Free Republic

I just love Washington-speak which offers heartfelt phrases such as “baseline spending,” “debt ceiling,” “drop dead dates,” and my ultimate favorites, “the cut,” “to cut,” “a cut,” or just simply “cuts.” Like the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” a “cut” means different things to different people. Let me explain by first discussing common-speak, which is very easy to understand. When someone takes a cut in pay, it could mean going from $20 per hour to $15 per hour. Or, they’re paid $30,000 per year for a job that used to pay $35,000 per year. To most...

In the opening scene of Woody Allen's 1983 film Zelig, F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen to observe a curious little man as he chats with socialites at a sumptuous bash, speaking adoringly of President Coolidge and the Republican Party -- all in an upper class Boston accent. Then, an hour later, the renowned novelist is stunned to see the same man speaking to the kitchen help. Only now he claims to be a Democrat, and his accent has become coarse as if he were one of the crowd. This scene comes to mind when observing the incessant, ideological acrobatics of...

Politcal correctness - the idea of subsituting certain words or thoughts with others deemed to be "acceptable" - is destroying America. The phrase came about, according to Bill Lind in an address ten years ago, in a comic strip. We laugh at the idea of political correctness, but as Lind points out, it is deadly serious. He calls it the: ...great disease of our century, the disease that has left tens of millions of people dead in Europe, in Russia, in China, indeed around the world. It is the disease of ideology. PC is not funny. PC is deadly serious....

EXCERPT- Knowing very well most Americans objected to the "end of life" measure in the new health care legislation due to fears it could eventually give doctors a government financial incentive or even mandate to encourage severely ill patients to make life ending decisions too prematurely, Congressman Blumenauer thumbed his nose to the masses. It must be painfully obvious to Mr. Blumenauer that Americans did not want his end-of-life measure, so the Oregon Congressman decided to run around the will of the people by bureaucratic fiat. Instead, he and his fellow Democrats eventually omitted the measure from the bill only...

Hanukkah may have ended over 2 weeks ago, Kwanzaa week may have just begun, and New Years may still be 6 days away, but major retailers have once again started their "After Holiday" sales on December 26. Retailers that went to great lengths to avoid using the word Christmas, in favor of the more inclusive term "Holidays", now seem to not care that many holidays are still to come while others ended long ago. Companies such as Barnes and Nobel as well as Old navy/Gap went to such extremes to avoid using the term Christmas that they ended up being...

Though the group is barely formed, two things seem patently obvious. First, since elite liberals have failed in branding themselves as “liberal” and then “progressives” in a country that is center-right, No Labels seems to be another center-left attempt at re-branding the movement. Taken in this light, the group’s deciding not to have a label says a lot about how poorly any group or policy that has an overt center-left tag performs in the center-right political marketplace. Second, No Labels, which purportedly seeks consensus on a range of issues, accomplished its primary goal of bringing together the left, right, and...

Open Letter to FCC Calling for Real Net Neutrality More than 80 grassroots organizations, consumer groups, civil rights organizations, innovative businesses, technology experts and public interest advocates filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission on Friday, signaling broad support for strong Network Neutrality rules. The letter highlighted five key areas in which rules proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski must be improved to protect the free and open Internet. The Commission is slated to vote on Net Neutrality on Dec. 21. FCC_Letter_Real_Net_Neutrality.pdf freepress = reform media. transform democracy.

Journalist and author Fareed Zakaria has made some grave accusations against those who oppose the building of the Islamic center near Ground Zero, and has predicated his own approval of the project on the moderateness of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Zakaria wrote that Abdul Rauf “has said one or two things about American foreign policy that strike me as overly critical — but it’s stuff you could read on The Huffington Post any day.” Yes, indeed — you are likely to read similar “stuff” on the Huffington Post, since Rauf has written there. But how can that possibly constitute a...

Is the Obama Administration preparing the ground for a Ministry of Truthiness? The President's latest wide-ranging speech at Hampton University made a halt at a very strange outpost, before moving on to education. Obama, it seems, is vexed by the idea of conspiracy theories. Apparently people aren't thinking the right thoughts. Obama's internet Yoda, Professor Cass Sunstein*, is also besotted with the idea. Two years ago, Sunstein proposed what you might call an 'active government solution' to conspiracies. The best way to counter conspiracy theories, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule argued, is with the "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups". This...

The White House released these excerpts of President Obama's prepared remarks on health care, to be delivered around 1:45 p.m.: “I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America. I believe it’s time to give the American people more control over their own health insurance. I don’t believe we can afford to leave life-and-death decisions about health care to the discretion of insurance company executives alone. I believe that doctors and nurses like the ones in this room should be free to decide what’s best for their patients. The proposal...

Way down deep inside, Barack Obama has to know the bloom is off the rose. Indeed, as he prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address two nights from now, he must be feeling a bit like Willy Loman, the mythical salesman who lamented how tough it is out there “with just a shoeshine and a smile,” trying to peddle a product no one wants to buy. Just 14 months ago, adored by multitudes who jammed Grant Park in Chicago to cheer his victory speech, Obama was at the zenith of a mountaintop experience, proclaiming, “If there is...

Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, by Caroline Fourest; foreword by Denis MacShane (Encounter Books, 262 pp., $23.95) In the 1990s, Western liberals, alarmed at the presence of Islamic fundamentalists in their midst, turned in desperation to Muslims whom they dubbed “reformers” or “modernizers.” They hoped that these figures would have a moderating influence on disaffected Muslim youths who refused to integrate into Western society. One such “reformer” is Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born academic. Ramadan has won the confidence of many in the West, including the British government, which asked him to serve on its task force for...

Magicians succeed by waving or otherwise moving one hand, thereby distracting you from watching the hand that is about to perform some trick. President Obama and his economic team are performing a similar act, concentrating attention on their macroeconomic policies -- stimulus, deficits, growth rates, unemployment -- to distract attention from their microeconomic regulatory policies. It comes down to this: Borrow and spend to create jobs, regulate to destroy them. The original $787 billion stimulus package is due for a supplement that will bring the total to around $1 trillion. Spending so far has created or "saved" between 1.7 million...

OREM, Utah -- Boyd J. Petersen told the Utah Valley University conference on "outmigration" about how Hugh Nibley -- and other Mormons -- coped with the divided sense of self that minorities often experience in the larger society. Petersen, author of "Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life," spoke on Nov. 6 about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live with contradictory public images. "They are both revered and reviled, feared and revered," Petersen said. Outmigrants, those Mormons who have left Utah, "have this divided sense of ourselves." Mormons have their own sense of themselves and their...

To begin know it is said amongst the knowledgeable North Carolina is sprinkled with a number of “sweet spots” where a fellow can stand in an open field and box the compass in four opposite directions (North,East,South and West) for a few hundred yards and find himself under four conflicting sets of hunting regulations........... The leading (current) contender for complete Alice-In-Wonderland-Mad-Hatter “the law is ours to know and yours to find out” bureaucracy is DUPLIN COUNTY.......

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "Internet Freedom" actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats.... Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of "Internet Freedom" would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.... Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real...

Tell us, where is everyone? Where did all the people who demonstrated against Israel’s brutality in Operation Cast Lead, in the Second Lebanon War, in Operation Defensive Shield, or even in The Hague, when we were dragged there unwillingly after daring to build a separation barrier between us and the suicide bombers, disappear to? We see demonstrations here and there, but these are mainly Iranian exiles. Europe, in principle, is peaceful and calm. So is the United States. Here and there a few dozens, here and there a few hundreds. Have they evaporated because it is Tehran and not here?...

With due respect to the millions who adore President Barack Obama, I just don't understand what causes people to hear only his lofty rhetoric and appeals for unity while turning a deaf ear to his polarizing language and actions, for example, on the subject of abortion. In his book "The Audacity of Hope," he seemed determined to address every issue from the perspective of achieving some kind of common ground. We'll give a little bit of this to liberals and a little bit of that to conservatives and all live happily ever after. I'm sorry, but I believe Obama calculatingly...

Doublespeak is alive as Democrats pull the strings in the White House and Congress 25 years after 1984. What do they mean when they engage in Democrat-speak? I know I'm not worthy, but I've got an assignment, so I shall borrow a page from Ambrose Bierce, not with a Devil's Dictionary, but a Democrats' Dictionary. The easy part: There's no dif.Academic freedom: Full license to espouse liberal thought to unformed minds.Bailout: Billions upon billions - trillions really - of government aid doled out to financial institutions to remind voters of the need for strong regulation.Biden, Joe: Running-at-the-mouth politician, but, hey,...

President Obama had a grand time in Europe. He wowed the press, met the queen, gave some wonderful news conferences and got virtually none of the major policy concessions he wanted. But he did do a lot of talking, for what that's worth. And for Obama, that's worth a lot. During the campaign, then-Sen. Obama made it clear that he thought words meant a great deal. "Don't tell me words don't matter," Obama proclaimed. " 'I have a dream' — just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' — just words? 'We have...

Bush Did It What a difference an election makes. By Victor Davis Hanson President Bush was ridiculed today by critics of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility when he suggested that his administration no longer was incarcerating “unlawful combatants,” but was instead in the process of renaming them as mere “detainees.” The president also promised to close Guantanamo “within the year,” and added that he had assigned a “special task force” to look into the matter. “Orwellian,” the New York Times fumed in an editorial entitled “Just Close It!”: “If the President’s Ministry of Truth thinks that his metamorphosing words change...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama pumped health care allies and skeptics alike for ways to overhaul the nation's costly and frustrating system Thursday and heard only applause and agreement when he told them there's "a clear consensus that the need for health care reform is here and now." However, he conceded at a White House summit that opinions vary widely on exactly what to do and said that winning quick approval for historic and stunningly expensive legislation won't be easy. "Every voice has to be heard. Every idea must be considered ... The status quo is the one option that...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he supports efforts of the federal government to dramatically expand its stake in Citigroup, but wants people to back off from the dramatic rhetoric. “It’s not nationalization, it’s protecting the taxpayers’ interests,” Reid (D-Nev.) told MSNBC’s Morning Joe program on Monday. “In the bailout, the TARP, that we made sure the American taxpayer had a way of getting paid back for their investments,” Reid said. “That’s what this is all about and it’s the right way to go.” The federal government is in talks to take as much as a 40 percent stake in...

It has become increasingly evident that Mr. Obama is speaking to us in code. Whatever he says means its exact opposite. A few examples: "Hope" means "Despair" "Transparent" means "Hidden from View" "Clean" means "Corrupt" "Fair" means "Intolerant and Unjust" "Fiscal Responsibility" means "Debt" "Change" means "More of the Same" "Peace" means "There will be War"

Citizenhip issue was reported today on Baynews9. Can anyone post a copy of the report? The news channel is in the Tampa area and has wide coverage.

Investigative Project Releases Gov't Memos Curtailing Speech in War on Terror The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is refusing to identify the "influential Muslim Americans" and "leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam" who met with Secretary Michael Chertoff in helping shape a softer approach to government lexicon about terrorists and their ideological motivations. "Our policy is we don't comment on the Secretary's private schedule," spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told the IPT. Nor would she identify any of the participants' organizational affiliation. DHS and the State Department's Counterterrorism Communications Center each issued reports urging government employees to avoid words like "jihad,"...

Hillary, with bayonet tightly between her teeth, advanced with Chelsea beside her towards the grim genocidiers in Tuzla. Her heart beat with sanguine bravery, as she prepared to cut down the screaming, pseudo-sapient madmen standing between Yugoslavians and free health care. It was a pivotal moment for the future of dumbocracy, and it was total, unmitigated male bovine scatology. There are those who think she misspoke, others who believe she exaggerated a tad, and still others, such as myself, who thinks she could open her mouth and fertilize an entire ethanol farm without substantially raising her pulse. Well, that’s why...

Intenta McCain evadir preguntas sobre inmigración Expresa el aspirante a la candidatura republicana que respalda los esfuerzos para impedir el cruce de indocumentados; afirma que la gente pide que primero sean aseguradas las fronteras ...

Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism. In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity". Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam. Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

Pre-eminent Mormon scholar argues Romney's answer is not at all a contradictionPresidential candidate Mitt Romney says in a videotaped interview that he doesn't know that God has spoken to anyone since the time of Moses. The comment appears to conflict with his Mormon faith that believes God spoke to founder Joseph Smith and other church prophets subsequently. In the interview with Boston's WCVB, a reporter asks Romney several questions about his faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including how his faith would impact him if he is elected. "Should God speak to you, and ask you...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff visited Seattle on Friday to help Gov. Christine Gregoire kick off a pilot program that will allow Washington state residents to use a security-enhanced driver's license, rather than a passport, to travel to and from Canada. Chertoff predicted the new licenses will help meet the department's dual goals of enhancing security and reducing wait-times at the border. In a wide-ranging discussion with The Seattle Times editorial board after the event, Chertoff spoke repeatedly of his agency's efforts to balance competing demands. On issues ranging from port security to air travel to home-grown terrorism, Chertoff described...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government's annual accounting of hunger in the United States reported no hunger in its last outing. Instead, it found "food insecurity." Likewise, no one is even considering retreating from Iraq. "Redeploying" the heck out of there is, however, an option. In Washington, words are a moving target that conceal at least as much as they reveal. Doublespeak runs through the discourse on Iraq, terrorism and domestic matters to a point where it's hard to tell what is going on. The libertarian Cato Institute recently took on the rising tide of fuzzy words in the fight against...

Doublespeak: Official language of D.C. By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 7 minutes ago The government's annual accounting of hunger in America reported no hunger in its last outing. Instead, it found "food insecurity." Likewise, no one is even considering retreating from Iraq. "Redeploying" the heck out of there is, however, an option. In Washington, words are a moving target that conceal at least as much as they reveal. Doublespeak runs through the discourse on Iraq, terrorism and domestic matters to a point where it's hard to tell what is going on. The libertarian Cato Institute recently took on...

DURING A GET-TO-KNOW-YOU meeting with the new Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, last week, a veteran Washington journalist asked about possible bipartisan talks to deal with the growing cost of entitlements. "Would revenues be on the table?" he inquired. Paulson looked puzzled. Another journalist explained that the question was about tax increases. Would they be considered?The questioner had used a word--"revenues"--drawn from the growing lexicon of liberalism. It is a language quite common now in Washington and in liberal political circles, and it's designed to substitute softer or neutral words for harsher ones with political implications. It is a language of...

We have ample reason to be concerned. The situation of Muslims in Western societies has, for the last twenty years, been fraught with difficulty. If anything, this situation has worsened over the last five years. The “war against terror” launched after the events of September 11, 2001, along with repeated terrorist attacks throughout the world, increased tensions arising from social problems or from immigration have combined to portray Islam-and Muslims in general-as a threat to the societies of the West. Fear, and its accompanying emotional and often irrational reactions, has become a part of the public mindset. Such reactions, while...

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names” – Old Chinese proverb. The elite media have always been out of touch with American values, and their reporting has often been at odds with reality. (See “Offensive, Tet.”) However, their coverage of the last week’s massive pro-illegal immigration rallies bordered (no pun intended) on the Orwellian, virtually requiring one to believe the inverse of everything they reported. Among their many distortions, sanitizations, euphemisms, and lies were: “Pro-Immigration Rallies.” The elite media consisted presented the protests as rallies in favor of immigration or immigrants rights. The Washington Post...

FBI: No Credible Threat, but Be Vigilant Saturday March 11, 2006 3:01 AM By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI said Friday there is no specific, credible threat of a terror attack aimed at college basketball arenas or other sports stadiums, but acknowledged alerting law enforcement to a recent Internet posting discussing such attacks. The FBI and Homeland Security Department distributed an intelligence bulletin Friday to state and local law enforcement nationwide describing the online threat against sporting venues, said Special Agent Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman in Washington. ``We have absolutely no credible intelligence or...

According to a Dec. 25 report in the Boston Globe, the Democratic Party is joining forces with the activist group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to place initiatives on state ballots this fall to raise the minimum wage. The idea is to energize the poor to vote for Democratic candidates, as well as the initiative.ACORN's involvement in this campaign is amusing because a few years ago the group sued the state of California in order to be exempted from its minimum wage requirement, which was higher than the federal government's. In its appellate brief, ACORN acknowledged that...

December 30, 2005 - The argument over whether President Bush has the authority to direct the National Security Agency to listen in on the conversations of suspected terrorists on US soil is split primarily into two camps; those who believe we are engaged in a war for our very survival against radical Islam and those who believe – and always have – that terrorism operates under a set of rules that govern its actions and therefore should be treated as a law enforcement issue. This is just another example of why there should have been a formal declaration of war...

Congressman Peter King (R-NY), now Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has reintroduced his National Language Act (H.R. 4408) in the 109th Congress. Congressman King's bill is a strong (???), self-executing ( got that right! ) official English bill in its own right. Look at Section 163: Sec. 163. Preserving and enhancing the role of the official language `The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the official language of the United States of America. Unless specifically stated in applicable law, no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government...

CNN's Carol Lin and the French "African-Americans" The Paris riots have highlighted more than any other issue in recent years not only the bias, but the ignorance of the "old media." Internet readers have studied the situation in Europe for years. Numerous writers, from Mark Steyn to Ba'at Yeor to Debbie Schlussel, have long predicted the decline of Europe and the jihad that we have seen over the past few weeks. But the "old media" personalities still have no clue as to what is going on. And their reporting and commentary has taken on an almost comical quality as a...

BEIJING -- China on Thursday rejected a U.S. call to adopt democracy, telling Washington to respect its communist path and brushing off warnings of retaliation for its huge trade surplus with the United States. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters he had "taken note" of comments by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick that China's one-party system was unsustainable, but insisted the country was stable and that communism had brought substantial benefits to its 1.3 billion people. Zoellick on Wednesday made the Bush administration's most explicit call to date for a political transition in China, where the Communist...

On August 12, 2005 Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico issued Executive Order 2005-040 declaring a ‘state of emergency’ in four New Mexico counties along its border with Mexico. It is intended to free up funds totalling $1.5 million for a variety of actions he felt necessary. Specifically, Hidalgo, Luna, Grant and Dona Ana counties are in “an extreme state of disrepair” according to the governor. The state of emergency stems from the governor’s conclusion of “violence encountered by law enforcement, damage to property and livestock, increased evidence of drug smuggling and human smuggling, with an increase in the number...

In having to live with the language of liberals, which today is a nonstop barrage of half truths, twisted phrases, modified definitions, and PC doublespeak, Fellow FReepers could help build a definitive list and compendium of linguistic traps so anyone quickly can identify the offending language.You can add single words and "liberal definitions", or common phrases with their "secret liberal meanings" I don't believe there is any other place where this could be done with any depth or accuracy. Feel free to add as much as you like, and it could be turned into a Wiki eventually.Post away! (and you...

Ian Buruma, author and Luce professor of Democracy, Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, New York, will answer readers’ questions online about the roots of Islamic extremism and the motivations of homegrown terrorists. You can send questions in advance to ask@ft.com. He will answer the questions on Friday, July 22. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Some of the responses to the bomb attacks on London were predictable. Of course Tariq Ali, the journalist...

What They Say v. What They Mean"the freedoms this country was founded upon"..... abortion "a voice of reason and moderation"..... supports abortion "embodies the fundamental American values of freedom, equality and fairness"..... supports abortion "views are within the broad constitutional mainstream"..... supports abortion "a mainstream conservative"..... supports abortion "served the nation and the Constitution well"..... supports abortion "threatens to roll back the rights and freedoms of the American people"..... opposes abortion "the president should respect the Senate's advice and consent role"..... get ready for a filibuster over abortion "the American people will insist that we oppose that nominee, and we...

Every time the left finds one of its ideas discredited, it seeks to change the language or name. That is evident in the current attempt by world government advocates to derail the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations. When socialism was widely discredited in this part of the world, it became "liberalism." This was Orwellian doublespeak since "liberalism" in the 19th Century meant freedom for the individual from oppressive regulation. Now that "liberalism," in its current incarnation has been rejected at the polls and elsewhere, we are told we must refer to the left as...

“Man and Woman”, “Wife”, “Husband”, “Widow”, “Widower” Banished From all Ontario Law Terms, when referring to spouses, are banned from all government programs, services, documentsToronto, February 25, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With the obscenely rapid, three-day introduction and passage of its same-sex “marriage” Bill 171, the Ontario government has advanced a revolutionary change in the way all laws and government programs and institutions refer to marriage and married persons. Everything referring to spouses must now be gender neutral. No longer can a married couple be referred to as “husband and wife” or “man and woman”. The terms “Widow” and “widower” are...

On the heels of new research showing Southern California children can suffer permanent lung damage from breathing pollution, the head of the region's smog-fighting agency vowed on Friday to "take off the gloves" to help speed up clean-air improvements. In his State of the Air report, William A. Burke said he would push critical air-pollution efforts, such as reducing emissions from railroads and ports and converting diesel-fueled school buses to cleaner-burning models. "The time for political correctness has passed," Burke said in his speech given in Diamond Bar. "The time has come to take off the gloves and tell the...

Voting by dead people isn't always a scam By Jonathan Martin and David Heath Seattle Times staff reporters Days after his wife of four decades died of liver cancer, Robert Holmgren came home to find her absentee ballot. He filled in Charlette Holmgren's intended votes for Dino Rossi and George W. Bush, forged her signature, and mailed her ballot along with his. "I know by the law it wasn't right, but it felt right in my heart," he said. "I wasn't trying to defraud anybody. I was just going with my wife's last wishes." In six of the state's largest...