Free Republic

To say that California is in better fiscal condition than Illinois is like saying the captain of the Exxon Valdez grades out higher than the guy at the helm of the Titanic. Disasters come in different doses. One study found that California ranks 46th in the health of its state government finances, with Illinois limping in at 48th place. So imagine the surprise in the Land of Lincoln to learn that California Gov. Jerry Brown plans to create a rainy-day fund for future downturns. He's expecting large budget surpluses, which he wants to use to restore long-term fiscal health rather...

A state that is nearly broke has no business spending $100 million on a potential Barack Obama presidential library. But this is Illinois, where logic often takes a vacation. Throw in some parliamentary procedure shenanigans and the Obama presidential library is quickly becoming the typical Illinois government story – spend money that isn't there and do it in a sneaky way. The House executive committee last week approved borrowing $100 million to help finance a library for President Obama. Obama hasn't made a decision where his library will be located – Hawaii and New York are also in the running....

Illinois is broke. Its public pension plans are the most troubled in the nation. Illinois passed massive "temporary" tax hikes to fix the pension problem, but that did not make a dent in the problem. Nonetheless, ideas to waste more taxpayer money are always on the table. Here's a recent example. $100 Million for Barack Obama Library Today, the Illinois Policy Institute reports by email ... _________________________________________________________ An Illinois House Committee wants taxpayers to pay $100 million for a Barack Obama library. Somehow, House Speaker Michael Madigan thinks this is an appropriate use of funds despite the state’s more than...

Japanese Tech Firm NTT Is Scanning the Ancient Texts in the Vatican Apostolic Library Almost 600 years after Pope Nicholas V founded the Vatican Apostolic Library, the Holy See is now turning to 50 experts, five scanners and a Japanese IT firm to digitize millions of pages from its priceless manuscripts, opening them to the broader public for the first time. When the project is finished, one of the richest and most important collections of historical texts in the world will be available with a click of the mouse—and free. The plan marks a revolution for an institution known as...

A number of prominent counter-jihadis, such as Geert Wilders, have the distinction of being banned from entry into the United Kingdom — and, now, Her Majesty’s Government, in its wisdom, appears to have banned on some public computers two websites connected to me. It’s not quite the same, admittedly, and I am working to get this ban removed, but I also wear it as a perverse badge of honor given that government’s shameful record vis-à-vis Islamism. Say you’re in the British Library, the national depository library and a government institution, roughly equivalent to the Library of Congress in the...

Former President George W. Bush has painted dozens of portraits of world leaders he worked with while in office. His paintings are on public display for the first time at "The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy,” an exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas. Before the exhibit opened, Bush said none of the leaders in his display had seen their portraits, but he predicted they would react favorably.

**SNIP** Initially Obama’s library was called the Barack H. Obama Foundation, but this week the non-profit dropped the “H” — that refers to Obama’s middle name Hussein. Obama’s half brother, Abon'go Malik Obama, operates a bare bones website for the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to remembering their late father. The Virginia based 501(c)3 organization only had $24,496 in total expenses, with the bulk of money going toward rent, according to the latest 990 form for 2010. “We were not very successful this year because of limited contributions,” Abon'go Malik Obama stated on the tax form.

The bidding war for President Barack Obama's presidential library is expected to formally get underway next week. Chicago, where the president spent his early career, is vying to put it somewhere on the South Side. New York, where he went to college, and his birthplace of Hawaii are also contenders. Like other presidential libraries, it's expected to be a big draw for tourists and create other economic spinoffs.

OMSK, February 4 (RAPSI) – A commission of the Pushkin Library in Omsk, Siberia, ruled that Theodore Dreiser’s novel The Financier must not be issued to minors, a library official told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. Library Deputy Director Oksana Moskovtseva said they were acting in accordance with the law On Protecting Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development. “New books are printed with age ratings marked on them. For books that were printed before 2012 we have a special commission of library staff that decides on their age suitability,” Moskovtseva said. “It’s difficult to make a decision because...

<p>HONOLULU (AP) - On these sun-bathed shores, Barack Obama was born and spent his formative years, soaking in an island sensibility that his wife and friends say is indispensable to understanding who he is as president. Yet in the search for a home for his future presidential library, Hawaii has become the underdog, stuck in Chicago's perpetual shadow.</p>

Two Belgian university professors recently decided to submit the 10 most borrowed books at the Antwerp library to bacteriology and toxicology tests. Traces of cocaine were found on all 10 books...the scientists discovered traces of the herpes virus in the pages of the erotic tale Fifty Shades of Grey.

Nov. 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Public libraries are taxpayer-funded areas where families can bring their children to read, socialize, and sometimes use the library's computers. But according to local mom Megan Fox, in Orland Park, Illinois, the public library is also a haven for sex offenders and pornography users. According to Fox, on October 4, she tried to use a computer in the children’s area of the library, and was directed by staff to use an adult computer area. There she says she discovered a man looking at pornography. When she complained to staff, she claims she was told, “We...

The long-standing, and wholly illegal, ban on guns in Seattle’s public libraries comes to an end next week, according to Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat, who reports today that the rule change was a long time coming, more than a year after a Second Amendment Foundation legal victory defending state preemption was allowed to stand by the State Supreme Court. This policy change is as late as an overdue book, and Times readers are having some fun with it.In recognition of this announcement, SAF and this column will donate an autographed copy of Washington Times Senior Editor Emily Miller’s recently-released...

Since Franklin Roosevelt, every modern U.S. president has opened his own presidential library. On Friday, President George Washington, the nation’s first, finally will get his turn, as a state-of-the-art presidential library is christened in his honor. Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon steps into a bold new era with the formal opening of The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. Some 800 dignitaries, officials, and VIPs will be on hand to witness the unveiling of a library purpose-built to preserve the original books and papers from Gen. Washington’s personal collection. Noted historian and best-selling author David McCullough...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. In Washington, D.C., one of our most stately buildings is undergoing an extensive renovation. The Free Public Library, Northeast Branch is probably the library closest to Capitol Hill. And this red brick structure, with its stylish quoined corners, when it reopens, promises to bring even more opportunities for study and reflection to this thriving community. We would like to suggest renaming this library after Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was, with Abraham Lincoln, the greatest example of what nineteenth century Americans meant when they defended “the right to rise.” Millions of Americans,...

Get ready for the bribery bids to go out. There are still three-plus years to go on the Obama presidency, but the city that gave the world shakedown artist Jesse Jackson is already getting in gear for a racial spoils fight over where the presidential library should go. USA Today puts the squabble more delicately in a story Sunday, “Race, class emerge in battle over Obama library.”

Little things slow down the process of putting 40 million pages of ancient manuscripts in the Vatican Library online: gold or silver in the illuminations, bindings that disintegrate if you open them, getting the synergy right. “It is important to realize if there is gold or silver in a manuscript. That requires a very particular process because the light will be different,” said Luciano Ammenti, who is in charge of IT at the Vatican and the project to digitize the storied library’s 82,000 manuscripts. The project, finally up and running a year after its announcement, uses an armada of equipment...

A study in contrasts. President Obama is not known for his graciousness. But the occasion—the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum—called for kind words about his predecessor in the White House. So he said that if immigration reform passes Congress this year, “it will be in large part thanks to all the hard work of the president, George W. Bush.” Bush had “restarted” the drive to overhaul our immigration system seven years ago, Obama said. Bush, always gracious, thanked Obama and wife Michelle for coming to the ceremony. “Unlike the other presidents here”—Jimmy Carter, George H. W....

RUSH: I didn't see it, but I'm told that Obama used a portion of his remarks at the dedication of the Bush library in Dallas today to push his immigration bill. And I am told reliably, ladies and gentlemen, that the scuttlebutt among the people in the crowd was that it was not well received, that it was not classy. There might be some blow-back on this, maybe, not predicting it, we'll see. But a reliable source who was there told me that there was all kinds of bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz in the crowd when Obama deviated from...

U.S. President Barack Obama embraces former president George W. Bush following remarks at the dedication ceremony of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, April 25, 2013. Obama is in Texas to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush in what could serve as a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggle against terrorism, from the Sept. 11 attacks to the Boston Marathon bombings.