Free Republic

The oil price collapse is not over yet. It is more likely that the Brent price could fall back into the mid-$50 range than that it will continue to rise toward $70 per barrel. That is because oil prices have risen based on sentiment alone. The fundamentals of supply and demand indicate a dismal reality: oil prices will fall and may fall hard in the near term. Our present situation is like that of the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote. He routinely ran off of a cliff and as long as he didn’t look down, everything was fine. But as...

NEW ORLEANS — The American Federation for Children, which wants a dramatic expansion of charter schools and voucher programs, picked a boxing theme for its annual policy summit this week. Red boxing gloves became table centerpieces at the opening lunch Monday. Panel titles included "Knocking out yesterday's education models" and "Training parents to win the fight." And the first keynote speaker was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely Republican presidential contender who is best known for aggressively fighting and weakening his state's education labor unions..... ....Wisconsin is home to the nation's first modern voucher system. The state adopted legislation in...

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- While it's hard to predict the markets, when it comes to the month of May, one thing is for certain: You'll hear someone say, at least once, "sell in May and go away." The cliché, which suggests that smart investors should sell off their portfolios in May and only re-enter the market in the fall, has long been part of Wall Street culture, but where does it come from? The saying dates back to old England, when the stock brokers would go on summer vacation in May and not return until September. The original saying was,...

While we constantly analyze short-term data, the industry has a longer-term problem. And it is not related to what lies below the ground. There is a retirement tidal wave that could wash over the oil and gas industry over the next few years. The seeds of this crisis were planted in the late 1980’s after the last major oil bust. Oil prices crashed after Saudi Arabia became fed up with losing market share, and beginning around 1986, it pumped flat out in order to force out other producers. The price of oil crashed and a lot of US drillers cut...

The New Hampshire House Business Caucus, in partnership with the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, will host its fourth in a series of business roundtables with presidential candidates, on Monday, June 1, at 9 a.m. at The Draft restaurant, 67 South Main St. in Concord, according to a press statement. The featured speaker, and declared presidential candidate, will be Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. “The momentum continues to build as we have more and more candidates take part in this series. We have had a terrific response and level of interest from the business community, the candidates, and state elected...

What the EPA is attempting to impose on America is a drain on our production of electricity coupled with an increase in its price. It is an obscene attack on our economy There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science, and which threaten the economy. Currently, its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor...

A man who drove his wife to A Woman’s Choice abortion clinic in Raleigh, North Carolina has attacked a group, which refers to themselves as abolitionists against abortion, after he perceived they were accusing his wife of having an abortion. Abolitionists claim they hold to the tenants outlined by Abolish Human Abortion (AHA), and do not want to be linked in any way to the pro-life movement because they favor incremental strategies to end abortion. In the first video of the man, who drove his wife to the abortion clinic, he initially speaks with the abolitionists calmly, explaining that he...

Transgender issues are the next frontier of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights movement. A string of high-profile cases, such as a Kansas judge’s decision to allow Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to change her name to Chelsea and Olympian Bruce Jenner’s televised coming out as a transgender woman, coupled with a series of gay rights victories, have opened discussions of transgender rights. Here are seven things to know about the trans community. The basics Gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same; a transgender person, of which there are an estimated 700,000 nationwide, can be straight, gay, lesbian...

The best I can do is to wish you good luck. You’re going to need it. All manner of people are giving commencement speeches to students graduating from colleges and universities these days. It is doubtful that any will be remembered because the prospects of students depend in large part on the economy into which they are entering, the majors they pursued, their individual ambitions, and capacity for hard work. Then, too, there’s dumb luck which often plays a role. For those graduating this year, my profound sympathy because the economy could not be much worse short of being declared...

Some really weird things are happening in the financial world right now. If you go back to 2008, there was lots of turmoil bubbling just underneath the surface during the months leading up to the great stock market crash in the second half of that year. When Lehman Brothers finally did collapse, it was a total shock to most of the planet, but we later learned that their problems had been growing for a long time. I believe that we are in a similar period right now, and the second half of this year promises to be quite chaotic. Apparently,...

The Textron Scorpion costs $20 million, still not exactly a bargain by most people's standards, but a fifth of the cost of the F-35. It suggests that not every advanced defence project has to necessarily come in years late and billions over budget – and points to a new twist in not only the future of fighter-jet design, but also in more humanitarian roles that a budget jet could carry out. Textron aren’t the only ones creating the tech to address this issue. The single jet fighter JF-17 is a Chinese design, currently being built in collaboration with its sole...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)An Amtrak employee has filed the first lawsuit in connection to Tuesday's deadly train derailment that killed eight people and injured over 200 others in Philadelphia. The Bala Cynwyd law firm Coffey Kaye Myers & Olley, which is representing Amtrak employee Bruce Phillips and his wife Kalita Phillips of Philadelphia, confirmed with NBC10 that their clients are filing a lawsuit against Amtrak. Phillips is still hospitalized at Temple University Hospital. Phillips, an Amtrak employee, was "deadheading" in one of the rear railcars of Amtrak Regional Train 188 Tuesday night when the derailment occurred, according to the lawsuit. Deadheading is a...

Repopulating Detroit—With Syrians! MARK KRIKORIAN May 15, 2015 Jeb Bush called for admitting more immigrants to “repopulate” Detroit: It just seems to me that maybe if you open up our doors in a fair way and unleashed the spirit of peoples’ hard work, Detroit could become in really short order, one of the great American cities again. Now it would look different, it wouldn’t be Polish…But it would be just as powerful, just as exciting, just as dynamic. And that’s what immigration does and to be fearful of this, it just seems bizarre to me. This wasn’t a one-time thing....

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warned financial institutions that they could be prosecuted if they deny home loans to persons subsisting on welfare benefits. CFPB Director Richard Cordray asserted that "placing ability to repay ahead of need is contrary to federal regulations. Just because a person cannot support himself or herself doesn't mean he or she should be excluded from the benefits of home ownership. Every person has an inalienable right to own a home. Lenders have a moral obligation to help people achieve this right." "For banks to argue that the risks of default and foreclosure should preclude...

Irresponsible NGOs like Greenpeace are running roughshod over societies. It's high time to stop that menace! The “new energy” comes out of the proclamations by non-government, non-accountable, and totally irresponsible organisations like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, D. Suzuki Foundation, 350-org, Avaaz, and their THOUSANDS of offshoots, affiliates, sympathizers, hangers-on, and totally blind, deaf, and entirely misled cohorts. Just look at Greenpeace’s latest demonstration at the hotel of the G7-Energy-Ministers in Germany, on May 12, 2015, at Hamburg, Germany, a prelude to this year’s COP-21 conference at Paris. Let me translate their message on the yellow signs (from their website): “STOP COAL...

A couple of weeks ago, I received the expected rejection from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma on my application to attend their "workshop for journalists on covering guns and gun violence".   I expected it because it is clear that the "workshop" has become a mere exercise in producing disarmist propaganda, rather than an objective effort designed to help journalists get their facts right on events involving guns.  To giver credit where due,  Bruce Shapiro, Director at Dart, is unfailingly polite in the rejection email. For a short period, it seemed that there might be hope of balance,...

In a pilot program designed to reduce GHG emissions and safety risks and provide better clean food preparation in mobile food vending, the Big Apple will be home to the next generation of eco-friendly food carts.Food carts, while being convenient for consumers and a good small business venture for foodies and entrepreneurs, are also a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution, as well as being potential public safety hazards from their onboard propane tanks. And in a metropolis like New York City, with some 8000 mobile food carts on the streets, the environmental and health effects of...

Attorney Marc Victor in a tie;  Rick Bailey in the gray shirt The good news is that Rick Bailey has had his expensive gun collection returned.  The bad news is that he had to fight for it in court in the first place, in spite of never being convicted of any offense.   From the canadafreepress.com: BELLEVUE, WA – A retired Navy veteran in Arizona whose gun collection had been seized by Glendale police now has his firearms back, the Second Amendment Foundation revealed today. SAF had intervened in the case of Glendale resident Rick Bailey early last month, taking...

Reflections on the May 12, 2015 Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia... First Day at School You’re a gym teacher at a new school, in charge of 30 kids in a gym, on your first day at work. You can’t keep your eye on all of them at once. While you were helping a couple of kids improve their free throws at one end, you hear a shout at the other end of the gym; one kid knocked another down. Scenario 1: You don’t know either kid at all, so you objectively ask the kids to all explain what happened. You...

For project developers seeking the next big petro-play, some key news this week. With lawmakers in America moving to open one of the biggest swaths of new acreage in the history of the industry. On Tuesday, the U.S. senate introduced three bills to expand areas accessible for oil and gas drilling -- targeting the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, and the Arctic. The Gulf of Mexico acreage would be the nearest play at hand. With this week's bill contemplating allowing drilling in this area as early as 2017.