Free Republic

It’s bad enough that American taxpayers have been repeatedly fleeced by President Obama’s many failed “green” projects, now the commander-in-chief is dedicating an extra $2 billion—on top of $2 billion already dispersed in 2011—to make federal buildings in the United States energy efficient. It’s a necessary expense to protect the planet, according to the global warming movement spearheaded—and largely funded—by the U.S. government and much of the international community. This particular investment will cut carbon pollution by more than 380 million metric tons, according to a White House announcement. That’s equivalent to removing 80 million cars from roads for a...

Hunter Biden, the younger son of Vice President Joe Biden, will be joining Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, the company announced in a statement. “The company’s strategy is aimed at the strongest concentration of professional staff and the introduction of best corporate practices, and we’re delighted that Mr. Biden is joining us to help us achieve these goals,” Alan Apter, Burisma Holdings’ chairman of the board of directors, said in a statement, which was reported by The Moscow Times on Tuesday. Biden, joining the board, will be in charge of the legal unit, the company said and will provide support...

TARP was the absolute height of crony capitalism. Many of the big banks should have gone down, but in the midst of a “Blackberry panic” – as David Stockman puts it – the masters of the masters of the universe lost sight of reality and the nature of markets. Yes, Goldman Sachs would have gone down. But this would have been a GOOD THING. The blood which should have filled the the streets of Downtown Manhattan would have washed the unsustainable leverage clean from the system (for a while.) Giants are meant to fall. It would have been good for...

After successfully bringing more than 30% of the U.S. economy — the health care and financial services industries — under political control during his first term, President Obama made it clear last week that a priority of his second term is to go after the energy sector — another 10.5%. The purpose of the White House's orchestrated release of the National Climate Assessment on May 7 was to set the stage to drive energy markets and fossil fuels under the heel of more government regulation. Most Americans would celebrate knowing that the U.S. is on the cusp of oil and...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday morning that Etsy is getting $5 million from New York state to stay in Brooklyn, a pretty nice sum for a company whose CEO publicly acknowledged just weeks ago that it “could only exist in Brooklyn.” “A company like Etsy could only exist in Brooklyn,” Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson said during an April 23 appearance at a Brooklyn Tech Triangle symposium. “Almost all of our employees live in Brooklyn and our Manhattan employees are treated with scorn.” Etsy, which was founded in Brooklyn in 2005, plans to add more than 340 jobs by 2019 (a...

President Obama spoke at a Walmart in the heart of Silicon Valley and rolled out his plan for energy reform, an ambitious effort to convert more businesses, homes and government buildings to solar power. Obama praised the store's solar panels, LED lighting and updated refrigeration systems as examples of the redoubled efforts he wants private companies and the government to make toward a cleaner, greener future. Obama's choice of Walmart to highlight energy efficiency enraged those who see the retail giant and its low-wage jobs as a major driver of the income gap that Obama so often speaks of trying...

(CNSNews.com) - As job growth lags in the sluggish economic recovery, the Obama White House is pointing to climate change policies as a fix: Efforts to reduce carbon pollution, far from costing jobs, will create them, a White House spokesman told reporters on Wednesday: "Retrofitting buildings and modernizing them is one way to create jobs," Josh Earnest said. "It saves companies money in terms of their energy costs, but it also creates jobs in terms of people who are installing updated lighting, modern heating and cooling systems, and other things that make buildings more efficient." Earnest noted that President Obama...

Ten years since Malta accessed the European Union, the country’s business community has been provided with the necessary platform to expand their produce and improve their opportunities, but while the majority of companies have flourished amid increasing competition, some failed to meet EU standards. In the wake of Malta’s milestone anniversary, Sunday newspaper Illum interviewed four business directors – all of whom voiced their delight at how the local business community improved since May 2004. Famalco’s Business Director Hermann Mallia, Saint James Hospital Director Maria Bugeja, Impressions Managing Director Ron Mifsud and the CEO of Malta Business Bureau Joe Tanti,...

The liquor store union in Pennsylvania is on the ropes. Right now if one wants to buy beer or liquor in the Keystone State one must buy it from the state owned liquor stores. Run by state employees. But soon Pennsylvania will likely join the civilized world in allowing its residents to buy beer the way God intended. From a gas station. This is curtains for the liquor store employee union and it is not giving up without a fight. The spin guys for the union put together this ad to warn us that if booze was taken out of...

Though there are important differences in the the flavors of UKIP and the Tea Party in the US, both groups represent a pro market, pro entrepreneur, deeply middle class, anti centralized government, and anti-establishment perspective. Both represent a reemergence of classical liberalism (with exceptions on both sides) on a large scale.

This is the power of social media. This is the power of personal video cameras. This is the power of citizen journalists. And the next time Senator Feinstein calls for “licencing” only “legitimate journalists,” that the 1st Amendment only extends to people who work at the New York Times, Washington Post, or MSNBC, remember this moment. This is how the bullies with the power, the cronies and their allies, are turned back. Dianne Feinstein First Amendment Is A Special Privilege This is not about a rancher owing the Bureau of Land Management money. This is about a federal government which...

Conservatives and liberals had entirely different reactions to the recent confrontation between Attorney General Eric Holder and Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert. After the event, Holder expressed his view that no previous attorney general or president had ever had to deal with such treatment and that the reason had to do with race. Gohmert, on the other hand, said he was just performing congressional oversight because he didn't think Holder was doing his job. This is the latest episode in an American tragedy that has been unfolding since the English first settled colonies in North America. In July 1619, the first...

Do you know Ally Financial Inc.? You've no doubt seen their commercials. They used to be all over the tube hawking their high-yielding certificates of deposit. Now they're all over the tube with their "no hidden fees" campaign. . . . But Ally isn't funny. It recently announced that it's launching an initial public offering (IPO) of its stock at a price per share of $25 to $28. The shares will be offered by the U.S. Treasury as part of its planned exit of its investment in Ally during the subprime crisis in 2008. I've heard some analysts say this...

Former Sen. Jim DeMint, the president of the Heritage Foundation, writes in his new book—“Falling in Love With America Again”—about the cozy relationship between big business and big government. “Almost all big corporations benefit from, advocate for, and downright like big government,” DeMint writes. […] “These big companies like to write regulations that make it harder for the smaller companies to compete with them,” DeMint said. “The large companies can deal with a regulatory maze much better than the small companies can. Like the big tobacco companies wanted the FDA to regulate cigarettes because they knew the smaller companies could...

Representative Jim Moran (D-Va.) said on Monday that the $174,000 salary a member of Congress makes is not sufficient to live in the District of Columbia, even as he introduced legislation last month to raise the pay for federal workers by 3.3%—an increase that would provide a salary 114% less than the average made by lawmakers. “I think the American people should know that the members of Congress are underpaid,” Moran told CQ Roll Call. “I understand that it’s widely felt that they underperform, but the fact is that this is the board of directors for the largest economic entity...

Hungary’s governing party is tipped to win parliamentary elections Sunday, while a far-right party is expected to make further gains, according to polls. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party and its small ally, the Christian Democrats, are expected to win easily and they may even retain the two-thirds majority in the legislature gained in 2010 which allowed them to pass a new constitution, adopt unconventional economic policies, centralize power and grow the state’s influence at the expense of the private sector.Polls predict Fidesz will win around 45-50 percent of the votes, with a close race for second between a coalition...

Tapping pension funds and encouraging online crowd funding are at the heart of plans unveiled by the European Commission to kickstart business investment. Speaking on Thursday (27 March), financial services commissioner Michel Barnier said the Commission’s blueprint on “long-term financing” published the same day was needed to further encourage alternatives to traditional bank lending which remains stagnant more than five years since the start of the financial crisis. “Our financial system must regain and increase its ability to finance the real economy,” he said, adding that “we need to diversify financing sources in Europe and improve access to finance for...

I can barely put 2 pieces of code together but I’ll bet I could have made a website which enrolled at least one person at this point. Well I could have hired someone anyway. Oregon couldn’t even do that. (From Breitbart.com) Rep. Jason Conger, the other Republican on the panel, says officials in charge including executive director Rocky King, who left his job in December, should have known better than to try to pull off a project of this scope without hiring an IT contractor to run it. “I think it reflects a certain amount of arrogance that it...

President Barack Obama is getting some help from the country's tech giants in his effort to show Americans how climate change will affect their communities. The Obama administration thinks that local data, which may have a real-world effect on Americans' lives, will provide a convincing argument for steps to prevent climate change. The risk rising sea levels have on individual communities will be the focus of a new website, climate.data.gov, which uses government data to put environmental changes in context. The White House also called on tech companies to develop tools for Americans to better get a grasp on how...

Historians will one day look back at the presidency of Barack Obama and highlight the administration’s dangerous willingness to short-circuit the Constitution when convenient. From refusing to enforce immigration laws and disregarding rules governing presidential appointments to the outright takeover of our health care system, President Obama has repeatedly painted outside the lines to reward his friends, punish his enemies or to achieve his legislative and political objectives. There can be little debate that Hollywood and the recording industry have been some of the president’s strongest allies. They invested millions in his reelection campaign and are often credited with helping...