Free Republic

Economic Systems: The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global warming is all about man's stewardship of the environment. But we know that's not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this. At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. "This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change...

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/02/12/questions-emerge-over-statement-brian-williams-made-in-socal/

A massive shutdown of America’s supply chain is now in progress because of a labor dispute between dockworkers and their employers. The average dock worker, according to Zero Hedge, makes about $145,000 per year plus some $80,000 per year in benefits, but apparently their overtime pay is insufficient, which has led to widespread strikes at the nation’s busiest ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach. The ports are now being partially shut down for at least the next four days, but the months-long dispute has already led to hundreds of container ships and tractor-trailers being left in limbo (see pictures...

For some time, an argument has been made that the liberal left, in refusing to examine the problems of Islam, has betrayed its Enlightenment roots. That is, while secular, feminist, and protective of free speech in dealing with its Western peers, the liberal left has been accused of abandoning its heritage in its quest for political correctness regarding Muslims. In truth, however, the left has a distinguished background of courting Islam as a weapon against Western capitalism. Its most representative figures from the past did so frankly, as the following rehearsal of their statements demonstrates. Karl Marx supported the Ottoman...

The United Nation’s climate chief says that reordering the global economy to fight climate change is the “most difficult” task the international body has ever undertaken. “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history,” Christiana Figueres, who heads up the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that...

"This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history. This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution." Those were the words spoken on Feb. 4 by Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under the auspices...

Trojan condoms now cost a month's wages for an average person in Venezuela. A box of 36 condoms can cost upwards of $755 for Venezuelans. A long line in supermarkets for corn, milk and sugar has been customary for a few years in the country, and the skyrocketed price for common goods like condoms in the country stems from the flailing economy and the shortage of goods throughout the nation, according to a report by Bloomberg Business. Venezuelans are facing inflation of more than 60 percent, exacerbated by falling oil prices that have reduced the country's oil export earnings. Venezuela's...

In an interview with Ezra Klein of Vox, President Obama said traditional market forces that used to redistribute income are failing and the time for government to do it instead has arrived. The interview, which ran today, was conducted January 23. Touting what he referred to as inclusive capitalism, Obama made the case for what actually sounds a lot like socialism. So part of our job is, what can government do directly through tax policy? What we’ve proposed, for example, in terms of capital gains — that would make a big difference in our capacity to give a tax break...

New Stalin monument in Russia-occupied Crimea At a time when each day brings fresh evidence that Russia is headed in a very dangerous direction and many news items that leave one shaking one’s head or feeling the need to say “I’m not making this up,” there are nonetheless some “smaller” stories that must not be ignored because of the long shadows they cast on the future. Three in the last several days fall into this category and are thus mentioned here, not because they provide a comprehensive picture of what is happening but because they point to trends already well-established...

“А у вас негров линчуют” is a bitter Soviet-era punch line meaning, roughly, “But in your country they lynch Negroes.” There were a million Cold War variations on the joke: The Soviet farm minister meets his U.S. counterpart, who inquires about whether the heroic Soviet farmers are meeting their five-year plans. Asked about each crop in turn, the Soviet minister is forced to sheepishly admit that they are woefully behind on every goal, and then demands: “But what about the blacks in the South?” A U.S. car salesman asks a Soviet counterpart how many months the typical Soviet citizen must...

So here’s Obama’s opinion: Ukraine should not get military aid from the West because even with American help, Russia would still mop the floor with them. And this, according to the Times, is what Obama thinks will intimidate Putin into signing a peace treaty. I’ll offer the president some free advice: telling Putin the world is too weak to stop him isn’t very intimidating. Yet even if the West got Putin to sign on to a new agreement, nothing will have been accomplished. Putin has been violating the last ceasefire agreement, because there’s no one to enforce it. What Obama,...

President Barack Obama’s eagerness to cut deals with Cuba at almost any cost could yield a “strategic disaster” in which the Russian military winds up controlling Guantanamo Bay, Cuba scholar Jaime Suchlicki told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner on Newsmax TV. The historic re-start of diplomatic and economic ties with Cuba ordered by Obama does not alter the fact that the communist nation’s rulers neither want nor feel they need improved relations with the United States, said Suchlicki, director of the Cuban Institute at the University of Miami. Just look at all the demands issued by Cuban leader Raul Castro, said...

Has anyone noticed that the nation’s leftist socialists are using the very same tactic with Islamic Terrorists [ISIS] as they incessantly use with the Nazis and other Socialists? Talk to any of the Leftists on the national socialist scene and they will go incandescent if you accurately attribute that the Nazi were socialists. It’s part of their freaking name for Pete’s sake: German Nationalsozialistische [deutsche Arbeiter-Partei] (National SOCIALIST [German Workers' Party])But that doesn’t deter leftists from denying reality. They will also deny that the USSR was Socialist… Even though THAT is also in their very name: Union of Soviet SOCIALIST...

The 2nd Amendment. While it was designed to be the last line of defense against a tyrannical government, it inadvertently is also a deterrent for radical Progressives who wish to fundamentally change our Constitutional Republic. Case in point. In 1988 Progressive author, Bob Zimmerman, ran for a Hawaiian Congressional seat and was soundly defeated. In 2015 Mr. Zimmerman has written a free “book” titled Common Sense. He modeled it after the historic pamphlet written by Thomas Paine which shared the same title. But instead of embracing individual Liberty, Mr. Zimmerman uses the words of the Founders to push a centralized,...

Russia is on a path to greater nationalization of private business, and the country has become a "value trap," Hermitage Capital Management CEO William Browder told CNBC on Tuesday. As a result, there is little value to be found in the country for investors, the outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin said in a CNBC "Squawk Box" interview. "It's a value trap right now. Low price-to-earnings ratio only helps you if you get those earnings in the end," Browder said. "None of that money is going to come to you. You're either going to lose it from capital controls, from...

Food prices are out of control in Russia. So now, Russian officials are even thinking about putting a price cap on "essential food products," reports the Moscow Times. "We will see how to efficiently place [the restrictions] into law," the deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich said. He also added that the government may give "the state competition watchdog more power in enforcing existing retail market regulations," reports the Moscow Times.

The actual history of communism -- the agony of the millions whose lives were destroyed by it -- is almost entirely missing from American cinema. The reason for this rests in Hollywood's own convoluted political history, a history that includes the "back story" of communism's own largely uncharted offensive in the studios. The cinema's great potential for persuasion excited Joseph Stalin and the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), which Stalin controlled. "One of the most pressing tasks confronting the Communist Party in the field of propaganda," wrote the indefatigable Comintern agent Willi Muenzenberg in a 1925 Daily Worker article, "is...

I was humbled and honored to see on various global news networks how my action movies that were pirated into Romania when it was a communist country inspired generations and set the stage for revolution against former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. However, the total truth is that without the common people rising up, rebelling and supporting freedom, change and democracy, the motivation from my movies would have been short-lived or even missing in action. Here's a sample of headline news from around the globe this past week: BBC News: "Talking Movies: How Chuck Norris changed Romania." Fox News: "'Chuck Norris vs....

Promising to help America’s middle class, President Barack Obama on Monday sent Congress a record $4 trillion budget that would hammer corporate profits overseas and raise taxes on the wealthy while boosting tax credits for families and the working poor. Obama’s budget also would steer hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s crumbling infrastructure of roads and bridges, help provide two years of free community college and reverse the across-the-board, automatic budget cuts that have slammed the Pentagon and nearly every government department. In the face of certain opposition from Republicans, an optimistic Obama hailed a “breakthrough year for...

Bill Browder rose from rebellious grandson of the former head of the Communist Party USA, Earl Browder, to the leading foreign capitalist in Russia, as the founder and CEO of the high-flying hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management. But his rise was matched by a brutal and deadly fall, in which the Russian government would steal and destroy Browder’s company, and physically threaten its employees, culminating in the imprisonment, torture and death of Browder’s lawyer Sergei Magnitsky — the man for whom on account of Browder’s lobbying, the Magnitsky Act was named. Browder and a deceased Magnitsky would both be convicted...