Free Republic

Plastics producers have promoted recycling their products as an environmental solution for decades despite firsthand knowledge that it was not feasible, according to a report published Thursday. More than 99 percent of plastics are produced using fossil fuels, and of these, the vast majority cannot be “recycled” in the sense of being processed and turned into entirely new products, according to the report from the Center for Climate Integrity. Viable end markets, or businesses that buy recyclables to make new products, only exist for polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene plastic containers, according to the report. Environmental Protection Agency materials have...

Farmers not sufficiently 'woke' can have accounts shut down without notice.. Farmers are under attack in multiple food-producing nations now... empty stores in France, where a climate agenda threatened the production processes for farmers, and they more or less staged a strike. ... And just recently, in Germany, farmers blocked highways in protest over costly and unnecessary agriculture policies. Now, however, there's a new campaign against farmers, in which the United Nations works with banks to debank the food producers, closing their accounts and not allowing them to operate their businesses. ... officials from 12 U.S. states have sounded an...

Key members of the since-disbanded Select Committee on January 6th admit in a new PBS documentary that the entire operation was an election-year publicity stunt.On Wednesday, Frontline PBS published a new documentary, “Democracy on Trial,” chronicling the House committee’s work. Pivotal players on the partisan probe conceded in the two-and-half-hour documentary that the panel’s public performances produced for prime-time television were orchestrated as entertainment media.“The one thing that we knew was the information that we have is compelling,” said Illinois congressman-turned CNN commentator Adam Kinzinger. “The thing we needed to do was tell that to the American people in a...

For the first time, the US military’s central office for dealing with Hollywood has re-leased internal reports on its operations, revealing how the Department of Defense strong-armed the industry to achieve its propaganda goals. The reports were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and offer a rare glimpse inside the DOD’s main entertainment liaison offices at the Pentagon, which oversees the individual branch offices in Los Angeles run by the Army, Navy, Air Force and others. The reports cover approximately two years of activities and illustrate just how aggressive the DOD can be when dealing with film and...

So, without further ado here are 25 deeply distressed companies, whose banks we found have quietly shrunk the borrowing base of their credit facilities anywhere from 6 percent in the case of Black Ridge Oil and Gas to a whopping 51 percent for soon to be insolvent New Source Energy Partners. [Link to chart here.]

We live in dangerous and stressful times. The margin for error in our fight for the survival of America is very small. The number of people willing to surrender their genuine freedoms for a little faux security is growing. We are a strong and resilient people but even the strongest die eventually. We who pull the American wagon and recognize that nothing worth anything is free, especially our precious liberty, can only go on just so long. The whiney and the greedy are not our friends regardless of who they are or claim to be. It is, therefore, an unfortunate...

In the ocean of federal budgetary red ink, the tax breaks enjoyed by oil companies and targeted for elimination by the Obama administration are a ripple. The Congressional Budget Office projects the federal government will spend $973 billion more in 2012 than it takes in. President Barack Obama earlier this year proposed increasing oil industry taxes by $3.5 billion in 2012, 0.4 percent of the total deficit. The administration’s goal is not to raise money. According to congressional testimony by the Treasury Department, eliminating some preferential tax treatment for oil companies will divert investment from a 20th-century to a 21st-century...

From Simon Black of Sovereign ManMarc Faber: Don’t Store Your Gold In The United StatesAs usual, the CNBC hosts were completely dumbfounded.Phoning in from Sao Paulo, Brazil, investment guru Marc Faber was a guest on CNBC last week, once again telling the unvarnished truth about the state of the world economy and bankrupt western nations.This time, Faber had a very clear message: that everyone should own *physical* gold… and what’s more, they should store it outside of the United States: “I prefer if investors hold physical gold in a safe deposit box, ideally outside the US, in various locations…...

As the high cost of gasoline takes a toll on politics and pocket books, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he is calling on major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia to increase their oil supplies to help stabilize prices, warning starkly that lack of relief would harm the global economy. "We are in a lot of conversations with the major oil producers like Saudi Arabia to let them know that it's not going to be good for them if our economy is hobbled because of high oil prices," Obama told a Detroit TV station. His remarks signaled a broad new...

Department of Interior officials seem to take sadistic pleasure in badgering oil companies. The latest example involves a new agency created to levy untold millions of dollars in fines if companies don’t kowtow to the new bureaucracy. The agency’s head gave the tasteless warning: “If they cut corners they could end up paying enough to quickly take care of the federal deficit.” The oil industry now pays $37 million a day in royalties. That’s over $13 billion a year for our near empty U.S. Treasury and other state and special accounts. The comment about collecting royalties enough to pay off...

Why do many reporters ask how we can pay for tax cuts?

Laura D'Andrea Tyson, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton, recently praised the virtues of additional massive government spending with an editorial entitled "Jobs Now, Deficit Reduction Later". Never mind the deficit. Time for that later. We need jobs now! Job creation is all the rage. The theme rings throughout Washington and the media as a talking point for Congress and the Obama administration. Spend now, pay later. Green jobs here. Tax credits there. Government micro management run amok. Problem is, they're misguided and we as a society will be forced to pay the price. Under...

Producer Prices Plunge Joe WeisenthalOct. 20, 2009, 9:15 AM Today's PPI for October showed deeper deflation than anyone expected. The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods declined 0.6 percent in September, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This decrease followed a 1.7-percent rise in August and a 0.9-percent decline in July. In September, at the earlier stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods moved up 0.2 percent and the crude goods index fell 2.1 percent. On an unadjusted basis, from September 2008 to September 2009, prices for finished...

PPI: Freezing ("Below Zero" Deflation Alert)y Karl DenningerOctober 20,2009 But I thought Bennie And The Feds programs were working? The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods declined 0.6 percent in September, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This decrease followed a 1.7-percent rise in August and a 0.9-percent decline in July. In September, at the earlier stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods moved up 0.2 percent and the crude goods index fell 2.1 percent. On an unadjusted basis, from September 2008 to September 2009, prices for finished...

The new numbers on consumer confidence are out. They show American consumers very confident that the economy is going down the tubes. Over in Asia and Europe, stocks plunged on fears that Americans may no longer be able to find the second jobs and recklessly borrow the money needed to buy imported stuff. Economists now freely use the "recession" word following the report that American payrolls fell in August, the first monthly decline in four years. American consumers, in other words, are all dried up. And the discussion has begun on what kind of baloney economy kept them lubricated for...

Tehran, 30 April (AKI) - The culture committee of the Iranian parliament approved on Monday a bill sentencing to death producers of 'pornography', videos and films deemed vulgar by the country's censorship. The draft law will now go to parliament where it is expected to be approved by an ample majority. Amateur porn films have a properous market in Iran and can fetch up to 30 euros each. The market, tolerated for a long time, became a nationwide issue earlier this year after a porn film of popular television actress, Zohre Mir Ebrahimi, having sex with her partner, was released.

I have been reading "Atlas Shrugged" again for about the 6th or 7th time, mostly because I like the book and I always learn new things. This passage leaped out at me and struck me with Ms. Rand's precience: "Then you will note the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you...

Stage farce lets Israelis see funny side of the Fuhrer Stephen Farrell, Tel Aviv 17feb06 IN a khaki blur of bad taste, SS uniforms and prancing Fuhrers, the Mel Brooks Broadway farce The Producers has come to Israel for the first time. The show, in Hebrew but replete with swastikas and Nazi salutes, is playing nightly in Tel Aviv to chuckling audiences of Holocaust survivors. Even as they chat during the interval about the best lines, many recall the horror of Kristallnacht. "If ever there was a place that has full licence to make fun of Hitler, it is probably...

Yesterday, I sat in a theater watching "The Producers" while "Brokeback Mountain" ran in the empty theater next door...and it hit me. Someone is making a bundle selling 100% of "Brokeback Mountain" a guaranteed flop, to several investors. It explains so much. Like, how our country could be at war and films like "Stealth" are produced. And it got me thinking...if I were really out to alienate and offend 80% of the country, what would be my next film? I immediatly thought of casting James Brolin as Ronald Reagan...but that's been done. How about "The Oliver North Story" starring Christopher...

Trying to fend off increasingly tough competition from other states and foreign countries, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to announce a plan soon to grant tax breaks for film companies to help them meet production expenses and stay in California. J. Scott Davis