Free Republic

RUSH: Minnesota state government is closed. The Minnesota state government shut down at midnight last night, the victim "of an ongoing dispute over taxes and spending between Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative majorities. Talks fell apart well before the deadline, leaving state parks closed on the brink of the Fourth of July weekend." Oh, the tears. You see how this works? Evil Republicans, state parks are closed, the little kiddies don't get to have their snow cones and the sleigh rides, oh, no, no Fourth of July, evil Republicans. The AP says that the shutdown in Minnesota puts...

Obama dives into debt talksBy Stephen Collinson | AFP – Mon, Jun 27, 2011 The White House accused Republicans of siding with billionaires and private jet owners, as President Barack Obama waded into political talks designed to avert a "calamitous" US debt default. Obama met the top Democrat in the Senate and his minority Republican counterpart, seeking to unpick a deadlock over his call on lawmakers to lift the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling by an August 2 deadline. As political tensions rose, the White House warned of "calamitous" consequences to the global economy if the talks do not seal an...

Two weeks ago, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. released a widely reported survey that said almost a third of private-sector employers reported they will drop their employee health insurance coverage when Obamacare's government-managed insurance exchanges come online in 2014. The survey results exploded two major claims repeatedly made by Obama during and since the conclusion of the health care debate: "If you like your health plan, you can keep it" and "It will not add one penny to the deficit." Obama and his allies reacted with fury to the McKinsey results. Obama's deputy chief of staff for policy, Nancy-Ann...

Two unrelated news stories on the same day show the contrast between government decisions and private decisions. Under the headline, “Foreclosed Homes Sell at Big Discounts,” USA Today reported that banks were selling the homes that they foreclosed on at discounts of 38 percent in Tennessee to 41 percent in Illinois and Ohio. Banks in general try to get rid of the homes that they acquire by foreclosure by selling them quickly for whatever they can get. Why? Because banks are forced by economic realities to realize that they are not real-estate companies. No matter how much expertise bank officials...

RUSH: We have the unemployment news that we are now at 9.1% unemployment. We have next to no growth. We have massive unemployment. We're in the midst of a housing disaster, oppressive regulations. All of this and the regime is demanding massive tax increases. We face a threat of reduction in the nation's credit rating. We have systemic, historic deficits and still today you can read certain stories or go to certain networks and hear them talk about the recovery! There is no recovery. If this isn't a depression, then what is? And the sad thing is, what's even worse,...

Alabama Passes Mandatory E-Verify & Immigration Enforcement Bill Friday, June 3, 2011, 1:25 PM EDT An Alabama House and Senate conference committee agreed on a new bill, which both chambers have already passed, that requires the use of E-Verify by all businesses in the state and includes several immigration enforcement provisions. Should Gov. Robert Bentley sign the bill into law, it would become one of the largest state crackdowns on illegal immigration in the country. The bill requires all businesses, public and private, to begin using E-Verify effective April 1, 2012. Businesses that do not comply face suspension of its...

Public vs. Private Sector Inequities~ By: Larry Walker, Jr. ~Did you know that most state and local government employees are exempt from Social Security taxes? Millions of Americans who are covered by state or local retirement plans do not pay into the Social Security system. If Social Security is such a great plan, then why are 17,738,156 [1] state and local government workers exempt? Why does the federal government continue to legally bind the rest of us to a sinking ship? This isn’t 1933 anymore. The time for change is now. Social Security is the biggest fraud in American history.There...

Obama’s Private Remarks Caught on Planned Parenthood, Obamacare A White House reporter last night caught pro-abortion President Barack Obama talking privately to donors using a microphone that transmitted the audio to the main correspondent press room. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/04/15/obamas-private-remarks-caught-on-planned-parenthood-obamacare/

Concealed handgun license holders would become anonymous under a bill approved by the Oregon House on Thursday. House Bill 2787 prohibits public bodies from releasing information that identifies who is licensed to carry a concealed handgun. The proposal cleared the House by a wide margin, 42 to 18. Oregon's public records law allows for public inspection of handgun license applications, which ask for character references, previous crimes and drug use. The application authorizes the sheriff's office to run a background check. Currently, applicants can claim personal safety reasons to keep information private. Privacy advocates say gun ownership is no one...

If these outfits can afford to pay lavish salaries to their heads, they don't need taxpayer help. When presidents of government-funded broadcasting are making more than the president of the United States, it's time to get the government out of public broadcasting. While executives at the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are raking in massive salaries, the organizations are participating in an aggressive lobbying effort to prevent Congress from saving hundreds of millions of dollars each year by cutting their subsidies. The so-called commercial free public airwaves have been filled with pleas for taxpayer cash. The...

This video explains why public sector (government) workers are different from private sector (non-government) workers and private sector (non-government worker) unions. It also provides the shocking literacy rates in Wisconsin public schools despite the massive increase in education spending (that massive increase equates to increased wages and benefits for the government workers). And don’t miss the stats on how many children of government workers attend private school instead of the public government schools. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpCe79biR_8 In addition to the information in the above video, here are few more things to think about/to be clarified since most of the media outlets are...

Since the beginning of the last recession (December 2007) the private sector workforce has shrunk by 6.6% while shedding more than 7.5 million jobs. Over that same time period, the federal government workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) has grown by 11.7% while adding 230,000 jobs. This trend has continued throughout the Obama Administration. Since President Barack Obama was sworn into office, the private sector workforce has shrunk by 2.6% while shedding 2.9 million jobs while the federal workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) has grown by 7% while adding more than 144,000 jobs.

Radical health reforms which will allow private companies to provide NHS services, have less than a third of the public's support, a poll has revealed. The YouGov survey found only 27 percent of people are behind controversial plans proposed by health secretary Andrew Lansley to let profit-making companies increase their role in the service. The shake-up dubbed by experts as the 'biggest' in NHS history will allow GPs in England the power to commission £80 billion of treatment for patients - 80 per cent of the entire health service budget - from 'any willing provider'.

If successful, Max Mosley's bid to change the UK law on privacy could result in 'a radically different press...with a lot of the colour taken away' and 'papers folding because they can't afford the legal costs' and 'would imperil investigative journalism', it has been warned – as D-day looms in the European Court of Human Rights. Just under three years ago, the then FIA President found himself at the centre of a sensationalist tabloid sex scandal following a front page exposé published by Sunday red-top the News of the World detailing his lurid liaisons with prostitutes in a so-called 'torture...

The U.S. isn't the only place that's facing a major pension fund crisis. The Christian Science Monitor has this alarming report: People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two...

As tomorrow is the 66th Anniversary, I am posting this bit of history. Much to learn from this all American HERO. There is a video embedded in the link, I'll post the link to the video in comments. It is well worth watching. Neil "But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period -- I am addressing myself to the School -- surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson: Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in, except...

Private health insurance in the U.S. will be dead in three years, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn said Tuesday. "There will be no insurance industry left in three years," Coburn told the Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County. "That is by design. You’re going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone -- which is what they want. Because if there’s no private insurance left, what’s left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care.” Coburn apparently based his prediction on reported hikes in private insurance premiums, increases he attributed to the new law. Some insurers say they have raised premiums because of new mandates, including...

MOJAVE, Calif. – Virgin Galactic's space tourism rocket SpaceShipTwo achieved its first solo glide flight Sunday, marking another step in the company's eventual plans to fly paying passengers. SpaceShipTwo was carried aloft by its mothership to an altitude of 45,000 feet and released over the Mojave Desert. After the separation, SpaceShipTwo, manned by two pilots, flew freely for 11 minutes before landing at an airport runway followed by the mothership. The entire test flight lasted about 25 minutes.

Following Friday’s report that only 67,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in August, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Chief Economist, Dr. Martin Regalia, issued the following statement: “The employment data released today shows another month of anemic job growth in the private sector and an outright decline in the total number of jobs. “While this data was better than expected, it is a sad day when such a dismal number exceeds our expectations. “Once again, these numbers are confirmation that the economy is not growing sufficiently and it is far past time for the administration and Congress...

"Personal-izing" Social SecurityPrivate accounts can work, but they're not for everyone. Girard Miller | September 15, 2010 This is the fourth in a six-month series on reforming Social Security and Medicare. As the midterm elections approach, the national parties are dancing around Social Security reform. A common theme among Republicans, conservatives and libertarians is the idea of allowing Americans an option to invest "their" money themselves. Many Democrats, claiming it will undermine the entire system, view it as a wedge issue favoring their candidates. The president's bipartisan commission on fiscal responsibility may consider this idea as part of a comprehensive,...