Free Republic

In a speech with racist overtones given at the Hawaii Capitol Tuesday evening attended by Governor Neil Abercrombie (D), former Obama appointee Anthony K. "Van" Jones spoke at a rally to promote so-called economic justice and fairness by legislating a green energy State Partnership Bank about his being glad that (according to Jones) the'great white suburbs' of the American dream are 'dying.' Jones' speech was reported by Malia Zimmerman of The Hawaii Reporter: In his keynote, Jones did not directly address the bank legislation or other legislation pending in Hawaii. Instead he spoke of the dream being “under threat.” “Not...

WASHINGTON (AP) - This time around, President Barack Obama's message can sound decidedly down-to-earth. Four years after winning the White House, Obama is dealing with a different economic and political reality as he seeks re-election. He's focused less on a lofty vision for overcoming divisions and remaking Washington, and more on the most basic building blocks of middle-class economic security: a job, a house, a college education for the kids, health care, money for retirement. What Obama describes as the American Dream can seem a spare, fundamental aspiration, tailored for a campaign that looks to be fought over who is...

Before our very eyes, a generation of Americans is losing faith in the American dream and adopting attitudes and behaviors that emphasize living for the day, not planning to take care of their own futures. They clearly see the problems ahead and draw rational conclusions. Most of our problems have been caused by government. The unintended consequences of poorly thought out legislation or legislation designed merely to garner votes for re-election is wreaking havoc on economic opportunity for our country. ..... It is time that we demand that our nation re-establish its moral compass. It is essential that we reward...

Call it the Big Selloff—America is headed toward a future in which fewer people own the spaces they call home. The effective homeownership rate, which excludes borrowers whose homes are underwater, stands at 62 percent, down from 69 percent in 2006, according to a 2010 report by the New York Federal Reserve. As more people move from owning to renting, apartment vacancy rates have fallen fast, from 8 percent in 2009 to 5.6 percent in third quarter 2011. That’s pushed up rents in all markets by 2.5 percent, including apartments and single-family homes, to an average of $846 nationwide, according...

Chinatowns around America have shrunk during the past decade, and Chinese immigration has declined since 2006. Why? Because Chinese think the American Dream is dead. (Or, more pertinently, has moved to China.) The Atlantic's Bonnie Tsui talked to a few people at a career center in San Francisco's Chinatown to get a sense of the exodus. Of course it is centered around jobs. Lately, [Career Counselor] Yu has been seeing a shift; rather than coming, her clients have been going—in pursuit of what might be called the Chinese Dream. “Now the American Dream is broken,” [Chinese immigrant] Shen tells me...

La Marque, TX – On Tuesday, October 25, 2011 – Republican Presidential Front-runner Herman Cain delivered a powerful speech thirty-two minute speech to the Clear Lake Tea Party. His broad speech covered a variety of topics ranging from the economy to leadership and everything in between. This is the opening three minutes of that speech:

It is ironic that, as the President predictably endorses the violent, odiferous Occupy Astroturf movement, the demand was emitted for a trillion dollars to be spent repairing the environment. I knew they were disgusting, but in such few numbers their impact can’t be that bad.Some commentators have noted the irony of these dedicated and sincere foot soldiers of the Left decrying Wall Street while lauding Wall Street’s most notorious hired gun (which they, again ironically, share with Big Labor), Barack Hussein Obama.The real irony, of course, is in the pundits’ own failure to recognize the classic third year of a...

"The suburban dream house is the idealization of every immigrant's Dream -- the vassal's dream of his own castle," wrote Italian-born immigrant Edgardo Contini. "Europeans who come here are delighted by our suburbs. Not to live in an apartment! It is a universal aspiration to own your own home." Today, those aspirations have become extremely difficult for vast numbers of young people and newcomers to fulfill.

We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice . . . for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity, and give their kids a better life. Every one of us – rich, poor, or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender – has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, our contract...

Van Jones was President Obama's special adviser for "green" jobs when he was hit with a wave of criticism from conservative pundits about his past associations. The controversy forced him to leave his post in September 2009, but it wasn't the last we'd hear of him. That same conservative wave went on to make a major splash in Congress through the Tea Party. Jones decided to fight back, founding a group called the "American Dream Movement." Some people call Jones' group a liberal version of the Tea Party. His inspiration, he tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz,...

The days an average American could expect to work, save and leave his kids a bit of wealth have gone into history; middle class Americans have little to pass on but their debts. Neither will the American Dream return for their children nor for their grandchildren. America has voted F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom for itself and that’s a one-way road. Here’s the picture: 1. Government taxes away 28% of the average taxpayer’s income. 2. Federal regulation costs consumers $1.187 trillion per year on top of taxes. 3. Real inflation costs us about 6% of our purchasing power annually. Add:...

Last fall, leftist ideological groups of socialists and communists teamed up with American labor unions to march together for “One Nation.� Now, as labor leaders struggle to maintain a stranglehold on collective bargaining privileges in Wisconsin, the same groups are once again marching together under a banner claiming unions are the heart of the American dream.As we’ve reported, former White House green jobs czar Van Jones this week issued a rallying call for the progressive movement to “renew itself and become again a national force with which to be reckoned.� On Saturday, progressive groups and labor unions are reportedly planning...

SEIU, AFL-CIO, Progressive States, Democracy for America... a few of the many. http://hearus-now.org/?p=1636

In a world of moral confusion, and of arbitrary and unlimited government, America's founding principles are our best access to permanent truths and the best ground from which to question the current direction of our nation. Join Matt Spalding, author of We Still Hold These Truths and an authority on American political thought and religious liberty at The Heritage Foundation, as he highlights some everyday Americans on a journey to reclaim our future. Click the URL for the link.

A major topic of conversation within the corridors of power in Europe and Asia is the decline and potential end of the United States as a major global economic power. This is in part a reaction to the desperate and foolhardy monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, trying as they are to mitigate the effect of enormous national debt and a restructured economy bequeathed to the American people by the "progressives" in the governing class over the past fifty years. But it is also a realization of what will happen to the global economic structure if the United States does...

So President Obama really is a socialist after all. According to Stanley Kurtz in Radical-in-Chief the young Obama went to socialist conferences in the 1980s and then became participant in the extensive socialist community in Chicago. In the aftermath of the historic midterm elections it's safe to say that, whether the president really is a socialist or not, Americans don't care. Whether or not he walks and talks like a socialist, they just don't hold with a president in the White House that governs like a socialist. You can judge the depth of their displeasure for yourself by comparing the...

The American Dream is essentially Dead and Barry Hussein Soetoro killed it on purpose. The American Dream essentially was the promise of upward social and economic mobility irrespective of one’s station in life or bloodline. In other words, the dream was that one could achieve anything, based on ones intellect, ingenuity and the sweat of one’s brow. In the president’s weekend CNBC staged town hall meeting, he attempted to defer all blame from himself and his Party and place that blame squarely on his political foes. However if one remembers Sen. Soetoro campaigned for the presidency on the theme of...

$11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8

When the housing boom went bust and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, forcing taxpayers to cough up $150 billion and counting, Washington should have reconsidered its policy of promoting homeownership. It hasn't. Last Tuesday, Tim Geithner led a summit to determine the future of Fannie and Freddie. According to Geithner, "We will not support returning Fannie and Freddie to the role they played before conservatorship." We should hope not. But Geithner hastened to add that Washington would still play an important role in housing. "I believe there is a strong case to be made for a carefully...

Dueling rallies in Washington DC may be more exciting than another speech from a politician. The heated debate over building an Islamic Center near Ground Zero may be more inspiring than economic policies. But this week's GOP radio address delivered by Florida's Republican candidate for US Senate Marco Rubio is definitely worth our attention.

While America's super-rich congratulate themselves on donating billions to charity, the rest of the country is worse off than ever. Long-term unemployment is rising and millions of Americans are struggling to survive. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever and the middle class is disappearing. Ventura is a small city on the Pacific coast, about an hour's drive north of Los Angeles. Luxury homes with a view of the ocean dot the hillsides, and the beaches are popular with surfers. Ventura is storybook California. "It's a well-off place," says Captain William Finley. "But about 20 percent of...

Correo (Leon, Guanajuato) 8-16-10 The American Dream is a Mexican nightmare Mexico, D. F. In addressing the nightmare that confronts Mexican immigrants in pursuing the American dream that the undocumented are having going to the United States, the Mexican Human Rights Commission (CODHEM) has launched a program in cooperation with the organization “Apoyo al Migrante” (Help the Migrant), which is a campaign to prevent migration to the United States. The program named “Sueno Americano, Pesadilla Mexicana,” (American Dream, Mexican Nightmare) will take place in public areas of Tejupilco, Luvianos, Amatepec, Tlatlaya, Sultepec, Zacualpan, Texcalititlan, Valle de Bravo, Otzoloapan, Zacazonapan, Ixtapan...

Somewhere, somehow, in the last decade the so-called American Dream seemed to insinuate itself into the Bill of Rights. Government policy, among other factors, pushed homeownership to a lofty 68% of all households. That was then. The number has been steadily backsliding in the last couple of years, and housing analyst John Burns says he got "a lot of heat" for his recent report predicting that homeownership would drop below 62% — and maybe further — if the number of "strategic defaulters" who walk away from their underwater mortgages continues to increase, he said. "Homeownership is clearly a value that's...

Is the American Dream getting smaller? Are we defining down the tools of opportunity and the pleasures of prosperity? President Obama's flippant dismissal of American Exceptionalism last year stirred a lot of criticism because it suggested he did not believe the United States held a special place in the world. It also suggested America's unique history is, to the President, no big deal. Now with fellow travelers exercising power at all levels of government, progressives can do more than just belittle the idea of American Exceptionalism. They can enact policies to make America unexceptional -- diminishing our quality of life...

GRAFTON, Mass. — After breakfast, his parents left for their jobs, and Scott Nicholson, alone in the house in this comfortable suburb west of Boston, went to his laptop in the living room. He had placed it on a small table that his mother had used for a vase of flowers until her unemployed son found himself reluctantly stuck at home. The daily routine seldom varied. Mr. Nicholson, 24, a graduate of Colgate University, winner of a dean’s award for academic excellence, spent his mornings searching corporate Web sites for suitable job openings. When he found one, he mailed off...

Some things are hard to put a price tag on. Love is one. A rainbow is another. Peace of mind is yet a third. There aren't many in that category, and now, thanks to a liberal New York judge and a local community activist, we DO know what an illegal alien drug dealer's time is worth. How much? $145,000 of you money for a month of his time. Per the New York Post, an illegal alien with a long rap sheet was accidentally held at Riker's Island for a month pending deportation. However, the city's internal rule is that no...

Restoring Principled Leadership for the United States of America Submitted by Congressman Jason Chaffetz Congressional Action Plan (CAP) for the 112th Congress The American Dream is powerful. It has motivated generations of Americans to contribute to our unparalleled prosperity and quality of life. The American recipe for greatness has always rested on the values of hard work, thrift , perseverance, ingenuity, industry, self-discipline, self-reliance, and dedication. We did not become the greatest country on Earth by entitlement. We worked for it. But when our public policies foster dependence, punish industry, redistribute wealth and limit freedom, we risk compromising the very...

New York, Jan 27 (IANS) The American middle class dream is fast getting out of reach for more and more people as tough economic times take toll on their incomes and quality of life, says a study by the US Commerce Department. More than 90 percent Americans consider themselves to be middle/working class, with only one percent calling themselves 'upper class' and seven percent 'lower class', according to a 2005 survey by the New York Times. But according to the new report titled Middle Class in America, the Americans' dream to reach the middle class is becoming increasingly difficult. The...

The words of Amos ring true today. I like the way he makes a distinction between the “needy” and the “poor”. While the “poor” belong to the “needy” classification, the “needy” include so many more than just those without financial means. “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’— skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for...

Those who believe that America is a special place where dreams can come true and everyone has the opportunity to succeed, had better keep their thoughts to themselves if they attend the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development. A new report posted by the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group of the University recommends those training to be Minnesota public school teachers must repudiate our cherished American dream. This “Task Group” even recommends teacher candidates adopt its party line that America is “an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.” Teachers must harbor hatred and resentment for...

The American dream is not totally dead, but it’s being pretty, it’s dying pretty fast...Horatio Alger would move to Europe these days." So said New York Times columnist Paul Krugman Friday. Appearing with disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Krugman demonstrated perfectly why his perpertually pessimistic view of America is so revered by perpetually pessimistic liberals (partial transcript below the fold): PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: On bad mornings I wake up and think that we are turning into a Latin American country. I mean, and there's some of that there. But...

Congress and the Bush administration tried to reform immigration policy in 2006, and failed. A year later, they tried again, with no more success. Now President Barack Obama and congressional leaders say they'll try once more. Political leaders are speaking of it in just those terms: one last chance, one last try. "We've got one more chance to do this," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., after a White House meeting in June. "If we fail this time around, no politician is going to take this up in a generation."[1] Perhaps that's hyperbole, but whether it is or not, the stakes...

'A man is not a whole and complete man," wrote Walt Whitman, "unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on." Every generation has offered its own version of the claim that owner-occupied homes are the nation's saving grace. During the Cold War, home ownership was moral armor, protecting America from dangerous outside influences. "No man who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist," proclaimed builder William Levitt. With no more reds hiding under the beds, Bill Clinton launched National Homeownership Day in 1995, offering a new rationale about personal responsibility. "You want to reinforce...

The Best Speech of the Virginia GOP Convention. Cadet Colonel Adnan Barqawi:"Impossible is Nothing..." Click here for the video Cadet Colonel Adnan Barqawi "Impossible is Nothing"We had so many speakers at the Virginia Convention, we had Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity and a slate of Virginia representatives but it was not one of them that claimed the day. It was Cadet Colonel Adnan Barqawi, a new citizen and descendent of Palestinian refugees born in Kuwait, who brought the house down with his speech given from the heart with a clear love of his new country and its founding principles. His success...

With little fanfare, the Government Accountability Office released a document last week that points to the day when the American dream dies and is buried beneath a middle-class welfare state. You can see death coming for the American dream as surely as you can see cirrhosis coming for a drunk. We are bringing it upon ourselves—although not all Americans deserve what is going to happen. For one, our children don’t deserve it. For another, Americans who have tried to live independent, self-reliant lives don’t deserve it, either. But they are going to be dragged down with everyone else, if we...

President Obama says his proposals to crack down on corporate tax loopholes will do a lot of things, including create more U.S. jobs. "We will stop letting American companies that create jobs overseas take deductions on their expenses when they do not pay any American taxes on their profits," Obama said when announcing his proposals. In turn, Obama said, the government would offer a tax cut to companies that do their research and development in the United States. And that will "jump-start job creation," he said. Will it work? Tax policy experts and corporate lobbyists are dubious. They say that...

A true story of realizing the American dream. Katrina Pierson, an eloquent and impassioned American patriot, spoke it clearly and boldly when she stated, WE WILL RESIST SOCIALISM!

A half century ago, the United States was an industrial colossus -- a great monument to the productive potential of a free people. Moreover, with the advent of safe, abundant, and astonishingly inexpensive nuclear energy coupled with initial rapid advances in micro science and engineering, America was poised for another, even more spectacular era of advance. If this advance had been allowed to take place, Americans could have led all of the world's people into a wonderful period of progress and prosperity, orders of magnitude beyond anything the world has ever known -- and, as things stand now, may ever...

Link only. Publisher restricts republishing without permission.

Pat Buchanan just snatched the security blanket from conservatives and stomped on it. Contemplating the prospect of an electoral loss, some conservatives are consoling themselves by imagining that the political pendulum will soon start swinging back their way. Buchanan doesn't think so, and his very first words on the matter this morning explain why: "demography is destiny." Buchanan offered his analysis during the opening segment of today's Morning Joe. View video here.

Sharing the Poverty by: Jesse Masai, October 20, 2008 Is America’s nirvana ending soon? It is, if you believe the contents of a new book: The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy—If We Let It Happen. Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore and Peter Tanous; each of them keen students of Reaganomics and still involved in America’s corporate world and academia, discuss in their book the importance of continuing the pro-growth economic policies of the 1980s. A statement from the American Enterprise Institute ahead of the launch said: “The authors explain how effective economic policies instituted over the...

Pam Meister has a great interview at Family Security Matters with the plumber whose wealth Barack Obama wants to redistribute. His name is Joe Wurzelbacher. Wurzelbacher for President! Read the whole thing here. An excerpt: JW: No, there was nothing new. You know, I didn’t appreciate that, actually. PM: There’s a clip of you that’s been shown on television, and it’s all over the Internet on YouTube as well. It’s a very short clip. Do you think it accurately portrays the exchange that you had with Sen. Obama? Obviously there was more to it. JW: I haven’t seen too much...

America was an idea, a dream if you will, long before the United States of America came into being. The American Dream gave birth to the American Spirit, which was conceived in 1607 and born in 1776. That spirit had its growing pains and a few reversals but none so serious to prevent it from reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. An American was a person imbued with that spirit in pursuit of the dream on the frontier of comfort and safety. Americans were men, women and children, facing risks on a daily basis because the hazards of freedom...

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary June 18, 2002 THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you all very much for that kind welcome. I'm here for a couple of reasons. First, I want to thank you all for your service to the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. (Applause.) I'm here to celebrate National Homeownership Month, because I believe owning a home is an essential part of economic security. And I'm concerned about the security of America. (Applause.) ... One of the things that we've got to do is to address problems straight on and deal with them...

To be an American is to be the best. Every American believes this. Their sports champions are not U.S. champions, they're world champions. Their corporations aren't the largest in the States, they're the largest on the planet. Their armies don't defend just America, they defend freedom. Like the perpetual little brother, Canadians have always lived in the shadow of our American neighbours. We mock them for their uncultured ways, their brash talk and their insularity, but it's always been the thin laughter of the insecure. After all, says University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald Bibby, a leading tracker of social trends,...

At the tiny airport on the outskirts of the city of Governador Valadares a plane draws up to the terminal building, bringing with it just a handful of passengers. On board - as with many flights these days - is a Brazilian who has decided that the "American dream" is no longer for him, after seven years away from his family. Faced with a falling US dollar and a tougher climate for immigrants generally, Francisco Silva says many Brazilians are finding it harder to make a living in the US and are either returning home or going elsewhere. Rodrigo Alves...

It's fairly popular in media and other socialistic endeavors around the world to engage in America bashing full time. I mean, we've got this war that seems to be not going to many places (just ask the relatives of Saddam's reign of terror if they're sad) and a political race that is going to boil down to selecting two candidates, Hillary and Oback, that are based on nothing more than "it's our time" and a caricature of the illusion of Camelot during the Kennedy administration which was an illusion of...well, you get my drift. An outside observer would wonder how...

It's fairly popular in media and other socialistic endeavors around the world to engage in America bashing full time. I mean, we've got this war that seems to be not going to many places (just ask the relatives of Sadam's reign of terror if they're sad) and a political race that is going to boil down to selecting two candidates, Hillary and Oback, that are based on nothing more than "it's our time" and a caricature of the illusion of Camelot during the Kennedy administration which was an illusion of...well, you get my drift. An outside observer would wonder how...

THORNTON, Colo. (CBS4) ― A well known restaurant owner, who has fed President Bush, senators, governors and mayors, is the target of a federal drug investigation in connection with what Drug Enforcement Administration agents call "a large scale Asian marijuana cultivation organization." Dan Tang, owner of Heaven Dragon restaurant in Thornton, told CBS4 reporter Brian Maass federal drug agents are "investigating me." But he denied involvement in the pot growing operation. Tang's lawyers, Michael Axt and Gene Ciancio, emphasized that Tang has not been charged with a crime but they declined to make further comment on the case. According to...