http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/editorial-news/ en-us Tue, 5 Jan 2010 17:37:48 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421473/posts Debbie Schlussel http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421473/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 17:37:48 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421452/posts The Rising Polyamorous Culture Is Out to Get Your Children The culture of the traditional family is now in intense competition with a very different culture. The defining difference between the two is the sexual ideal each embraces. The traditional family of Western civilization is based on lifelong monogamy. The competing culture is “polyamorous,” normally a serial polygamy, but also increasingly polymorphous in its different sexual expressions. Between these two cultures lie the welfare state and its operational bureaucracy. By and large, the culture of polyamory embraces the behavioral bureaucracy, while the culture of monogamy has increasing disagreements with it.... http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421452/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 17:00:16 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421447/posts In his extraordinary book 'Democracy: The God that Failed', Hans Hermann Hoppe points out that the process of civilization is stopped when government continually violates property rights.The natural process of civilization comes through delaying consumption, saving, and building capital. Undoing it leads to higher societal time preference. When natural disasters strike or a gunman robs you in an alley, "the effect of these on time preference is temporary and unsystematic," Hoppe explains. Victims are entitled to defend themselves against the individual aggressor and prepare themselves for the calamities of the occasional act of God. Resources will be reallocated to defend... 321gold.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421447/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 16:56:40 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421425/posts Our winner [of the worst person in the world gold award]: John W. Whitehead, the founder of The Rutherford Institute....Whitehead wants [Congressman Tom] Perriello to move his office to make it easier for the tea baggers to protest and threaten him....John "you-want-that-we-should-carry-your-signs-for-you-too-because-they-are-so-heavy" Whitehead of The Rutherford...Institute...today's worst person in the world.--Keith Olbermann, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," MSNBC (Dec. 14, 2009) Who is the worst person in the world? Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, has actually named me the "worst person in the world" for coming to the defense of political protesters who believed their First Amendment... Ruterford Institute http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421425/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 16:29:59 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421416/posts (CNN) -- Following the attempt to bomb a passenger jet on Christmas Day, President Obama said that "once the suspect attempted to take down Flight 253, it's clear Homeland Security and Aviation Security took all appropriate actions." I am a commercial airline pilot who was deep over the Atlantic flying from St. Kitts and Nevis for nearly six hours on Christmas Day following the attempted bombing on Flight 253. I only learned about the incident after landing when I looked at the CNN Web site on my iPhone. I'm justifiably furious that I was not notified while airborne. Our government... CNN http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421416/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 16:22:58 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421388/posts California Watch, a new investigative reporting service, told us the other day that California politicians and campaign contributors "have routinely funneled money through county-level political party committees … avoiding strict limits on campaign giving and hiding the source of millions in donations." California Watch didn't tell us, however, that laundering campaign money to disguise its source is exactly what state legislators intended when they wrote Proposition 34 a decade ago. Its "strict limits" were designed to give the appearance of reform while encouraging money-laundering and so-called "independent expenditures" so that candidates wouldn't be accountable to voters for their sources of... Sacramento Bee http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421388/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:55:18 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421385/posts Inside the House and Senate health care bills lurks a ticking time bomb - a new federal entitlement, under the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, that would allow Americans to buy into a voluntary federal long-term care insurance program. The main problem, as Josh Gordon, policy director for the fiscal-watchdog group the Concord Coalition, noted, is that CLASS, which has passed "below the radar" of most Americans, is a poorly designed "gimmick." While Washington would start collecting CLASS premiums in 2011, CLASS would not pay benefits for five years. So, because it charges for 10 years, but... San Francisco Chronicle http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421385/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:50:59 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421384/posts ... But a civilization becomes incompetent not only when it fails to learn the lessons of its past, but also when it becomes crippled by them. ... Our deeper incompetence stems from an inability to recognize the proper limits to our own virtues ...  Thus we reject profiling on the commendable grounds that human beings ought not to be treated as statistical probabilities. But at some point, the failure to profile puts innocent lives recklessly at risk. We also abhor waterboarding for the eminently decent reason that it borders on torture. But there are worse things than waterboarding—like allowing another... Opinion Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421384/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:50:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421360/posts The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation. The movement is especially popular among independents. The Rasmussen organization asked independent voters whom they would support in a generic election between a Democrat, a Republican and a tea party candidate. The tea party candidate won, with 33 percent of independents. Undecided... New York Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421360/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:18:19 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421350/posts Much has been written about our current high unemployment, but there is a strange reluctance by both liberal and conservative commentators to assess blame for the dramatic loss of well-paying American jobs. The causes are not only the general recession and the collapse of the housing market, but bad decisions by government and business that deserve finger-pointing. Since 2000, the U.S. has lost millions of jobs due to outsourcing and insourcing. Those are euphemisms for exporting high-paying jobs to low-wage foreign countries, while importing an uneducated underclass willing to work for lower-than-U.S. wages without benefits. The winners in this game... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421350/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:59:12 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421342/posts When a non-American scholar I admired let slip a casual reference to "American corruption" a few years ago, my chauvinistic pride was wounded. This isn't Mexico, after all, or even Italy, where bribes are the normal social lubricant. Still, an unsentimental examination of government dollars at work seems to confirm my friend's observation. A small example: The U.S. government has announced plans to spend $340 million on an advertising campaign to promote the Census, including $2.5 million for ads during the Super Bowl. Though the nation has been collecting this data for 220 years, it seems we now need commercial... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421342/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:45:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421333/posts Anyone that has ever been in the presence of a teen for very long knows that one of their favorite words is, “grrrmmm”. I’m not sure what language it is, but they all seem to know it. When my sons were young teens many of my cheery attempts to connect and communicate with them were rebuffed by the very limited teen vocabulary. My sunny disposition and expectant, “Hi! How was your day?” often resulted in “mmrrph.” “What did you do?” was met with something akin to a growl. “Okey-dokey then, I guess I’ll try a different approach,” I remember thinking.... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421333/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:31:44 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421328/posts Peggy Noonan’s recent Wall Street Journal article about President Obama, quoting various people who have associated firsthand with him, reminds me of another strong, charismatic personality.  A friend described him: He is not a dramatic figure; nor is he physically imposing.  His eyes, however, and the intensity and warmth of his gaze, set him apart.  He is a commanding speaker both in the public arena and in private conversation.  His personality is almost hypnotic; his intellect formidable.  His animal magnetism seems to envelop others like a warm blanket.  He is politically calculating, but only — at least it seems to... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421328/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:20:33 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421326/posts Republican prospects for 2010 have grown big. The generic congressional ballot shows Republicans with a statistically significant lead. Once-safe Senate Democrats like Ben Nelson now trail badly in their reelection bids. The Rasmussen Poll numbers for Obama reveal a steep drop in job approval. www.americanthinker.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421326/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:18:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421314/posts The editor of the New Yorker was once asked about the hip, cool, insider writing that graced his journal. Didn’t its stylish prose go over people’s heads? “We don’t write it for the little old lady from Dubuque,” he replied. Not pitching your case to the little old lady from Dubuque, Iowa, became a hallmark of modern sophisticated liberalism--a liberalism more characterized by point-of-view than by policy point papers. So when the New Yorker’s Christmas week number hit newsstands, it was bound to attract attention. The cover showed President Obama bowing to Santa. In their typical way, the editors of... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421314/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:09:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421312/posts Suppose Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber, had succeeded and blown up Northwest Airlines flight 253, killing nearly 300 people on board and perhaps others on the ground? Would the response of the Obama administration have been different? The president probably would have attended memorial services for the dead, expressed "strong condemnation," persuaded the United Nations to issue more worthless resolutions, but little more. That's because the president isn't fighting -- or speaking -- as if we are at war. He first called the attempted bombing an "incident." In his Saturday radio address, the president finally, if... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421312/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:01:27 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421311/posts I'm sitting at Newark Airport waiting for my wife and nine children to disembark from an aircraft that landed hours ago. They arrived from Chicago, where we all attended a beautiful family wedding. The kids have school tomorrow and would have had a decent night's sleep, except that some guy wandered backward through an exit and into the secure area of the Continental Airlines terminal, sending the entire airport into lockdown. (Sometimes I wonder if God is playing a trick by making me the Forrest Gump of current events. How did I ever get into this story?) Tanner Suttles, left,... Jerusalem Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421311/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:01:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421309/posts In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane predictors said the Atlantic Basin would see nine to 14 named storms and four to seven hurricanes in 2009, including up to three that would be Category 3 or stronger. By the time the season ended, nature had spawned nine named storms and three hurricanes, two of them major. Despite its overestimates, NOAA declared itself the second coming of Nostradamus because reality aligned with the wide ranges of its "mid-season outlook," an annual August ritual that's akin to picking the winner of a football game in the middle of the second... Waterbury Republican-American http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421309/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:00:34 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421306/posts Human nature being what it is, gratitude has its limits. The more we are on the receiving end of a recurring good, the less grateful we become. Nations are likewise susceptible to "What have you done for me lately?" syndrome. It is fitting, therefore, to acknowledge the ongoing aid Israel receives from the United States. It may not come out of purely altruistic motives, yet Washington's intentions are largely good, and absent its unwavering military and diplomatic backing, the world would be an even lonelier place for our Jewish state. Within the past several weeks, the US Congress approved and... Jerusalem Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421306/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 13:58:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421302/posts Instead of the typical slow holiday news cycle, the week between Christmas and New Year's featured near non-stop coverage of the Christmas Day terrorist attack on Delta Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam. Yet in all of the talk, one aspect was relatively unexplored: The brave actions of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the respected Nigerian banker who contacted American authorities to report his son’s disturbing radicalization, and what the U.S. government's failure to take his warnings seriously means for others who might be considering reporting love ones who have joined the jihad. According to the U.S. State Department, Mr. Mutallab met with... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421302/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 13:52:28 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421292/posts As the farcical and almost-tragic facts about the Nigerian-Muslim terror suspect play out, one thing has become crystal clear: Your government can't protect you from a terrorist attack. Worse, when the next one hits - and only delusional elected officials would deny this certainty - you are on your own. Although a clearly incompetent Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano saying "One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked" (after the suspect paid cash for his ticket, had no check-in luggage, smuggled a bomb onto Northwest Airlines Flight 253 and then proceeded to try and detonate it)... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421292/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 13:37:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421273/posts How favorable will press coverage of President Obama be at the end of this year? Jon Stewart's The Daily Show on Comedy Central is often a leading indicator of sentiment among younger voters. Stewart last month waxed sarcastic regarding not only Democratic spending and deficit-creation, but also about Obama's personal style of implying frankness and then serving up bromides. Following one set of Obama video clips Stewart cried out, "C'mon—are these the people we've really been waiting for? This sounds like the people we got rid of." That realization that the Obama administration is politics as usual is important, since... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421273/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 13:04:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421270/posts Dick Cheney had it coming. Recently, the former vice president said President Barack Obama was jeopardizing the safety of the American people by pretending the war on terrorism did not exist. The catalyst for the attack was a Nigerian-born Islamic terrorist’s thwarted attempt to bomb an American jetliner in Detroit on Christmas Day. On Sunday, Obama counterterrorism chief John Brennan fired back at his former boss with a blast far more accurate than any Cheney could muster from the shotgun he was using when he accidentally shot a hunting companion in 2006. “It’s disappointing to me that either the vice... Mass Live http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421270/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 13:00:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421264/posts There is something about the name Jesus Christ that drives the non-believer mad. Any reference to the name (or to a quotation) of Jesus arouses in the non-believer a dissonance that cannot be aroused by any other source. I thought about that dissonance – a feeling I used to experience regularly - when I received a call from a distressed co-worker who, unlike me, does not have the benefit of tenure. That untenured co-worker was distressed because his supervisor had told him that some people were offended by the use of Bible verses in emails sent using the university email... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421264/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 12:51:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421247/posts At almost 80 years old, Thomas Jefferson foresaw the corruption of a federal government with too much power, when he wrote to William T. Barry in 1822, just a few years before his death: "If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption(s), indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface." "Wholesome care" like universal health care? I waited until the new year to write this column because Washington was hoping its Christmas corruption would evade the majority of holiday revelers or become... Townhall.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2421247/posts#comment Tue, 5 Jan 2010 12:23:03 GMT