Free Republic

Looking back, perhaps it really is no surprise that Ferguson, Missouri became the latest site in this long war against black lives, given the state of Missouri’s peculiar relationship to slavery in US history.During the hot summer days of August, all eyes were on Ferguson. Hour after hour, journalists on the scene described the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was getting ready to start college in just a few days, and the unrest that exploded as “shocking,” but for so many black Americans, the scene in Ferguson was all-too-familiar. The ghost of Ferguson appeared earlier in Sanford, Florida on...

If the Obama Administration has its way, Ronald McDonald may soon have to wipe that grin off his face as he stands beneath the Golden Arches. One of the most successful models for expanding small-business ownership in America is under full-scale attack from unions and the White House. The political strategy is to fundamentally change the legal relationship between locally owned stores like McDonald's (NYSE:MCD), Popeyes (NASDAQ:PLKI), Taco Bell (NYSE:YUM) and their multibillion-dollar parent companies. No longer would franchisees be legally classified as independent contractors to the parent company. The left wants the employees of each of the hundreds of...

Turkey's energy minister has declared a gas pipeline a "peace corridor" linking the Caucasus with the Balkans. "We open the project as a peace corridor that is the result of 15 years hard work by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Through the South Caucasus pipeline and its backbone, the Trans-Anatolia pipeline, we connect the Caucasus with the Balkans. I wish every country could understand the true value of these projects and contribute with us," Taner Yıldız said while speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony of the South Caucasus pipeline in Baku on Sept. 20. The minister said energy security "ranks as one of...

Why the Permian shale boom transformed US energy markets By Alex Chamberlin - Disclosure  • Sep 18, 2014 10:31 am EDT U.S. shale boom transformed U.S. energy marketsAccording to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (or EIA), the top seven unconventional oil plays accounted for 95% of domestic oil production growth. They also accounted for all domestic natural gas production growth during 2011–2013.Permian Basin crude oilAccording to the EIA, the Permian Basin in west Texas and eastern New Mexico is the largest crude oil-producing region in the U.S.Enlarge GraphCrude oil production from the Permian Basin increased from 850,000 barrels per day...

Ottawa confirms it has ratified a foreign investment treaty with China, more than two years after the controversial agreement was signed, as CBC News first reported Friday. The controversial Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) will come into force on Oct. 1, said International Trade Minister Ed Fast in a news release Friday afternoon. […] China ratified the deal quickly, but the Harper government did not. The deal has also faced opposition from the NDP, as well as a First Nations group who challenged the agreement in court. The NDP issued a statement saying “the agreement will give...

In a surprise turn of events, U.S. space industry behemoth United Launch Alliance, or ULA, and Blue Origin — a secretive space startup owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos — have unveiled an American rocket engine that may end Russia's supremacy in the field. [....] The development of the engine, known as the Blue Engine 4, or BE-4, will certainly strike NPO Energomash, Russia's premier rocket engine design firm, analysts say.

If you ask me about the most wasteful department in the federal government, IÂ’ll state that there are lots of good choices, but if forced to identify the best candidate for elimination, IÂ’ll go with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.If you ask me about the entitlement program most in need of reform, IÂ’m tempted to say all of them, but ultimately IÂ’ll argue that we should first fix Medicaid by devolving it to the states, accompanied by block grants as a transitional funding mechanism.But if you ask me to identify the most evil and despicable thing that government...

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission (the term “ethics” is used rather loosely in this case) has a plan to get more voters to turn out on Election Day. Basically, they think the city should bribe people to show up at the polls. According to LA Times:Alarmed that fewer than one-fourth of voters are showing up for municipal elections, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted Thursday to recommend that the City Council look at using cash prizes to lure a greater number of people to the polls. On a 3-0 vote, the panel said it wanted City Council President Herb Wesson's Rules,...

Two House Republicans are trying to stop the Obama administration from collecting information about the race or ethnicity of people who buy guns. According to a report from the Washington Times, the ATF is requiring people to fill out a form when buying a gun that asks purchasers whether they are Hispanic or Latino, and then to identify themselves as being Indian, Asian, black, Pacific Islander or white.

A Fiscal Times, Yahoo Finance article by by John Grgurich claims that Instead of QE, Fed Could Have Given $56,000 to Every Household in America . Grgurich formulated his article after reading "an intriguing piece just published in Foreign Affairs, Brown University political economist Mark Blyth and London-based hedge fund manager Eric Lonergan argue the Fed could have done better by pursuing a far different type of grand policy experiment." The "intriguing piece" is Print Less but Transfer More, Why Central Banks Should Give Money Directly to the People. Sheer Idiocy First, the Fed cannot give away money, it can...

Way back in about 1987, I was working as a projects coordinator for a male-dominated branch of a huge corporation. About twice a year the company would fly us down to Los Angeles for two days of meetings. Normally these were grave, serious sessions full of graphs and flowcharts and vocabulary words like “parameter” and “synergy.” But one year, in a move straight out of a Dilbert cartoon, we were required to sit through a motivational seminar on corporate leadership and team building.

Duke Energy seeks nearly $2 million in Florida electricity rate hikes to pay for a new power plant made necessary by environmental restrictions. The electricity rate hikes became necessary as environmental restrictions force the closing of two coal power plants providing Floridians with inexpensive electricity. ... Aided by $10 million in campaign spending by billionaire liberal activist Tom Steyer, the Charlie Crist campaign is hammering Gov. Rick Scott for not imposing still more stringent power plant restrictions, above and beyond those imposed by the federal government. Steyer and Crist say Florida should impose state-specific power plant restrictions that would close...

Rod Coronado, a convicted eco-terrorist, is the leader of the controversial “Yellowstone Wolf Patrol,” a new environmental group that plans to shadow legal Montana wolf hunters during the state’s fall and winter wolf season and document the hunts with a video camera. Coronado, a resident of Michigan, is a radical environmentalist who “sank whaling ships nearly 30 years ago in Iceland and later went to prison after torching a Michigan State University lab in 1992 for conducting research for the fur industry” according to The Buffalo News of Buffalo, NY. He also serves as a spokesman for the radical, militant...

Yes, the Democrats are that desperate. Smacked with the guy who has made his business to lead the loyal opposition to policies that hurt the country, the Democrats did something so foul, so mind numbingly stupid and so desperate that it out Nixoned Nixon in his worst of days. And in doing so, theyÂ’ve completed the transformation from political party to caricature. Does Rick Perry's indictment disqualify him for 2016?!!! asks CNN, while fronting for the Dems. No, the indictment probably does not disqualify him. But Marco RubioÂ’s sip of water during a televised address should, right? RubioÂ’s problem...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Heading into President Barack Obama's final midterm election in the White House, Democrats on Friday sought to energize female voters, pointing to women as key to the party's future. "We do better when we field the whole team. When women succeed, America succeeds," Obama said at an annual forum sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.

With school employees returning to work, Sonoma County’s unemployment rate dipped in August to 5.4 percent, the lowest rate for the month in seven years. In August, Sonoma had the fifth-lowest unemployment rate among the state’s 58 counties. Marin ranked first with a rate of 4.2 percent. Napa ranked fourth at 4.8 percent, Mendocino was 12th at 6.1 percent and Lake, 40th at 8.9 percent.

Al Jazeera America is suing former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the former owners of the TV network that became Al Jazeera America. The parties are fighting over money that is being held in escrow. The former vice president and Hyatt, the founder of Hyatt Legal Services, sued the network last month saying that it was improperly withholding tens of millions of dollars placed in escrow when Al Jazeera bought Current TV for $500 million. Al Jazeera America says it is entitled to the money because Gore and Hyatt agreed to indemnify the network for claims made against...

Shop now if you depend on food stamps or cash assistance from New York. Neither will work starting early Sunday morning. The system will go down at midnight and isn't expected to come back online until noon Sunday. It's being shut down so the state can switch to a new company to run the program. It will take at least 12 hours to do the switch. Medicaid benefits are on the same card, but they will not be affected by the change. Nearly a third of the city's residents rely on food stamps, according to U.S. Census data. Toni Maxwell,...

Following on the "success" of the ECB's LTRO (Long Term Refinance Operation) which did nothing to spur lending and everything to create the biggest sovereign bond bubble the world has ever seen, ECB president Mario Draghi announced a TLTRO or Targeted LTRO on September 4. The ECB's intent is to spur lending. Lending Spree Short of Expectations Today the Financial Times reports ECB’s Lending Spree Short of Expectations. The European Central Bank’s first offer of cheap four-year loans has fallen short of expectations, dealing a blow to president Mario Draghi’s hope of sustaining the eurozone’s ailing economy by expanding the...

Washington DC has been ordered to allow concealed handguns… But, c’mon, let’s not get carried away. I mean, why on Earth would we rush to allow such American freedoms in America’s capitol, right? Following in the footsteps of liberal enclaves like Boston, New York, and the People’s Republic of California, Washington DC is paying lip service to the Second Amendment by crafting a “May Issue” concealed carry rule.Essentially, the rule amounts to an arbitrary case-by-case determination of concealed carry applications, where applicants will be asked to provide a “legitimate” reason for carrying a gun. According to WJLA:The District is seeking to...