Free Republic

When the November election was still a long way off, Sacramento-area streets were already plastered with campaign signs for a little-noticed political race: candidates are running to serve on the board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, better known as CalPERS. While not as high-profile as the statewide and congressional races, these seats are arguably of equal importance to Golden State taxpayers. CalPERS, the largest state pension fund in the country, not only manages more than $257 billion in assets, but also loves to use its political muscle to prod corporate America into “socially responsible” (read: leftist-friendly) investing. Sacramento,...

Jihadist attacks killed more than 5,000 people in just one month, an investigation by the BBC World Service and King's College London has found. Civilians bore the brunt of the violence, with more than 2,000 killed in reported jihadist incidents during November 2014. Islamic State carried out the most attacks, adding to the spiralling death toll in Iraq and Syria. Explore the map to find out more. The data gathered by the BBC found that 5,042 people were killed in 664 jihadist attacks across 14 countries - a daily average of 168 deaths, or seven every hour. About 80% of...

Question:  Ben Stein and Jonathan Gruber: Separated at Birth?Let’s watch one of the Professors try to school the stupid people, because you really can’t watch this often enough:Apparently, by their own accounts, neither Jonathan nor Ben are geniuses: “I'm not a Mensa member. I have no idea where that rumor came from. I never have been, and I doubt if I ever will be.” Ben Stein Gowdy: “So you’re a professor at MIT and you’re worried about not looking smart enough?”Gruber: “Yes.” Gowdy: “OK. Well, you succeeded, if that was your goal.” And both seem amazed at how easy it...

First-time claims for unemployment benefits ticked down to 294,000 for the week ending Dec. 6, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, down from 297,000 the week before and right in line with expectations. The four-week moving average remained just below the 300,000 mark, at 299,250, signaling that layoffs remain low amid an expanding labor market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the economy added a healthy 321,000 jobs in November. At 5.8 percent, the unemployment rate has plummeted by 1.2 percentage points over the past year. The total number of workers receiving unemployment insurance fell by 95,846 to...

~snip~ The former U. S. Vice President arrived early, but did not start speaking until 1:30. That may be because there weren’t many people in the very large room. By the time he began to speak, perhaps half the seats were occupied. More people came as he continued talking. At the end, he got a polite round of applause. Such are the indignities of being a former movie star. Gore’s talk was an update of the slide-show immortalized in the sci-fi classic, “An Inconvenient Truth.” But not an update that replaces its numerous false and misleading claims. For instance, Gore’s...

A left-coast writer named Mark Morford thinks that gas prices falling to $2 a gallon would be the worst thing to happen to America. After all, he says, the wrong people would profit: oil companies (why would oil companies profit from lower gas prices?), auto makers, and internet retailers like Amazon that offer free shipping. If falling gas prices are the worst for America, then the best, Morford goes on to say, would be to raise gas taxes by $6 a gallon and dedicate all of the revenue to (boondoggles) “alternative energy and transport, environmental protections, our busted educational system,...

Six moderate Democratic senators are asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to give states more time to comply with its climate rule for power plants. The moderate Democrats said that states should be responsible for developing their own “glide paths” toward the 2030 goal. The senators signing the letter were Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.).

Before Sony Pictures chair Amy Pascal attended a breakfast of Hollywood bigwigs last November with Barack Obama, she emailed her friend Scott Rudin for suggestions on what she should ask the president. In what has become the latest embarrassing email uncovered in a trove of messages leaked by hackers who attacked Sony, Pascal wrote Rudin: “What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast?” She was referring to a breakfast hosted by DreamWorks Animation head and major Democratic donor Jeffrey Katzenberg. Rudin, a top film producer responsible for films like No Country for Old Men and Moneyball, responded,...

In my youth, cheerleaders had a chant that went, “S-u-c-c-e-s-s, that’s the way you spell success.” I don’t know that you would hear that battle cry anymore, because not many public schools teach spelling. One that does has worked the word success into its title, appropriately, as it turns out. The Success Academy opened in Harlem in 2006 with 160 students. It is now a chain of charter schools (32) with an enrollment of 9,000. It is also in the top one percent in the state of New York in math. History, science and literature also figure prominently in the...

The technologies of the past, by replacing human muscle, increased the value of human effort – and in the process drove rapid economic progress. Those of the future, by substituting for man’s senses and brain, will accelerate that process – but at the risk of creating millions of citizens who are simply unable to contribute economically, and with greater damage to an already declining middle class. Estimates of general rates of technological progress are always imprecise, but it is fair to say that, in the past, progress came more slowly. Henry Adams, the historian, measured technological progress by the power...

Peru has vowed to prosecute Greenpeace activists after they allegedly damaged the world-famous Nazca lines during an environmental publicity stunt. Activists from the group unfurled cloth letters spelling out a green energy slogan at the millennia-old site on Monday, adjacent to where the figure of a hummingbird is etched into the ground. Peru has said the activists damaged the ground by leaving footprints, which could last for thousands of years. “It’s a true slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred,” Luis Jaime Castillo, the deputy culture minister, said. In a statement, the Peruvian culture ministry said: "After the...

The United Nations is holding climate talks in Lima, Peru, featuring delegates from 190 countries. To get their attention, the anti-science extremists of Greenpeace illegally entered a prohibited area adjacent to one of the most famous Nazca Lines. The activists trampled across the fragile, 1,500-year-old site to install large cloth letters reading: “Time for Change; The Future is Renewable.” To put it mildly, Peruvian officials are not amused.

RUSH: Look at this Lena Dunham situation. Lena Dunham, who was a heroine to the pop culture in this country, she's an absolute star. She's got this HBO show called Girls, so popular, so hip, so cool that Obama used her in a campaign commercial in the War on Women back in 2012. What is she, 17 years old? I know she's in her twenties. She's got an autobiography. Oh, yes, she has an autobiography. You know what the prominent event in her autobiography is? Yeah, she was raped by a conservative Republican. Right. She was raped by a conservative...

When the stunt-planners at Greenpeace sent teams of activists to trespass this week at Peru's Nazca archeological site, they must have thought their bumper-sticker messaging would look good on a Facebook page next to the 2,000-year-old geodesic drawings. After all, the group is known for stringing banners from bridges and skyscrapers to draw attention to its environmental campaigns, and with U.N. climate talks taking place in Lima this week, the activists clearly wanted to make an impact. And so they have. The impact of their footprints on the fragile desert site, in fact, will last "hundreds or thousands of years,"...

Yesterday we covered the ongoing soap opera of the immensely unattractive and monumentally untalented Lena Dunham’s bogus rape accusation. Long story short: she accused a college classmate of raping her, she clearly identified the alleged rapist which has caused him a lot of difficulties, now her publisher is paying the man’s legal expenses and altering future editions of the book to emphasize that the name is a pseudonym. Basically, this is the type of careless and narcissistic behavior Dunham has raised to an art form. Now she takes to the friendly pages of journalistic paragon BuzzFeed to continue to push...

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2014-12-11/jeb-bush-has-a-mitt-romney-problem

Search SHARETWEETMORE SUBSCRIBELOG IN DealBook Lending Club Set to Debut, and Industry Is Watching By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED DECEMBER 10, 2014 When Lending Club makes its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, it will carry the hopes of an entire industry. The company, whose online marketplace matches people who are seeking loans with investors willing to provide them, emboldened its peers late Wednesday when it raised about $870 million in its initial public offering, surpassing expectations. Lending Club’s offering — which values the company at $5.4 billion — will set a template for potentially dozens...

According to a brand new Fox News poll, a record 58 percent of Americans want to see Obamacare repealed. Further, Americans believe deception was used by Obama administration officials to pass the law in 2010. The poll includes a hypothetical vote question that asks people to choose between only two options: keeping ObamaCare in place and repealing it. A 58-percent majority would vote to repeal the law, while 38 percent would keep it. That’s up from 53 percent a year ago -- and a record high number backing repeal (and a record low number in favor of leaving it in...

One of the leading theologians of the Orthodox world has said that he sees prosecpts for “quick progress” toward full Christian unity under Pope Francis. Metropolitan Ioannis of Pergamon, the co-chairman of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue, told the Vatican Insider that Pope Francis has brought new excitement to ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox world. “The way in which he is carrying out his ministry removes the many apprehensions and fears of the past.” Metropolitan Ioannis pointed particularly to the Pope’s statement, during his recent visit to Constantinople, that the Catholic Church “does not intend to impose any...

I may have to start a new category: Warning shots that work.  I have routinely advised students against "warning shots" with the usual caveats; the bullet has to go somewhere, innocents may be hit, and  a round  is wasted that you might need.   Many, especially on the Internet have claimed that a warning shot may be considered as evidence that you were not serious.  I think that is unlikely.  There is at least one prosecutor who thinks that it shows restraint. Gunfire has been used as a means of signaling and communications as long as there have been...