Free Republic

I posted the MSNBC interview with Al Gore and the written responds. Sarah Palin: Steven Hayward has a great article in The Weekly Standard on the Climategate scandal. Be sure to check it out. The response to my op-ed by global warming alarmists has been interesting. Former Vice President Al Gore has called me a “denier” and informs us that climate change is “a principle in physics. It’s like gravity. It exists.” Perhaps he’s right. Climate change is like gravity – a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it....

Dubai's economic meltdown was a warning sign of further sovereign default troubles for other governments. CMA, a credit information specialist, tracks the world’s most volatile sovereign debt issuers according to percentage changes in their 5 year Credit Default Swaps. On top of their list for the greatest sovereign risks are countries from the former Russian Eastern Bloc, conflict-torn nations, and an oil-rich dictatorship.

The sovereign debt disease is spreading, and looks set to be the big bad news story of 2010. This time it's Greece that's in trouble – and that's official. Just as the 'don't panic' brigade were telling us not to fret about Dubai World defaulting – not big enough to matter, it's an isolated case, surprised it didn't happen before, etc, etc – a much bigger problem has cropped up. Greece has had its credit score chopped by one major rating agency, and more of the same could be on the way.

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. “Climate-gate,” as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t...

The Road to Copenhagen Cliff Kincaid, December 9, 2009 You don’t need to attend the United Nations climate change conference to know what’s really going on. Ignoring the fallacies behind the “science” of man-made global warming, a new U.N. report on “climate justice” says the U.S. and other countries owe $24 trillion in “climate debt” to the rest of the world. The report, “Climate Justice for a Changing Planet,” argues that the United States is “historically the largest global emitter” of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore has the biggest “debt” to pay. But another U.N. report puts the figure at...

Monday afternoon the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions a danger to public health and said it will begin to draft and enforce regulations. Even the EPA realizes these moves will be a disaster for the US economy (and to our own selves as one of those gases, CO2, is what humans ad to the atmosphere every time they exhale). Rasmussen asked American "likely voters" what they thought about the EPA announcement and reaction was split 41% to 41%. But the EPA can write and enforce their regulations without the consent of Congress. When...

All of a sudden we are living in a lowest common denominator world. We are being told everyone is entitled to health care, mortgages, whatever they lack. These are rights we hear. It was inevitable I suppose. A woman's "right" to abortion, to privacy (ironic in light of current health care proposals) started the snowball. But the fact is, we aren't entitled to any such thing. None of the above. Allow me to illustrate with a personal story. During high school, women's gymnastics was the rage. Olga Korbut, Nadia Comenici these were my idols. Gymnastics was one of the few...

He promised shovel ready jobs if the Congress rushed through the $787 billion dollar stimulus earlier this year. He promised 400,000 to 3.5 million jobs and that unemployment would not rise above 8%. But as we all know by now absolutely nothing that he promised was real. It was all made up. (see 4:21min video) Now that he can no longer deny the reality of unemployment as high as 10.2% nor can he deny the made up Congressional districts in which made up jobs appeared, Soetoro admitted that he lied about jobs. No he didn’t say that he lied, and...

A recent New York Sun editorial makes the observation that the essence of Sarah Palin's world view — which the editor has dubbed "Palinism" — is emerging: "...and it is far more substantive than her detractors suggest or than we gained a glimpse of during the campaign. She has been, in a straightforward way, stepping up on certain issues that her fellow Republicans would do well to emulate."The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate's statement on Israel is one example cited in the editorial: "It provides a glimpse of a leader who would respect Israel’s right to establish, democratically, its own...

this is yet another end run around Congress by the most radical and corrupt President in our nation’s 233 year history. A total usurpation of our Constitution’s separation of powers. It violates the idea of checks and balances our founders built into government. This little ruling by the EPA gives them virtually unlimited power to regulate, literally, every facet of your life. By classifying CO2 and methane (among other so-called greenhouse gases) it can inject itself into just about every industry in the US.

Growing up we all believe what we want to. For years my son believed that there were monsters under his bed at night, my daughter believed that a unicorn would show up for her to ride away. Both of them believed in the tooth fairy (OK there was one of those, but it was only me in a costume). Part of the growing process is that we realize that these childish myths are not real by any means. Surprisingly, there is one childish myth that many otherwise intelligent adults cling on to. That's the myth that there is a scientific...

Clarence Page, of The Chicago Tribune, attended Washington’s Gridiron Club and met Tood and Sarah Palin: Palinpalooza goads media into laughter Palin not only interrupted her book tour, dubbed Palinpalooza by headline writers, to speak to a roomful of those darned media representatives Saturday all gussied up in gowns and tuxedos, but she held her own against this year's Democratic speaker, the liberal master of pithy one-liners, Rep. Barney Frank of MA. If Palin won the evening -- and even my own Hyde Park-raised, liberal wife believes she did -- it is largely because everyone expected Frank to be funny,...

The Copenhagen climate talks have been rocked by the leak of a draft final agreement which weakens the role of the United Nations in climate change negotiations and abandons the Kyoto Protocol. The "Danish text" draft agreement, published by the UK's Guardian newspaper, has been described as a dangerous document for developing countries. Over the past week, parts of Denmark's proposal have leaked into the public domain, but this is the first time it has been published in its entirety. According to the Guardian, the secret agreement has been worked on by a group of individuals known as the 'circle...

With great fanfare, tonight Senate Democrats announced they have reached a "broad agreement" on the health reform bill. According to reports, it includes a new national health-care plan with private insurers, and a chance for older Americans to “buy in” to Medicare. The most significant part of the reports is the public option is Dead. But then there are the other reports that say the public option is not dead.The Senators are not releasing the details of the deal, until they get back the "scoring" report from the Congressional Budget Office,

...My thinking in times past is that it was amazing our country could be in such a mess when we have all these supposedly smart people running the show. More recently I have come to the conclusion that things are what they are because of, not in spite of, the geniuses inhabiting the White House and the halls of Congress. We've all seen people with degrees in everything from rocket science to brain surgery who couldn't balance their checkbook or change a flat tire. What we're lacking in Washington is plain old everyday horse sense. If you, Mister or Missus...

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. "Climate-gate," as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won't...

John Stossel tells O’Reilly he’s going to Kick his butt in the ratings I remembered how 7 years ago when I was grassroots campaigning to get Stossel on Fox News. When they hired Greta instead I wrote this piece recommending that CNN, if they wanted to challenge Fox should hire John Stossel to take the 8:00PM time-slot and predicted that Stossel – who I feel is MUCH MORE acute than O’reilly – would beat him in the ratings. Well tonight, almost seven years later, Stossel who has been given a show on Fox Business Network during the 8:00PM time-slot was...

In recalling President Obama's cabinet appointments, you'll notice that very few have had any private sector or business experience. To find out if this was a "change" from prior administrations, Michael Cembalest, Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan Private Bank, did a study that examined the private sector experience of prior cabinet officials since 1900.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Hussein Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals Tuesday, saying the nation must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" until more Americans are back at work. Without giving a price tag [because he doesn't know or care how much it would cost], Obama proposed a package of new spending for highway, bridge and other infrastructure projects, deeper tax breaks for small businesses and tax incentives to encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient [I thought we still had funds left from the "stimulus" package?]. "We avoided the depression many...

Even though I have never said a word about my wife spending money on herself (which she rarely does anyway), she still likes to come up with transparent excuses for spending. One of my favorites is when she buys an outfit and then brings it back. Say the outfit cost $100, and my wife returns it but comes home with a new dress that cost $150, she will say it was a $50 outfit. The only reason I bring this up is that it perfectly explains the President's plan for using the TARP dollars to create jobs. Its nothing but...

On December 7th, the entirety of the Department's semiannual agenda was made available online at www.dol.gov/asp/regs/agenda.htm and at www.regulations.gov. The regulatory agenda is a listing of all the regulations the Department of Labor expects to have under active consideration for promulgation, proposal, or review during the coming one-year period. Live Q&A Sessions We will host a series of live Q&A sessions with our leadership to answer your questions about our regulatory agenda: View the Replay - Secretary SolisView the Replay - Occupational Safety and Health AdministrationTuesday, 9 a.m. EST - Office of Labor Management StandardsTuesday, 10:30 a.m. EST - Wage...

President Obama's mantra about the public option has never changed: “Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” The unspoken part of the president's pledge is "unless of course, if your the plan forces your employer to drop coverage. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) took a look at that issue and reported today that 10 million people will lose employer health coverage under the present Senate plan

...before we look at spending any more dollars on a new porkulus plan, shouldn't we look at what was done with the first one? After all its nine months after its passage and only around $200 billion of stimulus funding there are millions of Jobs lost and a bogus number of jobs gained. Tom Coburn and John McCain have created a report of the 100 Dumbest Porkulus Projects proving that .....billions of dollars of stimulus funding have been wasted, mismanaged, or directed towards silly and shortsighted projects. Many projects may not produce the types of jobs that most Americans had...

58 percent of voters oppose an Obama Administration plan to bail out states with “serious financial troubles” as the President gets set for an evening address to the nation on the state of the economy. According to Rasmussen reports’ most recent phone survey, “just 22% of Americans favor providing federal bailout funds to states with serious financial problems. Fifty-eight percent (58%) oppose giving bailout money to financially troubled states.” Obama is expected to outline his plans to send aid to California, New York, and other states near default with repaid TARP funds tonight when he addresses Americans who are increasingly...

Last week the national unemployment rate dropped to 10 percent. This is a good thing only because last month unemployment was over 10 percent. Unemployment in double digits is yet another reminder that the stimulus was and is an epic failure. So it's especially ironic to read this in liberal blogger Hugh Jackson's recent City Life column. "[T]he stimulus is doing what it is supposed to do, it is contributing to ending the recession," Moody's economist and former McCain-Palin economic adviser Mark Zandi recently told the New York Times... The creation of new jobs is the least significant impact of...

Here's one for those who believe that the tea-party movement is "astro-turf." Despite the long recession and a banking industry that teetered on the abyss last year, America still believes in the free market system. In fact it seems as if one of President Obama's unintended success stories is that he has driven more Americans to believe in the free market system. A new Rasmussen poll reports that 76% of voters say a free market economy is better than one managed by the government. Only 10% prefer an economy managed by the government. That is up from 70% a year...

Believe it or not, the UN just whined that climategate is the Russian's fault. It appears that the United Nation's position is that the obvious cover-up of the false doctrine that is global warming perpetrated by global warming "scientists" is not the fault of the lying scientists, but that of the assumed "paid" Russian hacker that hacked the globaloney scientist's emails and exposed the cover-up to the world. Convoluted reasoning, no? Remember when you were a child and your Mother discovered through hearing about it from the neighbors that you were doing something you weren't supposed to be doing? Remember...

A recent round of posts between Gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft and Chicago Examiner website columnist Robert Moon of Macon County, Illinois shows the difficulty of trying to discuss immigration in Illinois today. Passions are high and it is hard to get past all the suspicion imbued in it all. It all began with a segment of a Chicago radio broadcast in which Dan Proft addressed some of the more demagogic treatments of the immigration problem and echoed the worry made by many Republicans that the more wild-eyed treatments of the immigration problem is bound to force the GOP into permanent...

Kate Campigne Piercy, director of government reform for the Illinois Policy Institute, recently penned an interesting piece for The Chicago Tribune that informed us all that the Illinois Commerce Dept. bought $2,821 worth of Hot Sauce during fiscal year 2009. That's not all, either. What's the need for a typewriter in a computer-centric world? The Illinois Employment Security Department spent $245.80 on a Brother ML100 Typewriter -- in addition to $12,176.54 on a Canon Microfilm/ Fiche Printer. The governor's office shelled out $20,692.24 on "subscriptions." The Commerce Department spent $3,770 for golf carts, $280 on soy crayons and $2,821 on...

Why does the U.S. market underperform? Simple reasons, like the front page of The New York Times, which, basically, says that the drilling for natural gas in the largest repository of natural gas, the Marcellus Shale, is compromising drinking water, something that is sure to kill this bold attempt at energy independence. Because the CO2 rules are paralyzing whole blocks of industry, because no one knows for sure what kinds of plants they should build or the cost of their operations. These kinds of arbitrary decisions and negative press make it so I feel that we are so self-destructive in...

Hopey Changey not reflected in consumer purchasing for holiday season - perchance no one has any $$$ to spend thanks to Obamanation?

Voodoo on Kindle Sarah Schaerr Norton, December 8, 2009 WASHINGTON, December 7, 2009–In Voodoo Anyone? How to Understand Economics Without Really Trying, journalist and educator Christopher T. Warden shows how markets work and what happens when they are bypassed. Warden passed away in January of 2009; Voodoo Anyone? is being published posthumously by Accuracy in Academia. “This is a book that’s long been needed–and is needed nowadays more than ever… As the reader of these pages will discover, [Warden] had a knack for putting complicated things in everyday language, using anecdotes and familiar examples that made his points in forceful,...

The House Republican Conference completed the tedious task of compiling an exhaustive (and they must be exhausted!) list of the new federal bureaucracies created in the ObamaCare health care reform bill, H.R. 3962. They counted 111 new bureaucracies, yet the government promises how "efficient" their takeover of health care will be. "Efficient government bureaucracy," must be the greatest oxymoron of all time!

Drill, Baby, Drill... Even Off-Shore. I commend Interior Secretary Salazar’s decision today to conditionally approve drilling at three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea off the northwest coast of Alaska; it’s a decision that’s been a long time coming. The area north of the Arctic Circle contains some of the world’s richest oil and gas reserves. U.S. Geological Survey researchers estimate that it contains 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil. The international community recognizes the potential of Arctic off-shore drilling; it’s about time our government allowed us to compete with them by...

Stanley Fish of the New York Times actually wrote a very very positive review of Sarah Palin’s: Going Rogue An American Life: Sarah Palin is Coming to Town. When I walked into the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan last week, I headed straight for the bright young thing who wore an “Ask Me” button, and asked her to point me to the section of the store where I might find Sarah Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” She looked at me as if I had requested a copy of “Mein Kampf” signed in blood by the author, and directed me...

Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today announced the launch of Washington Wire, an online news wire and aggregation service provided for media outlets to instantly access the top news in the nation’s capital.

Lord Christopher Monckton appears today in a powerful new video (SEE BELOW) by Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) in which he exposes the deceptions involved in Climategate, scientist by scientist. These scientists received more than $21 million in public funding, yet used deception to ensure that real world data did not interfere with the selling of global warming...

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on the U. S. Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in which thousands of Americans lost their lives and our naval fleet was severely damaged. The events of that day, which President Franklin Roosevelt vowed would “live in infamy,” proved for many Americans that aggressors would not simply ignore us if we ignored them. The attack on Pearl Harbor launched America into the Second World War, and our Greatest Generation did not hesitate when asked to sacrifice for their country. American men enlisted in droves, American women went...

I posted 7 videos & a few photos of Sarah Palin, the massive crowds sleeping overnight and the lines of people waiting to see her. From Iowa, North Dakota and The Mall of The Americas in Minnesota.

It’s the only thing that could explain the insane craziness going on. Hotair reports: For the first time ever, the Environmental Protection Agency has declared a naturally-occurring substance in the air a danger to human health.

“They’re sitting around talking about how they want to take their country back,” said local filmmaker Chris Townsend, who finally finished his controversial movie. “Yes We Can” is about four rural Virginians and their plot to assassinate Barrack Obama at a campaign visit in Lynchburg. Townsend says he based the characters off people he’s met in his life. “There’s people out there that aren’t tolerant of other races or ethnicities and it’s interesting to me to see that type of ignorance,” said Townsend. He says his edgy production almost got shut down by the secret service. The director didn’t give...

Over the last few months we've talked about several instances of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) committing vote fraud in elections for in-home helathcare workers to chose a union. We have also reported on the shaky UHW election in Dec. of 2008. (Here, here, and here) Even with those instances extant we have more SEIU vote fraud to report. The SEIU is still perpetrating fraudulent elections, intimidating union voters, and trying to strong-arm members into accepting SEIU dominance despite what they may want. Recently the Wall Street Journal had another story detailing the SEIU's un-democratic actions... Read the rest...

Inflation will not get out of control, Bernanke promises...

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HEALTH CARE IN UNDER NINE MINUTES (See: Video Below from Reason.tv) Do you really think that any of the Obamacare supporters want health care to work? Do you really think they are concerned about rising costs or lowering them? Has the government ever lowered the price and improved the service and quality of anything? If the Obamacare supporters were concerned about those things, the LAST thing they'd do is get the government involved. The first thing they should be studying is why have costs declined dramatically in these three areas of health care: Lasik...

Government regulation of nearly every aspect of economic activity by administrative fiat...it's enough to make Stalin blush. Trees and other plant life who thrive on CO2 Could not be reached for comment. This announcement has been in the pipeline ever since Obama took office but the timing is clearly intended to give Mr. World something to talk about when he drops by the Climate Scam Summit in Copenhagen in a few weeks. In addition to the international credibility He hopes it will buy, this announcement is the Sword of Damocles He wants to hang over Congress to get them to...

You would think that insiders would finally change their tune after almost a year of straight line gains in the market. Think again. The most recent insider trading data from finviz indicates that insider sellling outpaces buying by a ratio of 82! In the most recent data set, $11.6 million in stock was purchased by insiders, while a whopping $957 million was sold. And somehow pundits are still spinning this mass orchestrated sell into the bid by those in the know as a bull market.

Chamber of Commerce Pushback Sarah Carlsruh, December 7, 2009 On November 24th, members of the Chamber of Commerce, the largest business federation, spoke at the Heritage Foundation’s conservative Blogger’s Briefing in defense of the interests of their more than three million organizations and businesses. Thomas Collamore, senior vice president of Communications and Strategy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, addressed the recent media attacks of the Chamber. He said that Moveon.org and other groups have engaged in “an orchestrated campaign… to harass the Chamber and its members.” Groups such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Center for...

Thornton, CO—In what was usually a scene of tranquility, has become a hot bed of controversy for a local department store. The once, peaceful Super Target at 1001 E. 120th Avenue in Thornton, Colorado, where shoppers bravely navigated the snow covered ground, has been turned into a store where Christian hating and bashing has become the order of the day. The retail outlet, which has been increasingly antagonistic towards Christians in general, ramped up their hostility this week when the less than benevolent 52-year old manager, Jack Cass, declared on Friday “that he would fire the next Christian that said...

Trying times have come to America, my state and my town. It is like standing in the front yard and being hit with a shotgun blast. B. Hussein Obama did not do a drive by on America, he cranked off the first shot, got out of his ride and is now strolling through the fields of freedom, killing liberty wherever he can find it.

One of my all-time favorite novels is Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, later made into an Oscar-winning film. Set in an institution for psychological patients, Cuckoo's Nest was a cautionary tale about all institutions-schools, churches, businesses, government bureaucracies, etc., it dramatized the horrors of what can happen when those in charge hijack an institution and place their own ambitions and lust for power, prestige, and control above the welfare of the very people whom the institution was created to help. The United Nations fits the cuckoo's nest paradigm perfectly. It is ostensibly dedicated to some of mankind's...