Free Republic

... calling for "grassroots effort" to help boost campaign. The names of four former top leaders of the Weathermen terrorist organization are listed as signatories on an online petition calling for an "independent grassroots effort" to help strengthen Obama's campaign. The petition was initiated by Progressives for Obama, an independent organization acting to ensure the Illinois senator's election. Among the names signed onto the petition are former Weathermen leaders Howard Machtinger, Jeff Jones, Steve Tappis and Mark Rudd. Machtinger was a Weathermen founder and was co-author of the terror group's original mission statement, which called for "revolutionaries within the United...

1.Sarah Palin is a mortal threat to the possibility of Obama winning.

It's not often that one person plays key roles in two -- count 'em, two -- trillion-dollar disasters. Welcome, my friends, to the world of well-connected Democrat Jamie Gorelick. In 2004, observers were "astonished" to discover that a key member of the 9/11 Commission had a fatal conflict-of-interest. Jamie Gorelick had served as a Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1997.....

At its quarterly national committee meeting this past weekend, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) called for a landslide in the November 4th elections to defeat John McCain and strengthening the Democratic Party majorities in Congress.

For almost a thousand years the chief creative force in western civilization was Christianity until around the year 1725, when Christianity declined and practically disappeared among intellectuals. Of course this left a vacuum. People cannot get along without a belief in something outside themselves, and during the next hundred years they concocted a new belief in the divinity of nature. By 1730 the collapse of Christianity was nearly complete in England and the nutballs were off and running, writing about modern man corrupting gentle peoples and destroying nature’s beauty. The Caucasian male, according to philosophers and idle soothsayers of the...

Madrid, 2008 In 1936, during the great Socialist Terror of the early months of the Civil War, the large monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Cerro de los Ángeles, near Madrid, was attacked and demolished, a symbol of one of the harshest large-scale persecutions of the Church in History. From one of the stones of the demolished statue, a small sculpture of the Sacred Heart was sculpted and placed in the public garden outside the Parish Church of San Antonio de la Florida, in Madrid - otherwise a very famous building due to the extensive paintings of...

There is absolutely no doubt - none, zero, zilch - that the Chinese "women's" gymnastics team featured several little girls no older than 14 years of age - two years younger than the international federation allows for competition. Online registrations of these girls list one age, their passports list another. This is blatant cheating - no other word for it. Guess which one the federation is taking as correct? Half of the team - He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan - would be under age, according to online sports registration lists in China. The international gymnastics federation, however, said those...

Obama Will ‘End 30 Years of Ultra-Right Rule,’ Communist Paper Says Tuesday, August 12, 2008 By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) – The Communist Party USA’s newspaper is defending Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama against potential defectors on the left, saying his candidacy represents a “broad multi-class, multicultural movement.” In a July editorial, “Eye on the Prize,” the People’s Weekly World, the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA, admonished anyone on the left who might consider abandoning Obama. “Barack Obama is not a left candidate,” the editorial said. “This fact has seemingly surprised a number of progressive people who...

I was at the Sherman Oaks Library yesterday and picked up a copy of the Change Links Calendar, the "Independent Progressive Newspaper and Community Calendar" with the other local throw away papers for kicks and to see what the left is up to. These people make the DemO-Rats in congress and the rest of the MSM look like conservatives. Now to the point: For those of you who are interested (I wouldn't suggest going alone) Sunday August 10 they are having a Progressive Picnic apparently open to all at Santa Monica Clover Park. Some of you might want to have...

A Communist Party of New Zealand recruiting poster from the Progressive Era* * * * * The left has been trying to re-brand itself in recent years. It's no secret that leftists don't like the word liberal anymore and have been trying to recast themselves as progressives. "The liberal brand is tarnished," says lefty Rob Glaser, who heads the online multimedia company RealNetworks. Glaser is a member of George Soros's Democracy Alliance, which is a collection of statist billionaires trying to force Americans to worship at the altar of Big Government. Glaser says he wants to "change the political paradigm"...

Let’s get real with each other for a few minutes. Only one thing really divides America down the center line of politics known as “left” vs. “right,” the almighty dollar, now worth approximately .35 cents, thanks to more than seventy years of deficit spending. Every national election is about the same thing really. Half of Americans use every national election cycle as nothing more than an opportunity to pick the pockets of the other half. The other half is running for cover. I have often written about the left’s endless effort to shove their way to the public feeding trough...

In the breathless weeks before the Oregon presidential primary in May, Martha Shade did what thousands of other people here did: she registered as a Democrat so she could vote for Senator Barack Obama. Now, however, after critics have accused Mr. Obama of shifting positions on issues like the war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, gun control and the death penalty — all in what some view as a shameless play to a general election audience — Ms. Shade said she planned to switch back to the Green Party. “I’m disgusted with him,” said Ms....

The United States appears to be on a downward spiral from which there is no apparent escape. Our very way of life is being severely threatened in the interest of fairness, multiculturalism and liberalism in general. Tradition, culture and national identification mean nothing anymore because so-called progressives -- the new term for liberals -- are bent on molding this country into an unidentifiable glob of feel-good socialism. One need only look at recent events in order to verify my concern. The country is flooded with illegal aliens who have no fear of apprehension or deportation and in fact are aided...

A group planning to bring 50,000 anti-war demonstrators here for the Democratic National Convention might get to pitch tents in City Park, but they could be knocking on doors for a place to sleep or take a shower. The city issued an assembly permit in the southwest corner of the park for Tent State University to bring a tribe of college kids from across the country for an "alternative university" Aug. 24-28. "Come to Denver to end a war!" While the city said the permit is for "approximately 20,000 participants," chief Tent State organizer Adam Jung said he dreams of...

... Democrat Representative Maxine Waters experienced a Freudian slip and uttered the secret fraternity password that identifies her Party. She spoke the word all members of her party know must be hidden from every rational thinking citizen. While addressing oil executives during a House hearing on May 22, 2008 Waters threatened to nationalize the oil industry if it failed to do something to stop the ever-escalating price of gasoline at the pumps. In a harsh exchange with Shell Oil President John Hofmeister, the California congresswoman demanded that oil companies guarantee consumer prices will fall if drilling is allowed off U.S....

A New York Times story is critical of John McCain for saying last week that a political adviser to the Hamas terror group says the organization is pulling for Barack Obama. Times reporter Larry Rohter calls McCain’s statement a "portrayal".But Ahmed Yousef clearly stated on April 13, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election."The Times also writes McCain is wrong for saying Obama has said he would hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rohter includes a denial by Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice. However, Obama said during a debate last July...

If the ‘progressives’ get their way on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it will be ordinary Americans who suffer, says John Entine Let’s call it the black box syndrome: making revolutionary changes or new products without any real handle on what has actually been created or the potential impact. No-one really knew what the risks were when the wizards of Wall Street launched the inscrutable credit products that led to the current financial bubble that is now imploding, rocking the world economy. Now we have something akin to that bubble building in the environmental arena, in the inflated rhetoric on...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, with talent on loan from G-d, at the cutting-edge of societal evolution, with half his brain tied behind his back — just to make it fair, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling,...

Return to the Article April 28, 2008The Moment of Truth for the Left has ArrivedBy James Lewis If you haven't listened to Jeremiah Wright's hate sermons at Hugh Hewitt's website, you must do so.  Every American with open eyes and ears has to listen to the voice of racial hatred, coming not from the Klan but from a clergyman of the Christian Left. Reading his words isn't enough, because you won't hear the unmistakable meaning of his vocal intonations. If you are a person of good will you will feel upset. But it's of the utmost importance to understand this...

Atheists push 'humanist' holidays By Karen Goldberg Goff April 25, 2008 Now that Earth Day is over, let the planning begin for the summer solstice and World Humanist Day in June. The Institute for Humanist Studies, an Albany, N.Y.-based nonprofit, is calling attention to its calendar of atheist holidays on its Web site, www.secularseasons.org. The group wants nonbelievers (or at least noncelebrators) to have a handy reference guide of the calendar of holidays honoring free thinkers, banned books and nature, among other themes. Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies, says his group is trying to expand...

LOS ANGELES, (AP) -- A splinter group of Republicans with ties to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and financed by six-figure donations will recruit candidates with hopes of reversing the party's disappointing record in recent statewide elections. Disclosure of the group Tuesday — California Republicans Aligned for Tomorrow — comes at a time when the California Republican Party has been struggling with financial and management problems and factional strife between moderates and conservatives. A list of supporters comes from across the party's political spectrum, but the organization appears geared to promoting Republicans who can compete statewide in a state that leans Democratic....

A few months ago, a day before one of the occasional marches the Capital sees demanding an end to the Iraq War, I began the descent into the Metro stop near my office, looked up, and saw a number of representatives of Code Pink standing at the railing overlooking the escalator. Or rather, I heard them first. They were screaming at the parade of commuters, at the top of their lungs and in a tone somewhere between simple frustration and righteous anger, "End the war!!!" Well, I thought, that ought to take care of things. Good work, hippies! I kid...

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright thinks that, given their treatment by white America, black Americans have no reason to sing "God Bless America." "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America," he told his congregation. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human." I'm not a believer in guilt by association, or the campaign vaudeville of rival politicians insisting this or that candidate dissociate himself from remarks by some fellow he had a 30-second grip'n'greet with a decade...

The increasing vitriol of the Democratic presidential WrestleMania shouldn't distract from the opportunity before progressives. The election this year has the potential to be not simply a change election but a sea-change election, one that marks the end of the conservative era that has dominated our politics for nearly three decades. It could be the progressive equivalent of the conservative triumph of 1980. In 1980 Ronald Reagan, the self-described "movement conservative," took the White House from incumbent Jimmy Carter while Republicans picked up thirty-four seats in the House and gained control of the Senate, sweeping out liberal stalwarts like George...

Reverse Discrimination By George Neumayr Published 3/12/2008 Left-wing paternalists regard themselves as architects of racial progress, guarding and guiding blacks along the path of success -- a role in which they assume to stand forever at the head of the march. But what happens when blacks overtake their enlightened white helpers? All hell breaks loose and the mask of progress drops to reveal the stricken faces of the white avant-garde . Geraldine Ferraro's remarks confirm that beneath left-wing paternalism lurks considerable racism. "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she said to the Daily...

Geraldine Ferraro has established a history. No, not the history of embarrassing her gender by taking part in what Democrats probably consider The Fiasco of 1984. Geraldine Ferraro, for the lack of more tactful way to put this, is an unmitigated limousine liberal bigot. I’ll caveat this by admitting that I shouldn’t hold differing forms of the same exact racial bigotry to differing standards. Senator Byrd may have been more evocative when he donned the KKK sheets as …an Exalted Cyclops, but he and Geraldine have both held the same dishonest untruths to be self-evident. Like Senator Byrd in his...

I'm dancing on the top deck with a 71-year-old feminist and psychotherapist whom I've come to think of as the Twirler. We've spent two days attending seminars on The Nation magazine's Alaska cruise; we've talked about the Bush presidency and prison reform and single-payer health care. Now, at almost midnight, my fiercely intelligent and opinionated new friend is putting all the heady political talk behind her by bodily twirling. "If I start to get dizzy, then I twirl in the opposite direction," Charlotte tells me as the live band revs up its throbbing Motown beat. "I won't fall." "Good, please...

Two examples of how leading Minnesota progressives have hit the local news here in the Twin Cities, but probably have not seen much national play. John Hinderaker of Power Line and True North have covered both extensively, and the two in combination shows a certain private-jet progressivism that one normally has to travel to Hollywood to see up close. The first case involves Senator Mark Dayton, often referred to here as Brave Sir Mark for being the only member of Congress to flee the city after a security briefing in 2004. Yesterday, the Washington Times reported that Dayton had fired...

If Barak Obama becomes the next president, what will his administration look like? What sort of political animals will be Obamanominated to serve in his cabinet? While this is just pure speculation on my part, I do have some clues. First, Obama isn't just liberal, he's very liberal. The left wing interest group Americans for Democratic Action scores him at 95 to 100%, while conservative group American Conservative Union grades him in the single digits. Expect such a liberal candidate to have an equally liberal agenda for governing, and Obama will be surrounding himself with other liberals and a few...

For the second time in two years, an Argentine teenager has given birth to female triplets, BBC News reports. The 16-year-old, who goes only by the name of Pamela, first gave birth to triplets at the age of 15.

On Thursday, Robert Mugabe’s 84th birthday, state radio announced that the fundraising committee for his celebratory bash had raised over Z$3 trillion. While most Zimbabweans cannot afford to pay for transport to go to work, the man responsible for this economic disaster will be feted at a lavish affair in Beitbridge on Saturday. This clearly shows the attitude of those in power in Zimbabwe today towards ordinary people. It was Mugabe who once said; “….let them eat potatoes.” the monthly inflation rate between December and January was 120%. This means prices for basic commodities more than doubled in one month....

The recent attack on the Marine Corps as "unwelcome intruders" is just the latest example of Berkeley politicians behaving badly. Showered with ridicule, confronted with the loss of federal and state money, the City Council was obliged to withdraw its misbegotten resolution, though it wasn't prepared to apologize for its blunder. "To err is human, but to really screw up it takes the Berkeley City Council," one councilmember ruefully acknowledged. But ask Standard & Poor's, the financial services company, what it thinks about Berkeley and you'll get a very different response. Last month, the firm upgraded the city's bonds to...

Liberal Group Plans Yearlong Anti-Bush Campaign; Goal Is To Deny Positive Legacy. A liberal advocacy group plans to spend $8.5 million in a drive to make sure President Bush's public approval doesn't improve as his days in the White House come to an end. Americans United for Change plans to undertake a yearlong campaign, spending the bulk of the money on advertising... In selling the plan to fundraisers, the group has argued that support for President Reagan was at a low of 42 percent in 1987 but climbed to 63 percent before he left office. "All of a sudden he...

The central bank of the southern African country has a issued a 10million Zimbabwe dollar note. The move increases the denomination of the nation's highest bank note more than tenfold. Even so, a hamburger in an ordinary cafe in Zimbabwe costs 15 million Zimbabwe dollars. Zimbabwe faces the world's highest official inflation of an estimated 25,000 per cent. Independent financial institutions say real inflation is closer to 150,000 per cent. He said special arrangements were being made to pay soldiers, police and other uniformed services "because it is not desirable to see them queuing for cash".

John McCain can't help himself. I was watching the post-South Carolina interview on Fox where Sean Hannity threw McCain softballs. McCain still balked. (I'm not the only one noticing this. It was glaring.) On immigration, he "knows what to do because I'm from a border state". He said that he understood that people wanted border security. He wouldn't say that he wanted border security. On taxation, he wants to cut spending, or so he says. He grumped through a post-win interview--with a smile on his face, of course--but his hostility was barely hidden. Is this playing with conservatives? The numbers...

I am a practising Christian, but lately I've been giving serious thought to becoming a secular progressive. The advantages of adopting this popular mindset are becoming more attractive every day. Consider: As a Christian, one does the right thing, even when no one is looking. As a progressive, I can get public recognition, peer approval and moral points for my intentions. No need to actually do any heavy lifting. Very cool. As a secular progressive I won't have to worry about guilt or wrestle with moral dilemmas. I can now cheat on my mate and remain guilt free by merely...

The results of the Iowa caucuses represent the second electoral repudiation of the failed national security policies of the Bush administration and its conservative allies in Congress -- the first came in the 2006 mid-term elections, and similar results are likely in the coming weeks. Although many factors explain the Iowa caucus results -- extraordinary turnout boosting Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee's strength among the conservative Christian base -- the two victors also have issued some of the strongest criticisms of the Bush administration's foreign policy. Obama, like most Democrats, has strongly distanced himself from the path carved out by Bush...

Zimbabweans can expect to spend more time in the dark after the Mozambique power utility company...suspended supplies to Zimbabwe over an outstanding debt of US$26 million. This development was confirmed in a report in the state run Herald newspaper. Zimbabwe’s power imports have been falling for various reasons. South Africa’s Eskom has stopped supplies claiming "some operational hitches" at its power-generating plants. The Democratic Republic of Congo has also stopped power supplies to Zimbabwe because of ‘problems with it’s transmission network.’ Analysts say the real reason these countries have cut Zimbabwe off is because of unpaid debts. Critics say the...

Ukraine Village of Chervoy 25 January 1933 Since Maria had decided to die her cat would have to fend for itself. She'd already cared for it far beyond the point where keeping a pet made any sense. Rats and mice had long since been trapped and eaten by the villagers. Domestic animals had disappeared shortly after that. All except for one, this cat, her companion which she'd kept hidden. Why hadn't she killed it? She needed something to live for; something to protect and love—something to survive for. She'd made a promise to continue feeding it up until the day...

Laugh all you want at George Lakoff’s advice for the Democrats to win by framing the debate and altering the vocabulary. Language is a key battleground in culture wars, and as soon as you step into your opponent’s frame of reference and start identifying bad weather as climate change, illiteracy as public education, and freedom as desperate need of care and supervision, you may lose not just the debate but the war, the culture, and your very way of life. A recent humorous discussion about PeopleSpeak™ at the People’s Cube prompted me to take a more serious look (to the...

It has been more than a year since the first group of Democratic hopefuls announced their candidacy for President of the United States. Seventeen debates or forums have been staged, and more than $150 million has been spent on advertising, polling and other campaign expenses. Pundits have pronounced their conventional wisdom, so easily reversed, on who is most "electable," "presidential" or "inevitable." Celebrities and surrogates have rung their appeals, and the deforming machinery of electoral money and math has whirled into place. And yet despite all this, something remarkable, almost magical in its resilience, will take place on January 3....

The rapid pace of the 2008 White House hunt has sparked a separate hard-fought contest among candidates -- for endorsements from members of Congress. The Hill will maintain a running tally of the race for lawmaker support based on extensive research and daily contact with campaigns. The list reflects publicly committed backers of 2008 presidential hopefuls rather than members' private leanings or inclinations.http://thehill.com/endorsements-2008.html

Like noxious bugs swarming over a crumbling tenement, followers of Ron Paul have invaded the blogosphere. Their target is anyone who dares to criticize their hero. Bloggers have dealt with them in various ways. Some have tried banning them outright. Others allow readers to engage them in back-and-forth debates that can easily take a thread to several hundred responses. I used to find the Paulites annoying, but recently I had a revelation: Far from being scorned, Paul’s rabid fans should be welcomed and encouraged. We should do everything we can to make certain they keep pushing their man, sending him...

On Sunday the October 14th, the Times Argus published an article entitled "Scholar to bring 'Christian Left' message to Vt.", by Mel Huff. The article refers to Biblical scholar Marcus Borg, who teaches religion at Oregon State University. Professor Borg seems to be on a crusade. "We were trying to counter fundamentalist and very conservative Christianity by letting the public know there's another way of looking at this," In short, he is trying to promote the "Christian Left" as an anecdote to "counter the negative impressions of Christianity created by the Christian Right." What are those negative impressions? Borg says...

Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked this summer if she would describe herself as a “liberal.” The Democratic front-runner shied away, saying the “word” — noticeably not using the word — has taken on a connotation that “describes big government. “I prefer the word ‘progressive,’” she said. It has a “real American meaning.” Then she expanded the term to “modern progressive,” and, finally, clarified that she was a “modern American progressive.” These are heady days for Democrats. The party is favored by almost all measures in the coming presidential contest. But while Democrats are emboldened, they remain wary of the term...

E mail from a cat ? A smug,progressive cat at that ! My correspondent was furious because the Washington Post outed John Murtha.

Abstract: "The Irony of Populism: The Republican Shift and the Inevitability of American Aristocracy" analyzes the shift in the role of the Supreme Court following the movement towards a democratic Senate which culminated in the Seventeenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's shift is presented as the inevitable result of the system of mixed government that underlies the constitutional order, which orders American Government into democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical parts. While in the original conception of the constitution the Senate was the aristocratic part, the Senate would become part of the democratic part with the Seventeenth Amendment and prior procedural changes. Into...

Title: The Road to Mass Democracy: Original Intent and the Seventeenth Amendment Author: C. H. Hoebeke Published: New Brunswick, N. J.: Transaction Publishers, 1995. Price: $39.95 (hardcover) Pages: 211 Reviewer: Todd J. Zywicki Affiliation: Mississippi College School of Law The Constitution of 1787 provided for the appointment of United States senators by state legislatures. In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified, installing the current regime of direct election of U.S. senators. The bloated and special-interest-driven nature of the federal government during this century has led scholars in recent years to reexamine the original framework of the Senate and to...

The gravesite of a Southeast Texas Marine killed in Iraq has been vandalized just days after hundreds of mourners turned out for his funeral. Lance Cpl. Jeremy Burris of Liberty was 22. Burris died Oct. 8 when an explosive device went off in the Al Anbar province. His services were held Tuesday. Workers at Cooke Memorial Cemetery on Friday discovered flags and posters had been torn apart, plus flowers were cast aside. The incident is under investigation.

This right wing assault on college campuses across the country has nothing to do with "free speech" or the oppression of women in Islam. It has everything to do with silencing dissent and whipping up Islamo-phobic hysteria to justify U.S. domination of the Middle East. If you are against everything "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" stands for… -Organize your campus: talk to Women's Studies professors, Muslim Student Associations, Global Warming scientists, and others about the agenda behind "IFAW" -Take a stand: Be bold and uncompromising. Figure out ways to directly confront "IFAW" and expose their lies. Use this week as an opportunity...