Free Republic

You thought the analogue-to-digital conversion box fiasco had people confused?Just wait.This is something I can guarantee the overwhelming vast majority of Americans are not aware of – and come next April 15th, there are going to be a whole lot of irate people frantically screaming at their payroll departments demanding to know what the hell happened.And meanwhile, not one official from the Obama Administration – the folks who care so much about America’s working families – is bothering to inform anyone about it.If you are married, and both you and your spouse are entitled to President Obama’s economy-saving blockbuster "tax...

If tugging on Superman’s cape and spitting into the wind are no-nos, then messing around with Rush Limbaugh – while donning the apocryphal moniker of conservative - is sheer blockheadedness. Time and time again, counterfeit conservatism is reconstituted in the columns and commentaries of convoluted right-leaning hyper-intellectuals - David Brooks, Ross Douthat and Chris Buckley come to mind - while attempting to reinvent the movement in order to set themselves apart from the pack.All the while, conservatives such as me are derided and repudiated as being too narrow-minded, out-of-touch and parochial.Reconstructing conservatism into a more media-friendly animal, i.e. making...

After my article last week, FUNNY GLOBAL WARMING TIDBIT - PESKY DATA - which I invite you to read if you haven't already - I received a reply from a reader called Cassandra, who took me to task for what she obviously felt was a typical flat-earth, knee-jerk, right-wing reaction to a story related to global warming.As I have done on many occasions with other readers, I would like to address Cassandra's post, point by point.Even if you haven't read my piece, or the original article I'm referencing, you'll still get the gist of it all, I assure you. _____________________________________________Cassandra...

Last year, while then-candidate Barack Obama was still going on and on about how he would have nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with special interest groups, the National Education Association Representative Assembly was adopting 12 new exciting resolutions. While then-candidate Barack Obama was assuring American voters that he wouldn't as much as spit on a special interest group, even if it were on fire, the NEA shocked the world by endorsing Barack Obama for President. Of course, in Obamacratic terms, the NEA isn't really a special interest group to begin with - the same way earmarks aren't really...

From the bottom of my ... well, bottom, I assure you, that even if I was hoodwinked into believing that the Earth was trembling precariously on the brink of calamity due to the excesses and indulgences of human activity, I just couldn't get this green - not in good conscience. And if ever I were forced to do so, you can bet your bottom dollar (pun intended) it's because someone either had a firearm pressed to my temple, I was a prisoner of war, or I was convinced that huge prize money was somehow involved.What on Earth am I talking...

Fielding e-mails about the Obama plan to reduce troop levels in Iraq by the end of August, 2010 to anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 troops, I am getting roundly attacked on the supposed naivety – or knee-jerk reaction – of my position in the piece I posted earlier today called “QUICK THOUGHTS ON THE BAM PLAN TO SCRAM.”One close friend wrote: "What do you mean this one is 'hard to take'? Are you aware that Obama is actually following the Bush plan here?" I'm missing some of the finer nuances, I'm being told. This really isn't a withdrawal, I'm being...

The fundamental transformation of my country, the United States of America, continues unfettered under President Barack Obama – but this one is very difficult to take.For almost six weeks I have seen the slow-and-steady dismantling of a shining city on a hill through extreme leftist policies that have drastically broadened the control of government. I have watched the new administration rape the individual of incentive by promising handouts to those who don’t deserve it while promising to punish the success of those who do. I’ve witnessed the wholly contrived and strategically effective spread of pessimism and fear during what...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate has barred federal regulators from reviving a policy, abandoned two decades ago, that required balanced coverage of issues on public airwaves. The Senate vote on the so-called Fairness Doctrine was in part a response to conservative radio talk show hosts who feared that Democrats would try to revive the policy to ensure liberal opinions got equal time. The Federal Communications Commission implemented the doctrine in 1949, but stopped enforcing it in 1987 after deciding new sources of information and programming made it unnecessary. President Barack Obama says he has no intention of reimposing the doctrine,...

Never let the truth get in the way of good old-fashioned, down-to-the-bone, leftist hysteria.Recall the amusing little story from late last week that flung yet another delicious dagger into the heart of the Global Warming industry – the report of a glitch in satellite sensors that caused scientists to miscalculate, i.e. underestimate, how much arctic sea ice there was by nearly 200,000 square miles. Some had apparently noticed that there was actually ice in areas listed by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) as “open ocean.”The error was triggered by a problem known as “sensor drift,”...

Bush bashing.Gee, how original.The new CIA Chief has decided that Congress needs a big hug, maybe more – and he’s ready to start dispensing the love. According to the agency’s new chief, Leon Panetta, all of those years under President Bush saw a nasty rift fester between the CIA and Capitol Hill – a relationship Panetta says was “badly damaged” with W in the lead – and the time has come to make it all good again. In other words, those lousy Bush-era policies that kept this nation safe from attack for over seven years need to be tossed...

As disappointing as Governor Bobby Jindal was last evening in his response to President Obama’s non-State of the Union address, I harbor as much disappointment in myself for expecting too much.From the moment Jindal began speaking, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was sitting on a thumbtack or if someone was applying a nutcracker to his pinky toe – particularly at the beginning of his talk. The lighting and the background were, at best, unflattering, and his delivery was as smooth as large curd cottage cheese. It pains me to say this because I am a huge fan of...

No one can tackle the toughest societal quandaries like a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. They don't monkey around ... or chimp around ... or ape around. (I promise, I am not thinking of a black person here).Ladies and Gentlemen, The Captive Primate Safety Act is on its way to becoming law. (Let your cerebral fanfare bellow out across the fruited plane). And while there was no white smoke coming from the Capitol Building chimney to indicate when it was actually passed, a page was said to be seen tossing bananas from the roof.The House of Representatives was clearly not fooling...

Political correctness has always been a malignancy to the body of truth - whatever that truth may be. The willingness of some law enforcement agencies - particularly those directly involved in the security of this country - to shun the practice of "racial profiling" in the name of fairness and objectivity, i.e. political correctness, is not only antithetical to common sense but a genuine threat to security.In that spirit of inanity, here is a two-minute audio spot - a parody - that helps to demonstrate the absurdity of it all.It's an audio-only "commercial" that runs a little over two-minutes long.-

Earlier this morning, CNN had a link to my blog - specifically to an article I "penned" called "Race Baiter On The Attack." It was part of their "From The Blogs" section, underneath an article about Rupert Murdoch's apology for publishing a cartoon deemed "offensive" by race-baiters and victimized societal dinosaurs.My "inbox" and I may never be on speaking terms again. After the ruckus of what should've been less than a non-story, it indeed, may be time to resurrect and redefine the term "yellow journalism." Fear, intimidation, apology and appeasement are becoming the cornerstones of today's free press. The mainstream...

Gutless recreants. Or as Michelle Malkin puts it, "Behold a nation of cowards."And so it was yesterday, the Washington Post issued an apology - on Page A02 - for a cartoon issued the same day in its Sunday magazine. Call it a pre-emptive move, if you like. Say it was cautionary, if it suits you.I prefer any of the following: intimidated, terrified, frightened, whipped, scared, owned, yellow, lily-livered, liberal ... it all works.Indeed, master (race) baiter Al Sharpton has suddenly become important again, screeching racism as only he can do, muscling the FCC and the New York City council, along...

This is one of those instances that force me to come clean. On Friday, I predicted that the re-emergence of the deplorable and wholly repugnant Reverend Al Sharpton onto the public stage would be short-lived - perhaps a couple of days at best - once America remembered how entirely irrelevant he really is.I was wrong ... and I wish to extend both my apologies and some cherry Maalox chewables to those who put any validity in my assertion.The race-baiting, riot-inciting, hateful, "civil rights" windbag - who is often far from civil and hardly ever right - is in full...

"Guard against the postures of pretended patriotism."-

Twenty-first Century America … where a man who associated with a known-terrorist, was mentored by a racist anti-American reverend, lied to the American people on numerous occasions about “earmarks” in the largest wasteful spending bill in all of human history, has done nothing but fear-monger Americans with falsehoods on the state of the economy, has suspended ongoing trials of known terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and has been President for a little less than five lousy weeks is polled as being more of a hero than Jesus, Ghandi, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln - that according to a...

Because Vice President Joe Biden hadn’t said anything uncommonly obtuse in a couple of days (as of Thursday morning), I took a few minutes to scour news sites and blogs to be sure he wasn’t ill or out of the country. Admittedly, Biden media absences make life a little less fun. Like a swear jar, I have a Biden gaffe jar. (I'm only seven gaffes away from a plasma TV).My concern was real.I feared he might have fallen asleep somewhere without a working alarm or was possibly caught in the Dupont Circle roundabout in Washington, D.C. looking for the...

Like cockroaches and reality television, old race-baiters die hard. The truth is, however, there just hasn’t been a whole lot for Al Sharpton to do in recent times, except maybe tinker around with his Turbo Tax software. The papers simply aren’t plump with bogus stories of young black girls being raped by white cops anymore, or of nooses being hung from trees by young whites.Not like they used to.Those were the days, eh Al?Today, it’s hard to imagine anyone more insignificant or more detached from the societal realities of American life than Reverend Al. After all, what’s an old...