Free Republic

Even if racism were wiped out tomorrow, we'd still need to address pervasive racial wealth inequality. Here's why. Although the Civil Rights Act, the landmark legislation which just reached its 50th anniversary, made great strides in desegregating the economy, economic discrimination is still widespread, and anti-discrimination legislation alone can never rectify the economic damage inflicted upon blacks by slavery and our Jim Crow apartheid regime. The Civil Rights Act was a mild reform, all things considered, but one conservatives fought with vigor and one many conservatives are still bitter about to this day. When the Civil Rights Act passed in...

First, the bad news: Even if the economy improves, middle-class career paths will continue to disappear as globalization and technological innovation render more jobs obsolete. Now, the good news: The fear, stress and humiliation caused by unemployment (and underemployment) can be alleviated with a simple solution. And now, the even-better news: This simple solution is starting to find backers on both sides of the political spectrum. A monthly cash payment to every American, no questions asked, would solve several of our most daunting challenges. It's called a basic income, and it's cheaper and much more effective than our current malfunctioning...

The United Nations (UN) has delivered its latest verdict on the measures necessary to save the world from global warming and the news is as grim as it is predictable and wearisomely familiar: More regulation from "experts", technocrats and bureaucrats at supranational organisations, such as the one whose initials begin with U and end with N.More taxpayer subsidies for expensive, inefficient renewable energy.More nuclear power (with shale gas used as a transitional fuel to replace coal). The abandonment of fossil fuels. Less meat consumption.A single, globally-regulated price for carbon dioxide. More local-government-enforced walking, cycling and public transportation. More back-door wealth...

Guess who's all of a sudden standing up for law and order? Why, it's radical environmentalists, who despite their general disdain for lawful behavior have felt compelled to speak out in support of the Bureau of Land Management's attempts to round up Cliven Bundy's cattle and ultimately force the Nevada rancher to abandon his family's century-old business. Martin Griffith at the Associated Press relayed the comments of one such group in a Sunday report in the aftermath of the BLM's abandonment of its roundup efforts, in Griffith's words, "after hundreds of states' rights protesters, some of them armed militia members,...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and his family are featured in a worshipful profile in this month's Washingtonian magazine. It's the sort of adoring journalistic exercise reserved for only the most handsome of the power elite. In it you can find out details about the Carney dog (a cousin to presidential pooch Sonny!), and how much the press secretary's tie costs ($135). But keen observers may notice the kitchen decor in the photo: Soviet propaganda posters. They really are the perfect pop of color whether you are the dour and sincere Nikita Khrushchev or the cheeky press-wrangler for a...

A preferred ploy of left-wing change agents is to ridicule critics when they point out the undeniable parallels between the goals of today’s “progressive” movement, to include the Democratic Party in general, and the goals of the early, and very much still alive, communist movement.If, for instance, one mentions the historical fact that nearly every adult who, at any time, was in any position of influence over a young, soon-to-be-radicalized Barry Soetoro was an avowed communist, to include his own parents, then one is immediately mocked and dismissed as a neo-McCarthyite hack pining for the bygone days of the Red...

A Thursday Huffington Post article highlighting Obamacare victims is causing quite a stir on the left. The piece, titled "How Obamacare Leaves Some People Without Doctors," breaks from the Huffington Post's usual embrace of Obamacare and features the voices of Covered California customers who are already dissatisfied with the health insurance they bought through the Covered California exchange. "My insurance is pretty useless," 35-year-old new Los Angeles mother Ruth Iorio told HuffPo. "I don't know what to do. I may just drop it for myself and keep my son on it. It's really depressing." Iorio says her Obamacare plan is...

The Student Union of Michigan ran an interview last week about a gutsy move by six Duke graduate students: For the past two years, they have collectivized wages. That is, they take their “stipends” (university-speak for “paychecks,” a sleight of verbiage that gets universities out of all sorts of labor laws) and put them into one big bank account. This way, for example, if you have an engineering student who makes a whopping $25,000 a year because he’s got summer funding, he or she subsidizes the medieval historian with two kids who gets only a swift kick in the groin...

A senior North Korean official has been executed with a flamethrower after Kim Jong-un branded him an 'enemy of the state', it has been claimed. O Sang-hon is said to have been brutally killed for his close ties to the communist leader's uncle Jang Song-taek, who was himself publicly tried and executed in December after being found guilty of corruption and 'counter revolutionary' activities. Mr O is thought to be the latest of 11 senior Workers Party figures to have been executed this year over their links to Mr Jang, with South Korean media reporting that Kim Jong-un has plans...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against moving "overtly or covertly" into eastern Ukraine and said there was strong evidence that pro-Russian demonstrators in the region were being paid.

After Crimea, what next? In an unauthenticated audio, Ambassadors Chubarov and Sergei Bakharev laugh about taking over areas in Alaska, Venice, Scotland, Catalonia and Miami. Watch out, the Russians are coming! ... The pair...joke that Russia will take control of Alaska, Venice, Scotland and Catalonia, a region of Spain which wants a vote on independence, reports The Guardian {link at URL]... The recording has been posted on Youtube, reports The Guardian [link at URL] ...

Managua (AFP) - Nicaragua's president Saturday defended his country's right to strengthen its military with Russian help, seemingly backtracking on statements earlier in the week shrugging off suggestions of increased cooperation. Daniel Ortega said Nicaragua was "committed to further strengthening and modernizing the army" with the help of any country willing to provide aid, especially in respect to the Central American nation's fight against drug trafficking. In remarks during a military exercise closed to press but broadcast on a local channel, Ortega said Russia has in recent years granted "extraordinary" and "sustained" cooperation "without putting a single condition." He did...

Financial advisers for years have warned about a looming shortfall between what people have saved and what they’ll need to maintain their standard of living in retirement. And, certainly, what Americans have put away for retirement is paltry. Unless we all start saving like crazy, the pundits say, we’ll have nothing to live on during our so-called golden years. Or we’ll all have to work into our eighties — if they let us. But maybe we should look at it another way. For most Americans, Social Security will be their primary source of retirement income. Everything else — IRAs, 401(k)’s,...

The Hotel Commodore building sits at the corner of 42nd street and Lexington in the heart of Manhattan’s thriving business hub once known as Terminal City, a complex of hotels and offices conveniently connected to New York’s bustling Grand Central Station. Gloriously introduced in 1919, the hotel boasted a total of ten elevators and 2000 commodious rooms, each one elegantly designed and quite modern for its time. The ceilings were built low for a trendier look, and the largest and most expensive room came with its own working waterfall. The spacious reception area was touted as “The Most Beautiful Lobby...

Thousands of Chinese Christians have mounted an extraordinary, round-the-clock defence of a church in a city known as the 'Jerusalem of the East' after Communist Party officials threatened to bulldoze their place of worship. In an episode that underlines the fierce and long-standing friction between China's officially atheist Communist Party and its rapidly growing Christian congregation, Bible-carrying believers this week flocked to the Sanjiang church in Wenzhou hoping to protect it from the bulldozers. Their 24-hour guard began earlier this week when a demolition notice was plastered onto the newly-constructed church which worshippers say cost around 30 million yuan (£2.91...

The Canadian Memorial to the Victims of Communism is one step closer to completion, with the federal government this week soliciting design ideas for the monument to be built near Parliament perhaps as soon as late 2014. Memorials for the victims of communist regimes exist elsewhere in the world, such as the ones in Prague and Washington, D.C., and since 2008 the non-profit group Tribute to Liberty has been gathering support for a similar project in Ottawa. The group says its board of directors represents “key ethno-cultural comunities in Canada affected by communism” and now has backing from the leaders...

Russia wasn’t all bad for Ukraine. A 45% reduction in the price of natural gas and what was supposed to be an additional $15 billion in aid was a necessary “lifeline”, the International Monetary Fund’s Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday. Speakqing to PBS News Hour on April 2, IMF's Managing Director Lagarde said, “The economy of Ukraine was against the wall and heading for disaster. It’s an economy that needed reforms, that Ukraine needed profound transformation of its fiscal policy, monetary policy and on its policy on energy to mention just the key ones. Without the lifeline it was getting...

North Korea appears to ape Nasa with space agency logo Design looks remarkably similar to that of US space agency, right down to the blue globe, lettering and swooshed ring The choice of a globe as the emblem for North Korea's space agency expresses the country's ideal of peaceful exploration, explains the Korean Central News Agency. The blue rings, it adds, represent satellites, and the constellation of stars shows the desire to "glorify Kim Il-sung's and Kim Jong-il's Korea as a space power". However, the state news agency neglects to mention one glaring thing: the new logo looks a lot...

<p>The FBI has swooped into an elderly man’s Indiana home and seized thousands of artifacts he collected — he says legally — during his decades of travel to hundreds of destinations, including Haiti, Australia, New Guinea and Peru.</p> <p>Donald Miller, 91, accumulated the artifacts over the past 80 years, said FBI Special Agent Robert Jones, during a news conference.</p>

Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church accused President Nicolas Maduro's government on Wednesday of "totalitarian" tendencies and "brutal repression" of demonstrators during two months of political unrest that has killed several dozen people..... Monsignor Diego Padron, who heads Veneuela's conference of bishops, said the "principal cause" of the crisis was the government's attempt to implant a blueprint for government that Chavez left behind called "the fatherland plan." "Within it they are hiding the promotion of a totalitarian-style system of government, putting in doubt its democratic credentials," he said, reading a church communique'. Though defending students' and others' right to protest, the Church...

Amid Economy Disaster, French Socialists Get Crushed in Election 02 April 2014 With France's economy falling apart under Socialist President Francois Hollande, the French voted this weekend for change — real change — in massive numbers. ... Full Article:http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/17964-amid-economy-disaster-french-socialists-get-crushed-in-election

A preferred ploy of left-wing change agents is to ridicule critics when they point out the undeniable parallels between the goals of today’s “progressive” movement, to include the Democratic Party in general, and the goals of the early, and very much still alive, communist movement. If, for instance, one mentions the historical fact that nearly every adult who, at any time, was in any position of influence over a young, soon-to-be-radicalized Barry Soetoro was an avowed communist, to include his own parents, then one is immediately mocked and dismissed as a neo-McCarthyite hack pining for the bygone days of the...

Following up on Putin’s phone call to Obama, Kerry is making a detour to Paris to negotiate with Lavrov over the fate of Ukraine. Lavrov has laid out Russia’s terms, and intimates that Obama and Kerry have accepted the principles underlying these terms. First, Russia demands that Ukraine adopt a new constitution that establishes a federal structure that gives each region considerable autonomy. Translate this to mean that these regions would be able to pull a Crimea. Or, more accurately, that Russia would be able to pull a Crimea, slicing off pieces of Ukraine and splicing them onto Russia. Crucially,...

".......Lisandro Barazarte, a photographer with the local newspaper, Notitarde, caught images of several of the men shooting into the crowd while steadying their firearms on their palms. "They were practiced shooters," Barazarte said. "More were armed, but didn't fire." When it was over, two La Isabelica men were dead: a 22-year-old student, Jesus Enrique Acosta, and a little league baseball coach, Guillermo Sanchez. Witnesses told the AP the first was shot in the head, the second in the back. They said neither was at the barricades when he was killed.... ....."They put a pistol in my face and said they...

A reporter has been detained by Capitol Hill police for trying to ask a question of Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy. Bloomberg BNA energy reporter Ari Natter tweeted about being detained. #transparency RT @AriNatter: I am being detained by Capital Police for trying to ask @EPAGina a question after her remarks. — nickjuliano (@nickjuliano) March 28, 2014 Natter was detained while covering the American Council On Renewable Energy conference, where McCarthy spoke. Also speaking at the conference was Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a staunch supporter of green energy who regularly takes the Senate floor to sound the...

....Hollywood has finally discovered Mexican Americans and turned its attention to Cesar Chavez as if all Mexican Americans adore Chavez. A movie partly based on fact will open this week in 400 theaters. I predict it will fail at the box office. Why? Fact: only 5 percent of all American Hispanics are rural, thus 95 percent are city people who could care less about Mexican or Mexican American farm workers.

While first lady Michelle Obama was visiting the Great Wall of China, Chinese officials ordered souvenir vendors to remove t-shirts featuring President Obama in a Mao hat. McClatchy reporter Stuart Leavenworth noted in the White House pool report that several merchants denied having the shirt, but that one merchant quietly showed a reporter an entire box of them.............

Groups Siberian russians crossed the Isthmus (now the Bering Strait) 16-10 thousand years ago. Russian began to settle on the Arctic coast, Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Archipelago. First visited Alaska August 21, 1732, members of the team boat "St. Gabriel »under the surveyor Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fedorov during the expedition Shestakov and DI Pavlutski 1729-1735 years Vote for secession of Alaska from the United States and joining Russia

MOSCOW, March 19. /ITAR-TASS/. The Communist Party of Russia suggests renaming one of the streets or squares in the Russian capital to celebrate the reunification of Crimea with Russia. Andrei Klychkov, the leader of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow State Duma, said on Wednesday that the party was going to submit its proposal to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin soon. They believe that Europe Square in front of the Kievsky railway station could be a perfect place to perpetuate the historical event. Klychkov said several new names for the square had been suggested. “The list of names includes Square...

SIMFEROPOL, Crimea — American and Ukrainian officials warned Sunday that Russia may be poised to expand its territorial conquest into eastern Ukraine and beyond, with a senior NATO official saying that Moscow might even order its troops to cross Ukraine to reach Moldova. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya, appearing on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” said the prospect of war with Russia is growing. “We don’t know what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has in his mind and what will be his decision,” Deshchytsya said. “That’s why this situation is becoming even more explosive than it used to be a...

Thousands of mourners packed a Shanghai square Saturday to bid farewell to "underground" Catholic Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang, whose faith led him to endure decades of suffering at the hands of China's ruling Communist Party, they said. Fan, who was imprisoned for much of the last two decades and spent his final years under house arrest, died last Sunday at the age of 97 after several days of high fever, according to the US-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, a Roman Catholic organisation. China has a state-controlled Catholic Church, which rejects the Vatican's authority, as well as an "underground" church. Experts estimate...

There’s not a lot to like about Vladimir Putin: he’s autocratic, vain and runs a corrupt government. And he doesn’t give a fig for human rights. The repression in Chechnya, the jailing of the businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Pussy Riot protestors, the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and of Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy – all this happened on Putin’s watch. Who would not be on the side of the 100,000 people who turned out on Moscow’s streets last winter to protest against Putin’s election to a third term as president and to demand fair elections and an honest...

FULL TITLE: Beijing hotel workers already 'fed up' with Obama entourage in 3400-square-foot, $8,350-per-night suite inconveniencing 'pretty much everyone' – and the first lady's mother is 'barking at the staff' Michelle Obama and three of her family members are staying in a $8,350-per-night Beijing presidential suite, but despite a 24-hour butler and other perks that come with the lodging, her entourage has inconvenienced 'pretty much everyone' and made the hotel staff 'fed up,' a well-placed hotel staffer has told MailOnline. The sumptuous pad at the Westin Beijing Chaoyang hotel – its website calls the room 'an oasis of comfort –...

Sixty-five years ago this month, Gen. George S. Patton Jr., hero of World War II and an outspoken critic of the Soviets, was en route to a Sunday hunting trip, a day before permanently leaving Europe, when he was critically injured in a vehicle accident on a deserted two lane highway near Mannheim, Germany. A large US army truck that Patton’s driver later said was waiting for them, suddenly — and without signaling — abruptly turned into his limousine’s path, causing a head-on crash. Even though Patton had an aide with him and the driver of the truck had one...

In light of what is going on in Ukraine, I ran across these vids. Beck mentioned the author, today. Pretty interesting stuff (and chilling). Anyone read the books mentioned? Thinking about buying.

What if you could receive a guaranteed basic yearly income with no strings attached? Didn’t matter how much money you made now, or in the future. Nobody would ask about your job status or how many kids you have. The check would arrive in the mailbox, no matter what. Sounds like a far-fetched idea, right? Wrong. All over the world, people are talking guaranteeing basic incomes for citizens as a viable policy. Half of all Canadians want it. The Swiss have had a referendum on it. The American media is all over it: The New York Times’ Annie Lowrey considered...

If the United States wants to avoid falling like the Roman Empire, it must avoid “overconsumption” and distribute resources equally, according to a study funded by NASA. “The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent,” reads the NASA-funded report published in the Ecological Economics journal. “Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed,” the study adds. “The stretching of resources...

Welcome to the official website of the Freedom From Atheism Foundation (FFAF)! Our oranisation exists in order to raise awareness of militant atheism and atheist atrocities around the world. In addition, we seek to stand for religious freedom on a global scale. The Freedom From Atheism Foundation holds firm in its faith in God and defends the rights of those whose religious liberty is infringed upon. Through our social media, victims of militant atheism are free to share their experiences without fear of harassment. Members of all faiths are welcome!

Too much inequality and too few natural resources could leave the West vulnerable to a Roman Empire-style fall Navigate to the Previous Story in this Section TECHHere's How NASA Thinks Society Will CollapseToo much inequality and too few natural resources could leave the West vulnerable to a Roman Empire-style fall. Few think Western civilization is on the brink of collapse—but it's also doubtful the Romans and Mesopotamians saw their own demise coming either. If we're to avoid their fate, we'll need policies to reduce economic inequality and preserve natural resources, according to a NASA-funded study that looked at the collapses...

Many like to watch movies or read fiction novels as a way to relax and get away from work and other stresses of day-to-day life. I, on the other hand, find non-fiction to be much more interesting than almost anything dreamed up by a fiction writer. So, when I want to relax and get away from things I like to read and watch non-fiction books and documentaries. Given what is going on in China lately I have been nearly obsessed learning about China's history. It is easily one of the most interesting cultures on Earth with thousands of years of...

MOSCOW, March 17, /ITAR-TASS/. President Vladimir Putin on Monday, March 17, signed a degree recognising the Republic of Crimea as a sovereign and independent state. “1. Considering the will of the peoples of Crimea expressed at the all-Crimea referendum on March 16, 2014, I hereby decree that the Republic of Crimea, where the City Of Sevastopol has a special status, be recognised as a sovereign and independent state,” the decree said. The decree entered into force upon signature, the presidential press service said.

Ukraine's Crimean parliament voted Monday to nationalize energy companies Ukrtransgaz and Chornomornaftohaz, according to a statement on the Parliament's website. A Crimean official said last week that the local authorities may sell the oil and gas company Chornomornaftohaz to a Russian firm "such as Gazprom" once the region assumes control of it. On Sunday, a Russia-backed referendum in Crimea demonstrated overwhelming support for joining the Russian federation. The US and its European allies are expected to announced sanctions against Russia on Monday after Crimea announced that just under 97% of voters in the region supported leaving Ukraine and becoming a...

In the wake of a March 16 referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, Ukrainian leaders refused to cede any part of the peninsula, calling on their troops to prepare for war. "Crimea was, is, and will be our territory," said Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh in a statement delivered at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center on March 17. Former heavyweight boxing champion and leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Vitali Klitschko announced that Ukrainian troops would remain at their bases, even after March 21, the end of a peace treaty signed by the interior ministries...

The progressive left, headed by President Obama, loves to talk about being on the right side of history. Go back five years and these people talked about making history, now they’re talking about being on the right side of it. Putin is on the wrong side of history when it comes to Ukraine, the right side of history isn’t entirely clear. Syria’s use of chemical weapons was the wrong side of history, opposing it the right side. Supporting homosexual marriage and other special rights for homosexuals is the right side of history, opposing them the wrong. When it comes to...

Pro-Russian demonstrators in eastern Ukraine smashed their way into public buildings and burned Ukrainian-language books on Sunday in further protests following two deadly clashes in the region last week. Protests, some several thousand strong, spread to Russian-speaking southern districts as Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, under the control of the Russian military for two weeks, voted in a referendum on joining Russia. [...] In Kharkiv, Reuters Television footage showed pro-Russian activists scaling an iron gate, smashing a van and breaking into the offices of a Ukrainian cultural center. Two policemen stood nearby, examining the van. The footage then showed young men seizing...

The foundation publications for modern global warming science meet no criteria for valid science. Methodologies are not given, measurements are not made and evidence is not described. Instead, preposterous fantasies on atmospheric studies are glibly mentioned with self-contradictory blather. The studies consist of nothing but a desired end point with fictitious methods of deriving the result. --SNIP-- There is nothing but modeling in global warming analysis, the simple reason being that the complexities and randomness of the atmosphere are totally out of reach of the science that can be applied. Only modeling is obscure enough to evade accountability to outsiders...

Carl Gibson, co-founder of U.S. Uncut, is joining with other Occupy Wall Street organizers to launch a new populist political party. While more details (including the name of the party and the identities of other key organizers) will be available when the group launches on March 20, the party will be explicitly anti-capitalist. Says Gibson: "A new party that actively opposes capitalism and unites people around the basic ideas of meeting human needs would be widely respected and immediately acknowledged. This new party could stand apart from the two corporate-owned parties by refusing to take campaign donations from corporations, banks...

If you want to know the back story of the Ukrainian revolution, The Soviet Story tells exactly what happened to Ukraine during the Soviet era - and a lot more.It's the best educational film on the nature of communism, which should be shown to all high school students in America to immunize them against the lure of the “great� utopia. However, I doubt most teachers will do so in today's political climate. This 2008 documentary tells the story of the anti-human ideology the way I see it myself. That was rather surprising, because in today's “progressive� media climate, such...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog New York Times and Ralph Nader criticize Obama for illegally seizing private property and violating disclosure laws The New York Times and Ralph Nader have recently criticized President Obama for illegally seizing assets from shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and for illegally avoiding disclosing this information from shareholders.The fifth amendment requires that compensation be given for such seizures, but Obama did not do this.Federal disclosure laws require that shareholders be informed of this information immediately, but Obama waited more than three years to tell them.Neither of these actions by Obama surprises me one bit....

Putin Adviser Publishes Plan for Domination of Europe By Robert Zubrin March 10, 2014 10:38 PM On March 9, a very influential geostrategic and ideological adviser of the Putin regime, Aleksandr Dugin, published his game plan for domination of Europe. The plan, which Dugin calls “the Russian Spring,” is presented as one of three scenarios for resolution of the current Ukrainian crisis. The other two, in which the Kremlin blinks in the face of Western pressure, result in thermonuclear war or complete global chaos.Following is Dugin’s plan for the Russian Spring. (The translation is mine. The original, published in Russian,...