Free Republic

The Nevada progressive group, ProgressNow Nevada, is violating Federal Law by using their 501(c)(3) charity tax status to raise funds under the guise of “education” for attacking Sharron Angle. Due to their charity tax status, ProgressNow Nevada is banned from “advocating for or against a candidate” but is clearly participating in political activity by sponsoring TheWrongAngle.com website, interfering in the US Senate race in Nevada and working in other Nevada races to defeat Republican candidates.

Mr Emanuel published an endorsement of Mr Blagojevich in the Chicago Tribune in exchange for $2 million (£1.3 million) in school funding to his district, according to the emails, which were released on Monday. The newspaper had recently claimed in an editorial that Mr Blagojevich used public funds to support his re-election campaign. Mr Blagojevich, who was re-elected in 2006 but resigned in 2009, is currently on trial in Illinois on corruption charges. He is alleged to have attempted to sell Mr Obama's former Senate seat. The emails detailing the deal, revealed by the Associated Press, apparently were exchanged between...

Unique to Parliamentary Democracies, a ‘Vote of Confidence’ can spell the end of any Prime Minister’s term. In the parliamentary system, the Prime Minister’s power depends upon his ability to hold a majority caucus – and the failure of any of his major initiatives to pass results in the loss of the confidence of his membership. In essence, when the Prime Minister can’t lead his party on his budget or main social initiatives, a Ministers time in office comes to a swift end. Had the Iraq War not passed the British parliament, Tony Blair’s days would have ended earlier. More...

As of 9:08 pm, Republican Scott Brown is winning bellweather towns of Gardner and Fitchburg. These towns have similar voter makeup to the rest of the state and were within one point of the result 2006 Senate race. Brown is also winning the majority of the towns on Cape Cod, historically a Democratic stronghold and the home of former Sen. Ted Kennedy. Many towns that Obama won easily in 2008 are also going to Brown. The North Shore town of Salisbury went 54-45 for Obama; with 100% reporting, 64-35 Brown. Western Massachusetts towns – historically a Democratic stronghold – that...

The run-up to the special election in Massachusetts to replace Ted Kennedy has brought a surprising possibility to the forefront: Massachusetts might not be as reliably liberal as the conventional wisdom holds. In all but two of the last ten presidential elections, Massachusetts has awarded its electoral votes to a Democrat. The two elections that it went Republican: 1980 and 1984 – Ronald Reagan... After all, this is the state that not too long ago elected a Republican governor – twice. Granted, Mitt Romney has swung hard to the right since leaving Massachusetts, but the principle still stands: the people...

Government economic stimulus is much like the popular health tonics of the turn of the 20th century. Promising wonderful benefits, these concoctions were often of dubious, if any, results and frequently contained substances now known to be toxic or addictive. We now sit in a similar situation: America has been swigging a government-created tonic promising job growth and economic recovery since the 1930s, and we now find ourselves staggering about, our coffers dangerously low, and our addiction clouding our judgment regarding other options. We need to recognize that centrally-planned and funded economic goals are inefficient, inadequate, and more of a...

To try Mohammed in a criminal court is to treat his act as criminal, and coming from a young administration that has already ceased using the phrases ‘terrorism’, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘war on terror’ this serves as confirmation for many who, like myself, view the struggle against terrorism and against the oppressions of fundamentalism as the most important international (and moral) task facing our nation. Trying Mohammed in a criminal court is not necessary, and one could argue that he does not deserve to be treated as even the least respected criminal by the United States. He is by every...

Though it’s been moving in this direction for quite some time, political correctness has finally gone from a cute liberal idea meant not to offend anyone to become a dangerous idea that threatens the lives of American soldiers and citizens... Hasan is a Muslim. Witnesses say that, just before he began shooting, he yelled “Allahu Akbar!” meaning, in English, “Allah is great!” This is a war cry used by radical Islamic jihadists. He was known to be an admirer of Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam with various ties to al-Qaeda and someone found on a number of United States and United...

[RomneyCare] has consistently run over-budget, has not led to “universal” coverage, has failed to address the systemic causes of increasing costs, and has fallen prey to immeasurable fraud and abuse. ... A major argument used to support universal healthcare plans like RomneyCare and PelosiCare is that they decrease costs. However, they “decrease costs” by subsidizing care instead of actually dealing with the systemic problems that have directly caused the higher costs in health care. That is, consumer costs are artificially decreased while the healthcare provider’s (ie, the producer) costs remain the same – and anyone who has taken a basic...

Chris Christie has on the New Jersey Governor’s election with a plurality THE POLITICIZER projects. Why we’re calling the race: Corzine is under performing in counties he won in 2005. Bergen County, where any Democrat needs to win by 4-5% to win the state, Corzine is tied with Christie (80% reporting) Corzine has lost Gloucester County, where he won in 2005 by 10% Corzine is under performing in heavily Democratic counties like Hudson, Essex and Camden. Chris Daggett is under performing in heavily Republican counties, allowing Christie a larger margin of victory in GOP counties than Corzine is getting in...

Obama used the War in Afghanistan to get elected. He then announced that the “War on Terror” was “over”. And now, stuck between either keeping his campaign promise or surrendering to his far-left base that is slowly abandoning their support for the war, he is stalling on making clear decisions on Afghanistan (while using the dignified transfer of our fallen soldiers as yet another opening for a photo-op.) Rapid response. Taking the necessary actions under pressure. Making the right decisions and sticking to them. All of these are qualities a president absolutely needs to have in wartime for the sake...

Many in the punditry, and especially the mainstream media, have been pushing polls that showed Palin’s favorability ratings dropping and suggesting her star may be fading. In a move that only Sarah Palin could pull off – endorsing a candidate outside her own party, and taking out the establishment candidate – she proved why she’s still around, and reminds us how she got here. In their relative shock following Palin’s endorsement, the national media seems to forget how Mrs. Palin became Governor of Alaska in the first place: not by defeating Democrats, but by systematically tearing down the Last Frontier’s...

Saying that Republicans have no solutions to the health care crisis is a flat out lie, and an attempt at distraction. The Democrats want the American people to think that there are no other solutions but their plan. They are trying to portray health care as so unfixable, beyond the power of the free market, that the only answer is the hand of government. They want us to believe that government will make it better, that we need the beaurocracy, that we are dependent on the politicians we elect for our basic health needs. They treat us as if we...

In the Obama White House, the new adage “never let a crisis go to waste” has highlighted the President’s overwhelming domestic agenda. So much so, in fact, that it is clear the President is missing opportunities to make real changes, and is instead delivering empty promises, growing problems, and enlarging the national debt. Set against the backdrop of some $12 trillion in debt, the President is calling for even more spending in the form of health care reform, which the CBO estimates will cost upwards of $1 trillion. While health care reform is an important issue, the President has failed...

On October 10th and 11th, thousands of students, service members, and others will converge in Washington to fight for equal rights. The demand is simple: we want equal protection for LGBT people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states. This issue is of particular importance for our generation. This is our civil rights movement – we see the issue of LGBT equality as a part of a much larger struggle for social justice. However, there is no singular leader for this movement. We have no Martin Luther King, no Rosa Parks, and no Susan B. Anthony....

...In the 1970s, abortion was presented by women’s advocates as a right and as something that would help women’s lives. Now, almost forty years after Roe vs. Wade, there is a mounting body of evidence suggests that not only does abortion hurt the baby, it often hurts the woman for years to come. ..You would never hear that women regret their abortions from Planned Parenthood, the supposed guardian of “choice” and women’s rights...Their website scares women away from crisis pregnancy centers – clinics that provide resources for women who choose to keep their babies – and implicitly attempts to dissuade...

Liberals scoff at any person who points out the obvious fact that the mainstream media is overwhelmingly biased to the left. And Fox News Channel, through the eyes of a liberal, is nothing but conservative propaganda. Cable news personalities on CNN and MSNBC discredit Fox, pretending that they haven’t been overshadowed by FNC’s success for years on end. The simple reality is that, especially recently, Fox News has been the only source of quality journalism and reporting in the cable news realm. The numbers speak for themselves; Fox is consistently on top. On the evening of Tuesday, September 15, Bill...

Time for September’s Terrible Liberal of the Month: Olympia Snowe! Though, a more appropriate title for this week’s column may be Biggest Liberal of the Month. Despite the “R” that appears next to her name, there is little proof that the Maine senator is actually a Republican. Snowe may as well have admitted she was a Democrat ten years ago when, in 1999, she and her colleague Susan Collins (also “R”-ME) both voted to acquit Bill Clinton, saying that perjury wasn’t a grave enough charge to warrant impeachment. No, breaking the law and lying outright before a grand jury isn’t...

... Many in the media have insinuated that tea parties are fueled by racism or even that the steady drop in Obama’s approval ratings are due to racist undertones in debates about healthcare. Yet, do not forget it was the very same TV stations, newspapers and columnists who constantly reminded us during the election that Barack Obama had a black father from Kenya... ...Yet, as a public consciousness, we are expected to suddenly forget President Bush hung in effigy, vehement anti-religious rhetoric of some on the far left and the sexist attacks launched on Sarah Palin by the Obama campaign...

I can’t express how tired I am of hearing conversations in which conservatives aren’t allowed to question anything Obama does without being told by liberals that “it’s too soon to criticize.” Not only is this absurd, it’s hypocritical: this comes from the same people (liberal bloggers, liberal pundits, and average liberal Americans) who were criticizing George W. Bush immediately after he took office. Conversations like the following have become almost standard in discussions about the Obama presidency: CONSERVATIVE: Boy, President Obama is doing a terrible job with regard to [insert any failed Obama policy/action/misstep here. Examples include the stimulus bill,...