Free Republic

A little after 1 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2009, Karl Frisch emailed a memo to his bosses, Media Matters for America founder David Brock and president Eric Burns. In the first few lines, Frisch explained why Media Matters should launch a “Fox Fund” whose mission would be to attack the Fox News Channel. “Simply put,” Frisch wrote, “the progressive movement is in need of an enemy. George W. Bush is gone. We really don’t have John McCain to kick around any more. Filling the lack of leadership on the right, Fox News has emerged as the central enemy and antagonist...

One of my favorite political analysts surmises that one reason Mayor Ed Lee has not removed Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi from office, despite the fact he has been accused of domestic violence and witness tampering, is because Lee doesn’t want to empower the contingent of people who think Mirkarimi is being victimized because of politics. Still, people feel strongly about this issue. “Mirkarimi’s political life is finished and he should resign,” Democratic strategist Nathan Ballard told me. “He’s like Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense” — everybody knows that Ross Mirkarimi is dead except Ross Mirkarimi.” Ouch! Indeed, the unwillingness to...

Dear Supporter, Our hearts have been repeatedly broken by the Virginia General Assembly this year. We've been lied to: "We'll work on jobs and education, we swear!" We've been cheated on: "I am just going out with my corporate lobbyist friends tonight, it's really nothing!" We can't take another excuse: "These voter ID bills are just to fight 'voter fraud' and have nothing to do with the election." Virginians voted for legislators who promised to put people back to work, get the economy moving, and make our state the best place for a child to receive an education. Instead of...

Mitt Romney attacked his GOP presidential rival Newt Gingrich over what has to date been one of Gingrich’s most effective debate methods — going after the moderators and the media for questions he deems inappropriate. “It’s very easy to talk down a moderator,” Romney said Wednesday on Fox News. “The moderator asks a question and then has to sit by and take whatever you send to them. And Speaker Gingrich has been wonderful at attacking the moderators and attacking the media.”

There is a phone at the top of youtube to "ask president Obama" I don't know if this is just for the state of the union, but google/youtube should have to bill Obama's campaign for the value of the advertising. Anyway, this mistake I found is really funny. Go to the link and mouse over the phone. Leave your cursor there until the tool tip to comes up.

To save the world -- or really to even just make our personal lives better -- we will need to work less. Time, like work, has become commodified, a recent legacy of industrial capitalism, where a controlled, 40-hour week in factories was necessary. Our behavior is totally out of step with human priorities and today’s economy. To lay the foundations for a "steady-state" economy -- one that can continue running sustainably forever -- a recent paper argues that it’s time for advanced developed countries transition to a normal 21-hour work week.

Only a fool believes that all those with whom he differs are bad people. Moreover, just about all of us live the reality -- often within our own family -- of knowing good and loving people with whom we strongly differ on political, religious, social and economic issues. That said, I have come to believe that the more committed one is to leftism, the more likely one is to become meaner. Two examples in just the past week offer compelling evidence. Prominent left-wing commentators used the way in which Rick Santorum and his wife handled the death of one of...

Haifa University has canceled a student event scheduled for Wednesday and which planned to mark the third anniversary of the start of the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Channel 10 News reported on Tuesday that the reason for the cancellation is the fact that the event’s organizers termed the operation a “massacre” and a “fascist operation” in the invitations it sent out. The cancellation came after Channel 10 publicized on its website the invitation to the event, which was planned by a student group identified with MK Dov Henin’s Communist-based Hadash party. The invitation, which was distributed around campus,...

I am a native New Yorker. I was raised in the city, but now live in a nice suburb, about 30 miles from Manhattan. I have a Manhattan-based friend who has a particularly aggressive form of cancer, which an experimental treatment is helping him battle successfully. He’s referred to by the nurses at his treatment center as a “miracle.” Just over two weeks ago, I drove him to his weekly chemotherapy session at an oncology center near my home. Whenever we get together, we talk about the many things that we have in common, which could be categorized as “traditionalism.”...

Left-wing crank Jane Fonda lent her support to President Obama’s “tax-the-rich” mantra by recounting that “all the rich people I know favor higher taxes.” Fonda disdained the option of voluntarily paying more. “Sure, we could freely hand over more money if we wanted to,” she admitted. “There’s nothing stopping us from giving the government more of what we have. The problem with that, though, is that the volition would still be in the hands of the individual. People could still opt not to give.” “What this country needs is a collective redistribution of wealth,” Fonda continued. “It shouldn’t be anyone’s...

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011, essayist, provocateur, wit, atheist, Brit-American and honest man, passed away on December 15. A Socialist early in life who evolved into a Marxist and eventually into a Conservative Marxist (a distinction he coined), later in life; Hitchens played no favorites and took no prisoners with his writing, he sought victims from both the Left and the Right, using his views of incompetence and dishonesty to guide his sharp critiques of those he eviscerated with indifference and without remorse, but regardless of whether you agreed with him, and he almost always bucked public opinion, he had the ability...

Back in 2009, I wrote a piece in which I asked if the Christian church in America was being forced to go underground. As I recently read the news that pastors were being sued for preaching that homosexuality is a sin, I saw clearly that yes, the “real” Christian church in America, in order to continue to stay true to their belief and to God, will be forced to do as the early Christians did – go underground. At the risk of being accused of being a wild-eyed, bible-thumping, Holy Roller, I need to explain what I mean when I...

Accused White House shooter Oscar Ortega Hernández recorded a TV pitch to Oprah Winfrey two months ago in which he declared himself to be "the modern day Jesus Christ." Who is Oscar Ortega Hernández? The 21-year-old asked an Idaho State University student to tape the segment. His girlfriend handed the tape over to the Secret Service on Tuesday."You see Oprah, there is still so much more that God needs me to express to the world. It's not just a coincidence that I look like Jesus. I am the modern day Jesus Christ that you all have been waiting for," he...

Holy shiz! Michelle Obama really knows how to SHAKE IT! Check out the first, just-released preview clip of the First Lady's guest appearance on iCARLY, which features her seriously breaking it down with star Miranda Cosgrove during the Random Dancing! segment of the show (above)! We are legitmately impressed, gurl, and will DEFINITELY be tuning in when this premieres! Weeeeeeerk!

We have all heard the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) described as a grassroots movement. We have been told that it just sprang up after Adbusters, a Canadian left-wing magazine, floated the idea on the internet. The Dominant Liberal Establishment Media (DLEM) has continued repeating this implausible propaganda line since September, despite emerging evidence that OWS has actually been orchestrated by a who’s who list of American radical extremists. It has become clear that Adbusters is just one of a host of leftist organizations, supported by the Tides Foundation and/or George Soros, that have been jointly planning the OWS movement...

What follows is a close look at the leftist lawfare campaign of uncivil agitation as it unfolded in Denver last week. Denver, like other cities that have Occupy manifestations, is faced by a core of protesters from anarchist groups, labor unions, and communist organizations, often obscuring their affiliations, mixed in with a mishmash of confused students, concerned citizen activists, children, and all sorts of evil clowns.

It's almost given that a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has at least some background as a union lawyer. Craig Becker, who long had been associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) before obtaining a recess appointment to the board by President Obama in March 2010 following a Senate GOP filibuster, fits the pattern. But he also may have gone that extra mile, helping to prepare an SEIU manual on how to intimidate employers. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wants to know more. On September 12, Hatch wrote a letter to Becker asking...

<p>This “occupier” in Dayton, Ohio, is a typical lefty in his unfocused rage, his inarticulateness, and his hatred for everything that most people consider normal. The video was shot for Breitbart TV.</p> <p>I think that on balance, the “occupy” movement has been a good thing. It has given Americans a close-up look at modern liberalism. These degenerates are endorsed by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. That tells you everything you need to know.</p>

Obama won the 2008 election by default, but believed he won with a mandate to implement progressive dreams. In pursuing an aggressively leftist agenda, he has done these United States a profound service; he has clarified the fundamental ideological battle at the heart of all politics -- statism vs. individualism -- and dramatized the results that flow from such statist public policies. As a result, the American people are angrier than ever with politicians of both parties. As I say, this is a very positive development. More Americans are focused on issues of Constitutional principle than ever before. They have...

(CNSNews.com) - During the House floor debate on the Protect Life Act last week, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D- Texas) defended abortion as a “needed action” and referred to the heartbeat of a fetus as a “sound”. Voicing her opposition to the measure on Thursday, Jackson Lee referenced a previous Texas law, “Just as the courts ruled unconstitutional and upheld the provision of the Texas law that required a doctor to talk first to a woman seeking an abortion and to allow or force them both to listen, uh, to sounds that, uh, might discourage this needed action, this is...

Violence erupted on Wall Street this morning with hundreds of jubilant protesters clashing with police as they march - jumping over barriers, pushing over police scooters and blocking traffic. Fifteen protesters have already been arrested in New York today after they got into fights with police officers after a planned 'eviction' was postponed following a last-minute standoff with authorities. Park owners - backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg - put off the scheduled clean-up.

“When it comes to foreign policy, if you like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, you’ll love Mitt Romney.” That was the unspoken theme of a speech the former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 Republican presidential contender delivered Friday at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. Inveighing against “crawl[ing] into an isolationist shell,” Romney offered instead a program of hyper-interventionism in which no problem anywhere in the world is too small or remote for Washington’s involvement. Romney pledged to “devote [himself] to an American Century” in which “America has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world.” Romney issued...

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (KTLA) -- Police converged on a crowd of protesters outside a downtown Bank of America branch. The participants in the protest organized by the Refund California campaign marched into the bank and tried to cash a check for $673 billion. It was an over-sized check made out to the "people of California," LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon said.

Protesters camped out on the lawn outside City Hall said Thursday that — rain or shine — Los Angeles officials are starting to show signs of support for the movement that has spawned demonstrations in multiple U.S. cities. An estimated 400 people are spending their sixth day on the streets of downtown voicing their frustration over the direction of the U.S. economy, jobs, and health care. The group now believes they may be able to stay on the lawn permanently and that sentiment in City Hall for their platform could be growing. At least one official is expressing support for...

Whiny messages on the side of the screen.

Billionaire investor George Soros said he sympathizes with the protesters who have camped out near Wall Street in New York and inspired similar anti-corporate demonstrations in other major cities across the United S While announcing a $40-million aid pledge at the United Nations for rural African development, Soros told media that he understood the protesters’ rage over big government bailout for banks "Actually I can understand their [protesters] sentiment, frankly," he said. "And at the same time the decision not to inject capital into the banks, but to effectively relieve them of their bad assets and then allow them to...

Bloomberg's unusually alarmist pronouncement came as President Obama has been pressuring reluctant Republicans to pass his proposed job creation plan.... ...Bloomberg gave Obama kudos for coming up with a jobs plan. "At least he's got some ideas on the table, whether you like those or not," he said. "Now everybody's got to sit down and say we're actually gonna do something and you have to do something on both the revenue and the expense side."

Alan B. Krueger Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University He has published widely on the economics of education, unemployment, labor demand, income distribution, social insurance, labor market regulation, terrorism and environmental economics. Since 1987 he has held a joint appointment in the Economics Department and Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He is the founding Director of the Princeton University Survey Research Center. He is the author of What Makes A Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism and Education Matters: A Selection of Essays on Education, and co-author of Myth and Measurement: The New Economics...

In a trend that continues to worsen, more Illinoisans found themselves unemployed in the month of July. Illinois lost more jobs during the month of July than any other state in the nation, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report. After losing 7,200 jobs in June, Illinois lost an additional 24,900 non-farm payroll jobs in July. The report also said Illinois’s unemployment rate climbed to 9.5 percent. This marks the third consecutive month of increases in the unemployment rate. Illinois started to create jobs as the national economy began to recover. But just when Illinois’s economy seemed...

Part I of how the Left doesn't get the Tea Party here Stage 6 - AngerEven the Republican establishment has shown its distaste for the Tea Party, as seen in Barbara Bush's jab at Sarah Palin and Karl Rove's post-primary meltdown on Fox News after Christine O'Donnell defeated Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican primary. I do have to give some credit to the former first lady - it is rare to hear the political class showing such honesty of opinion when discussing a member of their own party. But she was looking in the wrong direction, more on...

Dear xxxxx, The political balance of power was decided last night by just a few thousand votes. We were just two thousand votes from a political earthquake, but the fact remains that we gained ground, they lost it. Republicans held on to their majority -- barely -- by cashing in on their massive corporate support and the unlimited dollars which flowed from that support in the post-Citizens United era. But we changed the game and seized momentum heading into the next battles. This David vs. Goliath fight, in which underdog progressives successfully took down two Goliaths and came incredibly close...

Last year 876,020 people attended the Wisconsin State Fair to see children show the animals they care for, try various foods on a stick, play carnival games, enjoy music and celebrate the last few days of summer. This year five dozen protesters chose to disrupt the normally placid Wisconsin State Fair grand opening with chants; at least one of them shouted an epithet commonly associated with political assassination. The MacIver News Service’s cameras were there when a throng of about 60 protesters disrupted the opening ceremonies, shouting down Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker during his brief speech. Walker was one of...

Israel's leftists get money for being that way, says one of them in rare confession. Are Israel's leftists pure ideologues or guns for hire? Yotam Feldman, who was born into the leftist camp – his father is liberal lawyer Avigdor Feldman – believes the latter. In a Hebrew language post at the "Eretz HaEmori" blog, Feldman says that in his life, he has witnessed how Israel's "human rights movement" became a source of income for its activists. He relates how his father's old Subaru "gradually turned" into a BMW, and how the family moved from a rented apartment in Yafo...

Full title: The real story of the US debt deal is not the triumph of the Tea Party but the death of the Socialist Left For British conservatives, the US debt deal is a thing of beauty. Under the terms of the deal, the federal government will cut spending by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years and there won’t be any corresponding increase in taxation.

There comes a time and a point in history which indelibly define a President. Oftentimes the event may not be of major import in the greater scheme of things but the management of it is of such prominence that the success or failure in the handling of the issue is permanently attached to the individual. Such a moment has happened to Barack Obama. His incompetence, inability to lead, prevarications, petulance and immaturity in the debt ceiling crisis have indelibly created an image of abject failure in the minds of a critical mass of people in the United States and around...

Somehow, liberal Mayor Paul Soglin of Madison, Wisconsin is still too conservative for some. The Capital Times reports there will be a protest (or a "memorial service for fallen fowl") tomorrow to denounce the city's unannounced Canada goose roundup. Leftist animal advocates said democracy died with the geese: "This is a chance for us to get together and mourn the loss to the community not only of the geese, but of the democratic process. We want to know the mayor and the Parks Commission know that we're not going to go away," says Kathie Free of Madison, an organizer of...

Dear xxxxx, Donate to help clinics stay open Two anti-abortion extremist groups – Operation Rescue and Operation Rescue/Operation Save America – are mobilizing supporters across the country against women's health centers in Germantown, MD and Orlando, Florida. We need your help to keep these courageous women's health care providers open and safe! OR/OSA is mobilizing supporters nationwide to "unsheath[ing] the sword of victory" against the "abortion industry" in Orlando, Florida from July 16-23. This is the same group that has threatened doctors with WANTED-style posters and has even harassed doctors at their homes in Charlotte, North Carolina. We are concerned...

WHEN RADICAL LEFTIST LAWYERS ATTACK– The radical left attacked Michele Bachmann today at Right Online 2011 after her speech. And, then they completely justify it.

In a new revelation in the Panettagate scandal, CIA Director Leon Panetta inserted a tribute in the April 11, 1984, Congressional Record to one of his constituents, Lucy Haessler, calling her a “woman of peace” for her work in the pro-Soviet Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). This is when Panetta was a California Congressman representing Santa Cruz. Panetta declared that Haessler participated in “peace conferences” sponsored by the Women’s International Democratic Federation “in France, the Soviet Union, Poland, and East Germany.” One has to wonder about the “peace conferences” being held in such places as the Soviet...

By John Hudson 12:07 PM ET For a brief moment last week, the country came together to collectively roll its eyes at the sexting scandal involving Rep. Anthony Weiner. Republicans responded with predictable outrage and liberals conceded and even joined in (after cycling through five stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). Now, things have shifted to an uncomfortable stage in which top Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz want Weiner out but refuse to punish him, as evidenced by a closed-door meeting Tuesday where the House Democratic caucus decided to...

In what could be the final straw for Rep. Anthony Weiner’s political career, new embarrassing photos are surfacing — including one showing Weiner dressed in women's clothing. Anthony, Weiner, Scandal, sexting, bra, pantiesThe photos, said to have been taken when Weiner was a college student, show him dressed as a woman in a black bra, panties and leotards. The explicit photos are expected to touch off a bidding war involving a number of media outlets. “These new photos make Weiner’s current scandal even more disturbing,” said one industry source.

Link only due to copyright: Westboro Baptist protestors are escorted from funeral scene by Metro police..

President Obama’s pick to replace Gary F. Locke as commerce secretary faces an uphill Senate confirmation battle. Even before the White House handed in the name of John Bryson for the job, Senate Republicans had vowed to block any nominee over administration foot-dragging on free-trade agreements. The selection of this particular leftist for a business-outreach post is rallying the opposition. “I find Mr Bryson unacceptable as secretary of commerce for the United States, and I will work in opposition to his conformation,” said Sen. John Barrasso, vice chairman of the Republican Conference, to The Washington Times. Mr. Bryson co-founded the...

Pressure is growing within Germany's Left party to take decisive action against alleged anti-Semitic tendencies among the socialists. “If the basic values of the party are neglected, there must be consequences, up to separation,” the party’s parliamentary whip in the Bundestag, Dagmar Enkelmann, told the Wednesday edition of Der Tagesspiegel newspaper. The call comes as The Left faces continuing criticism that some members of the socialist party have anti-Semitic and anti-Israel leanings. The Left has also been embarrassed by a series of questionable incidents involving Israel and the Jewish community. In April, a flyer featuring a swastika and the Star...

It’s time to revisit the issue of President Obama’s Palestinian ties. During his time in the Illinois state senate, Obama forged close alliances with the most prominent Palestinian political leaders in America. Substantial evidence also indicates that during his pre-Washington years, Obama was both supportive of the Palestinian cause and critical of America’s stance toward Israel. Although Obama began to voice undifferentiated support for Israel around 2004 (as he ran for U.S. Senate and his national visibility rose), critics and even some backers have long suspected that his pro-Palestinian inclinations survive... The record is clear. Obama’s heritage, his largely hidden...

The past came back to haunt Russell Brand on Saturday. The 35-year-old comedian was deported out of Japan after arriving in the country due to old arrests on his record from 10 years ago. He was in the country to watch his wife, Katy Perry, perform.

Senate Republicans staged the first successful filibuster of a judicial nominee since 2005 on Thursday, dealing a blow to the Obama administration on the long-stalled nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Only one Republican joined Democrats Thursday in supporting Liu, who needed 60 votes to break a filibuster. Meanwhile, 52 Democrats voted ‘yes’ to open debate on the 39-year-old f University of California, Berkeley professor’s nomination. One Democrat voted no. The final vote was 52-43. The filibuster will be met with disappointment from both progressives and Asian-American groups who advocated for Liu and hoped to...

(CNSNews.com) – Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dodged a question about the controversial writings of Goodwin Liu, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Feinstein instead said that Liu indicated that he understands the difference between being an advocate and a judge. To serve on the court, Liu must be confirmed by the Senate. At the Capitol on Wednesday, CNSNews.com asked Sen. Feinstein, “In a 2008 law review article Professor Liu argued that there was a constitutional right to welfare – what he...

What a surprise! Another Obama adviser outed as radical, anti-American leftistBy Bill Zwerger May 5, 2011 In what should be a most shocking revelation, but is in reality a now common-place occurrence for the anti-American cabal currently occupying the White House, Barack Obama’s faith advisor, Eboo Patel, has been exposed as a left-wing radical who believes that American ideals such as freedom, equality, and justice are only “myths.” According to a report from WND.com, Patel, a Muslim activist, has, like his advisee, close ties to another infamous America hater. That would be none other than Obama biographer Bill Ayers. Patel...