Free Republic

A record number of American voters think they pay too much in taxes. In addition, they think government is more often the source of America’s troubles—not the means of fixing them. The latest Fox News poll shows by a 67-18 percent margin, voters agree that the assessment by Ronald Reagan of the nation’s woes in 1981 applies today as well: That government is not the solution to our problems—government is the problem. The portion seeing government “as the problem” is up 14 points from 53 percent in 2008. Even 51 percent of Democrats describe the government as the problem. Larger...

Midwest Conservative Journal brings to our attention that Obama continues his pretense of being a Christian in order to bash Christians: If there’s one thing I love, it’s a quote which doesn’t even require “fisking”. At the White House Easter Prayer Breakfast on Sunday, an occasion of great significance to Christians, here’s what President Barack Obama had to say: “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love,” Obama said. “And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.” As the crowd began...

Writing an opinion piece to Michigan State University’s paper the State News, Rashad Timmons says that microaggressions are causing him several medical afflictions. His letter was titled, “Intentional or not, microaggressions severely impact underrepresented members of society.” According to Timmons, people who “are not privileged” are suffering greatly from the intentional and unintentional triggers that others are causing. “On a campus,” he writes, ” — and nation at large — in which whiteness, patriarchy, heteronormativity, cissexism, ableism and classism prevail, students that are not privileged by these constructs often have difficulty navigating hegemonic, oppressive environments.” Timmons writes about different maladies...

Christianity’s tent is not big enough to accommodate both the supporters of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Rutgers professor Brittney Cooper, who in a Wednesday piece for Salon blasted both the state’s pre-fix RFRA and the religious right in general. “This kind of legislation is rooted in a politics that gives white people the authority to police and terrorize people of color, queer people and poor women,” declared Cooper. “That means these people don’t represent any kind of Christianity that looks anything like the kind that I practice…This white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, gun-toting, Bible-quoting Jesus of the religious right is...

Rev. Al Sharpton called for national policing legislation akin to the Civil Rights Act this morning at the kickoff his National Action Network’s annual convention, just after the arrest of a white South Carolina police officer for murder in the shooting of an unarmed black man. “There must be national policy and national law on policing,” Mr. Sharpton said. “We can’t go from state to state, we’ve got to have national law to protect people against these continued questions.” Mr. Sharpton’s comments, coming on the heels of multiple instances of police killings of unarmed men of color around the country,...

In “honor” of his meeting with China Ambassador Cui Tiankai, Washington Governor Jay Inslee has posted the Chinese flag between the American flag and the state flag at the capitol building in Olympia. Hat Tip State Rep. Elizabeth Scott On Saturday - A small group of people arrived at the capitol in the morning and removed the Communist flag. They were assisted by an officer from the Washington State Police. Video, courtesy of activist Maria Bosworth.

The liberal media’s witchhunt on Christian bakeries and florists after the passage of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act ignored facts that should have been obvious: Christianity wasn’t the only religion that considers homosexuality sinful. Fox News contributor and comedian Steven Crowder traveled to Dearborn, Mich. to do something the liberal news media would never dare. He asked Muslim bakery owners if they would bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. Crowder noted that the media were “deliberately trying to set the narrative of mean, hateful Christians vs. poor, innocent gay people who are having their rights completely trampled.” Meanwhile,...

Colbert King published an odd piece in the Washington Post on Friday that was equal parts hysteria, constitutional ignorance, and alternate history. He suggests that resistance to some of President Barack Obama’s executive orders amounts to nothing more than “insurrection.” Indeed, he compares this resistance to the actions of white southerners to President Abraham Lincoln. The assessment is bone chilling since the proper response to insurrection is to send in troops and start shooting people, just as Lincoln did when the Southern states tried to secede and form their own country. King focuses on legislation being passed by the Arizona...

The number of Americans 16 years and older who did not participate in the labor force—meaning they neither had a job nor actively sought one in the last four weeks—rose from 92,898,000 in February to 93,175,000 in March, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is the first time the number of Americans out of the labor force has exceeded 93 million. Also from February to March, the labor force participation rate dropped from 62.8 percent to 62.7 percent, matching a 37-year low. Five times in the last twelve months, the participation rate has been...

More voters say their family is worse off than better off under ObamaCare. In addition, most of those who had to change their insurance coverage because of the health care law say it cost them money. That’s according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. Overall, 42 percent say the country is worse off under the 2010 health care law. Some 44 percent felt that way last year (June 2014). […] Clearly partisanship plays a role: 73 percent of Republicans say the country is worse off under Obamacare, while just 12 percent of Democrats feel that way. Has the law...

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen called for more research into widening inequality in the United States during a speech at the Federal Reserve Community Development Research Conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “How do some places advance economically and create circumstances in which residents in turn are more likely to thrive?” Yellen said at one point in her speech, giving an example of the type of question she would like to see answered by “further research.” “According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, the gap between rich and poor now ranks as a major concern in the minds of...

A Michigan woman's gym membership was revoked because she refused to stop complaining about a transgender patron. According to Michigan Live, the incident started when a Planet Fitness member named Yvette Cormier went to use the women's gym's locker room at the Midland location. "I was blocked, because a man was standing there," Cormier told Michigan Live. "It freaked me out because why is a man in here?" Cormier sought out a gym employee to complain, but was told that members are allowed to use whatever locker room they want to, based on the gender they identify themselves as, ABC...

The greatly anticipated “fix” to the Indiana religious freedom law has been released by the Indiana legislative committee, and it is far worse than conservatives feared. According to law professor Mark Rienzi, the new fix will allow the state to prosecute Christians criminally for denying gay weddings their professional affirmation.Rienzi, of the Becket Fund and Catholic University School of Law and who was lead attorney in the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case that upheld a claim under the federal religious freedom law, said this would “criminalize religious objectors.”

The world is going nuts. I have often felt a bit like Cassandra, but … Cassandra was right.Here is another take.From the pen of John Zmirak at The Stream with my emphases and comments: The expected Supreme Court decision imposing on 50 states an entirely newunderstanding of marriage, and the frenzy of hatred that gay activists have stoked against Indiana for trying to shelter religious believers from crippling lawsuits should wake us to a cold and stark reality: The age of tolerance in America is vanishing before your eyes. The question is how Christians and other people of faith and good will...

... “You guys have said repeatedly that we shouldn’t be able to discriminate against anyone, but if you just ignore the existence of this law, can’t we already do that now? Can’t so-and-so in Richmond put a sign up and say ‘No Gays Allowed?'” she asked. “That’s not against the law, correct?” “It would depend,” Bosma replied. “If you were in a community that had a human rights ordinance that wouldn’t be the case.” “But most of the state does not have that, correct?” the reporter pressed. “That’s correct,” Bosma admitted ...

As I watched "Good Morning America" today, I saw a segment where the media was bringing pressure to bear on the Indiana legislature and governor. George Stephanopolous was questioning governor Pence: George Stephanopolis:Final question, final yes-or-no question, Governor. Do you think it should be legal, in the state of Indiana, to discriminate against gays or lesbians? And this is how they characterize the debate. They portray one side (theirs) as heroic, and the other side (ours) as evil. Governor Pence was not prepared for this ambush. His response was scatter shot and muddled. Among the things he could have said...

Yemen is in flames, ISIL is on the march, Syria is apocalyptic, Iran is racing through Iraq, anarchy reigns in Libya, Jordan is on the brink, Turkey is slipping away, and America’s relationship with the Middle East’s only democracy has hit an all-time low.When academics look back to survey the wreckage of U.S. foreign policy at the start of the 21st century, many will wonder how a superpower with unrivaled military, economic, and cultural dominance lost that historic advantage so quickly. The answer? George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Story Continued Below Liberal historians will trace much of the region’s...

As he returns to run the NBC News Group, Andy Lack faces one of the same puzzles he tried to solve a decade and a half ago: how to make MSNBC work. While he was gone, MSNBC changed from traditional news to a political network with a liberal lens. Now that it is mired in a ratings slump, Lack’s mandate as chairman will be figuring out if MSNBC needs a complete overhaul or a sharpening of its mission. The current picture is seriously ugly. Through early March, Chris Hayes’ viewership at 8 p.m. on weekdays was down 23 percent from...

Link only: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/jeb-bush-ted-cruz-poll/2015/03/29/id/635137/#ixzz3VncIuLew

… Soon after Fidel Castro won control of Cuba in 1959, his government began confiscating the property of thousands of U.S. citizens and companies. For Edmund and Enna Chester, the losses included an 80-acre farm, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock, and a brand new Buick that, who knows, may still be plying Havana’s streets. The confiscation of American property, valued today at $7 billion or more, was wrapped up in the retaliatory back-and-forth that led to the trade embargo, which remains in place. In 1996, Congress passed a law insisting Cuba repay Americans for what was taken...