Free Republic

Mitt Romney may not be Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s biggest problem. The nonprofit group Texans for Public Justice, a good-government foundation that has been keeping tabs on him for years, may claim that title. Its Web site’s homepage features a quote from its Crony Capitalism report: “As Texas Governor Rick Perry’s influence at the RGA increased over the past five years the political finances of both the governor and the Governors Association skyrocketed. The RGA raised a record $216.9 million during the Perry years between January 2006 and June 30, 2011.

Planetary scientists have long wondered why Mars is only about half the size and one-tenth the mass of Earth. As next-door neighbors in the inner solar system, probably formed about the same time, why isn't Mars more like Earth and Venus in size and mass? A paper published in the journal Nature this week provides the first cohesive explanation and, by doing so, reveals an unexpected twist in the early lives of Jupiter and Saturn as well. Dr. Kevin Walsh, a research scientist at Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), led an international team performing simulations of the early solar system, demonstrating...

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com today that the health-care law that President Barack Obama signed last March is a “platform” for building a single-payer health care system in the United States. During a newsmakers program at the National Press Club on Monday, Conyers said that after discussing the issue with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) he voted for the health-care law because he saw it as a necessary "platform" for building toward a single-payer health-care system in the United States. Speaking with CNSNews.com after the event at the National Press Club, Conyers...

"Trophy" system is activated for the first time during an IDF operation; force identifies and kills the Gazan gunman. A special missile defense system deployed in IDF armored units stopped an anti-tank missile fired by terrorists near the Gaza security fence, the first time the system has been used during an IDF operation. The IDF Spokesperson's office reported that the “Windbreaker” system managed to identify and disable the missile, and that no damage was caused to the tank or its crew. Shortly thereafter, IDF troops identified an armed man in their proximity and opened fire, killing the gunman at the...

Washington - NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the outer edge of the solar system where wind from the Sun is no longer blowing outward, but sideways, the US space agency said. The spacecraft was launched in 1977 and has since snapped images of Earth and other planets in the solar system and provided NASA with crucial information as it makes its long journey into outer space. NASA researchers think Voyager 1 will leave the solar system and enter interstellar space, or the area in between the end of the Sun's influence and the next star system, in about four

As in cities today, the earliest towns helped expose their inhabitants to inordinate opportunities for infection -- and today their descendants are stronger for it, a new study says. "If cities increase the amount of disease people are exposed to, shouldn't they also, over time, make them natural places for disease resistance to evolve?" asked study co-author Mark Thomas, a biologist at University College London... study co-author Ian Barnes, a molecular paleobiologist at University College London, screened DNA samples from 17 groups long associated with particular regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa -- for example Anatolian Turks and the southern...

It is news to no one that our educational system sucks. American students are consistently out-performed by students in other countries year after year. Why? Liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, “compassionate” conservatives (i.e., neocons, RINOs, liberal Republicans) , teacher unions, and other leftist groups would like you to believe that it is some combination of bad schools, teachers, and financing. The solution, as they see it, is to engage in a game of Three Card Monty where students are shuffled from schools that are “failing” them, to schools that will allow them to “succeed” –as though success is a magical elixir...

Even as Righthaven LLC made headlines for suing Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle last week, attorneys in another Righthaven case accused the firm of misusing the legal system to carry out its copyright infringement lawsuit campaign. Righthaven, controlled by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson and the family of Arkansas investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens, has contracted with the Stephens Media LLC-owned Las Vegas Review-Journal to file copyright infringement lawsuits against 117 website owners and bloggers since March.

Washington - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a panel investigating the financial crisis that regulators must be ready to shutter the largest institutions if they threaten to bring down the financial system. "If the crisis has a single lesson, it is that the too-big-to-fail problem must be solved," (Snip) Bernanke also said it was impossible for the Fed to rescue Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy in 2008 because the Wall Street firm lacked sufficient collateral to secure a loan. Lehman's former chief executive told the panel a day earlier that the firm could have been saved, but regulators refused to

A solar system containing up to seven planets orbiting a sun-like star has been detected 127 light years from Earth. The planetary system is believed to be the largest ever discovered beyond the sun. Astronomers have confirmed the presence of five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more. And it comes as Nasa has said that it plans to make an announcement about an 'intriguing' planetary system that it has discovered using the Kepler space telescope Kepler looks at the telltale 'wobble' as planets pass in front of distant stars and, earlier this year, astronomers announced that it had...

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2010 – A medical advisory group is working to develop health care capabilities and create medical and health care training programs for Afghanistan’s security forces. “We have a large mission to develop the Afghan national security forces health care system,” Air Force Col. (Dr.) Schuyler K. Geller, NATO Training Mission Afghanistan command surgeon and commander of the Medical Training Advisory Group at Camp Eggers, Afghanistan, said during a "DoD Live" bloggers roundtable yesterday. Geller said the group’s mission is to get the health care system running to a completely self-sustainable level, for both the army and police,...

You won’t hear about it in the mainstream media, but the Electoral College is on the verge of being eliminated. One important legislative vote could occur Thursday. Two others could occur in the upcoming days and weeks. A California-based group, National Popular Vote, is lobbying hard for a dangerous piece of anti-Electoral College legislation. My NRO article on the mechanics of the legislation is here. Five states have already approved NPV, but now three additional states are dangerously close to joining them: Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York. Another trio of state legislatures approved the scheme, but their governors vetoed the...

WASHINGTON, May 27, 2010 – Servicemembers in Afghanistan are working with the country’s interior and defense ministries to provide legal advice and development in the country. "We're a little bit different than most of your standard military legal offices," said Army Col. Rick Rousseau, who serves in Afghanistan with the NATO training mission’s staff judge advocate’s office, during a "DoD Live" bloggers roundtable yesterday. "While we do the normal functions of a legal office, I have three sections in my office that are quite different from any other," Rousseau said. The main role of the judge advocate’s office is to...

Ever since Google disclosed in January that Internet intruders had stolen information from its computers, the exact nature and extent of the theft has been a closely guarded company secret. But a person with direct knowledge of the investigation now says that the losses included one of Google’s crown jewels, a password system that controls access by millions of users worldwide to almost all of the company’s Web services, including e-mail and business applications.

Washington (CNN) - John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, can describe the state of Washington politics with a single word. And it's not a nice one. Asked in an interview with the Financial Times to comment on "the health of American political system," Podesta responded: "Sucks." Podesta made the remark with a chuckle, but the man who chaired President Obama's transition team expressed deep concern about the White House's ability to pass big ticket items in the current political climate.

Critics who think that the U.S. dollar will be replaced by some new global currency are perhaps thinking too small.

There has been many problems with the automated system of the FSSA. Indiana's citizens that are on the various programs (medicaid, food stamps, and TANF) have reported missing paperwork, the lack of face to face contact and unqualified call center operatives. The problems got bad enough that the federal government started watching the program.

WHAT: A new study shows that molecular similarities exist between the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus and other strains of seasonal H1N1 virus that have been circulating in the population since 1988. These results suggest that healthy adults may have a level of protective immune memory that can blunt the severity of infection caused by the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. The study team was led by Bjoern Peters, Ph.D., and Alessandro Sette, Ph.D., of La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, Calif., grantees of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The...

Obama pledges to work with G-20 to regulate markets Press Trust Of India / Washington September 20, 2009, 0:59 IST US President Barack Obama today pledged to work with leaders of the G-20 countries to strengthen the rules governing financial markets and ensure that the global economic crisis that engulfed the world just a year ago does not happen again. . . “At next week’s G-20 summit, we’ll discuss some of the steps that are required to safeguard our global financial system and close gaps in regulation around the world — gaps that permitted the kinds of reckless risk-taking and...

For too long conservatives (those who respect religion, patriotism, and freedom) have had to satisfy themselves with meager success. Conservatives may win an election or pass a bill, but we are starving for real victory. To win real victory we must colonize the left. We must create a conservative socialist party. The only selling point for the left is socialism, so we must detach socialism from the main body of leftist dogma. When a conservative right battles a conservative left we can achieve real, lasting victory. Both sides would espouse our core principles. I support a conservative socialist or populist...