Free Republic

Glenn Reynolds is correct in his weekend post to point to the social theory of the New Class as key to understanding the convulsions in the middle and upper middle class; I’ve written about it myself here at VC and in a 1990s law journal book review essay. The angst is partly income, of course — but it’s also in considerable part, as Glenn notes, “characterized as much by self-importance as by higher income, and is far more eager to keep the proles in their place than, say, [Anne] Applebaum’s small-town dentist. It’s thus not surprising that as its influence...

Like a replicating amoeba, America is pulling apart into two separate cultures. One is strongly committed to the birth of an even more robust, pro-growth, entrepreneurial capitalism. The other thinks Che Guevara and Karl Marx had important social insights relevant to America today, and wants to follow the path of Juan Peron 's Argentina, if not Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. This is the stark choice facing the American people in 2012. This is also why the vast majority of the American heartland feels more cultural affinity with the people of New Zealand and Australia than with the people of San Francisco...

John Edwards' mug shot released By: CNN Political Unit (CNN)–Former U.S. Senator John Edwards, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and campaign law violations in early June. His mug shot was obtained by CNN following a Freedom of Information Act request. The plea came after a federal grand jury indicted him on six counts, including conspiracy, issuing false statements and violating campaign contribution laws. A grand jury has been investigating whether money given to support Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, by benefactors of Edwards should have been considered campaign donations, a contention Edwards' team has disputed. A plea deal between the two-time...

As expected, the Department of Justice landed with both feet on former Senator and one-time Democratic nominee for Vice President John Edwards today. The DoJ released a grand jury indictment on six counts — four of illegal campaign contributions, and one each of conspiracy and making false statements to the FEC: John Edwards, a two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and a former U.S. senator from North Carolina, was indicted today on charges of conspiracy and false statements. The indictment is the culmination of a secretive federal probe that has been going on for more than two years. The...

“Celebrities have other needs,” so says the Israeli super-duper model Bar Refaeli, she of the Illustrated Sports sexy swimsuit edition, and the part-time girlfriend of the aging boy actor, Leonardo DiCaprio. > ...she used the fake marriage to avoid having to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, something required of all young Israelis, both male and female. Here is the full quote from the Israeli website Ynet.com. “I really wanted to serve in the IDF, but I don’t regret not enlisting, because it paid off big time,” she said. “That’s just the way it is, celebrities have other needs. I...

Former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards must testify before a judge about his relationship with his former mistress, Rielle Hunter, a North Carolina judge ruled on Friday. The private testimony will come during a deposition set for June 20 as part of a civil suit brought by Hunter against Edwards' former aide, Andrew Young. Hunter has sued Young and his wife Cheri to force the return of a videotape that allegedly shows Hunter and Edwards having sex. Young says he found the tape while packing boxes in a home near Chapel Hill, North Carolina where Hunter lived with the...

In mid-May, Portland police Officer James Crooker went to Southeast Portland on a patrol call. With a few minutes to spare, he decided to get a coffee. So, he popped into the Red & Black cafe on Southeast 12th Avenue near Oak Street, bought a coffee and was heading out when a customer approached him, saying she appreciates the hard job that police officers do every day in Portland. One of the co-owners of the cafe, John Langley, has another point of view. While the officer and customer were chatting, he walked up and asked Crooker to leave, saying he...

The new Obamacare legislation that was forced on unwilling Americans this week specifically mandates that we all purchase health insurance. That is, unless you don't believe in that sort of thing. That's right, the current health care bill contains a clause which exempts certain individuals form the requirements and penalties set forth in it. " EXEMPTIONS FROM INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS. —In the case of an individual who is seeking an exemption certificate under section 1311(d)(4)(H) from any requirement or penalty imposed by section 5000A, the following information: In the case of an individual seeking exemption based on the individual’s status...

One of the odder political subplots of President Obama's term so far has been his relationship with the tourism-dependent city of Las Vegas. A year ago, Obama irked Nevadans by demanding that corporations not use federal bailout money for trips to Vegas. A couple of weeks ago he infuriated them again by telling a New Hampshire audience to save their cash for college instead of “blowing” it in Vegas. No Nevadans were more annoyed, of course, than the state's Democratic politicians, among them Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who faces an uphill fight for re-election this fall. So now the...

The health care legislation about to be passed by the U.S. Senate requires all Americans to purchase health insurance. All Americans, that is, except for the Senate, other members of Congress and their staff. The Democrats refuse to even allow vote on the matter.....

Today in America we have two different classes of poor: 1) the American Indigent Poor; and 2) the Capable Poor or the “New American Poor” (i.e., “The Subjective Socially Dependent”). The American Indigent Poor are those individuals who are truly helpless and indigent. These were born with physical infirmities and birth defects who suffer physical traumas or mental issues and are unable to survive through this life without help from society. Some are our valiant veterans of foreign wars and others are rejected outcasts of society. These individuals need and deserve our charity and help, and most of all we...

Imelda Obama and her husband are living large on our dime.

Alexandra Kerry is off the hook in her DUI case and won't face any criminal charges, Los Angeles prosecutors said Monday. "We reviewed the arrest report and have declined to file criminal charges due to insufficient evidence," says L.A. City Attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan. The daughter of Sen. John Kerry was pulled over in Hollywood on Nov. 19 for an expired registration, her father's spokesperson said.

I live in two Americas. One is the America I recognize; the one I grew up in and the one in which I am proud. The other is a hollow, cheap and immoral imitation. I saw the distinction between these two Americas as I observed two funerals…one on television and one in my hometown. The first funeral was for Edward M. Kennedy, senior Senator from Massachusetts. The other, Jonathan T. Rape, a local boy who died in Afghanistan from a roadside bomb. One was watched by millions and personally viewed by tens of thousands. They lined the processional for miles...

CHILMARK, Mass. – President Barack Obama played tennis with his wife and golf with his buddies Monday, starting his first vacation in office on Martha's Vineyard, a picturesque island known as a refuge for the wealthy and privileged. Obama began the day with a workout at his rented retreat, then tennis with Michelle Obama, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters traveling with the president. Obama later played golf with UBS Investment Bank President Robert Wolf and Chicago physician Eric Whitaker, both friends. White House aide Marvin Nicholson was also in the foursome. White House officials have stressed that the...

"My expectation is that, at some point, something happens," Elizabeth saidThe wife of philandering former Sen. John Edwards said she expects a paternity test will take place soon to determine the father of the 18-month-old child of her hubby's former mistress. In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Elizabeth Edwards confronted rumors that her cheating husband was set to claim paternity of little Frances, his alleged love child with ex-mistress Rielle Hunter. When asked about testing the paternity of the baby, Edwards said her "expectation is that, at some point, something happens. And I hope for the sake of...

The National Enquirer is reporting what everyone already knew—that John Edwards is in fact the father of Rielle Hunter's child—and a North Carolina TV station says he may admit paternity. This news has been met largely with shrugs. Edwards is not only a failed candidate, he is a failed politician, with next to no influence among Democrats. Still, the news raises two tantalizing hypothetical questions: What if Edwards had won the Democratic nomination? What if he had won the presidency? First question first. It's easy to forget how close John Edwards came to being the Democratic nominee. When Edwards entered...

As the New York Times struggles to hold onto its dwindling pile of cash, its board is getting slammed by angry employees for hiking top executive pay as much as 35 percent.

One of the favorite refrains of the class-warfare left has long been to lament what it perceives as a division in America between economic haves and have-nots. From the standpoint of egalitarian, socialistic philosophy, the fact that some Americans prosper more than others is prima facie evidence of injustice. It is considered unfair that some Americans are allegedly left behind while yuppies and others get richer. It seems never to have occurred to the egalitarians to analyze WHY individual Americans’ income differs. Those who work hard at acquiring skills valued in the marketplace, and who then work hard to succeed...

There should be no more arrests or convictions for tax fraud, non-payment of taxes or vehicular homicide until Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Senator Ted Kennedy are tried for their "alleged" crimes! Are we a republic or an oligarchy? Why do powerful men and women get off scot-free when lower and middle-class people rot in a jail cell or prison for similar (or lesser) crimes?! "Equal Justice Under The Law" is what's inscribed on the front of the Supreme Court building in Washington! When will that become a reality?! We are either a nation of laws or men, we cannot...

Utah's chief federal judge Tena Campbell will not face punishment for breaking the rules by donating to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Because she admitted the error, promised to stop donating to candidates and publicly apologized, she will not face any serious sanction, according to Robert H. Henry, chief justice of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Henry dropped a charge of judicial misconduct on Nov. 11, in a dismissal order that doesn't name Campbell, but the series of events it describes matches her case. The order also sheds new light on how she handled the violation once it was made...

John Edwards Was Right I never thought I would say this, but John Edwards was right. The former presidential candidate became well known for a campaign stump speech in which he posited that there were “two Americas” one rich and one poor. The standard class warfare based shibboleth is not surprising coming as it does from a populist democrat. What else was he supposed to say? The surprising thing is that John Edwards was right. No, he wasn’t right that we have become a country of the haves and have-nots. Class warfare has not suddenly become the transcendent philosophy of...

A number of readers have taken me to task over my contention ...that most poor people are impoverished by choice. To be clear, I don't mean that one day a person gets up and decides to live in poverty. I believe a person winds up poor because he or she chooses not to succeed. Truth is, staying above the poverty line is relatively simple. Basically, all that's required is to finish high school, wait until at least age 20 to get married and not have a child out of wedlock. Now how hard is that? Not very, which is why...

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

ohn Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extra-marital affair with a novice film-maker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

<p>It was only three weeks ago that John Edwards was fielding media questions on his chances of filling the Democratic Party's vice presidential slot on Barack Obama's ticket or a potential Cabinet position in an Obama administration.</p> <p>On Wednesday, however, the former U.S. senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee was eager to duck the press when the questions took a tabloid turn.</p>

Republicans are saying Democratic strategist Paul Begala went “over the line” when, in a fundraising appeal, he called the attendees of a GOP fundraiser “dirtbags.” Begala, who worked for Bill Clinton in the White House, discussed the annual Republican President’s Dinner in an e-mail to supporters that seeks to raise funds for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “You should have seen the joint: wall to wall fat-cats. The limos were lined up around the block. If you’d stood in the middle of the ballroom and yelled, ‘Hey dirtbag!’ a thousand necks would have snapped around,” Begala wrote. The strategist...

t’s time to take a serious look at John Edwards - - again. Capitalizing on the “anybody-but-Hillary� wave that swept over Hawkeye State Democrats last Thursday, former Senator and Vice Presidential Candidate Edwards emerged as a second-place winner in the Iowa caucuses. He achieved this despite his comparatively low levels of campaign funds, and a campaign organization that perils in comparison to that of both his first place rival Barack Obama, and the opponent who now in some sense “trails� him, former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. And given this, and given the highly unpredictable nature of this entire campaign...

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- The back, right corner of the Kirn Middle School auditorium erupted. After hours of voting, haggling, and a recount, John Edwards had been declared the winner of the 9th precinct caucus in Pottawattamie County. He edged out Clinton here as he edged her out statewide, finishing in a better-than-expected second place. The horse he rode to his current success, however -- bomb-throwing class warfare -- cannot carry him to the White House. Some political analysts and many Iowa voters believe Edwards, being a Southern white male, is the most electable of the top three Democrats. In...

Mark Steyn’s review of the candidate’s Christmas campaign messages is a must-read today because it’s likely to be the funniest thing you’ll see all day. Here’s a taste: John Edwards’s message is the usual Dickensian affair about the two Americas. I forget the details, but the upshot is that one America is a land of spindly emaciated Tiny Tims with barely three farthings to rub together for their next cup of gruel, while the other’s a marshmallow world where Dick Cheney, high on wassail, shoots a brace of turducken out of season, and then chows down as the Radio City...

DAVENPORT, IOWA - Wherever he campaigns these days, John Edwards illustrates his devotion to working-class values with two chapters of his life story: growing up in Southern mill towns and whipping corporate lawyers in North Carolina courtrooms. "This battle against entrenched powerful interests, I've been fighting this battle my entire life," Edwards recently told 650 people in a school auditorium in this Mississippi River town. Edwards' new campaign attire is blue jeans. The former North Carolina senator has tromped through cow manure and watched his campaign van nearly get stuck on muddy country roads, all the time working to demonstrate...

John Edwards finally got something right. There really are two Americas. And the gap between them is widening at an alarming rate. To view this divide, one need only tune in to the mainstream media. Topping the news these days are stories covering such earth-shattering events as who offended whom, who needs to apologize and whose feelings have been hurt, followed by several he-said-she-said controversies. After a commercial break, we get the latest “I'm Outraged” sound-bite followed by the latest crisis report, usually coupled with a demand for more “investments” (that's liberal speak for taxes), couched in moral imperatives.

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 26 — Out of the burning brush, from behind canyon rocks, several immigrants bolted toward a group of firefighters, chased not by the border police but by the onrush of flames from one of the biggest wildfires this week. Their appearance startled the firefighters, who let them into their vehicles. But with the discovery of four charred bodies in an area of heavy illegal immigration, concern is growing that others may not have survived. “Their hands were burned, and they were clearly tired and grateful,” Capt. Mike Parkes of the State Department of Forestry and Fire Protection...

"The Carolina Week staff learned the importance of standing their ground against a disgruntled source, even when that source is a candidate for president." See the related link for details on the controversy on this story.

A UNC-Chapel Hill professor says John Edwards' presidential campaign tried to kill a student's video story about the campaign's headquarters. In an interview with State Government Radio, Associate Professor C.A. Tuggle said that he received phone calls from two top staffers for the former North Carolina senator. The journalism professor said the staffers threatened to cut off access to Edwards to all UNC student groups if the student-run television program aired a segment critical of the location of the Chapel Hill headquarters. "I'm dumbfounded by it," Tuggle told the radio station. "I can't imagine that a national campaign would spend...

John Ford will not have to report to prison on Oct. 17 as scheduled. The former state senator was granted additional time this morning for his appellate attorney to obtain and review several thousand pages of transcripts from his bribery trial. Ford, 65, who was convicted in April of taking $55,00 in bribes as a state legislator, was sentenced last month to 5 ½ years to be served in a federal prison near El Paso, Texas. U.S. Dist. Court Judge J. Daniel Breen, however, continued the report date and set a hearing for Nov. 28 to determine whether he Ford...

When presidential candidates volley numbers at each other and toward voters, the truth sometimes gets caught in the crossfire. In recent weeks, Ron Paul overstated the U.S. death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rudy Giuliani overstated the impact on national crime rates of declining New York rates during his mayoral tenure, Barack Obama overstated the potential impact of an increase in voter turnout among black voters in the South, and John Edwards chose the higher of two government estimates of the number of Americans without bank accounts to emphasize a point.

Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation is a national authority on poverty and the U.S. welfare system. Specializing in welfare reform and family breakdown, Rector has done extensive research on the economic and social costs of welfare. With presidential candidates of a certain hue decrying the suffering of the 37 million Americans who have been officially classified as poor by the U.S. Census Bureau, we thought we'd ask Rector if these poor people are really as poverty-stricken as we have been led to believe. I talked to the author of “America's Failed $5.4 Trillion War on Poverty” Thursday, Sept. 6,...

A subprime lender with ties to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has moved to foreclose on more than 130 homes in South Carolina since the S.C. native went to work for its parent company, an analysis of courthouse records shows. The lender, Green Tree Financial, also was once the subject of a $30 million class-action verdict involving thousands of South Carolinians. Edwards’ ties to the company are disquieting to some supporters of the North Carolinian. On the campaign trail, Edwards has insisted he is the champion of lower-income families. Edwards’ ties to Green Tree also could hurt him with voters...

Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism. In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him. The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told a labor group he would ask Americans to make a big sacrifice: their sport utility vehicles. The former North Carolina senator told a forum by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, yesterday he thinks Americans are willing to sacrifice. Edwards says Americans should be asked to drive more fuel efficient vehicles. He says he would ask them to give up SUVs. Edwards got a standing ovation when he said weapons and equipment used by America's military needs to be made in the United States. He says tanks...

The following is a transcript of Comrade John Edwards' prepared speech to the proletariet in New Hampshire. In order to prevent vomitting and wretching by Capitalists, I felt it was necesary to load it up with big pictures courtesy of the brilliant folks over at Peoples Cube and some of my own original work: This election is unlike any we have faced before. The stakes are higher. And the challenges we face as a nation are greater than at any time in memory. We as a nation must choose whether to do what America has always done in times like...

Francois de La Rochefoucauld had a point when he said, in his frequently quoted formulation, that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In the case of John Edwards, however, hypocrisy is simply a way of life. The infamous $400 haircut — actually, some of his hairstyling sessions ran as much as $1,200 all told — wasn’t a freak embarrassment for a candidate so self-righteously devoted to the poor. It was part of a pattern so pervasive that it has become the defining aspect of Edwards’s candidacy. When he lambasted hedge funds for incorporating offshore to avoid or...

Embarrassed presidential hopeful John Edwards promised yesterday to take millions of dollars of his own fortune out of a hedge fund tied to subprime lenders who foreclosed on victims of Hurricane Katrina. The populist candidate - who has denounced such lenders - invested $16 million of his $30 million in assets in Fortress Investment Group. The Wall Street Journal reported that 34 New Orleans homeowners struggling to overcome Katrina's aftermath faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress. Yesterday, the red-faced Democratic candidate vowed to remove from his portfolio any Fortress funds that have a stake in those lender units....

If he weren't rich, handsome and so well married, you might feel a little sorry for John Edwards. Never before in the 231-year history of our republic have the inalienable traits that Edwards possesses -- his fair skin and a Y chromosome -- been anything but a prerequisite for presidential politics. Today, his race and gender stand a chance of derailing his campaign altogether. (snip) The Edwards campaign presents his progressive evolution as a return to his core beliefs. "In 2004 he was consultant-driven," says Moulitsas. "In his gut he was against the war, but Bob Shrum talked him into...

As his Democratic rivals debate whether to talk with leaders of hostile nations, a tough-talking John Edwards told hundreds of people Saturday that he's against negotiating with the big insurance, oil and drug companies that he said are running the American government. Instead, he pushed for taking on "entrenched interests" with "big change." "Now, there are some people who believe ... the way to do this is to sit at the table with them and negotiate. I think that is a complete fantasy," he said, standing in front of the Rotary Arts Pavilion in a crowded Henry Law Park. Big...

It is just after Christmas in 2003 and John Edwards is running hard for president of the United States. He is in Iowa, with the caucuses about three weeks away. Pundits, guided by a massive disinformation campaign, have decided that Howard Dean is going to win Iowa. Edwards remains undiscouraged. A highly effective stump speaker, Edwards always gets a laugh by saying, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." Edwards is a product of the American middle class. His father worked in a textile mill, and his mother ran an antique refinishing business and then became a...

NEW ORLEANS -- Sen. John Edwards plans to warn later this week that the nation’s schools have become segregated by race and income, and he will propose measures to diversify both inner-city and middle-class schools. The plan calls for beefing up inner-city magnet schools to attract suburban kids, and providing extra money for schools in middle-class areas as a reward for enrolling more low-income students. Edward lingered in the Big Easy this morning – admiring a 5-year-old Head Start pupil’s sneakers and hobnobbing in a wood-floored café -- before racing into Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee as part of a three-day...