Free Republic

Remember 2012, when the most vulnerable issue for Democrats was the overwhelmingly unpopular imposition of ObamaCare? The Establishment stuck Republicans with Mitt Romney, who couldn’t use the issue because he was responsible for imposing ObamaCare’s prototype on Massachusetts. Since it looks like Obama will keep Shrillary out of jail, she remains the Democrat frontrunner for 2016. Her most vulnerable point is her illegal use of a private email server for top secret communications, presumably to cover her influence peddling activities. When the server was subpoenaed by Congress, she tried to wipe it — an arrogant crime that would land you...

While Carly Fiorina has unquestionable debate skills, the more I research her background, the more troubled I become. While it's clear that she is -- politically speaking -- somewhere to the left of Jeb Bush on policy, it is her business record that is most alarming. Let me start with a little history lesson and a company called Lernout & Houspie. Founded in 1987 by two Belgians, L&H went public in 1995 on NASDAQ and operated from U.S. headquarters in Burlington, MA. Specializing in voice recognition software, L&H rode the tech boom to a peak market valuation of $10 billion....

As Carly Fiorina gains increased media attention and ramps up her presidential campaign after her strong performance in the second Republican debate last week, she may still be struggling to overcome the obstacles that led to her defeat the only previous time she sought elected office. While Fiorina has billed herself as an "outsider" candidate, she does have political experience -- she just wasn’t successful. Her 2010 campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in California saw fierce campaigning (she’s often remembered for the “demon sheep” ad) and pressure on Fiorina to defend her business record before the former Hewlett-Packard...

Carly Fiorina made several false, misleading and unsubstantiated claims in responding to questions about Hewlett-Packard’s involvement with a foreign subsidiary that sold products in Iran. The former HP CEO claimed that a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation “proved that neither I nor anyone else in management knew about” a Hewlett-Packard subsidiary doing business in Iran. We have found no such ruling from the SEC, nor could Fiorina’s campaign provide one. She also claimed that the company that actually sold HP products in Iran was “not honest” with HP about its dealings. But that company said in a 2003 press release...

“I come from a world outside of politics, where track records and accomplishments count.” Those were the words of Carly Fiorina, a Republican candidate for president, earlier this year. Readers of the business pages know her as the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard. For much of this early campaign season, in the crowded field of Republican candidates, Mrs. Fiorina didn’t look as if she had much of a chance at the White House. But recently, in the afterglow of her impressive performance in the first Republican debate, Mrs. Fiorina has begun to make significant gains in the polls that have...

One of the more bizarre spectacles of U.S. government in the modern age is the sight of political leaders complaining that a public program is actually working. In many states that expanded Medicaid and even some that rejected expansion under the Affordable Care Act, enrollment has significantly exceeded projections. To some political leaders, for some reason, this is supposed to be a bad thing. Some Republican governors are in effect calling it "an 'I told you so' moment". In Michigan, for instance, first-year enrollment was projected at 323,000, but enrollment topped out at 605,000. Illinois expected 199,000, and has ended...

Since Colorado voters legalized pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state’s roads. They often point out that when the state legalized medical marijuana in 2001, there was a surge in drivers found to have smoked pot. ...]

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog With help from 80 years of self-described “progressives,” Obama is now waging the biggest war against medical marijuana of any president in history Anyone who has been following the self-described “progressive” politicians since FDR should not be surprised at Obama’s war against medical marijuana.Obama’s war against medical marijuana is a direct result of the policies of the self-described “progressives” in the White House, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court, going all the way back to FDR’s New Deal.During the Great Depression, while millions of Americans were hungry, the self-described “progressives” who controlled the federal government passed...

Today I want to consider the outlook for bitcoin. 2014 was its worst year on record. It fell by 67%, from $800 to $320 a coin. In doing so, it beat the likes of the Russian rouble and the Ukrainian hryvnia, to the dubious honour of being the world’s worst-performing currency. You know what the world’s best-performing currency was by the way? Nope, not the US dollar, but the Somali shilling. Yup. It surprised me too. Anyway, back to bitcoin… The bursting of the bitcoin bubble So far, 2015 has not been any better than 2014 for bitcoin. At one...

Ferguson isn’t simply black versus white. A peculiar Vine floated around social media Monday evening following the grand jury announcement in Ferguson, Mo. The short video shows an Asian-American shopkeeper standing in his looted store, with a hands-in-his-pockets matter-of-factness and a sad slump to his facial expression. “Are you okay, sir?” an off-screen cameraman asks. “Yes,” the storeowner says, dejectedly. The clip is only a few seconds, but it highlights the question of where Asian-Americans stand in the black and white palette often used to paint incidents like Ferguson. In the story of a white cop’s killing of a black...

Like it or not, marijuana use has increased exponentially since President Nixon declared a war no drugs in 1971. Today, marijuana — or weed, pot, cannabis, Mary Jane — is the third most popular recreational drug in the United States, behind only alcohol and tobacco. Upward of 24 million people have used it, based on the latest estimates, with 14 million using it regularly. But despite a growing warmth toward the drug, and two states (Washington and Colorado) legalizing its recreational use, there are still some people on the fence about its safety and usefulness. So, to educate you nonbelievers...

“I think that a new, repugnant form of fascism is emerging with notable strength…The Nazi genocide of Jews outraged all the earth’s peoples. Why does this (Israeli) government believe that the world will be insensitive to the macabre genocide which today is being perpetuated against the Palestinian people?” (Fidel Castro, August, 5, 2014) “Who cares, what that senile ZOMBIE Castro says!” strikes me as a reasonable retort from many readers. “Unfortunately,” I’m forced to answer. “Many otherwise reasonable care very much what Fidel Castro says.” Take Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu: “The remarks attributed to Castro demonstrate his deep understanding...

America’s first foray into rolling back prohibition 2.0 is barely underway, and already marijuana prices have dropped low enough to convince some cartel farmers in Mexico to abandon the crop. Mere months after two US states legalized marijuana sales, five Nobel Prize-winning economists released a UN report recommending that countries end their war on drugs. It would seem they were onto something. But in order to further decrease drug-trade violence in so-called producer states, the US first needs to legalize marijuana, but then also the US must stop using the UN to pressure producer countries into supply-based drug prohibition. Latin...

Since Colorado voters legalized pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state’s roads. They often point out that when the state legalized medical marijuana in 2001, there was a surge in drivers found to have smoked pot. They also point to studies showing that in other states that have legalized pot for medical purposes, we’ve seen an increase in the number of drivers testing positive for the drug who were involved in fatal car accidents. The anti-pot group SAM recently pointed out that even before the first...

President Obama’s instincts about Iraq and Syria have been sound from the beginning: Greater U.S. engagement probably cannot make things better but certainly can make them worse, both for the people of the region and for our national interests. Obama’s only mistake was to buy, for a time, the notion that Bush’s troop surge had miraculously healed ancient divisions and made the dream of a pluralist democracy still possible. There are aspects of Obama’s foreign policy that I question. His heavy reliance on drone strikes may create as many terrorists as it eliminates. He should have realized that the National...

Big Business does some things that are utterly necessary in modern society. They build airplanes and cars. They run airlines, phone companies, credit card companies and banks. But there is not a person among us, including employees of big businesses, that has not withered with frustration from confronting these businesses with a problem and then receiving little or no results. Even though big businesses get the most attention, the vast majority of people in the U.S. work for small businesses. Small businesses by nature are more reactive and responsive to their customers. They are closer to the customer and more...

... What is needed from Washington is not a heroic exertion of American military power but rather a sustained effort to engage with allies, isolate enemies, support free markets and democratic values and push these positive trends forward. The Obama administration is, in fact, deeply internationalist — building on alliances in Europe and Asia, working with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, isolating adversaries and strengthening the global order that has proved so beneficial to the United States and the world since 1945. ... A Democratic Advisory Council committee headed by Acheson called Eisenhower’s foreign...

When it comes to Obama-era scandals, the American Right’s predominant emotion is frustration — a frustration that causes hypertension levels usually seen only in Cubs fans and the unfortunates hired to do PR for Lindsay Lohan and Shia LeBoeuf... --snip-- Why is this happening? Ironically, the mainstream media heavyweights may feel liberated from the responsibility of covering Obama administration malfeasances because of the existence of the alternative conservative media that have arisen over the past 20 years — talk radio, Fox News, and multiple websites...

Did you know that financial institutions all over the world are warning that we could see a “mega default” on a very prominent high-yield investment product in China on January 31st? We are being told that this could lead to a cascading collapse of the shadow banking system in China which could potentially result in “sky-high interest rates” and “a precipitous plunge in credit“. In other words, it could be a “Lehman Brothers moment” for Asia. And since the global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, that would be very bad news for the United States as...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Don't believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department when it comes to the real unemployment rate and the true “Misery Index.” Because, according to an influential Wall Street advisor, the figures are a fraud. In a memo to clients provided to Secrets, David John Marotta calculates the actual unemployment rate of those not working at a sky-high 37.2 percent, not the 6.7 percent advertised by the Fed, and the Misery Index at over 14, not the 8 claimed by the government. Marotta, who recently advised those worried about an imploding economy to...