Free Republic

Among the many issues we focus on within the pages of this blog are the worthiness – or lack thereof – of the elites here in America and elsewhere in the Western world. It is our contention here at the Hayride that elite status must be maintained through merit and quality; if elites do not reflect the best values and traditions of a society then either they aren’t actually the elites or the society as a whole is in the process of rejecting its best values and traditions – with steep decline an inevitable result.

Excuse my english - I woke up this morning, thinking whew...holidays finally gone, we can get back to work. I was happy and all excited. Suddenly, for some reason, an image went through my mind - like a flash - an image which had everything in it in one shot and then I got sick to my stomach. I suddenly saw, in one second, all what happened last year in America - banks, auto, all the executive orders, islam invasion even in the government, dictatorial arrogance, rules of engagement, healthcare...all the same than where I escaped from - and I...

"The Bottom Line: NPR is using taxpayer money to call those who have participated in Tea party events and their supporters idiots. With the liberal Democrats in Congress in charge of NPR’s purse strings, those who make NPR’s decisions have calculated that they can get away with it scot-free."

There is evil hate in Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and their Tea Party Patriot supporter’s voices when they campaign to deny affordable health care to every American, all the while extolling the virtues of their Christian faith. The truth is that they are either lying hypocrites, worshippers of Satan involved in a grand plan to destroy America and the Christian faith, or ignorant of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Christians know that their paramour, Jesus Christ, gave two commands to his disciples when asked what the most important commandment was. He said to love God and...

Ridicule of Americans who participated in Tea Party rallies is not just for MSNBC and CNN anymore. National Public Radio (NPR) has gone all Alinksy on Tea Partiers, and your tax dollars are helping to pick up the tab. A prime example of radical socialist Saul Alinksy’s Rule #5 (Ridicule) is featured prominently on NPR’s website — in the form of a flash animation titled “Learn To Speak Tea Bag” — which ridicules tea partiers, pro-lifers, opponents of the Democrat Party’s health care reform, and more specifically, three Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives (John Boehner, Eric Cantor...

In the days leading up to the American Revolution, the Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest against the British government by British-American subjects in the Massachusetts Bay colony of Boston. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists dressed up as Native American Indians boarded these ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. This event remains one of the most memorialized historic events to transpire in U.S. history, and it has been recently referenced due to excessive U.S. government growth...

I have no grand insights to offer but this is too awful and too … astounding, really, to be relegated to Headlines. These people were the tip of the American spear against jihadist kingpins in the Afghan/Pakistani border region, the innermost circle in a big Venn diagram that starts with the CIA, proceeds to the units tasked with finding intel on AQ, and ends with the elite charged with building the target list for drone operators. In one split second, that last circle was practically erased. If you thought the biggest security breach of the past week was Flight 253,...

Picking the worst or most disappointing people of 2009 is the task that should require sincere thought, deep investigation, and fair judgment over myriad objective data. However, naming the Republican Party as the most disappointing ‘person’ in 2009 posed no reflective issues whatsoever and brings the most distaste as a third generation member of the party. Republicans continue to work toward no apparent goal except to disrupt, obstruct and demonize anything the new administration proposes. They embrace and employ Fox News to foment hatred and vitriol for issues that Republicans know are lies. When Sarah Palin lies, she lies as...

We no longer seem to be living in a constitutional republic. How could we be when the votes of our public officials are easily bought off with bribes, threats, and subversion of our Constitution? The Christmas fiasco of the Senate vote-buying ordeal to pass the health care bill is a perfect illustration of how Congress is out of control and no longer represents the will of the people. According to a CNN/ORC survey, the overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to the Senate version of Obamacare, a bill that will nationalize one-sixth of the U.S. economy and grant unprecedented power...

Will we see a repeat of 1994—or 1964? My apologies to Buffalo Springfield. But what’s happening with the Tea Party movement, and where it’s going, ain’t exactly clear.  All we know at this point is that the villagers have pitchforks and torches, and are marching up the hill. But will they burn the castle of the Al Franken monster in Congress, or will they join Sarah Palin and her populist following and simply go RINO (Republican In Name Only) hunting? The point is that we could be heading toward 1994 all over again. Or toward 1964. The tea leaves are...

I picked up Going Rogue at Target a couple of weeks ago. It has a number of surprises, some pleasant, some just startling. It tends to confirm my belief that Sarah Palin, while perhaps not qualified to be president or vice president last year, was certainly more qualified than McCain, Obama, or Biden. My biggest surprise was that Going Rogue was apparently not “ghostwritten.” In a few places, I noticed sentences with “I” instead of “me” for the direct object — a mistake that a professional writer wouldn’t make. There is also a bit more use of “I” (at least,...

Scott Brown, a former Cosmo Centerfold contest winner and conservative Republican from Massachusetts, is gaining momentum in the US Senate race to replace liberal Senator Ted Kennedy. Scott Brown won Cosmo’s “America’s Sexiest Man” contest and appeared in the June 1982 issue. Legal Insurrection has the latest: There is Scott Brown the Senate candidate in Massachusetts, and there is Scott Brown, the musician in New Zealand. They each have Twitter accounts, but the Scott Brown from Down Under laid claim to @ScottBrown first, and the Senate candidate had to resort to @ScottBrownMA. As the Boston Globe reports, in the past...

White House Prepares For Immigration Overhaul Battle The Obama administration is rallying allies to push for a package with better border security and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants now in the U.S. The effort is sure to be a tough sell. By Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger December 30, 2009 Reporting from Washington - With the healthcare battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive -- a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system. Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the...

An Iowa Republican congressman says he thinks former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 and that she's among a few people who could win the state's leadoff caucuses. U.S. Rep. Steve King said Tuesday he initially thought Palin ended her political career when she resigned as governor last summer. But he said during a taping of an Iowa Public Television show that she's now in a far stronger position to succeed.

The 2008 American presidential election brought into lucid focus longstanding discourses of racial belonging in the United States that have amplified Islamophobia and continue both subtly and explicitly nearly a year into Barack Obama’s presidency. The Islamophobic discourses underlying the 2008 election weren’t novel or newfangled, but they did reinvigorate dormant or tacit narratives of American nationhood as a domain of restricted access. These narratives of nationhood are replete with nostalgia and the implicit belief that a true American is somebody who is white and Christian. Islamophobia has become an acute element of America’s national identity. The problem of whiteness...

THIS was the year of Barack Obama, and by extension, of America. But if we thought we knew who he was last January, by year’s end we weren’t so certain. We expected him to wrestle the helm of the great ship of state, inflect its course, end the wars, rebuild the economy and confound the lobbies and special interest groups who determine how business is done in Washington. With a strong Democratic majority in Congress, we expected him to see through groundbreaking legislation on healthcare and climate change. An Irish diplomat recalls the tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy at the...

During a time of economic decline, persistent cultural strife, deepening American involvement in far-off military conflicts, and rapid environmental deterioration, is there any wonder that some have turned to apocalyptic “salvation narratives” promising both a transcendent, everlasting future and violent retribution against perceived evildoers? A CNN poll in 2002 found that 59% of Americans believe that the prophecies in the Book of Revelations will come true. The startling number reflected the still-fresh trauma of the 9/11 attacks, but I suspect that it has held steady, if not risen. Indeed, mainstream American culture is permeated by apocalypticism; the blockbuster-movie hit 2012...

Taxes and cap and trade.....Happy New Year!

The title of this post comes from remarks by Lt Gen. Honore at a press conference following hurricane Rita in 2005, when he was admonishing the press work with him cooperatively to communicate accurate information to the public for a change. It kind of sums up my view of NBC. This morning brought another example, when Andrea Mitchell was on a panel on Meet the Press spouting unfounded opinions about a vast array of issues. Here's one that really got to me. MR. GREGORY: Just be a little bit more specific, Andrea, whether we're talking about figures like President Obama...

A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport, and believes at least one other person from the flight was arrested on Friday at Detroit Metro Airport. Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., who posted an earlier comment about his experience, talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday. Kurt HaskellLori and...

Father reported him to US Authorities six months ago The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman. Mutallab, a former minister and prominent banker recently retired from the bank's board. The older Mutallab, as at the time of filing this report, had just left his Katsina hometown for Abuja to speak with security agencies, family sources say. According to the family members, Mutallab...

In The Taming of the American Crowd: From Stamp Riots to Shopping Sprees, I argue that unlike the kind of crowds that have surged across the pages of American history and unlike crowds in certain other parts of the world, today's American crowds seldom even figure in the news. We have crowds of shoppers, spectators, and travelers, but these are ill-prepared to act as one. Then, in April 2009, when Taming was well along in Monthly Review Press's publication process, some American crowds did begin to make the news. On April 15, thousands of angry Americans attended Tax Day "tea...

For Democrats like Harry Reid, who called them "evil-mongers," and Nancy Pelosi, who called them "unAmerican," the NBC News poll must have hit like a sucker punch at a Georgetown wine-and-cheese. The Tea Party movement, those folks rallying against spending last spring and Obamacare in the summer town halls, are viewed more favorably than the Democratic Party. Forty-one percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement, to 35 percent for Obama's party. Only 24 percent view Tea Party activists unfavorably, while 45 percent hold a negative view of the Democrats. While Tea Party types played a...

Obamacare, as critics have dubbed the president's plan to socialize health care, will be flooded with lawsuits if it ever becomes law, according to an organization that works to protect rights and liberties of Americans. In an alert issued this week, Liberty Counsel, run by President Mathew Staver, promised his organization "is prepared to challenge the constitutionality of the bill since Congress has no authority to require every person to obtain insurance coverage and has no authority to fine employers who do not provide the coverage standards that are required in the bill." "In addition," he warned, "the bill still...

First of all, SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE. You sir, and I say that with VAST qualification, are a SCOUNDREL and a BALD FACED LIAR. The people of your state will challenge you in 2012. Don't think, you smarmy RAT, that you will be forgotten. 2012 just gives us more time to prepare to oust you. This paragon of virtue put on his best TRIAL LAWYER'S FACE and spewed enough venom to wipe out a small city, saying that we AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES are desperate to `break' Barack Obama. No Senator, we are not desperate because Barry Hussein is breaking himself and he'll...

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?   [Andy McCarthy] You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also...

The struggles of the Democrats and the Republicans are making news. The Democrats are learning that it is far easier to make campaign promises than it is to govern. As for Republicans, the party that loses the Presidential election often spends the off-year attempting to refine its message if not find a new message and new messengers. In the watchful eye of 24/7 cable news channels and the Internet, however, such political soul searching can appear rather untidy. As the calendar turns, the process remains unresolved for Republicans to say the least. Worse than mere overexposure, according to Rasmussen polling,...

I, like many, have had those heart-pounding dreams where I'm battling evil. When trying to cry out, I cannot utter a sound. I try to get away, but my legs won't move. At the height of fear, I wake up, relieved that it was only a dream. I wake up every day realizing that the America in which I am currently living is this nightmare, and I wish it were only a bad dream. Instead, the real-life heart-pounding is leading me to post-traumatic stress syndrome. I pray to get to the "post" part already because my heart cannot endure the...

With a h/t to Sissy Willis for one of these items. First, today via the AP. Can we significantly help solve our energy problems with natural gas? An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet. It's natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It's now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year...

Before reading this thread, try clicking this link or reading the excerpt below, from a post by FReeper littlejeremiah:HOW COLLECTIVISTS USE THE DIAMOND TACTIC TO SWAY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND HOW TO THWART THEM by G. Edward Griffin In the 1960s, I came across a small training manual distributed by the Communist Party that showed how a small group of people – as few as four – could dominate a much larger group and sway the outcome of any action taken by that group. It was called the Diamond Technique.The principle is based on the fact that people in groups tend...

Sen. Ben Nelson's, D-Neb., abandonment of his alleged "pro-life" commitment brought Harry Reid within reach of a Christmas Eve vote to approve a Senate version of Obamacare. When that happens, the political battles over the future of American medicine and especially the care of seniors will shift to the conference committee and then to the House. Though many conservatives are demoralized, they should instead be gearing up to peel off enough votes from among the 220 who voted for Obamacare when it passed the lower chamber. If the 215 who voted "no" on the first round stay firm, only three...

My fellow Americans you all are overlooking the obvious or refuse to accept the premise that we are not dealing with Americans. I read that it is unconstitutional; it flies in the face of the rule of law; a legal body cannot bind its equal. I agree whole heartily with all of these arguments, but again I repeat, you are denying the obvious. Until you accept the obvious, who we are really dealing with and after accepting that realization you’ll understand what needs to be done next and it has nothing to do with waiting for elections next November. These...

GETS FORMER SEQUOIA CO. VP NAMED AS ADVISER TO U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION Earlier this month, Obama made his first official move to corrupt and undermine the 2010 elections. The move consisted in the little noticed appointment of a technical adviser to the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The importance of the appointment was explained at The Brad Blog last Monday. The Official Press Release of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission read as follows: U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION 1225 New York Ave. NW – Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20005 For Immediate Release December...

Heroes.....who are they? STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

Let's face it FRiends, if the unconstitutional healthcare bill passes, the socialist coup d'etat will have advanced well beyond the point of no return! There is nothing in the constitution that authorizes this illegal federal power-grab and plenty that forbids it. If the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Marxist attempted coup pulls this off without the people resisting to the hilt, then they'll have no restrictions whatsoever on implementing the rest of their Liberty killing Marxist agenda. America will be no more. The whole idea of our constitution is to severely restrict the federal government to only its dozen and a half expressly listed...

So here we are, not a year into the Change & Hope presidency, and we're already divining Obama's demise. We're not talking about the actual presidency, which has three years to run. We're talking about the illusions and promises we wrapped around him. Promises dashed, compromises made, fortune reversed. So much gone so soon. We've got a president in a tailspin. His base is in revolt, his party in disarray. We've got a health care reform bill that has no reform left in it, and which even those who back it call "crap." We've got a Senate where one man...

More on healthcare and global "warming". STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Join us won't you!

Earlier this week a crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 "Tea Partiers" gathered on Capitol Hill in Washington for an afternoon rally to protest the Democrats' health care legislation. The crowd was far short of the organizers' expected turnout of 15,000, suggesting Angry America either isn't as large or as well-organized as anticipated. Tea Partiers are radio talk show host Glenn Beck's army: upset, irritated, and loud. They began to organize in the wake of President Obama's election and the U.S. financial collapse of 2008, to protest the expansion of government, and just about anything else linked to the Democrats. Decentralized,...

Forgive me dear readers. I must be blunt and brutally honesty here. Let the chips fall where they may. I about had enough of the lies from D.C. from both sides of the aisle. I do admit I need to have the grammar police visit as I am not a writer and this article is really my blog entry. I’m willing to bet this will upset you deeply no matter if you are of the left right or center. It is the thought that counts as they say and I need to say and back up what millions and millions...

(912 on the mall) The left's anti-American coup d'etat on America, made possible by the first radical Marxist in the White House, calls for distinctly American counter measures. Dr. Jack Wheeler has "a strategy for any Republican wanting to get elected or re-elected to Congress in 2010, and for any Tea Partyer wanting to take individual action now against a government that ignores the Constitution -- Defund and Disobey." Here's an excerpt of "The Double -D Strategy for rescuing America": Let's talk about the Defund D first. The Founders in their usual brilliance place the power of the purse in...

Why didn't our Founders include healthcare as a right? Hmmmm??? STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Join us won't you!

I'd like to thank Eugene Robinson for highlighting Alaska's achievements on climate change ["Palin's own 'Climate- gate,' " op-ed, Dec. 15] and for noting that I've "treated the issue as serious, complex, and worthy of urgent attention," while making "any number of pragmatic, reasonable, smart decisions as governor." But he's wrong to suggest that my views have somehow changed or that now I'll have to "renounce" my past efforts. Continues....

Rob Wittman was 40 minutes late to his town hall meeting in Montross on Dec. 8, where he received less than the hometown treatment from TEA Party members. Held at Washington and Lee High School, the town hall meeting, sponsored by the Westmoreland County Citizens Association, was the public's opportunity to question Wittman on everything the actions of Congress and federal government. While many questions posed to Wittman, first congressional district representative, dealt with health care and the economy, the show was quickly stolen by TEA Party members. Catherine Crabill, former Republican candidate for the 99th district seat in Virginia's...

The Tea Party movement is working to put “America back on track” as a majority of elected officials are doing “great damage to this nation,” one organizer of a local group says. The Starkville and Columbus Tea Party groups will gather Saturday in Starkville in a public town hall meeting at the Starkville Sportsplex from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The event is free. In explaining the Tea Party movement, Robert J. Allen, who co-founded with Gary Chesser the Starkville Tea Party, said: “We have happening in our country right now something that has never happened before, at least to...

Guess what? The healthcare bills are chock full of favors for special interests...I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya! STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks, ilks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread! Join us won't you!

Appreciate Rep.Mark Kirk's(Illinois)comments re:Pres Obama not CLOSING Gitmo, merely moving it outside of Chicago!Very,very odd strategy,DC.

The Islamic Circle of North America has been named in "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is bent on waging "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." They say they want to encourage dialogue via these billboards. Great. I'll start. The billboard says that Islam is "the way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham,...

A battle over religion is brewing in central Indiana after a public school wanted second graders to sing a song declaring, “Allah is God.” The phrase was removed just before the performance after a national conservative group launched a protest. The principal of Lantern Road Elementary School in Fishers, IN, said they were trying to teach inclusiveness through their holiday production. It included references to Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Las Posadas and Kwanzaa. However, no other deity, other than Allah, was referenced in the show. “It went off…without a hitch,” Danielle Thompson told the Indianapolis Star. “Several families thought it was...

Quite an explosive leak! I wonder how this will affect things? It is certainly a thuggish and dangerous thing for Obama to play with National Security over this craptacular idea of socialized medicine. Quite a desperate move. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn’t fall into line. Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.”...

A new fundraising letter from Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts gives a strong hint about how Democrats may try to stir their base to action during the 2010 election season: scare them with the prospect of a Sarah Palin nation. “Think GOP obstruction is bad now?” Senator Kerry asks in a fundraising letter sent out Tuesday morning by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Just imagine what Washington would look like if a bunch of new senators – inspired by Sarah Palin and the tea party crowd – took over.” In recent months, the political right has been energized by...