Free Republic

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that Congress has the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance and that there is no constitutional limit on Congress’ power to enact such mandates, adding that this unlimited authority stemmed from the Commerce clause of the Constitution. And apparently 59 other Democrat senators agree with her. It is my understanding that the intent of the commerce clause is to assign the responsibility of regulating commerce (the transportation and trading of goods with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes) to the central government, taking the law-making responsibility for...

As we approach the celebration of Christ's birth, I am reminded of the words of John Quincy Adams. On July 4, 1837, he spoke these words: "Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? ... Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the...

Earlier today the US Senate passed a sweeping new law of mind-numbing complexity and bureaucracy which dictates a vast government take-over of the medical industry, and which is likely to devastate virtually the entire health care sector. All these new government schemes, scams, mandates, and dictates just about gaurantee that health care costs will skyrocket, health care quality will plummet, and people will die like flys. Together with the recent, various, industry-wide "bail-outs," and economic "stimuluses" of the past two years, Big Brother has really hammered us in at least three different ways. It would have been far, far better...

It is 2009's quiet story -- quiet because it's about what didn't happen, which can be as important as what did. In this highly partisan year, we did not see a sharpening of the battles over religion and culture. Yes, we continued to fight over gay marriage, and arguments about abortion were a feature of the health-care debate. But what's more striking is that other issues -- notably economics and the role of government -- trumped culture and religion in the public square. The culture wars went into recession along with the economy. The most important transformation occurred on the...

Calling all red blooded, Patriotic Americans! It’s time for another march on Washington DC. On the date of the State of the Union address, January 20, 2010.

Homewood's fire chief says if a church wants to hold Christmas Eve candlelight services, it'll have to pay four off-duty firefighters $100 each to monitor safety during the service. Pastors of several churches in Homewood say they had no knowledge that the city requires a permit for candlelight services or of the payment of firefighters to monitor the services. Homewood Fire Chief John Bresnan said the permit law has been on the books for more than 10 years and that he has required Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, which he attends, to request a permit and have firefighters on hand at...

"Within our party’s framework you will find the load bearing beam for which we all must stand so, we can support all the unique individuals who make her the hope for today and tomorrows America. As the party that stands for freedom, individual responsibility and the precious gift of life we have the windows that show the world our light, and our reflection of what we truly stands for."

There may be an ornament with the face of China’s evil Mao Zedong on the White House holiday tree, but for many of the rest of us there’s an elephant right in our living room. The elephant in our living room is what moseyed in when the mainstream media took a holiday and the mask of President Barack Obama began to crack. How long have we known in our hearts that Obama is not an American? How long have we known that even though he professes to be one, Obama is not a Christian, nor even a Christian sympathizer and...

OKLAHOMA CITY - The voters of Oklahoma will have the opportunity to preserve the existing health care system in Oklahoma under legislation sought by three state legislators. State Reps. Mike Ritze and Mike Reynolds and state Sen. Randy Brogdon announced today that they will file legislation enacting the "Freedom of Healthcare Choice Act," allowing voters to preserve the existing healthcare system in Oklahoma regardless of congressional action at the federal level. The legislation will allow a vote of the people to opt out of the proposed federal system. "It's clear the overwhelming majority of Americans want the current doctor-patient relationship...

Anyone still think China "Most Favored Nation" decision was right? Also, read Bill Clinton's statement in defense of it in 1993. Does anyone think Clinton and the Congressman who supported it were right? From Yahoo:LINFEN, China (AFP) – Christians in north China are facing a Christmas of fear after 10 local religious leaders were jailed in recent weeks and their new church shut down amid a crackdown on unauthorised worship.Five of the church leaders were given prison terms of up to seven-years by a Linfen court, while the others were sentenced without trial to labour camps for two years, their...

This black American, LtCol Allen West (USA, ret) says it the way it is. HOORAH, Colonel. Spot on. LtCol West's Speech on YouTube >> Article in World Net Daily >> ALLEN WEST FOR CONGRESS 2010 >> The Demorats have just proven beyond any shadow of doubt that they do not care what Americans overwhelmingly think about healthcare. They don't care the debt they've saddled us with for generations. They don't care about this assault on American civil liberty. THROW THEM OUT IN 2010. The fight is on. This is not a drill.

The Great Debate Oddly Is Not OverWe are still in a great public debate between capitalism and socialism, and individual freedom versus statism — odd since hundreds of millions worldwide have escaped poverty the last 30 years due to the spread of Western-inspired free markets.Many choose sides in the debate based on their own predicaments. Sometimes the more independent and secure who have thrived under capitalism promote it, the more dependent who have not - detest it.At other times the realist mind is opposed to the idealist.  And we can also envision the split as an age-old dichotomy between the...

Cheer up....keep fighting.

This is a great video. It should be played where the politicians can hear it, loud and continuously. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc_-L4fyLUo

The first blow has been struck against the encroaching tyranny of the European Union and it is a significant one. In fact, one member state has defiantly drawn a line in the sand and signalled that it will not tolerate erosion of its sovereignty. Although it attracted little attention when it was published last month, now that commentators have had an opportunity to analyse Sentenza N. 311 by the Italian Constitutional Court, its monumental significance in rolling back the Lisbon Treaty is now being appreciated. (Hat tip, as they say, to Dr Piero Tozzi.) The Constitutional Court ruled baldly that,...

Dear Texas, I don't know much about you. I don't live there. I know it takes about two days to drive through your vast tracts of land in an aging Mazda RX-7. That drive really sucks. Even when listening to Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" on tape. I know that most of your nasty collectivist hippies have been confined to Austin, like cells of tuberculosis encrusted in calcium. They are harmless and if the chips were down, you could drive them out to live in some refugee camp on the Louisiana border. They could live there for decades,...

Watching the progression of Marxism in this country has been slow, painful, and not without the aquiescence of the People. For years I have been asking anyone who could/would answer what would be the straw that breaks the camel's back. With each succeeding straw, the People groaned and bitched but did nothing and went on buying more reasons with their dollars to add to the excuses they already had. Various excuses wafted up from the general population like a cloud. I need to keep my job. I need to feed my family. When government took over the education of our...

Her parents say a New Jersey elementary school teacher told a third-grader the Bible was inappropriate reading material for quiet time.

(912 on the mall) The left's anti-American coup d'etat on America, made possible by the first radical Marxist in the White House, calls for distinctly American counter measures. Dr. Jack Wheeler has "a strategy for any Republican wanting to get elected or re-elected to Congress in 2010, and for any Tea Partyer wanting to take individual action now against a government that ignores the Constitution -- Defund and Disobey." Here's an excerpt of "The Double -D Strategy for rescuing America": Let's talk about the Defund D first. The Founders in their usual brilliance place the power of the purse in...

What is the Catholic social justice principal known as “subsidiarity�?If you’re an American and you’re unfamiliar with subsidiarity in this day and age in which the federal government is about the only segment of the economy that’s growing; you better find out in a hurry.In a nutshell, the principal of subsidiarity states that matters impacting the human person should be addressed by the smallest, least centralized, most localized, competent personal authority possible. The opposite situation is realized when personal affairs are managed by larger; more centralized and detached public authorities.At the heart of the matter lies a concern for the...

The Patriot Post · http://patriotpost.us The Time Has Come By Mark Alexander · Thursday, December 17, 2009 "It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not?" --Patrick Henry The 2008 presidential election was much more than a referendum on the two candidates; it was a referendum on the ability...

A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards away from where Osama Bin Laden’s airborne Islamist bombers killed nearly 3000 people back in 2001....

Dick Riley passed away this past December 7th. I lost a friend…and so did every American gun owner. Beginning as a part-time gunsmith, he opened Riley’s Sport Shop in 1953 in the town of Hooksett, New Hampshire. He quickly grew his business into the largest gun shop in the state, and one of the two largest in Northern New England. But he did much, much more than that. From the beginning, Dick Riley was actively involved in the fight for gun owners’ civil rights. He – and later, his bright and lovely wife Doris – were both voted into the...

An 8-year-old boy has been suspended from school and forced to undergo a psychological evaluation after he drew a picture of Jesus Christ on the cross. A teacher at Lowell Maxham Elementary School in Taunton, Mass., said the second-grade student created a violent drawing, the Taunton Daily Gazette reported. The boy's picture portrayed a crucified Jesus with Xs over his eyes to indicate that he had died on the cross. The child's father, outraged at the school's action, asked to remain anonymous to protect his son. He said his boy drew the picture after returning from a family trip to...

A battle over religion is brewing in central Indiana after a public school wanted second graders to sing a song declaring, “Allah is God.” The phrase was removed just before the performance after a national conservative group launched a protest. The principal of Lantern Road Elementary School in Fishers, IN, said they were trying to teach inclusiveness through their holiday production. It included references to Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Las Posadas and Kwanzaa. However, no other deity, other than Allah, was referenced in the show. “It went off…without a hitch,” Danielle Thompson told the Indianapolis Star. “Several families thought it was...

Obama has brought us thus far to such a cave in on disbanding democracy for socialism, Christian heritage for atheism, and what we have known as “America” for Islam World Rule.

Bill of Rights Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Amendment II A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Amendment III No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor...

Columnist Bill Turner says that all of your complaining and joining the Tea Party, and other groups and websites and emailing your Congressman is a big fat waste of time. Are you ever really going to do something about taking America back?

The federal government was created by people who were sick and tired of a king’s government that controlled every facet of life. They wrote a Constitution that explicitly limited the power of the new government. Under this new government, individuals were free to pursue happiness as they chose. In 200 years, this new nation of free people created prosperity unmatched in all of history. While free people were busy pursuing their happiness, others were free to pursue political power. Throughout the 20th century, a cancer grew in the very fabric of freedom. The idea that the role of government...

The Republican Party, the Party of Reagan has been nearly smothered and suffocated by the RINO-virus which has spread more rapidly than any swine flu pandemic, the GOP has been infected from the top down, and IF it is to avoid the fate of the Bull Moose Party, the principles of Reagan conservatism must be re-established, the fair weather collaborators and Quislings (that means YOU Juan McCain and your butt buddy Lindsey 'Goober' Graham!) MUST be driven out and banished and if they join up with the traitorous 'Rats, so be it. Force them to show their true colors. The...

In America, one value that’s been celebrated and protected for many years is tolerance. It is a part of the idea of liberty–the idea of being free to do what one wishes with minimal legal interference. Many of the original colonies were created to provide a place where certain people can go to live certain ways of life free from outside interference, particularly specific religious ways of life. The Puritans, Quakers, Anabaptists, and others wanted to create religious communities that were free of the conflicts they faced in Europe. Followers of different philosophies also arrived to follow their ways of...

crony capitalism is back with a vengeance

Although we Americans have the right to attend whatever Church, Synagogue, or Mosque we choose to, it isn’t so peachy in lots of other places. The photo that accompanies this piece is of an Iranian woman who was flogged for having the temerity to worship as a Christian, for example. The American Spectator’s December 11th analysis of the State Department’s 2009 Report On International Religious Freedom illustrates how really bad it is not only in Iran, but in at least 30 different countries. Author Doug Bandow divides the offenders into two basic camps: “The first are Muslim nations that seek...

In this age of political correctness, a college student's best friend is FIRE -- the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Since 1999, FIRE has safeguarded the civil rights of students across the ideological spectrum -- winning victories at 121 colleges and universities, bringing an end to 81 unconstitutional or repressive policies, and benefiting 2.7 million students. Now, FIRE is riding to the rescue of students at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where a heavy-handed attempt at thought control is underway. The Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group of the U's College of Education and Human Development has...

Government Should Fear You... ... You should not fear Government. Speaking to many different people from several different walks of life these last few weeks I have noticed a recurring theme... fear. That is when I start to wonder what ever happened to that "hope" that Os... Obama had promised us. That is when I start to wonder why people are so paralyzed with fear when it comes to their government. Why have "We the People" become the peasants to the elite few atop capitol hill? While on vacation, yes... I the Grand Fubba (PH-OO-BA) took a nice long vacation,...

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry........ The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September. Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

The end of freedom as we have known it is near. Soon, if the enemies of freedom and the proponents of government command-and-control economies have their way, this is what you can expect: A shortage of well-paying, productive jobs actually making things: This is because of a combination of environmental rules and regulations, government red tape and corporate taxes that make it easier to ship jobs overseas. If you think it's bad now, you ain't seen nothing yet. Americans also have to compete now with illegal aliens for employment because the government refuses to do something it actually has a...

Earlier today in Oslo, Norway, President Barack Obama finally, formally accepted his Nobel Prize for "peace." But where are the internationally-acclaimed prizes for "liberty" and "justice"? These are far worthier goals -- far loftier ideals. Politically speaking, and in other ways too, what the world needs above all else -- today and always -- is individual liberty and universal justice! If the Nobel Committee is going to embrace questionable, unworthy goals and dubious, lowly ideals, why not sink all the way down to giving out renowned awards for international "security," or even multinational "stability"? Clearly there are times when peace...

A conservative Republican National Committee member from Indiana, Jim Bopp, has drawn up a checklist of conservative principles for GOP candidates. He'll offer a resolution at the RNC's winter meeting proposing that candidates would have to agree to at least seven of the 10 points to qualify for party support and funding. Liberal pundits and Democratic activists have kindly offered unsolicited advice to Republicans that this is a bad idea. Coming from people who hope for nothing but Republican defeats at the polls, this advice is of questionable value. If liberals really thought this would be bad for the GOP,...

We have seen the previews. The film looks really awful. In fact, it may turn out to be a horror film. I’ll try my best to avoid it. But if you sit idly and allow bureaucrats to seize even more power over your life, I wish you good luck and good health. You’ll need both.

Obama is so transparent, petty and small, he is an embarrassment. O's latest Chicago way payback? He has nominated Larry Persily, who writes hit pieces on Palin for the Puff Ho, got that? Obama defines the hatred of the good for being the good. You go Sarah. W'vee got your back. Obama nominates former Palin aide to pipeline job [note lefturd Reuters headline -- as if he was part of her camp /not] WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama nominated Larry Persily, a former aide to ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, on Wednesday to be federal coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas...

This paper is an enjoyable read, especially its fourth paragraph that describes some of the new lands that made up the new nation. Jay defines some elements that promised a great nation: With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout...

1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people. 2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people 3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants or to subject them to military tribunal. 4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a state of emergency on a state. 5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty. 6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps. 7. We...

If there is one label more than any other that principled advocates of individual liberty are often stamped with it is that they are “extremists.” How can you be so extreme, it is said, what is wrong with a compromise between personal or economic freedom and some “reasonable” degree of government regulation, welfare legislation, and social intervention? The first response that should be given when confronted with such an accusation is to inquire, with what is the friend of liberty being asked to compromise? The real answer, of course, is that the friend of liberty is being asked to compromise...

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. "Climate-gate," as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won't...

General Lee weighs in on troop deployment inside the homeland:" I never thought I would live to see the day when a president of the United States would raise an army to invade his own country."" I assume this army would be used to invade those areas of the rebellion and subdue it by force"?-Lee" ...the rebels have been most effective in changing the sentiments of various legislatures.."- Blair[ what's known as making your voice heard]" The presidents call for 75,000 volunteers [troops] to subdue the rebellion in the cotton states, has done nothing to ameliorate the crisis, it has only...

Every day at sunrise, Medal of Honor winner Col. Van T. Barfoot hoists Old Glory with respect and pride. However, the 90-year-old veteran was recently told to remove the flagpole from his own front yard or face a lawsuit and fines. In fact, the local homeowner’s association says the 21 foot flagpole violates neighborhood regulations and needs to come down soon – by December 11. If the flagpole is not removed, a Richmond, VA law firm will go after Col. Barfoot. Call for Urgent Action Please urge the Sussex Square Homeowners Association to drop the case and allow Col. Van...

This Thanksgiving, my husband and I were deeply aware of the many things we have to be thankful for — chief among them being the fact that we are once again living in the United States. As most of you know, we spent 15 months in England, pursuing (but not precisely living) a lifelong dream. Those 15 months made us appreciate so many things that, as Americans, we take for granted. Freedom, for example. One thing I’ve always taken for granted is that if a civil authority (e.g., the police) wishes to enter my home, a warrant is required to...

Democrats are all for "freedom," as long as it comes from them. Read the fine print in the image at the link.

Christian legal fellowship groups provide a vital spiritual lifeline for law students trying to survive the rigors of law school with faith intact. Most of the more than 150 such student groups at U.S. law schools (see my lower sidebar list of links) are sponsored by the Christian Legal Society (CLS). But the ability of these groups to continue functioning at public universities has been in doubt since the University of California Hastings College of the Law's recent refusal to recognize its CLS chapter. The law school objects to the group's requirement that officers and voting members subscribe to Christian beliefs. In Christian Legal...