Free Republic

Employee behind lavish Las Vegas conference out at GSA WASHINGTON -- Jeff Neely, the regional director responsible for much of the General Services Administration’s highly controversial $823,000 conference in Las Vegas in 2010, is no longer employed by the agency, a spokesman said. "GSA is in the process of completing its review of activities associated with the Western Regions Conference and pursuing all available avenues for appropriate disciplinary action against those responsible. Jeff Neely was placed on administrative leave based on his involvement in the WRC. As of today, he’s no longer employed with GSA,” Deputy Press Secretary Adam Elkington...

Let's Not Forget Why Our Ancestors Came Here Tuesday, 22 May 2012 12:02 PM By Richard Rahn Read more: Let's Not Forget Why Our Ancestors Came Here If you are a nonimmigrant American reading this, do you know why your ancestors came to America? The fact is, a large percentage of immigrants were trying to escape various forms of government persecution, including religious and tax persecution. The American Revolution was set off, in part, by a tax on tea that ranged from about 10 percent to 33 percent of its value. That and other grievances were enough to cause people...

You cannot understand the left if you do not understand that Leftism is a religion. It is not G0d-based (some Left-wing Christians' and Jews' claims notwithstanding), but otherwise it has every characteristic of a religion. The most blatant of those characteristics is dogma. People who believe in Leftism have as many dogmas as the most fundamentalist Christian. One of them is material equality as the preeminent moral goal. Another is the villainy of corporations. The bigger the corporation, the greater the villainy. Thus, instead of the devil, the left has Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, the "military-industrial complex," and...

Most informed people are familiar with the concept of Peak Oil, but fewer are aware that we’re also entering the era of Peak Government. The central misconception of Peak Oil -- that it’s not about “running out of oil,” it’s about running out of cheap, easy-to-access oil -- can also be applied to Peak Government: It’s not about government disappearing, it’s about government shrinking. Central government -- the Central State -- has been in the expansion mode for so long that the process of contracting government is completely alien to the nation, to those who work for the State, and...

Newt Gingrich took the stage at the Georgia Republican Party state convention on Saturday wearing a Mitt Romney sticker, focusing his attacks on President Barack Obama and attempting to energize the crowd around his former Republican rival. "To every conservative, everywhere in America: When your choice on the one hand is Barack Obama, and your choice on the other hand is Mitt Romney, no serious conservative could possibly believe that electing Barack Obama is acceptable ... for America."

Shareholders should have the power to curb bosses' pay and set caps on executive bonuses, the European Union's top regulatory official said on today (16 May), adding to pressure on banks and companies over excessive management pay deals. The plan from Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner in charge of regulation, could pave the way for a pan-EU law next year that would give investors legal clout to take on Europe's executive elite over pay. "For all listed companies, I support transparency and increased shareholder responsibility ... for example ... mandatory shareholder vote on remuneration," Barnier said in a statement. There...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican who serves on the Senate Banking Committee, has called for a hearing on the $2-billion trading loss by JPMorgan Chase & Co., saying that "policies are going to be derived out of what’s happened." Corker, who was a key participant in the debate over the 2010 financial reform law, said it was important for policymakers to get the facts about the situation and whether pending regulations would have prevented it.

It could cost U.S. employers between $2 billion and $4 billion to comply with an obscure Americans with Disabilities Act regulation meant to protect workers who are gun-shy in public restrooms. According to an informal discussion letter the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued in August 2011, “paruresis” — more commonly known as “shy bladder syndrome” — qualifies as a disability under the amended Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Ten Scariest DMV Horror Stories There is a dark side to driving in the US, and it is known as the DMV. Listen to these ten tales of woe from Jalopnik readers and you'll get a taste of American bureaucracy at its worst. 10.) Counterfeiters get Mustang GTs Suggested By: frankiepoops What happened: Worst experience that I ever had was when the NY DMV decided that my title for my 1996 green Mustang was counterfeit, not the first time I registered it, but when I went back to put it back on the road after parking it for a...

TSA Unable To Detect 33% Of Land Mines Sent Through Security A mechanical engineer from the Army's Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey was stopped by TSA officers at Newark Airport after they found two Claymore mines in her bag. This would be a victory for the TSA had they not just let the woman's co-worker through with a similar mine in their checked baggage. Which government agency deserves your scorn, the one whose employees tried to bring anti-personnel mines (even inert ones) on a plane or the one whose employees didn't detect a third of them?

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Friday that the Obama campaign's new website - which uses a fictionalized woman named Julia to illustrate how the president's policies help female voters - is "creepy" and "demeaning." "It suggests that this woman can't go anywhere in life without Barack Obama's government-centered society. It's kind of demeaning to her," Ryan said during a constituent meeting in Wisconsin, the National Review reports. "She must have him and his big government to depend on to go anywhere in life. It doesn't say much about his faith in Julia." Dubbed "The Life of Julia,"...

SEC. 31406. VEHICLE EVENT DATA RECORDERS. (a) Mandatory Event Data Recorders- (1) IN GENERAL- Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part. (2) PENALTY- The violation of any provision under part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations-- (A) shall be deemed to be a violation of section 30112 of...

You gotta click the link to see the video. If anybody can get at the direct link, please post it.

Brave New World (is Here!) If Orwell’s “1984” is a cautionary tale about what we in the capitalist West largely avoided, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is largely about what we got — a consumerist, post-God happyland in which people readily stave off aging, jet away on exotic vacations and procreate via test tubes. They have access to “Feelies” similar to IMAX 3-D movies, no-strings-attached sex, anti-anxiety pills and abortion on demand. They also venerate a dead high-tech genius, saying “Ford help him” in honor of Henry Ford just as today we practically murmur “In Jobs We Trust.” In many...

I’ve often described Barack Obama as a European-style politician. He has the kind of big government mindset that would fit comfortably in Brussels or Paris. If he had been born in Provence instead of Hawaii, I’m sure he would have gravitated to the Elysée Palace or challenged Herman Van Rompuy for the presidency of the European Council. He has been the most Eurofederalist of American presidents, actively backing the European Project—to the extent that his vice president, Joe Biden, even declared Brussels to be “the capital of the free world”.It is not hard to see why François Hollande, the Socialist...

The American Legacy Foundation released a policy statement on electronic cigarettes, in which it called for the removal of these products from the market. The statement was entitled "The FDA Should Take Electronic Cigarettes Off The Market Until It Is Satisfied That They Are Safe and Effective." According to the statement: "While we remain open to promising products that can help smokers quit smoking, a consideration of all of the available evidence combined with important unanswered questions strongly supports our call on the FDA to prohibit the marketing and sale of e-cigarettes unless and until the FDA is satisfied that...

In my estimation, the hallmark of the true politician, the true Washington insider, is the intentional evasion of responsibility and/or blame – the sin of omission. By this standard, Rick Santorum, in the end, is nothing but a typical two-bit political hack. For all his bloviating and posturing, painting himself as a true conservative, selling his alleged “genuineness”  and values – a regular Joe – Santorum has shown his true colors by failing to endorse when it could have made a difference. Plainly, he is avoiding the ire of the GOP establishment by not endorsing Gingrich, and he is avoiding...

This was posted on one of GaryNorth.com forums. The battle for America’s political soul is always fought on the battlefield of federal politics. That’s why conservatives lose, generation after generation.� Dr. North, would you please elaborate on this, why you believe the battle for America’s political soul is fought in Federal politics and why it is that conservatives continue to lose, generation after generation? From the time of the ratification of the United States Constitution, American politics shifted to the national level. One of the things that I realized late in my career, even though I had been trained as...

OK, something I don't normally do but I was feeling in a mischievous mood today. On my way back from lunch I passed a Lemonade stand that two parents and kid had setup. I stopped to talk tot he parents for a few minutes and told them that "I hope the City doesn't shut down their stand." They look at me like a deer looks into the headlights. I mentioned that they should search the internet on this topic and some cities have actually done this. I wished them good luck and waved good bye confident that maybe I have...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: From TheHill.com: "Two weeks after fighting for the survival of its signature healthcare reform law before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration will be back in court Tuesday to defend another part of the president's agenda to make Americans healthier." Do you love the way that's written at TheHill.com? Let me read this to you again. The headline: "Another Health Law Faces Court Challenge." But TheHill.com, total slaves to the Obama administration: "Two weeks after fighting for the survival of its signature healthcare reform law before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration will be back in court...

It’s no secret that Mitt Romney isn’t exactly a darling of the Tea Party, but Karen Martin, the head of the Spartanburg County, S.C., chapter, did not mince words when speaking to NPR’s Frank James about just how little they care for him. “There’s no Tea Partier that I talk to in the state or nationally that would want to promote Romney,” Martin said. “Other than the people that have come out publicly and endorsed Mitt Romney and the people left over from his 2008 campaign, I do not personally know anyone that does not despise Mitt Romney and doesn’t...

Home / News / Local / Mass. Coakley moves to regulate health cost Seeks to limit provider prices (Jim Davis/Globe Staff) Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley spoke at a press conference April 2. By Liz Kowalczyk Globe Staff / April 6, 2012 E-mail| Print| Reprints| Comments (89)Text size – + 14 1 ShareThis10E-mail E-mail this article To: Invalid E-mail address Add a personal message:(80 character limit) Your E-mail: Invalid E-mail address Sending your articleYour article has been sent. Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office is quietly circulating a proposal to more tightly regulate hospitals and doctors and the prices they are...

The House passed the administration’s offshore wind power bill Friday amid accusations Gov. Martin O’Malley secured votes on the House Economic Matters Committee with disparity grants to committee members’ districts. “Those of you who have been here longer than two weeks know there’s a lot of complicated pressures that go into making a bill pass or fail,” said House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell. “Sometimes it takes a little nudge, sometimes it takes a carrot, and sometimes it takes a stick.” The disparity grant program in Maryland provides subsidies to jurisdictions with income tax receipts that fall below 75% of the...

The world came unhinged in the fall of 2008. .....Such a flurry of state activity would have been enough to spark a reaction from Americans traditionally suspicious of central government. But the interventions did not stop there. Even before Obama was inaugurated in January 2009 the collective wisdom in Washington held that the way to restore prosperity was a massive stimulus of public spending. So Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, at an eventual price tag of $840 billion, in February. The bill, which included an increased refundable tax credit for working people, showered money on state governments...

Contrasting himself with Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum portrays himself as an unwavering conservative who stands on principle. But his record is hardly without serious blemishes. On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, guest moderator Jonathan Karl brought up Santorum’s endorsement of then-Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter for president in 1996. Specter was a liberal Republican who became a Democrat before failing to gain re-election in 2010 (he couldn’t even get out of the Democratic primary.) When he ran for president in 1996, he did so as a social liberal, which was an important plank in his candidacy. He wanted “strip the strident...

Share253 Print Forward John Stossel What is fair? by John Stossel 03/21/2012 159 Comments President Obama says he wants to make society more fair. Advocates of big government believe fairness means taking from rich people and giving to others: poor people; or people who do things politicians approve of, like making "green" energy equipment (Solyndra); or old people (even rich ones) through Social Security and Medicare. The idea that government can "make life fair" is intuitively appealing to people -- at least until they think about it. I'll try to help. Obama says fairness requires higher taxes, but as The...

President Obama says he wants to end subsidies for what he calls "the fuel of the past," but lucky for him oil and gas will be the fuels of the future too. His budget-deficit blowout would be so much worse without Big Oil, because the truth is that this industry is subsidizing the government. Much, much worse, actually. The federal Energy Information Administration reports that the industry paid some $35.7 billion in corporate income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which data are available. That alone is about 10% of non-defense discretionary spending—and it would cover a lot of...

William McGurn is his usual magnificent self today. [quote] Not since Herbert Hoover has a party out of power had such an opportunity to run against everything that troubles the American family—prices, interest rates, unemployment, taxes, or the fear for the future of their old age or the future of their children—than is now presented to the Republican Party. The Republicans, however, haven't figured this out. This is their basic problem. They have no strategy for defeating an Obama administration that is highly vulnerable on both domestic and foreign policy. [end quote] Those words were written by Scotty Reston in...

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....

Alana Goodman, at the conservative site Hot Air, is quoted as saying the following about anti-pursuit of happiness candidate Rick Santorum: “Where’s the conservative outrage? If Santorum’s comments aren’t nanny state-ism in its purest form, then what is?… If you’re a conservative and you give Santorum a pass on this, you forego any future right to complain about liberals taking away your Happy Meals and trans fats.” Goodman is referring to Santorum’s recent and past comments that freedom as specified in the U.S. Constitution is not absolute, and that government policy must take a position on birth control, abortion, and...

Rick Santorum today attempted to take back comments in which he said Barack Obama is a “snob” because he wants to see as many Americans as possible go to college. Speaking on CNN, Santorum said when he called Obama a snob, he was speaking more in terms of Obama’s larger policy agenda. “I was giving a long riff about the president mandating things on people,” Santorum said Friday. “I was talking about the government and president mandating healthcare and, you know, what kind of loans we’re going to get.” Santorum’s comment came in response to President Obama saying that every...

In a long-forgotten tape from the 2002 Massachusetts governor’s race obtained by ABC News, Mitt Romney is seen touting his Washington connections and his ability to get millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal government. “I am big believer in getting money where the money is,” Romney says on the video, “The money is in Washington.” The video, which was surreptitiously shot by Democratic opponents of Romney on Oct. 16, 2002, shows him addressing a group called the New Bedford Industrial Foundation. The Power Point presentation he uses lists ways to improve economic development in Massachusetts, including “boost federal involvement.”...

.....In a long-forgotten tape from the 2002 Massachusetts governor’s race obtained by ABC News, Mitt Romney is seen touting his Washington connections and his ability to get millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal government. “I am big believer in getting money where the money is,” Romney says on the video, “The money is in Washington.”’’ The video, which was surreptitiously shot by Democratic opponents of Romney on Oct. 16, 2002, shows him addressing a group called the New Bedford Industrial Foundation. The Power Point presentation he uses lists ways to improve economic development in Massachusetts, including “boost federal involvement.”......

Nice of him to admit. Though Ariana Huffington couldn't find a [real] good word. True demonizer up to the end. But all the others on the show praised him.

The Coming Conflict Between Those Who Produce And Those Who Take Robert WenzelFebuary 25, 2012 The conflict is coming to America, as a result of too much taxation and too much giveaways. Pat Buchanan explains: The family, cinder block of society, is disintegrating, and along with it, society itself. Writes [Robert] Rector, "The welfare system is more like a 'safety bog' than a safety net." Heritage scholars William Beach and Patrick Tyrrell put Rector's numbers in perspective: "Today ... 67.3 million Americans – from college students to retirees to welfare beneficiaries – depend on the federal government for housing, food,...

Does the Tea Party now support politicians who favored bailouts and the ObamaCare individual mandate? Such a statement sounds like an oxymoronic joke, about as likely as a pacifist who backs war or an atheist for Jesus. But the answer, according to exit polls from New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida primaries, is an emphatic “yes.” According to each of these exit polls, the vast majority of self-identified Tea Party supporters have backed either former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (left) or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich over anti-bailout candidates such as Texas Congressman Ron Paul, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum,...

Leading in the national polls and within striking distance of scoring big victories in Michigan and Arizona next Tuesday, Rick Santorum is portraying himself as the little 'guy from a steel town' who will stop Barack Obama from accumulating regal powers. 'Back in 2008, the American public at a time of crisis went for a rock star that they believed could solve their problems, someone that they believed in to make a difference in their lives,' he said at the Maricopa County Lincoln Day lunch in Phoenix, Arizona. 'This election, Americans are going to go back to what we've done...

Mitt Romney said Tuesday that cutting spending slows growth in the economy -- a rhetorical slip more akin to an argument a Democrat might make than a Republican. Speaking in Shelby Township, MI, the former Massachusetts governor took a question about the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission empaneled by President Obama to address the nation's deficit and debt issues. In his response, he said that addressing taxes and spending issues are essential. "If you just cut, if all you're thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you'll slow down the economy," he said in part of his response. "So...

"I'm not a manager. I'm not a visionary," he told the crowd in an apparent reference to his GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. "I'm a guy from a steel town who grew up understanding what made this country great and for the years that I've been involved in public life, put my heart and my effort on the line to make this country the kind of country that we all want to hand on to our children and grandchildren." Santorum also touched on the fight over who's the real "Washington insider," saying the only reason Romney wasn't a...

ATLANTA – The campaign trail in Georgia is getting crowded. With less than three weeks left until the state's March 6 presidential primary, candidates in the topsy-turvy Republican race are turning their attention to Super Tuesday's biggest delegate prize. Newt Gingrich will play up his roots when he returns to his old home state to campaign for two days, beginning with a rally in Peachtree City Friday night. Surging after a trio of wins in recent weeks, Rick Santorum will focus on his evangelical base, appearing Sunday night at a "God and Country" rally at First Redeemer Church in Cumming....

Georgia Turns Into Shaky Ground for Gingrich By TRIP GABRIEL February 18, 2012 ATLANTA — If Newt Gingrich has any hope of a comeback, it must begin here, in the state he represented for 20 years as a congressman and where the haul of delegates to the Republican National Convention is the biggest prize of the Super Tuesday contests next month. Yet when asked about the once-unthinkable possibility that he might lose the primary in Georgia, where Rick Santorum is surging just as he is nationally, Mr. Gingrich offered a shrug. “Given this kind of a year, who knows?” he...

A central strength most pundits (including this one) have cited when describing Mitt Romney as the Republican front-runner is money: He has it, his opponents do not. The 20 days leading up to Super Tuesday will show whether we were right. Romney and a super PAC that backs his campaign are about to embark on an all-out television blitz aimed at tearing down Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, an assault that already adds up to more than $5 million in key primary states -- and there are few signs either of Romney's rivals have the financial ability to respond. Ad...

Rick Santorum is touting his promise to eliminate corporate taxes on manufacturers...[that's] coming under scrutiny from conservatives who are decrying it as thoroughly unconservative. ...[Santorum] added: “We need to have a manufacturing base in this economy. Why? Because of our national security.” ...advocates for other sectors of the economy quietly gripe that they’d be effectively underwriting manufacturing...by paying a higher tax rate... “Giving a preferential rate is picking winners and losers through the tax code,” said Curtis Dubay, a tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation... “This is not free-market economics, this is trying to tilt the market toward manufacturing,...

The recent Obama mandate for universal birth control gave the Republicans an opportunity to fight for individual liberty -- and they missed it by a mile. Instead of attacking government-imposed health care as a violation of liberty, they only selected a minute fraction of the leviathan and subjected it to very narrow criteria. This was an opportunity to aim for the heart of ObamaCare, but critics asked for only a minor adjustment -- and that's all they got. Government-mandated health care violates individual rights. The objection of Catholics to the funding of contraceptives is just one example of forcing people...

....Asked about the legalization of online gambling, Santorum responds: "I’m someone who takes the opinion that gaming is not something that is beneficial, particularly having that access on the Internet. Just as we’ve seen from a lot of other things that are vices on the Internet, they end to grow exponentially as a result of that. It’s one thing to come to Las Vegas and do gaming and participate in the shows and that kind of thing as entertainment, it’s another thing to sit in your home and have access to that it. I think it would be dangerous to...

Mitt Romney, whose campaign is preparing a multi-million dollar wave of negative advertising to persuade voters that Rick Santorum should not be president, says he is open to the possibility of choosing Santorum to be his running mate should Romney win the Republican nomination. Romney appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning and was asked, "You and Rick Santorum, we haven't seen you go head-to-head yet…In the big picture, could you see a scenario where you two team up?" "Oh, I think it's always possible to have people come together in our party, whether it's Rick and I, or others in...

Talk about government run amok, get a load of this. A preschooler in North Carolina was told by a state official that the lunch that was packed by her mother was unacceptable, because it did not meet USDA guidelines. The official then made the preschooler purchase a lunch provided by the school, and the girl later went home with her uneaten sack lunch AND a bill for $1.25. Talk about Big Brother watching you! As reported in the Carolina Journal Online, the girl's mother packed her a " turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice." However, this...

...Jonah Goldberg explained that Mike Huckabee's brand of conservatism was inconsistent with traditional conservatism, in that the former Arkansas Governor believes that government exists, not to protect individual liberty, but to make people live moral lives in accordance with his personal beliefs.... While Rick Santorum doesn't have the record of supporting tax hikes that Tax Hike Mike had or some of the other points listed above--though some of the do apply, he certainly has a record of backing certain social policies based upon the notion that government exists to ensure a certain behavior from its citizens.... On the fiscal and...