Free Republic

The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel headline for Sunday, October 25th screams:  "Swine flu a national emergency." Oh, really. Looks like President Obama has gone ahead and declared that the swine flu outbreak is indeed a national emergency.  And we know that Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel,  has stated in the past that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."   Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now has more power and authority to bypass federal rules regarding the operations of hospitals and alternative care sites.   And the government has taken another step towards grabbing more power in controlling the population of America because of Obama's...

Political worshippers of the new Messiah. These days, Obama worshippers file two kinds of columns. The first school is well represented by Ezra Klein, the elderly bobbysoxer of The American Prospect: Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.

Paying for cheap votes. A recent poll of New York University students found that two-thirds of them would trade their right to vote in the next election for a year’s tuition. And 20 percent said they’d give up their right to vote for the next president in exchange for a new iPod. Half said they’d sell their right to vote — forever — for $1 million. Now, none of this really tells us anything new. We know that lots of Americans, particularly young ones, don’t place much value on their right to vote. If they did, they’d vote more.