Free Republic

It constantly amazes me that the Obama/Biden ticket do not get hammered hard by the GOP, and Republicans in general for their political leanings, especially when we need to call Obama out on his liberal and darn right socialist ideology, in light of his official website's call for a protest in Gov. Palin's event in Dallas today. Sen. Obama's message, and Sen. Biden's at times, is full of terms referring to his progressive, community organizing, taxing the rich and upper middle class, fair, equality, etc., only stopping short of using socialist terminology such as proletariat, bourgeoisie, and revolution. Note that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPc9xG1sajI

If Ronald Reagan said, for example, that he believed in fair play, he would have meant that every individual, without affirmative action, is entitled to an equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law. When liberal-progressive-socialists like Senator Obama, and the ruling element of the Democrat/Socialist Party, say that they are in favor of fair play, they mean something very different: that the government should intervene in the normal processes of human activity in order to give special treatment to favored economic and social classes and to redistribute income in the name of social justice. It is undeniable that, for...

Austin, Texas -- Last year online activists inspired by DailyKos.com, the nation's most popular liberal blog, swelled with power as the Democratic presidential candidates debated at their annual convention, asking for their blessing and a little cash - or at least a link to their site. And this year? In the words of Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos blog on which this Netroots Nation convention of political gate-crashers originally gathered: "We are the mainstream." The progressive online movement is now faced with its most significant challenge: using its online power to help elect a Democratic president. Doing that...

Under President Obama, a Democrat Congress will raise taxes, increase spending, increase regulation, abandon Iraq, while also winning the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban wherever they may be, except in Iraq. It will refuse to drill for oil or build nukes, while pumping billions of your tax dollars into dead-end dreams of energy independence via biofuel. The most efficient biofuel source on the horizon is fuel from Algae, which one development company states can produce up to 20,000 gallons per acre per year. If this is true, it will take 78 square miles to produce enough Algae fuel...

Former faculty at Antioch College, which is temporarily closing amid financial problems, plan to teach in coffee shops, bookstores and parks to keep alive the spirit of the private school known for its pioneering academic programs. Scott Warren, former associate professor of philosophy and political theory at Antioch, said 22 ex-faculty members have formed the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute in the village of Yellow Springs... Warren said the institute will follow the Antioch formula of offering progressive liberal arts courses while encouraging learning for life, humanitarian acts and collective decision-making. Murdock said she applauds the group's passion, but the institute...

The stress of modern life is generating new kinds of mental illness, sometimes taking the form of irrational fear of certain objects. The latest example is an obscure disorder called cappaphobia. It is caused by cappa magna choralis and chiefly targets the elderly, many of whom may already be suffering from dementia. I first came across this clinical condition when shown a samizdat publication issued by a beleaguered group of progressive Catholics from an address in King Street Cloisters, which atmospherically evokes a huddled catacomb. A letter to the editor began: "Seeing Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos vested in a cappa magna...

Personalized fortune cookies sound like a fun idea for a party or business event, right? That's what I thought until I happened upon goodfortunes.com. They provide suggested "Cookie Quotes", and I figured I would use someone else's creative ideas. Since these cookies would go to a group of businesswomen, I naturally browsed the quotations listed under "Prosperity." Here is a sampling of what I found: The human race has had long experience and a fine tradition in surviving adversity. But we now face a task for which we have little experience, the task of surviving prosperity. ~Alan Gregg What has...

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...

You'd better believe it. Senator Obama and his supporters dislike traditional Americanism, preferring the Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary change expressed in moral relativism. Senator Obama's army of followers are energized by inexperienced and immature students and by Baby Boomer anarchists eager to relive their activist days of the 1960s and 70s. They stand opposed to the historical traditions of the United States. Theirs is a world in which change is equated with sensual self-indulgence. Underlying this vision of change is Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis, applied to politics and social interaction by John Dewey in the early 20th century. Dewey taught Columbia...

The modus operandi of the Obama campaign is to denigrate and censor any report and the reporter such that citizens don't know who or what to believe about him. As a result, instead of him bringing people together as Obama says he wants to do, he has been instrumental in further fracturing the political process by instigating fruitless debates and arguments among people who are trying to determine just who he is and what he stands for, because he has continued, also, to publicly retract documented statements he, himself, has made. And, therefore, unanswered questions remain which only he can...

With barely a whimper a few weeks after its big launch, David Brock's much-hyped Progressive Media USA has collapsed, thrown under the bus by Team Obama. (See previous blog entry here.) Two weeks ago [sorry--I've gotten behind in my blogging] the ambitious 501(c)(4) group, which vowed to spend $400 million trashing John McCain, quietly announced it would "dramatically scale back its efforts in deference to the wishes of the [Democratic] party's presumptive nominee," the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza reports. So much for Brock's claim that the George Soros-sponsored group would be independent and nonpartisan.

American liberals are getting increasingly frustrated with the use of the term “democratic socialism.” But I’m getting increasingly fed up with the improper use of the term “liberal.” John McCain is a liberal. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, like all modern Democrats, are something quite different. For the record, the term “liberal” originally referred to people like Thomas Jefferson, indicating their undying reverence for “individual liberty” and “personal freedom” above all other notions and their opposition to government power. People who believe in empowering government to strip liberty and freedom from individuals in the name of some greater common good...

If it were not for a number of conservative journalists who deal with facts and not spin, many of us would have no idea what the news media are not reporting about the social, financial, academic, religious and political events upon which we are called to make informed – indeed, crucial – decisions. A recent article in To The Point News, “Barack Don’t Know Much About History Obama,” by Jack Kelly, is a perfect example. In his article, Kelly points out the numerous historical flaws contained in Sen. Barack Obama’s victory speech after the North Carolina primary. Obama said that...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has now abandoned his goal of fixing the problem that led to his historic election in 2003. With the revised budget proposal he released Wednesday, the governor has effectively conceded that California's era of perpetual budget deficits will not end on his watch. --snip-- His trouble started early, when he proposed spending cuts that were politically unpalatable while failing to follow through on a fundamental, top-to-bottom rethinking of the way the state does business. When the economy briefly surged and brought in billions of dollars in unexpected tax revenue, Schwarzenegger lost his zeal for fiscal discipline and...

Obama No By Adolph Reed Jr., May 2008 Issue I’ve never been an Obama supporter. I’ve known him since the very beginning of his political career, which was his campaign for the seat in my state senate district in Chicago. He struck me then as a vacuous opportunist, a good performer with an ear for how to make white liberals like him. I argued at the time that his fundamental political center of gravity, beneath an empty rhetoric of hope and change and new directions, is neoliberal. His political repertoire has always included the repugnant stratagem of using connection with...

There is a Bible on a pedestal in Gretta Vosper's West Hill United Church in Toronto. She would prefer it did not have a special place, she said, because it is just a book among other books. In a similar way, the cross that is high above the altar has no special meaning, but there are a few older congregants for whom the Bible and the cross are still nice symbols so there they remain. Though an ordained minister, she does not like the title of reverend. It is one of those symbols that hold the church back from breaking...

Violent chickens roost on candidates' shoulders: exploring the liberal/Marxist nexus Wes Vernon April 21, 2008 Last week's Clinton/Obama debate opened a new door on an old coalition: What is it about Marxists (violent or otherwise) that attracts liberals (well-meaning or otherwise) to their defense? What is their common goal (to the extent that they have one)? The counterculture sixties Here is the mantra of the Weather Underground, as enunciated by one of its leading disciples: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents. That's where it's really at." Who said...

We were not as completely aware as to how deeply the Socialist movement had permeated our core and our culture until the Vietnamese War. It was then that this disorganized and traitorous mob tested its strength by pulling the plug on our soldiers with a propaganda campaign never equaled in our history. With the aid of our weak legislative leadership and a willing and uninformed press we allowed victory to the North Vietnamese and the eventual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents. It was a black blot in the history of a once great nation. The North Vietnamese admitted...

Obama, speaking to a group of supporters in San Francisco, CA. , recently said: "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment...

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to host a summit of some 20 world leaders and key figures to discuss "progressive" governance, after a conference on the issue in London Friday, officials said. South African President Thabo Mbeki, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and former US president Bill Clinton are among participants at the summit of broadly centre-left leaders outside London on Saturday, said Downing Street. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy and national leaders from Australia, Chile, Cyprus, Ghana, Italy, Liberia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway and Slovakia are also scheduled, according...

At the core of Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign is a promise that he can transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars, and build a new governing majority. To achieve the change the country wants, he says, "we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things done." It is a promise that convinced 67 percent of all registered voters in the last New York Times/CBS News Poll, in late February, that Obama "would be the kind...

by Burt Prelutsky [scriptwriter] 3/24/08 Most 12-step programs start out by requiring that people have to understand that they’re powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a Power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity. Far be it from me to suggest that I am that Power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls. Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much. First, though, they have to acknowledge that Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid and Charles...

Rush Limbaugh has been having a great time lately, fanning the flames of discord and confusion among the Democrats. But the ability to destabilize their party is hardly a dangerous manifestation of omnipotence on the part of the talk radio giant. Such turmoil could not be foisted on the Democrat Party from without, were it not already morally and philosophically rotting from within. Consider all of the different fronts on which the Democrat Party lately finds itself in a total shambles. Along with the day to day revelations of the barnyard morality pervading the entire top echelon of New York’s...

A Progressive Bill of Rights I have begun to feel sorry for the Obama campaign. Sure, their candidate is still the frontrunner, but some of the old luster is gone. And his platform, if you can call it that, is so flat, so vaporous.So here’s an idea to spruce things up: Obama should assemble his favorite authorities on law and human rights, in order to draw up a new Bill of Rights for the Unites States. After all, the Obamamites clearly are not pleased with the current one. So instead of just whining, why not present the American people with...

Just three years ago the Democratic Party was in disarray. Despite record high-dollar donations from affluent supporters, Democrats had failed to reclaim the White House and Congress. Shell-shocked by their defeat, George Soros and other wealthy liberals formed a loose-knit group to consider how to fund a political comeback. Their answer: Create a permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks, media outlets, leadership schools, and activist groups—a kind of “vast left-wing conspiracy” to compete with the conservative movement. The group they created –called the Democracy Alliance (DA)— is meant to be a financial clearinghouse. The Alliance got off to a...

Several weeks ago Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich announced articles for the impeachment and removal from office of Vice President Cheney. Whether it was part of his never-ending campaign for the Presidency, or done as a means of showing the Democratic Party’s far left base that the Democrats’ Congress is respondent to them is a moot and debatable point, but there is no way that these articles of impeachment can be sincere. They are false, misleading, and have no way of ever becoming the subject of real hearings.

The Catholic Church points the way to authentic progress by presenting a vision of the human person, the family, society and the common good that moves us forward and not backward.

Hazard!!! Turn television off when sleeping!!! :Please excuse my writing skills. I am not a writer and I am not attempting to pass myself off as one. I just enjoy sharing my mind.: Today I woke up to my alarm clock going off. It's 6:30am, Monday morning so I turned on the radio to hear what the weather would be like today, only to find that there was only one station working. Some station called the "American Broadcasting Service". On the morning show there was some soft-spoken guy talking about how he enjoys cooking and cleaning for his wife and...

Since you must be wondering what the “Progressives” are all about, let me begin by quoting Mark Twain’s King, whose explanation of this term favored by Hillary Clinton has never been equaled: “I say Progressive, not because it’s the common term, because it ain’t – Liberal bein’ the common term – but because Progressive is the right term. Liberal ain’t used in the Northeast and West Coasts no more now – it’s gone out. We say Progressive because it means the thing you’re after more exact. It’s a word that’s made up from the Latin PRO, front, forward; and RECTUS,...

It’s been a while since I printed hate mail. You’ve seen one “Hey, BusHitler’s Asian whore, go home” letter, you’ve seen ‘em all. But this one’s such a prize-winner, I had to share: from Joe Roppe {snip} Michelle Malkin, I bet we could make your cry for real. Force you to eat a hamburger. I often wonder what will happen when we progressive liberal adults take back our country. The adults will stop wars for oil, Everyone will have health care. Everyone will have a roof over their heads. Everyone will have a voice in our government. Everyone will pay...

Hillary Clinton declared her crushing defeat during the Iowa caucus as a "great night for Democrats." She followed this up by declaring that the high turnout of Dems in the Hawkeye state was a clear sign that liberals would take the White House next November. This was, of course, a lie. It wasn’t one that was quite as big as her husband trying to pass off an intimate sexual encounter with an intern as nothing more then a casual mentoring session to help an overweight young lady with her self esteem issues, but it was up there. Like everything else...

I’ve come to the conclusion that the United States is having a midlife crisis, an identity crisis. And this is a huge problem because if we don’t know who we are, what we stand for, or how we arrived here, how can we know how to navigate the 21st century while maintaining the freedom and standard of living we’ve come to take for granted? US detractors (and there are many living within the boundaries of this country), it would seem, do not possess a very thorough understanding of our founding documents, the thinking from which they’re derived, or the importance...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Hispanic activists who viewed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as a voice of moderation on illegal immigration say they've been taken aback by the hard-line stance he's adopted as a presidential candidate. While governor, Huckabee gained favor with Hispanic leaders by denouncing a high-profile federal immigration raid and suggesting some anti-illegal immigration measures were driven by racism. He advocated making children of illegal immigrants eligible for college scholarships. Huckabee's Republican presidential rivals have tried to make an issue of the scholarship plan, portraying him as soft on illegal immigration, an important issue for many GOP voters....

First, he dismissed Roll Call’s assertion -- that the majority of “airdropped earmarks” in recent legislation favored committee members and vulnerable incumbents -- as just “somebody’s news article.” Then, literally seconds later, Harry Reid suggested that Iraqis’ resentment of American presence on their soil can be readily assessed – by reading somebody’s news article. When asked at Wednesday’s Democratic Leaders Year-End Legislative Briefing whether the role of “airdropped” earmarks in the $555 billion spending package approved by the House on Wednesday betrayed the “restoring accountability” reform promise Dems ran on last year, Reid replied: “I would suggest you read the...

A Doctrine By Any Other Name by: Bethany Stotts, November 13, 2007 As reported earlier by Cliff Kincaid, the November 8th Senate Committee Hearing on “Localism, Diversity, and Media Ownership” likely precedes a concerted effort by Congress to reform digital, radio, and print media. Although not officially designed to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine, the hearing’s participants betrayed many of the same attitudes which could lead to greater government regulation of content, scalability, ownership—and now even ethnicity. If Congress follows the advice of this committee’s carefully selected witnesses, a comprehensive reform agenda could soon sweep all areas of broadcast media. “[Congress]...

Remember back in the sixties where modern American liberalism got its start? They were the days of Woodstock in New York and Woodstock West in Los Angeles, which, by the way, I attended. They were the days of young people searching for alternatives to the routines established by older generations. We wanted to be the pioneers of a new way of life. There was a war going on in Vietnam and the threat of nuclear world war. It wasn’t so much the war itself that we objected to, but rather the fact that we and our friends were being drafted...

On a recent summer evening I spent a pleasant hour with a neighbor, a retired Air Force officer and international airline pilot. As we discussed the serenity of life in our quiet gated community, surrounded by the rolling hills and crystal clear streams of eastern Oklahoma, our conversation turned to the head-in-the-sand attitude and the lack of real concern among many of our friends and neighbors for the dangers we all face...and how quickly those attitudes would change should their own loved ones become victims of radical Islam’s next attack on our country. We agreed that such concerns are not...

...New data from the Tax Foundation and the IRS show just how nonsensical it is. In 2005, the latest full year for data, the top 1% of earners accounted for 21.2% of all income, but paid 39.4% of all federal taxes. The top 5% earned 35.8% of all income and paid 60% of the taxes. That’s right: The top 5% paid more in income taxes than the remaining 95% combined. The bottom 50% in income in the U.S. — including, by definition, half of those who are middle class — paid just 3% of all income taxes in 2005. That’s...

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, So help me God.” (snip) To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; is to at all times by all means, uphold, promote...

The bad news is that Shakespeare has disappeared from required courses in English departments at more than three-fourths of the top 25 U.S. universities, but the good news is only 1.6 percent of America's 19 million undergraduates major in English, according to Department of Education figures. When I visit college campuses, students for years have been telling me that the English departments are the most radicalized of all departments, more so than sociology, psychology, anthropology, or even women's studies. That's why it was no surprise that Cho Seung-Hui, the murderer of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech, was an...

Once long...long ago there existed a Democrat Party in the United States of America that truly believed that country should and must survive. It believed that the reasons for the country’s existence were worth protecting. The members of this political party also believed that it should assist in defending that country and its citizens against all those who would attack and attempt to destroy it. They supported the men and women who enlisted in the US’ citizen-military and some of them had even served in one of its branches. But, that was another time—in another reality. That political party and...

Archbishop Burke: Bishops Must Discipline Pro-Abortion Catholic Politicians Calls his brother bishops to task - “To remain silent is to permit serious confusion regarding a fundamental truth of the moral law" By Hilary White ST. LOUIS, September 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Writing in the latest edition of the Canon Law journal, Periodica De Re Canonica, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, bishop of St. Louis, Missouri, has called his brother bishops to task for their silence on the problem of Catholic politicians who support abortion, euthanasia, cloning, embryo research, the homosexual political agenda or other legislation “contrary to the natural moral law.” Burke’s lengthy...

We all want progress. We may disagree whether gay marriage or drug legalization constitutes progress or not. But we all want better things for the world -- better food, better health and well-being, scientific and technical advances, wiser political systems, more peace and freedom,  more happy children, more humane treatment of animals, more tolerance, more prosperity for the world, you name it. That's called being a decent person. So what kind of person has to label himself "Progressive?" Obviously somebody who believes he (or she) understands real progress better than the rest of us. Because if you are a Progressive...

Lately, I’ve been reading even more books than usual about a period that’s always fascinated me; namely, the late 40s and early 50s, the time of the Hollywood blacklist. It was the time of what liberals labeled witch hunts. A funny thing, though, is that the hunting of witches is not such a bad thing if you’ve got a coven of them causing trouble. Which is exactly what the Communists were doing in the 30s, 40s and 50s. And while I don’t think the idiots in Hollywood were anywhere near as dangerous as the Reds in the State Department or...

Political fissures divided state Republicans Saturday as they faced questions about the future of a party that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says has lost its way. At a state GOP convention, a committee made only incremental headway trying to craft a new platform while some members angrily complained about being shut out or misled. And a day after Schwarzenegger declared the party had lost the political middle ground and was "dying at the box office," state party Chairman Ron Nehring did respond directly when asked if he agreed with the governor's assessment. "We are a big party," Nehring told reporters, without...

What happens when neither political party has a really new idea about what is happening in the nation and the world? You get election results so nearly tied that a few hundred votes decide who won or lost. It is, if you think about it, fairly astounding that the voters are so equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. You notice, I said “the voters”, not the people who simply identify themselves as members or sympathetic to one party or the other. One of the Republican Party’s greatest problems right now is that it has drifted so far away from what...

As the Democratic presidential candidates genuflected before the radical crazies of the America-hating left at the recent Yearly Kos Convention in Chicago, one questioner raised an issue that is always dear to the hearts of liberals: the money that special interest lobbyists and their PACs contribute to political candidates and the influence that those special interests have over lawmakers. Of the three principal candidates, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Barrack Hussein Obama, and former Senator John Edwards, only one – Hillary Clinton – came within a mile of getting it right. Clinton pointed out that not all lobbyists are evil and that...

I just got this fax from a fairly local MoveOn.org mob where they will release a "new report" called "War at Home". Actually, they originally sent an email release to my job's account last week and called up this morning to confirm we had received it. I took the call. Imagine how it felt talking to someone from MoveOn.org who thought I was one of them…. As we couldn't find it, the email must have wound up in our email junk box and was deleted. The irony. So this MoveOn guy offered to fax it, and sure enough, within two...

That's the way Hillary and her hero Saul Alinsky viewed liberals. It was the same way the Old Left – the Communist Party – viewed liberals. Hillary quoted Alinsky in her thesis as explaining the difference between a liberal and a radical: "The liberal refuses to fight for the goals he professes." I'm sure Hillary still sees herself today as a "radical." But she could never use that term and remain a viable politician. So she has adopted another term – "progressive" – which means the same thing to those in the know. This is the favored term even today...