Free Republic

Maybe the Supreme Court justices should be sequestered from the rest of Washington, DC. Maybe someplace like Montana or Iowa, where the real people live.

The highway, student loan and flood insurance package Congress is expected to approve today includes provisions that would raise $20 billion in new tax and fee revenues from companies, according to an estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation. One of the new measures would adjust the way pension liabilities are measured for companies. Currently, companies are generally required to contribute more into their pension plans because interest rates are at historic lows. The bill would adjust the way interest rates are factored in, and allow companies to contribute less to pensions. However, that would also lead to increased tax...

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. It is time to get out from behind the keyboard and take real action. I've heard talks of another 'rally' etc. and was quick to say we didn't need another rally. And I still do not think we need another rally, but we need to...

Is there a possible Silver Lining for the States, and by extension the, People? Given that the Feds cannot withhold funding from the States for opting out of the Medicare provision in ObomaTax, has the precedence now been set that the States could now not have funds withheld for not following mandates contained within other laws pertaining to education, transportation, welfare, etc? If so, would that not be a great way to push back against this oppressive govt?

n the current recession, the ranks of the unemployed in California have swelled by nearly 1.2 million. Still, one industry seems to be thriving in America’s nation-state: the California “reform industry.” The key organizations in the Golden State’s world of reform are California Forward and Think Long, each with high-profile board members (including Hoover’s George Shultz and Condoleezza Rice, former California Gov. Gray Davis and ex-Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, as well as leaders from business and labor organizations), a cadre of political and policy consultants, and enthusiastic funders. I’m unaffiliated with either group. My perspective on state government was honed...

From Alan Vera of True the Vote: I majored in political science and minored in military science. I’ve served this country as an Army Airborne Ranger in special operations. In modern history there has never been a war settled by a single battle. In modern history there has never been a military force that won each and every single battle. In our own Revolutionary War the Patriot Heroes suffered nothing but defeat for the first year. Yet they won our freedom through perseverance and determination. Yesterday we lost a battle. It stings because we were betrayed by someone in...

NVIDIA has lost an order of at least ten million graphics cards because their GeForce/Quadro driver is closed-source. It's been a very interesting week in the binary Linux graphics world with Linus Torvalds calling NVIDIA the worst company ever along with making colorful comments about the green company, NVIDIA's bullshit response, and then on the opposite side of the table was XBMC developers publicly pointing out the problems with AMD Catalyst. Ending out Friday, assuming nothing else interesting takes place this weekend in the duopoly Linux graphics card battle, is word of NVIDIA losing a huge order due to their...

June 26, 2012 A Statesman in Congress To the Members of the 112th Congress: This Friday marks the 160th anniversary of the death of Henry Clay (June 29, 1852). With only a few years excepted, Clay served in the House of Representatives and the Senate from 1803 until his death almost 50 years later. When he died, he was the most famous American of his day and received many, many eulogies. One of them came from a little-known, former one-term Congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, who eulogized Clay as "my beau ideal of a statesman." In calling Clay a "statesman,"...

Despite voting to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress, there’s little House Republicans can do in the short term to compel him to turn over documents — unless it wanted to revisit a long-dormant power and arrest him. The thought is shocking, and conjures up a Hollywood-ready standoff scene between House police and the FBI agents who protect the attorney general. It’s a dramatic and unlikely possibility not least because Congress doesn’t even have a jail any longer. But in theory it could happen. Republicans say it’s not even under consideration, with House Speaker John...

Dear VICTORY! Thanks to you, we defeated Exxon’s plan to turn a pristine stretch of the Rocky Mountains into an industrial tar sands corridor. This is a win for the environment worth celebrating. Last week, we succeeded in bringing down a Goliath ... none other than Exxon Mobil. Thanks to your activism, we forced the oil giant to back down in its quest to turn a remote and wild stretch of the Rocky Mountains into an industrial transportation corridor. Exxon has formally withdrawn its application with the state of Montana to ship thousands of mega-sized tractor trailers, filled with tar...

Still a BFD

MIAMI BEACH— The dramatic results of three drug busts on the high seas will be evident today when more than 3,800 pounds of cocaine are offloaded at the U.S. Coast Guardbase in Miami Beach. According to the agency, the cocaine has a wholesale value of more than $48 million.

"[I]n the 1980s, the political psychologist Philip E. Tetlock began systematically quizzing 284 political experts - most of whom were political science Ph.D.'s - on dozens of basic questions, like whether a country would go to war, leave NATO or change its boundaries or a political leader would remain in office. His book "Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?" won the A.P.S.A.'s prize for the best book published on government, politics or international affairs. Professor Tetlock's main finding? Chimps randomly throwing darts at the possible outcomes would have done almost as well as the experts."...

Featured Term (selected at random):EXTERNAL GRACES Those providential means that God uses as occasions for conferring interior actual graces. External graces are all creatures that are divinely intended to lead us to our eternal destiny. They are any person, place, or thing that can help us attain the end for which we were created. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

A Christian student at a Georgia university who was expelled from her school's counseling program for expressing her disagreement with homosexuality has lost a court case against the school. "(Jennifer) Keeton's speech and conduct were evidently impelled by the absolutist philosophical character of her beliefs, but that character does not entitle her to university accommodation and it is irrelevant to the court's analysis," wrote Judge J. Randall Hall, of the Southern District of Georgia, siding with the university. "Neutrality as a legal standard is immutable, it does not bend to the strength or tenor of personal conviction."

Energy poverty is sweeping over modern Germany like never before. Flagship German newspaper Die Welt has an online report titled: Fast 800.000 Deutsche können Strom nicht bezahlen. In English: Almost 800,000 Germans cannot pay for electricity. As Germany subsidies wealthy homeowners and businesses owners to install solar panels on their homes and commercial buildings, low income families living in rented apartments are getting stuck footing skyrocketing electric bills. Many can no longer afford to pay for electricity, and so the utilities are cutting off their power. Indeed high energy prices are causing everything else to get more expensive as well...

HOUSTON, - A Houston woman said she was wrongfully arrested by police for holding up a "speed trap" sign near where an officer was pulling over motorists. Natalie Plummer said she wrote "speed trap" on a grocery bag and held it at the roadside on West Dallas June 21 after she spotted an officer pulling motorists over while she was riding home on her bicycle, KTRK-TV, Houston, reported Thursday. "I felt like he was just pulling random cars over," Plummer said. Plummer said an officer drove up to her after a few minutes, searched her backpack without consent and placed...

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Axelrod spinning

As President Obama embarks upon his quest for re-election, it's time to evaluate exactly how “presidential” he has been in his first term. I am going to attempt to compare him to just a few of our nation’s past inhabitants of the Oval Office. Let’s begin with Lyndon Baines Johnson and a quick glance at The Great Society. Its primary purposes were to implement social reforms to eliminate poverty and unchain the shackles of racial injustice. In all actuality, it was a clever political mechanism installed to keep minorities voting Democrat in every election. Liberal supporters argued that this benefited...