Free Republic

Rick Santorum continued to lambaste President Obama's healthcare policy during a Tuesday night campaign stop in Boise, Idaho, labeling members of the administration as "elite snobs." "They don't believe you can make these decisions," Sanatorium said to a packed high school auditorium. "They need to makes these decisions for you because if you were left to make decisions you will obviously jump off a cliff.

Dear Chairman Preibus, I am writing an open letter to you in hopes that you will do the right thing and make the Florida Republican Party abide by the rules of the Republican National Committee. The state of Florida deliberately snubbed its' nose at the party and the rules several months ago when it voted to hold the Florida primary early, which has already cost if 49 delegates out of the original 99 delegates allocated by the RNC. Now they further give the party the middle finger by allocating the remaining delegates as "winner-take-all", instead of the proportional allotment that...

One of Mitt Romney’s strongest assets as the GOP presidential front-runner is also a potentially serious liability in the race: his heavy reliance on a small group of millionaires and billionaires for financial support. A quarter of the money amassed by Romney’s campaign and an allied super PAC has come from just 41 people, each of whom has given more than $100,000, according to a Washington Post analysis of disclosure data. Nearly a dozen of the donors have contributed $1 million or more.

The South Carolina primary results have made President Obama a very happy man. He and his campaign high command know the longer the Republican nomination fight drags on, the less time the eventual nominee will have to turn his full attention and resources towards defeating Obama. Some strategists believe that a prolonged battle strengthens the candidate and prepares that person for the general election. The Hillary/Obama primary fight of 2008 is often cited as an example how a bruising battle helped to hone campaign skills and otherwise prepare the victor. However, in 2012, I disagree with this line of thinking....

No candidate has won the GOP nomination for President without winning South Carolina since Ronald Reagan in 1980. But every one of those candidates who won had also won either Iowa or New Hampshire. We’re now confronted with a designated front runner, Mitt Romney, who got less votes in Iowa in 2012 than he got in 2008 and who lost South Carolina. His reason for being somehow remains that he is “electable.” If you read a lot of the Republican commentary coming out of Washington even before the polls closed, suddenly South Carolina is irrelevant and the hick rubes of...

You hear that sound? Of course you do. It’s a dog whistle. I’m told that we conservatives (read: racists) use dog whistles all the time to clandestinely run down members of minority groups and others with whom we disagree. It is fascinating, I will concede, that the people we use these coded messages to badmouth—blacks, Latinos, etc.—often seem more adept at hearing the high-frequency whistles than we do. Why, just today, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee became the latest member of the Congressional Black Caucus to call out Newt Gingrich for the “underlying suggestions” in his reference to Barack Obama as...

Glenn Reynolds is correct in his weekend post to point to the social theory of the New Class as key to understanding the convulsions in the middle and upper middle class; I’ve written about it myself here at VC and in a 1990s law journal book review essay. The angst is partly income, of course — but it’s also in considerable part, as Glenn notes, “characterized as much by self-importance as by higher income, and is far more eager to keep the proles in their place than, say, [Anne] Applebaum’s small-town dentist. It’s thus not surprising that as its influence...

BEIJING — A rich Chinese couple who had eight babies with the help of two surrogate mothers has been forced to move out of their villa following a public uproar and could face a large fine for breaching strict family planning laws mandating only one child. The couple in the booming southern metropolis of Guangzhou had the children last year, according to state media, but the story only came to light after a picture of the children — four boys and four girls — was used by a photography studio in an advertisement. The story was first featured in the...

Anti-whaling activists said they had intercepted the Japanese harpoon fleet far north of Antarctic waters Sunday with the help of a military-style drone. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society spokesman Paul Watson said the unmanned long-range drone, launched from the anti-whaling ship the Steve Irwin, had located the Japanese fleet and relayed the coordinates back to the activists. Watson said Sea Shepherd, a militant activist group which annually shadows and harasses the Japanese whalers, had caught up with the fleet at 37 degrees south, 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) above Antarctic waters. No whales had been killed so far, he added. "This is...

... Never before have so many of the unemployed owed their job loss, not indirectly at all, but quite obviously directly, to the intentional, conscious directives of their president and his direct appointees, the czars and cabinet secretaries who have launched a direct frontal assault on industry after industry ever since their appointments. Consider: Car Dealers: In 2009, though everyone knew that the problems dooming Chrysler and General Motors were their enormous property and property tax obligations caused by too big, too old, factories, and their utterly unsupportable labor and pension costs, Barack Obama ordered the closure of over 3000...

Want Gingrich To Speak? He Needs ‘First Class Expenses’ and 2 Bathrooms By Dan Eggen December 7 Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential candidate with a penchant for luxury jets and Tiffany & Co. jewelry, also appears to demand top-notch accommodations when he travels for a speech. The Smoking Gun Web site, which specializes in unearthing revealing documents, has posted a copy of a speaking gig contract apparently signed by Gingrich for an appearance at Missouri Western State University in October 2010. The contract called for payment of “first class expenses,” including the hotel of Gingrich’s choice, and “first class airfare.”...

President Obama expressed confidence that “even if America fails, I have no fear that Sasha and Malia will suffer as a consequence.” Obama said his confidence springs from “two crucial truths—money and connections. My children will have the benefit of both. I’ve already made a few million dollars on my way up. There’ll be plenty more when I leave office—book advances, speaking fees, and leftover campaign donations, to name some.” “On top of the money I can give them will be the doors I have opened for them,” Obama added. “I’ve helped them escape from the dreadful public school system....

We live in interesting times. Even as our own civilization hangs on the precipice of financial solvency, the priorities of the uninformed masses as so distorted that many will actually camp out in front of a Best Buy store in order to be the first in line to save $100 on a big-screen TV. In a time when the very problems of society are rooted in over-consumption and too much television, the everyday pleebs place such high importance on expanding the size of their mainstream media hypnosis devices that they will physically fight each other to get one of these...

End-Game for USAF Competition? By Ed Timperlake November 20, 2011 11/20/2011 The headline in the Wichita Eagle says it all—“Hawker Beechcraft loses out on big Air Force contract” Reporter Dan Voorhis writing for The Wichita Eagle, (November 18 2011) points out that; “Hawker Beechcraft Corp. says the Air Force has informed the company that it lost out on a military contract worth nearly $1billion. “The company had hoped to win the Light Air Support contract with its AT-6, an armed version of its T-6 trainer. But on Friday, the company said it received a letter from the Air Force saying...

People have been asking me all week if conservatives will stick with Herman Cain, but I think he's got a bigger problem than the conservative vote. A lot more women than conservatives vote, and the women I've talked to are finished with him. There's a new CBS poll which says that 38 percent of female Republican primary voters are "less likely to back him" now that more accusers have come forward. Among all registered voters, CBS reports that Cain has lost support among women since last month—from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. My sense is that 15...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (CBS Charlotte) – One man made sure a Charlotte motel was going to pay for him running out of toilet paper. Upset about the lack of toilet paper that was available in his room, a man destroyed $2,090 worth of hotel property on Monday, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report. The identity of the man remains unknown. The incident, which happened at the Charlottetown Manor, happened around 10 a.m. Monday. According to the report, the man grew irate after learning he didn’t have toilet paper and proceeded to walk upstairs to a vacant room that was being renovated....

Ever since he won the Florida U.S. Senate seat, folks have been talking up Marco Rubio's vice-presidential credentials. But Condoleezza Rice, who has been in the news a lot lately, is a better bet to be the No. 2 candidate for a Mitt Romney or Rick Perry candidacy. Here's why.

Forty two years ago, Oakland mayor-to-be Jean Quan was a U.C. Berkeley student-activist rallying for a movement dubbed the Third World Liberation Front of 1969. That movement would later give birth to the university's Ethnic Studies Department and influence universities across the country to integrate such a unique discipline. The department studies represent the history and experiences of marginalized people, especially people of color. Quan went on to become many things: union organizer, Oakland Board of Education member, Oakland City Council member, Chabot Space & Science Center board chair. As she tells on her own website jeanquan.org, in the beginning...

lesbian PhD candidate re-thinks campus sex. Once upon a time, feminists were hot to trot … to ostracize male professors for sex with students. Now women academics have found the benefits of sex between students and faculty is positive and empowering. According to the new dispensation, the entire issue of campus rules against sex between students and faculty gets in the way of “…being generally positive and reasonably friendly, arising out of mutual desire for sex and intimacy rather than an abuse of power by the teacher.” What else can you do with a doctorate in feminism?

An evil capitalist goes to Occupy Portland looking to help people find work. Most people just pass by. One prospective worker is apparently a felon. Another gentleman declines after asking if the work is from a union... others merely mock the capitalist, or are more concerned with publicizing their marches. Out of the hundreds of people there, most of which complain about being out of work, only about 15 signed up for work.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Someday, cultural historians will look back on the early 21st century and speculate about what killed the credibility of America’s so-called liberal-media elite. They will ask, Were the wounds self-inflicted or the product of a methodical plot? Make no mistake about it. We did this to ourselves. As a card-carrying member of the leftist media near-elite — alas, I’m not nearly rich or famous enough to be regarded as a 100% elitist — it pains me to see my brethren sinking like the sun in the west. But we have nobody to blame but ourselves. We’ve...

Yeah, Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll, crushing Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. And OK, a CBS poll recently found him tied with Romney among likely Republican primary voters. Sure, he also scored a resounding victory in another straw poll this weekend. And Rasmussen just today released the finding that 56% of GOP voters like Cain's 9-9-9 plan. So is that enough to make the Associated Press consider Cain a first-tier candidate? Nah. On MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" this morning, AP's political editor, Liz Sidoti, sniffed "we still consider him a second-tier candidate." View the video here.

The world savings rate has surpassed its modern-era high of 24pc. This is the killer in the global system. It is why we are at imminent risk of tipping into a second, deeper leg of intractable depression. In Europe, policy is still on deflationary settings, with protestors in Athens fighting back against austerity measures The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects the savings mountain to rise yet further next year as the governments of Europe, Britain, and the US tighten belts, in unison, by up to 2pc of GDP. This is double the intensity of the last big synchronized squeeze in...

MARIA GIL ULLDEMOLINS is a smart, confident young woman. She has one degree from Britain and is about to conclude another in her native Spain. And she feels that she has no future.Ms Ulldemolins belongs to a generation of young Spaniards who feel that the implicit contract they accepted with their country—work hard, and you can have a better life than your parents—has been broken. Before the financial crisis Spanish unemployment, a perennial problem, was pushed down by credit-fuelled growth and a prolonged construction boom: in 2007 it was just 8%. Today it is 21.2%, and among the young a...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry doesn’t have a reputation as the most scientifically inclined of candidates..... But there’s one kind of science that Perry is willing, even eager, to run on: political science. And that should have his opponents worried. In...“The VictoryLab,” Sasha Issenberg digs deep into Perry’s campaign organization, which he calls “the brainiest political operation in America.” After seven straight wins at the ballot box, Perry’s organization is also among the most fearsome in America. And there’s nothing unscientific about it. In fact, compared with Perry’s organization, every other campaign in America appears in denial of the evidence. The...

ou’ve probably already heard about the various threats caused by global warming: melting glaciers, extreme weather disturbances and endangering the habitat of the polar bear. Tomorrow, the Natural Resources Defense Council will add another concern to the list: the endangered winter sports fan. As the NRDC put it in a press release yesterday: Some of the top names in winter sports are going to the U.S. Capitol Thursday to ask lawmakers to stop efforts in Congress to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Media: Talk about the elite lagging behind a more sophisticated public. Newsweek, trying to overcome its slide into obscurity, thought it could grab attention by smearing Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann. Big mistake. The smear came in the form of this week's cover story, which tried unconvincingly to depict GOP presidential candidate and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann as "The Queen of Rage," with a cover shot that made her look maniacal. But if anything, Bachmann comes across as Thatcheresque in her unmovable opposition to more deficit spending. Question her opposition a journalist may do, but don't make it out as...

President Obama praised the sacrifice of 31 U.S. troops who died early Saturday morning in helicopter crash in Wardak Province, Afghanistan. The Taliban has claimed it shot down the aircraft with a rocket-propelled grenade. Seven Afghan soldiers on board the helicopter also died. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of the Americans who were lost earlier today in Afghanistan,” Obama said in a statement. “Their deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families, including all who have served in Afghanistan.” Obama said...

WASHINGTON -- The Associated Press has learned that more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among those lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/06/afghan-president-31-americans-killed-in-helicopter-crash/#ixzz1UGZcWiEh

Cuban ruler Raul Castro had blasted bureaucrats for blocking some of his ambitious reforms, an admission that one dissident economist said clearly outlines the shortcomings of his campaign for change. The biggest obstacle to his reforms is “the psychological barrier formed by inertia, the defense of the status quo, the simulation … the indifference or insensibility” of Cuba’s bureaucracy,.... “I warn that all bureaucratic resistance … will be useless,” he declared. “We will be patient and at the same time persevere in the face of the resistance to change, be they conscious or unconscious.” Castro’s reform plans call for an...

Detroit — General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson wants the federal gas tax boosted as much as $1 a gallon to nudge consumers toward more fuel-efficient cars, and he's confident the government will soon shed its remaining 26 percent stake in the once-bankrupt automaker. "I actually think the government will be out this year — within the next 12 months, hopefully within the next six months," Akerson said in a two-hour interview with The Detroit News last week. He is grateful for the government's rescue of GM — "I have nothing but good things to say about them" — but...

House Speaker John Boehner has broken into one of the most exclusive groups in Washington — the small circle of old friends and administration officials President Barack Obama has invited for a round of golf. Boehner, who sports a fairway tan and an 8 handicap, will tee off with Obama June 18 — marking one of the only times the leader of the free world will have played with a Republican or a fellow elected official and the first time he will have played with a sitting member of Congress.

Homeowner, who owns the land you live on? You might think you do, in America, but you'd be forgetting a few things. One) eminent domain: you could at any time lose you house if, say, your city or state wants to put in a freeway there. Two) County building codes: You can lose your house if it gets too weird, ugly, unsafe, or enough of an annoyance to neighbors. Yes. In the end, this is not as free a country as you think when it comes to home design. Ask former telephone tech Alan Kimble Fahey of Acton, CA, who...

The National Inflation Association (NIA) - http://inflation.us - is pleased to officially announce that it will soon be releasing its hour long documentary 'College Conspiracy', which will expose the U.S. college education system as the largest scam in U.S. history. NIA has been producing 'College Conspiracy' for the past six months and plans to release the movie on May 15th. NIA members will be given the first opportunity to watch this must see documentary, which we hope will change the college education industry for the better. NIA expects 'College Conspiracy' to take college education by storm and expose the facts...

If you’re wondering why the gun control community favors civilian disarmament, it’s all about personal responsibility. They don’t believe that Americans are responsible enough to own a gun. Why? I’ve got a simple list. But before I trot-out the terrible troika of gun grabbing gibberish, I want to highlight an important point: contrary to their public protestations about “good” vs. “bad” gun owners, gun control advocates do want to grab your guns. But they know they can’t. And not just because the Supreme Court says they can’t. Gun control advocates know there are several million Ted Nugent-types ready to do...

The video speaks for itself.

A video of a vicious beating at a Baltimore County McDonald's restaurant went viral Friday, garnering hundreds of thousands of views on various websites and prompting the fast food giant to issue a statement condemning the incident. The video was apparently first posted to YouTube, then taken down by administrators who said it violated the site's policies. But it sprung back up on various sites and was ultimately linked from the popular Drudge Report, which gave it top billing for much of the day. By mid-afternoon, the video had received 450,000 views on one site alone. The specific location of...

n the middle of a difficult re-election campaign, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on Friday was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee from a year-long investigation about whether mortgages he obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The committee, however, did scold the senior lawmaker for not being more careful in his dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid...

Cambridge has become the first university to announce that it will charge maximum tuition fees of £9,000 a year. But it will give hefty discounts to poorer students, which means the middle classes will bear the brunt of the move. MPs voted in December to raise tuition fees to £6,000 per year from 2012, with universities allowed to charge £9,000 in exceptional circumstances.

The global elite, dining on Norwegian lobster and reindeer at the end of the World Economic Forum on Saturday, felt pretty chipper despite growing concerns about the inequality of the economic recovery.

The single best column out of Davos this year has to be Anya Schiffrin’s piece titled “Jealous Davos Mistresses.” Schiffrin, who is the wife of Joseph Stiglitz, describes the caste system created by the nametags handed out to attendees at the Davos World Economic Forum. Here is how it works: everyone at Davos has to wear a name tag and these are color coded by status/occupation (speaker, organizer, journalist etc). Usually these name tags include some kind of affiliation, such as the company or organization you work for. But wives’ name tags state only their name. This means there is...

LAS VEGAS - When Rep. Shelley Berkley decided to hold a "Congress on Your Corner" event here Friday, her plan was to prove that fear hadn't changed the way Congress works. She wound up proving the opposite. [snip] Historically, the most dangerous part of a lawmaker's job has been not violence, but travel. At least 29 members of Congress have died in accidents involving planes, automobiles and ships. One, Rep. Larry McDonald (D-Ga.), was killed when a Soviet fighter jet shot down his airliner in 1983. Historians count six lawmakers who have been killed by strangers. They include a Republican...

<p>Political Clout: The Kennedys no longer have a family member in Congress, but their undue influence can still pressure a high-profile cable channel to suppress an unflattering $25 million biopic.</p> <p>Since 2007, A&E's History Channel has lured younger viewers and a bigger audience with reality series like "UFO Hunters." Sadly, the channel has axed a miniseries that was a cinch to give the History Channel its highest ratings ever.</p>

With the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” looking imminent, the next question on America’s mind is what a military with openly gay soldiers will look like. Most experts, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, believe that a repeal of the discriminatory law won’t at all endanger the military’s stability. And a large majority of enlisted troops agree with them. But what if a military that welcomes gays and lesbians with open arms doesn’t just not fall part, but actually shows remarkable improvement? For decades now, scientists seeking to understand why people...

This is perhaps the most realistic depiction of liberals and their fallacious arguments that I've watched. In conversations I've had with liberals, they say pretty much the exact same things as in this video... So it's quite enjoyable to watch them get swatted down one after the other! Liberalism Explained

The recent attacks on Sarah Palin by establishment conservatives make her Democratic opponents seem like wusses. The prospect of a Palin presidential candidacy in 2012 has obviously spooked the GOP elite. But do they have to be so mean? [snip -- he goes on at length, reciting nasty talking head comments about Sarah Palin] I wouldn't want to see Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House, let alone in the Oval Office with a nuclear arsenal at her disposal. That's not a likely scenario anyway, given her low standing among independents and Democrats. But the notion of a phalanx of...

Three crucial points underlie our crisis of culture in the Western world: 1) There is no culture, at least as we know it in the West, without the bourgeoisie. 2) The notion of egalitarianism, which in the last few hundred years has come to dominate our thinking, is wreaking havoc on Western culture. 3) By embracing the concept of egalitarianism, the bourgeoisie is precipitating the dissolution of our culture and the self-destruction of the middle class.[i] 1) Culture and the Middle Class The middle class has supplied most of the innovators in Western culture, science, and economics. The philosopher David...

As millions of hardworking Americans struggle to make ends meet, Senate staffers will participate next week in a two-day orgy of back massages, organic food tastings and milk mustache photos. It's all part of a health fair for the staffers, who enjoy some of the best health care in the country. Not only will they get health screenings, they'll also find out if their iPods are too loud. Neither the Senate's Education and Training Office nor the Senate sergeant-at-arms, which oversees the office, would say which vendors are providing the services or how much the health fair will cost taxpayers....

"From the price of arugula to vacations in Marbella, the Obamas are the perfect yuppie couple..."

Here’s a new entry into the GOP 2012 presidential field (and by new I mean so old he’s new again): Jeb Bush. On his show this morning Chris Matthews pondering “who might beat Barack Obama in 2012?” This of course is the question plaguing the Republican Party. For all the attention and hoopla surrounding Sarah Palin no one is really convinced that even if she could snag the Republican nomination she has any shot at beating President Obama in the general. Matthews points out that what Jeb — the Bush brother the family had originally intended for the White House...