Free Republic

Maybe Herman Cain is trying too hard to be likable. He doesn’t need to enter attack mode or anything, but it would help if he didn’t pander to lefty media hosts, either. I have to assume that’s what this is — unless Cain really doesn’t think it’s the government’s business to ban abortion?Last night, Cain told Piers Morgan that “life begins at conception” and said he opposes abortion “in all cases.” But when Morgan pressed him with typical questions about whether Cain would want his daughter or granddaughter to have a child conceived by rape or incest, Cain dodged. First,...

On Thursday night's "Stossel Show," which airs on the Fox Business channel, Brian Brown was unable to convince host John Stossel or his libertarian guest (and nationally syndicated columnist) David Harsanyi that civil marriage for gays and lesbians harms, or even changes, marriage between heterosexual couples. In fact, Harsanyi's suggestion that the marriage debate could be solved if the U.S. decided either to privatize all schools or all marriage contracts was treated as a more legitimate idea by Stossel and Stossel's audience.... "It is a mistake to allow government to define what marriage should be -- gay or not," Harsanyi...

The other day, I went to Times Square to ask people what government should do to help poor people. Most everyone agreed on the answer: "more social programs and a higher minimum wage." It's intuitive to think that way. I used to think that, too. When President Johnson declared a "war on poverty," he said "compassionate government" was the road to prosperity for poor people. That made sense to me. At Princeton, I was taught that government's central planners had the solution to poverty. But then I watched them work. Government spent trillions of dollars on poverty programs, and the...

A story in today's Philadelphia Daily News shows why it's so important that citizens be allowed to videotape cops - it can be citizens' only way to fight back against police abuse of power. This incident happened several weeks ago in Philadelphia to Mark Fiorino, a 25-year-old IT worker who carries a gun on his hip at all times for self defense. He got the gun after several friends were mugged. But he didn't count on attacks by police: On a mild February afternoon, Fiorino, 25, decided to walk to an AutoZone on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly with the...

he anti-war movement was all over the news before President Obama was elected. But apparently they weren’t really anti-war ... they were just anti-President Bush. Two college professors just released a study of national protests between 2007 and 2009. What did they find? … After January 2007, the attendance at antiwar rallies [measured in] roughly the tens of thousands, or thousands, through the end of 2008. … After the election of Barack Obama as president, the order of magnitude of antiwar protests dropped [...] Organizers were hard pressed to stage a rally with participation in the thousands, or even in...

Is America becoming a nation of freeloaders? It’s said that Panhandlers in America can make more than minimum wage. John Stossel tried it in Manhattan, and sure enough, I made over $11 in one hour—that would be $23,000 a year—tax free! It’s a small example of why some said that the USA is turning into a nation of freeloaders. The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Macdonald says that beggars she’s encountered “have the most deep-seated sense of entitlement that I’ve ever come across.” From those defaulting on their home mortgages, to those who see lawsuits as a lottery ticket, many Americans live...

In America today, the biggest recipients of handouts are not poor people. They're corporations. General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is super-close to President Obama. The president named Immelt chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Before that, Immelt was on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He's a regular companion when Obama travels abroad to hawk American exports. (Why does business need government to do that?) "Jeff Immelt is perhaps the CEO who is most cozy with President Obama," says journalist Tim Carney. "General Electric is structuring their business around where government is going ... high-speed rail, solar, wind....

Why is it so difficult for some conservatives to accept the idea that the left is hellbent on destroying America as we know it? It’s not like it’s a far-out conspiracy theory. It’s a well documented ongoing process. These people have been at it for decades. The Cloward-Piven Strategy, which is one piece of the subversive puzzle, is real. We’ve proven it here at NewsReal and I’ve proven it in my upcoming book Subversion Inc. Since the culturally catastrophic 1960s elements within the left have been more or less open about their movement’s desire to overthrow the American system of...

Talking to Megyn Kelly.

My new special – Politicians’ Top 10 Promises Gone Wrong – airs again tonight. One of their failed promises is that if government fosters home ownership, that will benefit most everyone. President Clinton even claimed: “Our homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent.” Bush was on board: “We want more people owning their own home. It is in our national interest.” Most politicians agreed. But those conceits, like so many others, went horribly wrong. When the housing bubble popped and millions lost their homes many blamed greedy bankers. Senator Bernie Sanders complained that: “Outrageous greed, recklessness and...

FBN's John Stossel dissects lawmakers' false promises in new special

Of the 6 billion people on Earth, 2 billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don't build businesses, or if they do, they don't expand them. Unlike people in the United States, Europe and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don't lift themselves out of poverty. Why not? What's the difference between them and us? Hernando de Soto taught me that the biggest difference may be property rights. I first met de Soto maybe 15 years ago. It was at one of those lunches where people sit around wondering how to end...

This week, I held a bake sale -- a racist bake sale. I stood in midtown Manhattan shouting, "Cupcakes for sale." My price list read: Asians -- $1.50 Whites -- $1.00 Blacks/Latinos -- 50 cents People stared. One yelled, "What is funny to you about people who are less privileged?" A black woman said, angrily, "It's very offensive, very demeaning!" One black man accused me of poisoning the cupcakes. I understand why people got angry. What I did was hurtful to some. My bake sale mimicked what some conservative college students did at Bucknell University. The students wanted to satirize...

And then talks to Bill O'Reilly about it.

"I thought unions were great -- until at Chrysler, the union steward started screaming at me. Working at an unhurried pace, I'd exceeded 'production' for that job." That comment, left on my blog by a viewer who watched my show about unions, matches my experience. No one ordered me to slow down, but union rules and union culture at ABC and CBS slowed the work. Sometimes a camera crew took five minutes just to get out of the car. Now unions conspire with politicians to rip off taxpayers. Steve Melanga of the Manhattan Institute complains that politicians get union political...

It's raining! I don't like it! Why hasn't Congress passed the Good Weather Act and the Everybody Happy Act? Sound dumb? Why is it any dumber than a law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which promised to cover more for less money? When Obamacare was debated, we free-market advocates insisted that no matter what the president promised, the laws of economics cannot be repealed. Our opponents in effect answered, "Yes, we can." Well, Obamacare has barely started taking effect, and the evidence is already rolling in. I hate to say we told them so, but ... we...

Taxing the Rich By John Stossel Progressives want to raise taxes on individuals who make more than $200,000 a year because they say it's wrong for the rich to be "given" more money. Sunday's New York Times carries a cartoon showing Uncle Sam handing money to a fat cat. They just don't get it. As I've said before, a tax cut is not a handout. It simply means government steals less. What progressives want to do is take money from some -- by force -- and spend it on others. It sounds less noble when plainly stated.

The Left, even the Obama Administration, has vilified Fox News as an extreme right wing shill; they see Fox as dedicated to their destruction. Until recently the better understanding of Fox is that of a brilliant business plan to tap an unserved niche in the news marketplace. While obvious to anyone who lives in a town smaller than a million people, prior to Fox nobody was providing news without a strong leftward bent. Fox stepped in like a blast of fresh air and eventually dominated the cable news marketplace. The real ideologues were MSNBC and CNN, who held to competing...

John Stossel:  Free enterprise does everything better Why? Because if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax. Notice how every government "solution" involves more of what caused the problem in the first place? And how more money and more bureaucracy are always involved as well? "Oh yeah!"  Sneers the progressive.  "What about public roads?  Huh?  Huh?" Private enterprise does roads better than government In 1995, a private road company added two lanes in the middle of California Highway 91, right where the median strip used...

Click here to find out more! In "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity," I bet my readers $1,000 that they couldn't name one thing that government does better than the private sector. I am yet to pay. Free enterprise does everything better. Why? Because if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax. Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn't, it will be "fired" -- its contract won't be renewed. Government is never fired. Contracting...