Free Republic

GETS FORMER SEQUOIA CO. VP NAMED AS ADVISER TO U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION Earlier this month, Obama made his first official move to corrupt and undermine the 2010 elections. The move consisted in the little noticed appointment of a technical adviser to the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The importance of the appointment was explained at The Brad Blog last Monday. The Official Press Release of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission read as follows: U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION 1225 New York Ave. NW – Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20005 For Immediate Release December...

For a chance to unseat a 5-term incumbent, check out Matt Friedman for Congress: Matt Friedman for Congress 302 Washington #942 San Diego, CA 92103. www.friedmanforcongress.org

It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here’s my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan. I base this conclusion on three principles. First, when I think back on all the moments of progress in that part of the world — all the times when a key player in the Middle East...

In just 2 1/2 minutes, Milton Friedman explains—albeit, in a backhanded way—why capitalism works and socialism is doomed to failure… Video Link

It is hard to know if Thomas L. Friedman’s love affair with China, already reaching approval of autocracy, is so intense that he is blind to reality or that he simply likes to pick and choose facts from China to buttress whatever he thinks we should do in America. His recent column in the New York Times, "The New Sputnik," is mostly a recitation of what is widely known. China, both because it is increasingly concerned about pollution and because there may be business opportunities is looking to “go green” or, at least, more green than it has been as...

The dwindling number of readers of The New York Times were treated Wednesday to a column by Thomas Friedman extolling China's "one-party autocracy," which, he told us, "is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people." China's leaders, he reported, are "boosting gasoline prices" and "overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power." All, of course, in the cause of reducing carbon emissions, which so many luminaries assure us are bound to produce global warming and environmental catastrophe.

Sometimes it's best to go back and listen to the heavyweights in order to truely learn. Some answers don't deserve to be forgotten. _ Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into motion when government imposes itself into the health care system. (1978) _

Most of the Mussolini fans of the 1920s didn't really want a dictatorship in America, and any fair reader of Thomas Friedman's oeuvre knows that he doesn't want an authoritarian government here either; the word limit of his column apparently left him no space to regret the Chinese one-party autocracy's Internet censorship, forced sterilizations, imprisonment of political dissenters, and the like.

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century...

Rose Friedman, who was partner and collaborator with her late husband Milton on many of his most important works of political thought and advocacy, has died of heart failure. Though her birth records in her native Russia are lost, she was believed to have been 99. The Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation has a notice of her death, which also sums up the achievements of her life: She will be remembered both as a talented economist and an influential advocate of freedom. Her economic work helped to discredit the idea of government management of the economy, rolling back policies that...

Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into motion when government imposes itself into the health care system. Speech given at the Mayo Clinic -- 1978

Thomas Friedman, bad writer, world traveler, and all around bon vivant, wants YOU to pay to save the planet. Just Do It Yes, this bill’s goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 is nowhere near what science tells us we need to mitigate climate change. But it also contains significant provisions to prevent new buildings from becoming energy hogs, to make our appliances the most energy efficient in the world and to help preserve forests in places like the Amazon.

As political talking heads ponder the necessity for yet another stimulus package our domestic economy is wallowing with unemployment approaching 10%. Politicians on the left continue to embrace the last pork loaded stimulus bill claiming that while it didn't quite meet expectations for curbing job loss -- things would certainly be much worse without it. In the meantime, Republicans argue that while the government's attempt to stimulate the economy was all well and good -- the legislation was severely misguided and not enough of the new borrowed and printed money is getting into the economy fast enough. Lost in this...

Fox News bowed to pressure from Kelly Preston, Tom Cruise and other members of the Church of Scientology when it fired columnist Roger Friedman, the entertainment journo is expected to charge in a wrongful termination lawsuit this week.

In a time where conservatives are struggling to make conservatism popular again, there has been much reference of President Ronald Reagan and his core principles, and rightfully so. I too reference Reagan for the successful precedent his tenure set for conservatism. However, I feel too little attention is paid to the conservative thinkers who spurred the movement which put the likes of Reagan in the White House; thinkers like Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley who, I am ashamed to say, are all-too-unfamiliar to my generation. This unfamiliarity, no doubt, can be directly attributed to generations of indoctrination primarily proliferated...

The Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman had a brief description of how money is spent. In an interview with Fox News in 2004, he said the following:"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but...

After more than 10 years of acerbic writing, Foxnews.com columnist Roger Friedman has reached a bitter end himself in a film piracy-related incident. The moral of the story is that, if you work for a company that owns a movie studio, it’s not a good idea to download and review a stolen copy of an upcoming movie. But that’s apparently what Friedman did. The entire entertainment industry has been talking about the stolen copy of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which was posted on the Internet about a month before the movie’s planned debut. The pirated version was an early, unfinished, special...

Has longtime Fox News entertainment blogger Roger Friedman been fired? It depends whom you ask.On Saturday News Corp. released a statement saying the Hollywood gadfly had been "terminated."But on Sunday afternoon Friedman told Daily Variety that he had not been let go.Fox News released its own missive when asked on Sunday afternoon if Friedman had been ousted. "This is an internal matter that we're not prepared to discuss at this time," a Fox News spokesperson said.For its part, the studio weighed in Friday with its own statement, calling Friedman's actions "reprehensible."Friedman came under fire for posting a review of a...

<p>WASHINGTON - At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute at least $1 million each to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups, to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up during the last three decades.</p>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A In his book "Capitalism and Freedom" (1962) Milton Friedman (1912-2006) advocated minimizing the role of government in a free market as a means of creating political and social freedom. An excerpt from an interview with Phil Donahue in 1979.

Maybe we should mass email this video to all of our representatives in Washington (as well as in our states), because it seems nobody is standing up for the free market system that made this country great! In less than 2 1/2 minutes, Milton Friedman makes the case perfectly. Absolutely brilliant!

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.” We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made...

Excellent 2 1/2 minute video of Milton Friedman on the Phil Donahue show, ca 1970s. Video at the link.

FREE TO CHOOSE 1990 VOL. 3: " THE FAILURE OF SOCIALISM " (BARACK OBAMA & LEFT WING) / PART1 (What must have been one of Ronald Reagan's last recorded statements, it appears at the beginning of this video.)

The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline. -Milton FriedmanWhen you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that...

Free to Choose 1990 Volume 2 - The Tyranny of Control Topic: The Case for Free Trade ABSTRACT "When anyone complains about unfair competition, consumers beware." Friedman tells us about the writings of Adam Smith who, 200 years ago, warned that businesses always try to sell for the highest price and will try to control the market to do so. But without government help businesses cannot force people to buy their goods. Consumers will always get the lowest possible prices when competition is free and robust.

Milton Friedman and the concept of free market economies are under attach by the left. The Stimulus Bill has taken us as a country decidedly to the left. The concepts of Capitalism and Free market Economics cannot be diminished if accurately or honestly portrayed and cannot be defeated if known by the voters. As always, knowledge is power. Below is a link to the entire ground-breaking Free to Choose series as it originally aired in 1980 as well as an updated 1990 version. A link to "The Power of Choice" is available here also. It will require a considerable investment...

Please watch and forward this youtube to your messiah worshipping Obamatrons. Milton Friedman gives the best defense of free market capitalism I have ever seen. In less than 2 1/2 minutes in this TV interview, he destroys any argument against capitalism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

Arnold Schwarzenegger came into the governorship as a fervent disciple of free market economist Milton Friedman. When Friedman died in 2006, the governor declared him "one of the great thinkers and economists of the 20th century, and when I was first exposed to his powerful writings about money, free markets and individual freedom, it was like getting hit by a thunderbolt." Five years into his governorship, however, Schwarzenegger has morphed into an acolyte of Friedman's chief rival in the arcane field of macroeconomics: John Maynard Keynes, who advocated government spending to ease economic recession. As the New York Times obituary...

Buck up, Americans. Things may look bleak now, but George Friedman, founder of Strategic Forecasting, Inc., a private intelligence agency sometimes called the "Shadow CIA," sees great things ahead. In his new book, "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century," Friedman predicts decades of American dominance. "The United States is economically, militarily, and politically the most powerful country in the world, and there is no real challenger to that threat."

(Nobel winner Krugman advocates consumption approach, but other prize winners disagree.) The solution to the current economic downturn as put forth by the majority in Congress and touted by most of the news media is for the federal government to enact a massive “stimulus package.” This stimulus package will be weighted towards federal government spending with some redistribution of income labeled a tax cut. The theory behind the program is fairly straight-forward Keynesian (named after John Maynard Keynes) macroeconomics. The hypothesis is that the recession is being caused by a lack of demand, particularly consumer-demand. As consumer sentiment falls, consumers...

Over dinner with Milton Friedman several years before he died, I offered the great man a compliment. He refused it. I had just re-read God and Man at Yale, the 1951 book in which William F. Buckley Jr., denounced the leftist attitudes he had encountered among the Yale faculty and administration as an undergraduate. Buckley singled out the department of economics as the most collectivist department on the campus. "Today," I said, "nobody would call the economics department at a major university 'collectivist.'" Academia as a whole may have continued its long, sorry wobble to the left, I continued, but...

Citigroup as Exhibit A — how some of our country’s best-paid bankers were overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling, or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye. But it wasn’t only the bankers. This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics. So many people were in on it: People who had no business buying a home, with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years; people who had no business pushing such mortgages, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business bundling...

Barack Obama has been elected president of the United States by a large majority in the Electoral College. The Democrats have dramatically increased their control of Congress, increasing the number of seats they hold in the House of Representatives and moving close to the point where — with a few Republican defections — they can have veto-proof control of the Senate. Given the age of some Supreme Court justices, Obama might well have the opportunity to appoint at least one and possibly two new justices. He will begin as one of the most powerful presidents in a long while. Truly...

Of all the points raised by different analysts about the economy last week, surely the best was Representative Barney Frank’s reminder on “Charlie Rose” that Ronald Reagan’s favorite laugh line was telling audiences that: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ ” Hah, hah, hah. Are you still laughing? If it weren’t for the government bailing out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and A.I.G., and rescuing people from Hurricane Ike and pumping tons of liquidity into the banking system, our economy would be a shambles. How would you...

If John McCain can win this election race with a 50-pound ball called “George W. Bush” wrapped around one ankle and a 50-pound ball called “The U.S. Economy” wrapped around the other, then he deserves to represent America in the next Olympics in any race he wants — swimming, cycling or track — I don’t care how old he is. He would be the Michael Phelps of politics. I confess, I watch politics from afar, but here’s what I’ve been feeling for a while: Whoever slipped that Valium into Barack Obama’s coffee needs to be found and arrested by the...

Plans by the University of Chicago to establish a research institute named after legendary free-market economist Milton Friedman have caused an uproar at the school on the city's South Side. More than 100 tenured faculty members have signed letters and a petition opposing the institute, which would be paid for by private donations and would conduct research in economics, medicine, public policy and law. Critics say that they are concerned the institute will be a partisan, elitist organization and that it shouldn't be under the auspices of a university.

There's a splendid controversy brewing at the University of Chicago--at least we'll consider it splendid so long as it has a happy ending, which now seems likely. The U of C may be best known these days as home to the law school where Barack Obama used to lecture on constitutional law (twice a week!), but in simpler times it was most famous as the academic perch of the great free-market economist Milton Friedman, who died in 2006. So when a prestigious university wants to name a research center after its most celebrated (Nobel prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, etc.,...

Imagine for a minute, just a minute, that someone running for president was able to actually tell the truth, the real truth, to the American people about what would be the best — I mean really the best — energy policy for the long-term economic health and security of our country. I realize this is a fantasy, but play along with me for a minute. What would this mythical, totally imaginary, truth-telling candidate say?

Both authors are interviewed at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. Marcus Luttrell ~ the incredible story of heroism and grit, as well as heartbreaking loss. Afghanistan: The Forgotten War -- on cspan-2 now. Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 The One (Marcus Luttrell) The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War (Brandon Friedman)

I have no idea who is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but lately I've been wondering whether, if it is Barack Obama, he might want to consider keeping Dick Cheney on as his vice president. No, I personally am not a Dick Cheney fan, and I know it is absurd to even suggest, but now that I have your attention, here's what's on my mind: After Iraq and Pakistan, the most vexing foreign policy issue that will face the next president will be how to handle Iran. There is a Cold War in the Middle East today between...

Boy, am I glad we finally got out of Iraq. It was so painful waking up every morning and reading the news from there. It’s just such a relief to have it out of mind and behind us. Huh? Say what? You say we’re still there? But how could that be — nobody in Washington is talking about it anymore? I don’t know whether it was the sheer agony of the debate over Gen. David Petraeus’s testimony, or the fact that the surge really has dampened casualties, or the failure by Democrats to force an Iraq withdrawal through Congress, or...

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman must be awfully tired of the global war on terror (GWOT). In his column "9/11 Is Over," he laments that "we've become 'The United States of Fighting Terrorism.' … I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don't need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12." Alrighty, then. Let's just declare the war over. Liberals have tried to convince us they are hawks on the GWOT but that they just don't believe Iraq is part of it. They want to go back into Afghanistan with greater force, or...

Thomas Friedman thinks you are "stupid" if you still care about the atrocity committed against this country by Islamofascists in New York on 9/11/2001. He thinks "9/11 is over" and we all should just move on. Even worse, he has decided that we are no longer a great country, but are filled with seemingly meaningless "fear," that we have a dilapidated infrastructure, and that while America used to be "the gold standard," he believes "We aren’t anymore." Friedman is falling for the typical, leftist doom-and-gloom scenario and imagines that China is better than we are, Europe is more inviting, and...

<p>CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Qaida's No. 2 has issued a new video tape calling on Muslims to unite in jihad, or holy war, and support the Islamist movement in Iraq, a U.S.-based intelligence monitoring group said Wednesday.</p> <p>Ayman al-Zawahri is seen in the one-hour and 35 minutes tape dressed in white and addressing topics from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories and Egypt, said the U.S.-based SITE intelligence group, which monitors al-Qaida messages.</p>

A few weeks ago I gathered some quotes of Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton, on the same subject. It was a very illustrative exercise, as it allowed me to see how a conservative on one hand, and a liberal on the other, can have a different outlook on the same thing. Recently I read snippets of columns of the late economist Milton Friedman, all of which appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the years. I thought it would be interesting to do a compare and contrast between a champion of the free market versus a champion of government. And...

A few weeks ago I gathered some quotes of Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton, on the same subject. It was a very illustrative exercise, as it allowed me to see how a conservative on one hand, and a liberal on the other, can have a different outlook on the same thing. Recently I read snippets of columns of the late economist Milton Friedman, all of which appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the years. I thought it would be interesting to do a compare and contrast between a champion of the free market versus a champion of government. And...

It was my good fortune to meet Milton Friedman in February 1968, while I was at Oppenheimers. The stock market was in what looked like the early stages of a bear market, with the S&P 500 down 8 percent in a couple of months. My partner and good friend, Fred Stein, feared that the U.S. was going back to the depression of the 1930s. After all, he reasoned, “All consumers had acquired their needs; everyone had a car.” A very recent University of Chicago grad working in the research department suggested that Fred bring in a relatively unknown economist, Professor...

When Milton Friedman stepped forward on December 10, 1976, to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences from the King of Sweden, he needed bodyguards. His moment of glory was marred by a mob of protesters outside gathering to condemn Friedman’s alleged complicity in the crimes of the military regime ruling Chile, which allegedly lived and died according to his theories. One heckler even slipped inside, shouting “down with capitalism, freedom for Chile” from the balcony. It was a telling moment in a controversial career. Despite being a professional academic, Friedman had never locked himself away in an ivory...

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, the legendary champion of economic freedom and the nemesis of Keynesian orthodoxy, strongly influenced the economic policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the growing opposition to Communism within the eastern bloc, and more controversially Chile under Pinochet. Less well known is the fact that much before these events transpired he was engaged as consultant by India’s finance ministry, along with another prominent American economist, J K Galbraith, as Independent India embarked on a new economic trajectory. Galbraith and Friedman were at opposite ends of the State-Market paradigm, and both died in 2006. Galbraith was close...