Of Course, "Freedom" Is Not Free

It's Never Too Late To Start House Cleaning

On this date:

1789, The first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.

In 1997, Newt Gingrich became the first Republican re-elected House speaker in 68 years.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial began in the Senate.

In 2006, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, facing corruption charges, stepped down as House majority leader.

Happy birthday Rand Paul

Rand Paul, US Senator from Kentucky, was born on January 7, 1964. He is 47 today.

Say Brother, Can You Spare Me A Tax Break?

"Apparently, you and I owe an apology to the extravagantly-rich in our society. They're reported to be in a deep pout and a political funk because We the People have hurt their feelings.

This stems from the public's simmering anger over the fact that the Wall Street barons who crashed our economy are back to paying themselves multimillion-dollar bonuses, while the corporate CEOs who keep downsizing and offshoring our middle class opportunities are grabbing bigger paychecks than ever for themselves. The wealthy swells are upset by our anger and feel picked on by us riff-raff -- they don't like being blamed for our economic distress, even though they are to blame, and they certainly don't like the rising populist fervor for more economic fairness in our country. So they're mad at us for being mad at them, claiming that they are victims of our 'wealth envy.'

I'm sure you feel as badly as I do about this, so you'll be glad to know that those living in luxury seem to have found a way to soothe their bad mood: they've gone shopping! Yes, while workaday Americans are scrambling just to cover the rent and buy groceries, the well-heeled are reported to be splurging again, indulging their consumer whims with such pricey pretties as exotic automobiles.

One analyst of trends in the luxury car market concedes that sales of Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, and other ultra-priced autos had been down the past couple of years. He explained that, "It didn't feel right buying a $300,000 Rolls-Royce when people were being foreclosed out of their homes." But this year, the elites are saying, "To hell with what the public thinks, I'm gonna get me a new Ferrari 458 Italia, the people be damned!"

How nice for them. But I don't think their conspicuous consumption is going to make anyone feel better about their greed and nor will it quell the public's rising populist fervor. "

Jim Hightower

Ford Gave Minimum Wage A Boost On This Day In 1914

On this day in 1914, the Ford Motor Company rolled out a series of initiatives targeted at improving the lives of its workers. Along with boosting the company's minimum wage to five dollars per day, Ford also unveiled plans to trim its work day to eight hours. Whatever the merits of these measures, they were something of a necessary corrective, designed to offset the potentially "dehumanizing" effects of Ford's recent move to perpetually operating mode of assembly-line production. Though the company was now able to churn out 2,000 autos a day, the quicksilver pace took a severe toll on FordÝs assembly-line workers.

Have You Had Your Movement Today?

On January 5, 1968 a movement began in Czechoslovakia. On this day in 2011, the GOTea Party movement gets sworn in and takes control of the US House of Representatives.

Time will tell what the GOTea movement brings. Will it bring momenteum or just motion. Will the country move ahead or backwards? Will the debt go up or down? Will the deficits turn to surplus? Will the jobs comeback? Time will tell...


A mass movement advocating political and economic reforms, including increased freedom of speech, travel and an end to state censorship, began in Czechoslovakia when Alexander Dubcek came to power as the head of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. "We shall have to remove everything that strangles artistic and scientific creativeness," he said. The time later became known as “Prague Spring.”

Who Put The Sand In The Vaseline?

The Navy is expected to relieve Capt. Owen Honors as commander of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise on Tuesday afternoon, a Defense Department official said, part of an investigation into a series of videos made by Honors that use anti-gay slurs and mimic masturbation.

The videos were shown to sailors on the Enterprise’s closed-circuit television system in 2006 and 2007, when Honors was the ship’s second-in-command. They include skits laden with sexual innuendo and barbs aimed at gays and the politically correct.