Free Republic

Nothing matches monetary theory and currency issues as a source of delirium among economists. As the G20 gets underway today in South Korea, name-calling has taken the place of diplomacy. The German Finance Minister called the U.S. Federal Reserve’s US$600-billion money-printing operation “clueless,” while Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney says he has “absolute confidence” in the program. Somebody mentioned gold, and the swords are drawn again. Not a chance, said Mr. Carney. A good idea, said Robert Skidelsky, a leading Keynesian who says it’s a golden opportunity to reform the world monetary system. Meanwhile, the man who started the...

Florida Democrats blame lack of unified message in election-day beat-downBy George Bennett Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Updated: 8:38 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010 Telling voters they've lost their minds probably isn't an effective comeback strategy for Democrats. But there was more venting than introspection when Palm Beach County Democratic leaders and activists gathered Thursday night to ponder the future of the party after Tuesday's Republican midterm election tsunami. "One of the bad things about fear and anger is that they are emotions that cloud our judgment, and that is what happened across these United States," state Rep. Steven Perman,...

As the electoral wave ap proaches, pundits and news analysts have morphed into meteorologists, reading the complex undercurrents that will merge and swamp Democratic politicians nationwide on Tuesday. They're all concentrating on the Republicans. One group says the motive force is a school of rich Republican sharks swimming together in secret even though everybody knows who they are. Another says a conservative sleeping giant has been roused like Poseidon from the depths to which it had fallen in despair in 2008. A third says disgruntled moderates are directing the tides, and so Tea Partiers better sit down and stop rocking...

On a day when the U.S. Labor Department announced worse-than-expected jobs numbers and an unemployment rate that’s stuck at 9.6 percent, Republican congressional candidate Randy Demmer was talking jobs at a North Mankato window manufacturer. “Job creation is what people want to see,” said Demmer, a state representative who’s hoping to unseat Democratic Congressman Tim Walz on Nov. 2. Demmer, a former farmer and business owner from Hayfield, said the Democratic-controlled federal government has passed health care reform and is attempting to pass a new national energy policy that has left business owners uncertain about future insurance and energy costs....

Pat Fleet's "AT&T" is one of the most recognized sounds in the United States. Described as a "mega star" of phone voices by Ted Koppel on ABC's Nightline and affectionately called "Ma Bell" by telephone workers, Pat has been the voice behind literally tens of thousands of telephone recordings since 1981 - speaking to millions of callers daily with coin and credit card requests, explaining services or just thanking them for using AT&T... Her digital studio and online ordering over the internet make recording & delivering voice-overs whenever you need them incredibly easy.

The dust-up this week between President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), ostensibly about Wall Street regulation, revealed more about the two parties’ midterm campaign strategies than anything else. With polls showing voters deeply concerned about the economy and government spending and souring on Democrats, Obama and his party are seizing on gaffe after GOP gaffe, intent on making the election anything but a referendum on the majority.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has indirectly re-entered the picture at the Blagojevich corruption trial. Government witness John Harris, Blagojevich’s onetime chief of staff, said he received a call from an intermediary for Emanuel on Nov. 10, 2008, six days after the presidential election. The intermediary was John Wyma, a lobbyist pal of Blagojevich and Emanuel. And the message Harris said Wyma was asked to deliver was that President-elect Barack Obama “would be thankful and appreciative” if Blagojevich would appoint Obama’s friend Valerie Jarrett as Illinois’ new U.S. Senator.

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2010 – The military services have geared up their summer safety campaigns, encouraging troops and their families to enjoy the season without becoming statistics during a period historically marred by a spike in off-duty accidents. Mourning at the grave of Air Force Tech. Sgt. Audra Britt are, from left, her sister, Anika Lee; her son, Nathaniel Alexander Britt; her brother, Air Force Staff Sgt. Aron Lee; and his daughter, Kennedy Misarah Amaya Lee. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Ninety-five servicemembers died last year during the “Critical Days of Summer” season that kicks off Memorial...

Obama administration encourages the very culture it deplores Major policy changes can have long-term cultural implications. Major changes can impact behavior almost immediately, but the real cultural implications are a result of the often subtle changes in individual attitudes. With the Obama administration, I believe we will see such cultural changes. I am an entrepreneur. I started with a little 100-seat restaurant almost 32 years ago. My wife and I, along with many good people, built our company the old-fashioned American way. We worked night and day,

RUSH: Well, well, well, well, well, look at this. This is from MyFoxPhoenix.com, AP: Refried beans found smeared on Arizona Capitol windows! "The conflict over a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration in Arizona intensified Monday as vandals smeared refried beans in the shape of swastikas on the state Capitol's windows."

Does anyone regularly use the web to send a text message to someone's cell? I'd like to, but I don't want the recipient to start getting a bunch of junk texts, because I use one of the wrong "Free texting" sites. I did a Google search, but wasn't sure how to filter the bad from the good. Does anyone know of a reputable site for this purpose?

White House officials are retooling the administration's communications strategy to produce faster responses to political adversaries, a more disciplined focus on President Obama's call for "change" in Washington and an increasingly selective use of the president's time. The messaging adjustments are the result of an end-of-the-year analysis in which White House advisers said the president's communications team had not taken the initiative often enough and had allowed drawn-out debates in Congress, and relentless criticism by Republicans, to drown out his message. "It was clear that too often we didn't have the ball -- Congress had the ball in terms of...

SAN FRANCISCO, - A group of California fishermen who sent a message in a bottle two years ago said they were delighted when someone found the bottle and even sent a reply. The fishermen, from the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas, said they tossed the bottle into the water just south of San Diego in August 2007 with a message about Bob Dubcich, a friend of theirs who died from a rare form of cancer, KSBW-TV, Salinas, Calif., reported Monday. The men said they enclosed $20 with the note to increase the chances of someone coming forward after finding...

FRiends, I almost posted this last night...but since that giant walking wanker Robert Gibbs pulled his little stunt today, I thought we ought to take it a step further. Here is my hand today: I may change it tonight or tomorrow or some time in the future, but I would suggest we all put some messages on our hands...at least for a little while. Some conversation might be generated, and you might find more people agree with you than you think! :)POST your pics to this thread, and let's have fun!

Six months ago, network executives were complaining that the White House was costing them tens of millions of dollars by pressing them to carry presidential news conferences in prime time. Problem solved: President Obama hasn't held a full-scale news conference since July. Instead, he answered a dozen people's questions last week on YouTube, most of them easily finessed and -- extra bonus! -- no annoying follow-ups of the kind posed by real, live journalists. It would be hard -- impossible, actually -- to argue that Obama hasn't been accessible to the media, not with his constant television interviews. The man...

Apparently the fellows in al Qaeda took as a personal insult Secretary of Homeland Anxiety Janet Napolitano's comment Sunday that their role in the foiled Detroit airliner bombing wasn't clear but would be investigated. Yesterday, al Qaeda's ascendant franchise in the Arabian peninsula saved Secretary Napolitano the trouble of plowing through all the layers of the national-security bureaucracy for an answer. The terrorist organization put out a pointed statement not only claiming responsibility but also mocking the U.S.'s ability to stop them. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, they said, "dealt a huge blow to the myth of American and global intelligence services...

The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Year’s Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a husky voice that he was a...

English is the language of America. America brought the internet to the world. Thanks to Obama we will probably be the country that finances the start of the New World Order. I can't quote any statistics but my guess is that more Jews speak English than any other language in our present day. So using basic English I practiced a little gematria using A=1 and B=2 up to Z=26. I came up with this 666 Holloween message. The generation that sees an Israel reborn will see the coming of Christ. In numbers that's 33+108+49+48+15+64+72+56+29+33+61+21+77 = 666 That's thirteen words. 13...

America is made up of hard-working people and that means you can't always get off to attend a Tea Party, even if you're lucky enough to find one in your own community. That's why we're putting together the biggest Tea Party possible, right here on the Internet. It's going to be the BIGGEST DAMN TEA PARTY this country has ever seen...and I want everyone to bring a SIGN! Send us a photo of you holding the message you'd like to send to Washington. Make it original, make it interesting and make it a JPEG format and send it to Dave...

America is made up of hard-working people and that means you can't always get off to attend a Tea Party, even if you're lucky enough to find one in your own community. That's why we're putting together the biggest Tea Party possible, right here on the Internet. It's going to be the BIGGEST DAMN TEA PARTY this country has ever seen...and I want everyone to bring a SIGN! Send us a photo of you holding the message you'd like to send to Washington. Make it original, make it interesting and make it a JPEG format and send it to Dave...