Free Republic

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday that "the mob was fed lies" before the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people,"...McConnell last week said he would listen to the arguments presented during the Senate trial before deciding how to vote on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection that resulted in the siege of the Capitol.

Is it more evil to hold existing shares of Apple/Google/Facebook/Twitter or to sell them and pay capital gains tax to the Biden Administration?

The chief executives of major US companies sent Senate leaders a letter on Thursday, urging Congress to expand background checks on all gun sales and issue stronger “red flag” laws. The letter, first shared by the New York Times, is backed by 145 CEOs of well-known retailers, technology companies, and financial institutions, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Levi Strauss, Reddit, Twitter, and Uber. The move demonstrates how top corporate leaders are taking a united stance toward gun violence in the wake of recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Gun violence is “a public health crisis that demands...

Amazon isn’t the only one fed up with New York’s ridiculous tax rates. Plenty of companies are packing their bags and looking for office space in states with more business-friendly policies. There’s just one problem: A lot of these top firms can’t stand the conservative laws that make their new homes so successful. AllianceBernstein, another firm fleeing the Empire State’s stifling economy, just announced that it’s relocating its $70 million headquarters to Nashville. But before it moves, the CEO is warning Tennessee: It’s not a fan of religious liberty. And AllianceBernstein is proving it by fighting the state’s faith-based adoption...

Gun control advocates are extremely distressed by President Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun rights group, Everytown for Gun Safety, fears that “Judge Kavanaugh has applied an extreme and dangerous interpretation of the Second Amendment when determining whether a law is constitutional, one that does not take into account a law’s impact on public safety.”

Thousands of protestors took to the streets in hundreds of cities across the U.S. Saturday, participating in "Families Belong Together" rallies and demonstrations. What protestors are hoping to gain: The immediate reunification of families that have been separated, the end of family detentions, and, more broadly, the dissolution of Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy.

...President Donald Trump has recommended a cut of some 30% to the State Department’s budget, which includes the funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and most of America’s investments in global health. Congress is unlikely to go along with such large cuts, but our best guess is that, by the time the dust settles, key foreign-aid programs will be scaled back. Even modest cuts would represent the reversal of a long-term trend of increasing U.S. support for foreign aid, and a similar mood of retrenchment has taken hold elsewhere. In the U.K., the world’s second-largest aid donor, there...

Since I hate the propaganda on Netflix these days, I searched around for entertainment and found this three-part documentary (the first part is linked). It is mostly about the workers' plight and the corruption of crony capitalism, but it has been far more balanced than the Wobbly-level drivel I expected it to be (especially about the Reconstruction period and slavery); it's quite informative and visually captivating. If someone decides to watch it, I would appreciate if some Freepers decided to express their opinions and set facts straight if need be.

Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.” Carter was responding to a question from Hartmann about recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign financing like Citizens United. …

(Just Asking) Is the entitlement class the oligarch and puppet master of an unsuspecting and diverse liberal plutocracy? Is the entitlement class the ultimate oligarch and puppet master of an unsuspecting and diverse liberal plutocracy manipulated into providing free cable TV, free money, cheap illegal drugs and politically connected corporately produced Scooby Snacks? Or does something else drive the entitled where they are going? Most economists say there is but one variable to the economic equation of the United States: the three letter word “jobs”. Without jobs we are without the gluttonous want that needs to be taxed to keep...

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the day after the Republican Gov. Scott Walker defeated a union-driven recall challenge in Wisconsin, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that the current United States government is a “plutocracy.” “Really, we have to look to the future and say, ‘We have to take back our democracy,’” Pelosi said at the National Women’s History Museum. ”This is a government of the plutocracy, of the wealthy, or of the few — oligarchy. That is not what our founders sacrificed their life, liberty and personal freedom for. This is something else. And nothing less is at stake in...

I already wrote a big post about yesterday's SOPA markup day one. While we're moving forward on day two, I wanted to call out one key point that was really made clear by an amendment offered by Rep. Jared Polis late in the day yesterday, which hasn't received nearly enough attention. As you may recall, with the "manager's amendment" version of SOPA (i.e., SOPA 2.0), the "notice-and-shut off funding" section of the private right of action in Section 103 was removed. This was good, because we've seen how the notice-and-takedown provision of the DMCA has been widely abused. However, what...

A Beverly Hills real estate broker is waiting for escrow to close on two upscale properties, but that won't happen until after Christmas. So what is a powerhouse agent to do to generate some quick spending money for holiday shopping? This one hocked her diamond Patek Philippe watch at a Beverly Hills pawnshop for cash. She'll reclaim her $15,000 timepiece when the deals close, said Jordan Tabach-Bank, chief executive of 73-year-old Beverly Loan Co. "Never before have we seen so many affluent people needing cash," he said. "People are in a cash crunch. You can't go to the bank for...

Prominent Rightwing Blogger Promises To Work Hard To Defeat Any Rightwing SOPA Supporters In Congress from the good-for-him,-how-about-the-left? dept One of the more interesting things about the whole SOPA/PIPA debate (and, as I've pointed out for many years, about any of the intellectual property policy fights) is how non-partisan they are. In fact, I think it's important that they're non-partisan, because when things become partisan, they become... well... silly (on both sides). SOPA/PIPA supporters keep touting how their bills have "bi-partisan" support, but I'd argue what's much more powerful is how the growing movement protesting these bills is almost entirely...

BEIJING — A rich Chinese couple who had eight babies with the help of two surrogate mothers has been forced to move out of their villa following a public uproar and could face a large fine for breaching strict family planning laws mandating only one child. The couple in the booming southern metropolis of Guangzhou had the children last year, according to state media, but the story only came to light after a picture of the children — four boys and four girls — was used by a photography studio in an advertisement. The story was first featured in the...

Anti-whaling activists said they had intercepted the Japanese harpoon fleet far north of Antarctic waters Sunday with the help of a military-style drone. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society spokesman Paul Watson said the unmanned long-range drone, launched from the anti-whaling ship the Steve Irwin, had located the Japanese fleet and relayed the coordinates back to the activists. Watson said Sea Shepherd, a militant activist group which annually shadows and harasses the Japanese whalers, had caught up with the fleet at 37 degrees south, 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) above Antarctic waters. No whales had been killed so far, he added. "This is...

Sierra Club, Audubon settle with SWEPCO on Turk power plantPosted by Max Brantley on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:16 AM The Sierra Club and Audubon Arkansas have announced a settlement with SWEPCO, the utility building the Turk coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County. This ends legal challenges to the plant and will be reflected in a consent decree to be filed in federal court later today in Texarkana. Nicholas Akins, CEO of American Electric Power, SWEPCO's parent, said in a release: “The provisions of the agreement are consistent with our commitment to renewable energy, energy efficiency and overall environmental...

~~snip~~ "A Gingrich campaign official prior to the move by the Republican Party of Virginia said the problem is how the rules are set up, arguing that the party is, for apparently the first time, cross-checking the addresses that signature-givers gave against the electronic voter database file for accuracies. A name without a proper address match was tossed, the official said."

Following criticism from customers for its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, domain registrar Go Daddy today said that it's no longer backing the legislation. "Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman in a statement. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it." In addition, the company...

Communist China is this month celebrating its tenth anniversary of joining the World Trade Organization. The subtitle ought to be China's tenth anniversary of cheating the United States. The globalists talked us into supporting this cozy trade relationship with China by getting U.S. manufacturers and farmers to salivate at the prospect of gaining access to the world's biggest market. China, on the other hand, joined the WTO to implement its plan to grow into an economic superpower the same way the United States became powerful in our pre-New Deal century, i.e., by protecting local industries and financing our government with...