Free Republic

First, here's the set-your-hair-on-fire clip about which we're all supposed to be enraged, via Rick Santorum on the stump: "I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. It doesn't matter to me..." The horror! Rick Santorum doesn't care about the unemployment rate! Except, the former Senator's sentence went on: "...my campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It's something more foundational that's going on." What Santorum was conveying -- albeit terribly ham-handedly -- is that his candidacy is about more than mere economic issues. He's arguing that while Mitt Romney's campaign relies on harnessing and exploiting...

Everyone with me sends you greetings. Greet those who LOVE us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Titus 3:15 The establishments of both Parties hate the Cain 9-9-9 plan so it must be a great program and it is. The main benefit of this plan is the elimination of the IRS which will turn tax preparation into a breeze. There will essentially be one deduction for most people which will be for charity and all others will be eliminated and then taxed at 9%. The IRS is the primary institution in the District of Corruption that enslaves the...

Israel was concerned Tuesday night that the United Nations would encourage terrorists who are supposed to remain outside Israel and Gaza to return to their families, after UN Human Rights Council head Navi Pillay said that requiring the terrorists to relocate from their original homes was against international law. Pillay said that the Council may interview terrorists to determine whether or not they willingly agreed to leave their original homes. "It was with a sense of great relief that we have received news of the agreement to exchange prisoners. We do however have concerns regarding reports that hundreds of Palestinian...

US Supreme Court halts Texas execution MICHAEL GRACZYK September 15, 2011 HUNTSVILLE, Texas — The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution Thursday of a black man convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago after his lawyers contended his sentence was unfair because of a question asked about race during his trial.

If one child complains that he didn't get as much food as his brother because his frankfurter was cut into four pieces, while his brother's hot dog was cut into five pieces, we laugh. What we often don't realize is that the definitions of "fairness" that adults use are often every bit as arbitrary as those of children. This is why politicians are so in love with the word "fairness." Using that word justifies their attempt to swoop in, ignore merit, overrule the market, and take something from one group of people to give it to another group of people...

[snip]The focus on President Obama's birth certificate diminishes the true questions about the unfairness of the conditions in the Constitution to run for president, which are long overdue for change.

Labor Activists Cry Foul Over Wisconsin Election Results By Steve Peoples Roll Call Staff April 8, 2011, 1:12 p.m. Union officials in Wisconsin are calling for thousands of ballots to be immediately impounded and recounted following the revelation that a county clerk’s computer error tipped the state Supreme Court election in conservative Justice David Prosser’s favor. “The mysterious, and arguably timely, discovery of ballots on a personal computer appears to be the latest example of Governor [Scott] Walker and his friends unfairly using the levers of government to silence Wisconsin voters,” Christine Lamitina, a spokeswoman for the Service Employees International...

<p>WASHINGTON – Car companies like General Motors and Nissan are slowly rolling out rechargeable electric cars. But that didn't stop thousands of U.S. taxpayers, including prisoners and some IRS employees, from incorrectly claiming lucrative tax credits for the electric vehicles last year.</p>

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said today that it was “unfair” to blame the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies for inflation in emerging markets and defended the Fed against accusations that it has contributed to the rise of global food prices, which have fueled political instability in countries like Tunisia and Egypt. Bernanke was asked about the situation in Egypt during a rare question and answer session following a speech today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He initially rejected the premise of the question, but went on to discuss food prices.

http://www.webcenter11.com/default.aspx The poll can be found about 2/3 of the way down the page on the left hand side. Do you think Sarah Palin is being unfairly accused of inciting the Arizona shooting? Yes (22.9%) No (76.6%) No opinion (0.5%)

I believe the term is "schadenfreude." The word comes from the German; it means "enjoyment derived from the troubles of others," according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary's Web site. I found myself coming down with a case of schadenfreude when I learned that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay. Olbermann's infraction was donating money to Democratic candidates. MSNBC went into what I call "National Public Radio mode," issuing some self-righteous statement about Olbermann violating journalistic ethics and the network's policies that forbid personnel from donating to political campaigns.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin doesn't expect to start searching for a successor to U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd until after the longest-serving senator in history is laid to rest next week. Manchin says he's instead focused on comforting Byrd's family and staff, and preparing the West Virginia memorial scheduled for Friday for the iconic figure who died Monday at 92 after years of frail health.

The parents of imprisoned Army Lt. Michael Behenna of Edmond have responded to the action of the congressional delegation in seeking clemency for their son, convicted of killing an al Qaida operative in Iraq. The trial ended with the revelation that military prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to Behenna in violation of civil and military law and the appeals process is ongoing. Members of the delegation seek an immediate reduction in Behenna's 20-year sentence, and, ultimately, a new trial. Vicki and Scott Behenna said, "Michael and our family are deeply grateful for this show of force by the entire Oklahoma congressional...

Sarah Palin's rambling abdication speech was hard to follow, let alone acclaim, but in her abrupt announcement that she is withdrawing from public office, the Republican governor of Alaska was hardly the only player in a 10-month drama who demonstrated a lack of self-awareness. Democrats scoffed at her "politics of personal destruction" line, but it's a maxim they originally popularized, and one they will undoubtedly trot out again the next time it happens to one of their own. But the true villains in this political morality play may have been the press. The mainstream media is undergoing its demise, drip...

Fairness or Prudence? The pugnacious little devil that he was, Theodore Roosevelt, in 1912, ran against his own handpicked successor, William Howard Taft, split the Republican vote, and handed the presidency to Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, formerly President of Princeton University, is the only man ever elected United States President to have possessed a PHD. Much more subdued in personality than Roosevelt, but no less rigid, his unwillingness to placate the Republican coalition, and specifically Henry Cabot Lodge, the United States of America never became member of the League of Nations, Wilson’s own brainchild conceived to protect the world from war....

Look at my fellow conservatives…… silver lining in …… Barak Obama…. Presidency : The Era of White Guilt is over. …..white Americans didn’t [care] about skin color. [Voted] for.. black man. Therefore, as of Nov 4th, 2008, white guilt is dead. ….if a black man can become President, exactly what significant barrier is left?... The dragon is hereby slain. … today, I’m feeling a little “uppity,” if you will. From this day forward, my tolerance level for having my skin color hustled is now exactly ZERO. … time to clean house. No more Reverend Wright’s “God Damn America,” Al Sharpton’s...

Barack Obama reminds me a bit of John Gotti. Obama is no murderer, of course, but here is the analogy: John Gotti (before his incarceration) was a well-dressed, genial, smooth-talking guy. Not a visible threat in sight. But if you crossed him, his thugs were very quickly at your door. Likewise with Barack Obama. He is always at pains to seem high-minded, but his tactics are anything but. If you cross him, his goons, too, are sure to retaliate, albeit in less deadly fashion than Gotti's. The case of Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is an object lesson in how Obama...

Obama remains unknown Tony Blankley Wednesday, September 24, 2008 The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight out propagandists for the Obama campaign. While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08 for the first time, the major media are consciously covering for one candidate for president and consciously knifing the other. This is no longer journalism — it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.) And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican growers on Wednesday called a U.S. warning against certain types of their tomatoes unjust, saying it has brought exports to a halt and could cripple Mexico's $900 million industry. Growers said their produce is subject to double the scrutiny that U.S. tomatoes face: inspected first by Mexican officials and then again at the border when crossing into the U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still hunting for the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to three types of raw tomatoes that has sickened 167 people in 17 U.S. states since mid-April. It has...

Mike Huckabee’s radical plan for sales tax revenue system only looks seductive, argues Tim Worstall, who demonstrates how the Fair Tax can be easily gamed and how the end of the I.R.S. is really the beginning of an even greater bureaucracy of retail auditors. by Tim Worstall As a Brit, I’ve been watching the back and forth about Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s Fair Tax with amazement. The idea is that the entire current Federal tax system is abolished replaced it with a 23% sales tax upon everything, this meaning we don’t the IRS and individual tax returns. The money...