Free Republic

With Congress deadlocked, President Obama is increasingly resorting to executive orders and recess appointments to achieve his objectives.

Lionsgate has already booked a November 2013 release date for the wildly-anticipated sequel to The Hunger Games,Catching Fire. But might the studio have trouble meeting this deadline? The question arises because negotiations aren't going smoothly with director Gary Ross, who executives want to return based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews for the first installment of the franchise. Ross earned $3 million for The Hunger Games - plus back-end profits - and, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter, is angling for a major sequel raise. All other major players have signed on for both Catching Fire and Mockingjay -from Jennifer Lawrence to...

The mother of slain teen Trayvon Martin wants to trademark her son's name in the slogans, "I am Trayvon" and "Justice for Trayvon," according to two petitions filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Federal documents show Sybrina Fulton, the teen's mother, is the owner of the trademark petitions, which were filed online March 21 by her attorneys Kimra Major-Morris and Natalie Jackson of the Women's Trial Group. The trademarks, if granted, would cover digital materials, including DVDs, CDs and audio recordings featuring Trayvon. Each trademark application costs $325.

The mother of slain Trayvon Martin recently filed a trademark to protect the rights to his name as an attempt to control- and collect funds from- the masses of merchandise being produced in support of their cause. It was revealed today that Sabrina Fulton, the boy’s mother, filed two petitions last week to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to specifically gain the rights to the phrases ‘I Am Trayvon’ and ‘Justice For Trayvon’, both of which have been frequently used by protesters across the country. The trademark application shows that she is specifically looking for control of the use...

How much would you pay to watch a replay of a great play, or skip a bunch of television commercials? And should you have to? Those are a couple of the questions raised by a newly surfaced Microsoft patent application. It’s called “Control-based Content Pricing,” and the basic idea is dynamic pricing of video content, based on the preferences of the user at any given moment — essentially setting different prices for different functions of the TV remote. Here’s an excerpt from the filing. For example, if a user initiates a navigation control input to advance past (e.g., skip over)...

Most people do not realize but there is a Commodity Empire that is run by New York’s biggest banks/Investment Banks that are in a continued struggle with the Federal Reserve over the right to retain the power of their commodity trading empires. They control the storage warehouses, storage tanks, and silos constituting hard assets worth multi-billions of dollars. But it also gives them inside information regarding inventories and the ability to manipulate the prices by moving inventory back and forth to unreported warehouses or to London. ----------------------- Page 2----------------------- At the center of this power struggle has been the issue...

The rich really are different from the rest of us, scientists have found — they are more apt to commit unethical acts because they are more motivated by greed. People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed. Those findings led to a series of experiments that revealed that people of higher socioeconomic status were also more likely to cheat to win a prize, take candy from children and say they would pocket extra change handed to them in...

{excerpt} Money, get away Elsewhere on the big money beat, I’m still trying to figure out how we got to a place where the top two GOP candidates are giving each other a hard time for making so much dough. It was Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street” who famously said, “Greed, for a lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit Greed . . . will . . . save that . . . malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.” A quarter-century later, a story...

Last week's column started off asking: "What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done?" The answer is that human greed is what gets wonderful things done. I wasn't talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I was talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Think about greed and racial discrimination. In 1947, when the Brooklyn Dodgers hired Jackie Robinson, why did racial discrimination by major league teams begin to drop like a hot potato? It wasn't feelings of guilt by white owners, affirmative action or...

KEENE, N.H. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Friday for immediate cuts to Social Security benefits, risking the wrath of older voters and countless others who balk at changes to the entitlement program. "We can't wait 10 years," even though "everybody wants to," Santorum told a crowd while campaigning in New Hampshire and looking to set himself apart from his Republican rivals four days before the New Hampshire primary. Most of his opponents have advocated phasing in a reduction and say immediate cuts would be too big a shock to current and soon-to-be retirees.

9. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was the ninth richest member of Congress in 2010, with an average net worth of $101,123,032. Much of her wealth is based on her husband's investments in real estate, a football team and other assets. 14. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was the 14th richest member of Congress in 2010, with an average net worth of $69,046,622. Feinstein's husband has a number of investments in a diverse range of industires, including a property management firm and a biotech venture.

Colleges pay presidents millions while raising tuitionBy Blake Ellis @CNNMoney December 20, 2011: 5:22 AM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Some private colleges are paying their top executives millions of dollars, at the same time they're hiking tuition prices for students. Vanderbilt University paid its chancellor, Nicholas Zeppos, $1.9 million in 2009, according to the school's most recent tax filings -- enough for up to 43 students to attend Vanderbilt at current prices. His total pay includes a base salary of $673,002, as well as bonus and other compensation. That same year, Vanderbilt's tuition jumped 4.3%. Since then, the college...

I've never seen this guy before although I see some other threads on other topics by Bill Whittle. This one is on how Democrats have painted Republicans as the exact opposite of what history actually shows and the sheeple have bought it hook, line, and sinker. The deadpan sarcasm is priceless. Enjoy and do as I have -- e-mail a link to those misguided acquaintances of yours that have never given critical thought to the propaganda from the left.

Dead Retiree Receives 7.7 Million Dollars in Government Pension Payment  California State Senate aide retired in 1969 at age 56 after 22 years of work with a "super escalator" pension from the state. Almost a decade after his death he is awarded $7.7 million in an additional pension payout.Watch the video... Uploaded by AFPCalifornia on Dec 16, 2011 California State Senate aide retired in 1969 at age 56 after 22 years of work with a "super escalator" pension from the state. Almost a decade after his death he is awarded $7.7 million in an additional pension payout.http://calpensions.com/2011/12/12/bid-to-trim-pension-fails-7-7-million-settl...Ventura County Taxpayer Associationhttp://www.vcta.org/California Common...

So just who are those top 1 percent of Americans that we're all supposed to hate? If you listen to President Obama, the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, and much of the media, it's obvious. They're either "trust-fund babies" who inherited their money, or greedy bankers and hedge-fund managers. Certainly, they haven't worked especially hard for their money. While the recession has thrown millions of Americans out of work, they've been getting even richer. Worse, they don't even pay their fair share in taxes: Millionaires and billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. In reality, each of...

Washington -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office accused the news program "60 Minutes" of omitting key information from its report Sunday on how members of Congress use privileged information to profit from stock trades. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill also called the report "a right-wing smear" based on a new book by conservative author Peter Schweizer of the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University. The book is titled: "Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Jail." Pelosi,...

By Amy Oliver and Michael SandovalIf lawmakers really cared about consumers, they would ditch expensive renewable energy mandates that require a subsidized market for resources that are not practical on a large scale.  It’s a classic case of putting the cart before the horse; policy came before practical application.The Department of Energy (DOE) reports that 24 states and the district of Columbia have renewable energy mandates ranging from Maine’s high of 40 percent to Pennsylvania’s low of 8 percent.  Also known as a “Renewable Portfolio Standard” (RPS), these policies require that energy providers ignore practicality and price in order to...

Moore Lashes Out At CBS4 Over Wealth Questions Filmmaker Visits Occupy Denver Protesters November 3, 2011 6:29 PM DENVER (CBS4) – Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore joined a growing crowd at the “Occupy” Denver protest Thursday evening, but his encounter with CBS4 left him fuming when he was asked about whether he represented the “99 percent” that the protesters stand for, or the “1 percent” they claim to be rallying against. He appeared in Denver for a book signing event and visited the demonstration at Civic Center Park just before 6 p.m. Moore said a few words to the crowd...

Say what you want about former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain’s presidential bid and his missteps along the way, but it’s hard to argue with results: Cain has an edge in the average of the major polls, and even picked up a straw poll victory in Nevada on Friday. But that doesn’t impress syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. “[I] saw him on ‘Stossel’ on abortion — entirely incoherent,” Krauthammer said. “On one hand, ‘people ought to have choice.’ On the other hand, ‘life is sacred from the beginning and abortion ought to be illegal.’ This isn’t a complicated issue. It’s one...

Cue the outrage button. A South Florida woman got a shock when she opened a recent cell phone bill: she owed $201,000. Say what! It was no mistake. Celina Aarons has her two deaf-mute brothers on her plan. They communicate by texting and use their phones to watch videos. Normally, that's not a problem. Aarons has the appropriate data plan, and her bill is about $175. But her brothers spent two weeks in Canada and Aarons never changed to an international plan. Her brothers sent over 2,000 texts and also downloaded videos, sometimes racking up $2,000 in data charges. T-Mobile...