Free Republic

What the world looks like in stereotypes

Complete title: Petition for Writ of Certiorari filed with the U.S. Supreme Court for Kerchner et al vs. Obama/Congress/Pelosi et al Lawsuit _______________________________________________ *snip* Attorney Mario Apuzzo of Jamesburg, NJ, today filed a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington DC, on behalf of plaintiffs, Charles F. Kerchner, Jr., Lehigh County, PA; Lowell T. Patterson, Burlington County, NJ; Darrell J. LeNormand, Middlesex County, NJ; and Donald H. Nelsen, Jr., Middlesex County, NJ. Plaintiffs are challenging the recent decision of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, PA, which affirmed the dismissal by District...

SNIPPET: "Al-Qaeda has transformed in recent years from a terrorist organization (illegal) that haphazardly used media to advance their cause (not illegal) to a media organization (not illegal) that haphazardly uses terrorism to advance their cause (illegal). In other words, by reconceptualizing their illegal organization into a legal movement, they managed to rope in thousands, if not tens of thousands of new followers. This reconceptualization, by sheer numbers, structurally flipped the ratio of their labor hours from being 3/4 illegal stuff (terrorist operations) and 1/4 legal stuff (media operations) to 1/4 illegal stuff (terrorist operations) and 3/4 legal stuff (propaganda...

A Skeptical View of Constitution Worship Guest Blogger Constitution Day lecture, Johns Hopkins University, Sept. 16, 2010 Michael Klarman We are here today to celebrate Constitution Day, and, more importantly, my daughter’s 10th birthday; I am grateful to all of you for joining us on that occasion. Teymura, my daughter, feels deeply honored. It is so great to be back in Baltimore. I grew up here, as those of you with acute accent detection capacities can probably tell from my genteel “Balmur” brogue. My brother and I grew up in a house just 3-4 blocks from the Pimlico racetrack, where...

Matt Taibbi says that Sarah Palin's speeches are "...usually a tired succession of half-coherent one-liners dumped on ravenous audiences like chum to sharks." He says that he can't imagine a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents than "a hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters railing against government spending and imagining themsleves revolutionaries..." and goes on to say that Tea Partyers are "...full of s... All of them." "At the voter level", he says.......

NOTE: Excerpting does not do the article justice. Read the whole thing. # SNIPPET: "He was a fundraiser for a group convicted of providing material support to Hamas, yet Kifah Mustapha recently received tours of secure FBI facilities in and around Washington. Mustapha's two-day trip earlier this month was arranged by the FBI's Chicago office, whose officials escorted Mustapha and about two dozen others on tours of the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI facility in Quantico, Virginia and FBI headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. A news report noted that Mustapha "asked some of the most pointed questions" during...

It’s a really skewed view of the relationship between citizens and the government – that anything you earn and get to keep by not paying to the government in the form of taxes is a show of benevolence from the government. But that’s apparently the view of Richard H. Thaler, professor at the University of Chicago. In the Sept. 26 New York Times, Thaler, declares that tax cuts are a gift in his op-ed “What the Rich Don’t Need.” “WANT to give affluent households a present worth $700 billion over the next decade?” Thaler wrote. “In a period of high...

It's so easy to sell shiny America crap to angry conservatives these days. Now the New York publishing world is formally cashing in, as HarperCollins is starting a new conservative imprint, "Broadside Books." Punchy? HarperCollins was the publisher of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue, which only sold about 432 trillion copies, every one of them just as good. Now it's time to scale up! HC's new "Broadside Books" will simply take every book genre and write alternate conservative versions: As [Broadside chief Adam] Bellow imagines it, Broadside Books ("it had a certain combative edge," he said of the title) will publish...

Stuxnet is believed to be the most destructive virus ever devised for attacking major industrial complexes, reactors and infrastructure... and it's hitting Tehran HARD The Islamic Republic of Iran looks to be in the midst of a major ongoing cyber attack upon it's most vital computer systems by the unprecedentedly menacing Stuxnet virus... including nuclear reactors and other sensitive facilities: ____________________________________________ Mahmoud Alyaee, secretary-general of Iran's industrial computer servers, including its nuclear facilities control systems, confirmed Saturday, Sept. 25, that 30,000 computers belonging to classified industrial units had been infected and disabled by the malicious Stuxnet virus. This followed DEBKAfile's...

With the end of the fiscal year looming next week, Congress must pass a Continuing Resolution to fund government activity as the current appropriations levels expire on September 30. While the Majority has yet to introduce their CR, the Republican Study Committee has proposed a CR that cuts spending, prohibits earmarks and aims to shrink the size of government. ATR and CFA sent a letter in support of their bill yesterday. Amongst other things, the RSC CR: Sets spending at their 2008 levels. This ensures “stimulus” and bailout measures aren’t baked into the budgeting baseline for years to come. Does...

...Previously, a majority among all employees, voting or not, was required for the measure to pass. The new standard overturns more than 75 years of precedent, giving unions unheard-of control over a process which is skewing more and more in their favor. Earlier today, the U.S. Senate voted down a motion to proceed to consider S.J. 30, a resolution from Sen. Isakson (R-GA) condemning NMB's overreaching pronouncement. While no Republicans voted against the resolution, Sens. Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), and Lincoln (D-AR) voted with the minority. The final tally was 56-43 against, Murkowski (R-AK) not voting. In a vote that...

...The major items include: The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers. Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear. Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or “depreciate”) equipment purchases...

Facing an increasingly bleak landscape for the November elections, news has surfaced that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will attempt to bring the campaign finance monstrosity, the DISCLOSE Act, to the floor tomorrow. The bill, a blatant attempt by the majority to tilt the political environment in their favor for the fall elections and beyond, penalizes the speech of businesses and grassroots advocacy groups under the guise of responding to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. We have been adamantly opposed to the DISCLOSE Act when it was first heard in the House and again when it came up...

When members of your local teacher’s union tell you they can teach better if you pay them more, ask them to respond to a new study from Vanderbilt University, not exactly a free market hot bed. “Rewarding teachers with bonus pay, in the absence of any other support programs, does not raise student test scores, according to a new study issued today by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development in partnership with the RAND Corporation,” researchers at Vandy found. “We tested the most basic and foundational question related to performance...

Rather than augment his big government agenda to assuage growing public opposition, President Obama has pivoted to yet another attack on private business, this time getting personal and targeting Charles and David Koch, owners of Koch Industries. Hoping to distract from what was anything but a “recovery summer,” the White House has taken issue with David Koch, who founded the free-market advocacy group Americans for Prosperity several years ago. The group, which works to promote free-market, pro-growth policies, obviously has little interest in supporting the Keynesian agenda of the current White House, a crime the President is using to fashion...

The medical field in New Hampshire is facing a serious crisis; the state is trying to take away their private property. People who fund the Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriting Association (JUA), such as medical doctors, nurses, hospitals, and nursing homes, are plaintiffs in lawsuits against the state of New Hampshire to prevent it from raiding more than $110 million in surplus revenue from the JUA. The state government, who has not contributed any money to the JUA, is determined to raid the fund to fill its own budget shortfalls. In early September the state commissioner, aided by Gov. John Lynch,...

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If that's the case, Congress must be insane when it comes to increasing paperwork burdens on ordinary Americans--particularly paperwork of the 1099-MISC variety. The Obamacare law has over two dozen tax hikes. One of them is a new paperwork burden on small employers. Basically, every small business in America will have to mail a tax form to every single entity they do business with. That means every restaurant, every airline, every gas station, every supply store, etc. The public erupted...

The Universal Service Fund (USF) is the tax on your phone line that subsidizes connections for rural and lower income households, as well as schools and libraries. The USF program has a long history of waste and abuse. However, thankfully Congress is working hard on a bill that would reform the fund. It contains a number of necessary provisions that would reign in wasteful spending, especially by redefining and limiting who exactly is eligible for payments. However, ATR is still concerned that the legislation doesn’t a cap the overall size of the multi-billion dollar fund. The USF rate sits at...

...Overturning more than 75 years of precedent, the three person board unilaterally repealed the "Majority Rule" regulation for unions, whereby a majority of a whole body of workers must approve unionization. Under NMB's new policy, a majority is needed only of the voting members themselves, skewing the process far in favor of the already powerful unions...

Last year I wrote that the Tea Party demonstration in Washington was a "transformative event," and I described it through the eyes of a participant: Sometimes an event occurs which is transformative in a way that everyone who sees it or participates in it instantly is aware of. Yesterday's demonstration in Washington DC is one of those rare happenings in my opinion. The Daily Mail said 2 million Americans participated. My friend Charlie Martin extrapolated from the pictures an attendance figure of 2.3 million. Here is a time lapse of the parade portion of the event so you can get...