Free Republic

Just over 240 days ago the average American taxpayer was so graciously given $0.20 per day to live one. No it does not matter if you have no kids or 7 kids, $0.20 seemed reasonable considering the amazing meal you could have had on a $5.00 per day menu per person. This is a pandemic and everybody has to chip in for the greater good of the country. We now understand that 8,000,000 taxpayers have exasperated their checking account and there is nothing left. In the spirit of the holidays, however, we are going to extend our gracious offering after...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said President Donald Trump's veto would hold up a $908 billion bipartisan stimulus bill from passing. In a statement circulated to media outlets on Wednesday, McConnell said that only his much smaller proposal reflects "what the President is ready to sign into law." "At the risk of repeating something we all know, making law will require not just the Senate's approval, but also the signature of the President of the United States," McConnell's statement read. The $908 billion bill, which was backed on Wednesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck...

Earlier this week, Eli Lake reported that the four-star Air Force general in charge of US Space Command told a Congressional panel that the White House pressured him to change his testimony to favor a company that shelled out donations for Democrats. LightSquared wants to press forward on a project that the military fears will create serious interference with GPS systems, and General William Shelton was going to address those concerns with Congress before the White House tried to push him into saying a few nice words on behalf of their sponsor. A reminder: The four-star Air Force general who...

"Smart power grid monitoring that lets you pick the exact cheapest time to run the dishwasher or recharge your electric car may put too much power (so to speak) in the hands of the consumer, according to a new study by MIT. Researchers say that users receiving minute-by-minute pricing information might cycle off-peak power use more rapidly than utilities can spool up their power plants. In other words, it's OK if you're the only person charging your Chevy Volt at 2am in the morning, but if a whole town does it exactly the same time... there will be issues."

It seems that bets on Solyndra are going sour — the government provided the company with a flagship $535 million Department of Energy loan guarantee for that first factory, even getting a visit from President Obama. But in June, the company yanked its IPO filing, but still raised another $175 million by selling promissory notes to existing investors.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard the head economic poncho at the Telegraph now nearly 2 years from starting his mantra of deficit spending stimulus to prevent a debt deleveraging deflationary depression turns around and says that he has been wrong all along, that central banks such as the US Fed are focused on creating inflation rather than preventing deflation..."I apologise to readers around the world for having defended the emergency stimulus policies of the US Federal Reserve, and for arguing like an imbecile naif that the Fed would not succumb to drug addiction, political abuse, and mad intoxicated debauchery, once it began taking...

Despite all of the smiley faces that journalists for the mainstream news media continue to paste on their reports about recent economic developments, the official unemployment rate now verges on 10 percent, and various economic indicators signal a discouraging prospect for the near-term future. Republican partisans, willing to grasp and exploit any passing news that seems to discredit the ruling Democrats, trumpet the conclusion that “the stimulus has failed.” I don’t dispute that it has failed and that it will continue to do so, but my reasons for this judgment have nothing to do with partisanship, inasmuch as I loathe...

Barack Obama said the Waxman-Markey carbon tax would help create "green energy" jobs in the U.S. He is now using taxpayer dollars to fund jobs in Spain.Barack Obama sold the Waxman-Markey "American Clean Energy and Security Act" to Congress and the American people by saying that investment in so-called "green energy" would create millions of high-wage American manufacturing jobs. We received an E-mail from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (nonpartisan professional organization) that exposed Barack Obama as a blatant prevaricator who is shamelessly using our tax dollars to create jobs not in the United States but in foreign countries. We...

The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May. “We’ve already lost 81 this year,” he told CNBC. “The numbers are climbing every day. Many of these institutions nobody’s ever heard of. They're smaller companies.” Failed banks tend to be smaller and private, which exacerbates the problem for small business borrowers, said Kanas, who became CEO of BankUnited when his firm bought the bank and is the former chairman and CEO of North Fork bank. “Government money has propped up the very...

In December 1917 Bolshevik Russian leaders, including one of the founders of Socialist thuggery Vladimir Lenin, established the Cheka—Russia’s first political secret police. With almost unlimited power, the Cheka implemented “campaigns of terror” against the wealthy, land owners and those who opposed Lenin and Bolshevism. !n 1922, once most of Russia’s opposition to their new absolute rulers had lessened, the Cheka was disbanded. However, under the singularly oppressive Josef Stalin, Cheka was reinstated and ultimately renamed “The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs” (NKVD) and what would be known as Stalin’s “Great Terror of the 1930s began. The NKVD was used...

Recession, Depression, What, Michelle Worry? Mrs. Obama Demands Small Army of Attendants “In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service,”— Michelle Obama. We were wrong. Michelle Obama, as we reported on July 7, is not served by twenty-two attendants who stand by to cater to her every whim. She is served by twenty-six attendants, including a hair dresser and make-up artist. The annual cost...

What’s the hurry? “I need $800 billion and I need it now, today.” Thus President Obama (summa dixit) shortly after taking office last winter. Maybe it’s all part of what Governor Mitch Daniels has called the Obama administration’s “shock and awe statism”: startle the punters with outrageous demands. Then tell them you want them met immediately, toot sweet, eftsoons and right speedily. “Don’t bother reading the bill, just give me the money.” It really was a breathtaking performance. He almost got away with it. Almost. Sure, he got the dough. But the rumble you’ve been hearing in the background are...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

Former GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mike Huckabee in an exclusive Newsmax interview says President Obama’s early job performance is “cause for alarm,” and warns his penchant for talking down the economy is “the worst possible direction he could take.” Obama’s dark portrayal of the U.S. economy -- apparently intended to lower the high expectations stoked by his rhetoric during the campaign -- is on the verge of becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” Huckabee adds. The former Arkansas governor’s criticism followed a week that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a six-year low. The S & P 500, the index that...

Former GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mike Huckabee in an exclusive Newsmax interview says President Obama’s early job performance is “cause for alarm,” and warns his penchant for talking down the economy is “the worst possible direction he could take.” Obama’s dark portrayal of the U.S. economy -- apparently intended to lower the high expectations stoked by his rhetoric during the campaign -- is on the verge of becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” Huckabee adds. The former Arkansas governor’s criticism followed a week that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a six-year low. The S & P 500, the index that...

George Soros finally gets it February 21, 2009 – 1:56 pm Three weeks ago, the positively schizophrenic Op-Ed page for the WSJ published yet another piece by a big financial brain proposing a “solution” to the financial crisis. While the editorial page itself is so rigidly ideological as to be useless, the op-ed page publishes stuff all over the map. The only common attribute seems to be a big-name byline. Once in a while you’ll get a thoughtful, nuanced and hard-hitting piece by Shelby Steele or Judy Shelton, for instance; occasionally, one of the big names will actually say something...

I probably should have just listened to Paul Harvey. Though it wasn’t actually Paul Harvey. It was Ron Chapman. And that’s probably the problem. I understand Ron Chapman is a radio legend somewhere, but I don’t live there. So, to me, he’s just an insufferable bore. But I should have been listening anyway. Instead I got an idea. An idea that had been kind of simmering in my head for a week or so. I was trying to think of a way to show that I wasn’t happy. That I was tired of bailouts. That I didn’t want to pay...

I probably should have just listened to Paul Harvey. Though it wasn’t actually Paul Harvey. It was Ron Chapman. And that’s probably the problem. I understand Ron Chapman is a radio legend somewhere, but I don’t live there. So, to me, he’s just an insufferable bore. But I should have been listening anyway. Instead I got an idea. An idea that had been kind of simmering in my head for a week or so. I was trying to think of a way to show that I wasn’t happy. That I was tired of bailouts. That I didn’t want to pay...

The "Nationwide Chicago TeaParty" sponsored by the #DONTGO movement, Smart Girl Politics (#SGP), Americans for Tax Reform, Heartland Institute, Top Conservatives on Twitter (#TCOT), and the American Spectator will be February 27 at Noon EST.

Holding signs reading "Stimulate Business, Not Government," "Families Against Porkulus" and "Say No To Generational Theft," protesters opposed to the $787 billion stimulus package have been mobilizing across the country. It started last Monday in Seattle, then moved Tuesday to Denver, where President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law. That was followed by another one in Mesa, Ariz., where Obama unveiled a mortgage rescue plan. Another protest was planned for Saturday outside the office of Rep. Dennis Moore in Overland Park, Kan. The Democrat voted for the stimulus. His office didn't return calls seeking comment. A New Populism? As...