Free Republic

<p>Most everyone supports a clean environment.  But many environmentalists fail to recognize the need for balance.</p> <p>One of the latest examples of environmental extremism is the campaign to punish or even ban the use of plastic bags.   The Philadelphia City Council has turned down a proposal to ban plastic bags, but proponents promise to try again.  A bill pending before the state legislature would outlaw plastic bags statewide.</p>

One of the more troubling components of the ObamaCare bill wending its way through the House is the inclusion of individual mandates to carry health insurance. What gives Congress the power to dictate that choice to American citizens? A single document enumerates Congressional power, and former Department of Justice attorneys David Rivkin and Lee Casey have some trouble finding that power in it. They argue, with appropriate citations of precedent, that HR3200 and any other bill that attempts to impose mandates will violate the Constitution: Although the Supreme Court has interpreted Congress’s commerce power expansively, this type of mandate would...

How great would this country be without lawyers

Greenpeace Livestreams the Action Greenpeace activists were arrested Wednesday for scaling Mount Rushmore and hanging a banner next to the carved face of Abraham Lincoln urging President Barack Obama to get tough on climate change. A video posted on the environmental group's website showed the massive banner hanging on the South Dakota mountain face. Its message -- "America honors leaders not politicians: Stop Global Warming" and an unfinished portrait of Obama -- was barely visible as it was whipped by wind. "Doing what it takes to solve global warming demands real political courage," Greenpeace USA deputy campaigns director Carroll Muffett...

After reviewing industry bids to build a synthetic fuel plant at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., the Air Force has nixed a controversial plan that would have allowed a contractor to construct a facility for converting coal into liquid fuel. In exchange for the land use, the contractor would have provided the Air Force with aviation fuel.Environmentalists in Montana opposed the plant because of concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution. They also were worried about its effect on the Missouri River, since the production process would require millions of gallons of water daily. Additionally, depending on the properties...

The US Airways jet that made a dramatic emergency landing on New York's Hudson River last week experienced an engine compressor failure two days earlier, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said Monday that the board's examination of the Airbus 320's maintenance records show "there was an entry in the aircraft's maintenance log that indicates a compressor stall occurred on Jan. 13." The compressor, or fan, draws air into the engine. He said the flight had a different pilot that day, and the board planned to interview that pilot to learn more about the incident....

Fairfield, Conn is intent on recovering $42M invested with alleged fraudster Bernard Madoff........potential targets includes Ernst & Young and McGladrey & Pullen, auditors for firms that recommended Madoff.......fund-of-hedge-fund firms Tremont Capital Management and Maxam Capital Management, funds invested with Madoff. Fairfield's search for a culprit is being replicated across the country as teams of lawyers for angry investors assess who besides Madoff might be held accountable.....Madoff allegedly operated through a wide array of respectable middlemen, including many legitimate hedge-fund operators and their auditors. "The better potential claims are going to be against third parties that didn't do proper due diligence,"...

It's Christmastime and the Fox News Channel, the most conservative of the major media outlets, is running an ad for PajamaGrams, "the only gift guaranteed to get your wife or girlfriend to take her clothes off." The ads feature soft porn images of women disrobing and tossing slips and bras to the floor. The ad runs at all times of the day and night. Thus do we usher in the season supposedly devoted to the Prince of Peace and the Festival of Lights. We all know how far the pornification has gotten. But what is less well understood is the...

The stink caused by Madoff's $50B Ponzi scheme is spreading to the darling of the well-heeled: the hedge fund. Shell-shocked investors - even those with no exposure to Madoff - are pulling fortunes out at a stepped-up pace. Citco Fund Services and other major service providers said redemption requests are ratcheting up as investors seek safer havens in the wake of the scandal. So far, the Madoff impact has had the most direct effect on funds run by Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group and the $2.8B Kingate Global Fund run by Kingate Management. Both were big promoters of Madoff's advisory...

Everyone is looking for some sort of answer to the chaos in our country. What if the model for change was actually an answer out of history? I took a moment to read a couple of chapters out of the Bible, in the book of Nehemiah. There I found an interesting correlation between a people who were trying to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and others who opposed their right to do it. They were in some ways just like us. They were threatened by opposing people who did not want their people or culture to exist. They were also...

HOW did America wind up in its worst financial crisis in decades? Sen. Barack Obama explained it this way last week: "When sub-prime-mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn, a patchwork of regulators systematically and deliberately eliminated the regulations protecting the American people." That's exactly backward. Mortgage lending took that "reckless and unsustainable turn" because of regulation - regulation driven by liberals and progressives, not free-market "deregulators." Pushed hard by politicians and community activists, the regulators systematically and deliberately altered financially sound lending practices. The mortgage market was humming along just fine when, in the late 1980s, progressives decided...

I think this is the biggest moment in Icelandic sport history." - Iceland President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. It's hard to explain just how monumental was Iceland's win over Spain was in today's men's handball semifinals. Spain--with more than 40 million residents--had probably played stronger than any team in the tournament. Iceland has 300,000 residents, and has never won Summer Olympic gold. And yet Iceland never trailed in a 36-30 win, and breezed into Sunday's final against France. But that's too dry. When we asked Iceland's Sigfus Sigurdsson to explain what the scene would be like back home right now, he...

WASHINGTON -- The 110th Congress, whose term officially ends in January, hasn't passed any spending bills or attacked high gasoline prices. But it has used its powers to celebrate watermelons and to decree the origins of the word "baseball." Barring a burst of legislative activity after Labor Day, this group of 535 men and women will have accomplished a rare feat. In two decades of record keeping, no sitting Congress has passed fewer public laws at this point in the session -- 294 so far -- than this one. That's not to say they've been idle. On the flip side,...

A week before the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989...

TVNewser Exclusive: A 24-year-old Fox News Channel production assistant was fired this morning for something she said during the red carpet arrivals at the Time 100 Gala last night. Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, "I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win." McCain was overheard saying to her, "You're not supposed to reveal that." Locke apparently continued to explain that she is the daughter of Vietnam veteran. Insiders who...