Free Republic

Hey, let's just simplify the tax code and eliminate loopholes.It's hard to think of any statement that on its surface sounds less controversial. Eliminating loopholes means more revenue. Everyone likes simplification. Efficiency!So why doesn't it happen?This fantastic chart from Credit Suisse's Neal Soss is the answer. It shows the top 20 biggest "Tax Expenditures" which cost the government over $900 billion in the 2012 fiscal year. Credit SuisseSo you want to simplify the tax code, what are you going to get rid of?Are you going to eliminate the incentive to provide employers health insurance? Are you going to get rid...

The European Union has expressed serious concern and deep regret over India executing a Pakistani militant who carried out a massacre during the Mumbai terror strikes four years ago. Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Pak gunman captured during the attacks on the western Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people and injured 300 others nearly four years ago, was hanged to death on Wednesday. The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist was executed and buried at the Yerwada Central Jail in another western Indian city of Pune after his mercy petition was rejected by the country's President earlier this month....

One of the world’s first digital computers to replace the handwritten calculations of human “computors” is getting an official reboot that could lead to a spot in the Guinness Book of Records. The 61-year-old Harwell Dekatron—about the size and weight of an SUV—was originally hailed as a slow, steady machine capable of delivering error-free calculations while running for 90 hours a week. It has survived to become the oldest original working digital computer following the announcement of its completed restoration by The National Museum of Computing in the U.K. on Tuesday. “In 1951, the Harwell Dekatron was one of perhaps...

Small minds always leap to the answers given the last time around, which is probably why Maxine Waters keeps getting re-elected. But the last time is not necessarily the same as this time. A terrorist attack is not the same as the Cold War, a war in Afghanistan is not the same as a war in Iraq, and Mitt Romney is not the same as John McCain or Bob Dole. But since the election, many conservatives seem to be coalescing around the explanation for our defeat given by Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots, who said: “What we...

The Day The World Ended [Micro-Documentary] Mac Slavo November 21st, 2012 From the creator of the widely popular The Day the Dollar Died: The First 12 Hours of a US Dollar Collapse, comes a simulation of what the world may look like in the very near future. WATCH: THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (PART 1 of 2): CONTINUE: Watch The Day the World Ended [Part 2 of 2]

Obama Brings In Grassroots Team To Cut Deal On Fiscal Cliff President calls on campaign team to spread the word about looming deadline when tax rises and spending cuts will kick in Ewen MacAskill 22 November Obama's call came after no progress was made between Republicans and Democrats in Congress over Thanksgiving. Barack Obama has enlisted the help of his formidable grassroots army of volunteers in the battle with Republican members of Congress over the fiscal cliff, the January 1 deadline for a deal on tax and spending. The Obama for America campaign team, which has remained intact post-election, sent...

There are some practical reasons to be thankful.  According to coverage by Breaking Christian News, being “thankful” can give you: • Stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure • Higher levels of positive emotions • More joy, optimism and happiness • Acting with more generosity and compassion • Feeling less lonely and isolated When you are faced with very real problems (health, family, money) or just a general discouragement from a loss of Hope (or “change”), it takes an act of faith to be thankful when you don’t feel like it. Thankfulness is not just a "glass half full"...

Sixty-seven years ago, on a cold December 9th in 1945 Germany, legendary American general George S. Patton was injured in a strange auto "accident" on a road outside Mannheim, near the Rhine River. The opinionated anticommunist died twelve days later. Today, the evidence that he was murdered -- the first in a line of postwar political assassinations including that of President John F. Kennedy -- is mounting. In 2008 my book about Patton's mysterious death, Target: Patton, was published by Regnery with the core evidence, including: * Patton was the only passenger hurt that cold day in what essentially was...

I doubt anyone will want to by 2016...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is sitting atop many Republicans’ you-know-what-list these days, after what seemed like some unnecessarily excessive displays of ultra-bipartisan praise of Obama in the pre-election wake of Hurricane Sandy. Yes, everyone understands that he's the Republican governor of a blueish state and that some well-placed schmoozing to the federal government can help him gain more federal resources for his domain, but it did seem kind of over-the-top, especially after Romney gave him the keynote slot at the Republican National Convention. As Allahpundit already noted, it's tough to believe that Christie wasn't milking the situation for all...

I have the last package of ZINGERS in the central coast area these raspberry filled delights will never be available again, get them now before it is to late! If you give me the $50-0.00 cash I am looking for I will throw in ...YES thats right INCLUDE 3 STILL WRAPPED HO-HOS! Thats is for NEVER AVAILABLE AGAIN Hostess snacks for 1 money. Or I will also consider ALL trades upto and including cars, motorcycles, ipods, computers, tablets, gold chains, female companions...YOU NAME IT all trades considered for the snack that will never be again. ACT FAST don't lose you...

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared a position on Palestinian statehood that is nearly identical to that of his Fatah rival, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in an interview with CNN aired Wednesday. "I accept a Palestinian state according [to] the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the capital, with the right to return," the Hamas leader told Christine Amanpour in Cairo. Pushed about his party's refusal to recognize Israel, Mashaal said such a declaration could only be made once a Palestinian state has been created. "After this state is established, it decides its standing toward Israel," the Hamas leader said.

Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions. The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution. President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor and ordered the re-trial of people accused of attacking protesters when ex-President Mubarak held office. Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei accused Mr Mursi of acting like a "new pharaoh". Mr ElBaradei said the new declaration effectively placed the president above the law. "Morsi today usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh. A major blow to the...

The First Lady of Cambodia greeted Barack Obama like he was a towel boy. And, of course, our clueless president thought it was ‘cool.’ Investor’s Business Daily reported: So amid all the colorful and flirty photos from President Obama’s first tour of Southeast Asia, what did he actually accomplish? As usual, he served himself politically in what was largely a Potemkin mission abroad. It was obvious enough from the rubelike gaffes that the president hasn’t been particularly interested or attentive to the affairs of Thailand, Burma or Cambodia as he made his first trip since his re-election. It was pretty...

The Acorn Archimedes range of computers was moderately popular, especially in schools, around the time of the Atari ST and Amiga home computer reign. However these ARM powered computers were quite a lot more expensive than those 16-bit favourites, also no killer app(s) to entice people to move over to the platform left Acorn Archimedes owners to remain a minority. Most 16-bit friends I remember moved to the PC because of Doom, flight simulators and Word. More arty types gravitated to the Apple Mac with its Quark Xpress and Pagemaker and sometimes played Myst. Determined not to follow the pack,...

That didn't take long. U.N. ambassador Susan Rice has yet to be nominated as secretary of state, but prominent Democrats are already denouncing opposition to her potential nomination as racist on the basis of remarks by Republican senators that she may not be qualified for the job. Would that they had been so sensitive to racial overtones back in 2004, when the African-American nominee for secretary of state, the Republican Ms. Rice, was denounced on the Senate floor and pilloried in racialist cartoons.Rice's nomination, noted the Washington Post, garnered "the most negative votes cast against a nominee for that...

Remember Alaska's infamous bridge to nowhere? Well, another town in "Seward's Icebox" has upped the ante after building an unused $75.5 million airport and a $29 million harbor with no roads connecting to the town.

If The Right Gets Its Way, The 'Fiscal Cliff' Will Kill Social Security And Medicare Linda McKissack Beale A Taxing MatterNov. 22, 2012, 9:52 AMIn several posts recently I have discussed the harmful demands the right is engaging in related to the so-called "fiscal cliff" created by the original Bush tax cuts (set to sunset en masse), the artificial debt ceiling (used by the GOP to exact promises of spending cuts during a recession along with extension of unneeded tax cuts for the rich), and the ill-conceived notion that the U.S. military should continue to be funded at dangerously high...

After his party’s devastating setback in the 2010 midterm elections, Barack Obama was reelected earlier this month by painting his Republican opponents as heartless in favoring lower taxes for the rich. They were portrayed as nativists for opposing the DREAM Act amnesty for illegal immigrants, and as callous in battling the federal takeover of health care. Republicans countered with arguments that higher taxes on the employer class hurt the economy in general. They assumed most voters knew that amnesties are euphemisms for undermining federal law and in the past have had the effect of promoting more illegal immigration. They tried...

PM: Israel is giving the cease-fire with Hamas a chance; Barak: Truce is not an agreement but a set of understandings between Israel and Egypt, Hamas and Egypt; IDF official: Hamas will be shocked by level of damage in Gaza. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel is prepared to act if Hamas breaks the Egypt-mediated truce. "The operation's goals were met," Netanyahu said. "I know there are citizens that expect a harsher stand in Gaza - and we are prepared to make one. We choose when to act, against who to act and how to act," Netanyahu...