Free Republic

America, Conservatives and Republicans. We must support Newt Gingrich. He is a man of many accomplishments who gave us Welfare Reform, A Balanced Budget, and Reduced Taxes. Further, he brought us a Republican Majority when we were lost in the desert and the GOP establishment said it couldn't be done. Newt is the only candidate who thinks of big ideas, studies the challenges in achieving very difficult goals and then through, his leadership, explains how we are going to do it and then marshals them into eventuality. Newt helped us achieve the above through his plan known as the Contract...

New evidence suggests there’s a reason why this economic “recovery” hasn’t felt much like a recovery. Figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, compiled by Sentier Research, show that the “recovery” has actually been harder on most Americans than the recession from which they’ve allegedly been recovering. According to Sentier’s report, the median American household income has actually fallen during the “recovery.”  Not only that, but it has fallen even more than it did during the recession. Gordon Green, former chief of the Governments Division at the U.S. Census Bureau and co-author of the report (with fellow Census veteran John Coder), says,...

REPORTING FROM SEOUL -– Even at first glance, the design renderings for the soon-to-be-built pair of apartment towers here pack a wallop: They evoke New York’s World Trade Center towers in mid-explosion in the terrifying moments after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But wait. The Dutch designers say the images have nothing to do with debris flying off two towers that have just been rammed by a pair of commercial airliners. It’s more like a dreamy cloud formation inspired by a gaze up at the sky. Netizens aren’t buying the explanation. In recent days, an international frenzy of criticism...

The Newt Surge is official. Over the last week, Gingrich’s Intrade odds of winning the nomination rose from 16% to 39%. Romney has faded a little but still leads with 47% odds. No one else is above 5% odds. The polls are even more stunning. Rasmussen shows Gingrich leading 38%-17% in a national poll. Real Clear Politics lists polls with Gingrich leading Romney by 15-30 points in Florida, South Carolina and Iowa, and trailing Romney by only 10 points in New Hampshire. In the general election match-up, Rasmussen has Gingrich leading Obama by 2% and Romney trailing Obama by 6%....

Bishop Armando X. Ochoa Fresno, Calif., Dec 1, 2011 / 01:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Armando X. Ochoa of El Paso, Texas was named today as the new bishop of Fresno, Calif. by Pope Benedict XVI.“I am humbled and deeply honored that the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, would offer me this new challenge at my age,” said Bishop Ochoa, who will fill a position left vacant by the death of Bishop John Steinbock in December 2010. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican's recently appointed representative to the U.S., made the announcement in Washington D.C. on Dec. 1.Bishop Ochoa...

Sales of new single-family U.S. homes rose by 5.7% in September as prices fell to the lowest level in nearly a year...New home sales climbed to an annual pace of 313,000 in September from August's slightly revised level of 296,000...

Infuriated lower Manhattan residents went ballistic on Zuccotti Park protesters at a chaotic Community Board 1 meeting tonight while blasting politicians for allowing the siege to continue without any end in sight. "They are defecating on our doorsteps," fumed Katherine Hughes, a stay at home mom who has the misfortune of living one block from the chaos. "A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids." Fed up homeowners said that they've been subjected to insults and harassment as they trek to their jobs each morning. "The protesters taunt people...

Activists have created a new outpost in the Binyamin region, to be named Oz Tzion (Zion’s Might). The fledgling community is located next to Givat Assaf in Beit El, one of the Jewish neighborhoods currently under threat of demolition. Veteran activists Daniella Weiss and Rabbi Moshe Levinger assisted in the creation of the new outpost.

Activists have created a new outpost in the Binyamin region, to be named Oz Tzion (Zion’s Might). The fledgling community is located next to Givat Assaf in Beit El, one of the Jewish neighborhoods currently under threat of demolition. Veteran activists Daniella Weiss and Rabbi Moshe Levinger assisted in the creation of the new outpost.

When we had 4.6 unemployment , Nancy Pelosi decried the "worst economy since Herbert Hoover". What is it now at 9.2? The best thing since sliced bread? Nothing like lowering expectations to make failure look acceptable. While we're at it, maybe we should be celebrating record numbers on foods stamps as 'economic stimulus' and achievement of "Great Society' ideals.

There's a burgeoning theme in Washington these days. Although not publicly stated before the cameras, the power brokers whisper it among themselves. But before too long — perhaps in the next six months as the presidential campaign heats up — we'll all recognize it when we hear it. It's called the "new normal." This odious phrase characterizes a growing belief among politicians, economists and pundits that the United States is entering its twilight years of economic prosperity. Gone are the days of 4% unemployment. Gone too are the days of 4% to 5% annual GDP growth. And with them will...

America's Mr. Right The Jason Lewis Show Listen Live Monday-Friday 6-9p ET Call in to the show 1-855-88-Lewis (855-885-3947)

Today, Andrew Breitbart published some photographs of an event in March 2007 where Senator and candidate Barack Obama shared a stage with Malik Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party. It was not, as the mainstream media wants to believe, a mere coincidence. Certainly not to Malik Shabazz himself. It may be difficult to appreciate now, but at the time of that event, Senator Obama was still considered a long shot for the White House. Hillary Clinton was still ahead in the polls, and had already secured endorsements from civil rights icons like Rep. John Lewis (D-GA). Meanwhile, Obama’s support...

Police man roadblocks with machine-guns and sniffer dogs. Drivers are questioned. Data bases are searched for suspects in potential terrorist attacks. The scene is not the IDF in the Palestinian Authority. It Is New York City on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks. Ground Zero was turned into a “frozen zone” Sunday prior to anniversary ceremonies that will be attended by President Barack Obama. Concrete barriers, similar to those separating some areas in Judea and Samaria from the rest of Israel, block cars from approaching the area. Bomb sniffing dogs late Saturday night patrolled Pennsylvania Station and...

"We, the undersigned Democrats, want a new Democratic nominee for President who can win in 2012. We are convinced that the only person with the national stature, experience, and high enough approval ratings who can win the general election in November of 2012 is Hillary Rodham Clinton"

A New Jersey school district has apologized to parents after requiring high school students to read books that include graphic depictions of lesbian sex and a homosexual orgy. “Some of the language is inappropriate,” said Chuck Earling, superintendent of Monroe Township Schools in Williamstown, N.J. “We were not trying to create controversy. We were just trying to get students to read.”

Due to new IRS rules, PayPal has started asking users to provide their tax ID number, which is either your Social Security number, Individual Tax Identification Number or your Employer Identification Number. PayPal says it will use your tax ID number to send tax Form 1099-K to you and the IRS when the payments you receive exceed both of these milestones in a calendar year: $20,000 in gross payment volume for goods and services 200 payments So for most occasional PayPal users, this change won’t be applicable, but you’ll still need to enter your tax ID just in case. Although,...

Apparently, there was a kerfuffle earlier today because Rick Perry said the following: "If this guy [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke] prints more money between now and the election ... I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous in my opinion.” Now the very existence of the Federal Reserve is not without controversy, and the Fed's policy as of late has drawn some strong

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating sunk below 40 percent for the first time, according to Gallup’s daily tracking poll. Data posted Sunday showed just 39 percent of Americans said they approve of Obama’s performance as president, while 54 percent said they disapprove. His approval ratings have been in the 40 percent range for much of the year, ticking up to the low 50s in May when Osama bin Laden was killed. At two and a half years into his presidency, Obama‘s approval ratings are lower than former President Bill Clinton’s were in August 1995. Former President George W. Bush’s...

I have a low-cost JVC HM50, a Flip HD Video Ultra, and a DXG-125 High Definition Digital Camcorders. All serve their intended purpose well considering their relatively low cost. I also have a Sony DCR-TRV-608 Hi8 Tape Recorder and an even older Panasonic PV-420 VHS Tape Recorder. The Panasonic is the reason for my post. I wanted to call upon the wide range of FreeRepublic members because searching the Internet hasn’t been entirely successful. The VHS Panasonic has two features, Time lapse and High Speed Shutter Recording, I want in a Digital Camcorder. The “Time Lapse Recording” is the more...

Chicago - The number of Americans newly infected with HIV remained stable between 2006 and 2009, but infections rose nearly 50 percent among young black gay and bisexual men, U.S. experts said on Wednesday. New data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal progress since the peak of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s. But the sharp increases in infection rates among young black men who have sex with men show there is much more work to do, they said.(Snip) While blacks represent 14 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 44 percent of new HIV

Minutes after President Obama urged Americans this morning to tweet their support for a Democratic debt-ceiling bill, a New York Times reporter prompted the White House to organize the effort with a special Twitter hashtag. Hashtags use the “#” symbol to mark keywords or topics on Twitter. They often help drive messages by linking similar messages together in a common theme. At 10:55 a.m. the Times’s Jennifer Preston suggested that administration officials might create a hashtag, so tweeting Democrats could jointly target Republicans who are now trying to pass their own debt ceiling plan. Preston tweeted to a White House...

We’re hearing it now cuts $917 billion over ten years under the more recent CBO baseline. So under $1 trillion. On the other hand, the cuts are apparently more front-loaded: $20 billion in real cuts in the first year.

Newly created ACORN front groups across America have signed on to SEIU’s economic terrorism and sabotage campaign. ACORN, long associated with President Obama, is participating in the disruptive campaign through its newly renamed state chapters. Mortgage and student loan strikes, crippling bank boycotts, intimidation, and who knows what else are all on the agenda. I reported on the emergence of the “new” ACORN groups in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers. Although ACORN filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy last Election Day, its state chapters have been quietly restructuring under...

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 -- popped up in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet. The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km). "I find it remarkable...

HOUSTON– Nearly 140 Texas plants, including some of the nation’s largest refineries, have reached a deal with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to receive new permits even though a long-standing battle between the Lone Star State and the federal agency is far from over.The EPA’s announcement Tuesday that it reached a deal for all 136 companies to apply for new permits came more quickly than initially expected when the agency ruled last year that Texas’ so-called “flexible permits” violated the federal Clean Air Act. At the time, Texas blasted the EPA ruling, challenging it in court and saying

George Soros’s latest attempt in new media is about two years behind the conservative trailblazers who changed the face of elections and political blogging. At 27, he is a full-time “tracker” for American Bridge 21st Century, a new Democratic organization that aims to record every handshake, every utterance by Republican candidates in 2011 and 2012, looking for gotcha moments that could derail political ambitions or provide fodder for television advertisements by liberal groups next year. [...] While the Democratic National Committee and Democratic candidates also have trackers, federal campaign laws prohibit the outside organizations from coordinating closely

George Soros has running looting operations against , Russia, Serbia, England an Italy. George Soros is the leading megaspeculators; throughout his entire life up to this day, he has running looting operations against , Russia, Serbia, Englans an Italy. in September 1992, "in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the Bank of England," Soros destroyed the British pound and the Italian lira and made $12 billion in profit. Gorge Soros' Fundation providing financial and military aid to the KLA on Kosovo war George Soros, and a New York- based Albanian__ billionaire Sahit__Muja have shemed to get their hands on Kosovo's coal reserves,...

A Prominent Republican is joining a prominent Democrat in predicting that Gov. Cuomo will become President Obama's running mate for vice president next year. Former New York GOP boss William Powers, credited with playing a key role in electing Rudy Giuliani mayor and George Pataki governor, was effusive in his praise of Cuomo's successes in the just-ended legislative session, and in his prediction of the freshman governor's political future. "Andrew had a fabulous session. It was fabulous. A property-tax cap, ethics reform and, for Democrats, gay marriage," said Powers.

Newly released documents show that the Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed for the release of Marxist radical and domestic terrorist Marilyn Buck from federal prison because officials believed she learned her lesson and had “expressed a dramatic change from her previous political philosophy.” These new documents, obtained by investigative journalist Cliff Kincaid’s America’s Survival organization, shed more light on why Holder’s officials decided to release Buck, a convicted radical left-wing domestic terrorist. “Incredibly, Buck’s attorney, Soffiyah Elijah, cited Buck’s ‘Master of Fine Arts in Poetics,’ completed behind bars, as evidence that she deserved parole. It’s a fraud and a racket,”...

Many conservatives and even some liberals have complained about Obama’s penchant for appointing “czars” in order to avoid accountability under law. One of his most notorious is the Consumer Czar, Elizabeth Warren, who was appointed by Obama to help set up and, many fear, to eventually run the monstrous new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). We recently uncovered documents indicating the CFPB has been intensely involved in a 50-state settlement discussion underway with the nation’s largest mortgage lenders regarding alleged improper foreclosure procedures. (Anti-business zealots in the Obama administration and state attorney general offices are trying to extract a $20...

I so hope this comes to pass. Oil might not be as abundant as sea water, but there’s enough to last for hundreds of years, if only governments would get out of the way.

Inflation Part Three: The New Deal, The Great Depression, And Today Two major themes dominate the overview of how FDR attempted to cope with financial and economic disaster: first, he tried hard to increase governmental control of the economy by increasing regulation and regimentation, and second, he tried to inject money into the economy by hiring people. The push for a centrally-controlled economy was a huge mistake. At first, it pitted the president against the supreme court, which tossed out some of his vital legislation. Furious, FDR threatened the court, which backed down (“the switch in time that saved nine”)...

Welcome to the new civility. At a Thursday rally in New Jersey protesting Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s pension deal that would cut pensions and benefits to public workers, a union leader charged Christie with acting like a Nazi. And not any ordinary Nazi, but Adolf Hitler himself. “Good afternoon brothers and sisters. Welcome to Nazi Germany,” Communications Workers of America District 1 Vice President Christopher Shelton is seen raving in a video posted on YouTube. “We have Adolf Christie and his two generals trying to make New Jersey Nazi Germany.”

WASHINGTON - A "new normal" is emerging for the U.S. jobs market, and a growing number of economists warn that it's likely to mean that unemployment will remain persistently high, at 7 percent or more, for years to come. The 9.1 percent unemployment rate reported in May remains high by post-World War II standards long after the economy resumed growth following the worst recession in 70 years. It's prompting economists to rethink basic assumptions about the U.S. labor market.

Now it is official: Barack Obama’s animus and actions towards our energy companies are choking off the prospects of America developing our own energy wealth. From Steven Hayward , writing at Powerline: It is almost as if the United States deliberately wanted to be more dependent on foreign oil. Consider that while the World Economic Forum rates the U.S. 4th in its ranking of the world's most competitive economies, it would rank far down the list if the WEF were to look at the competitiveness of the oil and gas industry in isolation. A proprietary ranking of political and investment...

To cleanse the palate, behold the first 2012 attack ad rolled out by Priorities USA, one of those outrageously outrageous outside groups funded by anonymous donors that The One used to dump on at every opportunity. The first lesson of Hopenchange, though, is that getting elected takes priority over principles (see, e.g., his reversal on accepting public financing in 2008), so now top O-bots Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney have struck out “on their own” to form the very same kind of group in his service. (A previous ad whined about the Koch brothers.) Liberals like Russ Feingold who, contrary...

The largely-unspoken, and uneasy, tension between the United States and China may have just gotten a little more apparent. A new video game sponsored the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now allows players to target and shoot American commandos. Wired.com reports the new game, “Glorious Mission,” was developed by China’s Giant Network Technology Co. It sends “soldiers’ off to basic training and then sets them out on various missions. For the most part, it’s modeled after many American-made shooting games. But the comparisons may end at the graphics once you read this: But there’s one key difference between the American and...

Mitch Daniels has not yet declared that he will run for the Republican nomination for president. In truth, he is an unlikely nominee, despite the half-hearted cheerleading he has enjoyed from the likes of Fox News and National Review, who appear to have latched onto him in lieu of their first love, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. It has been reported that the Bush family is supporting the current Indiana governor and former budget director for the Bush 43 White House, presumably because they understand that neither the nation nor the party has any appetite for a third President Bush...

Three Project Gunrunner documents Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and House Oversight Committee chairman, released on Wednesday show high-ranking Justice Department officials were aware of Operation Fast and Furious and that there was a consistent administration policy that allowed American guns to be “walked” into Mexican drug cartels’ possession. One of the documents shows Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer approved a wiretap application for suspects Operation Fast and Furious targeted in March 2010. The wiretap application process is lengthy and cumbersome, and often requires those applying to make strong case as to why they need it. So, Breuer would have...

I know what you’re thinking. This is news? But this statistical study covers 50 years of the Times‘ history from 1946-1997. Here’s what author Riccardo Puglisi found: The main finding is that the Times displays a Democratic partisanship, with some anti-incumbent aspects. This is the case, because there are systematically more stories about civil rights, health care, labour and social welfare during the presidential campaign, but only so when the incumbent president is a Republican. The Democratic partisanship hypothesis is con rmed by the fact that (during presidential campaigns) there is no countervailing variation in the

LONDON – Gold prices hit record highs for a fifth session on Thursday and silver rallied to its strongest since 1980 as the dollar slid to a three-year low against a basket of major currencies. The action in the currency markets added fuel to a rally sparked by concerns over the U.S. economic outlook, rising inflation, worries over euro zone debt and historically low interest rates in the United States, analysts said. Spot gold was bid at $1,502.10 an ounce at 1322 GMT, against $1,498.15 late in New York on Wednesday, having earlier peaked at $1,508.75 an ounce. U.S. gold...

Sunday, April 17, 2011 OBAMA'S MOTHER ALIVE? A MULTI-IDENTITY CRIMINAL IN HIDING? The Geitner Obama Connection,you can run but you cant hide “The real reason is that Madelyn’s Dad worked for Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. In 1973 David Rockefeller founded the Trilateral Commission (TC) with the Marxist-praising Zbigniew Brzezinski as its director. Zbigniew Brzezinski is a foreign policy advisor to Obama. What these Trilateralists truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. The place to start is with the banks and developement of “predatory lending” schemes that would eventually...

The new head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is pushing for screenings of all gun purchases. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the current law, which allows private firearm sales without background checks, is "outrageous." The Florida Democrat is sponsoring a soon-to-be-released proposal extending the screening requirements to all gun purchases, commercial or private. "It is outrageous that gun buyers evade the background check system every day, even in broad daylight," Wasserman Schultz said Monday at a gun reform rally in Miami sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Richard Goldstone’s remarkable about-face this month was much talked about but incompletely understood. Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution (who debated Goldstone shortly before the judge’s recantation) remedies that deficiency. Writing in the Weekly Standard, he observes that Goldstone did more than simply withdraw “the gravest charge that he and his colleagues had leveled against Israel and its Gaza operation of December 2008-January 2009, which aimed at stopping Hamas’s firing of thousands of mortar shells, rockets, and missiles at civilian populations in southern Israel.” Berkowitz reminds us that Goldstone’s original conclusion was more sweeping than his retraction. Goldstone had asserted...

The news reports that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda terrorist mastermind behind the September 11th attacks, will be prosecuted by a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, come at a time like no other in Arab history. The dissent and rebellion in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and most recently in Syria has caused most of the mainstream media to speculate about a future Middle East where moderates have a greater influence. Cooler heads have pointed out that there is still much to be concerned about in regard to the growth and strength of al-Qaeda. For example, Admiral James Stavridis,...

Arianna Huffington sat down with The New York Times Magazine (you will recall, of course, the the NYT’s executive editor, Bill Keller, has made it quite clear that he’s none to happy with the Huffington Post’s method of aggregating content) to discuss pleasant topics like how her father, a former newspaperman, would feel about accusations that her site is responsible for that whole death of print thing we keep reading about in newspapers. The magazine broached another contentious and persistent criticism the Huffington Post has been contending with since it’s inception, and especially

Transparency? Ha! (Big Government) President Barack Obama has won praise from the media — and from himself — for putting the White House visitor logs online. Yet the visitor logs may hide more than they reveal. The White House is still holding back “tens of thousands” of visitor logs, according to congressional testimony last week by Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, who also added that “the Obama administration is less transparent than the Bush administration.” We also know that some of the most important presidential visitors don’t even walk into the White House. The administration meets K Street lobbyists...

Last year, New York Rep. Anthony Weiner took personal ownership of the magnificent health care law, even to the point of proclaiming “the bill and I are one” like a monk trying to attain enlightenment using nothing but willpower and a trillion dollars of other people’s money. In short, Anthony Weiner loves the health care bill. It’s just that… well… it might not be right for his district: Rep. Anthony Weiner said Wednesday he was looking into how a health law waiver might work for New York City. Weiner, who is likely to run for mayor of New York, said...

In March 20,1969, Dr. Richard Day, the National Medical Director of the Rockefeller-sponsored "Planned Parenthood" to a meeting of the Pittsburgh Pediatric Society. delivered an invitation-only lecture about the “new world system” in which he defined the changes, according to an actual timetable, that would be accomplished by the year 2000 which included the following: * Travel restrictions will occur. It will be considered a privilege! People will need permission and a good reason to travel. An under-the-skin implantation device will be developed, coded specifically to identify each individual to accommodate government surveillance through radio signals. * More airplane and...