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Why is this important? Erskine Bowles has a long pedigree as a Democratic budget thinker — and presidential adviser. When Barack Obama needed to pick the co-chair for his deficit committee, which he roundly ignored in the end, he chose Bowles to represent his side on the panel. Bowles served as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, and earlier ran the Small Business Administration for Clinton. Ezra Klein predicted on Friday that Bowles would be the front-runner for Tim Geithner’s job at Treasury if Obama wins a second term. Bear in mind this while you watch this clip, found by our...

Hot Air Day is upon us. On July 4 hot air will spew forth all over the country as dignitaries deliver homilies to our “freedom and democracy” and praise “our brave troops” who are protecting our freedom by “killing them over there before they come over here.” Not a single one of these speeches will contain one word of truth. No speaker will lament the death of the US Constitution or urge his audience to action to restore the only document that protects their liberty. No speaker will acknowledge that in the 21st century the Bush/Obama Regime, with the complicity...

The Defense Department is looking for a little help from its friends overseas as the Pentagon and White House try to break Senate opposition to an international treaty on maritime law. Meeting with the defense chiefs of several Asian powers during the Shangri-La defense talks over the weekend, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta took the opportunity to continue his push for Senate ratification of the controversial Law of the Sea treaty.

Happy Memorial Day! Need advice from FRiends as we are looking to refinance our 2nd home mortgage. Our mortgage already was purchased by Fannie Mae (we found this out by accident). Quicken Loans, which is HARP approved (Home Affordable Refinance Program), offers 4.375% 30-year fixed, (we're paying 5.625% currently), total fees $1900. Loan amount $300k.

About a month ago, EPA regional official Al Armendariz made news when a YouTube video of him describing the way the agency handles oil and gas companies surfaced. In it, Armendariz said an analogy he liked to use about enforcement was how the Romans used crucifixion to keep smaller towns and villages under their thumb. Since then, Armendariz has resigned his post at the EPA. Case closed, right? Wrong. A local North Carolina man named Larry Keller didn’t particularly like the analogy that Al Armendariz used, so, along with thousands of others assumably, he set about to contact Mr. Armendariz...

I use Quickbooks (Intuit) in my business. After learning about their decision to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, I must change my software provider and was looking for some recommendations from the smartest people in the world. Thanks in advance.

Aspartame is an addictive substance. Most people who consume diet sodas regularly soon develop a craving for it. This is because of aspartame’s addictive quality. Soon after consuming the ingredient on a normal basis, many people find themselves unable to kick the habit. - snip-Aspartame, essentially, feeds cancer cells. If this weren’t enough to convince you to drop the diet soda habit, the process by which aspartame is made involves a highly toxic and volatile and genetically engineered form of bacteria waste — hardly something that would be considered safe by a reasonable standard. Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/made-from-genetically-modified-bacteria-waste-aspartame-risks-public-health/#ixzz1qKgMNhoz Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/made-from-genetically-modified-bacteria-waste-aspartame-risks-public-health/#ixzz1qKg6rLw0

I am looking to buy my husband a telescope for his birthday and would appreciate any guidance from Freeper Friends. I want to spend less than $500 - he is a novice so looking for ease of set-up and use. Thanks in advance!

the venue The Road to Repeal Rally will take place at Upper Senate Park (Map). The rally will begin at 12pm noon and will conclude at 2pm. Speakers and Coalition Partners to be announced soon. Save the date and do whatever you can to make it to Washington on March 24th.

All the crying going on from Camp Mittens denying that Romney set out to screw Congressman Allen West out of his seat in Palm Beach County is just the usual exaggerated outrage that we should be accustomed to from Mitt and Company when they’ve been caught in the act. Remember these are the same guys who are saying that Mitt’s the most electable candidate, but if we question Mitt’s electability we’ll only have ourselves to blame if Mitt doesn’t get elected. Or something like that. It’s hard to keep up with the rhetoric when a campaign has one set of...

So far, Mitt Romney has only won in states where he owns summer houses, like New Hampshire. --snip--So why does nearly every pundit and politician think that is the only “electable” candidate, the only one who can beat Obama? The facts and evidence tell a different story. Romney has never won a majority (50% or better) of Republican primary or caucus voters. And, two-thirds of the time, he has had to spend vast sums just to claim the number two spot.

Here is the answer for anyone who wondered what the true underlying connection was between Whitman and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, and where John Donahoe fits in. The connector is the El Salvador Poma family business empire and a corporate raiding firm. In 1984, Bain Capital was financed by Ricardo Poma, Salvadoran billionaire. The founding partners were Mitt Romney, T. Coleman Andrews III, and Eric Kriss. Bain Capital was a spinoff of Bain & Company, whose executives included Mitt Romney (CEO), Meg Whitman (8yrs, VP) and John Donahoe (17 yrs, Managing Director). See if you can see eBay parallels...

--snip to middle--Gingrich was, in the speech in question, I believe, giving Ronald Reagan a heads up that he should come down hard on the “moderate” Republicans and career civil servants who were frustrating his policies internally. I was the director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 1983 to 1985, the only woman member of the Reagan senior White House staff. In that position, I also directed the White House working group on Central America. Read more on Newsmax.com: Newt Gingrich a True Reagan Conservative Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

I was a great fan of Superman comic books when I was a kid. Among my favorites were those in which the Man of Steel traveled to Bizarro World — a dimension in which everything was the opposite of our normal world. Watching the last few Republican presidential debates, I now have a pretty good idea of how Superman must have felt as he tried to function in a world in which left is right, black is white and up is down. I refer, of course, to the manner in which former Speaker Newt Gingrich is being attacked by fellow...

Get ready for the all new GOP, under the lead of Mitt Romney. It’s a GOP where the Tea Party won’t be welcome, where the federal government will continue to bailout out banks and unions and everyone who’s anyone will continue to make money- except of course you and me. We’ll just continue to get stuck with the 100 year mortgage payment, as the GOP continues to be the “tax collector for the welfare state,” in the WSJ’s apt phrase. That’s the takeaway from Florida where Florida Representative Will Weatherford, a Romney proxy, helped redistrict Tea Party favorite Congressman and...

ORIGINAL POST, SEE UPDATE BELOW: Earlier we made the argument that the Obama recovery has been much more impressive than the Reagan recovery since A) The conditions Obama inherited were wildly worse and B) Federal government spending under Obama didn't grow as fast as it did under Reagan. But we were just looking at Federal Government spending. Here's a look at annual government spending growth at all levels: federal, state, and local. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/one-more-must-see-chart-on-government-spending-under-obama-and-reagan-2012-1#ixzz1ksovU8j1

I’m asked this question a lot. And I know a lot of drivers ask themselves this question when they pull up to the pump. The answer is based on the economics of supply and demand and how products are manufactured and sold – along with what the government takes in taxes. Let’s take a look, based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s breakdown of the estimated average price of a gallon of gas in December 2011, which was $3.27.

The establishment is fighting back, alright. This has not received a lot of national attention, but the Republican legislature in Florida is about to push through a plan which puts Allen West at serious risk, and the person leading the effort is one of Mitt Romney’s spokemen. As reported by The Shark Tank:

Interestingly, space policy has been much more discussed in this primary campaign than any other in recent history, largely because it is a topic about which one of the candidates, Newt Gingrich, is unusually enthusiastic and conversant. With the focus on Tuesday’s primary in Florida, a swing state in which space is an important issue to many on the Space Coast, it seems to have reached a peak in the last few days, though after Tuesday’s vote it is likely to recede into the background, with few remaining debates ahead, and none focusing on a space state. On Wednesday, Gingrich...

Under attack for his healthcare plan in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney tried to downplay the issue. Responding to attacks over his healthcare plan in Massachusetts, former Gov. Mitt Romney said the plan is “not worth getting angry about” in Thursday’s Republican debate. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Penn.) hit Romney over a plan that has many similarities to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, often refered to by Republicans as "Obamacare." RELATED ARTICLES Santorum hits Romney on healthcare