Free Republic

Occupy Oakland has called for a city-wide strike and rally on Wednesday to protest income inequality, and several businesses, including Men's Wearhouse and the Grand Lake movie theater, have closed their doors in support... The store's decision will likely meet with approval from the corporate HQ: George Zimmer, founder and chairman of Men's Wearhouse, has repeatedly donated to Democratic candidates in multiple election cycles, including progressives like 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean and Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.).

(Reuters) - U.S. officials have met members of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, a U.S. diplomat said, after Washington announced it would have direct contacts with Egypt's biggest Islamist group whose role has grown since U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

<p>One day, at the height of her fame in the mid-Seventies, Jane Fonda turned up on the doorstep of her ex-husband, Roger Vadim. She was lugging a bulging sack.</p> <p>Vadim’s glamorous new girlfriend let her in, thrilled to meet the movie icon at last. But her excitement soon turned to disbelief. The star of Julia, Klute and The China Syndrome had come to do her laundry. Why? Because her second husband, Tom Hayden, a Left-wing activist with a bulbous nose and acne-scarred cheeks, had forbidden her to have either a washing machine or dishwasher. Far too bourgeois.</p>

You saw it here first, folks! Clueless?Over at the American Spectator, the great Jeffrey Lord writes that “almost to a person … prominent pre-Ron Paul non-interventionist “Paulist” politicians of the 20th century were overwhelmingly not conservatives at all. They were men of the left. The far left.” From three-time Democratic presidential nominee and Woodrow Wilson Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to powerful Montana Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler to FDR’s ex-vice presidential nominee Henry Wallace to the 1968 anti-war presidential candidacy of Minnesota Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy to 1972 Democratic presidential nominee (and Henry Wallace delegate in 1948) George...

National Popular Vote is good for conservatives, the GOP, and public policy. Period. Having been active in support of the initiative for over a year now, I have met and talked to hundreds of conservative leaders, activists, and elected officials. I have found most of those who reflexively oppose it do so because they think it is a process to amend the Constitution, don’t understand how it works or how it would affect outcomes, or are convinced of some grand conspiracy to turn America into a permanent Democrat hegemony. The reality is the current system disenfranchises millions of conservatives from...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will appoint Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington, Max Baucus of Montana, and John Kerry of Massachusetts to the new super committee tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction by November 23, according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with Reid’s decision, which is expected to be made public as early as Wednesday. Additionally, Murray is expected to co-chair the committee, officially named the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, along with a still unnamed House Republican. A spokesman for Reid did not respond to a request for comment. Reid’s decision to...

Here's Frank Schaeffer, the David Brock of the religious right, on Rachel Maddow characterizing all conservatives as dangerous nutjobs. Rachel Maddow guest, author Frank Schaeffer, summarizes The Right Wing

The moral bankruptcy of the Left – epitomized by its backing of Islamic dictators and extremists over moderate Muslims – saw it defeated across Europe in recent EU elections. From what I read yesterday, the Huffington Post, and American liberals, might want to take a lesson from that. In one op-ed piece, Frank Schaeffer tells us that “the real lesson of Iran” actually has nothing to do with Iran, and everything to do with American conservatives. Neoconservatives and the religious-Right are – so we’re told – trying their best to establish a Christian, pro-Israel dictatorship, replete with Old Testament law....

As we watch the horrors in Iran, it makes us wonder if anything like that could happen in America. In Iran, the mullahs control everything and feel justified in any injustice they commit because of a belief in the rightness of their own actions. Is there anyone like that here? In an answer to that question, Frank Schaeffer wrote a column for the Huffington Post entitled “The Real Lesson of Iran — Beware America’s Republican Mullahs.” Reading it and the comments to it, I came to a realization: people who think the religious right are just like Iranian mullahs are...

The earth bursts with life. Far right exclusionary religion bursts with death. If there is a creator of life He/She/It must hate fundamentalist religion. The countries in the world that are the most fundamentalist and religious, and/or those whose identity is most religion-based, are the world's greatest troublemakers. Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Vatican City and the state of Israel come to mind. Just take one example of religion’s baleful influence: President Woodrow Wilson’s messianic religion-inspired intervention in World War One. "My life would not be worth living” Wilson wrote, “if it were not for the driving power of...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delighted conservatives last week when he pledged to withdraw his state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) of Northeastern states. Conservative delight, however, quickly turned to frustration as Christie emphasized he was merely taking issue with the political and economic mechanisms of RGGI, but did not disagree with the notion that humans are causing a global warming problem that needs to be addressed. "[W]hen you have over 90% of the world's scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role, it's time to defer to...

BREAKING: United States will apologize for burying Osama bin Laden at seaA U.S. delegation consisting of President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and Admiral Gary Roughead will make an emergency visit to Cape Sounion in Greece to apologize for burying Osama bin Laden's body at sea. It was revealed that the State Department received a very strongly worded complaint along with thinly veiled threats of retaliation against the United States Navy. Although it is generally not the policy of the United States to respond to any threat, the Administration felt it prudent to resolve...

"Mr Moore said: 'We've lost something of our soul here in this country, and maybe I'm an old-school American, who believes in the American justice system, something that separates us from other countries. 'We say everybody has their day in court, no matter what sort of person, no matter what piece of scum they are."

Osama bin Laden wasn't killed by a Navy SEAL team, he was straight up executed, Michael Moore told TheWrap on Wednesday. The "Fahrenheit 9/11" director has been setting Twitter aflame Wednesday afternoon urging the Obama administration to come clean about the circumstances surrounding the terrorist leader's death -- particularly in light of the White House's shifting account of last weekend's firefight in Abbottabad. The Oscar-winning director has been tweeting about his belief that Bin Laden should have received a trial, and his theory that Pakistan was keeping the Al Qaeda head under house arrest.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Mitt Romney offered a tepid defense of the Massachusetts health care law, suggesting to an audience last night at the Granite State’s first forum of the 2012 presidential campaign that he would sign it again if given the chance.

In NH, Romney praises Obama for bin Laden’s death (Ignores Pres. Bush and VP Cheney) NASHUA, N.H. — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney says President Barack Obama deserves credit for authorizing the military operation that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s death. Before starting a round-table discussion with New Hampshire business owners today, Romney thanked Obama, U.S. military forces and the intelligence community for finding and killing the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rashard Mendenhall has created a stir with comments made on his official Twitter page regarding Osama bin Laden’s death. The Pittsburgh Steelers running back on Monday tweeted: “What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”

"He may be dead, but in a way, he won. We gave up our rights. We passed a PatriotAct. We spent trillions on needless wars. Fear now rules us." "BREAKING: All Repub candidates drop out of 2012 race, citing "aversion to losing badly." Would u make Pleasantville play the South Bronx?" "The monster we created-yes, WE-in the 1980s by ARMING, FUNDING, &TRAINING him in the art of terror agnst the USSR, finally had 2 b put down."

On the same day that a family of five were being murdered in their home in Israel, Harvey Weinstein ran a self-congratulatory promotional piece for his company’s terrorist propaganda flick, Miral... So it is with perpetrators and victims. The innocent children and the fat ugly men who profit from trafficking in the narrative of their killers. Harvey Weinstein denounces Peter King and urges him to go watch Miral. But perhaps it is Harvey Weinstein who should drive to a small town lost in the Samarian Mountains and retrace the steps of the murderers in the name of the nationalistic mythology...

Janet Napolitano appeared on Capitol Hill to answer questions about “Operation Fast and Furious,” the ATF “gun-walking” scheme that allowed guns to flow across the border into Mexico in an attempt to pin drug-cartel warlords with weapons trafficking charges. The operation literally blew up in the ATF’s face when the cartel used the weapons to kill American agents. Not only did Napolitano not know about the ATF operation, she claims, she still doesn’t know today whether the allegation that the two agents were only allowed beanbag guns to protect themselves is true or not,