Free Republic

... Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind." Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals...

South Carolina's Legislative Black Caucus wants to make sure that minorities have a fair and equal shot at the new jobs Boeing Co. is bringing to the Lowcountry, according to letter obtained by The Post and Courier Monday. Sen. Robert Ford, a Charleston Democrat and chairman of the caucus' Civil Rights and Affirmative Action Committee, wrote Boeing's president Jim McNerney Oct. 30 to ask for information about the company's hiring practices. Ford, who is running for governor, represents Senate District 42, where Boeing's newly announced Dreamliner production line will be located. He included in the letter the racial makeup of...

As the public debate over health care reform continues, many African-Americans are concerned that the minority of voices loudly denouncing a public option might sideline the real reform their community desperately needs. From the cradle to the grave, African-Americans have poorer health outcomes: African-American infant mortality is more than double that of whites; African-American women make up 70 percent of new HIV/AIDS infections; three times as many black Americans die from diabetes as white Americans; and the life expectancy for whites is 78 years, compared with 73 years for all African-Americans and less than 70 years for African-American males.

On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change expert, gave a presentation at Bethel College in St. Paul, MN in which he issued a dire warning regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty which is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009. .. Video 4:11 min

If I'm misinformed about any of this, please correct me. First glance at this old topic: Topic: "TAKE ACTION: We're Paying War Reparations to Guam for What Japan Did" Here's the summary on the above. War reparations were claimed by the government of Guam and introduced through the "Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act". The reasoning is that Guamanian people suffered from WW2 and the US already gave Japan a "get out of jail free card" after the war. Hence we treat it as any other internal crisis and pay for it with our tax dollars. I understand... really....

Remember when the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and International Monetary Fund were constantly making global headlines for their fierce opposition from people’s movements around the world? Well, international Finance Institutions (including the World Bank) are rearing their ugly heads again—this time with the U.N. as their vehicle. Today, more than 50 social movements, trade unions, environmental groups, and NGOs from 17 countries issued a statement at the United Nations in Bangkok, where UNFCCC climate negotiations move into their fifth day. The groups, which include several large international networks, said that rich countries should acknowledge their historical responsibility and...

Congressman Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” charge against President Barack Obama has elicited a curious response from various figures – that Wilson’s action both comes from and evidences racism. Perhaps New York Times’ Maureen Dowd made the most provocative allegation while former President Jimmy Carter couldn’t resist the opportunity to top it off with his own contention that racism underlies many whites’ criticism of President Barack Obama. This is not to ignore similar utterances from such less relevant voices as Janeane Garofalo that restate the racist charge with no support other than an attitude of arrogant certainty. These very accusations cover...

While President Obama is smart enough to grow into the office, his bizarre behavior thus far gives cause to wonder not only about that matter, but also to wonder about what aspect(s) of his life have had the greatest impact on his philosophies and consequently his approach to governance. In the face of the deep recession, with unemployment rising through the year to a current 9.8%, he’s seen that Michelle Obama has shopped for days in Paris (her own private U.S. jet, secret service and whatever else) and used three U.S. jets and all appropriate security measures, vehicles, and paraphernalia...

If you want to know what the ultimate goal is of those that want reparations for the American slave trade, you have to look no farther than a telling quote that appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal on September 25. For slavery reparation advocates, the ultimate desire is not contrition, no apology will do, no memorial statues or finger wagging in Congress is satisfactory. Nothing less than punitive sanctions against living Americans for an institution that is 150 years dead is what these people want. The article in question details the efforts of Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen (D, Tenn.) who...

Justice Dept. to Recharge Enforcement of Civil Rights By CHARLIE SAVAGE Published: August 31, 2009 WASHINGTON — Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census. “I think the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal,” said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. As part of this shift,...

WASHINGTON — Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census. As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly.

The logic of her article runs like this: The 2001 and 2009 Durban Conferences were principally aimed at delivering social justice for the African ancestors of slaves shipped off to America and other racist white nations. But Israel, the U.S. government and the world’s right-wing media instead focused on the shrill anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic rhetoric and intimidation that characterized the lead-up to the conference and the parallel NGO sessions. As a result, the Bush (and then Obama) administrations got the excuse they secretly coveted to distance themselves from the Durban process, and much of the rest of the world followed...

The Senate voted to apologize for slavery on June 18. The House apologized last summer. The first family -- descendants of Africans, of enslaved Africans and of slave-holders -- visited a slave fort in Ghana. These were historic occasions, and they occasioned the kind of hue and cry that always accompany the subject of slavery and whether we still need to reckon with it. I believe we do need more reckoning, and a little more love and a little more logic would help that process. Logic first: There's this quasi-math problem in which things don't add up. Many African-Americans naturally...

The fight over ObamaCare reminds me of the story of the guard at a Soviet plant. Every night one worker would leave the plant pushing a wheel barrow full of dirt. The guard meticulously searched the dirt, but never found anything. After the fall of the communist regime, the guard saw the worker in coffee shop and asked "I know you had to be stealing something. Now we are both retired, tell me, what was it?" The worker answered, "Wheelbarrows." It isn't enough to shift through the details of the ObamaCare bill; we need to look at the delivery model....

Duke University Classics Professor analyzes key points in House health care "reform" bill!John David Lewis, asks a series of questions about the House approved version of health care "reform." He then analyzes the relevant sections and makes his conclusion. I'm posting his questions and yes or no answers but recommend you read his full analysis for the bill language and additional analsysis. Will the plan ration health care? - Yes.Will the plan punish Americans who try to opt out? - Yes.Will the plan destroy private health insurance? - Yes.Does the plan allow the government to set fees for services? -...

Obama Hopes for "Civilized" Town Hall Posted by Alex Sundby President Obama heads to Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday for a town-hall meeting on the health-care legislation still pending in Congress. Protesters plan to voice their opposition for the Democrats' plan outside the meeting and could possibly bring the kinds of disruptions found at similar meetings for members of Congress inside the gym at Portsmouth High School. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told CBS' "The Early Show" Anchor Harry Smith Tuesday how Mr. Obama would respond should anyone disrupt this afternoon's town hall. "I think what the president will do is...

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says some little-noticed provisions in the House health care bill are racially discriminatory, and it intends to ask President Obama and Congress to rewrite sections that factor in race when awarding billions in contracts, scholarships and grants.

Legislation: Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means.

"Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, writes today: The lawyer of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor at the center of the current national race controversy, was a mentor of both Barack and Michelle Obama and served on the president’s black advisory council.

Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means. His opposition to reparations is based on the fact they don't go far enough. [snip] Under the Democrats' plans, if a medical school wants to receive contracts and grants...

Legislation: Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means. His opposition to reparations is based on the fact they don't go far enough. In a 2004 questionnaire, he told the NAACP, "I fear that reparations would be an...

Here is video of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich commenting today on President Obama's remarks that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts "acted stupidly" in arresting Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. He first answered a question about Reparations - saying it will never happen. He then said President Obama should never have commented on the local police matter. . . . . . (Watch Video)

President Obama used his considerable powers of persuasion to try to sell his health care package in a nationally televised press conference this week. But Americans are growing skeptical -- and for good reason. The gargantuan new bureaucracy Obamacare envisions would not only be inefficient and expensive but could give birth to a new racial spoils system. Among the provisions in the thousand-page House version are special set-asides aimed at training "underrepresented" minorities in health care professions. The idea is that some minority groups -- but not all -- will be better served if their doctors share their racial and...

In 1960, Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond walked into a Woolworth's store and sat at the lunch counter. With money in hand, ready to do business, they ordered coffee. They were refused service. These young men refused to be refused. Because of their efforts and the efforts of countless others, African Americans are free to do business where ever they please in America. These young men fought the fight of that day. Today is a new day...and a different struggle. Last year, African Americans spent approximately $600 billion in goods and services in the United...

What the country needs now is a new bureaucracy to manage the growing appetite for apologies, amends and remedies for various other slights. The apology could be the lasting legacy of Barack Obama. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of oppressed people are no doubt eager to line up for their apology, waiting to be rewarded for slights real and imaginary, ranging from inability to find a parking space to ancient indignities suffered by long-forgotten ancestors... ...Congress is considering a resolution thanking the slaves, most of them dead and gone beyond the reach of Congress since late in the 19th century, for their...

Video at site Lyndon Johnson led the Great Society. Barack Obama leads the Great Big Apology Society. So it’s only natural that the National Black Republican Association (all twelve members) believe the President should apologize to them for the Democrat Party’s long, sordid history of racism. They call the Democrat Party “the party of the four S’s: Slavery, Secession, Segregation, and now Socialism.” And they want President Obama to issue that apology ASAP. “The Democratic Party Owes Blacks an Apology” by Chairman Frances Rice, explains their reasoning. As the Examiner reports: The NBRA is not asking this of our government,...

More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.Kids at Creative Steps Day Camp were thrilled to go swimming once a week at the Valley Swim Club. But after only one trip to the private club, they were... "I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor. The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The...

Oprah, a black woman, is the richest and most influential woman in America and possibly the world. Michael Jackson's memorial service merited live coverage by a large number of television networks. Did I mention that the president of the United States of America is a black man? With blacks only 13% of the U.S. population, none of these extraordinary black achievements could have happened without tremendous support from white America. So, when will white America be off the hook for sins of the past? When will Democrat pitchmen and women, such as Janeane Garofalo, cease selling the myth that America...

The Law of Punishment and Reward Anyone who captures a free person, brings them to another country against their will, forces them to do manual labor without pay, while physically and psychologically abusing them – denying them equal rights to resources are creating a moral and ethical system by which redress is inevitable. Although the era supported this type of behavior and it was acceptable by the legitimate government one could argue that no wrong was committed – except the one who was subjected to the treatment. For them, it was not consensual therefore it's illegal and degrading. Let’s say...

A disclaimer at the end of this month's Senate resolution offering an apology for slavery deals with the touchy issue of reparations, and is causing some dissension among House Democrats that may prevent the two chambers from coming together on the measure. The disclaimer says: "Nothing in this resolution (A) authorizes or supports any claim against the United States or (B) serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States." That means the resolution cannot be used by descendants of slaves to sue the government for reparations or payments to compensate for slavery. The language has irritated some...

<p>DECATUR, Ala. (AP) - Officials in one Alabama county believe they’ve solved a mystery dating back to the Civil War.</p> <p>Morgan County archivist John Allison recently discovered $493 in mostly uncirculated Confederate currency in a county vault. Some of the serial numbers were in sequence, making it appear the money came straight from the Confederate Congress.</p>

Ashby Jones: The Senate unanimously passed a resolution on Thursday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution. Click here for the WaPo story. “You wonder why we didn’t do it 100 years ago,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the vote. “It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.” Memo to Senator Harkin: We had a collective response. It was called the Army of the Potomac. Not to mention the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and decades of affirmative action. Jones continues: Randall...

The resolution passed Thursday includes a disclaimer saying that nothing in it supports or authorizes reparations by the United States.

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution on June 18 that “apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws.” Sorry, Senate, but you’re not speaking on my behalf. Slavery and Jim Crow were evil, all right, but your resolution is divisive and evasive. It is divisive insofar as it forgets E pluribus unum and suggests that some Americans need to apologize to other Americans, and of course the division is by skin color. It is evasive insofar as it inevitably...

My headline might have buried the lede. On the one hand, it's catchy to hear Chris Matthews proclaim his belief that reparations for slavery "make sense." But in the grand scope of things, one more liberal pundit coming out for reparations might be small potatoes. Perhaps the bigger story was the statement on this evening's Hardball by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC). The former head of the Congressional Black Caucus revealed that he saw nationalized health care as a part of reparations. View video here.

[Snip]...*Reparations have already been made. Abolishing the evil of slavery and giving ex-slaves full citizenship and voting rights remedied the original wrongs. Much of our debt to generations of slaves was paid in the blood shed at places like Gettysburg and Antietam. Likewise, the racial and social injustices of Jim Crow laws were atoned for in Civil Rights legislation and landmark Supreme Court rulings that brought Black Americans to full rights and citizenship. Our government has spent millions in set asides, equal opportunity and affirmative action programs that have recognized the crippling effect of discrimination and tried to correct the...

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery. "You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the unanimous-consent vote. "It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice." The Senate's apology follows a similar apology passed last year by the House. One key difference is that the Senate version explicitly deals with the long-simmering issue of whether slavery...

WASHINGTON - The Senate passed a resolution on Thursday calling on the United States to apologize officially for the enslavement and segregation of millions of blacks and to acknowledge "the fundamental injustice, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws." The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, passed on a voice vote. It now moves to the House, where it may meet an unlikely foe: members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Several caucus members expressed concerns about a disclaimer that states that "nothing in this resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or serves as...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the wrongs of slavery. The nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is similar to a House resolution adopted last year that acknowledged the wrongs of slavery but offered no reparations. The House will have to vote on the issue again because the composition of that chamber changed after last November's elections. The resolution was approved on a voice vote. Because it is nonbinding, it does not have to be forwarded to the president for his signature. Several states have passed similar resolutions, but...

The U.S. Senate, by unanimous consent, passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and racial segregation, according to reports. Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, one of the sponsors, said the measure was no “panacea,” but could help trigger “reconciliation.”

Guidelines released today for spending the $1.2 billion provided by the federal stimulus bill for summer job programs spell out the jobs, the employers and the youths that can be included in the programs. But looming deadlines and the complex ways of determining whether youths meet low-income limits make the labor department's call for the workforce boards to spend the money "expeditiously and effectively" all the more difficult.

From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery On January 16, 1865, Union general William T. Sherman issued his Special Field Order No. 15, which confiscated as Federal property a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John's River in Florida, including Georgia's Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast. The order redistributed the roughly 400,000 acres of land to newly freed black families in forty-acre segments.... Although Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 had no tangible benefit for blacks after President Johnson's revocation, the present-day movement supporting...

Reparations - The Law of Punishment and Reward Anyone who captures a free person, brings them to another country against their will, forces them to do manual labor without pay, while physically and psychologically abusing them – denying them equal rights to resources are creating a moral and ethical system by which redress is inevitable. Although the era supported this type of behavior and it was acceptable by the legitimate government one could argue that no wrong was committed – except the one who was subjected to the treatment. For them, it was not consensual therefore it's illegal and degrading....

To those American blacks demanding reparations, I want to tell you that I agree with you. I agree that if you find any man or woman who has enslaved you or participated in enslaving you, you should milk them for all they’re worth. And I will be extremely happy to help you do it. But if that doesn’t happen, don’t talk to me about reparations. I don’t owe you a dime.

Our friend from Detroit, Jacob Appel, thinks that gays need government reparations and the Detroit Free Press was so enamored of his idea that it published his plea in its April 7 issue.

Google link only. Read at your own risk.

Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act (Introduced in House) HR 40 IH 111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 40 To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES January 6, 2009 Mr....

To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut legislators are considering making their state the first in New England to apologize for slavery and other racist policies of old. A legislative committee is hearing testimony on the resolution Monday.

WASHINGTON -- For her own Women's History Month assignment, first lady Michelle Obama visited Anacostia High School, on the poor side of town, where on Thursday she surprised a group of students. One of her goals is to demystify the White House and make it more accessible to the people who live here. Mrs. Obama told the youngsters she felt isolated from an institution in her own community when she was growing up and that she suspected they may view the White House and the Capitol the way she saw the University of Chicago as a young girl -- a...