Free Republic

Libertarian James Quigley is Asking for Your Vote and Help Defeating Bobby Scott on Nov 2nd (Congress, VA-3) Campaign Update: I apologize for the lack of updates in the last few weeks, but the candidate forums, debates, and interviews took up much of my time and focus. When you are running outside of the two-party system, every public appearance must be a homerun. Good news, though. The preparation paid off as I believe I won each and every debate against Mr. Bobby Scott. Why I Oppose Bobby Scott and Why It’s Time to Put A Libertarian in the House: Bobby...

A Libertarian Defense of Delegate Bob Marshall Lately, there has been a dangerous trend in this country to limit free speech, with calls for representatives to resign and administrative officials to be removed from office.  The latest example of this is occurring in Virginia after Republican Delegate Bob Marshall made a statement against the state funding of Planned Parenthood.  The transcript of his discussion had religious connotations that some have called ‘hate speech’ and there are calls for his resignation.   Mr. Bob Marshall was quoted as saying that the “number of children who are born subsequent to a first...

I'm revving up to run for Congress in Virginia's 3rd District as a Libertarian so I lack the type of large team a typical Republican or Democrat candidate would possess to do some research, and yet I want to tackle the issue of aid to Haiti. I heard on the news that the US was going to give Haiti $100 million to handle its crisis. Most Americans see that as a gift that we'll never see a return on, which is likely correct since the quakes destroyed much of what was left of the Haitian economy. However, a January 13th...

Fellow Citizens of the 3rd Congressional District of Virginia, My name is James Quigley and I am officially announcing my campaign for Congress as a Libertarian against the incumbent, Bobby Scott (Democrat), of the 3rd District of Virginia. Over the course of the last few years our country has become less of a Free Market Democratic Republic and more akin to a Corporatist Oligarchy while the wealth of the poor and middle classes have been transferred to the few and powerful. Although Mr. Scott has spoken publicly against such interests, his actions and legislation has done little to stop this...

With everyone lately focused on China's foreign reserve position, analysts have forgotten that America also has an International Reserve account consisting of foreign currency positions, as well as gold reserves and equivalents. And while the total combined holdings as of the most recently reported period are a joke compared to China's $2+ trillion, the most recent number of $133.6 billion does raise red flags, particularly when one traces this number's level throughout the year. By purchasing $40 billion in SDRs virtually overnight, what the Fed has done is to increase the value of the entire basket pro-rata, while in the...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljAANHPkrAE&NR=1

I want to start a new local political blog and allow readers to comment. I am hoping for one with decent security to help avoid spammers and a host that respects my privacy as I will post under a pseudonym. Any suggestions. I hear facebook is pro Obama

[snip] That power rests in the United States Congress, NOT THE FEDERAL RESERVE OR TREASURY. Congress is free to delegate that power as it sees fit but you are absolutely not empowered to interfere via bluster, threat or any other means Congressional Authority in this regard. If you are unwilling to discharge your oath of office you must resign immediately. If you attempt to subvert The Constitution of The United States you must be impeached, removed from office and, if there is evidence that the $24 trillion you are attempting to cover up the disposition of is in any way...

A newly elected President should be given the full support of an American Citizen until such a time that he takes an action diametrically opposed to said citizen's beliefs. My support ended just three days after Mr. Obama's Inauguration. That's when the following was announced on The White House Blog (http://www.whitehouse.gov/statement-released-after-the-president-rescinds/): Statement released after the President rescinds "Mexico City Policy" It is clear that the provisions of the Mexico City Policy are unnecessarily broad and unwarranted under current law, and for the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries....

From "Redstate" we have this: "The government debt market is where the real action is. The yield curve has been neurotically steepening and flattening as participants weigh the broadly offsetting influences on prices for governments: the steadily worsening economic news tends to support prices, and the gargantuan amounts of new issuance push the other way." Neurotic eh? You got half of it right. The gargantuan new issuance. I wouldn't exactly call this action neurotic in the 10 year Treasury Yield (in tenths of a percent) I would instead call it the expected reaction when one tries to cram 10lbs of...

PARIS — France's equality chief said Wednesday the country was heading "straight into apartheid" and toward a major social explosion unless changes are made rapidly. Yazid Sabeg issued a wakeup call to the French nation, which has already suffered major rioting from alienated immigrant youth in the country's social housing projects.

Any Freepers living in the city of Hampton should go to this and give your input. I was for cutting or reducing about 15% of the budget, but I was one of the only people there last Saturday. In the era of big government we cannot sit on our hands and complain when we have opportunities to give reasoned arguments for bringing back small government. The Republican Party no longer believes in conservative leadership. Conservatism must come from the people themselves. --- To give citizens a greater opportunity to discuss their priorities for city services that should be funded in...

My wife and I are looking to purchase a handgun for both hobby shooting and home defense. We are only looking to purchase one. The local gun store has the following handguns that interested me and I wanted to see if anyone had any personal experiences with them. The review sites seemed bias towards one company versus others. 1.) Beretta 96 series 2.) Bersa Thunder and Thunder 380 3.) Ruger 9mm model SR 4.) Sig P226 5.) Glock M30 6.) Taurus PT-92 Thanks in advance!

<p>As I head out to wrap-up my five month active reserve tour, I am sad to notice a certain questioning about the direction of the War on Terrorism. So I have something to say to my fellow military members as I walk out the door, and it’s something I feel must be voiced. Please bear with me, as this has been on my mind often in the last few weeks. Every day we hear on the news about another bombing in Baghdad, or about unrest on the Pakistani border to Afghanistan. Recently, another five soldiers were killed in Iraq and sectarian violence is threatening to rip the country apart. And the question that keeps being asked is, “Can we win this?” A simple question, but one that is entirely misguided. We’ve already won our fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only question left is “How far can we take our victory?” Never again will Al-Queda use Afghanistan to train and send terrorists to attack our homeland. Women now hold elected positions in the country and are going to school, homosexuals aren’t being killed by having walls collapsed upon them, children can fly kites with their fathers in fields without being beaten, people may now listen to music, adults vote in a representative government, and the soccer fields are now used for games instead of mass executions. Never again will Saddam Hussein use his once-large army to invade his neighbors. The Kurds will not be gassed with WMDs, and have turned their portion of the country into the safest part of Iraq. The two sons of Saddam, Uday and Qusay, will never again patrol the streets of Baghdad looking for women to abduct. The Hussein’s will never again oversee the dropping of their enemies into human-sized shredders, nor will they ever house international terrorists in their country on guests. Terrorists such as Abu Nidal, who killed over 900 people in 20 countries and who was a guest living in Iraq for nearly a decade. And al-Zarqawi, the Iraqi al-Queda leader who fled to Iraq after our invasion of Afghanistan, obtained medical treatment under direction of Uday, and is now taking the eternal dirtnap. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like a victory, especially since al-Queda appointed a new leader in Iraq to continue the war. But we know his name and we know his face, and his time will also come. And as tiring as the violence in the Middle East may be, we must acknowledge that we’ve moved the forward edge of the battlefield from the skyline of downtown New York City to the territory of the enemy. This may be our greatest victory. So where do we go from here? How do we capitalize on our achievement of removing two despotic regimes placed on the opposite end of the globe in the course of several years? By giving the Afghan and Iraqi people their shot at republican democracy. Note that I did not say by creating democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, because that can only be done by the citizens, and can never be imposed. That is the moral strength of what we are trying to accomplish; to come as saviors and not as an empire. It took our country eight years to win our own Revolutionary War, and four years later we had to create a new constitution before we could make it work. The French Revolution took longer than two decades, and failed, returning the country back into a monarchy. The Afghans have had five years to attempt the same; the Iraqis three. I’m not a predictor of the future. I’m not a seer. Maybe the nascent Afghan and Iraqi governments will fall into chaos. Maybe the will of the people will be to slaughter one another, neighbor against neighbor, cousin against cousin. But for now our fellow brothers and sisters in uniform are performing amazing feats everyday to give those citizens their one shot at achieving a way of life that those regions have never known in all their existence. And should it fail- should chaos tear their countries apart- there will be people who will dream of a time when their voices were represented by those who governed, and a time when a statue of a tyrant was pulled down and people came from the voting booths while raising purple-stained hands in pride. And maybe those memories will allow for the next generation to step forward when their forebears did not. But if they do succeed now? Then the band of authoritarian countries that wrap around the world from Morocco to Indonesia will have been sliced, and many of the world’s tyrants will sleep uneasily in fear for the rights that their own people will demand. For this I pray. As for me, I have nothing but pride in what my country has done, and for what it is attempting to do during these chaotic times. Instead of sitting back, we are attempting to change the world for the better, and are making the conscious decision to try to actively engage the world instead of the passive, depressed manner of other nations. Whether we succeed in establishing democracy in the region or if we fail, we entered with the righteous intention of keeping our civilians safe, and the enlightened hope of freeing people locked in servitude to the vicious and brutal elements in their midst. When my daughter grows up, in whatever uncertain state the world will be in, I know I can look her in the eyes and say that I was there during the initial chaotic years of the new millennia, and that I fought to leave the world a better place than I had found it. For this opportunity that my country has given me, and for the honor to serve alongside the greatest military servicemen in the world, I will always be proud.</p>

When I started reading articles about Senator Brownback's bill - the one that would require that the ESRB play through games in their entirety - I expected to agree with it in principle, but take issue with its execution. The shrill phase of the site, where I would don armor and ride under the aegis of the true gamer no matter how mild the incentive, now rests in the reliquary with Xbox Controller Jokes and Jabs At User Friendly. I had chosen a singularly poor moment to become reasonable. Upon further examination, the Senator's plan (which I think may be...

I heard the audio of this a while ago on Opie & Anthony's XM Sattellite show but I've never actually seen the video to go with it. Someone has taken words from thousands of Bush speeches and mashed them together so he actually sings U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. Really creative and must have taken forever to create. http://my.break.com/media/view.aspx?ContentID=111184

I just thought I'd throw this question out for the history fans to see what they think. I've been asked to research the military and cultural aspects of India's ancient Gupta civilization. I have to publish an article for a magazine on the subject, but am living in Germany and my personal library consists of American, European and Japanese historical works. I have hardly anything on India and have been searching the internet for factual information. Besides an English translation of the Siva-Dhanur-Veda, I have not found anything of historical quality. Most of what I've seen focuses on some post-Modernist...

At 9.58am Eastern time, Tuesday September 11th 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Why? As UPI’s Jim Bennett wrote, “The Era of Osama lasted about an hour and a half or so, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty.” Exactly right. Six decades earlier, the American people had to wait four months between Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid. But September 11th was Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid wrapped up in 90 minutes. Flight 93 was supposed to be the...

The Big Easy rocked, but didn't roll By Mark Steyn (Filed: 06/09/2005) Readers may recall my words from a week ago on the approaching Katrina: "We relish the opportunity to rise to the occasion. And on the whole we do. Oh, to be sure, there are always folks who panic or loot. But most people don't, and many are capable of extraordinary acts of hastily improvised heroism." What the hell was I thinking? I should be fired for that. Well, someone should be fired. I say that in the spirit of the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, the Anti-Giuliani,...

I'm looking for advice from you Freepers out there. I'm a 29 year old Captain in the Air Force living in Trier, Germany, next to Luxembourg (it's a country nearly the size of Deleware for those not in the know). I'm leaving the military in a few months because I've found a very sweet German girl and decided I want to settle down and start a family. She's working in a very prestigious law office, so we'll be staying in Europe for a few years at least. I will miss the military, but don't have much affection for NATO. Is...