Free Republic

The American left. They championed Occupy Wall Street, they champion Socialism, and they champion class warfare. Just the other day, I heard Bob Beckel call the Republicans the party of the rich. Now it doesn't take a genius to use Google and it doesn't take much digging to find out that seven of the top ten richest members of congress are Democrats. These members of congress sport last names such as Kerry, Rockefeller, and Feinstein. It also doesn't take much digging to find some of President Obama's biggest donors were evil corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Google, JP Morgan...

The topic of BLS propaganda seasonal adjustments has been discussed extensively here especially in light of January's NFP beat. We'll leave it at that. However, we were rather surprised to note that the Census Bureau may have also ramped up its seasonal adjustment "fudge factoring" because when looking at the January headline retail sales data, which naturally was a smoothly continuous line on a Seasonally Adjusted basis, rising from $399.9 billion in December to $401.4 billion in January, something rather odd happened in the Unadjusted data set: the plunge from $459.8 billion in December to $361.4 billion in January, or...

While billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson may have rescued Newt Gingrich’s campaign in its early days, today, he may have just buried it. Bloomberg News reports that Adelson, who has donated $11 million to Gingrich’s Super PAC, does not plan to send any more money Gingrich’s way. Bloomberg is citing an anonymous source “familiar with their deliberations,” though an Adelson spokesman declined to comment. The move seems to be weeks in the making. After poor showings by Gingrich in the last several races and the re-resurgence of Rick Santorum, the former House speaker has once again been pushed to the...

CNBC's Rick Santelli puts his perspective on the Jobs Report. Believe it or not 1.2 million Americans dropped out of the Jobs Market which enabled the Unemployment Rate to drop. VIDEO - RICK SANTELLI

Mitt Romney has outspent Newt Gingrich on negative advertising in every state, starting in Iowa, and was the first to go negative every time. Yet Romney, with absolute conviction, continues to say that the reason he lost South Carolina was that he was outspent by Newt, which is not true. Last night on Hannity, Romney took the false line about being outspent in South Carolina to a new level, claiming that he lost because he stayed positive and failed to respond to attacks on him (video, at 6:20)(embed added at link): Romney: … The mistake I made in South Carolina...

The U.S. economy produced another solid month of job gains in January, offering a hopeful sign for hiring in the year ahead. Employers added a net 243,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday. That’s higher than December, when employers added a net 200,000 jobs, and it marked the seventh straight month in which at least 100,000 jobs were created. That hasn't happened since 2005. The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January from 8.5 percent in the prior month. The unemployment rate has fallen for the past five months and is now at its lowest level...

Reuters) - Alabama's crackdown on illegal immigrants, widely seen as the toughest in the United States, could cost the state's economy up to $10.8 billion, according to a new study. The Alabama law, passed in June, requires police to detain people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally if they cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason, among other measures. The cost-benefit analysis by University of Alabama economist Samuel Addy estimated up to 80,000 jobs could be vacated by illegal immigrants fleeing the crackdown, costing Alabama's economy up to $10.8 billion. The lost jobs would cost Alabama...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: One Romney staffer told a blog, "It's not about winning here anymore. It's about destroying Gingrich -- and it's working." So a Romney campaign guy says: We're not just trying to win here. We are trying to destroy Newt. And they think that it is working. Now, people hear that, and it's tough to predict. Let me try to explain something. A lot of people may misunderstand me when I say this, and it's a -- it's a deeply personal thing. Well, don't misunderstand that, either. When I say "deeply personal," I mean strictly related to me....

Ron Paul, well known as a physician, congressman and libertarian , has also been a businessman who pursued a marketing strategy that included publishing provocative, racially charged newsletters to make money and spread his ideas, according to three people with direct knowledge of PaulÂ’s businesses. The Republican presidential candidate has denied writing inflammatory passages in the pamphlets from the 1990s and said recently that he did not read them at the time or for years afterward. Numerous colleagues said he does not hold racist views. But people close to PaulÂ’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that...

Only a president long shielded from criticism and accountability could make the kind of State of the Union speech President Obama did Tuesday night. It's hard to know where to begin, given his repetition of tired ideas from his previous SOTUs, his taking credit for successful policies he resisted and omitting failed ones he promoted, his numerous misrepresentations on issues big and small, and his glaring refusal to address the main issues that threaten the nation. Let me touch on just a few highlights in this brief space. Excessive spending is the primary threat to our nation's and Americans' financial...

After nearly a week on the defensive, CNN's John King reports tonight that Newt Gingrich's claim about offering witnesses to ABC News in his defense — to rebut the network's interview with his second wife, Marianne Gingrich — was not true. "Tonight, after persistent questioning by our staff, the Gingrich campaign concedes now Speaker Gingrich was wrong — both in his debate answer, and in our interview yesterday," King said on tonight's edition of John King USA. "Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond says the only people the Gingrich campaign offered to ABC were his two daughters from his first marriage." An...

When President Obama promised "no more bailouts, no more handouts" in his State of the Union address, and declared "it's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom," he was either prescribing a total reversal of his current industrial policy, or he was once again using words to mean something they've never meant before.

As Rush suggested, Obama would suggest a program to use Federal funds to reduce mortgage liabilities for millions of homeowners. He also alluded to reducing the liability of all students who have student loans. These are vote buying gimmicks.....

Debt Lies By Obama...True Chart Shown From the Washington Post: on the obvious Lies in the Chart above. "... this chart, originally created by the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Our friends at PolitiFact did a pretty thorough takedown of it in May, giving it their worst rating: “pants on fire.” They even caught the Pelosi people in a bad mathematical error, based on the fact that the Democrats calculated the numbers as if Obama took office a year later than he did." The Obama Administration has failed so miserably, that...

The Comedy Central show's faux-news correspondent John Oliver also likens the GOP contender to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Newt Gingrich's messy personal life is providing comic fuel for The Daily Show. During Thursday's episode on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart and correspondent Jon Oliver took aim at Gingrich's marital history -- now back in the news in a big way following Nightline's controversial interview with Marianne Gingrich -- noting the resemblance between the so-called "Freaker of the House" and Dwight Schrute, the eccentric salesman portrayed by Rainn Wilson on NBC's The Office. Another Gingrich lookalike, according to The Daily Show:...

The period from the death of Muhammad through the 13th Century marks the glory days of the Islamic empire. It was a period of commerce, industry and intra-cultural synergies and a flourishing of the sciences, art, medicine and architecture. It was the epitome of what civilization should be. Just ask Obama. In his 2009 Cairo speech the president said that Islam "carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment," and praised the "innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery...

Attorney General Eric Holder used Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on the anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birthday Monday to emphasize the Obama administration’s dedication to protecting the American people from discriminatory voting practices. “Despite our nation’s record of progress, and long tradition of extending voting rights – today, a growing number of citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that Dr. King fought throughout his life to address and overcome,” Holder said at an MLK Day event in Columbia, S.C.

My second PinocchiObama piece for OMG! For America. See the first one here.

Mainstream Media Lies: 23 Things That Are Not What They Seem To Be On TelevisionJanuary 6, 2012 Most Americans believe the lie that the mainstream media is "fair and balanced" and is looking out for the interests of average Americans. Well, that simply is not true. Those in the mainstream media serve those that are providing them with paychecks. The reality is that just 6 gigantic corporations collectively own most of the major mainstream media outlets in this country. Reporters are simply not going to be allowed to report stories that are severely damaging to those corporations or to the...

"I don't have lobbyists running my campaign. I don't have lobbyists tied to my..." [then a reporter takes Romney to task].

In 2008, Obama promised he would never use signing statements. On April 15, 2011 Obama used a signing statement to avoid abiding by a provision in the budget bill to de-fund some of his czars.

(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY Reading the media coverage from Friday's Labor Department employment report, you'd think things are looking up for the economy and the unemployed. Well, they're not. And while I hate to be the bringer of bad news, there are things I hate even more, like optimistic sound bites that hide the big picture and selfish politicians who mislead the public. Yes, the unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent and we added 120,000 jobs in November. Whoopee. Roughly half the improvement is because 315,000 workers finally gave up on finding a job and the other half is from seasonal jobs...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a conservative. At least, that is the point the former Massachusetts governor is trying to make with a new TV ad airing in Iowa. The new ad, titled “Conservative Agenda,” shows Romney speaking on the stump and meeting with voters, as he makes a series of commitments. “I am going to do something to government. I’m going to make it ‘Simpler, and Smaller, and Smarter,’” Romney says. “Getting rid of programs, turning programs back to states, and finally making government itself more efficient.” Romney pledges to repeal President Obama’s health care overhaul and balance...

Tax Foundation’s Runaway Compliance Estimates -By: Larry Walker, Jr. -"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." ~ Mark Twain -According to the Tax Foundation, federal income tax compliance costs were projected to reach $392 billion by 2011, and $483 billion by 2015. Now they say it’s probably in the ballpark of $400 billion as of 2011. So in other words, they figure that it costs taxpayers 20 to 40 percent more than is paid in taxes just to fill out and file the forms. However, what people echoing these numbers overlook is the fact that these...

The UN’s global warming unit, IPCC, is so discredited that “it is not clear how much additional benefit there is to having a huge bureaucratic scientific review effort under UN auspices” said Ken Caldeira in announcing that he is resigning as one of its leading authors on the next IPCC report. The previous one won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Outside of a few skeptical bloggers, you will not see this story anywhere else. If anyone doubts there is a bias in the media for the bright and shiny object called Global Warming (aka Climate Change, Climate Disruption and...

Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the plan kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies. Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care "because Republicans voted to end Medicare." Rep. Steve Israel of New York, head...

It has been a terrible week for Newt, a very good week for Mitt, and a week of surprising momentum for the two Ricks. The Washington Examiner, the center-right alternative to the Washington Post and Politico which is staffed by the best of center-right journalists and pundits, endorsed Mitt Romney. About Newt the editors said "[H]e is like an exploding cigar, waiting to be lit." The National Review narrowed the field to Romney, Santorum or Huntsman. (Santorum's "moneybomb" had a good first day for the "little engine that could" among the campaigns.") About Newt, the NR editors opined: "We fear...

Ethics In Government: Attorney General Eric Holder insists "nobody at the Justice Department has lied" about the gun-running scandal Fast and Furious. That in itself is a lie, as his deputy's emails prove. Documents obtained by congressional investigators show Lanny Breuer, Justice's criminal division chief, misled the public — under oath — about what he knew about the disastrous and ultimately deadly program. And what he did to cover it up. • Lie No. 1: Breuer knew as far back as April 2010 that ATF officials had let assault weapons "walk" — which meant ending surveillance on guns suspected en...

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed makes clear in response to an inquiry that the media reports concerning violent incidents in the Shomron are an example of the media's notorious hyperbole. Question: Rabbi, what is your reaction to the violent incidents which took place Monday night in the Shomron against the Brigadier Commander, Deputy Brigadier Commander, and soldiers? Answer: I don't know exactly what happened, but of one thing I am sure: Whatever the media reports is extremely exaggerated. The mainstream media and IDF spokesmen's reputation for this - and I do not mean the soldiers themselves and their dedicated field officers -...

What's wrong with this picture? Can you see it? This is not one of my 'Photoshops', this is one of the most viewed photographs ever on Flickr, and it was posted by the Whitehouse on their official WH Flickr account. A popular Swedish program has uncovered something very funny about it.Notice how small Obama is in the picture? Much smaller than all of those who surround him. All over Sweden they are laughing at it, and how gullible we all were, that up until now, nobody else noticed.Afton Bladet (Sweden) - Original Article (From Today!)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi clarified Monday that the "conversation" she wants to have about her knowledge of Newt Gingrich's past will be based on information already in the public record - not anything confidential she learned while investigating the former House Speaker during a year-long ethics investigation into his actions. In a recent interview with Talking Points Memo, Pelosi said she knows "a lot" about Gingrich because of the year she spent investigating him. "One of these days we'll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich," Pelosi told TPM. "I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative...

The Truth About The Falling Unemployment Mirage In 3 Charts Mike "Mish" Shedlock Global Economic Trend Analysis Dec. 2, 2011, 6:14 PM In Unemployment Rate Dips to 8.6% as 487,000 Drop Out of Labor Force I presented some quick facts on the drop in the unemployment rate. In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,726,000. Yet the labor force fell by 67,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 1,793,000. In November, those "Not in Labor Force" rose by a whopping 487,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed. Were...

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, opening on Nov. 28, called COP-17, is one of a series of U.N. meetings working toward a specific goal. Advertising for this meeting features a long list of celebrities, including Angelina Jolie, U2's Bono, Ted Turner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore and Michael Bloomberg. The U.N. goal is to move the United States into a global government by environmental regulations and a vast network of taxes. These newly imposed taxes will give the U.N. a tremendous stream of money in addition to U.S. dues and congressional appropriations.The plan for taxes was...

Just like clockwork, the Obama administration never misses an opportunity to unload thousands of records it hopes no one will ever bother sifting through during the holidays. On Black Friday, the White House released more visitor log info — trumpeting disclosures it has fought tooth and nail. I’ve started looking through the data. And you can, too, right here:

Never Before Seen Video Shows Obama Revealing The Real Origin Of His Book Title Zeke Miller Nov. 29, 2011, 8:32 AM The Daily Caller's Nicholas Ballasy has obtained this video of then-Sen. Barack Obama revealing in 2006 the true origin of his book title "The Audacity Of Hope."”But I tell you what: I’m confessing to all of you here today — it’s a big crowd, 2,000 people — I’m confessing in front of the TV cameras: I actually stole this line from my pastor, Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.” Wright, of course, is the controversial pastor Obama had to distance...

BEIJING — In another sign of the impact on China’s economy of Europe’s debt crisis and the U.S. economic slowdown, factories in southern Guangdong province, the country’s manufacturing heartland, have been the target of a recent wave of labor strikes. Thousands of workers clashed with police Thursday at a footwear factory in the city of Dongguan after 18 workers were reportedly laid off and overtime was cut. A thousand workers went on strike Tuesday at the Shenzhen factory of a Taiwanese electronics company. A day earlier, hundreds reportedly struck at a Shenzhen company that makes underwear and lingerie. On Oct....

I have great respect for retired Navy Captain Mark Kelly’s service to this nation. I also admire the courage of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. See Thursday’s post, “God bless you, Gabrielle Giffords.” But I find Captain Kelly’s tactics for selling his new book to be insulting , misleading and plain out wrong. More than that it is disturbingly dishonorable. From the London Daily Mail: But it was the lack of any contact from former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin that was ‘surprising’ said Mr Kelly. Citing the book, Mr Morgan said that it revealed some ‘interesting insights’ into ‘political colleagues and...

The Obama administration pressured analysts to change an environmental review to reflect fewer job losses from a proposed regulation, the contractors who worked on the review testified Friday. The dispute revolves around proposed changes to a rule regulating coal mining near streams and other waterways. The experts contracted to analyze the impact of the rule initially found that it would cost 7,000 coal jobs. But the contractors claim they were subsequently pressured to not only keep the findings under wraps but "revisit" the study in order to show less of an impact on jobs. Steve Gardner, president of Kentucky consulting...

List of Obama's promises/what he says he wants vs what he does to prevent it) Last night, I was just relaxing after I got home from work, and I realize obama is almost always smiling and laughing when he is talking. I may have realized why. Example, "I want boots on the ground jobs created now." *Smiling at the applause and thinking to himself, how freaking stupid are you all, I'm doing everything I can to prevent this from happening, including ensuring the XL Pipeline will not begin until after next years elections. * Here is what I want, a...

*SNIP* Private and government forecasters are conceding that the economy is in a funk and won’t improve much next year. The Federal Reserve’s most recent predictions are that economic growth in 2012 will be 2.5% – 2.9%, and that unemployment will still be above 8.5% at year’s end. I would add: “If we’re lucky. Two observations put all of this into perspective: *SNIP* *Until Team Obama occupied the White House, the longest string of months during which the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was greater than 8.5% was 22, from January 1982 until October 1983. We’re now at 32 months and...

Andy Hiller spins the debate to place Mitt Romney as the winner. Watch how this video is spliced to remove the crowds response to questions asked of Herman Cain. Simply disgusting! I shot an e-mail off to Hiller to express my distaste at how they turned this debate to their advantage and just outright lied in the process. Video here

Leave it to right-wing think tanks to tell the world that teachers are overpaid. Right wingers hate unions and they hate paying public employees, so keep that in mind as you try to digest recent surveys from The American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation that say teachers just make too much money.

The AFL-CIO, NAACP, the Brave New Foundation and several other groups are urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to enforce the Voting Rights Act to stop the discriminatory voter suppression laws the right-wing billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have pushed and financed in dozens of states. The Koch Brothers are major funders of ALEC. You can join in the fight to protect voting rights by clicking here and signing a petition to Holder urging him to use his authority under the Voting Rights Act to protect voters’ rights.In this video from Brave New...

Larry Sinclair claims that Obama not only had an extensive history of cocaine usage and sales, but that Obama had homosexual sex with Larry and a man named Donald Young. [snip] Here is some text from Larry's press conference: [snip] This first call shocked me in that this “Mr. Young” asked me why I had not asked Senator Obama to disclose the sexual encounters I had with Mr. Obama in 1999. [snip] In late October 2007, I received a text message from the gentleman identified as “Mr. Young” in which he stated he was intimately involved with Senator Obama and...

All three morning shows on Monday hyped a "bombshell blast" against Herman Cain, playing up a story in Politico charging the Republican presidential candidate with sexual harassment back in the 1990s. ABC's Good Morning America led with the allegations. Co-host George Stephanopoulos, whose former boss, Bill Clinton, repeatedly faced sexual harassment claims, touted, "And this morning, bombshell blast. Major allegations against front-runner Herman Cain. Two former female colleagues accuse him of sexual harassment." CBS's Early Show ...Crawford also connected the allegations, linking, "...This reminds me of similar allegations that were levied just 20 years ago against Justice Clarence Thomas who,...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — By the time U.S. military forces left Somalia in 1994 after entering the lawless nation more than a year earlier to stop a famine, 44 Army soldiers, Marines and airmen had been killed and dozens more wounded. Thus ended America's last large-scale military intervention in Africa. But the U.S. has come back, using special forces advisers, drones and tens of millions of dollars in military aid to combat a growing and multifaceted security threat. This time the United States is playing a less obtrusive role but is focusing once again on Somalia. While putting few U.S....

I can’t help but feel that President Obama’s new student loan proposal could take its title from William Shakespeare’s comedy “Much Ado About Nothing.” Technically, on paper, the “Pay as You Earn” plan that the president began trumpeting Wednesday is new because he will authorize it through an executive order. But that authority is being used to expand an existing program. (SNIP) Let me put it another way so you are clear on who will benefit from this change. The president’s order does not affect borrowers who took on loans before 2008 and who do not take out a new...

A proposed revision to Freedom of Information Act rules would allow federal agencies to lie to citizens and reporters seeking certain records, telling them the records don’t exist. The Justice Department has proposed the change as part of a large revision of FOIA rules for federal agencies. Specifically, the rule would direct government agencies who are denying a request under an established FOIA exemption to “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist,” rather than citing the relevant exemption. The proposed rule has alarmed government transparency advocates across the political spectrum, who’ve called it “Orwellian” and...

Obama: Republicans Want ‘Dirtier Air, Dirtier Water’ By Fred Lucas October 17, 2011 Subscribe to Fred Lucas's posts (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama said the Republican jobs proposal, released last week, would mean “dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance.” “The Republican plan says that what’s been standing in the way between us and full employment are laws that keep companies from polluting as much as they want,” Obama said in a speech at the regional airport in Asheville, N.C., on Monday. “On the other hand, our plan [Obama’s plan] puts teachers, construction workers, firefighters and police officers...