers; we talked about our concerns and worked them out, and they stepped up their game today," the Palin source said. Two sources close to the former vice presidential candidate had told RCP earlier Wednesday that Palin’s involvement in the rally was “on hold,”...

President Obama said Tuesday he’ll be “ready” for whichever Republican candidate he faces in the 2012 general election. The president took it easy on Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — two front-runners for the Republican nomination — for their campaign trail missteps in the past week. But in an interview with CNN, Obama projected confidence about his eventual campaign. “I’ll let [the Republicans] winnow it down a little bit,” Obama told the network’s Wolf Blitzer. “I’ll be ready for them.”

President Obama has again acknowledged the necessity of doing something many Democrats fiercely oppose -- reforming entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security. On a Midwest bus tour stop in Minnesota, Obama spoke in favor of changes to entitlement programs being eyed by the 12-member congressional committee charged with finding budget savings that will get past partisan gridlock, stave off future credit downgrades and increase the federal debt. "There have been times when our side, when Democrats aren’t always as flexible as we need to be," Obama said. "Sometimes I do get frustrated when I hear folks say, 'You...

"President" Barry Soetoro aka Barack Obama is trying to create a marxist/socialist dictatorship. In order to achieve this, he and his Dem/RINO allies must destroy the U.S. Constitution, which stands directly in their way. Soetoro and his allies are attempting to destroy the constitution by creating a wedge. The point of their attack is the NBC Clause. Soetoro and his Dem/RINO allies are trying to mainstream the idea that that clause of the constitution does not really matter. Once that section becomes delegitimized, they can do the same with other clauses in the constitution they don't like, and so on....

DALLAS, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- George W. Bush has avoided politics since leaving the Oval Office, but he privately scorns Sarah Palin and is critical of Barack Obama, friends say. The former president has told friends Palin is unqualified for his old office and Sen. John McCain never should have put her on the ticket, the New York Daily News reported Friday. "Naming Palin makes Bush think less of McCain as a man," a Republican with knowledge of his thinking told the Daily News. "He thinks McCain ran a lousy campaign with an unqualified running mate and destroyed any chance...

he Republican Party made a spectacular mistake in publishing their “A Pledge to America.” In an attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory they have raised questions about their own party’s commitment to issues their base is most concerned with and about which they would like answers. For instance, the pledge says nothing about a fence along the US/Mexico border. It is ambiguous about worksite enforcement of immigration laws and, most important of all, it does not mention amnesty for illegal aliens. WHY??? The 2008 Republican Platform committed the Republican Party to completing a border fence, enforcing immigration...

House Republicans have been relatively successful this week at presenting a united front around their “Pledge to America,” but only through a strategic outreach campaign to lawmakers, media and outside groups, that has managed to keep deep dissatisfaction over several key issues largely under wraps. Still, interviews with Republican aides reveal that many in the GOP caucus are unhappy that there was no earmark ban and no promise to pass a balanced budget amendment in the proposal, which was unveiled Thursday by House Minority Leader John Boehner. The inclusion of a health insurance provision considered to be mandate angered many...