Free Republic

Businesses have tad it with poor business conditions in two of the most dysfunctional states in the union, California and Illinois. In an editorial, the Orange County Register reports Even profitable firms fleeing California Democratic reaction to the news that Waste Connections, a $3.6-billion company and major Sacramento-area employer, is headed to Houston to seek a friendlier business climate tells other businesses all they need to know about the attitudes of those who run California's government. (Snip) The Chicago Tribune lists 10 companies with an eye in exiting the state in Illinois companies eyeing an exit

Janet Robinson, who will step down as chief executive of the New York Times Co on December 31, will receive an exit package in excess of $15 million, according to people familiar with the situation. In addition to a $4.5 million consulting fee, the Times Co will pay Robinson $10.9 million in pension benefits that she accrued over 28 years of service, they said. According to a regulatory filing, Times Co's policy previously stipulated that Robinson, 61, would not be eligible for full pension benefits until she was 63 and had been with the company for 30 years. But people...

Currently, in today’s healthcare world, there is a document for medical care that one can sign even before going into the hospital called, “Aging With Dignity: Five Wishes.” [According to the website of Aging with Dignity, the Five Wishes document " has become America’s most popular living will".] There is a section in this document that asks a future patient the following: “If I wish to omit life-support treatment, I write this limitation in the space below,” which is very dangerous. The problem with this request is that most of us are not good doctors to be able to...

Dawn Flemming is counting her blessings.   Just six months ago, the Queens woman's unborn daughter Jade was given no chance of survival because a mango-sized tumor stretched across the baby's neck.  "I could tell something was wrong by the doctors' body language," says Flemming, a 35-year-old nurse from South Ozone Park. "I noticed people coming in, passing looks at each other but not saying anything."  They doomed Jade to die because the tumor blocked her pencil-thin airways, making it impossible for her to breathe once detached from the placenta.At 24 weeks, it was too late to have a legal abortion, so...

Barack Obama tried to convince Univision last night that the US has an exit strategy from the Libya conflict, and that strategy is to, er, stick around and fight. Jake Tapper calls it a Lewis Carroll moment, while others might consider it more Orwellian: In an interview with Univision Tuesday, President Obama re-defined the term “exit strategy,” and said our exit strategy in Libya would begin this week. “The exit strategy will be executed this week,” President Obama said, “in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment. We will...

Jim Gerghaty at The National Revue smells a gargantuan blowout brewing... "I don’t have the exits, but folks I know in the media and political worlds are getting their first glimpses: Indicator Number One: I am told that one Democratic strategist, helping a television network with Election Night analysis, just declared that the Democrats were experiencing something on par with mass murder. The GOP counterpart looked at the same numbers and concluded the Democrats are, so far, not getting the urban turnout they need; suburban and rural areas are seeing big turnouts. Indicator Number Two: One Republican who is...

WASHINGTON — While testifying on Capitol Hill last week about the government’s bank bailout program, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner likened the hearing to a eulogy for the initiative. The comment, which at the time seemed like wishful thinking, now appears prescient. In an 11th-hour maneuver this week, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats abruptly proposed phasing out the deeply unpopular bailout program, enacted in the depths of the financial crisis. Spending authority under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, as the bailout is called, would be redirected instead to pay for the financial regulation legislation nearing the finish line.

Martha Coakley declares that terrorists are “gone from Afghanistan” and has no idea the Taliban are either terrorists or our sworn enemies. No one ever accused Martha Coakley of having any foreign-policy experience. After all, as a career lawyer, prosecutor, state attorney general and lifelong Democrat party hack, the “Massachusette” can’t rationally be expected to be as up on the nuances of the “war on terror” as, say, Joe Biden. Still, her remarks during her one debate with Scott Brown on January 11 should trouble anyone who hopes that a potential successor to the warm body currently occupying the deceased...

Much is being made of the standoff between Google and China. It is encouraging to see that at least at face value, a company has decided to take some kind of ethical stand against China. The rest of this country, especially the US government has long been prostituting itself for the sake of short-term financial gain. This willful ignorance about the evil of this communist regime is a disgrace that will long stain our country and may ultimately lead to our financial demise. What we are seeing in our policy toward China, giving MFN and permanent normal trading relations status...

We must confront our enemies, using whatever force is necessary. We cannot try to “shoot in the shoulder” people who are trying to blow us up, knock down our buildings and cut our throats. We cannot temporize with fanatics who are building nuclear weapons. We cannot be both “firm and flexible.” We cannot set a date to end a “war of necessity.” We cannot ignore what George Orwell taught us: “The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”

A forklift pushes the remains of several Hesco barriers onto the back of a 7-ton truck aboard Al Asad Air Base, Nov. 20. The base-wide cleanup effort is dubbed “Operation Blue Spoon,” and the goal is for Marines with Multi National Force - West to leave the base in good order as they wind down their role in Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Marine Corps photograph by Cpl. Meg Murray. AL ASAD AIR BASE — As the clouds and drizzle of the rainy winter season roll into Iraq, many Marines with Multi National Force - West are rolling out. The gradual...

Gordon Brown plans to host talks in the new year to discuss timing for handing over the campaign in Afghanistan to the Afghan government. The prime minister said he wanted the Nato meeting to "set a timetable" for transfer starting in 2010.

Let's help these folks understand why they can't find work, placing the blame squarely on the Democrats and their bad fiscal policies. We can offer a care package or greeting card with a little cash or gift, to get out the truth about Democrat's high tax rates punishing the achievers is causing them trouble finding work. Tactfully done, we can counter the damage Democrats, ACORN and the media are doing. Showing them some kindness and understanding for their situation, like start a greeting with "I know it must be hard for you to not find work, and have to come...

RAMADI, Iraq – As the Marine Corps shrinks its footprint in Iraq's western desert, Iraqi community leaders here are publicly voicing worries about what will happen once the Americans are gone. They fear a wave of corruption and the return of the insurgency that once held sway over the area. Marines have begun divorcing themselves from the task of advising local leaders, the clearest signal that their role in Anbar province is quickly nearing its end. An Associated Press reporter embedded with the troops witnessed two cases in a single day of Iraqis — a headmistress and a party of...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Feb. 20, 2009 – U.S. forces were among some 200 guests as the governor of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province hosted a celebration marking the 20th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from the country. Members of the Nangarhar Provincial Reconstruction Team’s agribusiness development team and Task Force Duke listen to a speaker during a Feb. 14, 2009, ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Melinda Johnson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai celebrated the event at his palace in Jalalabad on...

Hedge Funds Get Rattled As Investors Seek Exits Friday September 5, 11:44 pm ET By Gregory Zuckerman and Craig Karmin With anxiety about hedge-fund woes gripping the market, funds have their own fear: their investors. Some investors, particularly what are known as "funds of funds," are demanding their money back and may ramp up requests in the weeks ahead. That has prompted hedge-fund managers to sell securities to raise cash. "As the hedge fund investor base broadens, hedge fund portfolio management...slips out of the hands of the portfolio managers and into the hands of the investors," wrote , who runs...

Clinton is expected to throw her support behind Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign during an event at noon ET Saturday at the National Building Museum in Washington.

Hillary Clinton's campaign said she would end her campaign for president at an event in Washington, D.C. Saturday. Clinton will "thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity," the campaign said in a statement. The campaign initially planned a Friday event, but rescheduled it to Saturday in a second statement, in order "to accomodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend." Clinton delivered something approaching a victory speech Tuesday night, just minutes after the media reported that Senator Barack Obama had clinched the nomination with a majority of the pledged delegates. But reality...

Hillary Clinton quit? You'd have a better chance getting Bill Clinton to shut up. But the argument for Clinton to pull the plug on her campaign is not hard to make. She trails Barack Obama in all categories. There are only 10 contests left, and most look to be tough for Clinton. In fact, many Democrats think her odds of winning are so slim that all she's doing is helping John McCain. Some Democratic elders, including party Chairman Howard Dean, are getting edgy about the beating Obama and Clinton are inflicting on each other. Even Clinton stalwarts such as Rep....

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, vital to getting the edge in military service-oriented but war-weary Pennsylvania is figuring out how to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq without dragging the flag in the process. Trailing in delegates, Clinton has staked her candidacy on a strong showing in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary. Obama has eroded Clinton's lead in several state polls and an upset could irrevocably damage her candidacy. Both candidates promise to end the war, but in a state with a remarkable history of venerating military service, how that end should be achieved weighs...