Free Republic

It was in 1850 that a French economist, Frédéric Bastiat, warned that “under pretense of organization, regulation, protection or encouragement, the law may take from one party in order to give to another, help itself to the wealth acquired by all the classes that it may increase that of one class, whether that of the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the ship owners, or artists and comedians.” He said of this “lawful plunder” that the people may end it “or they may desire to take part in it. Woe to the nation where this latter thought prevails amongst the masses.” Woe, in...

A wealthy chiropractor who has been in practice for more than 20 years and his wife were living in a $1.2million waterfront home while claiming almost $2,000-a-month welfare benefits and even food stamps, according to documents.

    In 2008 Barack Obama’s campaign shtick was “change.” That resonated because President Bush was spending too much and the country meant to change Washington. But Obama meant to change the country. In response the Tea Party movement has arisen to implement the real change, putting brakes on that out of control big government growth. Our message to Washington is simple: you have run out of our money, stop excessive spending. You cannot borrow your way out of debt; you cannot spend your way out of deficits. What is President Obama’s response to our message of fiscal responsibility? Shared...

Trick-or-treaters marched up the White House driveway on a wet, snowy Saturday, past the spider web-like gauze, the pumpkins and the costumed actors to the mansion's north portico where President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama handed out treats, an annual tradition. "What's this? Look at this guy," the president said at the sight of one costumed child. "A headless man. Terrifying!" And yes, the sweets included signature boxes of White House M&Ms, signaling a temporary respite from the first lady's healthy eating campaign. Dried fruit and White House baked cookies rounded out the handouts. Earlier this week, in...

A video about the occupy wall street bums. CAUTION! SCARY PHOTOS w/Nudity and violence! Viewer discretion advised!

Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, California, but her wages aren't enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son. Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Americans who survive because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation. Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That's an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led...

The above title should say it all. It is a currently unheard of social program but one that will become widely known just like Social security and Universal health care. The Universal Basic Income is essentially getting free money for life with no strings attached. ABSOLUTELY NONE! It is already beginning to take hold in New Zealand and is being contemplated (not surprisingly) by that Communist liberal utopia that Democrats want us to emulate, the European Union. According to websites such as basic income.com and similar websites advocating the implementation of UBI, everyone would receive somewhere between six hundred to...

Nearly 20 cents of every dollar of disposable income comes from the government, often in the form of Social Security, Medicare or unemployment benefits. Government social benefits accounted for almost 20% -- or 20 cents of every dollar -- of Americans' disposable income in March, a figure that's been growing amid a weak economy, stubbornly high unemployment and an aging population. As recently as the 1980s, that figure was closer to 12% or 13%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. "That (20%) is a pretty big chunk of what people have as their disposable income," says Chris Christopher,...

Everybody knows that libertarians are greedy capitalists who favor the maximization of profit above all else. “Taxation is theft!” they cry, but the exploitation of the working classes fails to elicit any similar moral outrage. Libertarians, everybody knows, care about the rich to the utter neglect of the poor and vulnerable. But everybody is wrong. The reason for the common misperception, of course, is that libertarians oppose many of the governmental policies that are commonly thought to benefit the poor and working classes. Libertarians oppose redistributive taxation, oppose the minimum wage, oppose workplace safety regulations, antitrust laws, and many other...

Every hour of every day, hundreds of people need essential human services - they are looking for training, employment, food pantries, help for an aging parent, addiction prevention programs for their teenage children, affordable housing options, support groups and ways of becoming part of their community. 2-1-1 allows people to give help and to get help. 2-1-1 is an easy to remember telephone number that, where available, connects people with important community services and volunteer opportunities. In 2010, 2-1-1 services in the United States answered more than 16.4 million calls. The implementation of 2-1-1 is spearheaded by United Ways and...

Lavish aid to Africa is turning the continent into a ‘spoilt child’, according to the head of a charity backed by Nelson Mandela. Mike Kendrick, founder of the respected Mineseeker Foundation, warned that aid often increased the hardship faced by the world’s poorest people. In a devastating verdict, he told the Daily Mail last night: ‘I sometimes use the analogy of a spoilt child. We have all seen rich parents give their child everything they need, without earning it.

In America today, the biggest recipients of handouts are not poor people. They're corporations. General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is super-close to President Obama. The president named Immelt chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Before that, Immelt was on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He's a regular companion when Obama travels abroad to hawk American exports. (Why does business need government to do that?) "Jeff Immelt is perhaps the CEO who is most cozy with President Obama," says journalist Tim Carney. "General Electric is structuring their business around where government is going ... high-speed rail, solar, wind....

The king, who had been convalescing in Morocco after back surgery in New York in November, stood as he descended from the plane in a special lift. He then took to a wheelchair. Hundreds of men in white robes performed a traditional Bedouin sword dance on carpets laid out at Riyadh airport for the return of the monarch, thought to be 87. Abdullah left his ailing octogenarian half-brother, Crown Prince Sultan, in charge during his absence. Before Abdullah arrived, state media announced an action plan to help lower- and middle-income people among the 18 million Saudi nationals. It includes pay...

The House of Representatives approved a decades-old settlement worth $4.6 billion Tuesday that resolves two class-action suits filed against the federal government by black farmers and Native Americans. The thousands who joined the suit argued that the government discriminated against them as they applied for loans for agricultural ventures. The House approved the package 256-to-152. Black farmers would receive $1.2 billion, after they alleged they were cheated out of loans from the Agriculture Department. The government will direct $3.4 billion to American Indians who say the Interior Department swindled them out of royalties from natural resources like gas and timber.

Gov. Deval Patrick says he’ll use his second term to try to implement the rest of an advisory panel’s recent recommendations on immigration reform, including in-state tuition for illegal immigrant students and more English classes. Patrick told immigrant advocates Tuesday that the moves will help better integrate the state’s immigrant population, seventh largest in the country. Last year, an advisory panel released a report on possible Massachusetts immigration reforms, and advocates have been pressing Patrick to push for dozens of recommendations in the report.

The newly reelected governor who created a special council to help illegal immigrants integrate into society promises to spend his second term pushing for measures to benefit undocumented aliens in his state. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, former Clinton Administration official, assured open borders advocates this week that he’ll advance an ambitious agenda launched during his first term to assist illegal aliens... In all, the governor’s council offered 131 ideas aimed at integrating immigrants and refugees into the civic and economic life of the Commonwealth...Among the key recommendations is granting illegal immigrants drivers’ licenses and discounted in-state-tuition at public colleges and...

Home buyers can once again purchase a home using FHA financing with a zero down payment. Previous zero down payment FHA loan programs were funded by seller contributions funneled through a nonprofit group which then donated the down payment to the purchaser. These seller-financed down payment programs were terminated in 2008 after the FHA experienced default rates three times higher than when buyers made a cash down payment. The innovative zero down payment FHA home purchase program was recently introduced by The Lending Company of Phoenix, Arizona. In order to meet the FHA required 3.5% down payment, the borrower receives...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- More than two dozen medical staples hold together the left side of Orlen Rosales' head after he was struck by a train on July 4, his family says. Few thought the 26-year-old Honduran would survive, but doctors and nurses at Carolinas Medical Center have worked nonstop to save him. Rosales doesn't have insurance. In fact, he's not even in the country legally. He was deported in 2008 after a drunken-driving arrest. And he's not eligible for Medicaid beyond emergency care. "Yes, he doesn't have papers, but he's a human being," says Oneyda Lopez, Rosales' cousin. The Pew...

Friedman at his best. Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJWZ27OT16M Milton Friedman explains the dynamics of welfare.

"It has been a matter of policy in the wind farm industry to make the financing of it both opaque and complicated," said Mr Etherington. "In all countries across Europe the customer is not told how much they are paying for it, and the whole financing of the industry is coming out of subsidy on electricity generation." .....Recent research by Kroll, the international corporate security firm, has discovered examples all over Europe of so-called "clean energy" schemes being used to to line criminals' pockets rather than save the planet. Some involve windmills that stand derelict or are simply never built,...

The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus. This admission was recently posted on Scribd.com: American Socialist Voter– Q: How many members of the U.S. Congress are also members of the DSA? A: Seventy Q: How many of the DSA members sit on the Judiciary Committee? A: Eleven: John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee], Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez, Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Linda Sanchez [there are 23 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of which eleven, almost half,...

East Point residents began lining up to turn in Section 8 housing applications before daybreak Thursday, a day after a crowd of 30,000 mobbed a shopping center to pick up the forms. This time, less than a dozen people were in line. [Goes on to describe yesterday's chaos in the heat]

A crowd of people hoping to get federal housing assistance became unruly Wednesday morning with reports of fights breaking out in the crowd.

A proposed change to Utah’s food stamp rules could mean nearly 8,000 households with undocumented members get less financial aid for food — or none at all. Families qualify for food stamps based in part on how much income they make. In a household that has both undocumented members and citizens — such as parents with a child born in the U.S. — Utah officials have not been fully counting the earnings of undocumented workers.

Shirley Sherrod, litigant and co-mastermind of the Pigford settlement, which bestowed large checks on 86,000 of the country's 40,000 black farmers, ironically may help usher in a long-overdue post-racial era in America. Publicity, once the ally of the racial grievance industry, is now the enemy of deals done in quiet. After Dan Riehl linked to a law firm that specializes in filing complaints in the Pigford settlement for a 33.5% contingency fee -- Pogust, Braslow & Millrood, LLC, in Conshohoken, Pennsylvania -- their site at http://www.blackfarmersjustice.com seems to have gone offline. Riehl notes this language from the law firm's 2008...

How did we get there? That is the question posed by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) to Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sonia Sotomayor during her confirmation hearing. The "there" Senator Coburn was asking about is the situation where the individual's right to bear arms is explicit in the Constitution yet unsettled in law, while a woman's right to privacy (to an abortion), not mentioned at all in the Constitution, is settled in law. Thus, the perfectly reasonable question, "How did we get there?" The problem we face is that there are a lot of "theres" out there. From an early age,...

From NotoriouslyConservative.ComJane bought a bird feeder, and hung it on her back porch, filling it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, filled lovingly with seed. Within a week she had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table; everywhere! Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb Jane and...

Yes, there are plenty of reasons, and here is just one! California gives over and above what the feds give to Illegal Aliens. Yesterday I was at my doctor's office and picked up a booklet funded 'with a generous grant from the Calif. Bar Foundation', titled, "Seniors & the Law" A Guide for Maturing Californians. They pointed out many programs, such as property tax deferment for seniors in financial trouble, that have been eliminated because of budget cuts...but they didn't cut this one! Pg. 3 (click link to see original document) Is there any financial assistance available for seniors who...

Something we have always known, animals are smarter than people.

You hear it everywhere you turn. On street corners, at the water cooler, in advertising … it is everywhere. Get cash now for that worn-out old automobile sitting in your driveway. Even Larry Kudlow, television commentator and a supply-sider if there ever was one, has been extolling the economic healing powers and virtues of the federal government’s Cash for Clunkers program. I can’t blame anybody. Who can argue against a program that is getting old and possibly dangerous automobiles off the road and putting Americans into more fuel-efficient, safer, new automobiles? Even members of my own family have taken advantage...

Hundreds of thousands of migrants here for handouts, says senior judge By STEVE DOUGHTY 29th July 2009 Judge Ian Trigger said the cost of handouts has helped to double the national debt Hundreds of thousands of immigrants come to Britain just to get welfare benefits, a senior judge declared yesterday. Judge Ian Trigger said the cost of the handouts has helped to double the national debt. He spoke out as he gave a two-year jail sentence to a Jamaican drug minder who disappeared from the notice of immigration authorities after claiming asylum. He told Lucien McClearley, 31, at Liverpool Crown...

This week, thousands of people are getting stimulus checks in the mail. The problem is that a lot of them are dead. A Long Island woman was shocked when she checked the mail and received a letter from the U.S. Treasury -- but it wasn't for her. Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check. But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago. The Santopadres are not alone. The Social Security Administration, which sent out 52 million checks,...

The city's experimental anti-poverty program that pays poor New Yorkers for good behavior like seeing the doctor and attending parent-teacher conferences handed out an average of $3,000 per family in its first year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration said it is too early to know whether it is a useful tool to fight poverty. Officials say it will take five years for a full evaluation of the program, which is the first of its kind in the nation. But a report released Tuesday by the mayor's Center for Economic Opportunity did contain some preliminary data. It said 80 percent of the...

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Stemming home foreclosures in Hispanic communities is crucial to restoring financial stability and ending the nation's economic crisis, former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros said Tuesday. “It is critical for this country to grow the backbone of its economy, its middle class, and the future middle class in large measure is going to be Latino,” Cisneros said. Cisneros made the comments during a telephonic symposium on Latinos and the economy — “Back to Basics: Restoring Latino Financial Security” — sponsored by the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic rights organization, and the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning...

The photo below captures a disturbing trend that is beginning to affect wildlife in the US. After a sweeping Democratic Party victory in the November elections, animals that were formerly self-sufficient are already modifying their behavior to take advantage of what they expect to be a new set of societal norms in the next four to eight years. This black bear from Montana has ceased hunting for a living and is sitting outside the US Fish & Wildlife Service office in Kalispell, apparently waiting to be fed and to have his winter den dug by government employees. The residents of...

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., says the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus package the House of Representatives is heaping on Americans is nothing more than a huge spending bill with projects in it for people the Democratic-led Congress wants to buy off. Inhofe, who says the bill will do nothing to stimulate the economy.....that the superfluous bill will provide tax refunds to people who don't pay any taxes, and would even give government checks of up to $1,000 to illegal aliens. "You have a stimulus bill that's supposed to stimulate the economy," Inhofe explains. "We know how to do that. We did it...

THE single mother of octuplets born in California last week is seeking $2m (£1.37m) from media interviews and commercial sponsorship to help pay the cost of raising the children. Nadya Suleman, 33, plans a career as a television childcare expert, since it emerged last week that she already had six children before giving birth on Monday. She now has 14 below the age of eight. Although still confined to an LA hospital bed, she intends to talk to two influential television hosts this week - media mogul Oprah Winfrey, and Diane Sawyer, who presents Good Morning America. Her family has...

Voters in the 40 of the most competitive Democratic-held congressional districts favor the economic stimulus legislation passed by the House this week, according to a new Democratic poll. Democracy Corps sampled 1,200 people combined in those districts, dividing them into two groups: the 20 most competitive districts in the first tier and the next 20 in a second tier. Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who conducted the poll, reported that 62 percent of voters in the 20 most competitive districts favor the $819 billion stimulus plan, while 66 percent in the next tier favored the legislation. In a broader, nationwide poll...

WASHINGTON: A top Republican congressional aide says the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus measure could steer government checks to illegal immigrants. Republican officials are concerned that the Democratic-written legislation makes people who came to the United States illegally eligible for tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple. A House-passed version of the bill and one making its way through the Senate both disqualify nonresident aliens from receiving the credits. But neither requires a worker to have a Social Security number to get the credits. An economic aid measure enacted in February 2008 that sent rebates to most wage...

The two-story house on 17th St. looks typical of the working-class homes on Racine's west side. Three bedrooms, one bath. Assessed by the city at $122,000. Yet inside, a young woman has tapped into a home-based money-making operation that netted her and her three sisters more than half a million in taxpayer dollars since 2006. And they did it with the blessing of the state. All four had been in-home child-care providers. Collectively they have 17 children. For years, the government has paid them to stay home and care for each other's children. Nothing illegal about it under the rules...

Alaska's new Senator Mark Begich says Governor Palin is not asking President-Elect Obama for enough help in the nearly trillion dollar stimulus package he has proposed to rebuild the nation's economy. Wednesday, Palin sent Alaska's congressional delegation a three-page letter only requesting five stimulus package projects. The letter only added Kodiak Missile Launch Facility upgrades to the four gas pipeline road projects Palin already requested. Begich says in an estimated $800 billion dollar economic recovery package he wants to know why Palin is only asking for about $150 million dollars. "I think the 4 projects she's identified, in my view,...

Despite just receiving $13.4 billion in government loans, General Motors (GM) hopes to make another federal cash withdrawal, probably in early 2009. GM spokesman Greg Martin noted the automaker had originally requested $18 billion in "bridge loans" and revolving credit from the government in late November to help survive the recession. Instead, talks stalled in Congress and the Bush administration acted on its own to approve $17.4 billion in loans, with $4 billion going to Chrysler.

For nearly 30 years, politicians have poured more than $65 million into downtown Buffalo hotels — an average of more than $50,000 per room. The strategy produced five hotels — and a lot of red ink. Some of downtown’s largest hotel operators say the last thing they need is more competition, especially subsidized competitors. But that’s exactly the course City Hall is pursuing. One heavily subsidized hotel is under construction, and development agencies in the last month have approved two others that would involve significant tax breaks. The new projects would increase the inventory of downtown hotel rooms by 22...

If you've been elected to something somewhere in California, you're probably writing a wish list for President-elect Barack Obama. With the inauguration about nine weeks away, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster is seeking $111 million to replace 28 miles of storm drains. State Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) is talking up $321 million for sewage-treatment plants and clean-water facilities. Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl wants a light-rail line to Los Angeles International Airport. And money for homeless veterans. And did he mention universal healthcare? "The sooner he focuses on healthcare, the better," said Rosendahl, who represents coastal neighborhoods such as...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former American International Group Inc (AIG.N) Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg said on Tuesday the U.S. government support for the giant insurer will have to continue until the hobbled company is back on its feet.

For the nation's labor union leaders, it's time to cash in. Having mobilized an army of workers to help elect Barack Obama, top union officials have not been shy about their plans to push a legislative wish list blocked under President Bush, and they say they will not wait. On the other hand, business leaders have not been shy about warning the president-elect against such early moves. "American workers turned out for the election. American voters voted for Barack Obama. And American workers won this election," Anna Burger, chairman of Change to Win, an activist coalition of unions including the...

Pack away that "Drill, Baby, Drill" T-shirt with the old disco clothes. While President-elect Barack Obama said in his victory speech Tuesday that some of the changes he promised will take time, New Jersey Democrats expect a lot to happen quickly. Within days of inauguration, the new administration might reverse policies on offshore drilling, chemical plant security, stem-cell research and children’s health care — issues that have bedeviled New Jersey Democrats during the Bush years. Even before the inauguration, change appears to be happening. WHAT NJ WANTSWish list for our sharePresident Bush indicated Wednesday he is open to discussing another...

Last week, as federal regulators seized Washington Mutual in the largest U.S. banking failure, Congress was grappling with whether to spend $700 billion of public money to fix the financial industry's troubles. Lawmakers' initial reaction to the Treasury Department's staggering request: shock. That sum amounts to about a quarter of the U.S. government's annual spending. It's more than the Pentagon's annual budget, more than the nation pays out each year in Social Security benefits and more than the federal government's cost for Medicare and Medicaid. Members of Congress then asked the questions that continue to be on many Americans' minds:...