Free Republic

......I've often thought that God has a particularly acerbic wit. After all, FriedrichNietzsche, who famously proclaimed God is Dead, badly wanted to be known as a famous writer. He was granted his wish -after he became too insane to enjoy his fame. Obama seems to have wanted to become an uber-celebritycumpolitician in the worst possible way. How fitting it would be if presides over the bankruptcy of both systems. ..fabulists rising to some of the most esteemed positions in our society have potential impact far beyond what people suspect. They lay bare a rottenness at the heart of academia, the...

Are you getting your money’s worth when you buy dinner? Probably, or you wouldn’t keep paying that price, and go somewhere elsewhere to eat out. The same applies to clothing and shelter. Almost no one continues to pay more for something than they feel it is worth. In fact, that’s the meaning of un-affordable – something that doesn’t give you equal value for what you are able to pay. The Tax Foundation has a report that might open your eyes. It says Americans are paying more in taxes than they pay for food, clothing and shelter combined...

Public education is something best done privately. Then you can pay for what you get and if you don’t get what you pay for, get your money back. But public education doesn’t work that way. You get what you get, and you keep paying and paying. And the process not only turns out what it turns out (sigh), but it engenders attitudes like the Harford Courant recently reported...

An obscure federal agency may have set a new benchmark for lavish conferences on the taxpayers' dime. Lawmakers are voicing outrage following a government report that found the General Services Administration held a blowout $820,000 conference near Las Vegas which grossly exceeded what the planners were allowed to spend. The employees dropped thousands of dollars on luxury items and convention giveaways -- including more than $6,000 on commemorative coins, $8,000 on a "yearbook," and $3,200 for an in-house mind reader. "It's unbelievable that red flags didn't immediately go up well before this junket," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said. In the...

Romney backers in Massachusetts were feeling some frustration yesterday over the long primary slog their candidate still faces after Super Tuesday. Some said his campaign is not getting enough credit for primary wins so far. “They continue to say he has to do this or that. He does it and they say he still hasn’t closed the deal,” said state Rep. George N. Peterson Jr., R-Grafton. “It seems as though he clears one hurdle and they put up a new one. He clears that and they say he didn’t clear it by enough.” The Romney campaign won six of 10...

What new information can be learned from what Andrew Breitbart was talking about? Further insight into President Obama’s radical philosophical awakening is what we are learning. Derrick Bell is one figure getting a closer look at. Here is Bell saying that our society may not be able to exist without racism and that white people feel entitled because they are white. Obama got the academic version of Jeremiah Wright before he was fed the theological version. I found this with just a simple search, so who knows what else is out there. Blaming white people for all of societies ills...

A group of protesters who said they were illegal immigrants created a commotion Wednesday night in Raleigh as the N.C. House Select Committee on Immigration Policy spoke about recent arrests of illegals in Rockingham County. Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page was present during the protest. Earlier, Page had provided information to the committee dealing with recent arrests regarding drug trafficking in his county, and also supplied further information on the National Sheriff’s Association’s stance on immigration issues, immigration reform and border security. This was the group’s third meeting, and much of the focus was on the business side of immigration....

Douglas Kennedy and his wife Molly with their son Boru. The petite, Brooklyn-born nurse who tussled with Robert F. Kennedy’s son in a hospital maternity ward was stunned that she fought with a member of Camelot, her husband said Saturday. Steve Luciano, 57, said his 5-foot-tall wife, Cari, was just doing her job when she tried to stop Douglas Kennedy from leaving the hospital with his 2-day-old baby boy. “Her comment to me that night was, ‘I was assaulted tonight and could you believe it, it was a Kennedy who did it?’” Luciano told the Daily News on Saturday in...

This cartoon best answers the question "What's the difference between the Tea Partiers and the Occupiers?" DO-ERS VS LOSERS

Woman Tasered in Front of Daughter After Cutting McDonalds Drive-Thru LineBy Olivia Katrandjian | ABC News Blogs – 17 hrs ago **SNIP** Employees at the McDonalds in Hope Mills, N.C., refused to serve Evangeline Lucca and told her to go to the back of the line. Lucca, 37, refused to move, and blocked the drive-thru for 20 minutes before police arrived on the scene, authorities said. When deputies arrived, Lucca was "defiant," "would not get off McDonalds property," and was "threatening the deputies," according to Debbie Tanna, a public information officer for the Cumberland County Sherriff's Office. **SNIP** "Two or...

Rep. Dr. Ron Paul is the only Candidate now running who: 1.) Has a comprehensive platform that will cut BASELINE Federal spending. 2.) Insists that all of the planks in his platform are consistent with the US Constitution. 3.) Accepts the fact that the USA can no longer financially afford to be the World’s policeman. 4.) Fully understands how to dismantle the disastrous Federal medical “entitlements” of Medicare, Medicaid, and the illegal Obama”care.” 5.) Has a comprehensive plan to abolish or dramatically shrink 5 Federal Departments, or Bureaus. These positions set Dr. Paul apart from the rest of the Candidates...

Gov. Jerry Brown proposed Thursday slashing nearly $1.4 billion in welfare and child care aid for the poor while holding voters liable for $5 billion in education funding with a November tax measure. The Democratic governor announced his January budget plan this afternoon after his proposal was inadvertently leaked on his Department of Finance website. He estimates the state faces a $9.2 billion general fund deficit through June 2013, which he proposes to bridge with mostly cuts and taxes. Brown will ask voters to pass a $6.9 billion ballot measure in November that raises taxes on sales and income starting...

We Stand for Principle Over Politicsand the Establishment Can't Stand It December 21, 2011 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "House Democrats tried Wednesday to force a vote on the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, but Republicans gaveled the House closed to prevent them from having a chance, as top GOP leaders huddled down the hall to try to figure a way out of the mess. The House was set to hold a pro forma session, but two top Democrats, Reps. Steny H. Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen, demanded to be recognized to try to force a vote on the...

The U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report Monday that chronicles what it says are numerous violations of the civil rights of Latinos by the police department in East Haven, Conn. The rebuke of East Haven police was released just a week after the Justice Department blasted the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona for unlawfully discriminating against Hispanics. The federal government also said last week that it has concerns about discrimination in the Seattle Police Department in a report that found its officers have engaged in a pattern of unconstitutionally using excessive force during arrests. The Justice Department's report...

The video of the savage beating at Dean College in Franklin, MA has not yet been scrubbed from this site. It's already being scrubbed from YouTube and, of course, the edited versions seen on the news do not convey the full story.

Nearly half of registered voters in California say they personally identify with the Occupy movement and an even larger number said they agreed with the reason behind the protest, according to a Field Poll released today. The poll found that among registered voters in the state, 46 percent said they identify with the movement while 58 percent said they agreed with the reasons that are fueling it. Pollsters did not ask about specific reasons, leaving respondents to decide those themselves. But California voters also have negative feelings toward the movement, with 49 percent answering "not much" when asked how much...

My father once told me a story about when he was a boy. He said there was a certain man who every now and again would visit his family and give him 10 cents for an ice cream soda each time. Well, one day this fellow came ‘a callin’, but for some reason, on this occasion the dime wasn’t offered. Being a little tyke who had become accustomed to the gift, my dad asked, “Where’s my 10 cents?” He never got that dime again. The man taught my father a moral lesson: Don’t develop a spirit of entitlement. It’s one...

...In the 19th century, even though capitalism had only existed for a short time, and had just started putting a dent in pre-capitalism’s legacy of poverty, the vast, vast majority of Americans were already able to support their own lives through their own productive work. Only a tiny fraction of a sliver of a minority depended on assistance and aid–and there was no shortage of aid available to help that minority. ... “Those in need,” historian Walter Trattner writes, “. . . looked first to family, kin, and neighbors for aid, including the landlord, who sometimes deferred the rent; the...

HONG KONG — Chinese political and business leaders are increasingly triumphant after two decades of rapid economic growth that lifted unprecedented millions of people out of poverty and turned the nation into an economic superpower, saying their success proves its political and economic system is superior to the Western model. In extensive talks with a series of Chinese leaders, an oft-cited point of criticism is the gridlock and “dysfunction” they see in Washington. They say fawning by U.S. political leaders seeking re-election has created an “entitlement culture” where the public has grown dependent on government largesse. Now, with the United...

The six weeks allotted to save monetary union have expired. The G20 has come and gone, yet no workable firewall is in place as the drama engulfs Italy and threatens to light the fuse on the world’s third largest edifice of debt. As of late Friday, the yield spread on Italian 10-year bonds over German Bunds was a post-EMU record of 458 basis points. This is dangerously close to the point where cascade-selling begins and matters spiral out of control. The European Central Bank has so far bought time by holding a series of retreating lines but either it has...

Prime Minister George Papandreou will press forward with a referendum on the European Union's financing package and will win a vote of confidence, reports Bloomberg. "We’re not retreating and we haven’t retreated... http://www.breakingeconomics.com/2011/11/papandreou-will-press-on-with.html

Greece's startling decision to call a referendum on last week's EU summit deal has set off wild tremors across the eurozone, pushing Italy to the brink of a perilous downward spiral. The country's ruling Pasok party appeared to be splintering on Tuesdsay night, leaving it unclear whether the governent of premier George Papandreou can survive a parliamentary vote of confidence on Friday. Signs that the EU's pain-stakingly negotiated Grand Plan is unravelling within days has been a profound shock to confidence. A frantic search for safe havens led to the second biggest one-day fall ever recorded in Europe's AAA bond...

The family of a disabled Ugandan drug lord who had his carer killed because they feared he knew too much are threatening to sue the health service after the gangster died. Clifford Denty was given round-the clock treatment on the NHS after he was left paralysed in a nightclub shooting. No expense was spared for the Ugandan immigrant. Thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent converting his council property and he was provided with a team of carers and given a converted Mercedes under a Government scheme. But, although he was confined to a wheelchair, Denty continued his drug...

The movement to grant amnesty and eventual U.S. citizenship to some 12 million illegal aliens has turned the issue from the sounds of silence to the sounds of entitlement. The entitlement mentality did not begin in America, but it has flourished here in the last century. The American claim on entitlements to health care, retirement income and seemingly any "right" one can conceive was birthed from the womb of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, reared by Kennedy's New Frontier and came of age in Johnson's Great Society. U.S. citizens, fanned by the flames of those who encourage class warfare, are increasing...

There was telling moment during the CNN Republican presidential debate: Asked about the possibility of repealing George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription-drug benefit, which is adding some $17 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities, every one of the candidates pledged varying degrees of fealty to the program. No one came out for significantly cutting this vestige of Bush-style big-government conservatism, let alone repealing it. This put the current crop of Republicans to the left of John McCain, who at least campaigned in favor of means-testing the program in 2008. The failure to stand up against one of the Bush administration’s most obvious...

Charles Ponzi after being released from prison, 1935 Part of FDR's statement upon signing the Social Security Bill: "We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family ..." History will judge the Social Security Bill to be the grandest Ponzi scheme in all of history; unless, the government continues on with the Anthropogenic Global Warming regulations. These may sound like wild ambiguous statements to you...

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels defended his description of Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme" Tuesday, wading into a debate about the popular entitlement program that has enveloped the Republican primary. Daniels describes the program as such in his yet-to-be-released book, Keeping the Republic, echoing a critique that Texas Gov. Rick Perry made in his own book last year. Leading Perry challenger and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has seized on the "Ponzi scheme" comments , arguing that Perry needlessly "scared seniors" by describing the program in that way.  But Daniels sought to downplay the significance of the descriptor Tuesday morning...

During the recent GOP presidential debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that Social Security is a "monstrous lie" and a "Ponzi scheme." More and more people are coming to see that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, but is it a lie, as well? Let's look at it. Here's what the 1936 government pamphlet on Social Security said: "After the first 3 years — that is to say, beginning in 1940 — you will pay, and your employer will pay, 1.5 cents for each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. ... Beginning in 1943, you will pay 2...

Note that the President began his Demosthenian peroration by flailing at a straw man. Nobody wants to dismantle government. Many people want it to function within well-defined limits as it's drawn up in the Constitution. Nobody wants to refund everyone's money. Many people resent as a usurpation the fact that the federal government should have laid claim to it in the first place, and put itself in the position to decide whether to refund it to the people who earned it or bestow it upon others whom politicians deem more worthy. Nobody is suggesting that everyone should write their own...

The Republican primary context has become a referendum on Social Security, with Texas Governor Rick Perry standing by his earlier statements denouncing the program as a Ponzi scheme, and Mitt Romney seeking to revive his presidential bid by defending Social Security. With Perry as the runaway front-runner, and only gaining in the polls, it looks like this will be a preview of the general election battle. So is Social Security a Ponzi scheme? Yes it is, in its own way, but that doesn't quite cover it. In reality, Social Security is much worse than a Ponzi scheme. The analogy to...

So much for the spirit of we're-all-in-it-together, which prevailed, more or less, at the 9/11 commemorations. The next day, President Barack Obama showed up in the White House Rose Garden to propose financing his presidential comeback by picking the pockets of his opponents. The president said some $400 billion to finance the tax cuts he wants should come from limiting itemized deductions enjoyed by the filthy rich, as he seems to define them: families earning more than $250,000 a year, not to mention those perennial favorites in the Obama lexicon, oil companies, hedge funds and owners of corporate jets. The...

There goes Rick Perry again, saying things that make liberals’ heads explode. Speaking to a crowd in Iowa this weekend, the Texas governor and GOP presidential hopeful doubled down on statements he made in his book, Fed Up!, that Social Security is essentially a pyramid scheme. “It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people,” Perry said. “The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie. It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.” The left reacted,...

Providing fresh evidence that it is intellectually exhausted, the Obama administration is flirting with revisiting the mortgage-refinancing market. And like the semi-criminal scam that was the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, this new push is not really about helping out innocent bystanders crushed by the housing crash, but about the hundreds of thousands of market-massacring new foreclosures that are coming down the pipe — foreclosures that may be delayed, even if they are not prevented. The Committee to Reinflate the Bubble is in session. Banks are reasonably eager to refinance certain kinds of mortgages — what they lose in interest, they...

Engraved at the base of the statue of Liberty Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send...

The recent drama over the federal debt ceiling resulted in legislation that resolves the government’s operational debt management issues through early 2013. Left unresolved, however, was the critical matter of how to repair the government’s larger fiscal imbalance. The next step in this process will be taken by a bipartisan budget “super committee” consisting of twelve Senators and Congressmen, established in that same legislation.This special committee is charged with developing recommendations, due later this fall, to achieve $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years. The White House, continuing its rhetorical approach employed during recent budget negotiations, has...

Even with House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) deciding not to enter the fray for the GOP presidential nomination, his entitlement-reforming budget resolution, approved by the House earlier this year, is almost certain to play a prominent role in the race. Whichever candidate Republicans select will be forced to either defend it against the inevitable onslaught of Democratic “Death to Granny” scare tactics, or put forward a compelling alternative plan of his or her own. If the conservative uproar following Newt Gingrich’s comments on Meet the Press in May — in which he called Ryan’s plan “radical” and...

Providing for the defense of the United States is Congress’ constitutional obligation. Lawmakers should recognize defense is a necessity, if not the federal government’s most important responsibility. In recent years, however, defense spending has continued to decline as entitlement spending increased. Priorities are being misplaced as the gap between entitlement spending and defense spending continues to widen. This chart is part of Heritage’s 2011 Budget Chart Book, featuring infographics on federal spending, revenue, debt and deficits, and entitlement programs.

Nearly one-out-of-two Americans (48%) think that cuts in government spending are at least somewhat likely to lead to violence in the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. But that includes just 13% who feel it’s Very Likely. Nearly as many Adults (44%), however, believe violence as the result of spending cuts is unlikely, but only 12% say it’s Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Americans under 50 raise the possibility of violence more than their elders. Most adults not affiliated with either party (58%) think spending cuts are likely to...

What you would be looking at would be civil unrest in most mayor US cities and thousands of minor ones as well. Once the images of people looting and getting away with it hit the TV you’re looking at thousands of bums thinking of doing the same thing and rushing out the door to the nearest store. That gets bad pretty fast. You’re talking about looting, fires, closed stores, destruction of vehicles and private property, and given US context some gang related activity taking advantage of the lawless situation as well to settle scores. While invasion of residential properties wont...

So what are Republicans, particularly those in the House, going to do? Debt ceiling deadlines are fast approaching. And many in the GOP leadership, particularly in the Senate, think the party’s anti-tax resolve will dissolve if markets start to tumble... [Snip] It now looks like somewhat of a strategic error for Republicans to have pushed for so much in exchange for a hike in the debt limit. The Obama White House seems perfectly willing to take negotiations right up to — and past – the Aug. 2 deadline because it thinks it can win the political fight. [Snip] But perhaps...

or Why There Is A Lot of Talk But Little Action From Either Party We all have seen the affect of entitlements on the annual budget and deficit. The big items are the entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They are items that are set to take up an ever larger part of the American budget. As can be seen in the above article's chart, entitlements and interest will absorb all government spending by 2025. Here we examine Social Security ONLY because it is, by far, the largest FY 2012 "mandatory entitlement." Social Security and its "Trust Fund"...

As policymakers at the state and national level struggle with rising entitlement costs, overwhelming numbers of Americans agree that, over the years, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have been good for the country. But these cherished programs receive negative marks for current performance, and their finances are widely viewed as troubled. Reflecting these concerns, most Americans say all three programs either need to be completely rebuilt or undergo major changes. However, smaller majorities express this view than did so five years ago. The public’s desire for fundamental change does not mean it supports reductions in the benefits provided by Social...

GALVESTON — More than 1,000 Galveston residents have waited nearly three years for public housing units that open for leasing today. Most of those on the list will have to keep waiting. Only 40 units will be leased immediately, and it may be a year before more are built. The Galveston Housing Authority board has dumped a previous plan and will turn over most of its functions to a private company, further delaying the reconstruction of 569 units torn down because of damage caused by Hurricane Ike in September 2008. ...."We could have put it back exactly the way it...

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press – 8 mins ago WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed. The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

  A Nation of Narcissists David C. Stolinsky June 20, 2011 “How to find yourself” gives 94,600,000 hits on Google.− News item The self is not something one finds; it is something one creates.− Thomas Szasz Narcissistic personality disorder, which is characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance and the need for constant attention, has been eliminated from the new manual of mental disorders. Narcissism has become so common that it is no longer considered abnormal. But common is not the same as good, or even tolerable. Childish narcissists. This morning I listened to the Dennis Prager Show. The...

Anyone who has lived in Greece can see why the question of default or a “haircut” is not a matter of if, but when. It is a wonder that crazy things have lasted as long as they have there. The symptoms are well known: Tax evasion is now an art form and a matter of pride; pensions are absurd to the point of caricature; the public sector is self-righteous, bloated, and inefficient; and what little industry there is does not meet European standards of efficiency and productivity. [....] Finally, there is no way out except either sudden or gradual default...

In the late 1980s, Prof. Paul Kennedy of Yale achieved academic celebrity with his bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. In it, he wrote that the United States was likely to collapse because of a phenomenon he called “imperial overstretch.” As Kennedy saw it, the approximately 6 percent of GDP the United States spent on maintaining its military and meeting other global commitments was too great a burden. It was only a matter of time until our ambitious agenda would push us into decline and eventual collapse. This thesis, as it applied to the United States, was...

"Once a Marine, always a Marine" apparently doesn't apply at a Pennsylvania high school where a 17-year-old graduate has been told she cannot wear her uniform when she receives her diploma. Lindsay Starr told KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh she wanted to wear her dress blues during Friday's graduation ceremony at North Allegheny High School in Pittsburgh, but that school officials denied her request, citing the requirement of wearing only the traditional cap and gown. "I’m just trying to show pride in what I belong to now," she told the station. "I belong to the United States Marine Corps as a 17-year-old....

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