Free Republic

Former President Jimmy Carter denounced white feelings of superiority as "racist residue" during an interview with the American Association of Retired Persons.(AARP). "Whites who use statistics indicating that Blacks are disproportionately involved in crime or on welfare are making judgments that neglect to consider valid cultural differences," the former President said. "The notion that earning a living is more respectable than subsisting on government benefits is pure prejudice. Logically, accepting welfare rather than submitting to wage-slavery makes perfect sense. Failure to credit Blacks who have made this logical decision reflects poorly on whites." "As for the higher Black participation in...

On the 50th anniversary of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous report on the breakdown of the black family in urban ghettos, Baltimore has descended into the tragic violence and chaos he predicted. In a report titled, “The Negro Family: The Case for Action,” Assistant Secretary of Labor Moynihan, warned that the deterioration of the black family, would result in soaring crime rates if it continued unchecked. In the most famous passage of the 1965 report, Moynihan, who would later become a Democratic U.S. senator, wrote, “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los...

For the first time in the history of the school lunch program, all children in Baltimore are created equal.. Beginning this week, every student in the city, regardless of income level, is being offered free breakfast and lunch under a federal program that allows school districts to eliminate a decades-old meal-subsidy structure for students in high-poverty schools. Baltimore is among a handful of districts in Maryland taking advantage of the opportunity that was opened to schools nationwide last year. Maryland schools are able to adopt the program under state legislation passed this year in the General Assembly. Del. Keith Haynes,...

Wednesday, June 03, 2015 The Incredible Entitlement of the Welfare Lobby Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Progressive America has a fever and the only solution is more welfare. Celebrities are trying to buy only $29 worth of fair trade arugula at Whole Foods and then taking snapshots of it in a mistaken effort to show how little food stamps buy. Obama is urging more social welfare spending as the answer to the race riots he stirred up across the country by embracing the Ferguson “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” hoax. Outraged rich liberals are furiously lecturing the...

In the early 2000s, ethanol was touted as the solution to a variety of ills plaguing our nation. As is currently the case, those who worshipped at the altar of ethanol placed their faith in a false idol. Early in the new millennium, oil prices began to rise and natural gas prices shot up. Doomsayers lacking an understanding of history and economics popped up, as they always do, to proclaim the end of cheap oil was nigh. “Peak oil” pundits ruled the airwaves and editorial pages. The United States had recently suffered the horrific terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,...

Conservative, tough on crime policies around the country could hold the wave back only just so long. Building prisons, forcing middle class people to sit for jury duty and sending criminals away to do virtually all their sentences had been policies in New York that worked for twenty years. But that was then and this is now. Even New York City, the national leader in reducing crime, has now fallen into Democrat/Communist hands and crime is surging back. Across the nation, cities run by Democrats have been reaping what they have been sowing. Their essential inability to lead or administer...

Before he announces that he's jumping into the 2016 presidential race, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) wants to finish work on his latest state budget and in the process pack it with conservative goodies he can tout on the campaign trail. For Walker, this is key to his 2016 game plan. "The budget is important, because Walker has been delaying an announcement before he officially announces as President. It gives him a list of popular red-meat items to check off in the primaries," University of Wisconsin Public Policy Professor Donald Moynihan told TPM. Here is a list of five of...

Parked among the Sassy Spoons and Foxy Falafels on St. Paul streets this summer will be a food truck featuring a decidedly untrendy cuisine: school lunch. Turkey sandwiches and raw vegetables will have one advantage over grass-fed burgers and fries cooked in duck fat, however: They're free. St. Paul Public Schools bought the food truck last year to increase participation in its Summer Food Service Program. It starts rolling out the meals June 15. The federally funded meals typically are served where children are likely to gather, such as libraries and community centers, as well as some schools, but many...

This month Congress will consider whether to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank). Ex-Im Bank is a New Deal-era federal program that uses taxpayer funds to subsidize the exports of American businesses. Foreign businesses, including state-owned corporations, also benefit from Ex-Im Bank. One country that has benefited from $1.5 billion of Ex-Im Bank loans is Russia. Venezuela, Pakistan, and China have also benefited from Ex-Im Bank loans. With Ex-Im Bank’s track record of supporting countries that supposedly represent a threat to the US, one might expect neoconservatives, hawkish liberals, and other supporters of foreign intervention to be...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration's latest plan on ethanol, the corn-based renewable fuel, probably will not have a major effect on pump prices, but could have political reverberations in Iowa and other farm states in the 2016 presidential campaign. Under the proposed rule announced Friday, the amount of ethanol in the gasoline supply would increase in coming years, just not as much as set out under federal law. That approach drew criticism from ethanol and farm groups that have pushed to keep high volumes of ethanol in gasoline. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a robust...

According to the latest Census Bureau data, 21.3% of those living in America are receiving welfare benefits. This includes more than 41% of Blacks, more than 36% of Hispanics, more than 17% of Asians and more than 13% of whites. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell called it "a good start on the President's transformative agenda. Ideally, all output would be put into a common pot and doled out to individuals and families based on need. The notion that a person should be self-supporting is archaic. In another generation it will be completely replaced by an appreciation for the...

While Metro Transit's Green Line isn't exactly paying for itself through passenger fares, it's doing a better job than most other Minnesota public transit options. Passengers boarding the state's second light-rail line from its debut in June through the end of 2014 paid $6.21 million into the fare box, or about 35.8 percent of what it costs to operate the 11-mile route. "I think 35 percent is a really good percentage," said St. Paul City Council member Dave Thune. "I love it. I think it has been a success. The kind of traffic it's seeing, going from one end of...

One in five Americans received monthly assistance from at least one of a variety of government programs throughout 2012, a report issued Thursday by the Census Bureau says. The report estimated that 52.2 million Americans -- or 21.3 percent of the people in the United States -- received assistance each month during 2012. Also from the report: - 39.2% of children received some type of means-tested benefit. - 41.6% of black Americans received assistance in an average month, versus 36.4% of the Hispanics, 17.8% of the Asians or Pacific Islanders, and 13.2% of whites. - 50% of the female-led households...

Beware the Strangest Idol of All – A Reflection on How Even Works of Charity Cannot Eclipse Obedience to Christ By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is a passage in the gospels that breaks conventions and cuts to the core of what has come to be called the “Social Gospel.”  Before looking at the passage we need to define “Social Gospel.” The phrase “Social Gospel” emerged in the Protestant denominations but has also come to be used in Catholic circles as well. The Social Gospel is an intellectual movement that was most prominent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The...

Last week my colleague Simon Maloy caught us up with the latest on Kanses Gov. Sam Brownback’s famous Arthur Laffer “petri dish” experiment, in which he slashed taxes and government programs in order to usher in a Republican free market economic utopia. The experiment looks like it’s blowing up the lab: [T]he Brownback/Laffer tax scheme hasn’t goosed the Kansas economy and it doesn’t look like it will any time soon. It has succeeded marvelously, though, in redistributing wealth to the top of the income ladder, while, at the same time, screwing over the people at the bottom. While the rich...

It has long been suspected America is on the downside of history; often a self-inflicted spiral delivered by the hand of incompetence, corruption or irreverence. That being said, I cannot ignore a fundamental truth that is at the very heart of the rhetoric dividing our communities and destroying our nation. The real reason there is such a high degree of cynicism and distrust along racial lines is because of the unpleasant realities people either completely ignore, carefully avoid or foolishly justify. Call them clues or outright statistical proofs; just know they are the symptoms of our country’s impending peril. Despite...

Wisconsin’s State Assembly approved legislation last week that puts in place new rules about what recipients of food stamps may purchase with the benefits. Assembly Bill 177 would limit the types of food that could be purchased with Wisconsin’s food stamp program, FoodShare.In addition to banning the purchase of foods such as lobster with the publicly-funded program, the legislation would also require that just over two-thirds of the benefits be used to purchase healthy foods:“Under this bill, DHS [Department of Health Services] must require that not less than 67 percent of the SNAP benefits used by a recipient in a...

Scott Santens has been thinking a lot about fish lately. Specifically, he’s been reflecting on the aphorism, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for life.” What Santens wants to know is this: “If you build a robot to fish, do all men starve, or do all men eat?” Santens is 37 years old, and he’s a leader in the basic income movement—a worldwide network of thousands of advocates (26,000 on Reddit alone) who believe that governments should provide every citizen with a monthly stipend big...

A controversial drug testing proposal will remain in the state budget. The legislature’s Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday approved requiring those receiving public benefits to submit to drug testing. Those who fail would get taxpayer funded treatment, which Joint Finance Committee co-chair John Nygren (R-Marinette) said will help them break the cycle of addiction and become employed. The Marinette Republican said “it’s a better alternative than our corrections department. It’s a better alternative than ending up on welfare for God knows how long.” Democrats spent over an hour criticizing the proposal, noting that Wisconsin is unlikely to receive the waiver...

On Tuesday, clubbed the City of Stockholm through a strategy against extremism. The goal is to prevent terrorist travel, but also to deal with returning the IS-fighters using different types of support. But the strategy may be severely criticized by the opposition.