Free Republic

Becoming a “den leader” to kids in choppers is not how Mark Robinson foresaw his career, but that’s what the chief pilot of Revolution Aviation has been since opening his helicopter flight school in 2013. The school operates at John Wayne Airport, which caters to the wealthy in Orange County, California—where super-yachts dominate the harbor, Ferraris and Bentleys tool up the Pacific Coast Highway, and parents wanting helicopter lessons for their kids can easily front up to $1,000 an hour. Robinson, who was raised in a mud hut by missionary parents in the African country of Cameroon, finds the new...

The depth of Greece's financial woes have been laid bare as official figures showed the country has fallen further into the red following the election of its Leftist government. Greece's primary budget surplus, which excludes its debt interest payments, shrunk to just over €1bn during January and February, compared to €3.17bn over the same period in 2014, according to figures from the Ministry of Finance.

Let's take a look at some freebies and deals offered on Tax Day. Pizza Hut is getting creative with their P-2 form. Customers will fill out the P-2 form that asks questions like "how many pizzas did you order in 2014?" and "how many different combinations did you try in 2014?" ....Head over to McDonald's for the ultimate Big Mac deal. Buy one Big Mac or Quarter Pounder on Tax Day and receive a second sandwich for just one penny... Boston Market is offering a free dinner with a purchase of an individual meal.... Staples knows that after customers have...

Poor Barbra Streisand. Just last month the renowned economist (who also describes herself as a “singer,” “actress,” and “activist”) penned an opinion piece titled “Have You Heard the Good News?” about how well the economy is performing under Barack Obama. It was a pep rally of sorts, and all that was missing were the pom-poms. “President Obama’s administration, with only opposition from the Republicans,” she gushed, “has steadily helped put more than 11 million Americans back to work in the private sector.”

University tuition continues to rise, but the tendency of some critics to blame the trend on overpaid professors might not be an accurate one. When university administrators in the UNC system and nationwide decide to increase tuition, they often cite the need for funds to retain faculty as a reason for the hike. Still, according to an annual report about myths of professor pay from the American Association of University Professors, faculty salaries are not the primary cause of higher student costs — cuts to state support and declining university endowments are to blame. But Jenna Robinson, president of the...

By almost a full percentage point India’s economic growth may surpass China’s much sooner than initially expected, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasting earlier this week that Delhi will take the lead in 2015. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook, released Tuesday, indicates that India’s growth rate will rise to 7.5% this year, while China’s is expected to drop to 6.8% from 7.4% last year.

...Some people are hard up and can’t afford to pay their taxes. But others simply choose not to pay. When traditional enforcement strategies, like charging above-market interest rates on the debt, don’t work, the government uses a number of tools to collect these taxes. But traditional collection methods don’t always work. In a recent study, we used another strategy that got results: publicly shaming tax delinquents. It should be a key part of government efforts to increase the collection of tax debts, and thanks to the Internet and social media, the government has the means to make it even more...

The fight to redefine a McJob is heating up. Protests for pay of $15 an hour and a union for fast-food and other low-wage workers are set to take place around the country Wednesday, marking the biggest effort yet in an ongoing campaign by labor organizers. The Fight for $15 campaign is being spearheaded by the Service Employees International Union and began in late 2012 with fast-food workers. Since then, organizers have used the spotlight to rally a variety of low-wage workers, including airport workers and home care workers. On Wednesday, adjunct professors will be the latest to join in...

Billionaire hedge fund manager and green power advocate Tom Steyer is taking Gov. Scott Walker to task, accusing the Republican presidential hopeful of being a pawn for fossil fuel interests and a climate change denier. In a full page ad running in the Wisconsin State Journal Tuesday, Steyer’s group NextGen Climate blasts the state’s GOP leadership for promoting a “war on science” by banning work on climate change. The group calls out Walker specifically for staying silent on the issue and for signing a Koch-backed anti-climate change pledge. “Fossil fuel interests like the Koch Brothers have made millions while opposing...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush lead the Republican field in South Carolina’s early presidential primary landscape, with 13.6 percent and 12.7 percent, respectively, the spring Winthrop University poll shows. The rest of the pack trails with single digit support each, according to results released Wednesday morning...... ..... The survey was conducted April 4-12 and included 996 voters polled statewide.

Two weeks ago, I noticed that national polling and noted that the media-fueled boomlet for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker might be fading. If that’s true, it’s a phenomenon that is not apparent in a recent poll of GOP primary voters in New Hampshire. The results of a new NH1 survey conducted by the Republican firm Reach Communications from April 8 – 9 suggests that Walker’s appeal to the Republican electorate in this critical Northeaster state continues to grow. The survey found Walker leading with almost 23 percent of the vote, well outside the survey’s 3.0 percent margin of error. Former...

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday approved sweeping changes in the way Medicare pays doctors, clearing the bill for President Obama and resolving an issue that has bedeviled Congress and the Medicare program for more than a decade. The 92-to-8 vote in the Senate, following passage in the House last month by an overwhelming vote of 392 to 37, was a major success for Republicans, who devised a solution to a complex policy problem that had frustrated lawmakers of both parties. Mr. Obama has endorsed the bill, saying it “could help slow health care cost growth.” The bill, drafted in...

An appeals court ruled Tuesday that Wal-Mart investors don’t have a right to try to stop the company from selling rifles or any other product those shareholders may think is socially destructive. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the Arkansas-based retailer, reversing a district court ruling in November that would have let the company’s investors influence the store’s policy on high-capacity sporting-rifle sales.

Tech Ping: Bought the Computer, Trying to Do Wireless File Transfer HELP!! Is there any help out there for Win7 among the Freepers? Wanted to file transfer from the old WIN 7 machine to the new WIN7 machine and the new computer wont recognize the old computer and vice versa. Both computers I think have the same name, could that be a problem. The old computer has a home group and the new computer keeps trying to make its own home group, the hussy! The last legs are rapidly approaching for old computer Last conversation was this: Question about Laptop...

Construction project is believed to be under consideration and is part of proposed extension to link China with Nepal by railChina is considering extending a railway line linking the country to Nepal via a tunnel under Mount Everest, according to Chinese state media. The proposal is the latest in a series of ambitious rail schemes Beijing is reportedly examining. It comes amid scepticism about whether some of the projects will ever get off the ground and at a time of a growing Chinese presence in Nepal, which has caused some concern in rival regional power India. The Qinghai-Tibet railway already...

<p>Greece is threatening to withhold payments to the IMF in in May and June. This time it does not sound like a bluff. And if it's not a bluff, we will finally know precisely when midnight occurs.</p> <p>The Financial Times reports Greece prepares for Debt Default if Talks with Creditors Fail.</p>

April 14, 2015 MONTICELLO, Iowa—Hillary Clinton may have been speaking to just 22 people here at her Iowa kickoff event, but the now-official 2016 candidate was looking far beyond the voters in the room when she outlined in the clearest terms yet the rationale for her campaign. "A lot of people in the last few days have asked me, 'Why do you want to do this?' and 'What motivates you?'" Clinton said at the event. "And I've thought a lot about it, and I guess the short answer is, I've been fighting for children and families my entire life. ......

Hillary Clinton has arrived at her first campaign stop, completing the 965 mile trip from Chappaqua, New York to Le Claire, Iowa in about two days time. Her choice of transportation? A Secret Service owned and operated van. The van, however, isn't an everyday minivan or even a full-sized van. It's a luxury vehicle outiftted with top amenities. Specifically: It's a limited edition Chevrolet Express van upfitted with a Limited SE packed by Explorer Vans company "It's very luxurious," a salesman who helped deliver this vehicle tells me on the phone. "I'd rank it up there with the best." The...

"It's the economy, stupid!" The weirdest thing about the onrushing 2016 presidential cycle is the scarcity of a GOP economic growth theme. Missing, too, is a serious growth agenda. That gap -- not demographics, nor electoral college math -- is the GOPÂ’s most serious deficiency in its quest to regain the White House. Democratic campaign consultant Bob Shrum wrote in his compelling political memoir No Excuses: I was on the phone with Carville one day when he said he had to hang up; the road was calling in. He was agitated when we talked a little while later. Somewhere in...

Europe’s antitrust regulator has decided to file formal charges against Google Inc. for violating the bloc’s antitrust laws, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, stepping up a five-year investigation that is set to become the biggest competition battle in Brussels since the European Union’s pursuit of Microsoft Corp. a decade ago. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager made the decision on Tuesday in consultation with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and will inform her fellow EU commissioners at a meeting on Wednesday, the person said