Free Republic

CNN touted a study from the liberal Tax Policy Center claiming that Newt Gingrich's tax plan would increase the deficit. On Tuesday afternoon's The Situation Room, business correspondent Poppy Harlow simply labeled the Tax Policy Center "non-partisan" even though it is a joint venture of two liberal think tanks, the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institute. CNN even reported the Gingrich campaign's claim that the study did not include "many details" of the plan because the campaign "does not recognize them as an independent arbiter of tax policy information." That bit of information was buried at the end of CNN's...

Analysis from the new annual report from the Planned Parenthood abortion business: Planned Parenthood Helps Fewer Pregnant Woman, Adoptions Drop http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/30/planned-parenthood-helps-fewer-pregnant-woman-adoptions-drop/ Planned Parenthood Report: $1B Group Gets 46% From Tax Money http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/30/planned-parenthood-report-1b-group-gets-46-from-tax-money/

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is not taking advantage of an enforcement tool that could potentially hold top Wall Street figures accountable for their role in the recent financial crisis, despite its prior success. Broker-dealers, investment advisers, and others regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission are required to supervise their representatives. If a trader engages in misconduct, the SEC can sue the management with "failure to supervise." But in some of the biggest cases the SEC has brought in recent months -- against units of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup -- the agency has sued only low-level bankers....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is bombarding Americans with job initiatives that may lack economic heft but show him as an activist leader compared to a 'do-nothing' Congress as he campaigns for re-election in 2012. Obama will have rolled out three separate measures in three days when he wraps up a tour of electorally vital western states on Wednesday, and more moves are coming. White House Communications Director Dan Pfieffer said the Democratic president will use executive orders and other tools to deliver initiatives "on a consistent basis for months to come." "While the policy benefits of this new...

LA CROSSE, Wis (Reuters) - A day after Wisconsin held the largest round of recall elections in U.S. history, analysts parsing the bruising, expensive and inconclusive battles have a gloomy prediction for the rest of the country. Get used to it, the 2012 national election will be nasty. Politics, said Mordecai Lee, a governmental affairs professor at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, is now "a battle of inches, it is a battle that never ends, it is a battle to the death." Wisconsin's recalls, and the fight earlier this year over the union rights of public-sector workers that triggered them, have...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - They bonded over golf, bickered over debt, and now President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner face even more tests of an uneasy relationship critical to a functioning government. America's two most powerful politicians drew fire from their backers in reaching an 11th-hour compromise on Sunday that barely averted a U.S. government debt default. Along the way, Obama and Boehner developed a better understanding of each other, but they are no closer to seeing eye to eye on a host of issues, aides for both men say. Obama and Boehner will find it hard...

President Barack Obama misrepresented the House Republicans' budget plan at times and exaggerated its impact on U.S. residents during an April 13 speech on deficit reduction. He said the GOP plan would replace Medicare with "a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry." That's an exaggeration. He said "poor children," "children with autism" and "kids with disabilities" would be left "to fend for themselves." That, too, is an exaggeration. He repeated a deceptive talking point that the new health care law will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion. He falsely claimed that making the Bush...

A Federal watchdog revealed this week that Transportation Security Administration counterterrorism specialists failed to detect 16 separate jihad operatives who moved through target airports "on at least 23 different occasions." The name of the TSA monitoring program paying for all this flying-blind failure, I kid you not: SPOT. Under the "Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques" plan, TSA's designated behavior detection officers are supposed to closely watch travelers who pose potential security risks and who exhibit any number of appearances or activities "indicative of stress, fear, or deception." But long-entrenched, bipartisan American political correctness hampers the kind of effective, efficient...

How dishonest has the left/media spin about The One’s alleged diplomatic triumph been? Go look at the sentence Jeffrey Goldberg pulled from Reuters’s latest excrescence. Somewhere Tony Blair is reading these comparisons of Obama’s League of Justice to Cowboy George having “gone it alone” and wondering if he hallucinated those years of endless screeching about him being “Bush’s poodle” for sending thousands of British troops to hold southern Iraq together. Anyway, here’s how triumphant our coalition-building triumph is: The Cable compiled a chart listing all the countries that contributed at least some military assets to the five major military operations...

The seizure of the 'Victoria' cargo ship is just another chapter in the larger covert war that Israel is waging against Iran. Israel waged war against Iran on Tuesday. No Iranians were present and not a single shot was fired, but make no mistake – the seizure of the Victoria cargo ship is part of Israel’s battle against Iran, one that is fought in the shadows and sometimes in the most unlikely places. When the commandos from the navy’s Flotilla 13 approached the ship under cover of darkness late Monday night, they still did not know what to expect. Only...

RUSH: I just listened to a little bit of Obama's press conference opening spreading his "calm" on the troubled waters between here and Japan, and he pointed out that we are at one with the Japanese people. The American people, through him, offer our condolences, and we will do anything. He said we're sending an aircraft carrier over there to help them. He didn't identify the aircraft carrier. I happen to know which one it is. It's the USS Ronald Reagan. Obama didn't identify it. I don't know if that was purposeful or a faux pas or he thought it...

Every March, millions of Americans fill out NCAA tournament brackets and enter competitions with friends, coworkers, and strangers. The term “March Madness” may just as aptly describe the mayhem associated with the typical office pool as the games themselves. Many of us devote a lot of time and effort to picking our winners. Much is at stake: experts estimate that $7 billion is wagered on the tournament each year. There is no perfect way to pick a bracket, but it is surprisingly easy to increase your odds of winning your pool if you study the math for a minute.

WASHINGTON – The die is cast, and it's grim news for the Democrats. There's nothing now that Congress or President Barack Obama can do to before the November midterm elections to jolt the nation's stagnant economy. Friday's government report — the last major economic news before the midterm elections — showed the nation continued to lose jobs last month, reinforcing the bleak reality that it probably will be years — not months — before employment returns to pre-recession levels below 6 percent. That tightens the pressure on Democrats ahead of the Nov. 2 elections. And it also casts a dark...

In response to the Islamic terrorist attacks that murdered 76 people in Uganda, Barack Hussein Obama delivered the usual homily about Islam being a great religion, and Islamic terrorism being the work of a small handful of extremists who reject modernity. And while many people have stood up to take issue with the false claim that only a small minority of Muslims view terrorism as legitimate, fewer have tackled the underlying premise behind this liberal critique of Islam, which claims that it is a lack of modernity that is the problem.

Walter Rudin, a preeminent mathematician who taught at UW-Madison for 32 years, died Thursday at the age of 89 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Rudin’s advanced work on mathematical analysis may have been of interest to only a small worldwide audience, but his three textbooks were translated into multiple languages and used by generations of college students. “Especially because of his textbooks, he was known universally among undergraduates and graduates studying mathematics,” said Alexander Nagel, a colleague in the UW-Madison math department. Rudin was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 2, 1921, to a prosperous Jewish family. His family fled...

Following the attempted car bombing outside the Viacom building at Times Square in New York City this past Saturday, some of the immediate speculation has turned to information. Much of the rest remains informed speculation but speculation nonetheless. With over 48 hours now past since the initial incident, an analysis of knowns and unknowns is warranted. It is important that the American public access and understand this information, particularly those who live and work in the New York City metro area, for 'home' remains Target New York.

Healthcare Reform Key Concepts February 19, 2010 Analysis of the Patient Protection & Affordability Act HR 3590 2400 + pages Adds 118 new boards, commissions & programs • Transfer significant regulatory authority from states to the federal government • Significant changes in the national health insurance markets • Dramatically alters the financing and content of employer-provided and individual health insurance • Significantly changes Medicare / Medicaid • Changes how hospitals, doctors, and other medical professionals are paid and how care is delivered • Mandates purchase of insurance • CBO* estimates up to 10 million Americans will no longer be...

Thursday, January 28, 2010 To: Friends & Supporters From: Gary L. Bauer COUNTDOWN TO VICTORY: 278 DAYS UNTIL THE 2010 ELECTIONS! The State Of Obama, Part II I know it’s not polite to say it, but I told you so. President Obama’s State of the Union address last night was a full-throated defense of his radical agenda. It was combative and, at times, even condescending. It was the longest speech of his career, and it nearly put Harry Reid to sleep! Obama threw down the gauntlet, telling members of Congress not to “run for the hills,” and warning, “I don’t...

WASHINGTON – The stunning Republican victory in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race will force Democrats to fundamentally rethink the meaning of Barack Obama's election to the presidency, especially the notion that Americans want more government help in matters such as obtaining health insurance. Scott Brown's win in a liberal state will do more than vastly complicate Obama's bid to overhaul the U.S. health care system and pass climate-change legislation. It will prompt politicians of every stripe to redouble their efforts to understand voters' anger and desires ahead of the November elections for Congress, governorships and state legislatures. Many Americans saw the...

WASHINGTON – He says "the buck stops with me," but nearly a year into office President Barack Obama is still blaming a lot of the nation's troubles — the economy, terrorism, health care — on George W. Bush. Over and over, Obama keeps reminding Americans of the mess he inherited and all he's doing to fix it. A sharper, give-me-some-credit tone has emerged in his language as he bemoans people's fleeting memory about what life was like way back in 2008, particularly on the economy. "Yes we can"? Try "Yes I have." While candid about what he called his team's...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Christopher Dodd's decision to retire at the end of the year increases the chances of a Senate overhaul of Wall Street regulations that is bipartisan and friendlier to the financial sector than what President Barack Obama may want. Political strategists from both parties and financial sector lobbyists say Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is now free from re-election considerations and fundraising demands to cut a deal with Republicans without fear of alienating liberal voters. "The political motivations associated with Chairman Dodd's re-election are now gone from the regulatory process," said Scott Talbott, senior lobbyist...

The Obama Administration is touting that their stimulus program has saved or created 640,329 jobs since it was enacted back in February through the end of October. This number is updated and posted on the Administration’s recovery.gov web site. That amounts to $246,436 per job based on the $157.8bn that has been awarded so far!

A new analysis by a leading MIT economist provides new ammunition for Democrats as the Senate begins formally debating the historic health-reform bill being pushed by President Barack Obama. The report concludes that under the Senate’s health-reform bill, Americans buying individual coverage will pay less than they do for today's typical individual market coverage, and would be protected from high out-of-pocket costs. So Democrats will argue that under the Senate bill, Americans would pay less for more.

Central Asia faces a broad range of security challenges. Due to the region’s position at the crossroads between Russia, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea it is confronted with a range of trans-national issues such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, organised crime and terrorism. Central Asia also encounters specific regional threats including scarcity of water resources for generating power and irrigation purposes, which is currently causing tension. On a national level the five Central Asian republics face the threat of instability due to bad governance and the harsh impact of the economic crisis.

For NATO combat troops, Iraq and Afghanistan differ in several important ways. For one thing, nearly all the fighting is out in the countryside. In Iraq, most of the combat was in urban areas. Moreover, Afghanistan has many very different rural environments. There are heavily populated (by farmers living in villages or clan compounds) river valleys, deserts (often not far from the river valleys), and mountains (both barren and forested.) Some of the mountains are very high, but most are similar to the American Rockies. The other big difference is that the Pushtun tribesmen, that comprise most of the Taliban,...

The Democrats did not lose a 2-1 squeaker last night. They lost two huge races, saw an overall evaporation of 25 basis points of support -- and lost by nearly 500,000 cumulative votes in the three high-profile elections. Or put another way, Republicans won two races decided by millions of voters -- and Democrats won a small race dominated by party operatives. In addition, the GOP made some historic gains in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington state special elections to boot. In the context of Bob McDonnell's huge win in Virginia and Chris Christie's surprisingly comfortable win in New Jersey, of...

What Is It? Macroeconomics is the study of the behavior of the economy as a whole. Macroeconomic analysis broadly focuses on three things: national output (measured by gross domestic product (GDP)), unemployment and inflation. (For background reading, see The Importance Of Inflation And GDP.) National Output: GDP Output, the most important concept of macroeconomics, refers to the total amount of goods and services a country produces, commonly known as the gross domestic product. The figure is like a snapshot of the economy at a certain point in time. When referring to GDP, macroeconomists tend to use real GDP, which takes...

WASHINGTON – Vitriol and invective stain American political history, but falsehoods, half-truths and innuendo now spread with the speed of light across partisan airwaves and the Internet — the din drowning out the country's moderate political center. Countless Internet blogs have taken on the administration of the first African-American president, claiming — falsely — that Barack Obama isn't an American citizen, is a secret Muslim, is a socialist, wants to establish death panels to decide when elderly Americans would no longer receive medical care and be allowed to die. The list is long. Most recently, a partisan furor blew up...

Team Sarah is a diverse coalition of Americans dedicated to advancing the values that Sarah Palin represents in the political process. The Team is setting up a process whereby people volunteer to review specific pages of health care bills and provide anaylsis of the implication of the language in those pages in real time. The review team and process is being set up so that any bill presented can be analyzed by Team Sarah reviewers in its entirety in a matter of a couple hours! End Stalinism Now! Step up!

NEW YORK — The New York Police Department revised a highly touted report on the threat of homegrown terrorism in response to complaints that it was an insult to law-abiding, observant Muslims. A coalition of Muslim groups on Wednesday applauded the two-page clarification tucked into "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat" — a study first circulated in law enforcement circles and on the Internet in 2007. The new wording says the NYPD "understands that it is a tiny minority of Muslims who subscribe to al-Qaida's ideology of war and terror." The clarification also calls the city's Muslim community "our...

. . . Much of the admiring conservative literature about Reagan, like that written by liberals, also focuses chiefly and too narrowly on the Cold War story. . . . The difficulties Reagan had controlling spending and the growth of government were not lost on conservatives during and immediately after his presidency. The case for disappointment, verging at times on betrayal, was made often while Reagan was in office. For example, the Winter 1984 issue of Policy Review contained a symposium called “What Conservatives Think of Reagan.” .Terry Dolan, head of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, complained: “There has...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former President Clinton Visits CIA July 27, 2009 Former President Bill Clinton visited the Central Intelligence Agency today to thank the men and women of CIA for their essential work in protecting the United States from foreign threats. Welcoming the former President back to CIA, Director Leon E. Panetta said: “President Clinton understood very well the role of intelligence and its vital importance in the post-Cold War era. He relied on this Agency for information and insight, as he and his team confronted an array of foreign challenges.” In remarks to hundreds of...

Politico: “Stimulus tour” “52 of the 66 events were in states that backed Obama.” The other 14 events were in states that Obama lost only narrowly. A new study released by USA Today also finds that counties that voted for Obama received about twice as much stimulus money per capita as those that voted for McCain. "The stimulus bill is designed to help those who have been hurt by the economic downturn.... Do you see disparity out there in where the money is going? Certainly," a Democratic congressional staffer knowledgeable about the process told FOXNews.com. "The people to talk to...

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her resignation two weeks ago it was after a series of strange, petty bouts with her detractors. Many "frivolous ethics violations" had been alleged against her, she noted. David Letterman had told an ugly joke about her daughter. A blogger had posted something that was probably not true. Someone had photoshopped a radio talker's face onto a picture of her baby -- a "malicious desecration" of the image, in the words of Ms. Palin's spokeswoman. Team Palin got duly indignant at each of these. They took special, detailed offense. They issued statements magnifying their...

WASHINGTON – Congress has taken its first step toward an energy revolution, with the prospect of profound change for every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead. It was late Friday when the House passed legislation that would, for the first time, require limits on pollution blamed for global warming — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Now the Senate has the chance to change the way Americans produce and use energy. What would the country look like a decade from now if the House-passed bill — or, more likely, a water-down version — were to become...

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan says it is close to beating the Taliban in the Swat Valley, but battlefield success alone does not equal victory: Militant commanders are still on the run, local governments and police forces have been decimated and millions of residents are displaced from their homes. Even if Pakistan succeeds in eliminating insurgents in one of its most intense operations yet, the northwestern valley is just one of several militant strongholds in the U.S.-allied country — and not even the most important. Already, fighting is flaring in the semiautonomous tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where al-Qaida and the Taliban are...

WASHINGTON – On both economic and national-security fronts, President Barack Obama is giving ground and crossing swords with political allies. Caught in the worst economic downturn in generations, Obama has had to temper his stance on trade and lower his expectations for trimming charitable tax breaks for the wealthy and for taxing greenhouse-gas polluters. He's not the first president to be pulled toward the political center after being elected. But the recession and two wars abroad put him in a particularly tough spot — with smaller margins for error. With the deficit mushrooming, lawmakers in both parties are worrying more...

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making a partisan cause out of the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ignoring him — loudly — and the party,.. So far, it's Pelosi who's suffered the greatest harm. It may never be resolved exactly when she first learned that waterboarding had been used against terror suspects .. But the Democrats' claim to the moral high ground on the issue has been blemished by her explanation this week that in early 2003 she shifted her attention to winning political control of the House and didn't wage...

WASHINGTON – The fuse that could ignite an explosion of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is burning so fast that the Obama administration is scrambling to keep pace. As Pakistan's army finally opened a belated offensive against the advance of extremist Taliban fighters, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his key security ministers huddled Wednesday with their Afghan and U.S. counterparts in all-day meetings in Washington. Afghan President Hamid Karzai started the day on a solemn note, acknowledging Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's expressions of regret for the deaths of dozens of Afghan civilians killed during Monday's battle...

For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned. One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah,...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama went for the defining television shot in Iraq and got it — pictures of hundreds of U.S. troops cheering wildly as he told them it was time for the Iraqis to take charge of their own future. The war zone photo opportunity produced a stunning show of appreciation for Obama from military men and women who have made great sacrifices, many serving repeated tours in a highly unpopular war. And the televised outpouring of affection likely will prove critical to the credibility of a new and liberal commander in chief as he tries to sell...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's startling call Friday for a "world without nuclear weapons" brings to mind Ronald Reagan's idealistic, unfulfilled dream of eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation. ... Few experts think it's possible to completely eradicate nuclear weapons, and many say it wouldn't be a good idea even if it could be done... "This idea of a nuclear weapons-free world isn't sort of pie in the sky," said Peter Crail, a nonproliferation analyst at the private Arms Control Association...

WASHINGTON – Capitalism can't always be trusted. If you're too big to fail, you're too big to make all your own decisions, according to the emerging view in Washington. Three decades after Ronald Reagan launched a determined campaign to ease government regulations on business, the pendulum is swinging the other way. "Too big to fail is the right size to regulate," declares Rep. Al Green, D-Texas. Riding a wave of public anger over Wall Street greed and government bailouts, the Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a far-reaching plan for "better, tougher, smarter" rules over big financial companies. The plan would...

Today, the U.S. Government is completely BROKE and we have current spending plans that will double total U.S. debt in 5 years and triple it in 10 years. Does this make sense? Obama's proposed spending on a Global Warming Cap & Trade system + federal government managed Universal Healthcare + Dept. of Education run Universal Pre-k to College Entitlement for all will cost more than 7 TRILLION dollars and all three of these federal spending categories are brand new budget items, having nothing to do with mortgage defaults, Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae fraud, AIG, Credit Default Swaps, Karl Rove, George W....

WASHINGTON – For the first time since last fall's election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG. Republicans, struggling to regain their political footing, are content to let Democrats try to dig their way out of this mess on their own. Professing shock at the bonus payments, Democrats have embarked on a hurry-up effort to impose what amounts to confiscatory taxes on the bonuses, .. ... But the mood is less charitable among congressional Democrats.

The Obama-Netanyahu question: Can they get along? Clarifying the complicated situation is Israeli political expert Keith Davies, who joins us tonight at 9 ET to help us sort it out. Link to listen. Keith puts the Israeli elections in perspective and what the likely impact of the new coalition government will have on the United States, the Middle East, terrorism and in particular the currently volatile relations with Iran. The Jerusalem Post reports that how a government led by Binyamin Netanyahu would get along with the Obama was one of the many issues on the minds of attendees at the...

WASHINGTON – In sheer size, the economic measures announced by President Barack Obama to address "a crisis unlike we've ever known" are remarkable, rivaling and in many cases dwarfing the New Deal programs that Franklin D. Roosevelt famously created to battle the Great Depression. Winning approval was a political tour-de-force for the new administration. Yet gloom and uncertainty persist about the plan's ability to deliver a cure for the economy's severe ailments. Stocks plunged to six-year lows after the burst of bill signings, bailout announcements and presidential pledges.

I am 3-0 against the pointspread in my short time picking spreads here at Publius' Pub Sports Bar, having absolutely nailed the two conference championship games. I have also watched all 19 Arizona Cardinals games and all 18 Pittsburgh Steelers games this year, and know these two teams from the outside in. I've spent all week watching more NFL Network coverage than should be humanly possible. The only thing I fear in trying to get on the right side of this game is information overload. Turnovers Will Decide this Game I already know who will win this game - the...

The Congressional Budget Office has released their analysis of the House version of the stimulus bill (H.R. 1). You can read the full analysis in PDF form here, but we thought it would be useful to take some of the budget numbers in the analysis and present them in chart format. Shown below are several different views of the how the dollars for H.R. 1 would be spent over time. Most striking is that in total, the CBO estimates that less than 21% of the funds would be spent in 2009. Apparently, it is a huge crisis which requires swift...