Free Republic

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz did not back down from his stance on immigration Wednesday night, after being confronted by a woman who asked if he would deport her, even though it was her parents who brought her to the United States illegally. During an event in Storm Lake, Iowa, Wednesday night, Ofelia Valdez, 30, told Cruz that although she was brought to the country illegally by her parents as a teen, she was able to retain residency due to President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or "DREAM act." As a DACA holder myself, I am worried about...

Raffi Melkonian asks -- as relayed by my colleague Tyler Cowen -- "When can median income consumers afford the very best?"Tyler offers a list of some of the items in the modern, market-oriented world that are as high-quality as such items get and yet are easily affordable to ordinary people. This list includes iPhones, books, and rutabagas. Indeed, this list includes nearly all foods for use in preparing home snacks and meals. I doubt very much that Bill Gates and Larry Ellison munch at home on foods -- such as carrots, blueberries, peanuts, and scrambled eggs -- that an ordinary...

After seven years of the Obama administration, Americans are fed up with their politicians. Americans think their elected leaders have created winners and losers and that the average American is the loser. They think everyone is taking advantage of the system except for them. The electorate is revolting. One presidential candidate they should not be peeved at is Marco Rubio. This has come to the forefront because Sen. Rubio is not a wealthy man. One candidate, Donald Trump, has disparaged him for his lack of financial success. That is particularly fascinating coming from someone who grew up amid great wealth...

If you were wealthy and your first child was just born, what would be the first thing you would do? Give away all your money so your child would get almost nothing, right? Well, that's the decent parental instincts of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, who penned an open letter to his newly born daughter telling her that she would never, ever see 99% of the 45 Facebook billion dollars he had made. His daughter Max will surely appreciate his noble gesture. Instead, he plans to give it all to his charitable foundation, I mean his LLC, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. In...

Why Does Jesus Tell Us to Use "Dishonest Wealth"? Msgr. Charles Pope • November 8, 2015 • There was a puzzling reference in Saturday morning's Gospel (Saturday of the 31st week in Ordinary Time) in which Jesus says,I tell you, make friends for yourselves by your use of dishonest wealth, so that, when it fails, they will welcome you to eternal dwellings (Luke 16:9).What does He mean by "dishonest wealth"?The Greek expression μαμωνᾶ τῆς ἀδικίας (mamona tes adikias) is more literally translated as “mammon of unrighteousness.” Mammon is a Hebrew and Aramaic word that has a wider meaning than just...

Few pieces of jewellery suggest blue blood like a tiara does. Worn on the grandest of occasions, they are shimmering visions of wealth, perfectly perched on some of the world's most regal crowns. On Tuesday night at Buckingham Palace, all eyes were on the Duchess of Cambridge as she attended her first state banquet to welcome the Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan. Kate, 33, matched a beautiful red dress by Jenny Packham - a nod to China's flag - with the Lotus Flower tiara once owned by the Queen Mother. The delicate diamond tiara has fan...

A recent New York Times headline read, "Raising Taxes on the Wealthiest Would Pay for Bold Plans." The story says that by soaking the rich "the government could raise large amounts of revenue ... while still allowing them to take home a majority of their income." Nowhere in the story, nor in the endless promises of Democratic presidential candidates, is there a single word about whether more government spending will produce the promised outcomes. We are to take this on faith, despite past performance being a good indicator of future results. Also absent is any expectation that individuals have more...

The New York Times previews Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer’s upcoming e-book Bush Bucks, an investigation of crony capitalism revolving around Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. From the New York Times: Since announcing his presidential candidacy in June, Jeb Bush has made clear his distaste for officials who trade on their connections. He has assailed the revolving-door culture of Washington, calling for “a little bit of a recession” there to thin the ranks of the permanent political class. He has proposed a strict six-year ban on lobbying for departing members of the House and the Senate. And he has...

Five liberal Democrat presidential candidates -- one actually honest enough to label himself a socialist -- appeared before the American public in their first debate. They made it apparent that the only variation between any of them was just how much bigger and how much faster each one wants to grow government. Democratic Party politicians no longer feel any need to even pay lip service to the idea that America has anything to do with a free people. Their unabashed rendition of the American dream is increasing percentages of the American population dependent on getting money recycled to them from...

If I could change one thing about Christianity today, I would make Jesus the God of the poor. If this sounds as if I've forgotten all the passages about the meek inheriting the earth and camels going through the eye of a needle, some explanation may be necessary. Whatever the Bible says about the poor being blessed, their blessing may rest entirely on the fact that Christians today aren't placing them under any obligations. They're blessed because they do inherit the earth, but only in the sense that they don't have any rules to follow, and only because they don't...

"It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered." – Aeschylus The fundamental issue behind income inequality could be boiled down to a single question: Are poor Americans better or worse off because Bill Gates ($79 billion net worth), Oprah Winfrey ($3 billion net worth), Michael Jordan ($1 billion net worth) and Mark Zuckerberg ($40 billion net worth) are living in the United States? Certainly, having them living in America creates more income inequality. It also hurts the poor by….oh wait, having them here doesn’t hurt the poor at all. None...

China now has 596 billionaires, despite slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy. The number of billionaires in China has overtaken that of the United States for the first time, an annual survey said on Thursday (Oct 15), calling it a "turning point" for the super-wealthy. Communist-ruled China now has 596 billionaires, up a "staggering" 242 over the last year, Shanghai-based luxury magazine publisher Hurun Report said, surpassing the 537 Americans. "The world used to look to American entrepreneurs ... for inspiration. This year, 2015, is a turning point," Hurun Report chairman Rupert Hoogewerf told AFP. "This is the...

Dr. Thomas Sowell, my colleague and friend, told me several years ago that he wasn't going to write any more books, but that was two books ago, and now he has just published his 45th. The man writes with both hands, as can be seen from his website (http://tsowell.com), which lists his 45 books, 19 journal articles, 71 essays in periodicals and books, 34 book reviews, and occasional columns written in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Star, Newsweek, The Times (Britain) et al. Plus, he writes a semiweekly...

Earlier this year, New York Times food critic Pete Wells was moved to write 841 words about breakfast sandwiches. It was a love letter of sorts, an ooey gooey ode to the most basic form of one of the most basic morning foods. But it was also a complaint: A new restaurant called BEC — short for Bacon Egg and Cheese — was about to open in Manhattan, and he was less than pleased. Breakfast sandwiches, Wells explained, are nothing if not practical, prepared quickly and eaten on the go, stuffed with modest ingredients and sold at a reasonable price....

You've heard endlessly about "white privilege" from the professional social justice warrior gripers. But rarely does that crusading crowd -- or their spiritual leaders in the White House -- acknowledge the brutal impact of wealthy Middle Eastern thug privilege in America. I'm looking especially at you, Barack, Michelle and Valerie Jarrett (who hosted Black Lives Matter activists at 1600 Pennsylvania last week). The latest case of WMET privilege involves a well-connected Saudi prince arrested on Wednesday after allegedly sexually assaulting a woman at his $40 million Beverly Hills rental mansion. Witnesses reported seeing a bloodied woman screaming for help as...

A brash, rich lout crashes the party—and becomes an instant crowd favorite.During the 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney was repeatedly dogged by negative stories about his personal wealth. There was the car elevator. There was Cookiegate. Four years earlier, John McCain—hardly anyone’s idea of a typical plutocrat—got hammered for not being able to remember how many houses he owned. It was an issue for Steve Forbes before him and for George H. W. Bush before him. Republicans are already trying to use the many millions accumulated during Bill Clinton’s post-presidency as a cudgel against Hillary. Although it’s true that great wealth...

A little comments food-fight starter for a slow Friday news cycle. Even your friendly neighborhood atheist blogger is surprised by this result: My memory of youthful Christian lessons is rusty but I do vaguely recall something about rich men and heaven and camels and the eye of a needle. Then again, there’s a difference between praying for a Lamborghini and praying for a pay raise to help make ends meet. Wanting more wealth doesn’t necessarily make you greedy.The question: Why are born-again Christians more likely than those who don’t describe themselves as born again to tie wealth to faith?...

Full yet Lonely – A Picture of the Modern Person, as Seen in a Video Msgr. Charles Pope • August 21, 2015 • One of the great “evils” of our time is satiation. I put the word “evil” inside quotation marks to emphasize that no particular good thing that God has made is, in itself, evil. But on account of our own inordinate drives, we accumulate and indulge beyond reason. And in becoming satiated, we leave little room for God or other people.The more materially affluent we get, the more spiritually poor we seem to become. The higher our standard...

Previously posted, but I think is worth re-posting every so often… The ONLY real, valid choice in life is freedom, especially when faced with tyranny. Freedom is at the heart of most issues these days even if many don’t realize it. Your run-of-the-mill politician and most candidates for 2016 election see no political future in freedom. Of course that makes sense since political freedom is the absence of government and government coercion. Individual freedom or liberty is tremendously valuable and easily lost and is being drowned out by the deafening drum beats and bull horns of the Leftist MSM, government...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Ted Cruz are millionaires. Their Republican primary opponent Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, may be in debt. The disparity in wealth in the Republican presidential primary was on display Monday, as the Federal Election Commission released personal financial disclosures filed by three of the GOP presidential contenders. The candidates are required to report details about their finances in order to qualify for the first 2016 primary debate, which will be hosted by Fox News in Cleveland on Thursday. Cruz, who has spent most of his life working in government, listed at least $2.1...