Free Republic

...But with tonight’s vote done and the government open once again, I want to return to...and stress once more the essential absurdity of the specific populist gambit we’ve just witnessed unfold, drag on, and now finally collapse. However you slice and dice the history, the strategery, and the underlying issues, the decision to live with a government shutdown for an extended period of time — inflicting modest-but-real harm on the economy, needlessly disrupting the lives and paychecks of many thousands of hardworking people, and further tarnishing the Republican Party’s already not-exactly-shiny image — in pursuit of obviously, obviously unattainable goals...

If you believe Bigfoot roams the Pacific Northwest, you might be gullible enough to believe Barack Obama’s claim that the United States will default on its creditors if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling. But if you can see the President’s propaganda for the scare tactic it is, you know there was never any chance the United States would default on its creditors. The administration and the lamestream media have recklessly repeated the mantra that if the government can’t continue to irresponsibly spend more than it takes in, this must end in “default,” as if living within their means wasn’t...

Several weeks ago, this columnist predicted that the government shutdown would end up centering on the debt ceiling and would require the threat of a semi-disaster on Wall Street in order to bring about a solution. Such was indeed the case. Regardless of the immediate fallout from the shutdown, there is little doubt in my mind that conservative Republicans in the long run will not be the scapegoats for this impasse. Their willingness to have taken a stand with consequence will have strengthened, not weakened, their political clout, if not backbone. But there emerged, through all of the bickering and...

Megyn Kelly – I eagerly await your apology, retraction, whatever you want to call it, regarding the libelous insinuations you made last night (Tuesday, Oct 15) against Joe (“Joe the Plumber”) Wurzelbacher’s “bizarre” (your word) article about electing a “White Republican”. As I’m sure you probably now know, the column you sloppily referenced and misrepresented as Joe W.’s work was, in fact, a tongue-in-cheek piece written by a BLACK conservative, which Joe W. merely included on his news/opinion website. He didn’t write it. Your clear, snarky implication that he was guilty of racism is slander — again, a BLACK conservative...

What do you call waiting for the end of a partial government shutdown while waiting to see if Congress raises the debt limit while waiting to see if Bay Area Rapid Transit workers strike and Alameda-Contra Costa Transit workers join them? Waiting for the apocalypses? Or: Bargaining bad. In Washington, a rump group of Republicans preferred a grudge match over governing -- and incurred the public's wrath. In the Bay Area, transit unions have made a similar mistake. By threatening to strike and ruin the commute for 400,000 BART riders, labor leaders have led the public to believe that BART...

Even though Republicans hold a majority in the House, Speaker John Boehner failed to muster enough votes for two proposals he floated. Is that a sign of ineptitude, weakness, or that the House was hijacked by no-compromise Tea-partiers in a complete fool's mission? Regardless, Senate Leaders Reached Agreement on budget deal to end the shutdown. "This is a time for reconciliation," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of the agreement he had forged with the GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. One prominent tea party lawmaker, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said he would oppose the plan, but not...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - The Bothersome, Annoying TruthPosted By Caroline Glick On October 17, 2013 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Ilan Pappe A controversy is raging in the Washington, DC, Jewish community involving the local JCC (DCJCC) and its in-house Theater J. While a local tale, it is a distressing encapsulation of Israel’s predicament.Israel’s rights and justness are grounded in truth. But today truth isn’t worth as much as it used to be. Those who fight for it find themselves routinely maligned as close-minded extremists. Those who trounce it are congratulated for being open-minded and...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Barack Obama and the Bad Ideas of ProgressivismPosted By Bruce Thornton On October 17, 2013 @ 12:52 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 4 Comments Barack Obama’s serial gross incompetence has elicited all sorts of explanatory theories. He’s a closet socialist, an Alinskyite radical, a secret Muslim, or an anti-American internationalist. Though some of Obama’s words and deeds give support to all these speculations, I prefer a simpler explanation. Obama is a Progressive––not a vague “progressive,” the elastic moniker liberals started using when the word “liberal” became politically toxic. I mean a Progressive of the...

If there was a special award for chutzpah, the easy winner would be the bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund. These pampered bureaucrats get lavishly compensated and don’t have to pay tax on their bloated salaries. The gold-plated fringe benefits include “your spouse/partner may join you on official travel at Fund expense.” You would think this would make them a bit sensitive to the notion that it’s hugely hypocritical of them to propose big tax hikes when they have a special exemption. But they have no shame. The international bureaucracy is making a renewed push for higher taxes all over...

Career crony turned perennial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s staked his entire bid for the Virginia Governor’s Mansion on demagoguing Ken Cuccinelli’s stances on social issues. A recent Washington Times editorial summed up the central strategy of the Democrat’s all-too predictable campaign: retread Obama’s scorched earth tactics to cast Cuccinelli as anti-woman, all to cover up his glaring lack of substance. Independent fact checkers have repeatedly debunked mudslinging by the McAuliffe camp, including a recent ad accusing Cuccinelli of trying to ban forms of contraception. The ad opens with an image of a package of birth control pills, as a voiceover says,...

Can something as tragic and immoral as slavery become, if not less tragic, then noble, even righteous, in the telling? It can and it does in the capable hands of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose brilliant and compelling new six-part series for PBS called "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross" premieres Oct. 22 (check local listings). Gates, whose previous series, "African American Lives," chronicled the heritage of some famous and notable African Americans, takes us on a new journey that begins 500 years ago. While some of the history is familiar, Gates re-tells it in a...

Guy walks into a restaurant. Says to the waitress, "I'd like some scrambled eggs and some kind words." She brings the eggs. The guy smiles, "Now how about the kind words?" Waitress whispers, "Don't eat the eggs." This brings us to the fact that urban public school teachers are about two times more likely than non-teachers to send their own children to private schools. In other words, many public school teachers whisper to parents, "Don't eat the eggs." About 11 percent of all parents -- nationwide, rural and urban -- send their children to private schools. The numbers are much...

Lost in the news shuffle of the government shutdown and debt ceiling debate this week was the story progressives are quite happy you likely missed. But the story is important to note now, especially since we are on the verge of a massive expansion of the welfare state. The Electronic Benefits Transfer system went down for a couple of days. The EBT system replaced food stamps with a debit card to remove the stigma attached to using food stamps and is “reloaded” with a recipient’s government allotment once per month. When the money is gone, it’s gone, until the next...

<p>Senate Republicans emerged Wednesday from the Capitol meeting that ended the shutdown and debt ceiling crisis at least for a couple of months, saying, “Never again,” followed by, “I told you so.</p>

On his radio show recently, Glenn Beck urged his listeners to “defund the GOP.” Sarah Palin has threatened to leave the Republican Party; Rush Limbaugh calls it “irrelevant.” The Senate Conservatives Fund has targeted mainly incumbent Republican senators for defeat. Erick Erickson, one of the right’s most prominent commentators, wonders if what's coming is “a real third party movement that will fully divide the Republican Party.” Conservatives have declared war on the GOP. Tired of feeling taken for granted by a party that alternately panders to them and sells them down the river, in their view, Tea Partiers and others...

The 2,300 page healthcare law that took several days from writing to passage, and five years from passage to rollout will apparently take 50 years just to sign everyone up. According to Forbes only about 5,000 people have signed up using the federal exchange. They say that another 25,000 have signed up using the state exchanges through Friday. That’s 2,727 every day. At that rate, it will take 18,335 days to sign up all 50 million Americans “without insurance.” That means that it would take 50 years just to sign up everyone who isn’t covered now.* Who needs a...

Republicans and Democrats are still name-calling in their arguments over the government shutdown, out-of-control federal spending and the implementation of Obamacare. Yet if both sides would agree to just follow the earlier advice of President Obama, tempers might cool and a deal could still be reached. And had President Obama himself just listened to earlier guidance from Barack Obama, his opponents might have had no cause for either a government shutdown or another debt-ceiling crisis. In 2006, Obama rightly called for an end to the Bush administration's intemperate deficit spending that had resulted in an annual deficit of $250 billion...

The news this week of two arrests in the case of a 12-year-old suicide is a reminder of how middle school drama can go awry. When personality clashes move from misunderstanding and conflict to tormenting and bullying, and when there appears to be no safe place -- terrible events can occur. Last month, 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick, of Winter Haven, Florida, jumped to her death from the top of an abandoned concrete plant. The two arrests this past weekend included a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old who were charged with aggravated stalking. Posts online from the 14-year-old's Facebook account led Grady...

Texas, for starters. Between his 21-hour non-filibuster to halt Obamacare, his impassioned, hard-line speech at the right-wing Values Voters Summit, and his meeting with House Republicans at the mediocre Mexican joint, Tortilla Coast, it’s clear Ted Cruz has been conducting the shutdown train, even as the country heads into default and his party heads over a cliff. Just about every write-up of the man portrays a smart and opportunistic political mind, eager to be, as The Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith puts it, “the Tea Party’s one true standard-bearer.” But is his strategy just crazy? Pundits in Washington can’t decide what...

Damn those extreme Republicans. President Obama and White House press secretary Jay Carney have found Republicans guilty of extortion and blackmail. Joe Biden, per a report in Politico, once christened Republicans as terrorists. Liberals have led a media assault, calling the GOP anarchists, jihadists, "gun to head" hostage takers, and the political equivalent of the Taliban. White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer has likened Republicans to suicide bombers "with a bomb strapped to their chest." What could be more extreme? The Democratic Party. True, the Ted Cruz wing in the House of Representatives is relentless, uncompromising and unmoved by practicality. As...

IT DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF 'SETTLED LAW' IS October 16, 2013 No major legislation has ever been passed like Obamacare -- and I'm using the word "passed" pretty loosely. It became law without both houses ever voting on the same bill. (Say, is the Constitution considered "settled law"?) Not one Republican voted for it -- and a lot of Democrats immediately wished they hadn't. Historically, big laws have been enacted with large, bipartisan majorities. In 1935, President Roosevelt enacted Social Security with a 372-33 vote in the House and 77-6 in the Senate. In 1965, Medicare passed...

A single scene at the World War II Memorial in Washington last Sunday summed up the whole, disgraceful spectacle that is the Great Shutdown of 2013. Instead of storming beaches, our veterans had to storm their own war memorial in order to get in. If that isn't enough to shame the feckless politicians in the nation's capital, nothing will. And it won't. Because they have no shame. They're politicians. At this point our pols seem a lot more interested in blaming the opposition for this continuing outrage than doing anything meaningful to end it. Result: Between our two "great"...

When a liberal reporter asked Steve Lonegan if “Sarah Palin was too far-right for New Jersey,” Lonegan did what Republican candidates for Senate have not done in recent memory: He went on offense. “I don’t think it’s far right to support small business owners and to support taxpayers who are struggling,” he shot back. “Sarah Palin is a wonderful mother. She was also a wonderful governor and an excellent role model for women.” That’s not how Republicans coming out of the Northeast typically respond when they encounter a hostile reporter. And if you ask Amy Kremer, chair of the Tea...

The 1973 October War was the Arab-Israeli war Israel almost lost. Historians generally attribute Israel's costly victory to two Israeli lapses, a successful enemy deception operation and a very astute Egyptian war plan. The lapses and enemy deception scheme still shape Israeli security policy, especially toward Iran and its nuclear weapons program. Israel's first lapse occurred when its intelligence services failed to detect the size and scale of enemy military preparations. Spies noticed more tanks on Syria's side of the Golan Heights and increased activity on Egypt's side of the Suez Canal. However, they failed to discern the Syrian and...

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- To end the U.S. government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling without accepting any meaningful Republican conditions, U.S. President Barack Obama has resorted to falsehoods, wounded American democracy and damaged U.S. global leadership. The president has accused the House GOP majority of refusing to pay bills Congress has already racked up, not doing its job and defying the outcome of the 2012 election. The $17 trillion outstanding national debt funded past spending and raising the debt ceiling is all about the government spending more than it taxes going forward. The U.S. Constitution requires...

Parents of high school students in Montgomery County School District in Maryland were outraged recently by a survey given to sophomores under the new Common Core education standards. The survey asked numerous intrusive questions that a school has no business asking students. Among them were questions like "what is your sexual orientation," "what's your religion," "what's your parents' political affiliation" and "should assault rifles be banned?" Angry parents notified the news website The Blaze about the survey, and shortly after a Blaze reporter began to ask about it, the survey disappeared from the Poolesville High School website. According to The...

What do America’s college students want? They want to be oppressed. More precisely, a surprising number of students at America’s finest colleges and universities wish to appear as victims — to themselves, as well as to others — without the discomfort of actually experiencing victimization. Here is where global warming comes in. The secret appeal of campus climate activism lies in its ability to turn otherwise happy, healthy, and prosperous young people into an oppressed class, at least in their own imaginings. Climate activists say to the world, “I’ll save you.” Yet deep down they’re thinking, “Oppress me.” In his...

The Department of Defense this month took what almost certainly will be the most telling symbolic act the Obama administration ever takes. "The doors to the Kings Bay Chapel were locked on Oct. 4, 2013, with the Holy Eucharist, Holy water, Catholic hymn books and vessels all locked inside," says a lawsuit filed Monday by the Thomas More Law Center. "Father Leonard and his parishioners ... were prohibited from entering." Catholics believe Jesus Christ is present in this world in many ways, but uniquely and most especially in the Eucharist. "In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist, the body...

This week, massive crowds of veterans descended onto Washington, D.C., to protest the Obama administration's vindictive shutdown of open-air memorial sites -- sites that require no guards but were fenced off simply to make Americans miserable as a bargaining chip in the government shutdown negotiations. Veterans, including many wheelchair-bound veterans from World War II, overturned the barricades placed at memorials by the administration and proceeded to carry them to the White House. The media covered the men and women who attended the so-called Million Vet March by suggesting that they were racists and terrorists and hoping that politicians allied with...

If the near-collapse of the ObamaCare computer system were temporary, that would be bad enough. But the real problem isn’t the computer system — it’s the law itself. -snip The problem is as it always was: America’s health-care system is vastly complicated and enormously expensive. But it worked fairly well for most people, with some 80 percent saying they were satisfied. That was before ObamaCare, which twists, squeezes and taxes the whole system as part of an incomprehensible plan to “fix” it. The law won’t work because it can’t. It fails for the same reason that all massive utopian plans...

The nannycrats in Brussels and the IMF keep pressuring Spain to hike the VAT and Spain does every time. The results are easily predictable. Via translate from El Econimista, please consider VAT Rise is "Catastrophic" Anged, the "Association of Large Distribution Companies" suffered a 7.2% drop in sales through August, the biggest drop in sales since the crisis began. Anged companies include El Corte Ingles, Carrefour, Auchan, Tesco, Ikea, Media Markt, Leroy Merlin and Toys R'Us. Employer, Alfonso Merry del Val, said the increase in VAT has been "catastrophic". Data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) show that sales in...

Many can remember as youngsters doing something wrong, for which they knew punishment was deserved. In order to avoid the punishment, they would try to create a diversion of some type in order to distract the attention of parents or teachers who, hopefully, would not notice or would forget about the original infraction. The PC world of the secular progressives still uses this tactic quite effectively when they try to refocus attention on an individual or organization that opposes their agenda. This was certainly the case last week, when at the Values Voter Summit in Washington D.C., I stated that...

Ted Cruz and his followers represent Jacksonian America: angry... More than a decade ago, before the post-9/11 national fervor set in, Walter Russell Mead published an insightful essay on the persistent "Jacksonian tradition" in American society. Jacksonians, he argued, embrace a distinctive code, whose key tenets include self-reliance, individualism, loyalty and courage. Jacksonians care as passionately about the Second Amendment as Jeffersonians do about the First... --snip-- Many frustrated liberals, and not a few pundits, think that people who share these beliefs must be downscale and poorly educated. The New York Times survey found the opposite. Only 26% of tea-party...

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Bill Clinton. In part, that’s because economic freedom increased and the burden of government spending was reduced during his time in office. Partisans can argue whether Clinton actually deserves the credit for these good results, but I’m just happy we got better policy. Heck, Clinton was a lot more akin to Reagan that Obama, as this Michael Ramirez cartoon suggests. Moreover, Clinton also has been the source of some very good political humor, some of which you can enjoy here, here, here, here, and here. Most recently, he even made...

Four decades ago this month, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) launched an oil embargo against the United States in retaliation for our steadfast support of Israel in her hour of need. As the Jewish State fought off the Soviet-backed Egyptian and Syrian armies in what would become known as the Yom Kippur War, the OPEC cartel’s actions sent the price of oil soaring and our economy into a recession. Sadly, 40 years later, we have not learned the appropriate lesson from that experience: We must disconnect our oil-dependent transportation sector from OPEC and the...

Apparently the qualifications for becoming an MSNBC anchor consist primarily of being able to ask Republicans the intellectual equivalent of “when did you stop beating your wife?” Which explains how Thomas Roberts got the gig. While interviewing Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Roberts posed the following question: MSNBC Anchor To GOP Congresswomen: Do You Hate Obamacare More Than You Love Your Country? Understandably Blackburn seemed at an initial loss with her answer to the audacious and ideological insult, which Roberts had so cleverly disguised as an inappropriate question. Then again, he does work for MSNBC. He may seriously believe that...

The World Health Organization estimates that 1 in 3 Somalis are mentally ill due to their country’s constant violence and abuse of the Khat narcotic. Somali science however came up with a surefire cure for the crazies. Lock the patient up in a room with a hyena and wait for the ugly beast to see the demons causing the madness and drive them out. Somali medicine, like American medicine, however suffers from rising health care costs. A session with a trained psychiatric hyena costs 560 dollars in a country where the average national salary is 190 bucks putting a Mogadishu...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Obama’s Ongoing Betrayal of America’s Sacrifices in IraqPosted By Arnold Ahlert On October 16, 2013 @ 12:27 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 4 Comments On Oct. 5, a suicide bombing just outside a graveyard in Baghdad killed 51 people, many of them Shi’ite pilgrims on their way to a shrine. The attack, commonplace in today’s Iraq, is symptomatic of a nation once again on the brink of civil war. The media largely ignore these ongoing horrors, and for very obvious reasons: it is becoming more evident by the day that the disintegration of Iraq may have...

There has been a just degree of criticism directed towards the Guardian over the results of their readers’ poll on the Nobel Peace Prize in which 76% of respondents chose Hassan Rouhani from a list (compiled by their journalists) which included the brave Pakistani girl – shot by the Taliban for advocating on behalf of girls’ education – named Malala Yousafzai. (see charts at website) Rouhani was nominated by Saeed Kamali-Dehghan, who has served as one of the paper’s chief promoters of the lie that the new Iranian president is a “moderate” despite Rouhani’s involvement in terror attacks abroad and...

In a much-discussed post titled "Five Thoughts on the ObamaCare Disaster," the Washington Post's Ezra Klein manages to cycle through the first three of Elisabeth Kübler Ross's five stages of grief: • Denial. "In the weeks leading up to the launch I heard some very ugly things about how the system was performing when transferring data to insurers--a necessary step if people are actually going to get insurance. I tried hard to pin the rumors down, but I could never quite nail the story, and there was a wall of official denials from the Obama administration. It was just testing,...

Some tasks are occasionally necessary, though unpleasant. (Oops. My mind just drifted to that plastic bag you must carry with you when walking your dog.) Hunting down that roach your wife is just absolutely certain she saw scampering across the bedcovers would be one; talking to Harry Reid might be another. I’ll leave the roach to you. That’s what the Yellow Pages are for. Unfortunately the Yellow Pages are going to be of no help if you find yourself trying to make sense out of, or talk sense into, Harry Reid. Now Harry likes to throw around a lot of...

"Think for a moment about the term 'Redskins,'" NBC Sports commentator Bob Costas exhorted viewers in his halftime tirade during Sunday's Cowboys-Redskins game. "Ask yourself what the equivalent would be, if directed [at] African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, or members of any other ethnic group. When considered that way, 'Redskins' can't possibly honor a heritage or a noble character trait, nor can it possibly be considered a neutral term. "It is an insult, a slur, no matter how benign the present-day intent," Costas continued. This is ludicrous. I say this not as someone who has particular love for the Redskins...

The government shutdown has made it abundantly obvious that the anti-conservative news media and the anti-conservative Republican establishment have joined together to the point where it's almost impossible to see where one ends and the other begins. Some might say they merge every day on the set of "Morning Joe." The media have designated as Public Enemy No. 1 a recalcitrant bloc of tea party stalwarts who have declared their intention to stop Barack Obama's statist juggernaut from imposing the Obamacare monstrosity, running up trillion-dollar deficits year after year and in so doing destroying the private sector. Amazingly, liberal Republicans...

A lot of people are wondering when the stock market will get back to fundamentals now that Janet Yellen has been named to replace Ben Bernanke. I won't really, or at least not in the way traditionalists look at such things.

Last week's column discussed the political trade-offs made by black politicians and civil rights organizations that condemn whole generations of black youngsters to failing schools (http://tinyurl.com/6mmlsf). Similar political trade-offs in labor markets condemn many blacks, particularly black youths, to high rates of unemployment and reduced economic opportunities. Let's look at this, starting with a few historical facts. Today white teen unemployment is about 20 percent, while that for blacks is about 40 percent and more than 50 percent in some cities. In 1948, the unemployment rate of black 16-year-old and 17-year-old males was 9.4 percent, while that of whites was...

These days, being seen as a victim can be useful. You immediately claim the moral high ground. Some people want to help you. Lawyers and politicians brag that they force others to help you. This turns some people into whiners with little sense of responsibility. Joe Biden's niece was arrested recently for throwing a punch at a cop. The New York Post says she's addicted to alcohol and pills, but rather than take responsibility for her actions, she blamed them on the "pressure she faces" because her uncle is vice president. Give me a break. America was founded by people...

Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing. Jihadists never go on furlough. While shutdown theater preoccupies Washington, terror plotters remain on the clock. The question is: Will America keep hitting the post-9/11 snooze button? At Los Angeles International Airport, two dry ice bombs exploded this week, and two others were found in a restricted area of the airport. According to the Los Angeles Times, the devices "appeared to be outside the terminal near planes where employees such as baggage handlers and others work on the aircraft and its cargo." That reminds me: It's been more than a year since watchdogs warned Capitol...

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the Republicans DID compromise to avoid a shutdown. They were going to keep the government open, but asked that Obamacare be delayed. Yes, even Planned Parenthood would get their annual funding from the government. Senate Democrats under Harry Reid said no. … Given how the president’s approval rating has sunk to historic lows, this shutdown gives Obama a way to re-energize his stalled legislative agenda. He wasted the most precious moments of his second term on a gun control push that was never going to pass, and he was stuck in neutral until the...

Why are intellectuals, sometimes the most intelligent among us, so dumb? This is the question that confounds everyone; some intellectuals most of all. The late William F. Buckley Jr., a certified egghead, once said he would rather be governed by the first 50 names in the Boston telephone book than by the professors at Harvard. Another wit observes that an intellectual is someone who so prefers theory over experience that he would sit down on a red-hot stove, twice. You can be too smart for your own good, and have the blisters on your bottom to prove it. The intellectual...

Just when you thought the news from Washington couldn’t get any worse, a reader who is well connected on the Hill writes: We have it on good authority that Congressmen Cantor and Ryan are determined to pivot to immigration just as soon as a budget agreement is reached. It will be a short-term budget agreement, so if Republicans and conservatives are smart, they can achieve a double-whammy by avoiding default yet keeping the focus on Obamacare and the budget (where we can win) while simultaneously preventing action on immigration that could lead to disastrous policy changes. Well, that’s the optimistic...