Free Republic

On the picture is the deed of gift from the people of France – The Statue of Liberty. The famous sonnet, composed by Emma Lazarus is inscribed on the pedestal. Recently Glenn Beck put it in the front and center of the political debate. How are we supposed to read the Lazarus verse? Well if you read it like that and you really think it through, what are we? A hospital?... is the Statue of Liberty saying to Europe, guys, Europe, you’re never going to make it with all that refuse. Send it over to me, we’ll take care of...

General Services Administration is the bureaucracy in charge of accommodating all the federal bureaucracy with space and real estate, transportation, and communication...Recently General Services Administration got in the news when the State Department put the blame on the GSA guidelines for the disappearance of the passport information for President Obama’s mother. Below is another disappearing act performed by GSA: goats vs. men in Pasadena, California. GSA is in charge of the fire safety of the federal buildings so this year they hired goats instead of men to clean up the brush: GSA is spending a lot of ‘green’ to make...

There are great things about America – one of them is the freedom of religion. However the freedom of religious expression is restricted in the USA. We are free to believe whatever we want, but since the Supreme Court 1879 (Reynolds vs. US) decision there are limits to expressing religious beliefs if those hurt others. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. We are free to believe in Jesus , however in America we are not free to erect a cross on public...

You’ve heard the phrase “We should pay the health care providers not for “volume of care” but for “quality of care”. You’ve heard it from politicians on the left, right and center. You’ve heard about the transition to “evidence based” care that will save us tons of money. But do you really know what “quality of care” means and what “evidence based medicine” means. Quality means different thing to different people. Quality may refer to the perception of the degree to which the product or service meets the customer’s expectations. Your grandma’s apple pie may be the standard for quality...

While President Obama is chatting with the ladies of the View the Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave yet another speech on leadership,this time in front of the crowd of 45 000 Boy Scouts at their Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Va (DoD photo by Cherie Cullen): “There are too many places in American life today without the Boy Scouting values of self-reliance, self-control, honor, integrity and morality,” Gates said. “From Wall Street to Washington to our hometowns, in all our lives there are people who seek after riches or the many kinds of power without regard to what is...

The race-baiting backfired at the Democrats and president Obama. America felt betrayed by the first post-racial President when he started to play the race card when talking about the Arizona law or about his racially incomplete coalition of power. So Democrats and President Obama decided to follow the example of Shirley Sherrod who overcame racism by turning to class warfare. The Bush tax-cuts entered the election debate front and center. Every progressive talking head told you how the Bush tax cuts are for the rich and how the Bush tax cuts got us into unsustainable deficits. Really? If Congress decides...

The War is horror – we don’t need WikiLeaks to tell us this. To all who will be shedding tears over the newly released documents: let’s remember why we are in a war in Afghanistan. After the 9/11 attacks on the US president Bush demanded that the Taliban give the US Usama bin Laden and the other Al-Qaida leaders to be prosecuted in court for what they have done. The Taliban refused and they continue to harbor and support the terrorists even today. The US has the right to defend the national security. The Taliban have the right to...

At the beginning there was the desk. Actually 48 desks that New York cabinet maker Thomas Constantine made for the Senate Chamber at newly reconstructed Capitol building in 1819. The US Senators actually did their work on that desk. They were all together in the Senate Chamber...In 100 years the space for books was doubled and ventilation was added to the work space. The things really got out of control at the beginning of the twentieth century. The tiny red mahogany desks were the Senate primary working space until the first Senate office building opened in 1909. ...in 1941...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, awards the Distinguished Service Medal to U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as he stands with is wife, Annie, during a retirement ceremony on Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, D.C., July 23, 2010. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry D. Morrison Looks like Gen. McChrystal and his wife are really trying hard to hold the emotions inside. Awkward moment. Defense Secretary Robert Gates summed it up: We bid farewell to Stan McChrystal today with pride and sadness. Pride for his unique record as a man and soldier; sadness that our comrade...

The world is preparing to face the end of Mubarak’s Egypt. Radio Voice of America reports: A government spokesman this week tried to downplay a report in the Washington Times newspaper that Western intelligence agencies are tracking Mr. Mubarak's decline since surgery in Germany earlier this year. The government says the president is recovering from gall bladder disease, but the Times report, along with independent media reports in Egypt, suggest his illness is more grave. Vice President Joe Biden met with Egyptian President in Sharm El Sheikh on June 7, 2010. On the official White House Photo by David Lienemann...

Shirley Sherrod was visibly disappointed after the phone call apology from President Obama. She wanted to share with the President of the USA the unique experience of her life. She wanted to tell him about the South. Mrs. Sherrod like many Americans has so much to say. She felt she deserved to tell her life-story of struggle. Instead President Obama assured her the USDA Secretary was serious about the job offer. However, Shirley Sherrod is not in it for a job position. President Obama was chasing a new job position whole his life. This is all he knows –...

More quotes from Shirley Sherrod’s famous NAACP speech which you can watch in full here and make your own judgment. Do you want Shirley Sherrod in charge of the USDA outreach position that would deal with discrimination matters? The people with money, the elites decided, hey, we need to do something here to divide them [the white and black servants]so that’s where they made black people servants for life. That’s when they put laws in place forbidding them to marry each other. That’s when they created the racism that we know of today. They did it to keep us divided....

Shirley Sherrod, the former Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia, gives some great tips in her 40 minute speech at NAACP. First time home buyers probably would not think to look for a loan at the Department of Agriculture. Apparently there are some great deals there. So here is more professional advice from Shirley Sherrod and the US government: We have more money for single family housing – the red loans – and that’s loans from the agency - that we’ve ever had in the history of the program. But we are having problems having this money...

Reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin did amazing job at Washington Post revealing the bloating stricture of the US Intelligence bureaucracy.We hope this is just the first of series estimating the size of the US federal bureaucracy. Here is the next challenge: Washington Post will really help the country if they are able to count the number of government organizations and private companies involved with the Department that is bankrupting the country: The Department of Health and Human Services. The A-Z bureaucracy index of HHS is so big that majority of the agencies have their own A-Z indexes. Let’s say...

President Obama described the horror of unemployment in remarks on unemployment benefits: " We need to pass it for men like Jim Chukalas, who’s with me today, and who worked as a parts manager at a Honda dealership until about two years ago. Jim has posted resumes everywhere, and even gone door-to-door looking for jobs, but hasn’t gotten a single interview. He’s trying to be strong for his two young kids, but now that he’s exhausted his unemployment benefits, that’s getting harder to do...We need to pass it for all the Americans who haven’t been able to find work...

Saturdays Night Live ran a repeat yesterday of one of their most successful skits this year. The reminder of the joint press-conference of President Obama and the China’s Dear Leader comes at the right time. China just reduced its holdings of US Treasury debt. Is it a political move or a sound investing strategy? I am afraid it is the second. While President Obama continues to campaign on his Health Care reform, nobody is buying its miracle effect on the deficit anymore. The Congressional Budget Office finally revealed the whole picture and the grim true came to live: ObamaCare...

The Financial Reform give the USA new bureaucracies of all kind: Advisory Committee, Office of the Investor Advocate, and of course the … the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection that will include the Consumer Advisory Board. It is not likely that the first-time home buyer will have the connections or the resources to influence who will sit on the Consumer Advisory Board. It is likely that the Wall Street will have the ability to lobby them. It is not likely that the senior taking care of the retirement funds will go all the way to the Office of the Investor...

Scott Brown was the Man with the truck during his senatorial campaign. Today he assisted President Obama in the sweeping overhaul of the American financial system. The least we can say he broke his promise for no new taxes that will cripple the economy. The truth is the Gov now will call the shots on Wall Street. Do you think your money is safer now? The Rock Star of the tea party movement is a star no more. He is a poster boy again, but this time it is not for Cosmo, but for the Obama agenda. Remember how the...

Surprise! After 18 months in office President Obama finally called the radical Islam – radical Islam. … what you have seen in terms of radical Islam is an approach that says that any efforts to modernize, any efforts to provide basic human rights, any efforts to democratize are somehow anti-Islam. And I think that is absolutely wrong. I think the vast majority of people of the Islamic faith reject that. I think the people of Africa reject it. America gasped. Did he finally change his policy? Can we all now say ‘radical Islam’? The political correctness is not the...

I got news for the NAACP they are already irrelevant. Those millions of people who celebrated on the streets in November 4, 2008 believed in their heart it is proven that America is not a racist country. American people advanced a colored person all the way to the Presidency. NAACP – it is mission accomplished... Every incident of racism should be prosecuted on an individual basis. If there is a racist on the street it is not because America is racist, but because the individual is racist... All these millions who celebrated the first African American President on November 4,...