Free Republic

The last two presidential election cycles have revealed a stinking hypocrisy in conservatives: They profess their love of capitalism and entrepreneurship, but when offered a real capitalist and entrepreneur, they go, “Eek, a mouse!” And they tear him down in proud social-democrat fashion. In the off season, they sound like Friedrich Hayek. When the game is on, they sound like Huey Long, Bella Abzug, or Bob Shrum. Last time around, Mike Huckabee said Romney “looks like the guy who laid you off.” Conservatives reacted like this was the greatest mot since Voltaire or something. To me, Romney looked like someone...

Innovation is the key driver of competitiveness, wage and job growth, and longterm economic growth. Therefore, one way to approach the question of how to improve the competitiveness of the United States is to look to the past and examine the factors that helped unleash the tremendous innovative potential of the private sector. Among these factors, three pillars have been key: Federal support for basic research, education, and infrastructure. Federally supported research laid the groundwork for the integrated circuit and the subsequent computer industry; the Internet; and advances in chemicals, agriculture, and medical science. Millions of workers can trace their...

An Idaho businessman and his wife are pleading with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the federal government’s “bullying” over the family’s simple plan to build a three-bedroom home on a plot of ground they purchased in an existing subdivision in Idaho, plans for which they already have obtained all the legally necessary building permits. The issue is that the Environmental Protection Agency claims that the land – which is surrounded by existing homes on three adjacent lots, has no standing water, and has no streams or creeks on it – is “wetlands.” This is how Mike and Chantell Sackett...

This will drive the Enviro-weenies nuts! http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3425246

The federal government is proposing to grant a first-of-its-kind permit that would allow the developer of a central Oregon wind-power project to legally kill golden eagles, a regulatory move being closely watched by conservationists. The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday released a draft environmental assessment that would allow West Butte Wind Power LLC to kill as many as three protected golden eagles over five years if the company fulfills its conservation commitments. It’s the first eagle “take permit” application to be received and acted on by U.S. Fish and Wildlife under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection...

State wildlife officials are seeking public comments on the status of the American pika in California. This tiny member of the rabbit family, a high-mountain resident, is thought to be threatened by climate change. . . . Comments must be submitted by March 15 to Department of Fish and Game, Nongame Wildlife Program, Attn: Scott Osborn, 1812 Ninth St., Sacramento, CA 95811; or by email to pika@dfg.ca.gov.

MARK STEYN DECEMBER 24, 2011 Elisabeth’s Barrenness and Ours Who celebrates a birth nowadays? Our lesson today comes from the Gospel according to Luke. No, no, not the manger, the shepherds, the wise men, any of that stuff, but the other birth: “But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” That bit of the Christmas story doesn’t get a lot of attention, but it’s in there — Luke 1:13, part of what he’d have called the backstory, if...

Despite the steady stream of negative economic numbers, conservative Washington Post columnist George Will thinks that President Barack Obama‘s election prospects aren’t so dire. “All of the numbers say that the president won’t be,” Will said of the President Obama’s election prospects on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “But if the president carries the John Kerry states, he has 245 electoral votes. He needs 25 more. Don’t count the president out.” ABC political analyst Cokie Roberts went further, saying that she thinks the odds are in favor of the president’s reelection. ...more (w/video)...

Jeb Bush has penned a minifesto concerning economic opportunity that is worth giving a good think. He argues that while freedom entails the risk of failure, statism ensures the certainty of stagnation. In his opinion, the opportunity to succeed, even with the attendant downside of possible failure, is preferable to the certitude of gradual but inevitable demise. Noman adds that earthly hope lies in freedom and the growth--personal, moral and economic--that derives from its exercise. Hope cannot lie in a certitude destined to elude temporal, contingent beings in a world marked by limitation, or in false promises that no society...

State officials say a New Jersey man and his adult son were wounded in a pheasant hunting accident this weekend, then shot a second time while they were discussing the first mishap with authorities Both shootings occurred Saturday morning in the Colliers Mills Wildlife Management area in Jackson. The first shooting involved a single hunter who fled the scene, while the second involved a group of other hunters. The victims — identified only as two Jackson residents, ages 60 and 34 — each had pellet wounds to their face and hands, but the injuries were not considered serious. A state...

A crowd of about 50 unemployed D.C. residents swarmed House Speaker John Boehner's Capitol Hill home Wednesday night. (WTOP Photo/Alicia Lozano) WASHINGTON -- "Jingle bells, Congress smells, Republicans laid an egg," sang a group of otherwise jubilant carolers outside House Speaker John Boehner's Capitol Hill home Wednesday night. The crowd of about 50 unemployed D.C. residents swarmed the quiet residential street, candles and lyrics in hand. "Oh what fun it would be if the sick could afford their meds," they bellowed. They also carried holiday themed signs that read "Boehner stole Christmas," "Boehner - jobs of Christmas present" and...

The holidays are a season for giving and spending time with loved ones. However, this year taxpayers will be adding Uncle Sam to their Christmas list. Of an identified $10.72 billion of holiday spending, 43.36 percent of the price Americans pay to celebrate Christmas is due to government taxes, fees and other costs. This season, not even Christmas trees are safe from the government grinch. The Obama Administration has applied a 15 cent tax on each Christmas tree sold, meaning government now composes 31.19 percent of the price of an average 40 dollar Christmas tree. While implementation of the tax...

The 20th century will be remembered for the totalitarian monsters of various stripes who conceived, planned and executed programs of selective mass extermination of humans. I think that all Leftists, without exception, including the meekest of democratic socialists, have been implicated - knowingly or in consciously cultivated ignorance – as apologists for, or accomplices and abettors to the crimes of the totalitarians. I am stating this categorical proposition so bluntly rather late in life, although I have been convinced of its verity for as long as I can remember being able to recognize the evidence, i.e. since my teens. I...

Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is the process used by the energy industry to extract immense deposits of oil and natural gas from deep geologic formations that only a few years ago were unreachable. It involves injecting a solution of water and chemicals far underground, typically thousands of feet below groundwater supplies. Fracking was first used in Oklahoma in the 1940s and in the years since has been employed in more than a million oil and gas wells across the nation. There is not a single independently documented instance of groundwater contamination by fracking anywhere in the country, a fact that was...

What we instead need are more free markets and more liberty – for history has shown that this is the way for our country’s restored greatness – both as a nation but also for the general populace. To that end, we will be rallying on December 3rd at 11:30 a.m. on the West Steps of the Colorado State Capitol to show support for free market capitalism. Additionally, we will be having a charity drive for a charity to be determined to help show that voluntary contributions – not forced altruism at the hand of the government – is the most...

I’m a day late on this but it’s too intriguing not to blog. You can read the actual letter, which is exceedingly tame, on Mike Simpson’s website. Among the signatories: …Ron Paul. The bad news? If this happens, some people might be paying a little more. The good news? We’ll never have to read another “time for a grand bargain” column from Tom Friedman again. Dude, I think we should take the deal. A group of 40 House Republicans for the first time Wednesday encouraged Congress’s deficit reduction committee to explore new revenue as part of a broad deal that...

We’ve made a bit of a mistake as a conservative movement fixating so much on the race for the White House. There’s a behind the scenes fight happening in Washington right now. Congressional Republicans are not just selling us out, they are hell bent — and I really do mean hell bent — on destroying the conservative groups raising red flags about what they are doing.For so long the GOP in Washington could hide behind surveys like the American Conservative Union survey, which shows just how much more someone is Republican than Democrat. No one actually did a survey that...

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is threatening to ram through a sweeping new land use plan that imposes an environmentalist agenda on the state’s sprawling rural populations — a move that could spark a tax revolt and mass exodus unless it is rewritten, county officials and state legislators told The Daily Caller on Monday. O’Malley has indicated that he intends to impose what some lawmakers are calling a draconian new environmentalist agenda, known as “Plan Maryland,” through executive order and regulation, rather than through the state legislature, even though his fellow Democrats dominate both chambers. Plan Maryland’s expensive new mandates for...

These pointless monstrosities will continue to proliferate until the Government sees sense. Three separate news items on the same day last week reflected three different aspects of what is fast becoming a full-scale disaster bearing down on Britain. The first item was a picture in The Daily Telegraph showing two little children forlornly holding a banner reading “E.On Hands Off Winwick”. This concerned a battle to prevent a tiny Northamptonshire village from being dwarfed by seven 410-foot wind turbines, each higher than Salisbury Cathedral, to be built nearby by a giant German-owned electricity firm. The 40 residents, it was reported,...

THE United States became the world’s largest economy because we invented products and then made them with new processes. With design and fabrication side by side, insights from the factory floor flowed back to the drawing board. Today, our most important task is to restart this virtuous cycle of invention and manufacturing. Rebuilding our manufacturing capacity requires the demolition of the idea that the United States can thrive on its service sector alone. We need to create at least 20 million jobs in the next decade to offset the effects of the recession and to address our $500 billion trade...

ARLINGTON, Va. - A lawsuit which could delay the Virginia HOT lanes project will go forward, a U.S. District Court ruled Thursday. The suit, filed by the Arlington County Board, says the high occupancy toll lanes planned for a stretch of Interstate 95/395 are intended to benefit mainly rich, white, suburban and rural residents of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties. The new toll road is planned to run between Spotsylvania County and the D.C. line. Arlington says the added traffic would come at the expense of the county's diverse urban population and constitute a violation of civil rights. "We'll find out...

Federal regulators have denied a request by U.S. oil major ConocoPhillips to build a system of bridges to expand oil drilling on Alaska's North Slope, saying the project would harm aquatic wildlife. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied ConocoPhillips' application to build the bridges over the Colville River, in a decision Friday, saying other alternatives would meet overall project goals while better preserving marine wildlife. Houston-based Conoco plans to appeal the decision, company spokeswoman Natalie M. Lowman said Monday. She added that the company is "disappointed with their decision." Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and the state's governor, Sean Parnell,...

On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West. The construction would come...

Oil-refinery workers on the Delaware River yesterday received their second big blow in six weeks, when Valero Energy Corp. said it would close its operation in Delaware City, Del., casting 550 out of work. When workers heard the news, "it was like a time bomb went off," said Matt Edler, who has worked for 10 years at the refinery that rises out of the lowlands near the Delaware River in southern New Castle County. "My grandfather worked there, my father, and I worked there," said Edler, who yesterday afternoon joined other shocked refinery workers at Red Lion Inn in Bear,...

TAOS — Living off the grid doesn't necessarily mean you want to live next to a wind farm, even if it is designed to generate electrical power from a renewable energy source. A well-known Taos attorney's proposal to develop a wind farm has angered some residents near the site, including people in the Cielito Lindo subdivision, where homes rely primarily on solar energy. Eliu Romero is scheduled to ask Taos County commissioners Tuesday to approve land-use code variances to allow a 40-turbine wind farm on private land west of Taos owned by his sons. Romero said he and his partner...

Loop 820 drivers stuck in traffic often curse Austin. They should be cursing their own neighbors. A long-planned freeway across Northeast Tarrant County was blocked almost 20 years ago by hostile residents, pushing an extra 80,000 cars a day onto Loop 820 for years to come and creating the worst traffic bottleneck in North Texas. Former Tarrant County Commissioner Bob Hampton, a 1980s regional transportation leader, blames "Yankees" for blocking construction of the North Tarrant Freeway, now reduced to a divided boulevard called North Tarrant Parkway. From the mid-1960s until 1990, state highway planners expected North Tarrant Freeway to carry...

In 2006, former premier Lucien Bouchard and several business leaders blamed the not-in-my-backyard syndrome - NIMBY - for much of the Montreal metropolitan area's "immobilisme." The criticism followed the cancellation of two projects that had stirred public protests - a casino near Pointe St. Charles and the Suroît power plant. Despite the scolding, citizens remain unrepentant and as pesky as ever. Protests against noisy aircraft over the West Island, for example, are giving headaches to airport officials trying to accommodate increasing numbers of flights. Protests on the North Shore are also causing problems for the expansion of a smelly regional...

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is formally opposing the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power facility in Buchanan. Cuomo cites terrorism and earthquake threats in addition to an inadequate evacuation plan. PRESS RELEASE FROM ANDREW CUOMO: GOVERNOR SPITZER AND ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO ANNOUNCE EFFORT TO HALT INDIAN POINT RELICENSING ~ Nuclear Regulatory Commission Should Consider Threat of Terrorism, Earthquakes, and Adequate Evacuation Plans; Westchester County, A.G. Blumenthal Join Filing NEW YORK, NY (December 3, 2007) - Governor Eliot Spitzer, New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, and Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano today...

BY DAVE MARCUS As he put up a house in Sag Harbor, builder Paul Fried came up with a green idea. He decided to install a pair of four-foot-tall wind turbines to help power lights, computers and other appliances. The turbines would not only save energy but could also increase the value of the house, which Fried hopes to sell for $2.2 million. Several neighbors didn't like the idea. They said the turbines would be unsightly and noisy. Now, as he finishes the house, Fried finds himself in a battle with residents and village officials. The neighbors see the Finnish...

Hello, My name is Petty Officer Shane Tuck, and I have some information on the Navy's perspective on this issue. The Navy issued the following release regarding the court decision: SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Navy officials say they are deeply concerned by today’s federal court ruling that prohibits the Navy from training realistically before deploying Sailors and Marines potentially into harm’s way. A U.S. district judge in Los Angeles granted a preliminary injunction -- requested by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental and animal protection groups -- that bars the Navy from using active sonar during critical joint...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - While President Bush and pro-amnesty members of Congress are pushing an unpopular immigration “reform” bill that would bestow American citizenship on millions of people who have no regard for America’s laws, liberal Democrats across the Washington region are increasingly complaining about overcrowded houses, noise, loitering and general public nuisance — all caused by illegal aliens. These local liberals are in no mood for “celebrate diversity” chants. Listening recently to frustrated folks call a local radio talk show to vent about illegal aliens loitering in front of stores and cramming into $400,000 houses in their neighborhoods, I...

AUSTIN — Carrying signs with slogans of "Stop the Coal Rush" and "Shame on Texas," about 1,000 people rallied at the state Capitol on Sunday to call for lawmakers to slow down a plan to build up to 18 new coal-fired power plants. Environmentalists fear the new plants, with 11 proposed by energy giant TXU Corp., will pump millions of tons of pollutants into the air every year. "Coal plants seem so archaic," said Stacy Foss, an Austin teacher who brought her two young children to the rally in the 50-degree weather. "Texas is so environmentally incorrect." Organized by about...

The oil and natural-gas industry is increasingly looking to Canada as a home for big energy projects Americans don't want in their backyards. A patch of coniferous forest near here, on Canada's Atlantic coastline, represents both the promise and the challenges of that approach. The land, owned by closely held Canadian energy company Irving Oil, is earmarked for the possible construction of a 300,000-barrel-a-day crude-oil refinery that would cost $5 billion to $7 billion -- the first new refinery in the U.S. or Canada in more than 25 years. Irving hopes a refinery, if it chooses to build one, would...

WASHINGTON - Environmental groups filed two court challenges Wednesday aimed at blocking construction of Maryland's Intercounty Connector, a highway that officials say will ease commutes and take vehicles off local streets. The 18-mile, six-lane highway connecting Interstate 270 in Montgomery County with Interstate 95 in Prince George's County has long been championed by regional business groups, but faced stiff opposition from environmentalists as well as concerns over its cost. It finally won federal approval in May. In one lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club claim the air quality analysis conducted by federal...

Environmental concerns expressed over project By Brandon Mackey, Correspondent October 15, 2006 Richard Quinn / Special to The Star Alessandra DeClario holds up a sign at Plaza Park on Saturday to protest the proposed LNG plant. Heikki Ketola looks over information about the proposed liquefied natural gas plant. Ketola was part of a contingent from Malibu who came to Plaza Park Saturday to protest the plant. With hopes of stemming what they see as a possible environmental and human catastrophe, hundreds gathered in downtown Oxnard Saturday to protest the proposed liquefied natural gas project just miles off the coast. About...

Largest-ever wind power conference gathers in Pittsburgh As crowds gather today at Downtown's David L. Lawrence nation's largest-ever conference on wind power for the nation's largest-ever conference on wind power, they do so against the backdrop of one big question: Have increases in the price of energy from traditional sources made wind power a significant player in America's energy picture? The unofficial answer: Not yet -- but give it time. Chart: U.S. wind power capacity -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Officially, Christine Real de Azua, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), notes that while wind energy still represents a tiny fraction...

Public comment period on environmental impact report ends Friday. By Hans Laetz / Special to The Malibu Times Public comment on the scientific aspects of the proposed 14-story-tall liquefied natural gas terminal off the Malibu coast closes Friday, while local efforts to fight the project at the next step are ramping up. Residents have until Friday, May 12, at 4 p.m. to e-mail the California State Lands Commission with comments on the 2,500-page environmental impact report that examines Cabrillo Port, the floating LNG factory ship that the Australian mining company BHP Billiton wants to anchor 13.8 miles off Leo Carrillo...

One of the most radical anti-growth, anti-housing, anti-road, anti-everything proposals possible is now winding its way through the California Assembly, being pushed ahead by environmental activists looking for the silver bullet to stop any project they don't like. AB 528 would "authorize any person with a beneficial interest in the outcome to commence a civil action to enforce specified laws, including regulations ... that provide for the protection or enhancement of public health or the environment." It is sponsored by Assemblyman Dario Frommer, D-Los Angeles, and co-sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Gordon, D-El Segundo. In simple terms, if you or any...

A tax lawyer who fled his offices because of secondhand smoke coming from the adjacent suite of another tax attorney can sue his neighbor, the building and its managers for breaching his right to quiet enjoyment of his property, a judge has ruled. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard F. Braun said the plaintiff had demonstrated that he may have been constructively evicted, a necessary element of a claim for breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment. "Even if plaintiff's moving out when it did was not a complete constructive eviction ... plaintiff still claims it had to seal up the...

Snohomish County out of the race for a NASCAR track Local officials said they ended negotiations with Florida-based racetrack developer International Speedway Corp. today because the company wouldn't invest more money in the project. Since September, Snohomish County has been negotiating with ISC to bring a NASCAR racetrack to 850 acres of farmland between Marysville and Arlington. The corporation initially offered to invest $50 million in the $300 million project and asked the state Legislature to come up with a financing package to pay for the rest, plus about $75 million in needed transportation improvements. The project never even got...

Sunday, November 16, 2003 Otero Mesa Fight Unites Sportsmen, Conservationists By Jeff JonesJournal Staff Writer    One major battle pitting New Mexico sportsmen and conservationists against energy exploration is well under way, while another is brewing just over the horizon.     Some hunters and conservation groups hope to limit oil and gas drilling on Otero Mesa, a 1.2 million-acre swath of southern New Mexico grassland that has been touted as having some of the state's best hunting for trophy pronghorn, desert mule deer, quail and doves.     That basin is largely untapped, but the gas industry believes it could potentially hold...

Across America and around the world, liquefied natural gas is fueling more power plants, industrial operations and commercial vehicles than ever before. To bring LNG to California from Asia., the world's energy giants are moving to build three new terminals, including one on Vallejo's Mare Island that would be the nation's biggest. Five more are slated for Baja California to serve Mexico and the United States. But even in the midst of an unresolved power crisis in which natural gas supplies are critical to building new plants, community opposition may kill the Vallejo project and Northern California's chances for an...