Free Republic

As I watched the speeches of the victors in the Iowa caucuses, I was stunned at how vague the comments of the candidates were. "Unity." "Change." "Hope." "Faith." What do these words mean besides evoking vague memories of films of Der Fuhrer screaming "Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer" to wild masses at Nuremberg? Mostly nothing, I suspect. So, from my safe little office in Rancho Mirage, California, I will start to offer some specifics of what government can do to redeem these vague phrases. A pledge that if the candidate is President, he will: Not allow there to be...

"It's all relative." You've probably heard this before, and it's true of everything except right and wrong. But it's especially true of economics, and it's doubly true of all the recent scare-talk about the economy. Simply put, the media and the short-sellers on Wall Street are trying to scare us into having a recession. Since the nice people who read this have some interest in facts and figures, here are a few reasons why things aren't so bad. Heavy LaborFirst, the housing correction. Now, it's true that we're having a very large housing correction. It may be the sharpest fall-off...

BASICALLY, a crossroads was passed in the Drexel/Milken scandals. Although hundreds and perhaps thousands of men and women were profiting from misconduct, only a few people, including Mr. Milken himself, went to prison. And even he emerged from prison a very rich man (and by what I see here in Los Angeles, a model citizen). Today, in the midst of the mortgage mess, we see people breaching their fiduciary duty and getting away with it. A few may lose their jobs and wander off to a wealthy retirement. But the ordinary stockholders of the banks and mortgage companies are staggered.

FOR decades now, as a writer, economist and scold, I have been receiving letters from thoughtful readers. Many of them have warned me about the dangers of a secret government running the world, organized by the Trilateral Commission, or the Ford Foundation, or the Big Oil companies or, of course, world Jewry. I always scoff at these letters. The world is far too complex a place to be run by any one group. But the closest I have recently seen to such a world-running body would have to be a certain large investment bank, whose alums are routinely Treasury secretaries,...

There is a lot of buzz that is gathering over the upcoming Ben Stein documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The goal of the documentary is to expose the scientific community and universities around the world for discriminating against any scientist who wishes to explore the possibility of, "intelligent design," as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution. For those of you that do not remember back to the old school days, I will take a moment to remind you about what Darwin taught. In 1859, Charles Darwin published his work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,...

This will be interesting, a documentary movie by Ben Stein on the new wave of thought police and academic suppression in academia and science: Ben Stein, in the new film EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed His heroic and, at times, shocking journey confronting the world’s top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few. In theatres near you, starting February 2008 Ben travels the world on his quest, and learns an awe-inspiring truth…that bewilders him, then angers him…and then spurs him to action! Ben realizes that he has been “Expelled,” and that educators and scientists...

Everyone should watch this! As a military wife, I found Mr. Stein's passionate support of our military deeply moving.http://youtube.com/watch?v=j66ydlz5ecM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlRct37HeM8 "[The soldiers] are the people standing between us and the terrorists; they are the thin red line protecting every decent, civilized person in the world from terror and we owe them a hell of a lot more than we're giving them!" "When I first met my father-in-law, who's a two Silver Star winner in two wars, I said to him 'Why are you in the Army? Do you like war?' I was an IDIOT!" Thompson/Stein 2008!

WASHINGTON (AP) — Liberal Al Franken is good enough and smart enough to win some of conservative Ben Stein's money — and doggone it, Stein likes him. Stein, an actor, writer and economist, has contributed $2,000 to Franken's Minnesota Senate campaign. The two men have known each other for about 30 years. "I'm struck by what an incredibly capable, hard-working guy he is," Stein told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. "He's a very smart liberal, he's a thoroughgoing patriot, and I would feel better with him in the Senate."

<p>Let's make this really, really simple. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee gave the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and about 3,300 UN bureaucrats and professors who worked on the chi-chi, politically correct, ultra-hip topic of global warming.</p> <p>As far as I know, none of the 3,300 ever had to put his or her life on the line. Mostly, they worked in air-conditioned classrooms and labs and were well paid.</p>

Last Monday was a maddening day. The swimming pool heater was not working right and when I wanted to get my nightly swimming exercise before bed, the water was a bit cool. Plus, the water heater was broken and my shower was barely tepid. I lay in bed sulking and then turned on the TV. Ken Burns's magnificent epic about American participation in World War II came on. There were American children being starved in Japanese prison camps in the Philippines. American Marines getting blown to pieces by Japanese shells on Iwo Jima. American soldiers fighting and freezing at the...

Atheist Scientists in Uproar over Movie Showing Intolerance of Evidence for Intelligent Design EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed Coming to Theatres in February 2008 LOS ANGELES, October 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) -  Atheist scientists who have become famous for attacking those who disagree with them are now loudly complaining about supposedly being mistreated in a film they haven't seen. Oxford zoologist, Richard Dawkins, has made a lot of money and fame calling people who believe in God "delusional." Yet he is now grumbling that the producers of EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed "tricked" him into doing an interview. EXPELLED exposes the intimidation, persecution...

A few months ago, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins received an e-mail message from a producer at Rampant Films inviting him to be interviewed for a documentary called “Crossroads.”The film, with Ben Stein, the actor, economist and freelance columnist, as its host, is described on Rampant’s Web site as an examination of the intersection of science and religion. Dr. Dawkins was an obvious choice. An eminent scientist who teaches at Oxford Universityin England, he is also an outspoken atheist who has repeatedly likened religious faith to a mental defect.But now, Dr. Dawkins and other scientists who agreed to be interviewed...

Finance is an endlessly fascinating topic. It involves history, intuition, logic, mathematics, and hope. But for most of us, our finances come from work and not from investments. In turn, how we do at work is vitally affected by the kind of education we get -- and most especially what we get out of our education. And what we get out of our education is very largely dependent on what we put into our education. The Son Also Rises This comes to mind because classes are starting soon in many colleges. (How did it get to be so early? When...

Ben Stein exposes the frightening agenda of the Darwinian Machine in new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, coming February, 2008 By Michael Ireland Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- Ben Stein, the highly recognizable television personality, actor and former White House presidential speech writer, is on a journey to answer one of the biggest questions ever asked: "Were we designed or are we simply the end result of an ancient mud puddle struck by lightning?" EXPELLED movie poster. Stein, who is also a lawyer, an economist, an author and social commentator, is stunned by what he...

Ben Stein: Gestapo Tactics Got Larry Craig Tuesday, September 4, 2007 7:39 PM Former Sen. Larry Craig didn't do anything illegal and was railroaded with "Gestapo tactics," says actor and commentator Ben Stein. Appearing recently on Your World With Neil Cavuto program, Stein remarked: "I don't like the idea that people are sitting in the next stall from you at a public bathroom listening to whether or not you tap your foot. This is, as I said, Gestapo tactics. Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo. It's not America." Stein says Craig, who was arrested June 11 by Minneapolis police and pled guilty to...

(CBS) Sunday Morning commentator Ben Stein has a few words for the Minneapolis police's behavior in the arrest of Sen. Larry Craig, and for the Republican leadership's response - and they're not very flattering. The whole story of Senator Larry Craig, the Republican of Idaho who announced his resignation yesterday, is a nightmare of out-of-control police and weak politicians. Senator Craig has been the innocent victim of a set-up by the evil-minded police of Minneapolis-St. Paul that Stalin would have admired. Here's the deal: Senator Craig went into a men's room at the Twin Cities airport. He entered a lavatory...

CBS) Despite all the bad buzz about subprime mortgages, Sunday Morning correspondent Ben Stein says the economy is strong and that the amount of foreclosures is small in relative terms. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perspective is a great thing. It's especially good where money and the stock market are concerned. Recently, there has been large movement, mostly down, as the stock market reacts to a large number of foreclosures on homes in the so-called "subprime" mortgage area. This is the place where higher risk borrowers got loans during the housing boom of the last three or four years. Now, to people who actually...

New Film Investigates Crushing of Dissent from Darwinian Orthodoxy By Hilary White August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "If you have questioned Darwinism, that's it, your career is over.""I was viewed as an intellectual terrorist." "I have been told to shut up."The quotes come from interviews with research scientists featured in a new film, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," starring the New York writer and intellectual Ben Stein. The film, set for release in February 2008, documents the crushing of any investigation or questioning of materialist Darwinism that is the orthodox position of most of the scientific establishment. In the trailer for...

snip...The case against "Scooter" Libby was a total fraud. Completely bogus. The publicity-mad demoness Valerie Plame was not a covert overseas agent at the time the whole megillah about her erupted. So there was no, none, nada, law breaking by reporting that she was a CIA employee.snip...But Mr. Bush saw a basic wrong. A man who should never have seen the inside of a courtroom as a defendant had been pilloried for no good reason and then sentenced to a Stalinist sentence. His basic decency overrode political and PR considerations. He simply did the right thing. He let an innocent...