Free Republic

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A segment of Occupy Wall Street protesters applied for a permit to be in the annual Rose Parade on January 2nd. They should be applauded for their application -- it was an uncharacteristic submission to hierarchy. But the people who really deserve applause is the parade officials who rejected their application. But now the Occupiers, who never take no for an answer, plan to follow behind the police cars that conclude the parade. Officials are aware of this, and an article by Penny Starr of CNS News said: “They will be allowed, just like any other spectator or any other...

Over the weekend, Metropolitan Police removed Occupy DC protesters from “a barn-like structure” a few blocks from the White House. More than thirty arrests were made, including one young man who was charged with indecent exposure for urinating from the roof. Occupy DC protesters have been squatting in McPherson Park, in the middle of one of Washington’s key commercial and government hubs, since October. And what have they achieved? They say they want to draw attention to income inequality. They have. We all now know that they claim to represent the 99% against the income gains of the 1%. They...

Playing baseball games without keeping score. Parents not allowed to cheer for one side or the other at basketball games. Refusing to use red ink to grade tests because it's too jarring. No dodgeball. Participation trophies. Telling kids, "You're special," without their doing anything to show they're special. Newsflash: You may be special to God, your mommy, and your teacher just because you were born, but the rest of us aren't impressed. The world doesn't owe you a living, a promotion, or any special consideration at all. The people who tell you otherwise are doing it because they think you're...

Vandalism, violence, burning and shutting down the nation’s fifth busiest port weren’t enough for Occupy Oakland. On Friday, the General Assembly for the group voted unanimously for “a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12." According to a statement from Occupy Oakland, this move is in “response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation.” “We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port.” Occupy Los Angeles had already called for action against one shipper at that port, stating, “occupation will...

Some of my friends in the conservative blogosphere have been ridiculing a New Yorker named Joe Therrien. I want to put in a good word for him. Therrien appears in the lead paragraph of a story in The Nation on Occupy Wall Street. He's an example, writer Richard Kim wants us to know, of the "creative types" ingeniously protesting capitalism. It's one of those no-violence-or-anti-Semitism-here-just-nifty-people articles you find not only in the avowedly leftish Nation but also in mainstream media. Conservative bloggers and commenters have been making fun of Therrien, who quit his job as a drama teacher in New...

Isn’t it ironic that the same media that’s indignant over Cain’s alleged sexual misconduct from fifteen years ago is Teller-like in their silence over the multitudinous rapes going down at the Occupy rallies like fifteen hours ago? The Left raises cain about Cain’s sexual harassment, yet they don’t say shizzle about the Occupy Other People’s Panties protestors trying to forcibly knock someone else’s knickers. Case in point: I was at my gym working a kick bag for thirty plus minutes last Wednesday and they had CNN blaring. Thirty minutes on Cain. Zero on Occupy’s various sexual assaults. This made me...

There's only one way the Occupy Wall Street movement can become like the tea parties, and that's for Barack Obama to lose in 2012. Why? Because Obama is the most divisive figure in American politics today. I suspect that sentence reads funny to some people because in the mainstream press, "divisive" is usually a term reserved for "conservatives we disagree with." But as a factual matter it can apply to anybody who is, well, divisive. Obviously, Obama divides the right and left. That's not all that interesting or relevant (even if it does represent a failure to live up to...

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are demanding "people before profits" -- as if profit motivation were the source of mankind's troubles -- when it's often the absence of profit motivation that's the true villain. First, let's get both the definition and magnitude of profits out of the way. Profits represent the residual claim earned by entrepreneurs. They're what are left after other production costs -- such as wages, rent and interest -- have been paid. Profits are the payment for risk taking, innovation and decision-making. As such, they are a cost of business just as are wages, rent and interest....

The mirror into modern-day America created by the "occupiers" who have taken to the streets reveals painful images and insights for those committed to traditional American values. Even without a clear, core message, most Americans can identify with the anger at those who have contributed to our broken economy. But many tax-paying Americans are equally fed up with the stream of complaints from the self-obsessed protestors who want their debts forgiven and the "rich" to pay for their "free" education. This is not the orderly and respectful Tea Party crowd who scheduled demonstrations around working hours and cleaned up after...

Financial professional work in the Goldman Sachs booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers, according to numbers on OpenSecrets.org. President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for...