Free Republic

Venezuela, a country that takes great pride in its looks, is dealing with an issue that has the country in a major tizzy – shortages in beauty products. That means women and men so accustomed to looking their best are now having to do without shampoo, cosmetics and, hold your breath, even deodorant. The cash-strapped government has been dealing with all sorts of scarcities – from staples like milk to medical supplies – because the country has put controls on the purchase of hard currency. And while certain shortages have been more critical – like diapers and coffins – Venezuelans...

Many Seattle workers are about to see their income go way up, after the City Council unanimously passed a $15 minimum wage earlier this month. But faster than you can get a happy meal at McDonald's, the ordinance is facing a legal challenge. “I guarantee not everyone will survive,” warned David Jones, who owns a Subway franchise in Seattle. “This discriminatory law will affect some franchisees and they will go out of business.” The International Franchise Association, representing those concerns, has sued over the wage hike, specifically objecting to the fact the ordinance treats franchises as big businesses and requires...

President Obama, in an address speech to UC Irvine graduates Saturday, took aim at congressional Republicans and others who dispute climate change, saying they posed a threat to the future.

In Washington D.C., low-wage protesters aren’t settling for half-measures. On Thursday, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez unveiled a proposed rule to lift the wage floor to $10.10 per hour, potentially hiking the pay of up to 200,000 employees of federal contractors. Yet the step forward has not satisfied the workers’ organization Good Jobs Nation, which is now demanding the right to collectively bargain with their employers. “I’m grateful to the President for raising my wage to $10 an hour, but it’s not enough to care for my son,” says Rodelma Acosta, a McDonald’s worker at the Pentagon, in a statement from...

Major negative effects of climate change are here now and they're only getting worse. We've gathered some notable effects of climate change below. 1. Climate change will be insanely expensive. 2. Hundreds of millions of people may be displaced by 2050. 3. Dengue and malaria could spread in the U.S. 4. Western wildfires could burn up to eight times as much land by 2100. 5. An additional 8% of the world population will experience water scarcity by 2100. 6. Hurricanes could become up to 11% more intense and 20% wetter by 2100. 7. Four times as many New Yorkers could...

Maybe it’s me, but the predictable right-wing cries of outrage over the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules on carbon seem oddly muted and unfocused. I mean, these are the people who managed to create national outrage over nonexistent death panels. Now the Obama administration is doing something that really will impose at least some pain on some people. Where are the eye-catching fake horror stories? For what it’s worth, however, the attacks on the new rules mainly involve the three C’s: conspiracy, cost and China. That is, right-wingers claim that there isn’t any global warming, that it’s all a hoax...

For I will restore you to health and I will heal you of your wounds delares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast, saying: “It is Zion; no one cares for her.”’ Jeremiah 30:17 Why should anyone be surprised there were death lists at the VA, it is the natural process of Marxism. There is no way a socialist enterprise can compete with a free market one due to the lack of profit incentives which are replaced with political ones. There is no natural selection or efficiency necessities due to budgeting and making dollars go as far as...

by Jason DeWitt | Top Right NewsA teacher who helped write the controversial Common Core State Standards informed a shocked audience that he was motivated to do so because he is a “white male” who has been “given a lot of privilege that I didn’t earn.”Dr. David Pook, a professor at Granite State College and chair of the history department at the Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire, had just been introduced at the event at New Hampshire Institute of Politics on Monday night when he delved into his ties to Common Core. “The reason why I helped write the standards and the reason...

You can see the video of this speech by clicking on the "Enza Ferreri Blog" link above. Here is the transcript. Vote for Liberty GB in the European Elections on the 22nd of May because Liberty GB is the only credible party that can change what's wrong, since it's the only party which has clear ideas about what caused it. Today's major symptoms of the disease that affects Britain – mass immigration, Islamisation, multiculturalism – have been caused by the Left's cultural dominance in Britain – as all over the West – over the past 50-60 years. Uncontrolled immigration –...

The WVAS talk show was trying to discuss interracial adoption. But the conversation quickly deteriorated when a call came in from Alabama State Rep. Alvin Holmes. Listen in amazement as this public servant proclaims that the government should recognize sexual relationships between men and mules as “marriages” (you might want to jump to 3:34 or so): Video Somehow, even after men are getting married to mules, folks like Holmes will still manage to lead us even further downhill.

First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging students to monitor their older relatives, friends and co-workers for any racially insensitive comments they might make, and to challenge those comments whenever they’re made. The first lady spoke on Friday to graduating high school students in Topeka, Kansas, and in remarks released over the weekend, Obama said students need to police family and friends because federal laws can only go so far in stopping racism. -SNIP- [O]ur laws may no longer separate us based on our skin color, but nothing in the Constitution says we have to eat together in the lunchroom, or...

The food industry should be regulated like the tobacco industry as obesity poses a greater global health risk than cigarettes, say international groups. Consumers International and the World Obesity Federation are calling for the adoption of more stringent rules. These could include pictures on food packaging of damage caused by obesity, similar to those on cigarette packets. The new rules could include reducing the levels of salt, saturated fat and sugar in food, improving food served in hospitals and schools, imposing stricter advertising controls, and educating the public about healthy eating. Artificial trans-fats should be removed from all food and...

Swiss voters have rejected a proposal to introduce what would be the highest minimum wage in the world in a referendum, first projections indicate. Under the plan, employers would have had to pay workers a minimum 22 Swiss francs (about $25; £15; 18 euros) an hour. Supporters said the move was necessary for people to live a decent life. But critics argued that it would raise production costs and increase unemployment.

On Thursday, fast-food workers in more than 30 countries across six continents will take coordinated action on an unprecedented scale. In the United States, they will walk off their jobs in 150 cities — the largest strike ever. Workers around the world will join these protests in 80 cities. The protestors are set to take over a McDonald’s during lunchtime rush hour in Belgium; hold flash-mobs at McDonald’s restaurants across the Philippines, and conduct a teach-in at McDonald’s headquarters in New Zealand. The spread of the fast-food movement to the global stage is notable for the speed at which it...

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...

Pope Francis has close ties with liberation theology, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body that once condemned the movement, has said. In a lengthy interview in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller said Pope Francis “is not so much a liberation theologian in the academic sense, but as far as pastoral work is concerned, he has close ties with liberation theology’s concerns. What we can learn from him is the insight that there is no pastoral work without profound theology and vice versa”. In the 1980s the...

Today Pope Francis addressed a delegation of the UN – which I remind you is a principle agent for promoting abortion world-wide.Below please find the full text of Pope Francis’ address to the United Nations Agencies, Funds and Programmes on Friday, led by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.There is some blah blah at first, but keep reading. My emphases and comments.NOTE: A lot of this is simply warmed up John Paul II and Benedict XVI. There isn’t much new here, apart from the terrible wording about the State and redistribution. But we can, for the most part, say “Ho hum!...

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the "economy of exclusion" that is taking hold today. Francis made the appeal during a speech to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of major U.N. agencies who met in Rome this week. Latin America's first pope has frequently lashed out at the injustices of capitalism and the global economic system that excludes so much of humanity, though his predecessors have voiced similar concerns. On Friday, Francis called for the United Nations to promote...

The latest speech from Pope Francis is leading Drudge and the Twittersphere, and for good reason. Any time a world leader talks about “legitimate redistribution” in regard to economic policy, it raises eyebrows, if not hackles. In the case of this pontiff, the highlight of that phrase provokes heightened scrutiny. However, the longer context of Francis’ remarks this morning to UN leadership provides a much more nuanced picture of Francis’ view of economic policy — although probably not nuanced enough for libertarian ears: With this in mind, I would like to remind you, as representatives of the chief agencies of...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the "economy of exclusion" that is taking hold today.