Free Republic

As one would expect at the world’s premier conservative forum, Freepers regularly refer to our Constitution and original intent of our Framers. While the Constitution ultimately means what it says as defined by the 18th century definitions of its words, there is much to learn from the Convention. From the various ideas rejected and accepted, prejudices and political give and take, it is possible to definitively shoot down some modern Leftist constructs that endanger our republic. Judges claim certain clauses have no discernable meaning outside of what they make up and blithely declare them to mean. Even among conservatives one...

Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Republican Committee, is calling for a three-pronged approach for confronting the government's overspending problem ahead of the debt limit debate. Recognizing that Washington's spending addiction is both a short and long-term problem, Chairman Jordan is circulating a letter amongst his colleagues requesting three proposals form the basis for Republican bargaining on the debt ceiling. They are: "Cut" - cut the deficit in half next year"Cap" - establish statutory spending caps that bring federal spending from 25 percent of GDP today to 18 percent"Balance" - institute a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution with...

...Although the numbers show the financial cost of taxpayer funded union organizing, what raw data cannot show is the accountability shattered by the way in which it seems to have been deliberately delayed and buried by the Administration. Because this report covers data from FY 2009, it would typically have been released in March, 2010. OPM repeatedly skirted both Congressional and public inquiries for over a year before quietly releasing the data without as much as a mention on their website. This sort of action dramatically undercuts any claims about running a “transparent” and “open” government...

Attempting to explain his continued push for higher taxes, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) made the following claim during an interview Thursday with ABC’s Jonathan Karl: COBURN: “The fact is, we’re at the lowest tax rate this country’s been in a hundred years. Right now.” In reality, the top marginal income tax rate for individuals is currently 35 percent. In 1987, after Reagan’s historic tax reform, the top marginal income tax rate for individuals was 28 percent... Read more: http://www.atr.org/attention-senator-coburn-bigger-number-a6176#ixzz1NBoqJK6U

The Palins have reportedly purchased a lovely desert home in North Scottsdale, firing rumors of a presidential run, a go at Kyl's Senate seat, among other things.  To me, I'm not sure that means she's running... it's a long flight from the Lower 48 to AK, and she's got endless business down here.A local site ArizonaCentral reported that a just-closed deal on a secluded luxury home in far north Scottsdale might be the Palins making a secretive buy, and it seems this is the one.It's an 8,000-square-foot, dark-brown stucco home with a guard gate with six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a six-car garage,...

Even Professor Willi Steffen, an alarmist with the Climate Commission, predicts a sea level rise by 2100 of no higher than a metre: Professor Steffen’s report strongly defends the scientific finding that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing the world to warm, predicts the sea could rise by up to a metre by 2100... So we are still waiting for the [Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s] ABC’s lead science presenter, Robyn Williams, to explain his disgraceful scaremongering: Andrew Bolt: I’m telling you, there’s a lot of fear out there. So what I do is, when I see an outlandish claim being...

...This direct push for unionization by regulation betrays any sense of public confidence in the nation’s federal agencies. It proves that the objective of NMB is hardly “the prompt and orderly resolution of disputes arising out of the negotiation of new or revised collective bargaining agreements” as their own mission declares. Instead, NMB and other federal agencies are puppets of Big Labor. Unions like AFA and IAM have proven that they will stop at nothing to achieve this goal, including co-opting our nation’s regulatory agencies who are all too frequently more than willing to assist them. Luckily, the House of...

A group of federal agencies is considering regulations (PDF) that would restrict a vast number of homebuyers from securing private home loans, unless approved for a “Qualified Residential Mortgage.” To meet this standard, homebuyers would have to have a whopping 20 percent down payment to get a mortgage. Homebuyers also can not have been more than 60 days late on a credit card payment in the past two years or spend more than 28 percent of their income on the house. Failing to meet these and other tests means your lender will have to hold a certain percentage of your...

...Perennial presidential candidate, Ron Paul is the standard bearer of the Libertarian movement in this country and a Conservative Republican Congressman from Texas. His first official run for President occurred in 1988 on the Libertarian ticket. Since then, he ran again in 2008 as a Republican and is now officially seeking the Republican nomination in 2012. Even with this assumed notoriety, at this point, Paul is still not that well known (although that may be changing) and as such, is considered a ‘dark horse’ candidate. And, this is why I ask: Who is Ron Paul and really, what does he...

Re: Legal proof that President Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth is a forgery. Dear Sir/Madam, I have irrefutably proven that the Certificate of Live Birth that President Obama presented to the world on April 27, 2011 is a fraudulently created document put together using the Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator programs and the creation of this forgery of a public document constitutes a class B felony in Hawaii and multiple violations under U.S. Code section Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47, Sec.1028, and therefore an impeachable offense. When this comes to the public’s attention, it will be the greatest scandal in...

No, Family Radio/Harold Camping, which has been hearkening the Return of Christ, and the Rapture for several years has not delayed the Big Day, but the Lord has not intended to return at this time. Nor, according to Camping will Armageddon and the Last Judgment occur in October of this year as prophesied. COGWRITER explains fairly well Harold Camping's errors both Biblically and mathematically. It is unfortunate that such a nice group of people at Family Stations Inc, worth over $150,000,000 could be AGAIN hornswoggled by their Pastor-President Harold Camping, who strongly suggested earlier, that 1994 was most possibly THE...

Video Jerome Corsi on the Steve Malzberg Show, May 17, 2011. This is the first interview Jerome Corsi has done since the release of his new book, "Where's the Birth Certificate".

I believe that the sine qua non of the financial crisis was U.S. government housing policy, which led to the creation of 27 million subprime and other risky loans -- half of all mortgages in the United States -- which were ready to default as soon as the massive 1997-2007 housing bubble began to deflate. If the U.S. government had not chosen this policy path -- fostering the growth of a bubble of unprecedented size and an equally unprecedented number of weak and high-risk residential mortgages -- the great financial crisis of 2008 would never have occurred...

Every people enjoy a favorite holiday. For many Americans it is the yearly celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or the feast eaten by pilgrims with their Native American hosts. These events mark the beginning of the American people. For many Jews the celebration revolves around the Jewish New Year, when the Lord created the world, or Passover, when the Jews were freed from Egyptian slavery. At that points the Jews truly became a people, as they wandered for forty years after their Exodus. For the made up people known as Palestinians, the big event is Nakba...

If George Orwell were alive today he’d be censored by today’s Orwellian press-police. As America’s poshest-acting, bisexual neo-conservative, Christopher Hitchens points out in Why Orwell Matters (pages 79-80): It is true on the face of it that Orwell was one of the founding fathers of anti-Communism; that he had a strong patriotic sense and a very potent instinct for what we might call elementary right and wrong; that he despised government and bureaucracy and was a stout individualist; that he distrusted intellectuals and academics and reposed a faith in popular wisdom; that he upheld a somewhat orthodoxy in sexual matters...

The Defense Authorization Bill that was voted out of committee on Wednesday brought back to life an expensive earmark that has plagued taxpayers for years – the F136 alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. The second engine line has been opposed by both President Bush and President Obama, is unwanted and unneeded by the Pentagon and has been rejected by both chambers of Congress. Already having cost $3 billion in taxpayer funds, the earmark was thought to have finally been laid to rest last month – its reinsertion in to the 2012 Defense bill signals this may not be...

VIDEO: Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi don't agree on much, but they do agree on the government's involvement in "climate change", as you can see from this 2008 joint ad.

Just when you thought gentlemanly business competition was coming back to America…. Back in the ‘90’s, when all the bank mergers were happening and there was a massive consolidation of the defense industry going on, The Onion featured a headline that read something to the effect that Business has been Consolidated to Six Corporations. That’s about what it felt like at the time. Never mind anti-trust or the laws on vertical integration to prevent monopolies, competition was going out of style (and under a Democratic administration, too. Imagine that). That headline popped into my consciousness this week when I heard...

Current state of affairs - brought to measure by the forebodings of yester-year and the pillars of our Great Nation regarding... I. THE WITHOLDING OF INFORMATION: "Information is the currency of democracy." "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." II. THE ENCROACHMENT OF GOVERNMENT: "Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." III. OUR...

Academics love to forecast. For the sake of college graduates, let’s hope their latest one proves to be more warranted than now seems possible. “Students seeking full-time jobs after graduation will face a more optimistic job market this year, as the National Association of Colleges and Employers predicts a nearly 20 percent rise in hiring of graduates,” Katherine Rodriguez wrote in The GW Hatchet Online. “The association’s spring job outlook survey anticipates employers will hire 19.3 percent more graduates this year than in 2010, the first time employers have reported a double-digit increase in spring hiring projections since 2007.” “An...