Free Republic

I’m tossing you a softball. Now think carefully. The choices are: A. Zero B. Zero C. Zero D. Zero I know Americans are math challenged and need a calculator to subtract 10 from 20, but I think even a CNBC bimbo or Princeton economic professor could get this one right. Last year there was much banter from the Wall Street shysters and Bakkan shale oil experts about the true breakeven price for shale oil not being $80 (which is the truth) but actually being as low as $58 a barrel. They were spreading this lie in order to keep idiot...

AMMAN, March 24. /TASS/. Jordan and Russia on Tuesday signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Jordan. According to a TASS correspondent, the document was signed by chief of Russia’s state-run corporation Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko and Jordan Atomic Energy Commission Chariman Khaled Toukan. "I would like to stress that Rosatom and the entire Russian nuclear sector take Jordan’s invitation to build its first nuclear plant as big trust," Kiriyenko said. He pledged that the Russian side would use "its entire experience to build the most state-of-the-art and safest nuclear plant." Apart from...

Nothing was solved. Since Starbucks launched its “Race Together” initiative — encouraging customers to have conversations about racial issues with its employees — there have been a slew of Internet think pieces about what’s right or wrong about it. Some people said it was an awkward and a dumb idea. Other people said those people were racists. So — I decided to go out and see for myself what it would be like if I actually did what Starbucks was telling its customers to do. On Friday, I spent the entire day visiting Starbucks locations all around New York City,...

Our health, a precise equilibrium, may be disrupted by any disease at any given time. Scientific progress has moved beyond the realm of diagnoses and care of disease, and has now entered the new arena of prediction and prevention while still in the embryonic stage of life, in spite of unknown factors and risks. With the advancing technology comes challenges of safety and efficacy, along with ethical and social considerations. The 3-parent embryo or mitochondrial transfer technology ultimately raises one of the greatest questions we will perhaps ever face as voting Catholics. Are we willing to genetically modify humans on...

The average price of a pound of ground beef climbed to another record high in February, hitting $4.238 per pound, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In August 2014, the average price for a pound of all types of ground beef topped $4 for the first time, hitting $4.013, according to the BLS. In September, the average price jumped to $4.096 per pound; in October, the average price climbed to $4.154 per pound; and in November, the average price climbed to $4.201 per pound. In December, the price declined slightly to $4.156 per pound....

Popular astrophysicist and anointed spokesperson for science Neil deGrasse Tyson is not impressed by the recent antics of Republican leaders, from Sen. Ted Cruz’s directive that NASA stop focusing on Earth to Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s reported ban on the term “climate change.” “I don’t know if our country has any precedent for emergent scientific truths to be debated on political grounds,” he said during a live appearance in Sarasota, Florida, referring to the aforementioned censorship. “I’m astonished by that. Astonished and disappointed. I thought as a nation we were above this.” Tyson, who is the director of the Hayden...

FULL TITLE: Search aircraft find the remains of Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 scattered all over an alpine mountainside: Riddle over why pilots didn't send SOS despite taking eight minutes to fall 32,000 feet The final moments of Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 were shrouded in mystery today after air traffic controllers claimed they received no SOS despite the jet nosediving 32,000ft in just eight minutes. All 144 passengers and six crew were today presumed dead after the Airbus A320 crashed in a remote region of the French Alps en route from Spain to Germany. Two babies were among 45 Spanish on...

President Obama has lamented that special interests dominate the world of politics. My first reaction was to laugh out loud. After all, we are listening to the words of a politician/community activist who has done his very best job handing over the country to the communist bankers that are loosely referred to as the New World Order. This is the same Obama who has supported continued bail-outs of criminal bankers, has overseen and mandated a failing education system (i.e. Common Core), and has mandated a failing health care system that has instituted death panels (e.g. Obamacare age related treatment exclusions)....

Medicare “as we know it” is doomed. It never had a chance. What was originally intended as a vital safety net for seniors has become a massive boondoggle that is collapsing under its own weight. In 1965, Medicare started as a medical savings program for retirees. The government would take a small amount out of your paycheck each month for forty years. This would be placed in a virtual lockbox with your name on it, and would grow at some nominal but safe rate, say three percent. At retirement, the average American would have well over $100,000 in today’s dollars...

Vladimir Putin proposed on Friday creating a regional currency union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, Russia's partners in a political and economic union made up of former Soviet republics. Mr Putin made his proposal at a meeting with the Belarussian and Kazakh presidents which highlighted the challenges facing the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union following the fall in global oil prices and the decline of the Russian rouble. "The time has come to start thinking about forming a currency union," Mr Putin said after the talks in the Kazakh capital Astana with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.He gave...

The Justice Department is ordering bank employees to consider calling the cops on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more, a chilling example of how the war on cash is intensifying. Banks are already required to file ‘suspicious activity reports’ on their customers, with threats of fines and even jail time for directors if financial institutions don’t meet quotas. But as investor and financial blogger Simon Black points out, last week, “A senior official from the Justice Department spoke to a group of bankers about the need for them to rat out their customers to the police.” SPECIAL: Make Barack...

WASHINGTON - In an unprecedented, one-on-one forum, Grover Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform and Dan Stein, President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, will debate immigration reform and present their respective solutions. The event is presented jointly by the Washington Times, Americans for Tax Reform and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Stephen Dinan, immigration reporter for the Washington Times, will moderate. Norquist and Stein represent two highly influential groups with two entirely different approaches to immigration which define the internal conflicts Republicans are struggling to resolve. From a libertarian/business-interest perspective, Mr. Norquist supports increased...

The big news of the day is that Senator Ted Cruz is officially running for president. Not setting up an exploratory committee or any of that perfunctory foreplay, but actually running. “It is a time for truth. It is a time for liberty,” he said in a 30-minute speech at, yeah, Liberty University. “It is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.” Cruz’s address was full of red meat for the conservative crowd. But other than his oratorical skills, Cruz is entirely unsuited to be president. Luckily for America, his candidacy is likely doomed to fizzle. Cruz...

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is the first high-profile figure to announce he is running for president. He made it official early this morning via a message on Twitter and then a speech where he mentioned Jesus Christ a few times. (Here's a good "things you should know about Cruz" list compiled by NPR.) The so-called Tea Party hero isn't a fan, to say the least, of President Obama's executive actions on immigration. He'd like to gut all of them—both deferred actions for undocumented youth and adults brought here as children, and deferred action for parents of U.S. citizen or...

How can you tell if you’re living in a police state? The short answer is that you’re living in a police state when everyone becomes a suspected criminal or terrorist. And if the following report is any indicator, then welcome to the Reich. The Justice Department has ordered bank tellers across America to contact law enforcement if they suspect your cash withdrawal may have something to do with illicit activity. There doesn’t need to be proof, or any sort of red flag indicator – merely suspicion by the bank teller processing your transaction is now enough to have you investigated...

Tea Party Republicans get their wish in a Ted Cruz presidential run, but business owners need to think twice.The Tea Party got at least one wish on Monday, with Ted Cruz throwing his hat in the ring for a presidential run in 2016, the first contender to formally announce. Although it's unlikely the junior Senator from Texas--also the first Hispanic senator from the Lone Star State--is likely to secure the nomination, he'll surely help define the debate and possibly push it further to the right, policy analysts say. Discussion topics on the table for Cruz, which may be of interest...

Even though I fret about a growing burden of government and have little faith in the ability (or desire) of politicians to make wise decisions, I somehow convince myself that good things will happen. Here’s some of what I wrote two years ago, when asked whether I thought America could be saved from a Greek-style fiscal collapse. I think there’s a genuine opportunity to save the country. …we can at least hold the line and prevent government from becoming bigger than it is today. Sort of a watered-down version ofMitchell’s Golden Rule. The key is theright kind of entitlement reform....

Around 25 business owners and supporters of Fresno’s Chinatown gathered Sunday afternoon to share their concerns about the imminent high-speed rail construction along Kern and F streets. Chinatown Revitalization Inc. listed many concerns including that Spanish and Chinese speaking business owners have not been notified of the construction. Verta Gonzalez, who runs Floreria Rubi at 1515 Tulare St., said she had no idea about the coming construction. Gonzalez said business owners who speak English perhaps are able to defend themselves better. “It’s like they think Mexicans don’t matter,” she said of the rail authority. Rail authority spokeswoman Lisa Alley said...

On Melissa Harris-Perry's show this weekend, the host resoundingly approved when a guy who said that his mission in life is to "get white people to talk about whiteness" suggested that baristas at Starbucks should write “White supremacy has been the organizing principle of America since it was founded” on customers' coffee cups. - See more at:

House Democrats have unveiled a $3.7 trillion budget plan for next year. It mirrors President Barack Obama’s call for $1.8 trillion in tax increases on wealthier people and corporations over the coming decade but would add almost $6 trillion to the national debt over that time. […] The plan calls for a wave of new spending for infrastructure like roads and bridges and additional funding for education and medical research. It would make modest curbs on the rapid growth of the popular Medicare program. …