Free Republic

Buried deep in a section of President Obama's budget, released this week, is an eye-opening fact: This year, 70% of all the money the federal government spends will be in the form of direct payments to individuals, an all-time high. In effect, the government has become primarily a massive money-transfer machine, taking $2.6 trillion from some and handing it back out to others. These government transfers now account for 15% of GDP, another all-time high. In 1991, direct payments accounted for less than half the budget and 10% of GDP. What's more, the cost of these direct payments is...

Evidence is accumulating that quality control is a serious issue in academic publishing, which is the key to career advancement for scientists and other scholars. In an age when appeals to "peer reviewed" "settled science" have become standard operating procedure in efforts to impose radical increases in government control over our lives, corruption in the mechanisms for reviewing  scientific publications has very real consequences for all of us. Nature magazine tells us: Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers. Richard Van Noorden writes: The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after...

Lease terms are still being negotiated, but these are some of the things expected to be a part of it: rehabilitating Hangars One, 2 and 3, fixing up a golf course, starting a public use and educational facility, and getting rid of NASA’s operation and maintenance cost of the area, among other things. In a press release, NASA did not give a date as to when these negotiations would conclude.

Democrat nominee for the Governor's Mansion in the Lone Star State is finding herself at the receiving end of a new ethics violation complaint filed with the Texas government, as reported by Fox News on Jan. 30, 2014 via Watchdog.org on Jan. 29, 2014 State Senator and darling of the left since her recent pro-abortion filibuster in the Texas State Legislature, Wendy Davis has just been figuratively slapped with accusations that she failed to disclose income as well as ties to lobbyists as required by state law for those seeking elected office. The editor of the citizens rights/journalism activists group...

The Center for American Progress partnered with Maria Shriver on lib, NBC promoted report. Not only did NBC allow their special anchor Maria Shriver to promote her own report on “Nightly News,” they did it without disclosing that it was made in partnership with a group that liberal billionaire George Soros gave $7.3 million to. In “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back From the Brink,” which was published on Jan. 11, an outspokenly liberal nun, Sister Joan Chittister, took aim at religious attitudes in America that “devalue” and marginalize women. Shriver was invited to the White House on...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Newport Beach in California. Steve, I'm glad you called, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Rush, good to be here, love listening to your show, and again your comments this morning regarding the unions and the -- RUSH: Money laundering. CALLER: Exactly. That's the term I was looking for, the money laundering. It's exactly what's going on out here in California with the bullet train. The politicians in California, all the Democrats have given all of the public employee unions their payback, but they've got a problem. All of the private sector...

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' scathing assessment of President Obama's handling of the Afghanistan war pales in comparison to what he thinks about Congress. In Gates' memoir, "Duty," which hit the bookstores on Tuesday, the former Pentagon boss puts his poison pen to the work of skewering what he calls an "incompetent" and "egotistical" institution.

(CNSNews.com) – American taxpayers spent $7.45 billion to help developing countries cope with climate change in fiscal years 2010 through 2012, according to a federal government report submitted to the United Nations on a subject that Secretary of State John Kerry described as “a truly life-and-death challenge.”That sum of $7.45 billion, which reached more than 120 countries through bilateral and multilateral channels, met President Obama’s “commitment to provide our fair share” of a collective pledge by developed nations to provide a total of nearly $30 billion in “fast start finance” (FSF), the report stated.

A deal for hundreds of millions of dollars in public money to draw the Atlanta Braves north of their downtown home is pitting conservative tea party activists against the elected and civic leaders in the staunch Republican county, with opponents saying the use of public money to help a private business is not what American capitalism should be about. The argument for the deal is simple, says Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee and other supporters. Almost $400 million in county bonds and immediate infrastructure improvements, with debt payments approaching $600 million over 30 years - will generate enough economic...

RICHMOND, Va. – With just one more day to go in the campaign, there is one group of voters that Republican Ken Cuccinelli needs to win over to become the next governor of Virginia: Female voters. He currently trails his Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe by 16 points among women. Carol Noggle, legislative coordinator of the League of Women Voters of Virginia, believes that women are likely to have a significant impact this year. “There were more women than men who are registering to vote,” Noggle said in a phone interview. “The higher turnout may be among women than men,” said...

ANNANDALE, Va. — Vice President Joe Biden on Monday delivered a closing pitch for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, painting the Virginia race as a major test of the mainstream electorate’s answer to a resurgent tea party. ”This race has captured the attention of the entire nation,” Biden said. “Not just because it’s a … race in a bellwether state that has become the face of progress in this country. But because it’s the first major race between the forces and faces of the new Republican tea party — a tea party whose social recidivism is only outgunned by its...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Besieged by unflattering stories about the launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare program, the White House saw a news report that it wanted to swiftly knock down. It was from NBC, which said that Obama had overpromised when he said Americans who liked their insurance could keep it, and that the president knew that many people would see their coverage change. White House officials quickly began firing off a barrage of tweets on Twitter, which has become one of the administration's most potent and relied-upon weapons in trying to shape public opinion and media reports. Josh Earnest,...

President Barack Obama will campaign for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe this weekend, giving a late boost to McAuliffe as he seeks to energize core Democratic voters in an off-year governor’s race, Democratic sources told POLITICO. Obama is set to appear at a Sunday afternoon get-out-the-vote rally in Northern Virginia. It will be the president’s first campaign appearance for McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. McAuliffe’s campaign has been working to activate many of the same voters who carried Virginia for Obama in 2008 and 2012: young people, independent women and African American, Latino and Asian American...

Terry McAuliffe (D) opens a double-digit lead over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) among likely voters in a Washington Post/Abt SRBI poll, as majorities say both candidates are running negative campaigns.

For the record: Valerie’ Jarrett’s daughter Laura’s father-in-law Canadian Liberal politician Bas Balkissoon is not (thank God!) Canada’s Prime Minister. Nor, as some news outlets are indicating, is he a MP. (Member of Parliament). Balkissoon—one of many Canadian Liberals with deep ties to the Obama administration—is a minor player MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament ) at Ontario’s Queen’s Park, irreverently known to the plebes as the ‘Pink Palace’. Before landing at the Pink Palace as a ready-made Liberal MPP, Balkissoon was a City of Toronto councillor involved in a computer leasing scandal. Wow, what a coincidence! Just as key Barack...

**SNIP** Lautenberg died in June after nearly three decades in the U.S. Senate. Many people would agree that he is owed a debt of gratitude but not everybody agrees that his widow Bonnie should receive $174,000, funded by taxpayers. Lautenberg was worth nearly $60-million. “I don’t think it’s right. I mean most us can’t afford death benefits like that. You know we would be happy to have a little bit saved just to bury ourselves,” Wayne resident Carol Dabaghian said. The payoff was buried in the government shutdown bill. It is a death benefit that is almost always approved and...

I can't believe I'm writing this sentence, but Obamacare's exchanges appear to somehow be more deeply corrupted and broken than previously known. If there were words more impactful than "meltdown" and "trainwreck," I'd use them. Instead, I'll simply present the facts as they continue to come to light. USA Today: The federal health care exchange was built using 10-year-old technology that may require constant fixes and updates for the next six months and the eventual overhaul of the entire system, technology experts told USA TODAY....Recent changes have made the exchanges easier to use, but they still require clearing the...

A proposal to end the government shutdown and avoid default orchestrated by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Leader Harry Reid includes a $2 billion earmark for a Kentucky project. Language in a draft of the McConnell-Reid deal (see page 13, section 123) provided to WFPL News shows a provision that increases funding for the massive Olmsted Dam Lock in Louisville from $775 million to nearly $2. 9 billion.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Hollywood’s Obamacare ZombiesPosted By Matthew Vadum On October 15, 2013 @ 12:54 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments If you’re sick and tired of TV news broadcasts spewing pro-Obamacare propaganda, get ready to be inundated with even more progressive health care proselytizing in the dramas and comedies that follow those news shows.For this you have the left-wing California Endowment to thank. The radical philanthropy is in the news because it is funding Obamacare public outreach efforts.As Newsmax reports, the Obama administration is “turning its focus on prime time television series, using the influential...

Foreign diplomacy doesn’t always resolve world-class problems, but it sure does rake in the swag. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was given a half-million bucks worth of diamond and ruby jewelry by Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and received $58,000 worth of bling from Brunei. The lavish gifts were among a treasure trove of keepsakes bestowed upon U.S. leaders in 2012, the State Department disclosed Thursday. ... Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden got a bare-breasted female bust from Liberia. The Constitution prohibits U.S. government employees from keeping presents worth more than $350. But officials at the U.S....