Free Republic

When House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy headlined a fundraiser in early June the room was packed with defense industry lobbyists, but reps from one megacontractor were missing — Boeing. Not only was Boeing absent at that fundraiser, the contractor has cut off all political contributions to the No. 2 House Republican over his support for killing the Export-Import Bank, which facilitates billions of dollars in low-interest loans to U.S. exporters like Boeing. General Electric, also a major supporter of renewing Ex-Im and a benefactor of the agency, has followed suit and has not contributed to the California Republican this year....

...A 2014 study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere...

The Export-Import Bank is the height of crony capitalism. The bank uses taxpayer subsidies to make it possible for some American companies to sell their manufactured wares overseas at a lower price. It leads to absurd results like Boeing being able to sell its planes to foreign airliners at a cheaper rate than American aviation companies can buy them. There have been indictments and charges of corruption galore related to the Export-Import Bank. It disrupts the free market, wastes taxpayer dollars and is overwhelmingly unpopular with Republicans and even some Democrats. But Washington lobbyists love it, and they have been...

Senate leadership colludes with Washington Cartel of big business and career politicians against the American taxpayer WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today gave a powerful floor speech shining a light on the corrupt deal struck by Senate Republican leadership to allow the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.Some key quotes are below, followed by a complete transcript and of Sen. Cruz’s remarks. Video above.“There is a profound disappointment among the American people because we keep winning elections and then we keep getting leaders who don't do anything they promised...”“We've had a Republican majority in both houses of Congress now for about six months. What has that...

In a rare and fiery weekend session, the Senate voted on Sunday to resurrect the federal Export-Import Bank, handing the Republican Party’s most conservative wing a major defeat and setting up a showdown this week with House leaders divided over the moribund export credit agency. The bipartisan vote — 67 to 26 — broke a filibuster and allowed supporters to attach a measure to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank to a three-year highway and infrastructure bill, which is expected to pass the Senate early this week. The agency’s authorization expired June 30, halting all new loan guarantees and other assistance to...

Tech giant Microsoft announced Wednesday that it will be laying off approximately 7,800 employees worldwide, bringing a denunciation from a federal lawmaker who says the firings expose the company’s calls for more immigration.The firings, which will eliminate about 7 percent of the company’s workforce, are concentrated in Microsoft’s troubled mobile phone business, and will eliminate most of the remaining employees from its purchase of Nokia’s phone operation in 2013. Only some of the layoffs are in the U.S., with Finland being hit especially hard with over 2,ooo jobs lost. The firings follow up on the 18,000 layoffs the company made...

On the heels of several major corporations distancing themselves from Donald Trump's various business interests, the Republican presidential candidate admitted Saturday that he didn't think the corporate backlash to his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants would be "quite this severe." "I knew it was going to be bad because I was told this. All my life I have been told this: If you are successful, you don't run for office," Trump said in an interview on Fox News, addressing the recent spate of businesses that have severed their relationships with his brand. "I didn't know it was going to be...

The recent cyber theft of millions of personnel records from the federal government was sophisticated and potentially crippling, but hackers with just rudimentary skills could easily do even more damage by targeting voting machines, according to security experts. In many cases, even the electronic ballots could be manipulated remotely, according to a new report. The report found that the AVS WINVote machines Virginia has used since 2002 have such flimsy security that an amateur hacker could change votes from outside a polling location. “This means anyone could have broken into the machines from the parking lot,” said Cris Thomas, a...

The country in which we live today is not the “pioneering spirit of free associations and entrepreneurial creativity born in personal liberty” America of the Founders and Framers: it is Ameritopia Senator Ted Cruz was interviewed by Jeff Kuhner during his radio program on Friday, June 12th, 2015; the day of the vote in which the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – part of the prescribed legislative pathway to passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – was smacked down in the House by Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats working along side 34 Republicans against King Barry and the Progressive RINO Establishment: led by...

http://wingright.org/2012/05/28/ted-cruz-pit-of-vipers-and-the-council-on-foreign-relations-member-in-his-family/

In 1848, the discovery of gold in California lead to one of the most dramatic population shifts in US history. People hoping to strike it rich migrated from all over the country, South America, and even as far as China. The non-native American population of California went from under 1,000 to over 100,000 in a little over one year. Today, there is another gold rush taking place in Washington D.C. as political entrepreneurs seek to strike it rich by mining the climate change mother lode. According to the 2013 Federal Climate Change Expenditures Report to Congress, the Federal Government is...

If you want to buy a Model S in Texas, you're going to have to jump through some hoops for at least the next couple of years. Bills that would let Tesla sell cars directly to customers aren't going to get a vote before the state's legislative session wraps up on June 1st, leaving the electric vehicle maker high and dry until the next session kicks off in 2017. This doesn't mean that you're completely out of luck if you want Tesla-made transportation in Austin (see above for proof), but you can't simply pick one up. The setback isn't completely...

Congress is forgetting its duty: to improve jobs and wages for Americans We are living in a political world of the UniParty; it’s sort of like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a historic commodity and – in these modern times – financial derivative exchange based in Chicago. Naturally, the UniParty isn’t quite as obvious as the Chicago floor traders standing in a trading pit, calling out orders, prices, and quantities of particular commodities while dressed in color-coded jackets indicating their function on the trading floor; nor are those in the Senate usually observed gesticulating with complex hand signals to communicate the...

The Senate today is holding a key procedural vote that would allow the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be “fast-tracked.” So who can read the text of the TPP? Not you, it’s classified. Even members of Congress can only look at it one section at a time in the Capitol’s basement, without most of their staff or the ability to keep notes. But there’s an exception: if you’re part of one of 28 U.S. government-appointed trade advisory committees providing advice to the U.S. negotiators. The committees with the most access to what’s going on in the negotiations are 16 “Industry Trade Advisory...

President Obama signed a disaster declaration on Monday for Massachusetts and ordered federal aid to help the state recover from the blizzard that hit the region from Jan. 26-28. The state's costs total about $400 million. The aid is available to state, tribal and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations. It also covers state and local government snow-removal costs for a continuous 48-hour period during or after the storm and the costs of related hazard mitigation.

A popular visa program allegedly is being misused by U.S. companies to lay off thousands of American workers and replace them with foreign labor. And, adding insult to injury, many of the laid-off workers allegedly have been forced to train their replacements, in what one anonymous whistleblower called a “humiliating” experience. The allegations have caught the attention of a bipartisan group of senators -- including immigration hawk Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Illinois’ Dick Durbin -- who are calling for a federal probe. A letter sent by 10 senators urging an investigation specifically cited reports...

Jake Pultorak chuckles at the mention of “range anxiety,” the fear among some electric vehicle owners that their car's battery will run out of juice before the driver can find a charger. “I had that as a gas-car driver, but the anxiety was over how much I had to pay to get where I was going,” said Pultorak, 44, of Franklin Park, who has owned an all-electric Tesla Model S for about two years. Worries at the gas pumps have diminished over the past nine months as the global crash in oil prices brought the cost of gasoline to its...

The greatly anticipated “fix” to the Indiana religious freedom law has been released by the Indiana legislative committee, and it is far worse than conservatives feared. According to law professor Mark Rienzi, the new fix will allow the state to prosecute Christians criminally for denying gay weddings their professional affirmation.Rienzi, of the Becket Fund and Catholic University School of Law and who was lead attorney in the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case that upheld a claim under the federal religious freedom law, said this would “criminalize religious objectors.”

Just as surely as Marshal Petain capitulated to Naziism in France in 1940, Governor Mike Pence and the Republican legislative leaders of Indiana have capitulated to Corporatism in 2015. Big Business and professional sports organizations backed by the corporate elites attacked the religious freedom bill in Indiana and the Republicans caved, more evidence of a Uniparty system where corporate elites dictate policy, This adds to other issues like Amnesty and Common Core, where Big Business drives the agenda and the politicians march in lockstep. The House in Arkansas has now passed a similar religious freedom bill, but the business elites...

Guess What Makes The Cut As A 'Smart Snack' In Schools? Hot Cheetos Flamin' Hot Cheetos might conjure a lot of descriptors: spicy, crunchy, unnaturally fiery red. But it's a good bet that "healthy" didn't exactly spring to mind. Yet it turns out that those fiery Cheetos beloved by school children (some kids even made an epic rap paean to Hot Cheetos a few years ago) actually qualify as a "Smart Snack" under revised federal nutrition guidelines for schools. The Obama administration rolled out the new guidelines last year in a bid to limit the amount of junk food kids...