Free Republic

“Mitch McConnell has an unusual admonition for the new Republican majority as it takes over the Senate this week: Don’t be ‘scary.’”... Democrats are dubious of McConnell’s pledge to avert edge-of-the-cliff moments. They believe he will run into the same problems that have bedeviled House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) during the past four years — including the inability to corral rabble-rousers such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to support an agenda that conservative critics will probably view as not bold enough in challenging Obama. Appeasing those far-right conservatives will lead to an agenda that Democrats hope to exploit in...

French economist Thomas Piketty, author of the surprise best-selling Capital in the 21st Century turned down France's top award, the Legion D'Honneur. "I do not think it is the government's role to decide who is honourable", said Piketty. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman called it "the most important economics book of the year - and maybe of the decade". Krugman likely says that because he believes in Piketty's socialist solutions to income inequality. Thomas Piketty's Capital Review Piketty's book is a massive 696-page slog. Fortunately, Harvard Business Review offers this synopsis: Piketty’s “Capital,” in a Lot Less than 696 Pages.The...

The folks over at the New York Times are keeping up their tradition of shilling for big government spending. In a recent column, the Times suggests that a recent uptick in government spending is creating prosperity, and boosting the economy. According to the Times: For a long stretch, government spending cutbacks at all levels were a substantial drag on economic growth. Now, finally, relief is in sight. For the first time since 2011, local, state and federal governments are providing a small but significant increase to prosperity.Yeah… Government is taking your money, spending it on redistributive welfare programs and special interest...

The CIA should be abolished. After a trial run of 67 years, the agency has proven a sorcerer’s apprentice. The director and his subordinates have became insufferably arrogant Platonic Guardians hiding behind secrecy in the belief that the rest of us are too stupid or naive to judge what risks to accept to preserve liberty and the rule of law. The CIA has made Americans less safe. Its incorrigible anti-democratic ethos was epitomized by legendary chief of counterintelligence James J. Angleton. He voiced contempt for the Church Committee’s investigation of chronic agency abuses, i.e., the “Family Jewels.” As reported in...

I’m tempted to feel a certain degree of sympathy for Paul Krugman. As a leading proponent of the notion that bigger government stimulates growth (a.k.a., Keynesian economics), he’s in the rather difficult position of rationalizing why the economy was stagnant when Obama first took office and the burden of government spending was rising. And he also has to somehow explain why the economy is now doing better at a time when the fiscal burden of government is declining.

Now that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have launched their new friendship initiative with Cuba, progressives are thinking more optimistically about what else might be possible in the remainder of the president’s term. After all, since the November 2014 elections, Obama has moved sharply left on immigration, climate change, and net neutrality. So why shouldn’t the Left hope for more? What might be next on the Obama agenda? Breitbart News has obtained one such to-do list: 10. Marijuana to be completely decriminalized under the ever-expanding doctrine of “prosecutorial discretion.” In the meantime, the administration will push...

Reflections on the Problem of Political Opposition... In the Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers declared the only legitimate purpose of government: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness… that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” So, this was not just the plan for the United States. This part of the Declaration comes before the listing of our Founders’...

New Year’s Day will usher in hundreds of new laws in California, including a landmark law that allows undocumented individuals to receive a driver’s license. In all, California will add 930 new laws, most of which will go into effect Thursday. Some of the most talked-about laws won’t take effect until July, such as a statewide ban on plastic bags, required sick leave for employees and a requirement that new smartphones come with antitheft technology.

BLAND, Va. — Virginians who try to sell homemade food from their kitchens are feeling the heat from state and local inspectors.“I have to turn down my neighbors when they ask if they can buy pesto I make from my own basil plants,” says Bernadette Barber, a farmer in Lancaster, Va.And this isn’t just a rural phenomenon.In Arlington, government inspectors shut down a home-based soup maker, even though no customer complaints had been registered. Others have encountered similar fates, stripping them of needed income.Legislation served up for the 2015 General Assembly would turn the tables.HB 1290, sponsored by Delegate Rob...

Many parents undoubtedly think they are doing the best for their children by having them bring lunch from home instead of eating the lunches served in school. But recent studies clearly prove them wrong. Home-packed lunches, the research showed, are likely to be considerably less nourishing than the meals offered in schools that abide by current nutrition guidelines for the National School Lunch Program. That program is, distressingly, increasingly under attack. But the program must not continue to be undermined, and more schools should be encouraged to participate. Nearly 32 million of the more than 50 million children in public...

Early in the morning, two hundred thirty eight years ago, George Washington and the Continental Army reached the outskirts of Trenton, New Jersey. Much like today, no-one really wanted to go to New Jersey, but they were forced by circumstances to make the arduous trek. Washington’s force of 2,400 men surprised, and ultimately defeated, the 1,400 Hessian mercenaries who were fighting on behalf of the British Crown. A much needed win was tallied under the Patriot’s side of the scoreboard, emboldening the Continental Army and our quest for freedom. Washington had lead his men through the icy waters of the...

More than 70 tribal nations have urged the U.S. Senate to defeat or remove a section of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act that would transfer a part of the publicly-owned Tonto National Forest that is sacred to the San Carlos Apache Tribe to a giant international corporation for a massive, environmentally devastating copper mine. “If such a land transfer provision seems out of place in a defense bill, that’s because it is. If the idea of transferring the ownership of federal forest lands to foreign mining companies seems absurd, it’s because that’s true, too,” said Fawn Sharp, President of...

The Senate voted to pass its annual National Defense Authorization Act on Friday , sending Montana’s first wilderness additions in 33 years to President Barack Obama’s desk. The National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $585 billion in Pentagon discretionary spending and $63.7 billion in overseas contingency operations.It also includes a package of 70 public land management bills; the biggest collection since the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. They create about 250,000 acres of new wilderness designations and protection of other lands from energy development. Other measures open thousands of acres to logging in Alaska and swaps federal lands for...

Jonathan Gruber seems to be giving the propagandists of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia a run for their money. In addition to bragging about hoodwinking the American public into believing that healthcare reform was actually about reforming healthcare, he has also called abortion a “social good” because it kills “marginal children” in poor communities. This gem of a human being, unsurprisingly, was also a vocal advocate for former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s cigarette tax… Ya know, the $5.85 tax on each pack of smokes (which inevitably drives tobacco sales to the criminal, tax-evading, entrepreneurs like Eric Garner)? According to Breitbart.com:Michael Bloomberg, who is...

Given that our Commander in Chief is a surprisingly decent firearm salesman, it’s a little odd that one of America’s most prolific gun manufacturers might soon be facing an agonizing financial death. But, that’s exactly where Colt is headed if things don’t change drastically. It takes a very specialized form of failure for a gun company to miss out on the Obama-inspired run on guns, the “assault weapon” craze of the 2000’s, and the proliferation of Concealed Carry in the 1990’s, but that’s exactly what happened. And, worse, this isn’t Colt’s first foray into fiscal failure. In fact, this...

What’s the easiest way to avoid getting sued by the Obama Administration? Well… If you come up with an answer, let the rest of us know. A company that has supported the President and his Affordable Care Act, is currently being sued by Obama for following the law. (Wait… “Affordable” Care Act? Can we sue Democrats for false advertising yet?)Welcome to Obama’s America. Where you can literally get sued for trying to comply with the law. (Boy… That’ll teach you.)Honeywell International Inc., and two smaller firms, are being sued for taking advantage of a specific provision in the ACA that...

Few Americans who entered polling booths for the Nov. 4 election and pulled the lever for their favorite candidate for Senate realize that for most of American history, senators were chosen by the state legislatures. It wasn’t until 1913 that the 17thAmendment was passed, granting American voters the constitutional right of directly electing their senators.While this important amendment may seem innocuous, the reality is that few other changes to our Constitution have had the same detrimental effect on our nation than this single, nearly forgotten alteration.The passage of the 17th Amendment was driven largely by the populist movement of the...

(CNSNews.com) – The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed corporations to reduce their health care costs by rewarding employees for voluntarily participating in workplace “wellness” programs to help them lose weight or stop smoking. But now three of those programs are the target of discrimination lawsuits by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which says they are neither voluntary nor legal. EEOC recently filed its third wellness lawsuit, claiming that Honeywell International, Inc.’s ACA-approved wellness program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Honeywell recently informed employees and their spouses who were enrolled in the company’s health benefits plan that...

Here's a kick in the pants for Wal-Mart haters and lovers of big government, two groups that almost perfectly overlap.

Obama asked Congress on Monday for $263 million for the federal response to the civil rights upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri, and is setting up a task force to study how to improve modern-day policing. The funds would pay for body cameras for police officers to use and expand training for law enforcement in an attempt to build trust in communities such as Ferguson, where a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the August shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, the White House said... The $263 million would be spread over three years and would...