Free Republic

Read his lips: No shutdown. Pushing back against a report to the contrary, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he won’t let the government shut down if he becomes the chamber’s majority leader next year. “Of course not,” the Kentucky Republican told CNN in an interview. “Remember me? I am the guy that gets us out of shutdowns,” he said. Government shutdowns like last October’s are a “failed policy,” McConnell added.

We've been focusing a lot on President Obama's foreign policy, from Ukraine to Libya to Syria to Iraq to Israel and Iran. However, get ready for ObamaCare to make a return engagement to our front pages, and politics as well. Sally Pipes posted some numbers yesterday that won't make Democrats happy, especially those in tight elections: "Get ready to pay more for health insurance next year, compliments of Obamacare. A new analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that average premiums for policies sold through Obamacare’s exchanges will increase 7.5 percent in 2015. In nearly one-third of the 29 states that PwC investigated,...

A feminist CEO attempted to create a feminist advertising campaign only to have other feminists slam her for misogyny. Julie Sygiel, founder and CEO of the underwear company Dear Kate, invited top women in the technology field to model her newest line, named the Ada Collection after the world’s first female programmer, Ada Lovelace. Sygiel’s advertisements included quotes from the women about their careers in the tech industry and showed them at work coding. “I think a lot of traditional lingerie photo shoots depict women as simply standing there looking sexy, Sygiel said in an interview with Time. “They’re not...

On Tuesday, the Sheboygan Press reported that according to two veteran GOP consultants that talk radio and campaign cash were to blame for State Senator Joe Leibham’s narrow defeat in the 6th Congressional District Republican primary. Jason Smathers, the author of the article, said: “But with two other state legislators running to his right, those advantages disappeared. Leibham played defense most of the race. He was blasted in attack ads and press releases and lost to his main opponents in all but two counties – Manitowoc and his home of Sheboygan.” Smathers interviewed veteran GOP consultant Mark Graul of Arena...

It must have been a bitter moment for President Barack Obama when he got the news that his favorite economic guru not only doesn’t like paying taxes but hates America. Warren Buffett, whose eponymous rule was a staple of Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, is underwriting Burger King’s proposed move to Canada that the left is denouncing as practically the most dastardly plot since the Rosenbergs helped the Soviets get the atomic bomb. Burger King is acquiring the Canadian coffee and doughnuts chain Tim Hortons in what is called a “corporate inversion.” At least that’s the technical term for it. Obama...

SunTrust Banks Inc. is shuttering its fraud-response call center group in Orlando and shedding more than 100 jobs, the bank confirmed Wednesday. Atlanta-based SunTrust, the largest bank in Central Florida, handed out pink slips to 105 employees on Tuesday. The effective layoff date is Oct. 31, according to documents filed with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. "Difficult decisions must be made to increase operational efficiencies and decrease expenses to better position the company for the future," SunTrust told employees in the layoff notice. The bank posted a $400 million profit on revenue of $2.2 billion in the second quarter,...

Germany’s Labor Minister Andrea Nahles has given her backing to an anti-stress law, announcing a study into workers’ mental health on Tuesday. Nahles told the Rheinische Post newspaper that she had commissioned the Federal Institute for Health and Safety at Work to come up with a report on the feasibility of a possible law to protect workers from stress caused by smartphones and constant contact with their bosses. “There is an undeniable link between having to be constantly available [for work] and the rise in mental illnesses,” she said, but she added it would be a challenge to implement any...

With gun laws keeping high-powered weapons out of reach for most people—especially those outside the U.S.—indoor shooting ranges with high-powered weapons have become a popular attraction. Tourists from Japan flock to ranges in Waikiki, Hawaii, and the dozen or so that have cropped up in Las Vegas offer bullet-riddled bachelor parties and literal shotgun weddings, where newly married couples can fire submachine gun rounds and pose with Uzis and ammo belts. “People just want to experience things they can’t experience elsewhere,” said Genghis Cohen, owner of Machine Guns Vegas. “There’s not an action movie in the past 30 years without...

CNN has been transformed from a sober and respected news network into a shrill and biased mouthpiece for liberals, according to actor, author and economist Ben Stein. Stein, a speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said the dramatic change is particularly noticeable in CNN's coverage of the racial strife in Ferguson, Mo., following the fatal shooting of a black teen by a white police officer. "They've flipped out. I don't know what happened to CNN because CNN used to really be great and I can remember when it was great," Stein said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show"...

<p>Markets could soon face a fall of up to 60 percent, two experts told CNBC on Wednesday.</p> <p>A jolt to international confidence in central banks will lead to a 30 to 60 percent market decline, David Tice, president of Tice Capital and founder of the Prudent Bear Fund, told CNBC's "Power Lunch." When this happens, he said, markets will face a "period of extreme turmoil."</p>

On Saturday August 9, 2014, 18 year-old Michael Brown was shot to death by a Ferguson police officer after he had earlier robbed a local convenience store. As a result of his death protesters in Ferguson have caused mass destruction in the community. Several dozen businesses were damaged in the looting and violence. Here is an interactive map of the attacks, shootings, lootings, and destruction. Many of the local businesses were looted not just once, but twice. Now this… St. Louis County officials are discussing disbursement of federal aid to the more than 100 businesses that suffered financial losses during...

Learning that U.S. Navy commissioning coins were made in China is more than Middle Paxton Twp. resident Gene Stilp can tolerate. The citizen activist doesn't like seeing the "Made in China" label on any product, knowing it signals the continued erosion of America's manufacturing base. But having the United States military buying Chinese-made commemorative coins is an insult to those who wear its uniforms, he said. On Monday, Stilp asked U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., to push for a federal law barring any branch of the military from buying collectible coins minted outside the nation's borders. The Democratic state House...

Extreme drought conditions have become so harsh for the Central Valley community of East Porterville, many of its residents dependent on their own wells have run out of water.. Roughly 300 homes have received a three-week supply of bottled water after Tulare County officials discovered their wells had gone dry. In all, county officials distributed 15,552 1-gallon bottles of water, and have been filling a 2,500-gallon tank with nonpotable water so residents can flush toilets and bathe.

The Congressional Budget Office released a bit of a good news/bad news report on Wednesday regarding the state of the U.S. economy and federal budget. In the bad news column, CBO projected 2014’s GDP growth at just 1.5 percent. The report blamed this revision on “the surprising economic weakness in the first half of the year.” In early June, the International Monetary Fund projected the United States to grow by just 2 percent this year, revising its own estimate down from a previously anticipated 2.7 percent GDP expansion. This report is not likely to be warmly greeted by the...

The world finally knows how former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke views the 2008 financial crisis. “September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression,” said Bernanke in a document filed Aug. 22 with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, reports The Wall Street Journal. Of the 13 “most important financial institutions in the United States, 12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two.”

Lt. Mike Sadauskis said officers were called to the pavilion area of Mayo Park about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday after a 28-year-old Rochester man had been tackled by up to six other men. The man told police one of the men had a gun and held it to his head. Sadauskis said the men assaulted the man and he gave up his backpack and personal items. The man didn't require treatment. On Monday night, Sadauskis said a 16-year-old boy was attacked in the same area while on his skateboard. Both victims gave a similar description of the gunman. Sadauskis said the...

Now and again, America puts its inequality on display to the world. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and we have seen it again in the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. A white police offer shoots dead a black man, after having stopped him for jaywalking. Britain’s police don’t have guns, so these scenes are unthinkable to us. But American-style inequality? We have plenty of that too, we’re just better at hiding it – as I say in my Telegraph column today. I came across a striking fact while researching this piece: if Britain were to somehow leave the EU and...

Drivers hitting the roads during the upcoming holiday weekend will likely encounter good news: the cheapest Labor Day weekend gasoline prices since 2010. The forecast comes amid falling domestic and global crude prices, analysts at GasBuddy said. The benchmark price for U.S. crude is down nearly $9 per barrel since the Memorial Day weekend, and the the international price is down $7 in the same period. A downward trend in gasoline prices began in July and will likely continue through autumn, the gasoline price monitors said. Interestingly, the downward trend in crude comes despite several global conflicts in and around...

The federal debt this year will be double what it was before the financial crisis, Congress’ official budget scorekeeper projected Wednesday morning. The debt is on pace to reach 74 percent of the country’s economic output by the end of the year, double what it was in 2007 and the highest percentage since 1950, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In its update to its projections for the budget and economy, the agency slightly upped its estimate for the 2014 deficit, which it now expects to total $506 billion, a $170 billion decline from 2013. The federal debt this year...

It’s not a “new” treaty, apparently, if they’re rewriting an old treaty that’s already been ratified. Maybe that’s a sneak peek of Obama’s Syria policy too. Instead of asking for a new AUMF against ISIS, he could issue an “addendum” or whatever to the 2001 AUMF against Al Qaeda. Come to think of it, that’s his approach on immigration too. The mega-amnesty he’s getting ready to uncork isn’t being presented as new policy, even though it would legalize five million people or more. It’s being presented as a discretionary application of law that’s already on the books. Turns out every...