Free Republic

I’ve already condemned the foolish people of California for approving a referendum to raise the state’s top tax rate to 13.3 percent. This impulsive and misguided exercise in class warfare surely will backfire as more and more productive people flee to other states – particularly those that don’t impose any state income tax.We know that people cross state borders all the time, and it’s usually to travel from high-tax states to low-tax states. And we’ve already seen some evidence that the state’s new top tax rate is causing a loss of highly valued jobs.This mobility of labor and talent is...

'What we once knew to be immoral, we celebrate' Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, author of “The Harbinger” – the startling New York Times bestseller that suggests the U.S. is in the shadow of judgment from God for its rejection of Him – stood at the podium for this year’s Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Inauguration Day. Amid weeping, praying and the sounding of shofars from the audience, Cahn said the U.S. has chosen a path that takes the nation away from God, and he pleaded with its leaders to return. “What we once knew to be immoral, we celebrate,”...

U.S. home prices climbed 5.6 percent in the 12 months through November as buyers competed for a dwindling inventory of properties, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Prices rose 0.6 percent from October on a seasonally adjusted basis. Could it be, at last, the The Fed’s massive quantitative easing is FINALLY bear some economic fruit for the housing market? Let’s take a look at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) mortgage application indices that were released this morning. On a non seasonally adjusted basis, mortgage purchase applications rose 8.57%. Mortgage refinancing applications rose 7.73% from the preceding week. Despite this...

U.S.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies on the September attack on U.S. diplomatic sites in Benghazi, Libya during a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington January 23, 2013. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) hugs Senator John McCain (R-AZ) as she arrives to testify on the September attack on U.S. diplomatic sites in Benghazi, Libya during a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington January 23, 2013.

Michelle Malkin by Twitter: "Oh, Lord. Hillary shouts that it doesn't make a dif if admin was lying/covering up...& Sen. Shaheen immediately follows up with full gush."

The Gun Control Community: Elation turns to depression January 23, 2013 by John Boch (GunsSaveLife.com) – Gun control advocates were elated in the days following the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre. They were elated not that children were slaughtered by an evil man-child as part of an insane rampage, but because in the hysteria following the tragedy, Americans were demanding our leaders to do “something” to prevent insane rampages by lunatics as part of their grief. There are five stages of grief and they are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In the days following the Connecticut massacre, Americans were in...

A badly weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrambled Wednesday to keep his job by extending his hand to a new centrist party that advocates a more earnest push on peacemaking with the Palestinians after Israel's parliamentary election produced a stunning deadlock. The results defied forecasts that Israel's next government would veer sharply to the right at a time when the country faces mounting international isolation, growing economic problems and regional turbulence. While that opens the door to unexpected movement on peace efforts, a coalition joining parties with dramatically divergent views on peacemaking, the economy and the military draft could just...

Willie Sutton, a notorious theif from the 1930's, was once asked why he robbed banks. "Because that's where the money is," he replied. So where's the money today? Government subsidies for renewable energy - massive subsidies with little oversight. In Europe, this means easy pickings for organized crime. And the Sicilian mafia is cleaning up. Washington Post: The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and...

A towering high school basketball star dominating the court in the nation's capital has much more than a height advantage, a startling new report has revealed. Junior Etou, who is originally from the Congo, is the talk of the town in Washington, DC, where he plays power forward for the Bishop O'Connell High School Knights. But the 6'7" high school senior, who has drawn interest from several colleges with storied basketball programs, is almost legally allowed to drink. An investigation by Deadspin.com found several different birthdays listed for Etou, both in 1992, which means he is just months away from...

The re-election of Barack Obama hasn't done anything to make more jobs available to Americans, and there is no indication that it will. America now has 23 million people who want a full-time job but can't find one. Obama doesn't think American citizens or businessmen create jobs. His Jobs Czar, Jeffrey Immelt, recently said on a television interview referring to China, where he has outsourced General Electric's light bulb plants, "state-run Communism may not be your cup of tea, but their government works." In his first presidential debate last year, Obama claimed that passage of free trade agreements with...

2013/01/23 23:47 KST (LEAD) N. Korea completes preparations for nuclear test (ATTN: UPDATES in paras 1-6; CHANGES headline) By Kim Eun-jung SEOUL, Jan. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has completed all technical preparations for a nuclear test and can carry it out in a few days if it makes a decision, a South Korean intelligence source said Wednesday. North Korea had dug up a tunnel for a test at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, but the tunnel has now been plugged with dirt and concrete, the source said, suggesting that all measuring and other equipment has already been installed inside.

The Overton Window, as coined by the Mackinac Center, is a model to explain how changes in public policy occur. When evaluating the options within any specific public policy issue, only a relatively narrow window of options will be considered politically acceptable by politicians. The window of acceptable policies is not primarily defined by the politician’s preference, but by what he or she can support without jeopardizing re-election. As society embraces new ideas, the Overton Window shifts to include additional public policy options that were previously deemed unacceptable. Meaningful policy change may take decades. Or, as in the case of...

... The hearing room is packed with observers and news agencies from the United States and abroad. Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, also a Democrat, also sits on the committee. Four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens, died in the attacks. Republicans have strongly questioned the Obama administration’s response, particularly comments from U.N. ambassador Susan Rice that at one point attributed the attacks to a spontaneous demonstration. Menendez praised Clinton’s candor and cooperation in his opening statement, shortly after 9 a.m. Speaking of those killed, he said, “We honor their service to our nation and we grieve with their families, but...

Never has one live television event held the potential to enrage a nation, destroy a sitting president, disqualify an aspiring President and delegitimize a malignant, corrupted media industry than the testimony of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before Congress, today. Prior to this public hearing, Good Morning America will have spent more time interviewing Honey Boo-Boo during one show, than all network news stations, combined (excluding Fox News) have spent discussing the details surrounding the murder of a U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. The last murder of a U.S. Ambassador occurred in...

Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over. And the situation is even worse than it appears. Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What's more, these jobs aren't just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren't just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers ... this "hollowing out" of the middle-class...

SACRAMENTO (CBS13)- A man shot and killed another man who chased him around his yard and threatened to hurt him. --------------------cut----------------------- The resident went inside and came back out with a gun and ordered the man to leave. The man grabbed a heavy wrought iron stand and was motioning to throw it at the resident, when the resident shot the man in the abdomen.

http://www.biography.com/people/andrew-kehoe-235986 Andrew Kehoe was a farmer living in Bath, Michigan. A member of the school board and the town clerk, on May 18, 1927 he orchestrated a plot to dynamite the Bath Consolidated School, killing thirty-seven children. He killed himself in a second explosion aimed at the school’s superintendent. Kehoe's act was one of the largest school-related mass murders in US history.

SAN ANTONIO - A scary situation for a family on the Northeast Side. Just before 10 am Sunday morning Bexar County Sheriff's Deputies say someone tried to kick-in the front door at a home on Sunlit Trail. We're told the mom called 911 and the son fired one shot through the door. The suspect then took off after firing his gun.

When George W Bush declared war on an abstract noun – "Terror" – he was widely and inevitably mocked by the left for his foolishness. Not to be outdone, Barack Obama has used his second inaugural address to declare war on an even more nebulous threat to the security of the world: reality, itself. Here's how he put it in his inaugural address: (H/T Theo Spleenventer; Bishop Hill) We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science,...

Frontline examines why no Wall Street execs have been prosecuted for the financial crisis.