Free Republic

As they're sorting through requests for more funding from programs and agencies next legislative session, state lawmakers are likely to be asked to help out a huge New York City-based nonprofit: the National Football League. 2015 is the year when any additional tax exemptions for the league related to the 2018 Super Bowl would likely be passed, and stadium officials have confirmed they will be making requests. The question of what exactly Minnesota taxpayers would be giving the NFL as part of hosting the game has been in limbo since Minneapolis' bid was accepted by league owners in May. As...

We shall see. Gruber has had plenty of help. The President, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Kathleen Sebelius are more to blame for Obamacare’s troubles than Mr. Gruber even if he is the program’s “architect.”Jonathan Gruber in his now famous panel discussion at Penn simply told the truth as he saw it. A key reason, the key reason, Obamacare limped its way across the finish line was because of the deception employed by its champions. The ignorance of the American people, Gruber explained, was to be manipulated for their own good, and it was. And truly, from start to finish...

Given that our Commander in Chief is a surprisingly decent firearm salesman, it’s a little odd that one of America’s most prolific gun manufacturers might soon be facing an agonizing financial death. But, that’s exactly where Colt is headed if things don’t change drastically. It takes a very specialized form of failure for a gun company to miss out on the Obama-inspired run on guns, the “assault weapon” craze of the 2000’s, and the proliferation of Concealed Carry in the 1990’s, but that’s exactly what happened. And, worse, this isn’t Colt’s first foray into fiscal failure. In fact, this...

What’s the easiest way to avoid getting sued by the Obama Administration? Well… If you come up with an answer, let the rest of us know. A company that has supported the President and his Affordable Care Act, is currently being sued by Obama for following the law. (Wait… “Affordable” Care Act? Can we sue Democrats for false advertising yet?)Welcome to Obama’s America. Where you can literally get sued for trying to comply with the law. (Boy… That’ll teach you.)Honeywell International Inc., and two smaller firms, are being sued for taking advantage of a specific provision in the ACA that...

Monthly job reports on payroll employment and the unemployment rate hide the massive job creation and job loss that occurs in the economy. This turnover challenges the state’s ability to influence job creation by offering tax money to select businesses to locate their business in Michigan. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Michigan’s private sector created 193,208 jobs in the first quarter of 2014 and lost 179,299 jobs in the same period. The job creation was caused by 40,862 existing businesses adding to their payroll plus the opening of 11,150 new business establishments. The losses were caused by 41,565...

After already receiving a controversial $1.6 billion construction loan from U.S. taxpayers, the wealthy investors of a California solar power plant now want a $539 million federal grant to pay off their federal loan. "This is an attempt by very large cash generating companies that have billions on their balance sheet to get a federal bailout, i.e. a bailout from us - the taxpayer for their pet project," said Reason Foundation VP of Research Julian Morris. "It's actually rather obscene." The Ivanpah solar electric generating plant is owned by Google and renewable energy giant NRG, which are responsible for paying...

<p>I feel like I have to say this every time a story like this comes out of California, and stories like these come out of California all the time.</p> <p>California’s health insurance exchange has awarded $184 million in contracts without the competitive bidding and oversight that is standard practice across state government, including deals that sent millions of dollars to a firm whose employees have long-standing ties to the agency’s executive director.</p>

Crony Christianity challenges the separation of Church and State. Crony Christianity is the collaborative arrangement between government and Christian faith-based organizations whereby government funds Christian organizations to deliver goods and services that advance the political agenda of the government. Any government. The crisis surrounding the flood of unaccompanied alien children into the U.S. has promoted crony Christianity. It is a variation of the spider’s web of similar arrangements, spun between businesses and government, that we call crony capitalism. The Players The five players in crony Christianity are: (1) the bureaucrats who run ecclesiastically-related organizations; (2) the church laity aligned with...

A Dallas hospital's bizarre bungle of the first U.S. case of Ebola leaves me wondering: Is someone covering up for a crony billionaire Obama donor and her controversy-plagued, taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company? Last week, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital revealed in a statement that a procedural flaw in its online health records system led to potentially deadly miscommunication between nurses and doctors. The facility sent Ebola victim Thomas Duncan home despite showing signs of the disease -- only to admit him with worse symptoms three days later. Hospital officials, who came forward "in the interest of transparency," initially cited workflow...

Last year I took an Ethics class at school. Our professor gave us a lecture about the pros and cons of Capitalism. And at the end of the lecture, he asked us if we could define "crony capitalism". We all drew a blank. We'd all heard the phrase, but we didn't quite understand it. So he broke it down to us in very simplistic terms: "Let's sat that you own a cow. And your neighbor owns one hundred cows. But he's so greedy that he wants your cow, too. So he bribes corrupt politicians to pass laws that will take...

War speech at Air Force base produced by private, Dem-friendly company The stage, drapes, and sound system for an 18-minute speech by President Barack Obama cost taxpayers nearly $100,000. “Elite Productions,” the go-to company for prominent Democratic politicians such as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, put on the set for Obama’s speech to troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., on Sept. 17. The company provided “stage, drapery, and audio/visual equipment,” according to a contract document made public by the Air Force last week. The government paid the company $94,360 for a speech that lasted from...

Conservatives rightly rail against “welfare” programs such as food stamps. This is especially true when these programs are abused, but it is true in general as well. The government simply should not be in the business of redistributing wealth, and certainly not of giving direct handouts, especially to people who are perfectly capable of working. But did you know that business corporations receive far more in direct handouts than do these maligned individuals—often backed by conservatives and conservative politicians? And the numbers will startle you. According to a report by watchdog organization “Open the Books,” Fortune 100 companies received direct...

Chicago Big profit for Pritzkers on costly Chicago FBI deal Sun, 09/14/2014 - 3:30pm Better Government Association @bettergov | Email A deal involving the federal government’s most expensive lease in Chicago produced millions of dollars in profits for a development group that included Penny Pritzker, a top campaign fund-raiser for President Barack Obama who is now his commerce secretary, a Chicago Sun-Times / Better Government Association investigation has found. The developers also included Jack Higgins, a friend and political backer of former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Over the 14-year term of the lease, the government will pay $280 million in...

The American people should be sadly unsurprised to hear President Obama say one thing and see him do another. From the now-laughable “if you like your plan, you can keep it” claim to those infamous “red lines” in Syria, empty rhetoric is unfortunately all too common in this administration. But with his recent ringing endorsement of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the President has taken his flip-flopping to a new level. In his weekly address to the nation on August 23, President Obama praised the Ex-Im Bank, a federal credit agency that provides financing for deals between American...

CVS, the leading US drug chain by sales, announced Wednesday, September 3, that it had stopped selling tobacco products.... CVS was cheered by the White House as "setting a powerful example that we hope others in the industry will follow." First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted: "Congratulations and thank you, CVS Health. Creating a healthier future for our next generation is one good reason to live tobacco-free."

“There’s a sucker born every minute” A phrase of unknown origin—usually associated with P.T. Barnum, of Barnum & Bailey Circus fame.  Barnum would never have called his patrons “suckers”, as he always wanted to give them their money’s worth, as long as he made money doing it.  There’s only two levers to pull in making money:  take in more, or spend less.  Since Barnum’s day, this has not changed. The notable exception is government.  At all levels, but especially the federal government, they add weights and counterbalances to the levers of business, and expect business to simply keep pulling the...

How’s this for a depressing passage: “There’s just a lot more regulation going on,” Zelizer said. “There’s a lot of intersection between the economy and Washington.” “There’s just a lot more regulation going on.” My liberal friends, “regulation” is the mother’s milk of the crony capitalist state, the “fascist light” state. Our system of “regulation” is in most regards now just a vehicle for rent seeking. Blindly defending regulations in 2014 because liberals are supposed to be for regulation, is to give power to a vested corporate oligarchy. Am I saying that all regs are bad? No. Am I saying...

A U.S. Treasury Department investigation has found Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s 2013 Cuba trip did not violate sanctions law. Superstar Beyoncé and her husband, the rapper Jay-Z, had obtained permission to visit the blacklisted country from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control, under a license that allows cultural exchanges....

In what might have appeared to be a minor political event a few weeks back, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called congressman Tom Marino (R-PA) “insignificant” and “inconsequential” in a debate on the House floor. Why would the former House Speaker insult a colleague in such a manner? She didn’t count her way to this assessment; Democrats do not hold a majority of the House. Nor did she reason her way to this position, as there was nothing in Rep. Marino’s argument on the immigration issue that raised empirical red flags. Perhaps it was a momentary lapse in judgment in the midst...

Comcast and Time Warner Cable are spending more than $130,000 on a dinner to honor one of the federal regulators who will rule on their controversial merger plan, according to records of the companies’ contributions. The fundraising event for the Walter Kaitz Foundation will honor Federal Communications Commission panel member Mignon Clyburn as an advocate for diversity.