Free Republic

Jonah Goldberg makes the case that Libertarians are a essential to the Republican party and that conservatives and libertarians aren't that different.

While discussing on The View recently how North Korean heir Kim Jong Un enjoyed the luxury of being sent to a Swiss boarding school, Whoopi Goldberg said the following, “This is what happens with communism. It’s a great concept; on paper it makes perfect sense. But once you put a human being in power, it shifts. We saw it in Russia; we’ve seen it all over the world.” Not surprisingly, this earned Goldberg some criticism. Yet, to be fair, her sentiment is a common one. It’s that supposedly enlightened, nuanced opinion stating that communism works great in theory — it’s...

Different people will take this different ways, but Jeffrey Goldberg tells us that six members of the Walton family (the original owners of Walmart) have more wealth than the bottom 30% of Americans. Here's where he says it: In 2007, according to the labor economist Sylvia Allegretto, the six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans. And given that he quotes us here at Forbes on the point, he's almost certainly right. The question is, what are we to make of this point? I think we all...

When liberals insist that the reason Obama is faring so badly in the polls is because most of us are racists, does it never occur to them that they’re like the boy who cried “Wolf!”? Let us say that, unlike Michael Bloomberg, Henry Waxman and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, you’re not a career politician, but merely a run-of-the-mill Democrat. Wouldn’t it ever occur to you to wonder why it is that if we’re all racists, how it is that Obama won the election three years ago? And how is it that a guy who’s much blacker than Obama, Herman Cain, is doing...

I was part of a panel a few days ago on politics, culture and the media. And the first question put to us was right to the point: “Can Barack Obama win re-election?” Political guru Dick Morris, Tea Party unofficial leader Dick Armey, a scholar from the Heritage Foundation all said no. It’s tough to argue with that. President Obama’s approval ratings are not good and most Americans think we’re on the wrong track. He’s lost support from his key constituents, including Jewish voters and African-Americans. Worst of all for the president, independents who supported him in 2008 have jumped...

I guess they can’t help it, but some bestselling rightwing authors have surprising tastes. Ann Coulter: Louis Vuitton | Coulter (above) likes making fun of those pro-appeasement Frenchmen, but she’s also been caught on camera strolling around the Hamptons with her Louis Vuitton bag, and can’t resist French restaurants, where she orders “Freedom Fries” – just to stir the pot, our guess. Jonah Goldberg: Whole Foods | But thankfully he doesn’t have a man bag, or drive a pious Prius, to the best of our knowledge. Whole Foods “where I shop frequently, by the way” admits Goldberg in Liberal Fascism...

"Who Is A “Natural Born Citizen”? So I’m on the O’Reilly Factor and I say if the Republicans don’t put Marco Rubio on their national ticket they need to get their heads examined. Such is my regard for the freshman senator from Florida. What followed were emails from people who told me that Rubio can’t be vice president because the Constitution says only “natural born citizens” can be president or vice president, and he doesn’t fit the description. Some went a tad further. Ray said I need to “wake up.” Gregor – who signed his name “American by Birth –...

For more than a decade, Michael Goldberg tricked hundreds of investors into giving him more than $100 million on a promise of fat profits on diamonds and distressed properties. He turned himself in to authorities in 2009 and pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud charges in connection with the Ponzi scheme. But after his arrest, prosecutors say Goldberg tried to lure investors on a promise of big profits on gold, only this time a prostitute named Rain who was solicited to invest alerted authorities. Goldberg, a 40-year-old former Wethersfield resident, faces more than 12 to 15 years in prison...

>My former canon law professor, Dr. Ed Peters—who also has a degree in civil law (yeah, he's pretty smart)—has been taken to task by the brilliant scholars and intellectual lights of "The View". Ken Shepherd of Newsbusters writes: Discussing how Catholic canon law advisor Dr. Edward Peters has declared that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) committed an "objectively sacrilegious" act that "produces grave scandal" by receiving Communion on January 2, almost every panelist on ABC gabfest "The View" today rebuked the scholar for his pronouncement. ..."What would Jesus do?" View moderator Whoopi Goldberg asked, answering her own question by...

Tragic news about Joshua Goldberg,Lucianne Goldberg's son. She worked tirelessly to bring the Clinton's to justice and now has a blog site called Lucianne.com Here is what she wrote: To my Dear, Loyal, Funny, Smart, Patriotic Ldotters: It is with a heavy heart and more pain that anyone should endure that we announce the death this week of our beloved Editor-in-Chief, Joshua J. Goldberg. He was my son, Jonah's brother, Chantal's husband and friend to scores of people throughout his young life. It was a tragic fall that killed him. He suffered no pain and is in God's arms. There...

Fox News analyst and former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg has a message for the mainstream media concerning their coverage of the Tuscon shooting--'shut the hell up!' Goldberg made the comment last evening on Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox. O'Reilly had already castigated the mainstream media for joining in the Leftwing chorus of blaming conservatives for the massacre that killed a Federal judge and wounded a U.S. Congresswoman, among others. As a nightly guest on The O'Reilly Factor, Goldberg exposes bias inherent in the news reporting of the media. Goldberg had been part of CBS News under former anchor Dan...

Fabulous.

Bernie Goldberg, author of the highly acclaimed and best selling "Bias," knows liberal MSM bias better than anyone because for years he worked among them and witnessed this bias expressed in both how they slanted news and how they selectively ignored or downplayed news that didn't fit into the leftist political platform. In this video he explains why the current blatant and shameless attempt to politicize the recent murders and woundings of people in Arizona is the most "shallow, thoughtless, agenda-driven nonsense" he's yet seen in his long journalistic career. He cites as prime example the Democratic Sheriff (Clarence Dupnik)...

It's that time of the month again - no not that time - it's the first Sunday, time for C-Span2's BookTV In-Depth, featuring three hours of interview/questions and answers from maybe your favorite author. This being conservative month, the guest for today, November 7, is Jonah Goldberg, author of works including "Liberal Fascism" and "Proud to be Right". Goldberg will discuss his philosophy and writings, and reply to comments and questions from viewers' emails, phone calls, and Tweets. Program starts at noon EST.

As of this writing, France is paralyzed. By the time you read this, it might be in flames. In Britain, where politics is more polite but the problems are perhaps just as dire, the government is proposing budget cuts on a scale not seen for nearly a century. In Greece, well, the less said about Greece the better. All of these countries -- and many more -- are going through painful retrenchments because they spent too much money, made too many promises and expected too little from their own citizens. The era of European austerity is upon us, because the...

When I think of people well-suited to lead a crusade against declining public civility, somehow Whoopi Goldberg doesn't spring to mind. Yet there was The View co-host on Morning Joe today, promoting what Amazon describes as: "her new book of observations [that] takes a funny and excruciatingly honest look at how a loss of civility is messing with the quality of life for all of us." And sure enough, Whoopi engaged in a [seemingly endless] discussion with the MJ folks on the subject. Mika read a passage from the book in which Goldberg bemoaned the rise of "political incivility." Added...

everyone’s favorite person without eyebrows—Whoopi Goldberg—admitted on “The View” that she cheated on her husband several times while they were together. She let the secret fly as her co-hosts discussed, who else, Jesse James. While the rest of “The View” citizen conversationalists deemed James’ action inexcusable, Whoopi defended him. “Maybe he was looking for something different,” she said. “Hey, listen, I did it five or six times. Yes, I screwed around. Yes, while I was married. I made those mistakes, too, yeah. It happens sometimes...

On ABC’s The View on Tuesday, as the group discussed a new law in Oklahoma that requires an ultrasound of an unborn baby be performed and the image offered to a pregnant woman before an abortion could take place, none of the panel members spoke up in favor the Oklahoma law, although right-leaning Elisabeth Hasselbeck supported "nudging" pregnant women to look at an ultrasound to be informed about the life signs of their unborn babies. Whoopi Goldberg became emotional as she dismissed the effectiveness of viewing an ultrasound in encouraging women not to have abortions, and seemed to worry that...

On ABC’s The View on Tuesday, as the group discussed a new law in Oklahoma that requires an ultrasound of an unborn baby be performed and the image offered to a pregnant woman before an abortion could take place, none of the panel members spoke up in favor the Oklahoma law, although right-leaning Elisabeth Hasselbeck supported "nudging" pregnant women to look at an ultrasound to be informed about the life signs of their unborn babies.Whoopi Goldberg became emotional as she dismissed the effectiveness of viewing an ultrasound in encouraging women not to have abortions, and seemed to worry that making...

Megyn Kelly does the interview.

Laura Ingraham fills in For O.

Bill O’Reilly had on his regular media analyst Bernie Goldberg last night to run down the media’s reaction (on both left and right) to the passing of the Health Care bill on Sunday, and echoed some of the same thoughts voiced by David Frum, the former speechwriter for George W. Bush, who made quite a stir yesterday in calling health care reform the GOP’s “Waterloo,” but a big win for the “conservative entertainment” business. Is this the beginning a more measured tone on right-of-center opinion media? Not likely. First some background: amidst the gnashing of teeth and roaring of terrible...

Yesterday's health sum mit was mind-bogglingly, soul-achingly, sand- poundingly, metaphysically and ontologically boring. At one point, I could swear, Sen. Mitch McConnell was counting fibers in the carpet just to stay awake. Of course, real negotiations never happen in front of cameras, because to cut a real political deal in public is the political equivalent of cutting your own throat. But just because the scripts were written beforehand doesn't mean that everyone's lines worked. Obama opened by striking a pose of plausible fairness and open-mindedness but grew more and more snarky and less presidential as the event wore on. His...

The longest week I ever spent was the six hours I spent watching Thursday's health-care summit. The better angel of my nature says that this confab is a wonderful spectacle of democracy. Serious men and women airing serious disagreements in a (relatively) respectful and substantive manner. Huzzah for democracy. Wahoo for C-SPAN. Attaboys and attagals to all involved. My more devilish side says that this is a debacle par excellence, the policy-wonk equivalent of a show trial where the result is foreordained and the speeches are for the benefit of no one but those who don't understand what's really going...

This happens in a small way in your hotel room, in which is found a placard on which is pictured a beaver cavorting in crystal-blue water next to the words, “Don’t wash your towels, it saves the environment”. The hotel does this to save money while appearing to pay obeisance to our current secular religion. This is step one. Step two. The hotel makes a donation to a busybody, who passes a Green Lodgings bill, saying, “People do not need clean towels. I judge them to be excessive. Plus, towels should be laundered only in approved ways: this 387-page document...

When we left off last time, Goldberg’s book was just beginning. Here’s what happened in the States. Progressives in America approved heartily of Europe turning Red, and they set about duplicating the successes of their foreign brothers. To get a rolling start, they looked to the settled science of eugenics. Nobody did more to advance the practice of eugenics (in America) than Margaret Sanger. She took her cue from sophisticated intellectuals like Karl Pearson, Ronald Fisher, John Maynard Keynes, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Julian Huxley (founder of the World Wildlife Fund), Adolph Hitler, and others. They thought “undesirables” were...

In August, Ted Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, the last son of Camelot, the soul of the Democratic Party, friend of the people and scourge of robber barons, fat cats and special interests, departed this mortal coil. Now, that's not really my opinion of the man. But if you were inclined to imbue Tom Brokaw with pontifical authority or view the world through the prism of the New York Times, or its mini-me the Boston Globe, that's how you'd see Teddy. So it should be of more than passing interest that "Ted Kennedy's seat" in the Senate may go...

On his own terms, President Obama is a failure. During the presidential campaign, he fought hammer and tongs with Hillary Clinton over the best way to govern. Clinton, casting herself as a battle-scarred political veteran, argued that diligence, dedicated detail work and working the system were essential for success. Obama, donning the mantle of a redeemer descending from divine heights, argued that his soaring rhetoric was more than "just words"; it was a way out of the poisonous, partisan gridlock of yesteryear. Early on, in New Hampshire, he proclaimed that his "rival in this race is not other candidates. It's...

If you believe in evolution, there is nothing wrong with rape. In fact, you can’t really call it rape. Whoopi Goldberg dismissed Roman Polanski’s rape conviction by declaring that it “wasn’t rape-rape” (see her comments on The View.) As a firm believer in evolution, she should have said, “There’s nothing wrong with rape or sexual aggression. That’s how we all got here!” Here’s the premise: Whatever animals do in nature is natural. What’s natural is normal. What’s normal is moral. So if penguins engage in homosexual behavior, then that behavior must be natural, normal, and moral. How can we mere...

CNN's Rick Sanchez Calls Out [ABC's The View] Whoopi Goldberg For Defending Roman Polanski Rape Case

Whoopie Goldberg thinks that Roman Polanski's rape of that young girl 30+ years ago was not "Rape Rape"She's now featured on the cover of the latest Toys 'R Us Kids circularIf this is not disgusting enough, his current wife is 43 years old which is the approximate age today of the young girl he raped all those years ago. I Called Toys 'R Us at: 1-800-869-7787 and the woman who answered the phone was very nice and also shocked to find out this info.I told her that they were off my X-Mas shopping list permanently. Please call and let them...

Whoopi Goldberg,who defended child-rapist Roman Polanski on The View,is now featured in an advertisement for one of the biggest children's toy stores in the nation.Toys R Us must be proud.....

The Huffington Post has made it crystal clear where it stands on the news that director Roman Polanski may have to answer for his 31-year-old crime of child rape: “Move on, everyone. Nothing to see here. Keep on directing, Roman. Love ya!” The popular liberal site has posted numerous essays since news that Polanski was arrested in Switzerland broke over the weekend, each arguing vehemently against the Oscar winner’s persecution. ... But HuffPo readers aren’t buying it. And boy, are they angry.

How low will Hollywood go in defending Roman Polanski? Former Oscar hostess Whoopi Goldberg tries to parse the meaning of rape between rape and something called “rape-rape” — which, if you read the testimony of Polanski’s victim, Polanski literally did by raping her and then sodomizing her. Goldberg tries to argue that Polanski pled guilty to statutory rape, not actual rape, which is true, and that he served a sentence — which is absolutely false:

Two big questions hang over President Obama's radical "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones. Is he still a communist? Is he a security threat? Many have assumed that Van Jones' committment to communism ended when the organization he helped to lead STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) dissolved in 2002. Yet a 2004 treatise Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement written and endorsed by a majority of former STORM members makes it clear that most ex STORMers are still committed to the revolutionary movement; From page 49. When...

TO listen to the White House and its supporters in and out of the media, you'd think that opposition to "ObamaCare" is the hobgoblin of a few small minds on the right. Racists, fascists, Neanderthals, the whole "Star Wars" cantina of bogeymen and cranks stand opposed to much-needed reform. Left out of this fairly naked effort to demonize many with the actions of a few is the simple fact that ObamaCare -- however defined -- has been tanking in the polls for weeks. President Obama's handling of health care is unpopular with a majority of Americans and a majority of...

To listen to the White House and its supporters in and out of the media, you would think that opposition to "ObamaCare" is the hobgoblin of a few small minds on the right. Racists, fascists, Neanderthals, the whole "Star Wars" cantina of boogeymen and cranks stand opposed to much-needed reform. Left out of this fairly naked effort to demonize many with the actions of a few is the simple fact that ObamaCare -- however defined -- has been tanking in the polls for weeks. President Obama's handling of health care is unpopular with a majority of Americans and a majority...

"It's funny how these supposed champions of the Enlightenment can't grasp that people can disagree with them for honest reasons. Instead, we simply must be Limbaugh's automatons, which is to say racist, fascist thugs. In addition to the slander, such complaints are monumentally, incandescently lame coming from a party that controls Washington. Indeed, according to liberals themselves, these evil-mongers are a tiny minority, a bunch of "Astro Turf" frauds. So why not ignore them and get on with the work you were elected to do? Well, because they can't -- or won't. One of the reasons the term "Obama-care" has...

THE Democratic Party is pan icking, lashing out like a cornered animal, all because its effort to take over the health-care industry is coming apart like so much wet toilet paper. Nancy Pelosi, who will get her own bound volume in the annals of asininity, has outdone herself. When asked by a reporter whether the protests at various town-hall meetings represented legitimate grassroots opposition or were manufactured "Astroturf" stunts, she replied, "I think they're Astroturf. You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care." Now this is a pas de trois...

In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, Captain Kirk is mistaken for a god by inhabitants of a planet of Native Americans (it’s a long story). The illusion works for Kirk until a jealous shaman cuts Kirk’s hand, revealing that the divine being is just a man after all. “Behold! A god who bleeds!” the shaman mocks, exposing Kirk as a fraud to the rest of the tribe. It may sound like a stretch — and, let’s be fair, it is — but I keep thinking of that episode when I look Barack Obama’s poll numbers these days....

BEFORE Sarah Palin stepped on the story, the talk of the Belt way was Salongate at The Washington Post. The venerable newspaper hatched a scheme whereby it would hold a series of "salons" at the home of publisher Katharine Weymouth in order to sell lobbyists and corporations access to Obama administration officials and the Post reporters and editors who cover them. "Bring your organization's CEO or executive director literally to the table," read a flier for the first event. "Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders . . . Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home...

Bestseller Paperback List, The Times did not review Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism", Glenn Beck's "An Inconvenient Book" and Marcus Luttrell's "Lone Survivor".

American politics . . . is ultimately just a popularity contest. WE conservatives are having one of our grand knock-down, drag-out fights over the future of conservatism and the GOP. Should conservatives compromise on gay marriage or abortion rights? Should we jump on the environmental bandwagon? Are there ways to reform health care without abandoning our principles? What would Reagan do? What would William F. Buckley think? Frankly, I love these arguments. I think they're healthy and good for conservatism and the country. One thing I love about conservatives is that we have these internal debates more often than the...

Some days you have to ask yourself, my God, what if these people were Republicans? Democrats took back Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 in no small part because of their ability to bang their spoons on their high chairs about what they called the Republican "culture of corruption." Their choreographed outrage was coordinated with the precision of a North Korean missile launch pageant. And, to be fair, they had a point. The GOP did have its legitimate embarrassments. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and lobbyist Jack Abramoff were fair game, and so was Rep. Mark Foley, the...

In 1993, Bill Clinton joked, "Gosh, I miss the Cold War." And, he explained, somberly: "We had an intellectually coherent thing. The American people knew what the rules were." Such Cold War nostalgia vexed many conservatives. It seemed to us that the Cold War consensus had broken down with the Vietnam War. Clinton himself didn't much like that Cold War endeavor, which is one reason he worked so assiduously to avoid serving in it. A young John Kerry did serve, but he also threw away his medals and denounced his fellow servicemen as war criminals. Jimmy Carter, meanwhile, had proclaimed...

Here is video of Bernie Goldberg talking with Sean Hannity last night about the fact that some on the Right are rabidly finding fault with everything President Obama does. They specifically discuss the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips by the U.S. Navy and whether or not Obama should be given any credit for the success of the rescue. Goldberg criticizes the media for their continued "slobbering love affair with Obama," but says the Right must not do to Obama what the Left did to President George W. Bush - demonize every single act. . . . . (Watch Video)

Bernard Goldberg isn’t the most popular name in today’s newsrooms, and that was before he wrote A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of a Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media. Goldberg reinvented himself from long-time CBS newsman — with six Emmys to his credit — to liberal media bias detector with bestsellers Bias and Arrogance. Needless to say, mainstream media types didn’t take kindly to his criticisms. CBS mainstay Bob Schieffer echoed the thoughts of many of his colleagues regarding Goldberg’s complaints, rejecting his arguments and stating the former CBS employee now makes a...

Lutherans sure love screwing with bulbs. Especially ones at St. Olaf College. The dynamic minds won the national Rube Goldberg competition. This is seriously the coolest science competition in the nation. All those years playing Mouse Trap don't compare to the video you are about to see. Watch the video on their website.

I really liked this post by Will Wilkinson on the question of meaning (even if I don't necessarily agree with all of it). It's in response to the argument that having kids is deeply meaningful even if it can't be quantified, which itself is a response to the current fad of pointing out that having kids allegedly doesn't make people happier. Quoting from an earlier piece of his, Will writes: Appeals to meaning are nice, but they just push the lump in the rug. What’s so great about meaning, anyway? For that matter, what is it? How does one validate...

Here are Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg talking with Glenn Beck today about the AIG Bonus controversy and the issue of breaking contract law to not pay out the bonuses. Michelle Malkin goes after Barney Frank for his response to the AIG CEO reading death threats at the testimony before Congress today. . . . . . . . (Watch Video)