Free Republic

Let's document here the numerous death threats the Left has made against us and right-wing politicians. A few that come to my mind immediately: The movie "Death of a President" (2006) by British film makers Gabriel Range and Simon Finch Cindy Sheehan's Book: "Peace Mom" in which she fantasizes about going back in time and killing the infant George W. Bush. Alec Baldwin's suggestion on the David Letterman show that Henry Hyde and his family should be dragged into the street and stoned to death. Nicholson Baker's " Checkpoint," a novella conversation between two people about the advisability of assassinating...

Remember the controversy over the Pentagon policy of not allowing the press to take pictures of the flag-draped caskets of American war dead as they arrived in the United States? Critics accused President Bush of trying to hide the terrible human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "These young men and women are heroes," Vice President Biden said in 2004, when he was senator from Delaware. "The idea that they are essentially snuck back into the country under the cover of night so no one can see that their casket has arrived, I just think is wrong." In...

Yesterday, IvyGate updated their tasteless post on the death of Warren Schor; I posted their explanation on my original post, but here it is again...It seems the post was only updated because of the outrage that followed rather that because of an acknowledgment of poor taste. At the very least it's rank hypocrisy from a publication that once lashed out at the Dartmouth Review for an offensive Native American picture on their cover. When Dartmouth issued an apology, IvyGate was unimpressed. In fact, in response to the Dartmouth apology, IvyGate's Chris Beam wrote: "There's many a broken soul on the...

Reactions to Sarah Palin’s decision to resign the governorship of Alaska have been a reminder of her unmatched ability to elicit strong emotions from friend and foe alike. We know some of the reasons why. It’s her evangelical Christianity and her folksy manner. It’s her small-town roots and her “new feminism.” But there is something more. A year ago, Palin gave birth to her youngest son, Trig, who has Down syndrome. Since then, mother and son have become objects of the left’s unrelenting scorn and the right’s unflinching fidelity. An underexamined reason why Palin is loved and loathed so fiercely...

Mainstream conservatives are routinely mischaracterized as extreme by liberals and squishy Republicans, when it is America's liberals who are, by any fair measure, more extreme. Conservatives are not the ones who sermonize about tolerance yet demonstrate intolerance toward conservative and Christian thought; support exterminating babies in the womb; apologize the world over for America; or gut the military and missile defense because of some dangerously egotistical notion that they have the magic to turn evil into goodness with their charisma and eloquence or, even worse, because they refuse to recognize evil in the world, except as emanating from the United...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Democratic National Committee fired back Wednesday at Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal for saying it is OK for Republicans to want President Obama to fail if they think the president is jeopardizing the country. "We understand that Governor Jindal has had some problems with public speaking lately, but turning to Rush Limbaugh to be your new speechwriter doesn't help," DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement sent to the media. "What we know has failed is the reflexive partisan politics of the past that Rush Limbaugh and his Republican party continue to be mired in.

The classicists argue as to whether Nero really fiddled while Rome burned. Yet the story is seen as apocryphal in the same way biblical parables and myths from Greek Mythology are often so viewed. That is because we all know people who have done just that sort of thing. It happens amongst us now – and on a grand and extravagant scale. Perhaps the most amusing recent examples of this sort of behavior come to us from both the business world and from our friends, the environmental movement. We begin with the detestable resort vacation taken by those corporate bums...

EXCLUSIVE Celebs and VIPs snub plea to share private planes and cut CO2 emissions. Just 78 out of 3,500 rich & famous agree to stop flying solo to red carpet. By Susie Boniface 02/12/2007 VIPs have snubbed a plea to go green - by refusing to share their luxury private jets. Thousands of the rich and famous were invited to pool their planes in an effort to cut carbon emissions. But so far just 78 out of 3,500 who either own or regularly use private planes have signed up. Prince Charles, climate campaigner Al Gore, Simon Cowell, Madonna and Kate...

In the wake of the Larry Craig “Bathroomgate” story, some intrepid free-market-oriented bloggers came up with a novel solution to the problem of closeted gay conservatives indulging their carnal desires on the side. Gay-sex offsets. The same market-based approach is used by environmentally crapulent liberal celebrities all the time. They use private jets, drive around with big entourages and own numerous energy-sucking homes. To make amends, they purchase an indulgence in the form of “carbon offsets” — a contract whereby the equivalent amount of greenhouse gases are soaked up by newly planted trees and the like. So why not do...

Congress is keeping Andrews Air Force base plenty busy this year ferrying lawmakers all over the globe at taxpayers’ expense. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi took his wife, nine Democrats and two Republicans - Reps. Dan Lungren of California and Mike Rogers of Alabama - on a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean last week. After stops in Honduras and Mexico, they stopped in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the delegation stayed at the five-star Caneel Bay resort. In a separate trip to the Caribbean last week, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York squired his wife and four Democratic members to...

There is a great furor over whether the opinions of a number of retired high-ranking officers should tip the balance in the ongoing debate over the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But the question really isn't whether Rumsfeld should resign. He has already resigned several times and had President Bush tear up his letters of resignation. He clearly is taking responsibility for his actions on a continuing basis. But now that a galaxy of flag officers are raining down on Rumsfeld demanding his resignation, no one seems to have bothered to ask which, if any, of these generals had...

Laurie David Curbs Her Environmentalism Global warming crusader Laurie David may be an expert when it comes to lecturing others about the evils of SUVS and the redemptive power of energy saving light bulbs. But when it comes to conserving her own backyard, it seems she’s still a little green. Sources say David—a Martha’s Vineyard summer resident and the wife of Seinfeld creator Larry David—recently found herself on the receiving end of an indignant eco-critique after angry locals on the tony island accused her and her husband of endangering protected wetlands. According to a “notice of apparent violations” issued by...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. We at GLOBALIZATION FOLLIES are still reeling from the report in last week's Washington Post about how the United States is being increasingly criticized as a major world trade scofflaw. Where to begin? The article by Paul Blustein did quote U.S. officials as noting that failures by the United States to implement World Trade Organization or NAFTA panel rulings are few and far between. But not once did he mention that the overall U.S. trade deficit this year is on course to pass a new record of $650 billion – making...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Senator Max Baucus has long successfully posed as a staunch defender of U.S. trade laws – this despite having supported all the recent trade deals that have either actually weakened those laws or rendered them irrelevant. But last month, the Montana Democrat's true colors were never clearer. During the fight in 2001-2 over Presidential fast track trade negotiating authority, one of the most controversial issues was whether to permit the administration to put the future of U.S. trade laws on the table for negotiation in the next round of world trade...

Pakistani soldiers watch arrested people during a strike in Karachi June 1, 2005. Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's leading mainstream Islamist party, called a strike in Karachi on Wednesday to protest the government's failure to prevent recent violence, that included the assassination of its deputy chief in the city on Monday. REUTERS/Zahid Hussein

Say, folks, I have a question I want to ask you. It wasn't that long ago -- it was earlier this week, because this is Thursday. It might have been late last week, I forget, but within the last week we had a story that Democratic Congressman Bob Wexler from Boca Raton, a big Democrat, had proposed a Democrat idea on Social Security reform and that idea was basically to raise taxes. And my question is: "Have any of you seen that story anywhere in the mainstream media?" Have you? You haven't. I can answer the question for you. You...

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who denies partisan motives for his investigation of a political group founded by Republican leader Tom DeLay, was the featured speaker last week at a Democratic fund-raiser where he spoke directly about the congressman. A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control of the state Legislature from the GOP, organizers said. Earle, an elected Democrat, helped generate $102,000 for the organization. Reasons for speaking Earle and his staff of prosecutors have obtained indictments of three DeLay...

MYTH-FACT: JUDICIAL FILIBUSTERS Myth: Senate Republicans Are Attempting To Abolish All Filibusters. Fact: Republicans Are Seeking To Restore The Advice And Consent Constitutional Obligations Of The Senate For Judicial Nominees ­ Not Eliminate The Legislative Filibuster ­ Even Though Democrats Have Supported In The Past Abolishing All Forms Of Filibusters. In 1995, Democrats (Bingaman, Boxer, Feingold, Harkin, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Lieberman, And Sarbanes) Wanted To End The Legislative Filibuster. In 1995, the only Senators on record supporting the end of the legislative filibuster were all Democrats, nine of whom are still serving in the Senate. (Karen Hosler, "Senators Vote 76-19...

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a minor masterpiece of the arcane art of studio financing, or as Sumner Redstone calls it, "risk management." The trick, though applied in subtle brushstroke, is to use OPM--Other People's Money. Here is the triple-play through which Paramount made a $94 million movie for only $8.7 million. First, Paramount got $65 million from Intermedia Films in Germany in exchange for distribution rights for 6 countries: Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan. These "pre-sales" left Paramount with the movie, and all the rights, the rest of the world. Second, Paramount arranged to have part of...

The UN has gone beyond the realm of effrontery. They've gone past being criminal, they've gone past being hypocritical, they've flown past the limits of churlish and ungrateful. There should be a picture of the UN coat-of-arms in the dictionary next to the word "nauseating." The latest pile of vomitous to spew from the world's foremost unelected deliberative busybodies came from Jan Egeland who may not be a leading expert on taxation policy, but must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. He offered us the following insights regarding our tax plicies and our generosity to the victims...