Free Republic

...The Heritage Foundation — a conservative think tank known for its pro-business allegiances — released a report Tuesday written by Alexander Salter, an economist at Texas Tech University, flirting with whether the US government should protect workers from free markets. Conservatives have long argued that the government should not tax, regulate, or subsidize industry because consumers are better off when companies are forced to compete for their dollars. However, the consequences of globalization for American manufacturing have caused many conservatives to reconsider the need for government intervention. Heritage, once the center of free-market conservatism, is now at this very crossroads....

During the holiday season candy canes are once again omnipresent with all the joy they represent to go with their yummy goodness. But the business behind the production of that candy cane is fraught with trade battles pitting nations against one another as quotas and subsidization distort any sense of an honest pricing model. That is why it is good news that earlier this year, Representatives Kat Cammack (R-FL) and Dale Kildee (D-MI) introduced a new resolution to zero out the foreign subsidies that make sugar the world’s most distorted commodity market. “Time and again, the survival of American sugar...

Jan Markell talks to author David Fiorazo for the hour. The ruling elites are establishing the Antichrist culture. Medical tyranny is leading to overall tyranny. Government is emboldened and is acting as god. The righteous are silenced, suppressed and shadowbanned. We carry Fiorazo’s book, “Canceling Christianity”

An Indiana woman who called the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol the “best f---ing day ever” has been handed jail time. Dona Sue Bissey was sentenced on Tuesday to 14 days of incarceration and 60 hours of community service, according to court records. She will also have to pay $500 in restitution. Bissey pleaded guilty in July to a single charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Three other charges against her were dropped as part of the agreement. Bissey and her friend, Anna Morgan-Lloyd, went to the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the...

The writing has been on the wall for weeks if not months. Children (and healthy young adults, for that matter) should NOT be subjugated to the experimental Covid-19 injections being pawned off as “vaccines” by government, mainstream media, and vaccine-Karens across the country. Today’s VAERS released, quietly dumped by the CDC, reveals just how asinine it is for anyone who is not in a vulnerable category to get vaccinated. Children are the least vulnerable to Covid-19. The raw data suggests those under the age of 20 have a tiny chance of death from Covid-19, far less than if they contract...

Rest assured, Granite Staters. Your state government is hard at work protecting you from violent crime, dirty water and bad hair days. The state Board of Barbering, Cosmetology and Esthetics regulates who can cut hair professionally in New Hampshire. In order to obtain a barber’s license, you need to have a high school degree, 800 hours of instruction at a state-approved barbering school, 1,600 hours apprenticing under an already licensed barber, pass a test and pay a fee. There are even steeper requirements for cosmetology, defined as “arranging, dressing, curling, waving, cleansing, cutting, bleaching, coloring or similarly treating the hair...

Natural hair braiders like Nutall had excelled in their craft for years, learning braiding from their mothers and grandmothers. But now, the state was telling them they had to log more than 1,500 hours of education through an eight-week course with costs topping $12,000,

Just something I’ve been thinking about, sitting here playing with the RSLC’s new 2016 electoral map widget and drinking heavily. “Create Your Own Path to 270 Map,” the widget beckons. Yeah, go ahead. You go find yourself a path to 270. Here’s what I’ve got.(see graphic) Each blue state you see there has been blue in every presidential election since 1992, with the sole exception of New Mexico — which has been blue in every election since 1992 except for 2004. Obama won the state by 10 points three years ago against Romney and by 15 points seven years ago...

TRANSCRIPT: WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The town of Westminster, Massachusetts — population 7,300 — is a small, quiet community about an hour west of Boston. When the local health board holds meetings, it usually happens here in this room, where you can get advice about things like septic tanks and mosquito control. But not on this day. This meeting Wednesday night had to be moved to the local elementary school because the town is up in arms. MAN: You people make me sick! WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Why so mad? That Board of Health is proposing to make Westminster the first town in the...

How’s this for a depressing passage: “There’s just a lot more regulation going on,” Zelizer said. “There’s a lot of intersection between the economy and Washington.” “There’s just a lot more regulation going on.” My liberal friends, “regulation” is the mother’s milk of the crony capitalist state, the “fascist light” state. Our system of “regulation” is in most regards now just a vehicle for rent seeking. Blindly defending regulations in 2014 because liberals are supposed to be for regulation, is to give power to a vested corporate oligarchy. Am I saying that all regs are bad? No. Am I saying...

Within the cases the Supreme Court heard, one had to do with energy—and it, too, offered a rebuke. You likely haven’t heard about Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—and may think you don’t care. But with the session over, UARG v. EPA makes clear the Court’s trend to trim overreach. The UARG v. EPA decision came down on June 23. None of the major news networks covered it. Reviews of the 2014 cases, since the end of the session, haven’t mentioned it either. The decision was mixed—with both sides claiming victory. Looking closely, there is cause...

One government agency has decided that the results of employee ratings are too discriminatory, and eliminated the process entirely. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Monday that it will now award all employees the highest rating regardless of performance reviews. The CFPB, which oversees transactions in the financial sector for the federal government, decided to no longer conduct employee reviews because there were just too many apparent “significant disparities” between the races, ages, and locations of its employees. According to American Banker, this new policy is set to cost over $5 million dollars, as it will now pay employees...

Try to imagine a commission of the U.S. government recommending that it get rid of the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, countless agencies, and, for good measure, restructure Medicare so it doesn’t go broke. There are few Americans who will argue that our federal government isn’t big enough and many who trace our present problems to Big Government. That is why what has been occurring in Australia caught my attention because its voters rid themselves of a political party that imposed both a carbon tax and renewable energy tax on them. The purpose of the...

Regardless of the outcome of the federal government's confrontation with Nevada citizen Cliven Bundy, some important lessons have already been learned. We have seen our federal government (Bureau of Land Management) with arms and military vehicles confronting American citizens, not unlike Russian troops confronting Ukrainians, or Syrian troops facing off against rebels. It is scary. We have seen a newly appointed director of the BLM, who used to work for Sen. Harry Reid, selectively enforce the "Endangered Species Act" regarding a species, the desert tortoise, never contemplated to be within the act's protection when passed in 1973 to protect the...

U.S. Government Reporting Requirements For Coin And Bullion Dealers There is much confusion and disinformation about the extent to which coin dealers are required to obtain customer information to keep on file and use in submitting reports to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or other government agencies. In some cases the confusion may be used to steer customers away from lower-margin bullion sales and towards the higher-margin coin sales, even though such items may be less suitable for the customer's purposes. I'll attempt to summarize some of the reporting topics herein, but for more helpful information, you can visit the...

Two Republican House members have sent a letter to the EPA questioning new rules being formulated that would give the EPA sweeping authority over streams and wetlands on private property. The EPA is justifying the rules by saying it's part of its mandate to enforce the Clean Water Act. But Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Chris Stewart (R-Utah), both ranking members of the Science and Technology Committee, doubt the EPA's science in justifying the regulations and want the agency to slow down and get other opinions.

Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign has an interesting response to a call from the super PAC supporting Rick Santorum for the former House speaker to exit the race. It’s front-runner Mitt Romney who should say sayonara, says Gingrich policy adviser Vince Haley, Politico reports. The pro-Santorum Red, White and Blue Fund put out a statement Wednesday urging Gingrich to stand aside, so that the former Pennsylvania senator can stand as the former Massachusetts governor’s sole conservative challenger. Haley, appearing on Geraldo Rivera’s radio program, would have none of it. But his first response was to take on Romney rather than Santorum....

Well, here’s the totalitarian state, right before my eyes! Today in the mail came a largish envelop for me from The “National Agricultural Statistics Service”, postage and fees paid by USDA Permit No. G-38. A prominant blocked off area on the envelop front stated in large bold letters, “YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW.” Also on the envelop and several places inside I find Obama-style logos for the USDA, and one with “AGRICULTURE COUNTS” around the outside, and at the base of the rolling landscape “NASS,” which stands for National Agricultural Statistics Service. That’s right: now we have a National...

Our supposed “Hope & Change”, post-partisan President who was elected in 2008 has now morphed into a far left zealot who has gone into ‘divide America and win at all costs’ manic overdrive. Hate the rich, hate the middle class, hate Christians/Catholics, hate business, hate profits, hate success, hate Israel … The White House has become a pathetic distillation of the worst of the left – and somehow expects this to win them votes in 2012. It is stupendously stupid as well as tone deaf political move.

With its shiny buildings and galloping economy, Gurgaon is often portrayed as a symbol of a rising “new” India, yet it also represents a riddle at the heart of India’s rapid growth: how can a new city become an international economic engine without basic public services? How can a huge country flirt with double-digit growth despite widespread corruption, inefficiency and governmental dysfunction?...In Gurgaon and elsewhere in India, the answer is that growth usually occurs despite the government rather than because of it. India and China are often considered to be the world’s rising economic powers, yet if China’s growth has...