Free Republic

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees. In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees;...

US is broke and Obama/Clinton are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to refurbish radical mosques in Middle East! Incredible news story from in Atlanta. Watch it at link, or here http://www.wsbtv.com/video/25764282/index..html

The fallen Representative has no shame. In a Nixonian riff he insists "I am not corrupt," and with an Alice-in-Wonderland logic insists he was not motivated by personal gain. Excuse me? Didn't tax boss Rangel personally profit by not reporting rental income to the IRS from his Dominican Republic villa for the last dozen years? Didn't he personally profit by improperly accepting rent controlled apartments instead of paying for much higher market value units? Didn't he personally gain by soliciting charitable donations on his Congressional letterhead since the "charity" was an education center bearing his name as a self-aggrandizing monument...

Is the U.S. Department of the Treasury undertaking a new role? Taking its newest press release as an example, one could be excused to imagine that our Treasury Department has decided that it is now our next Department of Muslim Outreach. Today, Treasury released this statement: Treasury Department Statement Marking the Beginning of RamadanWASHINGTON – As Muslims in the United States and around the world begin their observance of Ramadan, the U.S. Department of the Treasury recognizes the importance of this period of intense devotion, reflection and charitable giving. Charitable giving and philanthropy are core American values, reflected in many...