Free Republic

Has anyone else noticed that Youtube is at it again, trying to block users who use an adblocker? The past several days have been hit and miss. About the only way I've been able to get around it is one of two ways: 1. to save videos to Watch Later, close the browser, then reopen the browser to view them, or 2. delete all cookies and cache and then log back in. But either of these two fixes are temporary because it happens almost every day now. Has anyone seen this, and have a newer fix for this? Thanks.

Indoctrination or Ignorance? 28-Year-Old Woman Learns You Can Eat Fruit From a Tree

By JEET HEER June 8, 2014 The science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein once described himself as “a preacher with no church.” More accurately, he was a preacher with too many churches. Rare among the many intellectual gurus whose fame mushroomed in the 1960s, Heinlein was a beacon for hippies and hawks, libertarians and authoritarians, and many other contending faiths—but rarely at the same time. While America became increasingly liberal, he became increasingly right wing, and it hobbled his once-formidable imagination. His career, as a new biography inadvertently proves, is a case study in the literary perils of political extremism. MOST...

A modest proposal: We've all heard about "shop local" and "get your food from local farmers, not distant corporate farms." Lots of people have apple trees in their backyards. Often they can't begin to eat or give away all the apples. In the meantime, big supermarkets sell corporate apples for one dollar a pound and up. I propose that people with backyard apples be able to take them to the supermarket and sell them to the supermarket for the same price at which the supermarket is selling apples. Furthermore, they should be able to take them at any time and...

Los Angeles, CA – David Binkle is a chef and one of the architects behind Michelle Obama’s inedible lunches. He was recently arrested for defrauding the school lunch program and is facing up to 13 years in prison if convicted. L.A. Times reports: David Binkle was hailed as a pioneer among school nutrition advocates for accomplishing a near-herculean task – using produce and meats provided by local growers to greatly reduce the number of fatty meals served in the nation’s second-largest school district. The initiatives won the district numerous awards, drew praise from then-First Lady Michelle Obama as she led...

It’s one thing for conservative pundits to question the Obama Administration’s latest higher education subsidy. It’s quite another for a writer in The Atlantic to start asking inconvenient questions. “President Obama wants to provide free tuition at community colleges, a proposal that could benefit as many as 9 million students, according to a White House outline of the plan released Thursday,” Fawn Johnson wrote on the Atlantic blog. “But there's one big caveat in the proposal: There isn't plan to fund it, other than to ask Congress for the money.” “Without that crucial piece of the program, which would be...

As someone who has spent over 15 years teaching at community colleges, I cannot think of a worse idea than President Obama’s proposal for the federal government to provide “free” community college tuition nationwide. Here’s why: Nothing in life is “free”: The lesson we should be teaching our students is that nothing of value is free. “Free community college” for students translates into “a tax increase for somebody else.” Who is going to pay for the billions of dollars it will cost to provide “free” tuition at community colleges, which are heavily subsidized by taxpayers already? College should be affordable,...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appears poised for a presidential run and is currently leading the polls among potential Republican candidates for 2016, but the comments he made in 1994 during his first run for Florida’s highest office may come back to haunt him.The Associated Press reports that Bush described himself then as a “head-banging conservative” and used fiery rhetoric — such as claiming he would do “probably nothing” for African-Americans if he became governor — in his ultimately unsuccessful bid. Bush made that statement in response to a question on what he would for African-Americans if elected to office.“It’s time...

Free community college for all. Conversation-starter? Definitely. Political possibility? Not any time soon. President Obama unveiled the idea in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday night. But administration officials provided no price tag, no legislation, and little evidence of Republican support on Capitol Hill. But the White House says that’s beside the point at this stage. The president hopes “to start a conversation,” Obama domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz told reporters.

President Barack Obama wants publicly funded community college available to all Americans, a sweeping, multibillion-dollar proposal that would make higher education as accessible as a high school diploma to boost weak U.S. wages and skills for the modern workforce. The program is expected to cost the federal government $60 billion over 10 years, said White House spokesman Eric Schultz, and it faces a Republican Congress averse to big new spending programs. Obama was promoting the idea on Friday at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee, a follow-up to a video message posted to Facebook Thursday evening. "Put simply, what...

The Obama administration announced Thursday that it will propose two years of “free” community college for students maintaining a “C” or better, paid for by taxpayers. The federal government would finance three-quarters of the costs, and the administration says it hopes the remainder would be financed by states.  Just 20 percent of community college first-years complete their program within three years. The White House claims the proposal will save students $3,800 per year in tuition costs. When asked about the cost of the proposal to taxpayers, however, the administration said it did not yet have a price tag, but...

(According to) to Justin Sink of the Hill, Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, declined to put a price tag on the plan during a conference call Thursday evening. Rather Muñoz said details of the plan will be in the president's next budget proposal. However, the president's announcement said that the plan could benefit as many as nine million students who could save an average of $3,800 per year. This would put the total cost at a little more than $34 billion. In a (video) accompanying the announcement, the president said that his plan would be...

WASHINGTON – President Obama on Thursday proposed making community college free "for everybody who is willing to work for it." In a video posted on Facebook, the president previewed his plan, which will be formally announced during a trip to Tennessee Friday. "It's not for kids," Obama said. "We also have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to constantly train themselves for better jobs, better wages, better benefits." The proposal drew an immediate critical response from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who said, "with no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point...

President Barack Obama on Friday will propose making two years of community college free for students. In a White House video posted Thursday evening, Obama said he wanted to offer “a little preview” of his plans for the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. “What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.” The proposal would make two years...

President Barack Obama on Friday will propose making two years of community college free for students. In a White House video posted Thursday evening, Obama said he wanted to offer “a little preview” of his plans for the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. “What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.” The proposal would make two years...

President Barack Obama on Friday will propose making two years of community college free for students. In a White House video posted Thursday evening, Obama said he wanted to offer “a little preview” of his plans for the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. “What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.” The proposal would make two years...

We did not need to wait until the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 10,000. It has been clear for some time that global equity markets are bubbling again. On the surface, this looks like 2003 and 2004 when the previous housing, credit, commodity and equity bubbles started to inflate, helped by low nominal interest rates and a lack of inflation. There is one big difference, though. This bubble will burst sooner. So how do we know this is a bubble? My two favourite metrics of stock market valuation are Cape, which stands for the cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio, and Q....

Some years ago, an old trapper from North Dakota hitched up some horses to his Studebaker wagon, packed a few possessions and drove south. Several weeks later he stopped in a small town just north of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. It was a Saturday morning -- a lazy day -- when he walked into the general store. Sitting around the pot-bellied stove were seven or eight of the town's local citizens. The traveler spoke. "Gentlemen, could you direct me to the Okefenokee Swamp?" Some of the old-timers looked at him like he was crazy. "You must be a stranger...

Is Binyamin Netanyahu's government too big? Yes. Is that good? No. So why would Netanyahu, an experienced politician, create such an unwieldy beast? He and his government face two historic challenges: an economic crisis that has yet to fully unfold, and a nuclear threat from Iran. We all want a government that can face these challenges. Could Netanyahu's critics suggest a better alternative to the coalition he managed to form, considering the sanctimonious refusal by Kadima to join a wider coalition? Netanyahu would probably prefer a more compact government. No one has suffered more from coalititis - the disease afflicting...