Free Republic

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate two bills that could give the federal government unprecedented control over the way parents raise their children – even providing funds for state workers to come into homes and screen babies for emotional and developmental problems. The Pre-K Act (HR 3289) and the Education Begins at Home Act (HR 2343) are two bills geared toward military and families who fall below state poverty lines. The measures are said to be a way to prevent child abuse, close the achievement gap in education between poor and minority infants versus middle-class children and...

Shock Jock Michael Savage is in hot water again this time for a stating his belief that 99% of Autism cases are fake. He has taken a beating from parents of autistic children and those who lobby for them. However, let us play devil's advocate for a moment... Are Savage's comments mean spirited or could there be some truth to it? Are children who are diagnosed with autism and Asperger's syndrome (Considered a high functioning form of Autism) being over diagnosed? Are the diagnostic criteria for Autism and Asperger's really too broad and too flawed that otherwise ordinary playful children...

Ithaca, N.Y. — The Best Of Everything? By REBECCA JAMES   The Commons is a popular gathering place in downtown Ithaca, N.Y. (Photo by Gloria Wright)     ITHACA, N.Y. — When your town has made more than 25 lists that call it one of the best cities in America, you might be surprised that one magazine would call it one of the "Twelve Great Places You've Never Heard Of."But along with that 2006 designation from Mother Earth News, Ithaca seems to make the grade no matter what's being ranked. It's one of the "lesbian friendliest cities," has the "best...

A proposal that would place at least a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a broad swath of neighborhoods, mostly in South Los Angeles, won unanimous support from a Los Angeles City Council committee Tuesday. If approved by the full council and signed by the mayor, the law would prevent fast-food chains from opening new restaurants in a 32-square-mile area, including West Adams, Baldwin Village and Leimert Park. The moratorium would be in effect for one year, with the possibility of two six-month extensions. The measure, proposed by Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose 9th District includes much of South Los...

A stray cat had kittens in our yard. My wife attempted to barricade the kittens in a contained area to protect them from predators. Short of caging them, this proved impossible. The rambunctious kittens escaped my wife's protection to explore, wrestle and play. With every fall, their climbing skills improved. Mama cat taught “gecko catching 101”. Soon the kittens were supplementing their breast milk with gecko snacks. Had my wife been successful in her intrusive attempts to protect them, the kittens' growth would have been stunted leaving them ill equipped to survive. The kittens scenario illustrates the superiority and compassion...

After eight years in the wilderness, the left expects a clean sweep in the 2008 election -- the presidency (and with it the federal bureaucracy) and larger majorities in both houses of Congress. Looking ahead, liberals are determined to derail potential opposition to their plans to accelerate the deconstruction of America. Consequently, they have targeted talk radio. Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is just one facet of their scheme to eviscerate the only part of the media controlled by conservatives. Crucial to an understanding of the jihad against talk radio is this: The left will do anything to gag its...

In yesterday's item on the New Yorker cover cartoon kerfuffle, we observed: "A cartoon of Obama inspires fury and outrage. A cartoon of McCain leads everyone to shrug. Obama is being treated like Muhammad, McCain like Jesus." It turns out there was another McCain cartoon with offensive elements that went completely unnoticed, lending further weight to our McCain-Jesus linkage. This one depicts a crazed-looking McCain trapped in a bamboo cage, being tormented by his captors: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee (whoever he is), all of whom are drawn with exaggerated Oriental features: thin eyes, yellowish skin, coolie hats....

Barack Obama has proposed increasing every major Federal tax. He supports increasing individual income tax rates, allowing the Bush tax cuts, which cut rates for all income levels, to expire. He has proposed almost doubling the capital gains tax rate, from 15% today to 28%. He supports more than doubling the tax on dividends, from 15% to as high as 39%. He has proposed numerous corporate tax increases. He supports increasing the death tax back to the stratospheric levels that applied before President Bush. He supports increasing the payroll tax on higher income earners. In other words, if you run...

First, from the top of the Democrat Party, we had Howard Dean banning fried food at the Democrat Convention and authorizing only approved food colors. Of course, the caterers correctly thought Dean was a moron, and told him so. Now the Left Coast chapter of the Fraternal Order of Oral Limitations (FOOL), which enforces food consumption regulations as well as speech control laws, has decided that people in South-Central are too fat and unhealthy so they want a moratorium on any new fast food joints.

Imagine a society where simply speaking out of turn or saying the "wrong thing" was openly discussed as a crime against humanity, and where sceptics or deniers of the truth were publicly labelled "criminals", hauled before the press and accused of endangering humanity with their grotesque untruths. Imagine a society where even some liberals demanded severe restrictions on freedom of movement; where people campaigned for travelling overseas to be made prohibitively expensive in order to force people to stay at home; and where immigration was frowned upon as "toxic" and "destructive".

Studying the Supremes Emily Miller, July 14, 2008 The media is quick to paint Chief Justice John Roberts’ Supreme Court into an ideological corner, tagging it conservative or liberal, minimalist or imperialist, unified or deeply fractured. But these overarching broad analyses reported by the press are often inaccurate, says Dahlia Lithwick, scrutinizing the Supreme Court’s 2007-8 term in a panel discussion hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Anyone who attempts to make broad conclusions about the Court’s political leaning, or predicts which way the justices will vote, does so in the way of an “optical illusion.” Lithwick explains that it involves...

One idea that I have tried to understand but cannot possibly fathom is the failed concept of American liberalism. While deceivingly free and independent, this traitorous definition of "equality" champions abolishment in place of opportunity, and resides on the sole principle that each should put in according to his ability, yet that each should receive according to his need. In an ideal, Utopian-like society without original sin, this idea could become reality. But in a world (like the one we live in) where this kind of society is blatantly unachievable, American liberalism shows its inability to keep in touch with...

The court is poised in coming weeks to seal Lawrence's fate, along with that of nine other convicted murderers seeking freedom. The justices are expected to answer some difficult questions: When should a killer be set free? What are the limits, if any, on the governor's power to decide? Are such factors as an inmate's prison record and age ever more significant than a horrendous crime committed decades ago? The state parole board had approved Lawrence's release four times since 1993, but three governors vetoed those decisions. Schwarzenegger blocked Lawrence's release twice before judges on the state Court of Appeal...

Some liberals fret that Barack Obama is tacking to the center after his acquiescence to the Supreme Court's repeal of Washington's handgun law, his shift on telephone company immunity for cooperating with wiretaps, and his call for more faith-based social programs. But this is just the beginning. The logic of the race will shortly lead Sen. Obama to buck bigger liberal pieties on core priorities like schools, taxes and health care in order to win. In a sense this is overdue. For all the talk about reaching out to Republicans and independents, Mr. Obama's proposals have been far less challenging...

STEWART: That's the way to read through it. What do you feel like-- Do you watch the news that we're watching in the United States? LOGAN: No. STEWART: Do you see what we're hearing about the war? Do you-- LOGAN: No. STEWART: So we might actually know everything? LOGAN: If I were to watch the news that you're hearing in the United States, I'd just blow my brains out. 'Cause it would drive me nuts. STEWART: Really? LOGAN: Yeah.

Mary Katharine Ham Presents: Real Heroes of Liberalism (With apologies to Bud Light) Today, we salute you, Mr. Quit the Only Job He Ever Had Rather Than Honor Jesse Helms Guy. (Mr. Quit the Only Job He Ever Had Rather Than Honor Jesse Helms Guy!) You've shown us the truest example of petulant, ineffectual grandstanding by disobeying a gubernatorial order to fly flags at half mast in honor of the late North Carolina senator. (Speaking truth to power!) Not content to voice your disdain for Helms' so-called "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" in the traditional ways, you operated with...

It isn't just that young voters like Obama--more importantly, over the last eight years, they've come to believe in liberalism. Young voters played a crucial role in Barack Obama's successful campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. In state after state, exit polls showed that Obama received his strongest support from voters under the age of 30. Now that he has clinched the Democratic nomination, Obama is counting on strong support from under-thirties to offset John McCain's expected advantage among older white voters, some of whom continue to be uneasy about the prospect of an African American president. Recent polling data...

This is the website for a radio station out of Columbia, SC. If this link: http://www.wnok.com/pages/personality_kelly.html doesn't work, go to www.wnok.com and look for the section titled "Nash Trash". This is a test one of the cohosts put together so you can see where your views are compared to the candidates. The test is about half-way down the page, mind you there are other stories on this page about Hollywood gossip, but the test is kind of interesting.

One of the best ways to influence students, colleagues, and the citizenry at large is to hire, promote, and tenure only those people who agree with you. It's August 1968. Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators have just wrecked the Democratic national convention in Chicago and ruined Hubert Humphrey's chances to become president. So what did these Marxists and their cohorts elsewhere do next? They stayed in college. They sought out the easiest professors and the easiest courses. And they stayed in the top half of their class. This effectively deferred them from the military draft, a draft that discriminated against young men...

Barbara Walters: Syrian Dictator 'Charming,' 'Intelligent' By Justin McCarthy | July 7, 2008 - 15:31 Surprise! Barbara Walters visits an anti-American dictator and returns with very nice remarks about him. Returning from the week long break on "The View" July 7, Barbara Walters described how she spent America’s birthday, and the celebration of a document denouncing tyranny, with an anti-American tyrant.While most Americans celebrated Independence Day with fireworks and barbeques, Barbara Walters spent the occasion dining with Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad, whom Walters described as "intelligent" and "charming" who wants "very much to have good relations with us." Perhaps...

What do you call a man who sermonizes about the evils of paying women less than men but allows that very practice in his own office? While a certain unflattering noun would leap to the mind of most, we can now apply a proper one: Barack Obama. Although the Illinois senator has vowed to make pay equity between the sexes a priority in his administration, it has been revealed that he doesn't practice what he preaches. Writes CNSNEWS.com: On average, women working in Obama's Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator...

No, ignore that photograph, and its possible implications, and look further down the piece at this fellow (pictured at right; click to enlarge). Look closely at his medals. As any American veteran can tell you, it's as easy to spot the fact that those aren't American medals as it is to tell the difference between, say, an M4 and an AK-47. In particular, take a look at the top right medal in the gentleman's array. Then, take a look at the image below at left. See a resemblance? The medal is the "Order of the Patriotic War" -- "an Order...

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the reaction of the liberal Left to the epidemic of stabbed teenage boys that is not merely bereaving family upon family, but is also disfiguring society. They argue it is society's fault. The state, they say, is spending too little on giving the murderers pleasant places to live, and is failing to supply them with recreational facilities or "mentors". Inevitably, therefore, they feel the need to go out and kill: as one does. That this is self-serving, ignorant nonsense should not be in dispute. How to win the argument with these...

[Click through to article to view interview with author James Piereson.] The central thesis of James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution was that JFK's assassination was the key moment that caused a large portion of once sensible liberals to begin to tilt to the far, far left, and for lack of better word, become Unhinged. Like this calm, rational fan of the New Frontier! In the (admittedly totally tasteless) formulation of a friend of mine, the best thing that ever happened to civil rights in this country was the bullet through JFK's head. Along the way, as I wrote...

First, it was cow gas that was wrecking the environment. Then gas-powered lawnmowers. Now, it’s fireworks we’re supposed to worry about. Fireworks, it was reported this week, are helping ruin both the Earth and our health. Where most of us looked up at the sky last night and saw red, white and blue, some people, it seems, saw only the first. Fireworks, some scientists are warning, are toxic, and you know what’s next. All those “ooohhhhhhhs” and “aaahhhhhhhhhhs” will soon be “booooos” and “baaaaaaaaahs.” Except that people, many people, have had enough of “Enough.”“No matter what you do, something is...

If you've seen HBO's "The Wire," you know why those of us who live in Baltimore are often asked whether our city really is the hellhole it is portrayed to be on TV. Our answer is, well, yes. Baltimore deserves the Third-World profile it has developed because it has expanses of crumbling, crime-riddled neighborhoods populated by low-income renters, an absent middle class, and just a few enclaves of high-income gentry near the Inner Harbor or in suburbs. This wasn't what Baltimore looked like in the 1950s. Then it was a prosperous, blue-collar city. [Snip] Today, the city has a population...

Violent crime has doubled since Labour came to power a decade ago. Stabbings and assault in Britain are now common, if not daily occurrences; at night city centers are generally regarded as no-go areas; “feral” youths and gangs loitering the streets – often drunk on cheap alcohol – make many people too afraid to go for a walk on a summer evening. Every week yields up plenty of reasons why people have good reason to be scared in modern Britain. On Saturday evening 60-year old Stan Dixon, a former soldier, was attacked by youths, for asking them not to swear...

National service mandated by the state is what Europe had for centuries. It was called serfdom. For example, in France, citizens were required to perform public service building and repairing roads and other public projects for hundreds and thousands of hours a year. Serfdom wasn't eliminated in France until the French revolution, one of the "liberty" parts of that revolution. It was largely the American revolution which inspired this escape from serfdom. Indeed, the American revolution was all about escaping from the European model of servitude, with the American's insisting that even very moderate taxation without representation was a form...

The lead character in the Pixar film “WALL-E” is both an acronym (Waste Allocation Load Lifter—Earth class) and a lonely robot with a personality. While Pixar has mastered the art of animation, it is the implicit message this film conveys which makes it much more than a mere cartoon. Some conservatives have written the film off as anti-capitalist propaganda. If the intent of capitalism is to cater to the basest instincts of the human heart, requiring us to indulge our every whim and desire, leading to a dependence on government, then I guess I, too, am an anti-capitalist. However, capitalism...

Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

The White House press corps is having a crisis. It may not interest the rest of the country much, but the problems in the Fourth Estate will, in due time, impact the nature and the completeness of White House coverage. The ostensible trigger to the current crisis involves the so-called pool reports by members of the print media traveling with the president. But there are deeper problems with the way the presidency is covered by the media.

"You don't need to have a gun; the police will protect you." "If people carry guns, there will be murders over parking spaces and neighborhood basketball games." "I'm a pacifist. Enlightened, spiritually aware people shouldn't own guns." "I'd rather be raped than have some redneck militia type try to rescue me." How often have you heard these statements from misguided advocates of victim disarmament, or even woefully uninformed relatives and neighbors? Why do people cling so tightly to these beliefs, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that they are wrong? Why do they get so furiously angry when gun owners...

MEMBERS of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear of an upcoming PBS documentary that suggests the Allied victory in World War II was "tainted" and questions whether it can even be called a victory. Moreover, the documentary, titled "The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century," asserts that the war could only be won by forming an unholy alliance with a dictator - Joseph Stalin, who was as brutal as the one they were fighting, Adolf Hitler - and by adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics...

Companies will be encouraged to positively discriminate in favour of women job candidates. Harriet Harman said the changes were necessary to get 'a bit of a push forward' Firms will also be forced to publish details of how much men and women are paid, Harriet Harman, the Equality Minister, has disclosed. The controversial moves are designed to promote more women to senior roles and to close the gender pay gap

[Click HERE to read the cover letter to conservatives that accompanied this article] As usual in a crisis, liberals are trying to take advantage of the situation. They are using the issue of high energy prices to push their agenda of oppressive regulation, ultra-high taxes, and the diversion of many billions of taxpayers’ dollars into “alternative fuel� efforts that, with few exceptions, are corporate-welfare scams.Liberals want us to forget that they spent years pushing for higher prices. The New York Times, in an October 24, 2005 editorial, claimed that, “Cheap gas is no longer compatible with a secure nation, a healthy environment...

Is American Jewry finally waking up from its love affair with the Democratic Party? That, at least, is the question that comes to mind when one considers some very interesting polling data that emerged recently. As odd as it may sound, Republican presidential candidate John McCain may just be poised to capture a significant percentage of the Jewish vote. Early last month, you'll recall, headlines blared in the US and Israeli press trumpeting the results of a Gallup survey conducted back in April which found that American Jews preferred Democratic hopeful Barack Obama by a margin of 61 to 32...

Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday. The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had...

An older article, but relevant today in light of the Dobson-Obama dust up! Christians of ALL races must be on guard against the deceivers who will try to convince us Obama's extreme agenda is compatible with a biblical faith!Burns Strider. Joshua DuBois. Shaun Casey. Eric Sapp. Mara Vanderslice. Not household names, these five professed evangelicals may hold the key to Democratic victory in the 2008 presidential election. Their mission: Convince white evangelical voters that a liberal agenda is consistent with the Bible and that the expressed Christian devotion of Democratic candidates is authentic. Three of the five are official religious...

It is widely reported that women suffer depression at twice the rate of men. Apparently, more women are clinically depressed than ever before. On the assumption that these assessments are true, the question anyone interested in the subject -- which means anyone who cares about any woman -- asks is, why? In a recent column I offered one explanation -- the impossibly high expectations for happiness that feminism created for many women. There are other possible explanations. One is the way in which many girls have been raised. As every wise person and wise culture in history has known, it...

In the good ole days, when liberals were actually “liberal,” focused upon individual liberty above all else, and Democrats were actually “democratic” instead of dictatorial elitists focused more on not counting votes than on letting every voice be heard, the words “democratic change” had a very different meaning. The concept of democracy has since been hijacked. In the 2008 race for the White House, the Democrat candidate with the most popular support is Hillary Clinton. But somehow, the DNC nominee is Barack Hussein Obama. Not so long ago, this could not have been defined as democracy in action. It would...

WASHINGTON -- Listening to political talk requires a third ear that hears what is not said. Today's near silence about crime probably is evidence of social improvement. For many reasons, including better policing and more incarceration, Americans feel, and are, safer. The New York Times has not recently repeated such amusing headlines as "Crime Keeps on Falling, But Prisons Keep on Filling" (1997), "Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops" (1998), "Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction" (2000) and "More Inmates, Despite Slight Drop in Crime" (2003). If crime revives as an issue, it will be through liberal complaints...

"I was attacked in the Internet blogs and by Keith Olbermann as a racist. I have been receiving threats at my home and threats to my children."

We all knew it even though Democrat spokespersons denied it. Worried that the negative connotations would affect their electability and their eyes glued to the capricious winds of public opinion, they invented new words for the old ideology such as progressivism and communitarianism. Apparently, the camouflage is no longer needed. The masks are off. They now openly call for the nationalization of private business, the establishment of universal entitlements and increased taxation to pay for them. Why worry about socialist labels? The electorate is complacent, prosperity has numbed our senses and the left has worked diligently for many years to...

Liberalism turns people rotten (bumped) By Christopher Cook Over the past few years, we've learned a lot about the differences between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. We've learned...Republicans report having better mental health than Democrats, Republicans have a more satisfying sex like than Democrats,Republicans are happier than Democrats (no matter who is in office),Republicans are more likely to graduate from college (and Dems are more likely to drop out of high school) Republicans are more likely to marry and have children And it marches merrily on like that. Study after study shows Republicans and conservatives have it better, or...

It is by now a well-documented fact that liberal Protestant denominations in the United States have fallen on hard times. In the mainline churches that once dominated American religious life—and from which emerged the country’s political and cultural elites—the pews have been emptying since as long ago as the 1960’s.1 As the average age of churchgoers edges ever upward, the challenge of recruiting both members and qualified clergy looms larger still, adding to the general sense of demoralization and desuetude. In the meantime, membership in conservative Christian denominations, particularly the evangelical churches, has been swelling. Against this backdrop, the seeming...

Don't listen to the liberals - Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows George Orwell once wrote that politics was closely related to social identity. 'One sometimes gets the impression,' he wrote in The Road To Wigan Pier, 'that the mere words socialism and communism draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England'. Orwell was making an observation. But today a whole body of academic research shows he was correct: your politics influence the manner in which you live your life. And the news is not so...

So, a liberal reporter shows his true self when a bug flies into his mouth, live on the air. He starts going off on small town American "country." First, watch the original video, then the hilarious remix. STRONG LANGUAGE WARNING.

Democrat Barack Obama said Friday he would apply the Social Security payroll tax to all annual incomes above $250,000, which would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans. The presidential candidate told senior citizens in Ohio that it is unfair for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax "on every dime they make," while millionaires and billionaires pay it on only "a very small percentage of their income." The 6.2 percent payroll tax is now applied to all income up to $102,000 a year, which covers the entire amount for most Americans. Under Obama's plan, the tax would not...

Order of BattleWar and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism by Douglas FeithHarper. 688 pp. $27.95 "The stupidest f—ing guy on the planet� is how General Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command, summed up Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Pentagon from July 2001 until his resignation in August 2005. Franks was cruder than most, but Feith was under almost continuously hostile scrutiny and controversy throughout his tenure. As the third-highest ranking civilian official in Donald Rumsfeld’s wartime Pentagon, he oversaw the Defense Department’s relations with foreign governments at...

Warner Todd Houston did a great job covering this earlier so I won’t post all the details again, but I wanted to share a portion of my post illustrating the emotion that is liberalism…no brains. Wanna see what I mean? People for the American Way: One more Bush Justice on the Court, and the decision would likely have gone the other way. That’s why it’s so important for Americans to realize that in this election year, the Supreme Court is on the ballot. John McCain has already promised the GOP that he would nominate Justices to the Court exactly like...