Free Republic

Mitt Romney will begin raising money jointly with the Republican National Committee, as the GOP front-runner's campaign moves its focus from a protracted primary fight to the general election.The arrangement between the RNC and Romney camp would allow donors to contribute as much as $75,000 per person, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story. The joint committee would allow potential contributors to donate to multiple pro-Romney fundraising efforts simultaneously. Donors would be able to donate up to $2,500 to Romney's primary and general-election campaigns, $30,800 to the RNC and up to $40,000 to state Republican parties,...

Michelle Obama Wore a $2K+ Barbara Tfank Dress to State of the Union “As the President declared his intent to help buoy the 99% (“Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense,” he declared), his wife dazzled in a cobalt sheath from Barbara Tfank’s resort collection. While reps for the brand won’t reveal the item’s retail price, a similar style from the collection is currently available at Barney’s New York for $2,400.”

<p>The Obama administration is launching a new space arms-control initiative that critics say will lead to restrictions on U.S. military activities in space, a key U.S. strategic war-fighting advantage.</p> <p>Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce the initiative as early as Tuesday. The plan will be built on work contained in a European Union draft code of conduct for space that the Pentagon and State Department have criticized as too restrictive.</p>

By Jake Tapper Nov 21, 2011 Rush Limbaugh Says First Lady Was Booed Partly Because NASCAR Fans Hate Her ‘Uppityism’ On Sunday, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden visited Homestead Miami speedway to serve as ceremonial grand marshals of the Ford 400, where some in the crowd booed them. The White House downplayed the incident today, with the First Lady’s communications director Kristina Schake saying only that “Mrs. Obama was proud to join NASCAR in recognizing our nation’s veterans and military families to raise awareness of this important issue for all Americans. As she has always said, she...

George W. Bush-era energy policy wonks are finding a new home with Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor can count on support from a who’s who of former Bush officials willing to raise money, brainstorm policy ideas and generally help spread the word among the ranks of like-minded GOP energy experts. Already on board the Romney train are Jim Connaughton, who ran Bush’s White House Council on Environmental Quality for all eight years; former Assistant Energy Secretary Andy Karsner; former EPA air chief Jeff Holmstead; and former EPA congressional affairs liaison Edward Krenik. The former Bush officials all told POLITICO...

The Occupy Wall Street library has produced the first Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology. The founders seek poetry in all the languages of the world, building a “massive text of dissidence, a testament to the infinite beauty of the human spirit.”.... Poetry illuminates the soul of Occupy Wall St. A lot of people are asking, “What are the demands” and the poets voices show just how nuanced the human spirit and impossible a set of demands truly is. This occupation is about transforming consciousness and the poetry community is a major part of that process.

Herman Cain’s reign on top of the 2012 contender list may be coming to an end. That’s the impression Karl Rove gave during an appearance on Fox News this morning as he slammed the candidate as having “created an image of him not being up for this task” through a series of blunders. The conversation began with talk of Cain’s seemingly-confused stance on abortion. However, Rove then continued, pulling out an entire white board filled with missteps Cain had made thus far in the campaign. This all correlated with poll numbers that, according to Rove, show that Cain had already...

A look Back People just don’t disappear. Look at Germany in 1946 or Athenians in 339 B.C. They continue, but their governments and cultures end. Aside from the dramatic military implosions of authoritarian or tribal societies — the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the end of Nazism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the annexation of tribal Gaul — what brings consensual states to an end, or at least an end to the good life? The city-states could not stop 30,000 Macedonians in a way — when far poorer and 150 year earlier — they had stopped 300,000 Persians descending on many...

As Perry Rises, G.O.P. Elite Look Toward Romney By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL D. SHEAR TAMPA, Fla. — The rising presidential candidacy of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is stirring excitement for many Republican voters but is creating unease in some quarters of the party’s establishment, particularly over his views of Social Security, which are at the root of an intensifying competition with Mitt Romney. The decision on Monday by Tim Pawlenty, a former Republican presidential rival, to support Mr. Romney’s campaign signals the beginning of an effort by some party leaders to try to slow the ascent of Mr....

Recall, Obama was declared a genius of geniuses by the elites when he ran for president, based on admittance to Harvard Law and a few stirring speeches. Yet, once upon a time, some effort was made to connect education to that holy grail called “intelligence.” After all, wasn’t that the entire argument behind the support and development of the “Ivy League”? But as the average—meaning intellectually guileless—person now sees daily and proved by incontrovertible evidence, being an elite simply means you have been trained into sneering, illiterate idiocy. There is no longer any credible evidence suggesting elites and liberals understand,...

Rep. Anthony Weiner, the self-appointed scourge of diplomatic scofflaws in Manhattan, has racked up more than $2,000 in unpaid parking tickets around Capitol Hill. From 2007 to March of this year, Weiner's ticket total was 2,180 for violations near the Capitol and at Reagan Washington National Airport, Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, reported Tuesday. A Weiner spokesman said all of the fees have since been paid. Aides to the Queens Democrat claim that part of the problem may have that D.C. sent notices to a bad address. But Weiner "is pleased to have helped decrease the D.C. budget deficit,"...

It just keeps happening. NPR's leader ship keeps tripping over its microphone wires and then asking everybody else to plug them back in. I know everybody thinks I must be in a vindictive mood, celebrating the sudden departure of NPR CEO Vivian Schiller after her handpicked personal fund-raiser was caught on tape disparaging Tea Party activists and Jews and taking more shots at me. I'm human and do have some thoughts, but it's OK to keep them to myself: Schiller's very public missteps allow everyone to draw their own conclusions about her. I'm not being vindictive when I say that...

The fallout from the video conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released Tuesday morning has been devastating for NPR. However, Juan Williams, a former NPR analyst who was fired unjustly even according to NPR President Vivian Schiller, finally had his turn to sound off about the video, which apparently showed an NPR senior executive, Ron Schiller, making some disparaging remarks about the Tea Party, the Jewish people and Williams himself.

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...

Wow, public-sector union members sure have a good deal. Incomes 50-100% above the private-sector average, plus generous benefits .... so, can anyone get in on this? Nope, sorry, membership is limited to just a privileged few. OK, so let's get this straight - only a small percentage of society is on the public-sponsored gravy train, and the rest of the working masses has to pay their bills. Where's the fairness here? President O'bastard, please explain why you are siding with the elitists. And while you're at it, what's your position on legislature members not showing up for work, just because...

America’s largest cities are increasingly divided into three classes: the affluent, the poor, and the nomadic class of young people who generally come to the city for a relatively brief period and then leave. New York, the aspirational city of my grandparents, now has the smallest share of middle-income families in the nation, according to a recent Brookings Institution study, with Los Angeles and San Francisco not far behind. In 1980 Manhattan, New York’s wealthiest borough, ranked 17th among U.S. counties for social inequality; by 2007 Bloomberg’s “luxury city” was first, with the top fifth earning 52 times the income...

I guess Senator Chuck Schumer didn’t take civics very serious while in school. On CNN over the weekend, Chuck Schumer boldly or stupidly declared his own version of the three branches of government to be the House, the Senate, and the President? Just imagine if Sarah Palin had said this; it would be on continuous rotation on the main stream media. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Now just in case you didn’t quite catch what Schumer said, here’s the transcript (via Hot Air): "So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strong they feel — you know,...

Barack Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to “figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” At the time he made the statement, gas cost $7 – $8 a gallon in Europe. Fact: Since taking office, President Obama’s entire energy agenda has made a gallon of gas more expensive: •Immediately after taking office in 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah. •The EPA announced new rules mandating the use of 36 billion gallons worth of renewable fuels (like ethanol) by 2020. •This summer President Obama needlessly...

We’re now less than two years away from the next presidential election, which means it’s time for 2012 presidential speculation to begin! The first This Week of the year kicked off the talk with some of the biggest names on the Republican side, and George Will seems to have found through the litany of names what he called “the President’s secret weapon”: Sarah Palin’s inability to be elected. Asked by Jake Tapper (filling in for Christiane Amanpour) to evaluate the Republican landscape for November 2012, Will began by addressing the fact that Mike Huckabee had performed particularly well in the...

Ingraham: "Is anyone going to run as a Bush Republican in 2012 and if so who?" Rove: "Every one of them is going to run as a Bush Republican by saying 'I want to continue to fight the war on terror' -- with maybe one or two exceptions -- and, 'I want to continue the Bush tax cuts Video at link.

MARION -- The eyes of the GOP are now set upon the potential candidates for the 2012 Presidential race. Many names of viable candidates have been thrown around in this discussion. Names like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, and multiple others have been mentioned. However, one name that continues to stand apart form the crowd of names is Sarah Palin. The ex-governor turned political king and queen maker has used her popularity to make a large amount of money since leaving the governor’s office of Alaska. Sarah Palin now travels around the country giving speeches at rallies and events...

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann dropped out of the race for House Republican Conference chair on Wednesday night, ensuring that the GOP’s leadership elections will go on without any serious competition. In a statement sent to a handful of reporters Wednesday evening, the tea party favorite said that Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling has her “enthusiastic support for his candidacy” for the top messaging post in the GOP. kX

It was a failure of historic proportions. With US President Barack Obama's Democrats having lost control of the House, there seems little hope for progress during his two remaining years, say German commentators. Obama himself, they say, bears much of the blame. On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama and his Democratic party were issued a stinging defeat in the mid-term elections as the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and installed themselves in 22 governor's mansio

A nation holds its collective breath. America's pivotal election is today. We will either put the brakes on the Democrat-socialists' drive to transform us into a failing European-style social democracy or we continue to hurtle toward the cliff of no return. Voters have waited through long, suffering months to make their voices heard at last. Democrats have made an unprecedented mockery of representative government, ignoring the will of the people with arrogant disdain. Elitist hypocrites who campaigned on "love" for the poor party hearty on the hard-earned money of America's producers, jet to debauchery-ridden Europe to scorn our good name,...

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is frustrated. He recently spoke to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and complained that we are in "a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don't weigh in. It's all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap-seat politics." He'd really like to elect a new people. Now, that last bit -- cheap-seat politics -- is the kicker. How truly awful it must be for the Senate's richest man -- wealthier than the Senate's Rockefeller -- to have to put up with those of us in the cheap seats. Brahmins from Boston have...

Judging by the treatment of U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell in Delaware the elite hacks of the sham two-party system are determined that the outcome of the 2010 election should send a clear message to the grassroots Americans who are reacting against the elite betrayal of their nation and its principles: when it comes to running for office people who believe as they do, and have troubles like theirs, need not apply. They especially want to make it clear that anyone who has had problems making ends meet must consider themselves unqualified to run for public office. Considering the difficulties...

AMERICAN HERO VIDEO

Just seven days after he sparked controversy by omitting the word “Creator” when he closely paraphrased the passage from the Declaration of Independence that says all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” President Barack Obama again omitted the Creator when speaking about the “inalienable rights” that “everybody is endowed with.”This time the president was speaking at a Sept. 22 fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, and his reference to “inalienable rights” was not as close a paraphrasing of the...

Bilderberg. Whether you believe it’s part of a sinister conspiracy which will lead inexorably to one world government or whether you think it’s just an innocent high-level talking shop, there’s one thing that can’t be denied: it knows which way the wind is blowing. (Hat tips: Will/NoIdea/Ozboy) At its June meeting in Sitges, Spain (unreported and held in camera, as is Bilderberg’s way), some of the world’s most powerful CEOs rubbed shoulders with notable academics and leading politicians. They included: the chairman of Fiat, the Irish Attorney General Paul Gallagher, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke,...

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express have roared right through the latest round of Republican Party primaries this week, rattling the party establishment and terrifying the Democrats. For those of you who are trained in the fastidious ways of the British ‘liberalism’ and are therefore shocked and can’t think why the American Right is gaining such strength, here’s the reason: Barack Obama. Americans are waking up to the fact that they have elected a man as president who is every inch an exotic creature. Which was rather fun at first. The problem is, America is discovering that Mr Obama...

I don't know about you, but when I paint fixtures with a sloppy broad brush, I make sure to wear my finest, most expensive designer shirts. Just like Michelle Obama.Below are photos of Michelle "Antoinette" Obama wearing a $207.90 t-shirt by Tom Binns and John Eshaya at a National Day of Service and Remembrance event at the Vinson Hall Retirement Community in McLean, Va. on Saturday.I suppose if she got paint on it she can claim it as a charitable deduction. The rich are just different from us.AP photosA woman lucky enough to have a job in the Obama economy...

OK, I think it's time to spell out just why so many people on the right come across as "anti-intellectual" or "anti-elite." And the reason is based on one of the most fundamental rules of science. Supporters of President Obama like to tout his intellectual credentials. Columbia, Harvard Law, Harvard Law Review Constitutional Law scholar, and so on. (Just don't look too carefully for actual proof of his intellect -- don't ask for his grades, his writings, or stuff like that. Just take his success there at face value.) They especially like comparing his resume' to that of Sarah Palin's...

The proposed community center would enrage bin Laden, so why are Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich taking up his cause? Have you heard about the "ground zero mosque?" They're going to build a great towering monstrosity of a thing, a gloating reminder of what they did to us on 9/11, a thumb in the eye of any real Americans who want to pay respect to those lost on that tragic day. It will, according to Rudy Giuliani, be a "desecration" of ground zero. Newt Gingrich has called it an "assertion of Islamist triumphalism." And Sarah Palin was so incensed at...

There’s a lot of talk about Michelle and Sasha Obama’s mother-daughter trip with 40 friends to a ritzy resort on the coast of Spain, and some of the commentary is a little harsh. Andrea Tantaros of the New York Daily News calls the first lady a “material girl” and a “modern-day Marie Antoinette”--but she also brings up a valid point about the cost to taxpayers of taking an estimated 70 Secret Service agents and Air Force Two on an overseas vacation. Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post writes that the attacks are unfair and that it’s not reasonable to expect...

This guy Obama is so out of touch -- he is so devoid of reality, living in such a self created fantasy world, so full of himself and his own lies -- that he's starting to believe all of his own BS. To go out and campaign at a Ford plant and take credit for their jobs? They didn't get any bailout money. Ford is surviving in spite of Obama, as is everybody else in this country who is succeeding. Whoever is enjoying success, whoever is making a go of it is doing so in spite of Obama. He's jetting...

Reporting from Washington — As the economy endures high unemployment and a jittery stock market, President Obama has preached sacrifice and fiscal discipline. But the pictures coming out of a sun-splashed Spanish resort this week may be sending a different message. First Lady Michelle Obama is in the midst of a five-day trip to a luxury resort along with a few friends, her youngest daughter, aides and Secret Service personnel. Her office said the family will pay for personal expenses, but won't reveal the taxpayer cost for the government employees. (snip) A White House official said that Michelle Obama is...

“No amount of contrarian zeal can make contradictions true.” – Douglas Groothuis. In recent years, the rise of postmodernism in our culture and in our system of education has been undeniable. That it has been accompanied by an increase in the desire of some discontented souls to “redefine” themselves along the lines of certain variables has been equally undeniable. The most prominent of these variables is gender. When your son or daughter takes “Sociology of Gender” classes it is likely that he or (more likely) she will encounter the works of Kate Bornstein, a transgender performance artist and writer. She...

Chelsea Clinton Wedding Guest List Revealed Posted by Devon Thomas NEW YORK (CBS) It's wedding season and Hillary and Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea has her guest list all sorted out. The First Daughter, 30, who is getting married on July 31 to Marc Mezvinsky, is throwing a wedding bash that will reportedly have up to 500 guests, including some of the biggest names in politics and entertainment. Just who made the cut? According to the Hudson Valley News, guests include President Obama, singer Barbra Streisand, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw, and media moguls Oprah Winfrey and Ted...

One of the great myths of the left is that socialism is a movement of the people, the working classes, or the poor. In fact -- as Frederick Hayek pointed out long ago -- all socialist movements are the creation of intellectual elites, liberally pollinated by millionaires. Karl Marx was the kept intellectual of factory owner Frederick Engels; Bill Ayers, a leader of the terrorist cult called the Weatherman, was a scion of the American upper class; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, is a multi-millionairess; Michael Moore, leftwing propagandist, is a multi-millionaire who has profited handsomely from the...

While U.S. residents living near the oil-stained Gulf Coast were suffering from another day of oil leaking onto their shores, BP CEO Tony Hayward was out yachting with his son instead of helping to solve the crisis caused by his company. The BBC reports: BP CEO Tony Hayward has faced fresh criticism for taking time off to go boating with his son instead of dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The White House said the move was one of a "long line of PR gaffes and mistakes" by Mr Hayward. Environmental groups said the outing was "insulting" to...

According to Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor, Americans are just not intelligent enough to understand what Obama was trying to say in his speech Tuesday evening.  He says that Obama speech was written to a 9.8 grade level of understanding.  I guess us hicks in the hinterland just don't git wat Obama were trying to tell us unejacated folk out here.  Despite using slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, Payack says that because Obama used 19.8 words per sentence, that our ability to go comprehend what he was saying went right over our heads. Payack especially...

Since he can’t quite put his finger on what makes him “nervous” about Governor Palin. He may as well double-down upon what is actually cowardice, by just stealing left-wing talking points in an utterly lazy fashion. I know Governor Palin has given a hundred interviews since the 2008 Presidential election but hey, let’s talk about that Katie Couric hit-piece as though it wasn’t a highly edited, highly contentious “interview.” Give me a break. One one hand, this podcast was composed of some talking heads from the establishment giving some minimal ‘props‘ to the most active political force on the Conservative...

What is it about the Obamas that causes people peering through the glass at the White House to start seeing flashbacks to the excesses of life under the French court before the Revolution? I don’t mean casual “dates” via Air Force One to catch a Broadway show in Manhattan, inconveniencing the country’s largest city. And I certainly don’t expect the American President and his wife to have leftover meatloaf for dinner. But the image we see of the Obamas via the besotted press is one of wretched excess. In a time when nearly a quarter of America’s population is either...

If you want to watch some one squirm, take a look at the two-minute videotape of Attorney General Eric Holder dodging Republican Rep. Lamar Smith's question about whether "radical Islam" motivated the Times Square bomber. Holder, who last year called America "a nation of cowards" for refusing to talk frankly about race, plainly didn't want to say what is plain to everyone else, that Faisal Shahzad, back from five months in Waziristan, launched his terror attack because of his Islamist beliefs. Holder is not the only one who wants to shield us from this obvious truth. Mayor Bloomberg, questioned about...

If we continue to fail to recognize where the battlefield is, there is little hope of winning the war. The Elitists and the Radical Transformation of America By SavantNoir Friday, May 7, 2010 “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”—Barack Obama, October 30, 2008 “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”—H.L. Mencken (1918) “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they...

According to two knowledgeable sources, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele once raised the possibility of using party money to buy a private jet for his travel. ---snip--- While Steele has not purchased a plane, he continues to charter them. According to federal disclosure records, the RNC spent $17,514 on private aircraft in the month of February alone (as well as $12,691 on limousines during the same period). There are no readily identifiable private plane expenses for Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine in the DNC’s last three months of filings. --snip--- Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele...

I've been thinking about this for a while and I've come to the conclusion that there are basically 4 different types of political people in the world. First, you have those who don't want to be responsible for anything. There own actions, lives, children, ...etc. They want someone else to be responsible for them and take care of them. They want someone else to provide everything they want. They only want to do whatever gives them pleasure without any consequences. Let's call this group the lazies. They want the school system to be their babysitters. They want the government to...

The economic elite have robbed us all. The amount of suffering in the United States of America is literally a crime against humanity "The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight." - Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not We all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues. However, like our founding fathers before us,...

President Obama made a couple of stupid little jokes about Vegas. He uses our Las Vegas as a symbol. Everyone knows what Vegas means. Doc Pomus wrote "Viva Las Vegas" for Elvis years before Doc ever visited Sin City and got everything right. Vegas means ... wild, irresponsible, what-happens-here-stays-here. Smoke cigars, have sex with strangers, get wasted and see stupid shows with stupid Elvis impersonators doing stupid impressions of that stupid hillbilly. That's an image we know and love in Vegas. It's the image we spend our stupidly low tax money to promote. "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas"...

The Tea Partiers have spooked the political establishment. Many Washington insiders who cling to their faith in democracy while deathly afraid that people unlike themselves might actually get involved in politics are busy assuring each other at cocktail parties and on Sunday talk shows that the newly involved will lose interest before the next election. Or, better yet, they might turn on the Republicans who have thus far been the beneficiaries of their numbers and energy. The phenomenon began with last year’s town hall meetings. Hundreds and then thousands of people showed up at congressional town halls traditionally attended by...