Free Republic

With today's news of Saab's death and Volvo's impending sale to China, what brand is left to fill "English Dept. Faculty Only" parking spaces at liberal institutions of higher ed? More bluntly, what will latté-swilling liberal Northeasterners drive now?

People such as George Soros and Michael Moore certainly talk a good game, but the next Mother Teresa they are not. Mother Teresa never criticized the free-market system; wealth just wasn't for her. Soros and Moore are quite the opposite. They will never take a vow of poverty and dedicate themselves to helping the poor. They just want our civilization to take a vow of poverty and become poor. This has caused many to wonder: How can someone preach socialism while being the most rapacious "capitalist" imaginable? Well, I have a theory about this. It has often been observed that...

Sarah Palin may draw ecstatic crowds in "real America," but among Republican insiders in Washington, she's not so popular. National Journal's annual Insiders Poll issue will come out Friday, but we've got some early results; the most interesting finding is how many GOP insiders and members of Congress listed Palin as one of their least favorite members of the party. Palin was the top response when 85 GOP strategists and insiders were asked, "Which voice in your party would you most like to mute?" 28 percent listed Palin; Republican National Committee Chairman Michael came in second, with 12 percent. [...]...

Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough. On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world", which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200. "We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report." Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals...

Shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue in Washington, D.C. recently, Maria Shriver and her daughter left all the clothes the daughter tried on -- but didn't purchase -- on the floor of the dressing room. The sales staff was shocked that Shriver allowed her daughter, whose father is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to leave her rejects in a pile during their visit in mid-October. "She left the dressing room in a shambles," according to a sales clerk. "Why doesn't Maria Shriver teach her daughter manners and respect for others?" Shriver writes: "My role model, like most daughters, was my mother. She...

Anti-establishment aging hippies from the 1960s are now the Czars having a field day with a Marxist agenda. In the upside down world that comes with Barack Obama in the White House, everything is a prop—including Old Glory. “One of the 20 finalists in health care video contest run by Barack Obama’s campaign arm features a mural of an American flag splattered with health care graffiti until it’s covered completely by black paint.” (politico.com, Oct. 28, 2009.) “The video is accompanied by the sound of a heart monitor pumping and then flat-lining—words such as “pre-existing conditions”, “homeless” and “death panel”...

France's leading high society magazine has today produced a devastating portrait of Carla Bruni as the country's new Marie Antoinette. Point de Vue presents the 41-year-old First Lady as a daffy multi-millionaire socialite who does very little real work, and who is completely out of touch with ordinary people. The attack by the Paris weekly, which specialises in covering the lives of aristocrats and European royalty, will come as a huge blow to President Nicolas Sarkozy as he tries to play down his monarchichal style.

President Obama's school age daughters have not been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the vaccine is not available to them based on their risk.

Apparently Governor Palin's timely entry into the debate offended the sensibilities of Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. In an article in the Financial Times, Ornstein was asked to comment: “The dollar has always been a testosterone issue among America’s political classes,” says Norm Ornstein, a veteran analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “This time there may be a legitimate debate to be had over the dollar’s reserve status, but Sarah Palin is not qualified to participate in it.”

We used to think that this was fantasy. Welcome to the coming reality sponsored by America's "cosmopolitan" elite who "know" what is good for the rest of America.

To paraphrase T.S. Eliot “this is the way freedom ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

Ralph Nader has been many things: lawyer, consumer-rights bulldog, political activist and perennial third-party presidential candidate. He has now added a new title to his business card: fiction writer. His latest book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, is a 700-page populist fantasy in which a small group of billionaires and media moguls — led by Warren Buffett and including Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue — pool their massive resources to reform the U.S. With the help of a $15 billion war chest and a p.r. campaign starring a talking parrot, the group successfully...

Obviously, the "main stream" media are hard of hearing and seeing. About 2 million mad-as-hell taxpayers assembling in Washington, D.C. for the largest-ever (most well-behaved ever, most respectful ever) protest did not make it onto their radar screens (or our TV screens). They need our help. Maybe we cannot repeat an assembly of 2 million mad-as-hell taxpaying patriots in one place, but surely those who longed to go and couldn't would love to be a part of Operation "Can You Hear Us Now?" I'll bet for every one patriot who went to D.C. there are 10-20 more who wished they...

Beneath its idyllic exterior, Martha's Vineyard – beloved holiday destination of America's well-heeled – is rife with depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic violence. America's First Family will wave goodbye to Martha's Vineyard tomorrow after a week's holiday on an island whose name is rarely uttered without the epithet "idyllic". As President Obama flies his family back home to Washington, they will rapidly be followed by an armada of private jets from the tiny local airport. After next weekend's Labour Day holiday, the exodus of billionaire businessmen, media tycoons and Hollywood stars who summer on the island will be complete....

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AFP) – President Barack Obama, three former presidents and the nation's elite gathered Saturday at a grand Catholic funeral for Edward Kennedy, America's legendary political patriarch. A who's who of the country's movers and shakers, including much of the US Congress, crammed into the pews of the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a historic church in Boston. Obama was to deliver the eulogy at the Mass, after which Kennedy's flag-draped coffin was to be flown to Washington for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, alongside his assassinated elder brothers John and Robert. Earlier, Kennedy's widow, Vicki, fought...

Are you ready? Here's a quick lesson in African American social history. For more than a century, the East Coast black elite, including prominent artists, intellectuals and financially secure professionals, has gathered on the island of Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts, to relax and spend time with one another. By tradition, other ethnic groups do the same, and while the groups mingle socially, they largely live in segregated communities on the island. The black community has always summered near the town of Oak Bluffs, on the Island's northern coast. virtualtourist.comDock at Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard The idea that...

As the first family departs for Martha’s Vineyard, Patricia Williams says the trip illuminates their delicate relationship with the black upper class—a clubby world of debutantes and BMWs. When President Barack Obama appointed Valerie Jarrett as his senior advisor and Desiree Rogers as White House social secretary, there was, among the mainstream media, a bit of muffled gasping about from where on earth such designer-clad doyennes might have emerged. In what hidden universe do black people exist who can actually distinguish a fish knife from a shoe horn? And are there more of them? In what hidden universe do black...

See article for story...Forbes did a story yesterday regarding this story and here is a quote: "Just in time for back to school, mall mainstay J.C. Penney got interesting. Thanks to a nasty New York Times review of its new store across from competitor Macy's ( M - news - people ) in New York's Herald Square, fans from Savanna to San Francisco as well as bloggers and journalists kept J.C. Penney ( JCP - news - people ) in print for a week solid. They're irate with writer Cintra Wilson and her comments regarding the "obese mannequins" and "Middle...

Barney Frank has a heated town hall with his constituents. At one point, the local party chairman attempts to remove a constituent from the meeting.

The face-off between the ruling party and the people continues to unfold, as Democrat politicians hold town hall meetings across the country to build support for the Obama administration's latest power grab, misleadingly labeled 'health care reform.' The faux outrage politicians manufacture on demand has been replaced by real outrage. Outrage at the American people for failing to understand the nuances, the broad outline of a 1,000 page plus bill that most politicians haven't even read. Hey, that's what staff is for, explained new Democrat, Arlen Spector. Peons from fly-over country are daring to challenge the carefully scripted and (deliberately?)...

THE best moment of almost every YouTube video of the raucous town-hall meetings on health care is the same: It's the nonplussed look on the face of the senators and congressmen who have rarely suffered such indignity. Be assured: No one talks to them that way in the "members only" elevators in the US Capitol. Nancy Pelosi and Co. insist that the town-hall protesters are the tools of special interests. Not likely. Almost all of the special interests have been enticed or bullied into cooperating with ObamaCare. President Obama and the Democrats may still imagine themselves insurgents storming the gates,...

"In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much",she said. "See, that's why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service". --Michelle Obama-- ...No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession. Just think Mary Lincoln...

See Video at link. Barbara Boxer complains that protestors at the Town Hall meetings, etc. aren't well dressed!

Barbara Boxer is on to us, chums. Last evening, California's junior senator appeared on MSNBC and averred that those of us protesting the Democrats' health care reform are far too well-dressed to be authentic. Alas, I knew I should have left my spats and walking stick back at the manor. "I saw some of the clips of people storming these townhall meetings," multi-millionaire Sen. Boxer told  multi-millionaire Chris Matthews. "The last time I saw well-dressed people doing this, was when Al Gore asked me to go down to Florida when they were recounting the ballots, and I was confronted with...

No wonder California is a disaster , they elect idiots like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV84OBtGpSQ

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) appeared on Hardball last night in support of the Left’s attempt to discredit the people showing up to townhalls in protest of ObamaCare. Boxer says she can tell that they’re fakes, because they’re too well dressed. How does she know that this is a problem? Because well-dressed people apparently told her to get the hell out of Florida in the Bush-Gore recount, too: That explanation is a classic. If it’s true at all, she probably stunned the Floridians with the sheer stupidity of her non-sequitur. Ronald Reagan would not have gone into Florida to tell them...

Walter Russell Mead Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, CFR: ### “Birthers,” like other fringe groups of angry, obsessional conspiracy-theorists who pop up in American society from time to time, are not, as a group, particularly dangerous. Like those who believe that 9/11 was a CIA plot, or those who thought that FDR knowingly permitted the attack on Pearl Harbor, they remind us that some of our fellow citizens are so alienated from the normal channels of communication and information in our society that any allegation seems more credible than the predictable denials of...

First reactions are always telling. When a person is caught unprepared and speaks off the cuff, you can see their true beliefs. By calling the actions of Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley "stupid," Obama showed his true feelings. He moved from being the post-racial president and revealed that counter to his election campaign protests to the contrary, he was listening to the sermons of hate-mongering Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But even more troubling, Obama demonstrated his arrogance, a very dangerous character flaw for a president to possess. Near the end of his primetime news conference, Obama cavalierly answered a question on...

Did Harvard’s Professor Gates sink Obama? On July 21, Dick Morris commented in The Hill that superficially, the United States appears to have a presidential system, but in fact it more and more resembles a parliamentary form of government. When a president loses the approval of the majority of the voters and polls reflect that his ratings have fallen substantially below 50 percent, he loses his power. Then on Saturday, the Rasmussen Reports Daily Tracking Poll reported that for the first time 49 percent of voters say they only somewhat approve of the president's performance. This was the second straight...

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard writes: A friend sends along this link, apropos my comment last night on the Special Report panel that President Obama’s instinctive identification with Professor Gates (and his willingness to attack Sergeant Crowley without knowing the facts) was as much about class as race. In a short note in the August 2007 Travel and Leisure magazine, Gates explains why Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard is his favorite place: “I started going to Oak Bluffs in 1981 and fell in love with the light. It reminded me of the light in the south of France, near...

Return to the Article July 24, 2009Hating Sarah Palin - and UsBy Stuart Schwartz Any way you look at it, it's us vs. them. The media elite hate Sarah Palin with a passion -- the same passion they have used for decades to rant about us. We are the "primitive strain," the "booboisie," or, as The New York Times put it, the "Philistines." We are a people, according to Times columnist Maureen Dowd, that displays a "reptilian American desire " for prosperity and an innate disrespect for culture and our betters, who are the political and media elite that...

I think it's pretty clear that Sarah Palin doesn't really want to be president. However, she understands how desperately this country needs reform and, if no one else is available who can get the job done, she likely will take off her apron, put down her hunting rifle, dust herself off and run for the office. One thing is sure. She will have to climb over the GOP establishment before she gets to the White House.

The word is out that the Obamas will be spending part of their summer vacation in Martha's Vineyard. "Many blacks from Oak Bluffs are elated that the Only One-in-Chief may be joining them. "People are going to lose their minds!" Tonya Lewis Lee says. At the same time, there's also a bit of wariness among the wealthiest ones, an uncertainty whether Obama will affirm them. "Obama is more a man of the people," says a Vineyarder who's part of black high society. "He doesn't seem to identify with affluent black people. His wife definitely doesn't; she is basically a ghetto...

For much of the Bush administration, the media splashed stories of neoconservative conspiracies and cabals. Exposés about mostly Jewish liberals-turned-conservatives charged that they were adherents of the philosopher Leo Strauss and embraced the Platonic notion of the “noble lie.” In his Republic, Plato outlined an elaborate, ranked utopia, a good city (“Kallipolis”) run by a sort of benign natural selection. The philosopher-kings sat atop hierarchies in which occupations were assigned for the citizenry. To justify arbitrary selections, the rulers would make up “noble lies” about divine edicts, making clear that the occupations chosen for lesser folk were god-given. Once the...

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California instructs Brigadier General Michael Walsh not to call her "ma'am," the sign of respect shown by members of the military towards non-military ... she wants to be called "Senator," because gosh darn it, she worked hard for that position. No further comment necessary, but I'm looking forward to them anyway. Words fail.

Sotomayor defends all-women's group By: Kenneth P. Vogel and Josh Gerstein June 15, 2009 07:50 PM EST Sonia Sotomayor on Monday defended her membership in an elite women’s only group, arguing that it’s not discriminatory because men might be able to join the Belizean Grove, too, if they applied. “Men are involved in its activities-they participate in trips, host events, and speak at functions –but to the best of my knowledge, a man has never asked to be considered for membership,” the Supreme Court nominee wrote in a Monday letter responding to an array of concerns raised by Republicans on...

So much for the Obama common touch. After whisking his wife to Manhattan for dinner and a Broadway show last weekend, President Obama is treating his family to a Paris vacation - paid for, in part, by taxpayers. The White House confirmed yesterday that first lady Michelle Obama, their two daughters, and his mother-in-law will fly today to the City of Lights to join the president, who has scheduled meetings with French officials and will appear at a ceremony tomorrow in Normandy marking the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Last year on the campaign trail, the Obamas prided themselves on staying...

Even before the Obamas left Washington, the there-and-back trip drew criticism from Republicans who questioned the president's decision to travel to New York for a night of entertainment during a recession and while automakers struggle to survive. His public schedule listed no official events, so President Obama had plenty of time to devote to being a weekend dad and spouse. The president and first lady Michelle Obama watched daughter Malia's soccer game for an hour Saturday morning in the Palisades neighborhood, a short drive from the White House. For the evening, the first couple jetted to New York City for...

The King and Queen of America went on a date in New York City tonight. Unlike other couples, Barack and Michelle Obama's night on the town cost the American taxpayer upwards of a miilion dollars.While there is a chance Barack paid for their dinner and theater tickets, it is a certainty that taxpayers were hit up for the massive costs of a presidential movement that involved three Gulfstream jets, cargo planes to preposition Marine helicopters, presidential limousines and other motorcade vehicles, travel, hotel and per diem costs for Secret Service advance teams, background checks on the restaurant and theater employees,...

It would be funny if the stakes — the future direction of this country for many years to come — weren’t so high. It’s still hard not to feel just a bit of schadenfreude watching many of Barack Obama’s supporters, particularly those who are among the well-positioned or financially well-off, fidget, whine, and moan as they discover what those of us who actually researched and studied the guy before the election knew about him. Slowly but surely it is dawning on many of these elites that Obama is exactly what he was in rare unguarded moments during his presidential campaign,...

Many years ago, political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion. And on some issues, they clearly do. But on some issues, they don't. Two examples of the latter phenomenon are conspicuous at a time when Barack Obama enjoys the approval of more than 60 percent of Americans and Democrats have won thumping majorities in two elections in a row. One is global warming. The other is gun control. On both issues, the elites of academe, the media and big business have been solidly on one side for years. But on both, the American public has...

What’s the matter, Michelle? Did the White House food taster quit?

Will Michelle Obama be dropping a thank-you note to to Nia-Malika Henderson? Interviewed on MSNBC today, the Politico reporter dismissed the suggestion that it was a mistake for the First Lady to turn up at a food bank wearing $540 French sneakers. For good measure, Henderson slipped in an invidious comparison with Ronald Reagan’s beloved, referring to her as “Queen Nancy.” Here was the exchange between Henderson and the MSNBC host:

First Lady's $540 Sneakers By French Designer Sparks Controversy

New viral video star and Harvard Grad student Joel Pollak joins EC to talk about how the video of Joel asking Frank a simple, direct question and Barney Frank's hysterical and intimidating response has become an instant symbol of the government's heavy-handed elitism, and what light his prior experience writing speeches for the opposition party in South Africa sheds on this conflict. Get the LAST WORD on the day's news and events direct from EC every night. The hottest grass-roots radio show in America delivers the last word on politics and news straight from the streets of New York City...

You may not have been aware of this, but on Saturday you were supposed to sit around in the dark for sixty minutes, starting at 8:30 PM, in order to celebrate "Earth Hour." Now, you may be wondering: what exactly would that accomplish? I'm not entirely sure what the answer to that question is supposed to be, but I think the general theory was that the darkness was going to inspire legions of dirt faeries to fly in, sprinkle magic Pixie dust everywhere, and that was supposed to cool the earth off -- or something. I don't even think the...

There should be no more arrests or convictions for tax fraud, non-payment of taxes or vehicular homicide until Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Senator Ted Kennedy are tried for their "alleged" crimes! Are we a republic or an oligarchy? Why do powerful men and women get off scot-free when lower and middle-class people rot in a jail cell or prison for similar (or lesser) crimes?! "Equal Justice Under The Law" is what's inscribed on the front of the Supreme Court building in Washington! When will that become a reality?! We are either a nation of laws or men, we cannot...

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has gone from frequent flier to jet-aircraft connoisseur, with aides berating military officials to get the best planes, e-mails revealed yesterday Pelosi, who clashed with the military to get nonstop service when she flies home to California with police protection on government planes, revealed a particular fondness for Gulfstream's sleek G-5 - a plane glamorized in Hollywood films and rap videos. "It is my understanding there are no G-5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable . . . The speaker will want to know where the planes...

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) was greeted with a smattering of applause. But half a dozen other senators sauntered through without a murmur from the rubber-neckers, who seemed most excited about catching a glimpse of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.