Free Republic

Full body shiver… I really loath the sentence I’m about to type. In fact, I hate it so much, I’ve retyped it almost a dozen times; and there is no better way of articulating the disturbing truth: Paul Krugman was right.Okay. I’ve showered. Also, I have slept on this thought. And yet, it’s still haunting me. The Left’s most adored “economist”, who has managed to turn being wrong into a career option, actually stumbled across a small kernel of truth in an otherwise typically inarticulate column. The King-of-Keynes managed to write a completely, and unavoidably, coherent thought last week. I...

The Ebola virus sweeping through West Africa has mutated repeatedly during the current outbreak, a fact that could hinder diagnosis and treatment of the devastating disease, according to scientists who have genetically sequenced the virus in scores of victims. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, also offer new insights into the origins of the largest and most deadly Ebola outbreak in history, which has killed more than 1,500 people in four countries and shows few signs of slowing. It also provided another reminder of the deep toll the outbreak has taken on health workers and others in the...

BAGHDAD — Fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have killed more than 100 Syrian soldiers they captured after seizing an airbase in the northeastern part of the country, according to activists who track casualties in the Syrian conflict and an ISIS fighter who was reached through the Internet....

With a prominent grocery workers’ union back in support, the California Assembly voted on Thursday to impose a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. Just days after the measure could not muster the 41 votes needing to pass, falling short at 38, it passed on a 44-29 vote. Seven Democrats who withheld votes on the previous attempt pivoted to vote aye. Lawmakers turned back Senate Bill 270 on Monday as the United Food and Commercial Workers Union withdrew crucial labor backing for the sweeping prohibition. Central to the union’s reversal was a provision allowing grocery stores to offer paper or...

NEW ORLEANS — In Washington, Sen. Mary Landrieu lives in a stately, $2.5 million brick manse she and her husband built on Capitol Hill. Here in Louisiana, however, the Democrat does not have a home of her own. She is registered to vote at a large bungalow in New Orleans that her parents have lived in for many decades, according to a Washington Post review of Landrieu’s federal financial disclosures and local property and voting records. On a statement of candidacy Landrieu filed with the Federal Election Commission in January, she listed her Capitol Hill home as her address. But...

Sources agopvstre telling us that emissaries from the DC Republican establishment had a sit-down with NC Tea Party activists in The Queen City Tuesday evening. Roughly a dozen activists — most of whom were closely affiliated with Greg Brannon’s primary campaign for the US Senate — met with two individuals identifying themselves as Republican National Committee operatives at the Taco Mac sports bar near South Park Mall. “They wanted to know where we might find some common ground,” on Tea Party-affiliated attendee told us. “They said they understood there was some heartburn among Tea Partiers about the GOP and Thom...

Since I’ve been in Washington for nearly three decades, I’m used to foolish demagoguery.But the left’s reaction to corporate inversions takes political rhetoric to a new level of dishonesty.Every study that looks at business taxation reaches the same conclusion, which is that America’s tax system is punitive and anti-competitive.Simply stated, the combination of a very high tax rate on corporate income along with a very punitive system of worldwide taxation makes it very difficult for an American-domiciled firm to compete overseas.Yet some politicians say companies are being “unpatriotic” for trying to protect themselves and even suggest that the tax burden...

Here’s an excerpt from an administrative decision I just read, DeMay v. Richmond County Dep’t of Social Servs., 2014 WL 4206296 (N.C. Office of Admin. Hearings); it was filed July 2, 2014, but just posted on Westlaw on Wednesday. The petitioner was demoted because of a statement she made at a meeting, and the administrative decision upheld the demotion: 3. The [Department of Social Services’] Policy Concerning Unlawful Workplace Harassment provides in pertinent part: The policy of [DSS] is that no employee may engage in conduct that falls under the definition of unlawful workplace harassment. All employees are guaranteed the...

The nation’s top television news broadcasts - in both English and Spanish - have been entirely mum on the latest revelations related to alleged obstruction of justice and politically-directed abuse of power at the Obama administration’s Internal Revenue Service. Whether at ABC, CBS and NBC, or Univision, Telemundo and Mundo Fox, these networks to date have essentially censored the admission by a U.S. Justice Department official –revealed by government watchdog group Judicial Watch – that allegedly lost e-mails of Obama IRS official Lois Lerner are in fact accessible, through the federal government’s computer back-up system. As Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton...

40 soldiers 331 Russian AIRBORNE Regiment refused to fight with Ukraine and have been discharged from the army Some Russian paratroopers from the regiment of VDV 331 guessed on which "exercise" their ship refused to go there and were immediately discharged from the army. In his report on the fate of 331 paratroopers regiment she quotes the words of one of the wives of the soldier: "wives banned tosee off their husbands": "They said, bad luck - no expression says Elena. - I still came to my husband at the checkpoint, I brought things. ECHELON leaving with a technique very...

Fifty years after the “war on poverty” was first waged, there are signs a new offensive is needed. Newly released Census data reveals nearly 110 million Americans – more than one-third of the country – are receiving government assistance of some kind. The number counts people receiving what are known as “means-tested” federal benefits, or subsidies based on income. This includes welfare programs ranging from food stamps to subsidized housing to the program most commonly referred to as “welfare,” Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. At the end of 2012, according to the stats, 51.5 million were on food stamps, while...

IMF chief Christine Lagarde Under Formal Investigation in French fraud case. IMF chief Christine Lagarde has been put under formal investigation by French magistrates for alleged negligence in a political fraud affair dating from 2008 when she was finance minister. Lagarde was questioned by magistrates in Paris this week for a fourth time under her existing status as a witness in the long-running saga over allegations that tycoon Bernard Tapie won a large arbitration payout due to his political connections. Under French law, magistrates place a person under formal investigation when they believe there are indications of wrongdoing, but that...

The Obama administration is highly exercised about "inversion," the practice by which an American corporation acquires a foreign company and moves its headquarters out of the U.S. to benefit from lower tax rates abroad. Not fair, says Barack Obama. It's taking advantage of an "unpatriotic tax loophole" that hardworking American families have to make up for by the sweat of their brow. His treasury secretary calls such behavior a violation of "economic patriotism." Nice touch. Democrats used to wax indignant about having one's patriotism questioned. Now they throw around the charge with abandon, tossing it at corporations that refuse to...

Obama is our Pierre Trudeau. Consider how Canada got that 26.5 percent corporate rate in the first place. In population, Canada is a small country. Many decades ago, the nati–on followed Britain and applied heavy taxes to fund social programs. In the late 1960s, Canada elected a kind of Barack Obama, a politically oriented law professor, Pierre Trudeau, as prime minister. Trudeau advocated a “just society,” which included universal health care and pushed for Canada’s version of multiculturalism: official bilingualism. The economic consequences of this legacy played out not instantly but over the longer run, especially in unemployment. Persistent inflation...

Progress: “Forward or onward movement towards a destination…. Development towards an improved or more advanced condition.” Progressive: “Happening or developing gradually or in stages.” [Compare with Darwinist evolution theory.] “(A person or idea) favouring social reform; Favouring change or innovation.” Progressivist: A person who is “modern, liberal, advanced, forward-looking, forward-thinking, go-ahead, enlightened, enterprising, innovative, up-and-coming, new, dynamic, avant-garde, modernistic, disruptive; radical, left-wing, reforming, reformist, revolutionary, revisionist” So much for definitions provided by the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language . It seems to me there is a whole lot of pure hope (and hype) associated with the idea of “human...

It ain’t half hot here, mum : Why and how Westerners go to fight in Syria and Iraq ___ THE two young men in the bus from Antakya, in south-eastern Turkey, to Reyhanli, nearer the border with Syria, sported long beards, calf-length trousers and toted small drawstring bags with their minimal belongings. They spoke in broken Arabic to the bus driver (local Turks usually have a smattering of the language) but to each other in a regional British accent. They were just two out of hundreds of Muslims from Europe, setting off to Syria to join the battle. That was...

Stanford law Prof. Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar won a unanimous vote from a state commission Thursday for his nomination to the California Supreme Court, moving Gov. Jerry Brown a step closer to reshaping the Republican-dominated court. The three-member Commission on Judicial Appointments approved Brown's nomination of Cuéllar, a 41-year-old scholar, to succeed conservative Justice Marvin Baxter on the court. Baxter is retiring in January and Cuéllar will take office for a 12-year term if approved by state voters in November. The seating of the governor's two appointees will likely form "a new majority," moving the court somewhat to the left, said Gerald...

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) seized on remarks by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in an interview with Breitbart News, citing his desire to address immigration in a government spending bill to argue he's thirsting for a government shutdown. Wasserman Schultz's remarks, made on a conference call with reporters convened with the purpose of bashing Rubio, come as White House press secretary Josh Earnest used similar rhetoric in a briefing with reporters Wednesday. In the interview, Rubio said Congress may seek to address a unilateral amnesty by Obama in an upcoming spending bill. “There will have to be...

The prospect of another economically and politically crippling government shutdown looms over President Obama’s talk of taking executive action on immigration next month and Republican threats to thwart him by blocking certain funding measures. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told the Des Moines Register “all bets are off” for passing a continuing resolution if President Obama decides to take executive action on immigration. “If the president wields his pen and commits that unconstitutional act to legalize millions, I think that becomes something that is nearly political nuclear,” King said. “I think the public would be mobilized and galvanized and that changes...

Allowing same-sex marriage in Georgia would pump nearly $80 million into the state’s economy, according to a study released Thursday by the UCLA school of law. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 21,318 same-sex couples live in Georgia. Half would choose to marry within three years, the law school’s Williams Institute estimates, based on similar patterns in Massachusetts and other states where same-sex marriage is legal. Highlights of the study include: - Spending on wedding arrangements by the couples, and their out-of-town guests, would add $78.8 million to the state and local economies over three years.