Free Republic

The latest from the Big Labor efforts to strip Republicans of control of the Wisconsin state senate. State labor unions have always been major players in elections here, however, this kind of outside influence on Wisconsin legislative elections is unprecedented. Six million dollars from one interest group for only nine legislative elections? Note thate most of the recalls are not for a month yet, so this totall is sure to increase, perhaps 2-3 times…. [Madison, Wisc…] MNS …In the first eight days of July nearly three million dollars has been sent to Wisconsin by national liberal organizations and individuals, with...

Bristol Palin: Michele Bachmann Stole My Mom's Look Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 11:19AM | Dave Odegard Bristol Palin seems to have no problem speaking her mind while promoting her book. First, she took a shot at Meghan McCain, then she told the press that her mom has already decided on whether she'll run for President or not. Now, she's saying that she thinks Michele Bachmann copped her mom's style. Recently, Bristol told a reporter: "I think she dresses a lot like my mom. But a lot, a lot of women have done that the last few years. I do...

Minnesota soldiers got a chance to train with the latest and greatest in new weapons on Wednesday at Camp Ripley. It’s the M-777 canon designed to hit a target with near complete accuracy up to 15 miles away. The state of Minnesota now has 12 of the big guns and Minnesota National Guard troops had a chance to fire the weapons up. “Two million dollars for a Howitzer, you can’t put a price on a life. It’s a small price to pay, if we can keep our soldiers alive down range,” said Minnesota National Guard Capt. Steve Hall. The soldiers...

The U.S. Medicaid program is likely paying far more than necessary for medications and not offering patients the most effective ones available, by ignoring international evidence-based lists of safe and effective medications, according to a new study by researchers at University of California, San Francisco. The study, which compared the Medicaid program's Preferred Drug Lists in 40 states nationwide against the World Health Organization's 2009 Essential Medicines List, found that the medications that are automatically paid for by the state-run Medicaid programs vary widely from state to state, with few consistent protocols or rationales for their selection, including cost, safety...

Deflationary Depression In America: The Double Dip Economic Recession Economics / Deflation Jun 08, 2011 - 07:33 AM By: Bob Chapman Wall Street seems to believe the waning recovery in the economy is only temporary and that further recovery is on the way. Such thinking can get you in serious trouble, unless QE3, or its equivalent, is on the way. It is on the way, as we pointed out 13 months ago. The economy cannot live and survive without it otherwise we could be looking at a minus 5% GDP for openers. Incidentally, there are those that believe that unemployment...

Cap-and-trade legislation may have failed in Congress in 2010, but that doesn’t mean that this is the last we will hear from this economically-harmful policy. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Clean Air Act has been busily proposing and finalizing nearly 200 major policy rules aimed at curbing carbon and other particulate emissions. This despite the fact that the Clean Air Act was never intended for this purpose and widespread opposition exists among the business community, citizens and states. One particular regulation that is generating deep concern among the business community is the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule...

I am happy that Smith-Corona went bankrupt and that Western Union was forced to abandon its old business practices. If the government had bailed out these companies, we’d still be banging out papers on manual typewriters and communicating by telegram. Instead, the typewriter has been relegated to museums (and perhaps a few Birkenstock-wearing, hipster screenwriters’ offices somewhere) and messaging is done over phones that are smarter than the people who keep bailing out failing companies. Actually, I’m indifferent to the success or failure of either of these particular companies, but I champion the free market- a meritocracy - Portugal Seeks...

“Just as a fish may be barely aware of the medium in which it lives and swims, so the microstructure of empty space could be far too complex for unaided human brains." -- Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, physicist, Cambridge University Our known Hubble length universe contains hundreds of millions of galaxies that have clumped together, forming super clusters and a series of massive walls of galaxies separated by vast voids of empty space. Great Wall: The most vast structure ever is a collection of superclusters a billion light years away extending for 5% the length of the entire observable...

Anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore tore into President Obama for taking military action in Libya on Saturday.

Filmmaker Michael Moore slammed President Obama in a string of tweets for taking military action in Libya. Moore, who frequently criticized President George Bush for launching the Iraq War, compared the U.S. military’s mission in Libya to Iraq and Afghanistan in several Twitter messages sent Saturday. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/03/20/filmmaker-michael-moore-rips-president-obama-libya/#ixzz1H9NxSrUi

Deception 6) “We reported this to the FBI” Planned Parenthood wrote the FBI a letter a week after our investigation, only after they realized that Live Action had conducted the sting.They say this themselves. As much as they may pretend, Planned Parenthood was not attempting to help send human traffickers to jail; they were attempting to pre-empt the release of Live Action’s footage. If Planned Parenthood really cared about reporting potential sex traffickers to authorities, they would have called police while the pimp was in the clinic, or immediately after. Not wasting a minute. Planned Parenthood, where are the reports...

Chief financial officers from multinational companies meet with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday to air gripes about the tax code under which they pay the steepest rate in the industrialized world. Companies want the rate slashed, arguing that it handicaps them competitively against their foreign-based peers. "The current tax code with its punitive corporate rates and complex maze of deductions and credits highly distorts economic decision-making," said Dean Garfield, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, whose members Cisco Systems and Microsoft Corp will attend the meeting.

Never take investment advice from a union leader. As usual, organized labor emptied its pockets for Democrats in the recent midterm elections, spending at least $171.5 million in an attempt to keep the electoral map blue. Ninety-three percent of that astonishing figure went to elect Democratic politicians. Half of those union donations came from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents government workers. Unsurprisingly, 99.5 percent of their contributions went to Democratic candidates. That money didn't come from the wallets of union leaders. It came from their

Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang? The current cosmological consensus is that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang. But a legendary physicist says he's found the first evidence of an eternal, cyclic cosmos. The Big Bang model holds that everything that now comprises the universe was once concentrated in a single point of near-infinite density. Before this singularity exploded and the universe began, there was absolutely nothing - indeed, it's not clear whether one can even use the term "before" in reference to a pre-Big-Bang cosmos, as time itself may...

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have a packed social schedule this week, with two major galas and a reception for college athletes. On Monday evening, the President will welcome collegiate star athletes to the White House for a reception at 5:45 p.m. The annual event, first held by former President George W. Bush, recognizes outstanding student athletes in more than a dozen sports, including field-hockey, lacrosse, and volleyball. Neither of Obama's alma maters, Columbia University and Harvard University, made the grade. On Wednesday the First Couple will don black tie for the annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute...

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have a packed social schedule this week, with two major galas and a reception for college athletes. On Monday evening, the President will welcome collegiate star athletes to the White House for a reception at 5:45 p.m. The annual event, first held by former President George W. Bush, recognizes outstanding student athletes in more than a dozen sports, including field-hockey, lacrosse, and volleyball. Neither of Obama's alma maters, Columbia University and Harvard University, made the grade. On Wednesday the First Couple will don black tie for the annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute...

Skateboarding on streets or a marketplace may look an effortless and entertaining task, but when it comes to riding, rather controlling the world's largest skateboard, the fun factor just takes form of a thrilling experience, taking the breath out of the rider. This is exactly what happened when the California Skateparks brought the world's largest skateboard to the Camp Woodward in Pennsylvania, and took it out for a breathtaking ride with campers. Check out the video, to see the enormous skateboard on a suicidal ride, after the jump. Follow this link if you wish to see a short video...

You may have heard the UPS is in quite the political fight with FEDEX. Though both are package-delivery companies, they're governed by totally different federal labor rules. As a result, UPS's workforce is much more heavily unionized than FEDEX's—and more than twice as expensive. So now UPS is trying to get FEDEX reclassified under federal law as a way of screwing a competitor. That's horrendous, but it also makes a sick kind of business sense. And it also reveals the real villain: A government that is big enough to absolutely, positively guarantee it can screw any business. Overnight. "UPS Vs....

The debate agitating many in New Jersey right is whether or not the state’s Governor, Chris Christie, is actually doing much to reform the state as it needs to be. I have to say that I wasn’t impressed with him during his campaign for the Republican nomination against Steve Lonagan. Having no interest in the politics of politic, he sounded like a big government Republican to me. With that in mind, I was nicely surprised by the turn that Christie’s campaign against Corzine took and by some of his policies. He talked about small government, the need for reforming New...

* No more new drugs today than 60 years ago * Diversification push as blockbusters stumble * 200,000 jobs could go across the industry * Can biotech and contract research pick up the pieces? LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - At just 28, Duncan Casey has already been from the university science bench to the world of Big Pharma research and back again. Now working in an Imperial College lab tucked behind London's famous Science Museum, he has no illusions about the prospects for researchers in the pharmaceutical industry. "The unit I used to work in -- GlaxoSmithKline's place in Harlow...