Free Republic

<p>Sarah Palin said some amazing and terrific things the other day — and nobody who wasn’t there heard about them. From, believe it or not, The New York Times, in which a columnist points out that we’re so used to goofiness coming from Palin that we missed some really interesting things at the Tea Party meeting last week — something that even liberals would have found compelling. Read past the jump for Anand Giridharadas’s summary of the great things Palin said. A hint, to get you to read further: “Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.”</p>

President Obama gave one of the most impassioned speeches of his presidency when he addressed a joint session of Congress on Thursday night. Too bad so many in the audience thought it was a big, fat joke. “You should pass this jobs plan right away!” Obama exhorted. Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) chuckled. .“Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary — an outrage he has asked us to fix,” Obama went on. Widespread laughter broke out on the GOP side of the aisle. “This isn’t political grandstanding,” Obama said. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) guffawed....

So now the chickens have well and truly come home terrifyingly to roost. The violent anarchy that has taken hold of British cities is the all-too-predictable outcome of a three-decade liberal experiment which tore up virtually every basic social value. The married two-parent family, educational meritocracy, punishment of criminals, national identity, enforcement of the drugs laws and many more fundamental conventions were all smashed by a liberal intelligentsia hell-bent on a revolutionary transformation of society. Those of us who warned over the years that they were playing with fire were sneered at and smeared as Right-wing nutters who wanted to...

Last night I attended the Gala event at Opportunities Inc. in Fort Atkinson, WI. My company uses Opportunities Inc. for packaging and simple assembly on parts that we ship. We have a very good partnership between our companies. The scene that I witnessed last night made me sick. There were about 200 walker stalkers there. They were rude and loud. They tried to block the road to the parking lot and they lined the sidewalk as you walked into the event. Opportunities Inc. had to hire additional security for the event. As my wife and I walked in with some...

In 10 days the United States will have a balanced budget. August 2,2011 is the projected date (although some sources now say it is August 10th) the United States government will reach its debt limit. After that date, there will be no more sales of T-bills and U.S. Bonds (the sale of which creates more debt), in other words, the government can no longer borrow money, until it pays down some of its current debt. The government faces the same situation we do when we have reached the borrowing limit of a credit card, we can no longer use the...

A snake with two heads, each able to think and eat separately and even steal food from each other, has become a popular attraction at a Ukrainian zoo. The small albino California Kingsnake, now on show in the Black Sea resort of Yalta is quite a handful, zoo workers told AFP. The snake's two heads are fiercely independent, are not always in agreement and like to snatch food from each other, said keepers of the private zoo, called Skazka, or Fairy Tale. "Sometimes one head wants to crawl in one direction and the other head in another direction," zoo director...

Scientists scouring the mountains of Borneo spotted a toad species last seen in 1924 by European explorers and provided the world with the first photographs of the colorful, spindly legged creature, a researcher said Thursday. In recent years, the Washington-based Conservation International placed the Sambas stream toad, also known as the Bornean rainbow toad, on a world "Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs" and voiced fears it might be extinct. Researchers found three of the slender-limbed toads living on trees during a night search last month in a remote mountainous region of Malaysia's eastern Sarawak state in Borneo, said Indraneil...

Washington gets $200 billion a month, Social Security costs $50 billion a month, and Obama is threatening to starve Grandma? .President Obama told CBS News today that he "cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it." But wait just a minute. If Washington receives about $200 billion in monthly revenues and sends out roughly $50 billion worth of Social Security checks and the same amount of Medicare payments, why is Obama claiming the checks may not...

On this Fourth of July there is a topic I want to confront. I thought long and hard before writing this column, even though the topic is a subject that profoundly concerns me. While my words come from the heart, I was, frankly, fearful that I would be branded a racist. Regrettably, the racial environment that now exists in America leaves anyone who is not Black open to attack regardless of one’s history of support for members of the community – just consider Al Campanis. Nevertheless, here goes – The Black community needs to throw off the yoke of their...

This came from a union guy in Chicago who didn't vote for Obama. Very, very interesting perspective that I never thought of in this light. It will be interesting to see what they put in his "Presidential Library" or "Presidential Mosque" about his early years when he is out of office. In a country where we take notice of many, many facets of our public figures' lives, doesn't seem odd that there's so little we know about our current president, Barack Obama. For example, we know that Andrew Jackson's wife smoked a corn cob pipe and was accused of adultery;...

NASA head Charles Bolden issued a weekend statement through the NASA Headquarters of Emergency Operations advising employees and their families to prepare for unforeseen emergency and/or disasters. Some key excerpts from the video statement follow: They've given me a few minutes just to talk to all of you in our NASA family about emergency preparedness. NASA recently participated in a FEMA exercise called Eagle Horizon that was a part of a continuity of operations of government exercise that we do annually, and I became aware of some things that concerned me about family preparedness... ... So, what I'm asking all...

Having low vitamin D levels may increase a person's risk of developing Parkinson's disease later in life, say Finnish researchers. Their study of 3,000 people, published in Archives of Neurology, found people with the lowest levels of the sunshine vitamin had a three-fold higher risk. Vitamin D could be helping to protect the nerve cells gradually lost by people with the disease, experts say. The charity Parkinson's UK said further research was required. Parkinson's disease affects several parts of the brain, leading to symptoms like tremor and slow movements. 30-year study The researchers from Finland's National Institute for Health and...

Steven Crowder finally delivers his long-awaited video on Net Neutrality — and it’s worth the wait. Steven traveled to Austin for the annual SxSW convention to hear the arguments for government intervention in Internet bandwidth allocations, and comes away less than impressed. It’s a debate drenched in technobabble, but the basic principles are clear and unmistakable. Who gets to control the operation of private networks — those who own them, or the government? This is a debate drenched not only in technobabble, but analogies as well. That’s because it’s difficult for most people to grasp the technical details, and so...

On the rare occasion that New Yorkers talk about farming, it's usually something along the lines of what sort of organic kale to plant in the vanity garden at the second house in the Adirondacks. But on a recent afternoon, The Observer had a conversation of a different sort about agricultural pursuits with a hedge fund manager he'd met at one of the many dark-paneled private clubs in midtown a few weeks prior. "A friend of mine is actually the largest owner of agricultural land in Uruguay," said the hedge fund manager. "He's a year older than I am. We're...

Americans Are Preparing At Unprecedented Levels Author: Mac Slavo April 27th, 2011 Do you have enough larder to feed your family and some friends if grocery stores ran out of food? How about several assault rifles and a few thousand rounds of ammo? Solar panels, a water filter, medical kits, bug-out bags, fire starters, tents, sleeping bags, some junk silver and reserve gasoline? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. It’s becoming apparent to many Americans that depending on our local, state and federal governments in the event of an emergency, catastrophic societal collapse or widespread disaster will not be sufficient to...

People freaked out about surviving world disasters and economic meltdown have made a run on freeze-dried food in the past month. As a result, Albany-based Oregon Freeze Dry Inc. — the country's largest supplier of freeze-dried camp food — won't accept any new orders through the 2011 camping season. The company produces the widely sold Mountain House line of food pouches popular among everyone from overnight wilderness backpackers to Pacific Crest Trail devotees. Oregon Freeze Dry officials say they have never seen this level of consumer panic over emergency preparedness in the company's 48-year history. In the industry, the emergency-preparedness...

Sarah Knopp, a Los Angeles teachers union leader (in the Tax the Rich shirt) and Megan Behrent a New York City teacher affiliated with the International Socialist Organization, explain how to push Marxism in the public school classroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDeXhmTz_0M&feature=channel_video_title

I found that in thinking about the budget, I did not have a good mental picture of where, exactly, and when, exactly, things had gotten out of line. So I decided to do a quick analysis of the "big pieces" of the federal budget just to get a feel for the magnitude of our financial problems and where in the budget they were located. It occurred to me that others might be interested in this as well, and that thought is the provenance of this essay. Just to begin at the beginning, this chart is a "50,000 foot view" of...

Liberal Democrats were often befuddled by President Reagan's "Teflon presidency." By their lights, Reagan could commit the most heinous acts, but their criticisms were usually shrugged off by the American people, who judged him a "nice guy" who deserved the benefit of the doubt. President Obama has enjoyed something similar during his first 2 1/2 years in office. Even as public opposition mounted to his policies -- Obamacare, the failed economic stimulus program, cap and trade, skyrocketing government deficits -- Obama retained a reserve of public good will reflected in consistently strong personal favorability ratings. People who didn't like his...

What is the general opinion that there will be a food shortage in the United States? Also, what do people recommend? What to purchase? How to store? How to prepare? Any good web sites to go for tips? Thank you in advance.