Free Republic

The story told here is not a tale of right and wrong. There are no good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, in this account. American politics is regularly cast in such moralistic terms, but that has not been our approach here. Instead, our focus has been on the factions within American society, and how the Democratic party has transformed the interests of those factions into public policy. That is the great challenge of a republican system of government such as ours—one in which the people are sovereign and the government operates on their behalf. Such governments are easy...

Complete Title: The Soros Summit - Free Beacon exclusive: Inside the secret Miami meeting of George Soros’s liberal conspiracy ### A secretive network of left-wing billionaires and their political operatives descended on the luxurious Biltmore Hotel in Miami over the weekend to discuss strategy for the coming elections. The location of the conference had been kept a closely guarded secret by the members and guests of Democracy Alliance (DA), a collection of ultra-wealthy liberal donors formed in 2005, and is reported here in a Washington Free Beacon exclusive. Attendees roamed the grounds at the 150-acre tropical resort on their way...

The late, great Bob Bartley won a Pulitzer Prize for his Wall Street Journal editorials deconstructing the hapless presidency of Jimmy Carter. During a conversation I had with Bartley, some years after Ronald Reagan denied Carter a second term in the Oval Office, the WSJ editor told me he really had no animus toward the Democrat. It’s just that he thought Carter would have made a much better missionary than leader of the free world. I’m reminded of that conversation with news that the former president has just released a study Bible. It draws upon the 685 or so Sunday...

Almost one in five New Hampshire Democratic primary voters cast their ballots Tuesday for someone other than Barack Obama. The president still won the primary with a handsome majority: 81.9 percent of the vote. But the fact that more than 18 percent of New Hampshire voters who took Democratic primary ballots chose to write in the name of another candidate—anti-war Republican Ron Paul was the second-place finisher in the primary with 2,273 write-ins—or to vote for one of the little-known contenders whose names were on the ballot with Obama’s begs a question: What if a prominent progressive had mounted a...

Imagine California without the sunshine, New York without the cultural elan, New Jersey without Chris Christie. That’s Illinois. I have previously deemed the Governor of Illinois, Patrick Quinn (D.), the worst governor in the country. Go here to read the post in which I bestowed the title. After his meeting with the Illinois bishops on Friday December 16, 2011, I have attached “Lying” to his title. The bishops asked for the meeting to protest the constant pro-abortion advocacy of Quinn. After the meeting here is what Quinn said: “A lot of the discussion was how we could work together to...

President Obama and his re-election team have prided themselves on their well-oiled get-out-the-vote effort.  But a new study from the centrist think tank Third Way suggests Democrats are losing ground organizationally in nearly all of the key battleground states in the general election. The group's analysis found that, in the eight politically-pivotal states that register voters by party, a significant number have left the Democratic party since 2008, with many choosing to register as independents.  Over 825,000 registered Democrats in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Pennsylvania have departed the party rolls since President Obama's...

When the Civil War ended, and after Republican President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, Democrats initiated Jim Crow laws to keep the black man down. Democrats didn’t much like blacks. In fact, the KKK, as you know, was founded as the the terrorist wing of the Democrat Party. Setting the Record Straight A group of black activists led by Wayne Perryman has filed a brief against the Democrat Party for its long history of racism and discrimination of the black community.

The radical is always the more glamorous. People wear Che Guevara tee-shirts. They don’t wear Samuel Gompers, A. Phillip Randolph, Edouard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, or Jean Jaures tee-shirts, yet those largely forgotten social democratic and labor heroes achieved far more benefit for reform and workers without murdering a lot of people. Rosa Luxembourg, the nastiest rich spoiled brat in Zamosc, is fondly remembered though her career was a disaster and helped create the conditions that eventually brought about Nazism. Who knows about Frances Perkins, who did far more to help workers and was the first woman ever to be in...

Former Gov. Joe Kernan says a signature on a petition to place Barack Obama's name on Indiana's 2008 primary ballot isn't his, putting him among dozens of dubious signatures found in a newspaper's investigation. Kernan, a Democrat who campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary, told the South Bend Tribune that he didn't sign the Obama document. "No, not at all," the former South Bend mayor said when asked whether the signature next to his name on the Obama petition looked like his own. "Nor does the printing look like mine." The Tribune reported Wednesday that it has talked...

t's official. WSBT first told you that a long-time St. Joseph County Democratic Chair Butch Morgan had resigned. But there was some confusion over whether that in fact did happen, until shortly before 10 p.m. when his attorney confirmed it. Earlier Monday night, Morgan’s attorney told WSBT he was considering a leave of absence, not a resignation. That was after Indiana State Democratic Chairman Dan Parker sent WSBT an email stating Morgan resigned effective at 6 p.m. This comes as the St. Joseph County Prosecutor investigates the local Democratic Party for possible voter registration fraud. A South Bend Tribune and...

What to do about Herman Cain? This question goes not to the Republican Party, where "establishment" candidates like Mitt Romney privately dismiss Cain as lacking the experience, gravitas and resources to beat President Barack Obama and then to soundly govern the country. Herman Cain is not going to be the GOP nominee. Without a serious star-power staff, a ground game, chits to be called in by the candidate or the candidate's influential network of friends of influence, the "fat cats" sit on their checkbooks until and unless they believe their horse can win. A serious presidential candidate is not one...

For anyone old enough to remember Bucky Dent’s memorable home run in the 1978 Yankees-Red Sox playoff, the current makeup and political strategy of the Democratic Party has to seem very odd. No, this isn’t your grandfather’s (or even your father’s) Democratic Party, and while that was an asset in 2006 and 2008, it very definitely looks like a problem in 2012.Just four or five decades ago, Democratic strategists could count on an army of working-class voters and union members to turn out to support the party’s nominees, tapping on a deep party loyalty that developed out of the Great...

Among the roughly 5,000 creditors named by Solyndra, a bankrupt solar energy company that is under investigation for losing a half billion dollars in federal loans, is the California Democratic Party, which says it doesn't know why. The bankruptcy filing doesn't say why the organization is listed as one of the creditors or how much money it is owed. The filing contains about 200 pages of creditors listed in alphabetical order with their address but not the amount owed. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/27/solyndras-creditors-include-california-democratic-party/#ixzz1ZMMNPceS

Before the month came thumping in on elephant feet, I wrote that each August since 2007 had marked a cruel passage for Barack Obama and suggested how he might turn the ides this year. It was not to be, and maybe never will be. The month actually culminated — and confirmed its unhappy course — on September 13, when a machine-ordained Democratic candidate lost the New York City congressional seat of the deflated Anthony Weiner to a Republican tea merchant. The GOP reaction was predictable: This was a referendum on Obama and a portent of doom in 2012. After all,...

Imagine a Jewish member of Congress accusing the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) of wanting to see Jews gassed. How would every decent American — Right and Left — describe such a statement? Loathsome? Morally reprehensible? An obvious lie? All three descriptions would be entirely accurate. Next question: How much media exposure would that libel be given? Front page in the New York Times and Washington Post? Ferocious editorials written from coast to coast? Lead stories on TV newscasts? Correct on all three again. Final question: Would said congressman be allowed to stay in office? We all know...

The following is an excerpt from Ulsterman's most recent interview with The Washington Insider, who boldly states that the Democrats have launched a program to interfere in Republican nominating politics. "The race card, the racial thing – whatever it’s gonna be called, it is the number one asset this administration believes it has to win in 2012. Their own polling data has shown that to be true over and over again. But how far are they willing to push that?...if Barack Obama doesn’t win re-election, watch them stand back while the riots break out, and watch them mouth the words...

What does a political regime do when its philosophy doesn’t work and is leading to ruin? It can’t scrap the philosophy, which is its raison d’être and the basis of its power. Were it to chuck the philosophy, its core constituencies would abandon it. So instead it blames those who have most cogently pointed out the defects of the philosophy...

When this episode in the American saga is written, historians will note that Barack Obama did not kill the Democratic Party; he was merely the murder weapon. He represents the Democrats’ suicide cocktail of hubris and a tyrannical lust for power, the arrogance of thinking themselves above the law. American politicians and journalists have degenerated so far that it is now possible for a President of the United States to present a clearly forged document on national television and no one blinks an eye. We have an illegal President, a Congress that tolerates criminal acts, and an intentionally impotent judiciary...

The local idiot democratic party elites did something that affects me personally (and millions of other taxpayers, of course) and so, I want payback. This video is the first in a series that takes this crappy town as a microcosm of what's happened and is happening to America. You might want to check it out.

(CNSNews.com) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.” The administration’s plan to raise the tax rate on small businesses is part of its plan to raise taxes on all Americans who make more than $250,000 per year—including businesses that file taxes the same way individuals and families do. (VIDEO AT LINK)

As the season of presidential politics 2012 unfolds, I’m struck by similarities between today and the tumultuous period in our history that led up to the election of Abraham Lincoln and then on to the Civil War. So much so that I’m finding it a little eerie that this year we are observing the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. No, I am certainly not predicting, God forbid, that today’s divisions and tensions will lead to brother taking up arms against brother. But profound differences divide us today, as was the case in the 1850′s. The difference...

In the aftermath of President Obama's big budget speech this week, liberals cheered while conservatives hissed. And Americans who are not partisan ideologues experienced an unhappy sense of déjà vu... --snip-- To repatriate that excess money back to where he said it belonged, Candidate Bush unveiled a sweeping plan to kill the estate tax, double the child tax credit, increase deductions for college savings, reduce the "marriage penalty" -- while also putting every single person who paid federal income taxes into a lower bracket. Those in the highest income brackets would see their tax burden lowered from 39.6 percent to...

Everyone has priorities. During the past week, Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi has launched on the Libyan people. But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican governor Scott Walker and the state’s public-employee unions. Walker was staging “an assault on unions,” he said, and added that “public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.” Enormous contributions, yes — to the Democratic party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public...

With the seriatim retirement announcements of Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, and independent Senator Joe Lieberman (who caucuses with the Democrats), the 2012 campaign for Senate has officially kicked off. While the 2010 races were, until fairly late in the game, only about breaking the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority, 2012 will feature a full-on battle for control of the upper chamber. While it is still too early to make any real predictions, we can break these seats down into categories of competitiveness. Democrats clearly start out with more vulnerabilities than Republicans, largely as because (a) Democrats have...

PRINCETON, NJ -- In 2010, 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, down five percentage points from just two years ago and tied for the lowest annual average Gallup has measured in the last 22 years. While Democrats still outnumber Republicans by two points, the percentage identifying as independents increased to 38%, on the high end of what Gallup has measured in the last two decades. These results are based on aggregated data from 21 separate Gallup and USA Today/Gallup polls conducted in 2010, encompassing more than 25,000 interviews with U.S. adults. Gallup has computed annual averages for party identification...

One would have thought we were well past the day when the the folks at PBS would be shilling for Castro and Communism, but one would be wrong. Mary Anastasia O'Grady brings us a remarkable example of Castroite stupefaction in her Wall Street Journal column "A Cuban fairy tale from PBS," noted here by Tim Graham at NewsBusters. O'Grady finds reporter Ray Suarez declaring the glories of Cuban health care in a three-part PBS NewsHour series last week. Suarez took the Potemkin village tour of the Cuban health care system; O'Grady notes that the NewsHour series was taped in Cuba...

United States Congressman Luis Gutierrez has threatened civil disobedience if the DREAM Act, which would have offered a pathway to American citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, is not passed into law. "We're going to make it uncomfortable for the Democratic Party," Gutierrez said, adding that immigration advocates would step up the pressure by drawing lessons from the movements for civil rights and women's suffrage. "There'll probably be civil disobedience. There will probably be a number of different actions. What we have to do is we have to break through this wall of silence, because we're invisible." Well, the DREAM...

Imagine a political party, that in its platform, resents "the tendency of selfish interests to the centralization of Government power, and steadfastly maintained the integrity of the dual scheme of Government established by the founders of this Republic of republics"...

Whether or not the Republicans win big next week, it is already clear that the "transformative" aspirations of the Obama presidency—the special promise of this first black president to "change" us into a better society—are much less likely to materialize. There will be enough Republican gains to make the "no" in the "party of no" even more formidable, if not definitive. But apart from this politics of numbers, there is also now a deepening disenchantment with Barack Obama himself. (He has a meager 37% approval rating by the latest Harris poll.) His embarrassed supporters console themselves that their intentions were...

Democratic Party Uses Bible to Attack Indiana Pro-Life Candidate Indianapolis, IN -- For the second time in two days, a state affiliate of the Democratic party is coming under fire for using religion to attack pro-life candidates. This time, the Indiana Democratic party sent an election piece to voters in Indiana using the Bible and claiming pro-life southern Indiana congressional candidate Todd Young wants to stifle contributions to churches. http://LifeNews.com/state-5614

On this day in 1859, Senator William Seward (R-NY) said: "The Democratic party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders... The history of the Democratic Party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic Party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination... Such is the Democratic Party... The government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic Party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery." The more things change...

On this day in 1868, the Ku Klux Klan assassinated a U.S. Representative. The murderer was both a Klansman and Democratic Party official. The victim was James Hinds, a Republican of Arkansas, gunned down while campaigning for re-election. Hinds had incurred the wrath of the Democratic Party by speaking in defense of African-Americans.

On this day in 1876, Robert Ingersoll (R-IL), a former state attorney general, told a veterans organization: "Every man that loved slavery more than liberty was a Democrat... I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed."

It is vital for the future of our nation that the Republican establishment reconcile with the Tea Party movement. The way for the GOP leadership to do that is to recognize that the Republican Party began as a Tea Party movement... Submission to the grand leader and astroturfing – that is, fake grassroots activity – for the Democrats it’s the same old same old. In contrast, the Republican Party began as a truly grassroots movement...

Nancy Pelosi signed one certificate of nomination which was sent to 49 states and another - saying that Obama is Constitutionally eligible - to Hawaii. People have asked why she didn't send the eligibility-certifying one to all the states, but the more pressing question is, "Why did the Hawaii Democratic Party refuse to certify Obama's eligibility?" This is on my blog but I'll post the whole thing in the first response and the link to the blog post in the 2nd response so the links will be (hopefully) clickable.

"In a way, Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God." Newsweek editor Evan Thomas Grand Old Partisan calls on the Democratic Party to denounce and disavow efforts by the socialist media to portray Barack Obama as God, with images such as:

On this day in 1868, the Democrat majority expelled all 28 African-Americans from the Georgia state legislature. The ousted legislators, all Republicans, had offended the neo-Confederate establishment by supporting the civil rights of emancipated slaves. Henry Turner (R-GA), an AME bishop and state legislator, was one of the most influential African-Americans in the 19th century. In his last speech before being expelled, he said:

On this day in 1868, the Democrat majority expelled all 28 African-Americans from the Georgia state legislature. The ousted legislators, all Republicans, had offended the neo-Confederate establishment by supporting the civil rights of emancipated slaves. Henry Turner (R-GA), an AME bishop and state legislator, was one of the most influential African-Americans in the 19th century. In his last speech before being expelled, he said:

Today, on the Sean Hannity radio program, the magnificent C. L. Bryant spoke about his video Runaway Slave: Run From Tyranny to Liberty. He warns the nation to reject "certain economic slavery" and so "unlock the shackles of tyranny with the truths of liberty." How right he is! By subjugating millions of people to the government, the Democratic Party is going back to its roots as the party of slavery. Rev. Bryant did make one point that bears correcting.

Grand Old Partisan salutes Condoleezza Rice (R-AL), the first African-American woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State. On this day in 2000, she addressed the Republican National Convention. The highlight of her speech was explaining how her father, Rev. John W. Rice, overcame Democrat oppression: “The first Republican I knew was my father and he is still the Republican I most admire. He joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I.” And neither should you!...

On this day in 1869, Rep. Thomas Haughey (R-AL) was shot while giving a campaign speech. He died five days later. Born in Scotland, Haughey moved to the United States at the age of fifteen and became a doctor. He lived in the hill country of northern Alabama, which became a Unionist stronghold during the Civil War. He served as regimental surgeon of the 3rd U.S. Tennessee Infantry. In 1867, he was a delegate to the Alabama constitutional convention. The following year, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

On this day in 1866, a mob of Democrats, led by the Democrat sheriff, attacked the racially-integrated state convention of the Louisiana Republican Party, meeting in New Orleans. Democrats killed 40 delegates, all African-Americans, and wounded at least 150. When the survivors appealed to the Democrat President, Andrew Johnson, for protection, he blamed the violence on Republicans for holding the convention. Revulsion at this Democrat savagery contributed to the GOP's landslide victory in the mid-term elections that November.

Notice how the room erupts with anger and disbelief not at the congressman’s position, but over the fact that he claims to be ‘unaware’ of the case being dismissed. The face of the Democratic Party is increasingly that of an out-of-touch elitist who knows what is better for the people than they know themselves. And with Rep. Pete Stark’s dismissive attitude on the border issue, Rep. Ciro Rodriguez‘ angry eruption over skepticism over his remarks on ObamaCare, and now Rep. Brad Sherman’s supercilious smirk as he admits to his constituents that he is not aware of one of the top...

And he and his gang will do it again too, if we let them. But this time, Pumas are still sounding the alarm. What happened with the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation cover-up, as well as Holder’s Justice Department’s alleged policy of not prosecuting Voting Rights Act complaints brought by citizens who happen to be white, suddenly has a larger context, a background, a backstory, and, crucially, a THEME. And the theme is: Barack Obama and his Movement will lie, cheat, and steal to win elections. Literally. Since many of today’s readers may be new to this site and...

There’s a reason J.D. Hayworth calls it the Arizona Repugnant, and he’s not alone. Many residents of the Grand Canyon State find the Arizona Republic to be little more than the unofficial house organ of the State’s Democratic Party, and have taken to ignoring it in ever-increasing numbers. Which hasn’t affected the paper’s mission to change the world - not in the slightest. One can imagine a phone call (maybe from Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon’s office), asking for a little help in “humanizing” the plight of illegal immigrants, who are taking huge hits in public opinion polls these days:

CORPUS CHRISTI — The political dance known as the Texas two-step put the state Democratic Party into the national spotlight during the 2008 presidential election, and delegates to this weekend's state convention are gearing up for a fight over whether to keep dancing in 2012. The hybrid system of awarding some presidential convention delegates through a primary vote and others through a series of caucuses held on primary night became contentious in the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the Heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations--something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you! He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedys trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and freedom are safer tonight! He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes! Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit Harry...

MOSCOW — A Russian MP has asked an eccentric regional leader to explain his behaviour after claiming on state television that he was visited at home by aliens in a UFO, media reported Thursday. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, head of the Buddhist Kalmykia region of southern Russia and president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), announced without apparent irony on a high-profile chat show he had met the aliens in 1997. In an equally bizarre twist, Andrei Lebedev, an MP for the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, has now written to President Dmitry Medvedev raising fears that secret information could have been disclosed...

Just received this email from the CA DEM party. These guys are scum. Here is the content of the email. "This Thursday, billionaire Meg Whitman is inviting her mentor and fellow billionaire Mitt Romney to Beverly Hills to raise -- what else? -- more money. Attendees at this upscale soiree will sit with the two boardroom buddies. Our friends at the California Labor Federation would like to cordially invite you to join them in crashing Meg’s party – to let her know we’re not going to let her buy this election! Here are the details: xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx Beverly Hills, CA...

I’m a Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Congress in the 5th district of Tennessee. In spite of this, I have been denied in having my candidacy listed on the Tennessee Democratic Party web site. Furthermore, message board postings from anyone (including myself) criticizing the policies of the National Democratic Party are deleted from the web site. Nothing is exempt from deletion if it is in opposition, and these include single quotes from the Bible, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc. At the very least, many of us as Democrats are being deprived an equal voice within our own Democratic Party. I...