Free Republic

In Illinois, Exelon again warned that the long-challenged Clinton and Quad Cities plants would shut down unless the Illinois legislature passed a bill that would provide economic support for the two plants ... Meanwhile in Florida, Florida Power & Light’s (FPL’s) bid to build two more units at its Turkey Point Nuclear Plant south of Miami continues to run into opposition. On April 20, a state court reversed approval for a new transmission line that would carry power from the two reactors. Two days later, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a plan to deal with serious saline...

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) "Vice President Joe Biden, right, with President of the National Association of Police Organizations and Boston police officer, Thomas Nee, center and Attorney General Eric Holder, far left, speaks to media during a meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012, in Washington. Biden is leading a task force that will look at ways of reducing gun violence." Sipsey Street has learned that a key member of the President's committee to find "the solution" to school shootings, has a son who was convicted of plotting a Columbine-style school massacre...

Senate leaders and labor officials have made it painfully clear they do not want you to know about the sweet deals given to college dropout Stephen Iannazzi, the taxpayer-funded $88,112-a-year “special assistant” to Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio. Indeed, it appears they may be engaged in some kind of sub-rosa program to silence questions. Stephen is the son of Donald Iannazzi, the business manager for Local 1033, the Laborers International Union affiliate that employs 30-year-old lawyer Charles Ruggerio. Charles is the son of Senator Ruggerio. Donald received an annual salary of $212,658, plus $53,212 in “other compensation,” in 2009, according...

When I extolled the virtues of our federal system of government in a previous column ("Sovereignty, from sea to sea," Times op-ed, Sept. 21), I left out an unfortunate and pernicious side effect of having a government of multiple jurisdictions — taxes. Multiple layers of government, while encouraging balance of power and competing regulatory ideas, also mean multiple layers of taxation. In Seattle, this means the federal government, state government, King County and the city of Seattle all take their pick at one's paycheck, business, house, car and, of course, purchases of goods, including gasoline. The complexity and opaqueness of...

WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic. He said the military, and perhaps the National Guard, might be needed to take such a role if the feared H5N1 bird flu virus changes enough to cause widespread human infection. "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?" Bush asked at a news conference. "It's one thing...

THE political crisis that has engulfed the European Union since France and the Netherlands rejected its proposed constitution yesterday threatened to spill over and damage the euro.Embattled EU financial leaders spent the day defending the currency, dismissing talk of its break-up as “absurd”. One senior EU official said: “Euro notes and coins are for ever, like the euro.” In a symptom of the seriousness of the creeping doubts, Roberto Maroni, the Italian Welfare Minister, had suggested in an interview with La Repubblica that a referendum should be held on bringing back the lira. The euro had “proved inadequate in the...

French President Jacques Chirac forgot the first rule of European Union politics: “Don’t consult the voters (it will only encourage them).” For that, he suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday, when 55 percent of French voters delivered a stirring “non” to the proposed new EU constitution, potentially ending the EU project as we have known it. See what mischief comes from allowing pesky public opinion to have too large a say in EU affairs? To this point, the EU has become steadily more powerful on the basis of bureaucratic aggrandizement and elite bullying. After the French vote, EU worthies lined...

I did it!!! For years I have been tying to post an article during normal freeping hours that nobody would comment on for over an hour. It is quite a challenge really. FR has a wide range of interests, and if an article is too weird, then people will comment on its weirdness. Anyway, every few weeks I have been trying to find an article just so totally boring that there would be no reason for anyone to comment on it, and at the same time not be too weird as to merit a comment based on its weirdness. I...

How is everyone feeling about the election? I am confident for two reasons. 1. Most electoral-projection maps have Bush winning. Taking averages is better than looking at just one poll, electoral map, etc... 2. Bush has solid leads in most of his red states whereas Kerry is in serious danger of loosing several of Gore's blue states (NM, IA, WI, MN, MI, PA, HI).