Free Republic

This is the first in a three part post. The business of Washington, DC is changing policy. Almost everyone in Washington is trying either to change some element of policy or to prevent someone else’s changes. As a result the public debate centers almost entirely on the fight over how and how much policy would change rather than on what the absolute results would be. Both are important, but public debate usually ignores the results and only argues about the proposed change. That’s bad. In fiscal policy this often leads to endless debates in which both sides agree on what...

Tom Brady got his actress girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock, then promptly dumped her for a new model girlfriend – whom the New England Patriots quarterback married instead of the mother of his child. Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexually assault by a 20-year-old college student who said the Pittsburgh Steelers QB followed her into the ladies room of a Georgia night club and had his way with her. That followed a previous accusation that “Big Ben” sexually assualted a 31-year-old casino host at a Lake Tahoe hotel. As reprehensible the behavior of both Brady and Roethlisberger, neither pro footballer...

You may have heard about the Popular Resistance Committee and wondered what is was, or how it relates to what’s going on in Gaza and Israel. Here’s a recap: On Friday, March 9th 2012, IAF forces targeted a PRC squad who had been planning a combined terror attack meant to take place via Sinai in the coming days. This sparked a barrage of rocket fire towards the towns in southern Israel, injuring four and causing damage to property. Zahir Kaisi, the senior PRC operative targeted this Friday. Source: http://www.raya.fm/ So who are the PRC? The Popular Resistance Committee was founded...

Cynthia just gets more evil. She is urging people to attend this meeting of rabid Jew-haters. Watch the video of this character.===================================================== The American Grass Roots Tour Saturday March 10th, 2012 - 6:30 to 8:00pm Sponsored by www.VeteransToday.com - Jim W. Dean, Editor and Joining Hands for Justice in Israel and Palestine - Greater Atlanta Presbytery Villa International Atlanta 1749 Clifton Road NE Atlanta, GA 30329 www.VillaInternational.org Join us for an evening with the infamous Gilad Atzmon, the man, his sax, and his social justice causes, on his current book tour - www.wanderingwho.com Gilad writes on political matters, social issues,...

Barack Hussein Obama is the most fiscally unsound, destructive poser to ever take the Oval Office. Obama was NOT elected because he was the BEST choice for America, he was elected because the GOP ran the WORST possible pair of candidates that could be found. Here is the TRUTH America; the GOP, in their all-inclusive BIG TENT mind set are about to give Obama the White House again … UNLESS: we can turn out the Conservative vote like never before as WE hold our noses and vote for what will truly be The Lesser of the Evils. If you have...

...Army regulations require that medevac helicopters follow the Geneva Convention, which specifies that they must be unarmed and display prominent Red Cross markings. Furthermore, Army regulation forbids medevac choppers from entering a combat zone without armed helicopter escort. If armed escort is not immediately available, medevac helicopters remain grounded, regardless the emergency. Once they do go in, they become a conspicuous target for enemy forces, most of whom have never read the Geneva Convention, and would laugh it out of existence if they had.

How would I deal with the threat or the so-called threat of the Iranians, that they are going to disrupt the oil supply? Well I’d be provoking them a lot less because they’re reacting to the provoking of the West saying “we’re gonna put on sanctions”. We have them surrounded with nuclear weapons and we’re claiming that they’re gonna build a nuclear weapon and there’s no evidence for this. So we’re just looking for trouble. We’re building the war propaganda against Iran just as we did against Iraq. And people want to go to war against Iran. And I think...

After months of campaigning, Mitt Romney still appears poised to win a plurality and claim the Republican nomination for election to the Executive Office in 2012. If his numbers hold up in polling against the incumbent president, then Teflon Mitt will almost certainly win a majority of the national vote and send Democrats packing from the White House. But more than likely, Governor Romney will last only a single term in office, just like his predecessor. History would suggest Romney’s victory more or less ensures a second term, yet two factor blocs are in store to prevent that scenario from...

Many western analysts have described the post-Soviet tussle for Caspain and Central Asian energy reserves as the new “Great Game, except this time around, Russia is facing the U.s. rather than the British empire. To a dispassionate outside observer however, what is most striking about the prolonged wrangle between Moscow and Washington for hydrocarbons, military bases and influence is the emergence of an understated sly newcomer who has managed to bag many of the region’s assets – China. There are many reasons for this, despite the fact that both Russia and the U.S. both seemed to hold winning hands. For...

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports for August that U.S. ethanol production rose in August to an all-time high, production averaged more than 869,000 barrels per day (b/d). The Renewable Fuels Association who also collects data calculated ethanol demand at all-time high as well at 911,000 b/d in August, up from 734,000 b/d a year ago. The U.S. is closing in on the million barrel per day milestone. Cheers in some sections, groans in others, but for America, slashing off the equivalent of 750,000 b/d of imported oil is a good thing. Most groans come from the odd couple of...

Investors looking for the next big thing after a hydrocarbon economy have a panoply of options, from solar to wind, as well as biofuels. In terms of quickly ramping up production biofuels clearly win the race, but navigating the PR fluff and reality is not a simple thing. The three main contenders for investor dollars are algae, jatropha and camelina. All have strengths and weaknesses, leaving investors to choose amongst them. Stripped of PR flummery, the only issue is where and when production can begin on a viable commercial scale. Investors who unravel the complexities of biofuel production and have...

Twentieth-century American military history has two iconic dates - 7 December 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor and 6 June 1944, D-Day, when the liberation of Europe began. The subsequent vicious Allied fight from Normandy to Germany saw the Nazis largely fueled by a technology that is now being promoted by the Republican Congressional leadership, in collusion with its munificent fiscal campaign energy supporters, as a way to lessen U.S. dependence on energy imports. At issue is the Fishcher-Tropsch coal liquefaction process, developed by energy-poor Germany in the 1920s and expanded by the Nazi regime. Bent on dominating Europe, Hitler’s...

As the dire news continues to leach out of Fukishima, the silver lining in its nuclear cloud is that renewable energy technologies, despite their daunting start-up costs, are receiving renewed scrutiny. Make no mistake - given the trillions of dollars invested over the last five decades in nuclear energy, the industry and its lobbyists will not go down without a fight, promoting new, “safe” reactor designs, etc. etc. etc. But the Fukushima debacle has finally bared the industry’s darkest secret, it inability to manage its nuclear waste. The six reactor TEPCO Daichi Fukushima stored all its waste onsite, and the...

"It is very scary: the flight to gold is accelerating at a faster and faster speed," said Peter Hambro, chairman of Britain's biggest pure gold listing Petropavlovsk. "One of the big US banks texted me today to say that if QE3 actually happens, we could see gold at $5,000 and silver at $1,000. I feel terribly sorry for anybody on fixed incomes tied to a fiat currency because they are not going to be able to buy things with that paper money."

New York City’s vast fleet of vehicles is getting greener. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city is acquiring 50 Chevrolet Volts as part of its strategy to cut air pollution, carbon emissions and gasoline consumption. The Volts are part of a larger group of electric cars to be used by a number of city departments, but the Volts slated to become police patrol cars are likely to get the most attention. General Motors Co. says the Volt will be the first electric car used by the New York City police department, which already has a diverse collection of vehicles ranging...

There's a lot we can learn about this administration from the recent events.

Continuing to face down questions as to why the U.S. Justice Department went easy on prosecuting members of the New Black Panther Party who stood armed with nightsticks outside a Philadelphia polling location during the 2008 presidential election, Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his personal frustration over the criticism that race played a role. During a hearing of a House Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday, Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, accused Holder’s DOJ of failing to cooperate with a Civil Rights Commission investigation into the decision to dismiss the case. Holder seemed to take personal offense when Culberson read comments from former Democratic...

Colorado and South Dakota can now join Wyoming in the ranks of disappointing setbacks on immigration this year. South Dakota's version of Arizona's SB 1070 died in committee in the South Dakota House this afternoon. Republicans control the "State Affairs Committee" and account for 9 out of 13 of its members. The brief AP report alludes to law enforcement agencies and "other groups" which "work with immigrants" that testified against the bill. In Colorado, Rep. Randy Baumgardner pulled his version of the Arizona-style immigration law. He cited the burden that ACLU lawsuits would impose on Colorado taxpayers in a depressed...

NAMBLA-gate: The Strange Case of Kevin Jennings, Part Two Hay, who inspired Jennings, was not apparently a formal member of NAMBLA. Sean Hannity of Fox News, who has called for the resignation of Obama Education Department official Kevin Jennings, interviewed a former FBI agent, Bob Hamer, who infiltrated the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and documented their criminal activities. Asked if Jennings had been unaware of Hay’s pro-NAMBLA activities when he said that Hay had been an inspiration to him, Hamer replied that Jennings “knew the agenda of Harry Hay and he certainly supported Harry Hay and Harry Hay...

Cindy McCain, wife of Senator John McCain, has joined a handful of celebrities in a new “anti-bullying ad” by a gay advocacy group. Coverage of the ad has thus far been focused on the significance of Mrs. McCain’s direct opposition to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), a policy her husband supports. However, that detail is a sideshow detracting from a more crucial point. The ad demonstrates the intellectual dishonesty of the radical gay movement. Before we consider the ad’s content, it is incumbent upon us to reflect upon what bullying is and what it is not. A bully is someone...