Free Republic

… Opponents of the carbon tax implemented in 2012 had the media largely on their side. Electricity prices soared—not mainly because of the tax, but because power companies were spending billions on infrastructure. Most electricity users were compensated for the added cost of the tax, but many of them didn’t know that. And rising gas prices fed the fury—even though the tax didn’t apply to gasoline. Australia’s experience illustrates how easy it is to scuttle complicated environmental laws, and serves as a warning to President Barack Obama, whose recent proposal to force a 30 percent cut in power plants’ carbon...

Obama’s inability to make a decision on Keystone has finally yielded a result – Canada has made the decision for him. Breitbart reports Canada has just approved the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project – a major pipeline to ship Canadian oil to Asia. The Canadian oil will still be burnt – in Asia, instead of America. All the jobs and energy security which Canadian oil could have delivered to America, will instead be delivered to Asia. Rather than purchasing crude from a friendly and allied neighbor, the United States will most likely need to continue its reliance upon hostile sources like...

That National Public Radio has nice things to say about socialism shouldn’t be surprising. After all, “Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public,” explains NPR’s own website. “Elimination of federal funding would result in fewer programs, less journalism…and eventually the loss of public radio stations.” NPR’s brand of journalism came under fire most recently when Republican Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn sponsored a bill in 2011 to defund the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. “Since 2001, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds programming for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, has received...

Speech Delivered by Josef Vissarionovich Stalin at a meeting of voters of the Stalin Electoral District, MoscowFebruary 9, 1946Comrades! Eight years have passed since the last elections to the Supreme Soviet. This has been a period replete with events of a decisive nature. The first four years were years of intense labour on the part of Soviet people in carrying out the Third Five-Year Plan. The second four years covered the events of the war against the German and Japanese aggressors -- the events of the Second World War. Undoubtedly, the war was the main event during the past period....

I was at a bar in Chehalis, WA where the conversation was very anti-capitalist. The bartender stated that he was pro-communist. I mentioned the fall of the Berlin Wall and he replied that capitalism was going to fall too. This guy is looking at the current recession as a vindication. The bar owner then jumped in to say that capitalism was everything wrong with the country and that things need to change. I pointed out that being a business owner makes her a capitalist. She then said that politics should not be discussed in a bar and ended the discussion....

NIKE has pulled a pair of leggings after the design was criticized for being racist. The monochrome print, which features on the label's Pro Tattoo Tech Tights, has caused controversy in Australia and New Zealand for its similarity to the traditional Samoan Pe'a male tattoo.

On Memorial Day weekend, 2 million people marched in protests against seed giant Monsanto for the purpose of bringing awareness to hazards from genetically modified food, which it and other companies manufacture. Organizer Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities in 52 countries. Genetically modified plants are grown from genetically modified, or engineered, seeds, which are created to resist insecticides and herbicides so that crops can be grown to withstand a weed-killing pesticide or integrate a bacterial toxin that can ward off pests. The Chicago Tribune reported that because genetically modified organisms are not listed on food or...

Genetic engineering in agriculture has disappointed many people who once had hopes for it. Excluding, of course, those who’ve made money from it, appropriately represented in the public’s mind by Monsanto. That corporation, or at least its friends, recently managed to have an outrageous rider slipped into the 587-page funding bill Congress sent to President Obama.[1] The rider essentially prohibits the Department of Agriculture from stopping production of any genetically engineered crop once it’s in the ground, even if there is evidence that it is harmful.

Young, single ladies: America is worried about you. You just keep going to college, moving to urban areas after graduation and finding yourselves outnumbering, sometimes dramatically, the available men of your demographic. How will you ever get married? How will you ever go from being the subject of one kind of magazine cover to being the subject of another? Clearly the best thing to do is stay back on the farm to live in a male-dense rural area, where the marriageable boys are there for your picking. Or it was, until Tuesday, when an enterprising New York Times journalist named...

Lisa Jackson is the boss at one of the most contentious government agencies in the Obama administration and is responsible for numerous controversial actions that will have a significant financial effect on American consumers: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). So it’s no wonder Congress is miffed to discover that her decision-making process on key issues was conducted in the most secretive manner Washington has ever devised—under an alias. Jackson’s secret identity email account name is “Richard Windsor.” The name is part family dog (Richard) and part hometown (East Windsor, N.J.), and it turns out there are at least 12,000 recently...

GLENDALE, Calif. (KABC) -- Proposition 37 is a measure to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food. There are two sides to this contentious issue.

.............From early childhood, Obama was raised in an intensely anti-American environment. His anthropologist mother hated her country with a passion -- so much so that when her second husband, Indonesian Lolo Soetoro, lost some of his anti-American zeal, she sent her son to Hawaii to save him from his stepfather's pernicious influence and instructed her father to enlist his friend, Frank Marshall Davis, in the cause of mentoring young Barack. Davis,a card-carrying communist of a rabid Stalinist variety but also a black nationalist,did his job remarkably well, infusing his ward with a Marxist-cum-black separatist worldview. In college, Obama blended eagerly...

The official theme of the GOP convention Wednesday night was "We Can Change That," but that didn’t stop several of the speakers from revisiting Tuesday’s theme, the base-rallying battle cry: “We Built It.” The message: The righteous exploitation of President Obama’s “You Didn’t Build That” gaffe isn’t going away. Ever since the president stood before a crowd of supporters in Roanoke, Va., on July 13 and, while explaining why the wealthy should pay more in taxes, uttered the infamous words “If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen,” conservatives have hammered him for his disregard...

Today, on Fox News Sunday: Video at Site

He finally came around to what other climate scientists have been spouting for years. Richard A. Muller, a physics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, announced over the weekend that his much-publicized investigation into climate data has found that humans' production of carbon dioxide is causing the world to slowly warm up. And this process could speed up dramatically in the coming years. Muller's conclusions attract special attention because of his vocal self-styling as a converted climate change skeptic. Muller criticized global warming studies for sloppy and self-serving data selection and a lack of transparency that obscured errors; he then...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum touted an 11th-hour endorsement from conservative Christian leaders on Sunday ahead of South Carolina's crucial nominating contest but it appeared to have little influence on churchgoers. With South Carolina's January 21 primary approaching, time is running short for Santorum and other Republican candidates who hope to slow front-runner Mitt Romney's march to the Republican presidential nomination..... ....."I make decisions for myself and I don't listen to what a bunch of leaders say to do," said Victoria Jaworowski, who was attending the Cathedral of Praise mega-church in North Charleston. The Christian leaders meeting in Texas only...

"Occupy Wall Street" has moved across the pond to St. Paul’s Cathedral and other London sites.Which way now Londoners?

Barack Obama, US president, offered more support for protesters against the global financial system after a weekend of demonstrations in cities around the world, but called on them not to “demonise” those who worked on Wall Street. On Sunday, Mr Obama honoured Martin Luther King at a dedication to a new memorial on National Mall in Washington. Referring to protests that have spread from Wall Street to London, Rome and elsewhere, Mr Obama said: “Dr King would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonising those who work there.” Mr Obama had previously said the protests “express...

All over america, bums illegal aliens Islamic Jihadists moochers pedophiles drunks addicts anarchists and other low life bottom feeders who make up the scum of society have been rallying and demanding the end of capitlism and freedom and in place a socialist dictatorship. Their unacceptable demands include a 20$ minimum wage, the collapse of our system, environmental laws, open borders, government restrictions on constitutionally guaranteed free speech/press and gun ownership and solidarity with Islam. With few exception the police have been quiet and done nothing when these gatherings spread into private property and/or become violent. Nudity, drug activity and public...

A Capitol political battle lasting years over placing restrictions on Wal-Mart and other big box retail stores flared anew Wednesday when the Senate Governance and Finance Committee approved union-backed legislation. The bill, Senate Bill 469 by Sen. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, would require proposed "superstore" projects to undergo an "economic impact report" before approval by local governments. It's the latest in a long-string of anti-big box bills; predecessors were vetoed by former Govs. Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

My post concerning Stephen Lerner yesterday has generated a ton of hits. For awhile if you searched for Stephen Lerner on Yahoo my blog post was #3 on the list. As of the time this post is entered it was still in the top 10. I didn’t do anything to put the post in the top 10, I have no idea how to even do such things. It begs the question how little old Steven Birn, a lawyer from Michigan, could generate an entry that hits the top 10 on a major news story. The answer is simple, the media...

The Doofus Defense is under attack. As longtime readers know, I coined that term leading up to the trial of Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, who, facing criminal charges, suddenly claimed to be woefully ignorant of their company's actions. In the recent financial crisis, bank executives were among the biggest doofuses (doofi?). Most insisted they couldn't have seen the crisis coming. No one could. It was — cue the Wall Street cliché machine - "the perfect storm." Consider, for example, Lehman Brothers, whose bankruptcy precipitated the Great Recession in September 2008. Lehman's CEO, Dick Fuld, had one reported...

Hacker group Anonymous (aka OperationLeaks on Twitter) just released what they say is a trove of damning documents on Bank of America.You can find them here: bankofamericasuck.comRemember, at this point, we can't verify whether they are legitimate or not, but Gawker's Adrien Chen, who has sources within Anonymous, suggest there's something real to the leaks.Anonymous says the emails deal with BofA's mortgage practices, but the source is not an employee of Bank of America proper -- the source is a former employee from Balboa Insurance, a firm which used to be owned by BofA. Click here to see what Bank...

Hacker group Anonymous (aka OperationLeaks on Twitter) just released what they say is a trove of damning documents on Bank of America. You can find them here: bankofamericasuck.com

He gets it? Seriously? After two years of the most massive government intervention into the economy since LBJ's Great Society and, arguably, the most intrusive insertion of U.S. government powers into free markets and the lives of free people - e.g. health care - President Barack Obama told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last Monday he now understands the profit motive. "Now, I understand the challenges you face," Obama told America's biggest business lobby. "I understand that you're under incredible pressure to cut costs and keep your margins up. I understand the significance of your obligations to your shareholders. I...

Notwithstanding Obama’s lack of constitutional eligibility for the office he occupies as a direct result of his father’s citizenship, Obama can’t even prove he is an American. In fact the only thing we can confirm about Obama is that he is a foreigner–foreign to America, foreign to the english language, and ignorant of our history. At this late date, after millions of dollars spent, people mysteriously dying, and the jailing of a decorated Army officer–all of whom questioned Obama’s legality–any so called ‘birth certificate’ produced now is nothing more than suspect, and it is more than likely another faked document…a...

It has been fascinating to observe the reactions of anti-regulation zealots to the film "Inside Job." Many — including Paul Sperry in his Nov. 18 column on this page, "10 Reasons You Should Not Waste Your Money On Film 'Inside Job,'" — have resorted to constructing a sort of alternate economic history of the past 20 years. In this alternate history, the culprit behind the subprime mortgage meltdown and ensuing economic crisis wasn't deregulated investment banks or speculators taking absurd risks. Instead, it was the poor, aided and abetted by advocates like us at the Greenlining Institute who worked to...

"In France the last few weeks has been enough protest. Since demonstrating in the street have brought us nothing we understand that the real power lies in the hands of international banks and corporations. All citizens of the country resolve your accounts in cash.

The big banks claim that they have paid back all of the bailout money they received, and that the taxpayers have actually made money on the bailouts. However, as Barry Ritholtz notes: Pro Publica has been maintaining a list of bailout recipients, updating the amount lent versus what was repaid. So far, 938 Recipients have had $607,822,512,238 dollars committed to them, with $553,918,968,267 disbursed. Of that $554b disbursed, less than half — $220,782,546,084 — has been returned. Whenever you hear pronunciations of how much money the TARP is making, check back and look at this list. It shows the TARP...

Implicitly acknowledging the decline of American dominance, Barack Obama on Sunday said the US was no longer in a position to "meet the rest of the world economically on our terms". Speaking at a town hall meeting in Mumbai, he said, "I do think that one of the challenges that we are going face in the US, at a time when we are still recovering from the financial crisis is, how do we respond to some of the challenges of globalisation? The fact of the matter is that for most of my lifetime and I'll turn 50 next year -...

Here is link to live stream: http://interactive.foxnews.com/livestream/live.html?chanId=4

The tangled web woven by George Soros served as a safety net for Barack Obama when he needed rescue from the exposure of Jeremiah Wright as an America-hating radical. Pastor Jim Wallis lied about receiving money from George Soros's Open Society Institute. His organization, Sojourners, is a leftist "social justice" type of ministry. He, and Sojourners, have a history with Barack Obama that I have been tracking for a few years. When the Jeremiah Wright scandal erupted, candidate Barack Obama had to find religion -- fast. Fortunately , for him, he had a backup Pastor in place and ready to...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency comes as close to George Orwell’s version of Big Brother as any element of the federal government. It operates on a totally irrational basis, ignoring anything that even passes for real science. Through its regulatory power imposes insane mandates that drive up the cost of everything and is trying to drive major elements of energy provision out of business. What, for example, is the EPA doing offering “tips to protect eyes, skin from the Sun’s harmful rays”? Does the EPA sell sunscreen products? ...Charged with keeping the U.S. waters clean, why has the EPA launched...

"Andy Stern, A Member of Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Says ‘Worshipping the Market’ Has Failed America" PHOTO CAPTION: "Andy Stern, former head of Services Employees International Union (SEIU) and a President Barack Obama appointee to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, said on Monday that the free market has failed the country and American workers. He made his remarks at a conference of the Campaign for America's Future in Washington, D.C., on Monday. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)" SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – Andy Stern, the former head of the Service Employees International Union who now sits on President Obama's National Commission on...

NEW YORK – The policy director at a George Soros-funded, Marxist-founded organization calling itself Free Press has just taken a key State Department position, WND has learned. Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott has been named a policy adviser for innovation at the State Department.

Political content in some of this week’s new dvds: Crazy Heart, The Young Victoria, The Lovely Bones, Peacock, Mammoth, Surviving Crooked Lake… one of those movies is a huge leftist preach-fest... plus: Earth Day is tomorrow... that means: non-3D Avatar on dvd... and that means "Oceans" will arrive in theaters... can you expect any preaching?

Wall Street is more than a little suspicious of today’s charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has accused Goldman Sachs of lying to investors about who was really behind junk mortgages securities it sold to clients. Barclays banking analyst Roger Freeman comes right out and blasts the SEC effort as “a well-timed, and perhaps not coincidental, effort to sway some on-the-fence Republicans” to get tough on financial reform. ....He says Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chris Dodd has targeted a vote on the Senate bill for April 26, “and given the short span of time between now and the...

check out all of the political content contained in the dvds released this week... boy do we ever have a grab bag this week... a little Libertarian content, some good ole leftist content, and even some R-rated Christian content...

If the financial regulation bill that passed the House last year becomes law, President Obama and his Treasury Secretary will acquire the right to take over any financial institution they wish to, provided that, in their sole opinion, it is both “too big to fail” and on the brink of insolvency. The House bill provides for no judicial review and does not require any objective evidence of imminent failure to trigger the takeover provisions. Once the government takes over such a company, it will acquire the right to replace the entire board of directors, fire the management of the company,...

Obama's health care reform bill is not really reform but corporate socialism that will bilk Americans out of more of their money for premiums and force them to pay more of their money to corporate health giants. Not only this it will curtail our civil liberties and lead us into socialist despotism. In a previous article I pointed out that this tragedy was inevitable that America would eventually have some kind of universal insurance Like in Britain or mandated insurance like in Massachusetts. In fact the bill is like Massachusetts health care but far far worse. Liberal elitists in the...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/14/president-wall-street-we-want-our-money-back-and-were-going-get-it Home • The White House Blog The White House Blog The President to Wall Street: "We Want Our Money Back, and We're Going to Get It" Posted by Jesse Lee on January 14, 2010 at 03:59 PM EST Read the Transcript | Download Video: mp4 (137MB) | mp3 (6MB) Discussing Wall Street executives' reaction to his proposed new fees on major banks, the President delivered a simple message: "Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal, or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee,...

WASHINGTON -- With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits, and businesses -- possibly higher taxes. So far, 25 states, including California, New York, Texas and Michigan, have run out of unemployment insurance money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government -- loans that are interest free. By 2011, 15 more states will have exhausted their jobless trust funds and need $90 billion in loans to keep handing out benefit checks, according to federal projections. The federal government, however, is already up to its eyeballs in red ink, finishing...

Bolivian President Evo Morales, addressing climate delegates in Copenhagen, suggested a world referendum on climate change, and stated: “The real cause of climate change is the capitalist system. If we want to save the earth then we must end that economic model. Capitalism wants to address climate change with carbon markets. We denounce those markets and the countries which [promote them]. It’s time to stop making money from the disgrace that they have perpetrated.”

Gorbachev and his ilk call for ‘new thinking,’ but really mean new ways to dictate how people should live This week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the U.S. Congress that inaction on climate change amounted to a new “Berlin Wall” of “short- sighted self-interest.” Ms. Merkel’s claim was upside down. There is indeed a new threat to freedom in the offing, but it is the Green Wall that she is recommending. It will span the globe, and there will be no escape. What collapsed twenty years ago was Communism. What didn’t collapse was anti-capitalism, which remains the principle driver of...

Barack Obama is a Fabian socialist. I should know; I was raised by one. My Grandfather worked as a union machinist for Ingersoll Rand (nyse: IR - news - people ) during the day. In the evenings he tended bar and read books. After his funeral, I went back home and started working my way through his library, starting with T.W. Arnold's The Folklore of Capitalism. This was my introduction to the Fabian socialists. Fabians believed in gradual nationalization of the economy through manipulation of the democratic process.

PITTSBURGH — Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke at marchers protesting the Group of 20 summit Thursday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins and throwing rocks. The march turned chaotic at just about the time that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world's major economies. The clashes began after hundreds of protesters, many advocating against capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the convention center where the summit is being held.

Van Jones is the latest romantic, pseudo-revolutionary surrounding Obama to carve out a capitalist career in the field of duping liberals. New Communiqué from the Ministry of TruthAt one point, the Obama administration was bragging about bagging one Van Jones; Valerie Jarrett, in fact, even gushed that they had been scouting the erstwhile mostly unknown Jones for quite a while. The word czar was employed of his new responsibilities, and we were subsequently lectured that “over $80 million” in stimulus money was going to be under Jones’s control—given his innovative “green jobs” approach that married civil rights with radical...

Last night, for the first time, I watched the movie, The Fugitive, from start to finish. The film is about a surgeon, falsely accused and convicted of murdering his wife, who escapes during a prison transfer, and is pursued by a US marshall. For Chicagoans, the film is one of the great movie portrayals of the city. But I now believe the classic moment in the movie comes in the 82nd minute. Harrison Ford, playing the falsely accused doctor, Richard Kimble, tries to lose himself from his pursuers by joining in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. This parade always draws...

NEW YORK – Wall Street's March rally is on hold after the White House rejected turnaround plans from General Motors Corp. and Chrysler and gave investors an economic reality check. Major indexes fell about 3 percent Monday, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which lost about 254 points but finished well off its lows. Financial stocks weighed heavily on the market amid worries that banks will need fresh injections of capital. Fears of an automaker bankruptcy have been looming over investors for months, and the latest developments, which included the removal of GM's CEO Rick Wagoner, made the market uneasy...

IF you think there are no consequences to hysterical, anti-corporate grandstanding in Washington, pay attention to what's happening across the pond: "This is just the beginning." So warned a public letter signed this week by a vigilante group called "Bank Bosses are Criminals." The thugs claimed responsibility for vandalizing a former financial executive's home and car in Edinburgh, Scotland. The bank official, Sir Fred Goodwin, had been excoriated by UK politicians for refusing to give up company pension benefits dubbed "obscene," "grotesque," "unjustifiable and unacceptable." The vigilantes were stoked by a former newspaper editor, one Max Hastings, who wrote a...