Free Republic

Hip hop artist and activist Jasiri X (right) speaks during a town hall discussion on Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., and police brutality as Ron Hampton, former executive director of the National Black Police Association looks on.WASHINGTON (NNPA) – During a rousing, standing-room only town hall discussion dedicated to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and police killings of young, Black men across the nation, Ron Daniels, declared, “a state of emergency in Black America.” Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), a group devoted to the social, political and economic...

I had read about Moms Demanding Action's strident calling for a boycott of Kroger's over MDA's dislike of the exercise of the second amendment.  I had also read the new media's urging to show support for Kroger's polite reply that the MDA's should mind their own business.   Of course, political manipulation is the MDA's business... and that runs exactly contrary to the limits on government that allow for toleration of others. So I stopped at Fry's and filled up the tank.   I was open carrying, as I usually am in Arizona, especially at this time of year.  Opening day...

If you were wondering why the White House suddenly took an interest in the consequences of tax inversion deals last spring, here is the reason – a pair of Wall Streeters with ties to the Obama administration made some calls on behalf of AstraZeneca which, you may recall, was trying to fend off an unwanted bid from Pfizer. Pfizer cited a tax inversion as one reason for its offer. Specifically, AstraZeneca employed Thomas Nides, a Morgan Stanley vice chairman who was deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration until last year, and who also served in the Clinton administration....

Three things fast food workers should do with the “extra” money you’ll get if the national minimum wage is raised from $7.25 to $15 per hour. For argument sake, let’s call the average minimum wage $7.85 to account for California, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Illinois and Florida, all of whom have something in the neighborhood of $8 (give or take).  Socialist enclaves of Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Connecticut are in the $9 range, with Washington the winner at $9.32. Let’s also set the number of hours per week at 30 for the average burger-flipper or fry...

An extensive interview with Steve Forbes on the gold standard, economics and America's future. We touch on topics including among others: *The link between foreign policy/American strength and monetary policy *How currency devaluation helps the financial sector to the detriment of the rest of the American economy [Starting at 3:00] *The significance of a strong currency in enabling trade and thus trust, and social stability/morality *Why the historical record of the gold standard should trump the arguments of its naysayers *Whether politicians will ever be incentivized to truly support a sound dollar *Why quantitative easing was more disastrous than the...

Tungsten is an extremely hard, robust rare metal that has the highest melting point of all the elements, at 3422 °C (6192 °F). It also has a density that is 19.3 times that of water and about 1.7 times that of lead, which makes it comparable to uranium and gold. And now, a Philips-owned company is 3D printing it. Netherlands-based Smit Röntgen, a medical imaging parts manufacturer, has used Direct Metal Laser Sintering to 3D print tungsten parts. The company began researching the potential of 3D printing tungsten as a business opportunity over a decade ago and announced on Monday...

"The question is not whether we wish to see everybody as well off as possible. Among men of goodwill such an aim can be taken for granted. The real question concerns the proper means of achieving it. And in trying to answer this we must never lose sight of a few elementary truisms. We cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces."

Bureaucrats too young to remember the cold war are now turning Europe into a communist state, Putin must be laughing London, England –“That’s it! I’ve had it. I am voting UKIP (the party that wants separation from the EU) from now on!” my husband exclaimed to me this weekend when yet another store was out of stock of the high powered vacuum we wanted to buy before they were banned. He has been a Tory all his life, but this personal intrusion into how we decide to consume is consuming him with anger. As of this past Monday it is...

Investing money in or starting small businesses-- Backbone of America In a moment of recent hand-wringing, the Fed examined the question of why inflation has stayed extremely low in the United States despite all the efforts of quantitative easing money pumping. Their answer: American consumers are mainly to blame. Yes indeed. In a paper released this week by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the Fed cites “low level of money movement in large part on consumers and their “willingness to hoard money.”. To be fair, the paper also criticized its own policies as well, suggesting that the has they have...

Speaker John A. Boehner outlined the September legislative agenda in a Wednesday afternoon conference call with House Republican lawmakers, describing a scheduled 12-day session that will be “brief, but busy.” The most pressing item on the agenda is a short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown on Sept. 30, but Boehner also spoke strongly and at length, according to a read-out from a source on the call, in favor of using the remaining legislative days before the November elections to draw “a very stark contrast between ourselves and the Democrats who run Washington.” The Republican-led House, Boehner said, “is...

On Tuesday, LA Weekly reported that several upscale restaurants in the City of Angels will be adding a 3 percent surcharge to cover their employees' healthcare costs, a trend that has been gaining steam since the Affordable Care Act launched nearly one year ago. Beginning on September 1, restaurants Lucques, Tavern, A.O.C, and a few offshoots all added a 3 percent surcharge to customers' checks, explicitly stating in a press release their decisions hinged on covering employee healthcare costs. Lucques Group, Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne, owners of the restaurants, also named several other restaurant groups that will be duplicating...

Immigrants who are in California illegally make up nearly 10% of the state's workforce and contribute $130 billion annually to its gross domestic product, according to a report by researchers at USC released Wednesday. The study, which was conducted in conjunction with the California Immigrant Policy Center, was based on Census data and other statistics, including data from the departments of Labor and Homeland Security. It looked at a variety of ways the estimated 2.6-million immigrants living in California without permission participate in state life.Among the study's findings: • Immigrants who are in California illegally make up 38% of the...

“There’s a sucker born every minute” A phrase of unknown origin—usually associated with P.T. Barnum, of Barnum & Bailey Circus fame.  Barnum would never have called his patrons “suckers”, as he always wanted to give them their money’s worth, as long as he made money doing it.  There’s only two levers to pull in making money:  take in more, or spend less.  Since Barnum’s day, this has not changed. The notable exception is government.  At all levels, but especially the federal government, they add weights and counterbalances to the levers of business, and expect business to simply keep pulling the...

The Slave State Qatar exploits migrant workers to the point where they are considered modern day slaves. Despite having the highest per capita income in the entire world for its citizens, while construction booms in Doha, workers from countries such as Nepal and India work in awful conditions for less than $1 per hour. There are an estimated 1.4 million migrant workers – non-citizens – in Qatar, from countries including India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Under the Kalafa (sponsorship) system, foreign workers cannot change jobs and are often denied the right to leave the country. Workers’ passports are regularly seized...

Here are the details for the gun turn in event in Cleveland, Ohio on Saturday, 6 September,  2014.  While these events are commonly labeled with the propaganda term "buyback" the guns were never owned by the people attempting to buy them. The event will be held at the same location that it was last year, Public Safety Central, 2001 Payne Avenue.  It will run from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.  From newsnet5.com: In exchange for the working handgun or semi-automatic weapon, people will get either a $100 or $200 Target gift card or a gift card for gas or...

In the wake of a media firestorm raging against the Christian owners of a bridal shop who refused to supply wedding dresses for lesbian brides, the town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania is debating a possible law on whether shop owners have a right to refuse business to customers. Breitbart News reported last month that when Victoria and Thomas Miller, owners of the W.W. Bridal Boutique in Bloomsburg refused to provide wedding dresses to lesbian brides because of their religious beliefs, they were bullied on social media and their website had been hacked to suggest their store had closed under pressure from...

SEPTEMBER 2, 2014 The Corrupt Bargain Detroit’s Bankruptcy, A Rogues’ Gallery. By Kevin D. Williamson Detroit has long been run by criminals. Former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, currently known as prisoner No. 44678-039 in the federal lockup at El Reno, Okla., ran an outright criminal enterprise out of City Hall, and was subsequently convicted on charges ranging from racketeering and extortion to bribery and fraud. He managed to make sewage even dirtier than it is, taking at least $1 million in kickbacks for contracts in the city’s water department. He also signed off on an odd and probably illegal deal to...

President Obama appeared at a Labor Day event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he told a crowd of union supporters that "American workers and the American economy are better off since I became president."Since it is widely acknowledged that Americans have given Obama record setting disapproval numbers relative to his handling of the U.S. economy - we decided to fact check this statement. First let's review how America feels about this statement. According to the latest Gallup poll, a mere 35% of the country approves of Obama's handling of the economy. NBC News/Wall St Journal reported the same 35% (with 71%...

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn says he will live on $79 this week.. in a showcase for his call to raise the state’s minimum wage to a nice round ten dollars per hour… and he thinks that will help his campaign. Now, we can certainly grant that it’s a clever bit of showmanship – a governor being paid $177,000/year can hire an accountant to estimate the after-tax, after-housing funds of a “typical minimum wage worker” and then profess to be living on that amount for a week. He can hope that it showcases the need he imagines for poor people to...

Last August, Amazon flew about 80 writers on its Thomas & Mercer mystery and thriller imprint—including me—to Seattle for a conference. They put us up at the Westin downtown, a nice hotel by any standard, and spent the weekend feeding us well and serving us top-shelf booze at an increasingly fabulous series of parties. There were tourist outings, the usual conference mix of panels and workshops, and a non-stressful visit to the Amazon Death Star. Also, they gave us a free Kindle Paperwhite, a nice touch. With a few exceptions, none of the writers at the conference were particularly famous;...