Free Republic

How did we end up in a world where Big Gulps are being banned in New York while the welcome mat for potheads is being rolled out in Colorado? How is it that cigarette smokers are pariahs, while people smoking weed are being cheered? This is despite the fact that potheads are almost universally recognized as unmotivated, low class, degenerate – and, yes, smelly failures. Even the ones that get somewhere in life, like Barack Obama, usually turn out to be mediocrities. Moreover, we all recognize that smoking is a dirty habit that makes you die younger and while drinking...

<p>Congress gave final approval Thursday to a $1.1 trillion spending bill that eases the sharp budget cuts known at the sequester and guarantees that the nation will not endure another government shutdown until at least Oct. 1.</p> <p>After three years of politically bruising and economically damaging battles over the budget, the bipartisan agreement to fund federal agencies through the rest of the fiscal year passed with little fanfare.</p>

From New York to California, local governments are spending taxpayer dollars to sterilize female deer, but critics say the approach is a misguided, ineffective and “incredibly expensive” approach to thinning out the herds that has become a suburban scourge. While some communities have used lethal means to curb the exploding population of deer, which roam backyards, destroy gardens and wander into traffic, others have taken what they see as a more humane approach — tranquilizing female deer and removing their ovaries. Average costs are about $1,200 per deer, according to a 2011 report by the New York State Department of...

With the closure of the recent Atlantic Club Casino Hotel, rumors of the bankrupt Revel being sold to Hard Rock, Las Vegas real estate prices remaining depressed, casinos opening up all around the country and online gambling legislation underway in various states, it seems as if the reasons for the very existence of Atlantic City and Las Vegas are in serious jeopardy. Beginning in the late 1940s, Las Vegas became known as the 'adult playground of the world.' Celebrities knew they made the big time when their names graced the billboards of ‘Sin City.’ Gamblers hoping to make money would...

Get ready to be blindsided by a barrage of new taxes. $1 trillion worth... They'll be coming courtesy of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. And they won't just be affecting those who make over $250,000. The bulk of these taxes will be passed on directly to the middle class. That's because while a majority of these "stealth taxes" were designed to be taxes on businesses, they're actually transferred directly to ordinary citizens. They include the investment income surtax, a Medicare payroll tax, even a "tanning tax" on those who utilize indoor tanning services. "Many of those [hidden]...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Prof. Richard Vedder, the Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University. Cincinnati and Detroit are separated by barely more than 250 miles – a five-hour drive at worst, or under an hour by plane. Despite this proximity, many Cincinnatians would prefer to believe that Detroit’s horrendous fiscal situation couldn’t possibly hit their city. Not so fast. As the largest bankrupt city in America, Detroit has seen its population drop by more than half, unemployment soar to well over double the national average, and services decline. This is what happens to a locality...

The chairman of the Democratic Town Committee has asked police to put a halt to Republican campaign signs shaped like stop signs posted along local streets. Ellery Plotkin filed a complaint with the Police Department Monday morning about the octagonal GOP signs that urge voters to "STOP Raising Taxes Vote Republican." Police Sgt. Suzanne Lussier, the department spokeswoman, said six of the GOP signs were removed by officers after their placement was deemed to violate state rules or created a traffic hazard. "From here on out, it will be referred to the (Republican Town Committee) or the (Democratic Town Committee)...

WASHINGTON — As America's road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway system, many are beginning to see a solution in a little black box that fits neatly by the dashboard of your car. The devices, which track every mile a motorist drives and transmit that information to bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial attempt in Washington and state planning offices to overhaul the outdated system for funding America's major roads.

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it's unclear how state governments are using much of that money. So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement. Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center. "So go ahead...

WASHINGTON — Several Republican senators said Sunday a Democratic request to increase government spending is hurting chances of a deal to end the 13-day-old shutdown. Leaders of the Democratic-led Senate were dismissive of a proposal Saturday, in part, because it kept in place for too long the automatic spending cuts that went into effect earlier this year. Another round of those decade-long cuts -- dubbed the sequester and approved by Congress and the White House in 2011 -- is expected in January. The Republican complaints came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke...

This story is just perfect — particularly in light of the party’s endemic debt denialism, and the personal financial straits of its chairwoman: There’s another budget crisis in Washington, and it’s unfolding inside the Democratic party. The Democratic National Committee remains so deeply in the hole from spending in the last election that it is struggling to pay its own vendors.It is a highly unusual state of affairs for a national party — especially one that can deploy the President as its fundraiser-in-chief – and it speaks to the quiet but serious organizational problems the party has yet to address...

During his Tuesday remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative, President Obama admitted that his health care law raises taxes: “So what we did — it’s paid for by a combination of things. We did raise taxes on some things.” “Some things” is an understatement. Below is just a partial list of Obamacare’s new or higher taxes on Americans: Starting in tax year 2013: Obamacare Medical Device Tax: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit...

President Obama called House Speaker John Boehner Friday night, saying that he won't negotiate on the debt limit.

Los Angeles’ new mayor has vowed to help stanch the flow of film and TV production jobs out of Hollywood, starting with the appointment of a film czar at City Hall. But to make a real difference, Eric Garcetti needs to convince skeptical state pols to combat the lure of rich tax incentives from outside California. Two days after this year’s Oscars, Hollywood’s councilman Eric Garcetti, then running for mayor of Los Angeles, staged a media event at Sunset Gower Studios. Only a smattering of reporters and photographers showed up, perhaps because the gathering was to address “runaway production,” a...

California handed out over $120 million in tax credits and incentives for specific small business startups over the past five years. And now, like a child on a playground, the state’s Franchise Tax Board is asking for all that money back. Over 2,000 small businesses are now being levied with hefty tax bills – some as high as $250,000 – for having taken advantage of a duly passed tax incentive program. State Senator Ted Lieu, D-Redondo Beach, said “[Businesses] relied on California law as it was written, that they would get a tax break if they invested in certain kinds...

“Why would the president do this for the cameras? It’s one thing to take a vacation but is this pose shoving it down the throats of the American people?” she asked. “Many are out of work. They can’t afford to spend the day working on their golf game in one of the most expensive places to vacation. Is this what leadership looks like?”

Cigarette taxes turn a frowned-upon habit into a popular revenue source. But a recent study found that cigarette taxes often lead to other tax hikes later. The National Taxpayers Union found a 70 percent chance that the so-called sin taxes will not produce the expected revenue, as people buy fewer packs. The taxpayer advocate organization reported that from 2007 to 2011, 25 of 37 cigarette tax increases were joined by other new tax hikes within two years.

Inside Edition: Newport Beach Lifeguards Make $200,000 and Can Retire at Age 50 The popular TV show Inside Edition does an expose on lifeguard compensation in Newport Beach, California: (Video)

Take Oakland, which is Detroit's doppelganger on the West Coast. The run-down Bay Area city, which has the highest crime rate in California, recently laid off more than 100 police to fund retirement benefits and pension-obligation bonds. Murders and robberies shot up by nearly 25% last year. To avert steeper cuts, the city borrowed an additional $210 million to finance pensions. . . Philadelphia is spending about 20% of its budget on pensions to make up for years of short-changing the system.

Ronald Zajac, of Northville, Michigan, the general counsel of Detroit’s two pension funds, and Paul Stewart, of Detroit, Michigan, a former trustee of Detroit’s Police and Fire Retirement System, were both charged today in a superseding indictment with participating in a bribery and kickback conspiracy involving over $200 million in investments before the two city of Detroit pension funds United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced today. McQuade was joined in the announcement by FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert D. Foley, III. Zajac and Stewart were added as defendants in a superseding indictment that had already charged former city...