Free Republic

With the Olympics and upcoming election dominating news coverage, The United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Conference on International Telecommunications in December is not a likely source of interest for most Americans. Yet it certainly should be, for the anti-freedom, pro-regulation policies being considered at the conference are serious enough to have given rise to a rare show of bipartisan action in Congress. The ITU Conference will, among other things, be considering proposed amendments to an international telecommunications treaty, two of which are of particular concern to advocates of a free and unregulated internet. In light of this threat,...

Yesterday, Senate Democrats dropped President Obama’s proposal to raise the death tax in favor of their own. Their plan included stripping all death tax provisions out of S. 3412. By purposefully dropping the death tax provision, at the end of the year the tax is set to revert to pre-2001 tax cut levels, a rate that is higher than the President’s initial proposal. With her AYE vote on S. 3412, Senator McCaskill voted to subject Missouri small businesses, farms, and ranches to millions of dollars in additional taxes on earned assets. In 2006, McCaskill said that she supported “extending the...

Eleven Southern California business owners met this week with Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, at a Costa Mesa manufacturing plant. On the wall behind Mr. Romney's chair hung a large banner that read, "We did build it!" – with "did" underlined for emphasis. The banner underscored how out of touch President Barack Obama seems with what makes the American economy work. The business owners echoed the ire of those nationwide who do understand what makes the American economy work. Their words Monday in Costa Mesa directly refuted the president's now-infamous campaign utterance of last week: "If you've got...

What happens in the real world when those who are fiscally responsible for managing other people’s money hide it and engage in other deceptions? Yeah, they go to jail or at least get sued and have to pay up. What happens in Sacramento? We have a couple of examples of such shenanigans...

Over the last couple of months, Americans for Tax Reform has highlighted the 20 new or higher taxes on American families and employers created by Obamacare. The significance of these tax increases is that they are a direct violation of candidate Obama’s promise not to raise “any form” of taxes on these families. In an attempt to justify this widely unpopular piece of legislation, the Obama campaign released their own sort of “Fact Check” today. The response, however, missed the mark by ignoring hard numbers and common sense. They chose 5 of the 20 overall new or higher taxes to...

As poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote, if it looks "like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, call that bird a duck." The individual mandate upheld by SCOTUS last week not only looks like a tax, functions like a tax, but it is also enforced like a tax. Any cleverly veiled description of the individual mandate as a "penalty" and thus not a tax, blatantly overlooks the fact that it is a tax. Thanks to Congress' legal contortions of our system of jurisprudence, the individual mandate has been allowed to limbo under the bar of judicial...

If Barack Obama has an immediate eligibility problem, it is more likely to derive from the Social Security Number he has been using for the last 25 years than from his birth certificate. Ohio private investigator Susan Daniels has seen to that. On Monday, July 2, she filed suit in Geauga County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court demanding that Jon Husted, Ohio secretary of state, remove ObamaÂ’s name from the ballot until Obama can prove the validity of his Social Security Number. Daniels, who has vetted thousands of Social Security Numbers for numerous other clients, has done her homework. In her...

I suspect the essentials of Keynesian economic theory were scribbled as a faculty prank on a monogrammed napkin in the Harvard Business School cafeteria. After a few laughs, the discarded joke was left on the table with empty coffee cups and a half-eaten bagel; only to be discovered minutes later by an opportunistic work-study sophomore clearing the table. The crumpled napkin was auctioned as the hottest & newest economic pop-theory to a fast-talking tabloid freelancer (who had been to Vegas with his columnist-buddy at The Globe, and had the goods on him). After some hard-nosed and expensive negotiations, the freelancer...

There is a breathless article in today's Washington Post by Lori Montgomery detailing a study by JEC Democrat staff of the House GOP budget's tax reform plan. The headline of the report is that the tax plan, if implemented, would be a net tax hike for middle and upper-middle income households, and a giant tax cut for high income households. The only problem is that the analysis contains a fatal flaw that Lori Montgomery should have seen. The fact that she did not is troubling, to say the least. The House GOP budget empowers the Ways and Means Committee to...

Faced with the coming threat of the largest tax hike in history, commentators are salivating at the idea of another "grand bargain" that gets Republicans to agree to raise taxes on American families and employers. Any lawmaker willing to consider such a deal is poised to become another fool of history. The 1990 Budget Deal: Starting May of 1990, President George H.W. Bush huddled with Democrat House and Senate members at Andrews Air Force Base. What was Promised: Congressional Democrats convinced a number of Republicans to join them in a bipartisan deal promising $2 in spending cuts for every $1...

Deceptive Chimp Hides Ammo, Blasts Unsuspecting Zoo Visitors - (Santino just 1 second before the throw.) A chimp that creates hiding places for rocks he throws at zoo visitors reveals for the first time that humanity's closest living relatives can plan to deceive, researchers say. These findings could shed light on the evolution of higher mental functions such as planning, investigators added. The chimpanzee known as Santino is the dominant male of his group at Furuvik Zoo in Sweden. Intriguingly, past research showed the ape calmly gathered stones from his enclosure's moat and pieces of concrete he pulled off an...

Over the past three years, President Obama has demonstrated his willingness to lie about anything and everything if it leads to the acquisition and retention of maximum power for himself and his cohorts. Obama follows a pattern of overloading the system with deception, making responses to every individual distortion impractical or outright impossible. While Obama's opponents spend their precious time addressing each new lie, Obama keeps the focus off the end-zone, and seizures of power previously unthinkable are accomplished. At some point, citizens grow weary of hearing that their leaders are out for their ill, that political policies are nothing...

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Once upon a time the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation helped to maintain a certain focus. America and its European allies were supposedly upholding capitalism and freedom against Soviet Communism. Then the Soviet Union broke apart and we got our hands on the “peace dividend.” Money could be diverted from weapons to social programs. The West was free to pursue its own socialism – leading to bankruptcy. In 1990 a Soviet dissident named Sergei Grigoryants, who was twice imprisoned by the KGB, gave a speech in which he warned of the deceptive reality behind of the collapse...

Stumping for his “Buffett Rule” tax increase in Florida today, President Barack Obama said the following: “For those people who make under $250,000 a year – like 98 percent of American families do – then your taxes don’t go up.” – Barack Obama, April 10, 2012 But since taking office, President Obama has signed into law at least seven new or higher taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year. President Barack Obama’s central campaign promise – a “firm pledge” against “any form of tax increase” on families making less than $250,000 per year – was shattered when he...

President Barack Obama’s central campaign promise – a “firm pledge” against “any form of tax increase” on families making less than $250,000 per year – was broken two years ago today when he signed the Affordable Care Act into law. The healthcare law contains at least seven tax hikes that unquestionably violate Obama’s pledge. Documentation of Obama’s promise is as follows: Speaking in Dover, New Hampshire on Sept. 12, 2008, candidate Obama said: “I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income...

The jobs-killing Obamacare law contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and employers. Many of these tax increases fall on families making less than $250,000--a direct violation of candidate Obama's promise not to raise "any form" of taxes on these families. In less than a week, the second anniversary of Obamacare being signed into law will take place. The Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare next week. Out of the 20 new or higher taxes in Obamacare, here are the four that most hurt young adults and children. Every single one of...

This was the winning photo of the year in Turkey in 2010 – a battered and bloody Israeli soldier aboard the Mavi Marmara. Nine people were killed onboard the Gaza-bound Turkish ship after IDF troops who raided it encountered violent resistance by “peace activists” armed with an assortment of weapons. The “peace activists” threw stun grenades and beat the Israeli soldiers with pipes and chains. In August 2011 the Obama Administration warned Israel to apologize to Turkey over its bloody interception of a Gaza aid flotilla in 2010, or risk strained ties with Washington. There were also reports that Barack...

According to Sharia law, if one's father is Muslim, one automatically becomes Muslim. "Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can't seem to accept that Obama is not a Muslim." Many in the media are indignant with Reverend Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Invited on "Morning Joe" last Tuesday to discuss Christian persecution, Graham was asked whether he thought President Barack Obama was Christian or not. Although Graham concluded that Obama "has said he is a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is," he appeared skeptical, suggesting Obama's policies disagreed with Christian...

Democrats in Washington State’s House of Representatives have unveiled their budget proposal – HB 2127 – which they claim closes a $1 billion budget shortfall without raising taxes or borrowing money. In reality, the budget does raise taxes, and relies on accounting gimmicks to solve their $1 billion spending problem. The budget proposal, along with SB 2728, would allow counties in Washington State to add a 6-perent utility tax that in many instances would wind up on taxpayers’ cell phone bills. Washington State already has the 2nd highest national tax burden on wireless, with a combined state and federal rate...