Free Republic

...Bernie's speech was delivered with profound sincerity and conviction, and his supporters were wildly enthusiastic. His delivery was excellent. It was the content I found to be not just troubling, but frightening. I've never in my life heard such unapologetic, full-throated socialism in American politics. Sanders is the real deal. He's so left-wing he practically makes Obama look like the chairman of the Republican National Committee. At least Obama felt compelled to lie about the true extent of his leftism. Sanders doesn't - and he isn't kidding around. This is damn near Clement Attlee and Fabian socialist-type stuff. True, he's...

The review reflects mounting concerns in Washington over Moscow’s determination to exploit European disunity in order to undermine Nato, block US missile defence programmes and revoke the punitive economic sanctions regime imposed after the annexation of Crimea. The US move came as senior British government officials told The Telegraph of growing fears that “a new cold war” was now unfolding in Europe, with Russian meddling taking on a breadth, range and depth far greater than previously thought. “It really is a new Cold War out there,” the source said, “Right across the EU we are seeing alarming evidence of Russian...

......movie is basically a flop, bringing in only $19 million over the three-day holiday weekend. This is especially disappointing for those who were rooting for this film, because January is, for whatever reason, a good month for movies that pander to military worship and pro-war "patriotism," with previous years seeing movies like "American Sniper" and "Lone Survivor" cleaning up with these crowds. But this movie, which has the hook of the word "Benghazi" - which Fox News viewers are supposed to recite 100 times a day like a rosary - just isn't taking off. What gives? Part of the problem...

The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades. It's agitation has provoked police killings and other violence, lawlessness and unrest in minority communities throughout the U.S. If allowed to continue, that agitation could devolve into anarchy and civil war. The BLM crowd appears to be spoiling for just such an outcome. Nevertheless, BLM appears to be exercising considerable leverage over the Democratic Party, in part by...

**SNIP** The Energy & Environment Legal Institute has obtained government emails that show the EPA secretly worked with environmental lobbyists to craft its Clean Power Plan regulating greenhouse gases. The emails show this secret alliance designed a standard that would be impossible or economically ruinous for existing coal plants to meet-in order to force their closure. The New York Times first reported that in 2014 environmentalists Dan Lashof, David Doniger and David Hawkins-all with roots at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)-drafted a "blueprint" that "influenced" the greenhouse gas rules. That wasn't the half of it. The emails, obtained through...

Tokyo (AFP) - Anti-Christmas protesters calling themselves "Losers with Women" marched through Tokyo's streets Saturday, bashing the upcoming holiday as a capitalist ploy that also discriminates against singletons. The group of about 20 -- part of the Communist-inspired group that routinely protests Western holidays -- marched under angry banners that read "Smash Christmas!" in Tokyo's Shibuya district, where couples and families strolled for holiday shopping. The scrooges -- mostly single men -- said they were against capitalism and were opposed to the commercialisation of Christmas. "In this world, money is extracted from people in love, and happy people support capitalism,"...

TOKYO (AFP) - Anti-Christmas protesters calling themselves "Losers with Women" marched through Tokyo's streets Saturday, bashing the upcoming holiday as a capitalist ploy that also discriminates against singletons. The group of about 20 -- part of the Communist-inspired group that routinely protests Western holidays -- marched under angry banners that read "Smash Christmas!" in Tokyo's Shibuya district, where couples and families strolled for holiday shopping. The scrooges -- mostly single men -- said they were against capitalism and were opposed to the commercialisation of Christmas. "In this world, money is extracted from people in love, and happy people support capitalism,"...

To have a self-acclaimed socialist in the Senate of a nation that spent two generations fighting against it is a surprise, but to have one running to be the leader of the free world is a real wake up call as to how far removed this last generation has drifted from the truth of the abject failure of socialism and what an unworkable system it really is. Socialism is a philosophy, a utopian ideal that has only ever worked in small groups of like-minded people, religious groups, communes or such, that have made the decision to devote themselves, their affluence...

Maria, 24, a reseller who asked for anonymity because re-selling is illegal, said stores in her neighborhood of central Caracas are adapting to the new buying habits by offering baskets of random bundled goods at a fixed price designed to be swapped on the secondary market. The government quit releasing its monthly “scarcity index” at the beginning of 2014, when the rate hit 22 percent. But since then, analysts and shoppers say the problems only have gotten worse. Polls suggest that shortages are now the country’s top concern.

The chickens of intolerance and communist social justice have come home to roost on the American campus. Decades of Marxist indoctrination by the vaunted communist academia are finally paying off—our cultural heritage is replaced by cultural Marxism and primitive cultures that are deemed superior to ours and worshipped. Academia has been blotting out the past and revising history for a while but with increased vengeance since Jimmy Carter founded the U.S. Department of Education on October 17, 1979. Our children’s education has depreciated considerably as evidenced by test scores and the quality of mis-educated youth in our country who can...

For months, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been promising a speech that would explain and make palatable what he calls "democratic socialism." The problem for Sanders is that during his entire political career, he has run for office as a "socialist" - never mind the addition of "democratic." Not that it makes a difference. A new poll out today shows Hillary Clinton ahead of Sanders by 25 points nationally. Sanders could call himself a reformed Druid and he'd still be buried. But Sanders is determined to make socialism mainstream. To that end, he traveled to Georgetown University to give a...

**SNIP** As recently as 2008, the Democratic Party presented 26 debates, which we mainly remember as the venues that presented Barack Obama with the opportunity to promise that he, unlike Hillary Clinton, would never support anything as preposterous as "the individual mandate," a k a fining people who don't have health insurance. Now the Democratic National Committee is led by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the chair of Hillary's 2008 campaign. Any doubts about which candidate she wants to win this time? She declared that any candidates that participated in debates outside of the tightly controlled DNC framework would be...

Activists that have taken over U.S. college campuses this week protesting racial injustice took to Twitter last night to complain that news coverage of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris had stolen their spotlight. Black Lives Matter and Mizzou protesters on Twitter said their struggles with racial oppression were being “erased” by the overwhelming news coverage of the murder of scores of people at the hands of Islamic State extremists. “Racist white people kill me, you want everyone to have sympathy for YOUR tragedy, but you have none for ours,” one user tweeted, adding “#Mizzou.” “Disgusted @ white conservative Americans...

You May Be A Communard If ... Definition of "communard" 1.1 (Communard) historical. A supporter of the Paris Commune. Origin Late 19th century: from French, from commune. #YouMayBeACommunardIf ... * You feel that you have the "right" to not be offended. * You think that you have the "right" to "feel safe" * You feel that you have the "right" to free healthcare * You feel that you have a "right" to a free college education. * You feel that you have the "right" to free housing * You feel that you have the "right" to enslave others * You...

As conservatives scratch their collective heads on how to win over young people, a millennial whose online audience is center-left explains why Bernie Sanders is appealing to youth. Devin Foley, the thoughtful President of Intellectual Takeout and Better Ed, explains Sanders is growing in popularity among young people because he gives voice to those who can’t find jobs, who see unfair disparities and who suffer from massive debt. Besides that, Foley says conservatives refuse to reach out to youth in ways that resonate or make sense of the fallen world to them, a world that once promised going to college...

According to Portland State University Professor’s Rachel Sanders’ “White Privilege” course, “whiteness” must be dismantled if racial justice will ever be achieved. Students taking the course will “endeavor to make whiteness strange.”

Four days after Pope Francis proclaimed Junipero Serra a saint, vandals defaced the grounds of Mission San Carlos in Carmel where the newly canonized Franciscan friar, and founding father of modern California, is buried. At some point overnight Saturday, one or more vandals scaled the wall surrounding the cemetery next to the mission and defaced the headstones and statues of Serra and other European settlers buried on the grounds, said Sgt. Luke Powell with the Carmel-by-the-Sea Police Department. Vandals also sloshed paint on the church’s outside doors. Officials with the mission posted eight photos of the vandalism on Facebook early...

“The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties.” And “The work of the committee continued to decline in importance throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s until the committee itself was renamed the House Internal Security Committee in 1969, prefiguring its eventual abolition in 1975.” We all know of what many believed as overreach and showmanship by Joe McCarthy during the life of this committee. McCarthyism is the term born from that era, and a...

Thom Hartmann, a paid agent of the Russian government’s main propaganda channel, Russia Today (RT) television, is strongly supporting career politician and socialist Bernie Sanders for U.S. president. “Bernie Sanders could be the next FDR,” he says. But it might be more accurate to say that Sanders could be another Alger Hiss, the Russian agent who served FDR as his top aide and helped create the United Nations. Before examining the curious history of “Bolshevik Bernie,” as analyst Trevor Loudon calls him, Hartmann’s service to the Kremlin is worth a look. Hartmann praises Sanders for trying “to get money out...

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez is moving ahead with issuing a final regulatory proposal for financial advisers despite growing concerns from moderate Democrats and Republicans that it would hurt low-income Americans. Perez responded to Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) in a letter earlier this week after she and other lawmakers called on Department of Labor (DOL) officials and the administration to re-propose the controversial so-called "fiduciary standards," which would increase disclosure requirements for financial advisers. The business community is vehemently lobbying against the proposal, which failed in 2010, arguing it would raise consumer costs for Americans who need financial advice the most....