Free Republic

SALEM, N.H. - Ted Cruz in person, on the campaign trail, is a study in contrasts. What I principally mean by that cliche is that Cruz makes a more plausible human being when seen up close than in his animatronic television appearances, but he does not resemble a human being who came into the world by the usual method. He's both cute and sinister, a highly discordant combination. He's like a marzipan man brought to life by the kiss of a magic fairy, stuffed into overly tight blue jeans and sent toddling into middle-school cafeterias in the middle of nowhere...

We've been hearing about a lot of drama going on at $2 billion startup GitHub, the hugely important and popular site used by millions of computer programmers where 10 or more executives have departed in recent months.The more we write about the inner turmoil, the more people step forward to share details and opinions.…"They are trying to control culture, interviewing and firing. Scary times at the company without a seasoned leader. While their efforts are admirable it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging," this person said.Sanchez is known for some strong views...

Hillary Clinton said that banning fossil fuel extraction on public lands is a 'done deal,' the Hill reported. After Thursday night's Democratic debate in New Hampshire, an activist with the green group 350 Action asked Clinton whether she would support banning hydraulic fracturing if she were elected. While Clinton said the president doesn't have the authority to do that, she did say that supporting a ban on fossil fuel extraction on public lands was a done deal. "President Obama's Interior Department in January said it would halt new leases for coal mining on federal land while it figures out how...

European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini says she is preparing to visit Iran following the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran with world powers. Mogherini said Saturday there was no set date had been set, but that preparations with Tehran were well underway. She insisted all 28 EU nations were backing the opening with Iran. ...

n what appears to be an extraordinary snub of White House budget director Shaun Donovan, the Republican chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees announced on Thursday they would not host Donovan’s testimony on President Obama’s final budget submission next week. Obama will unveil his fiscal 2017 budget request next Tuesday, just barely meeting the statutory deadline for submitting a new budget to Congress. But Senate Budget Committee Chair Mike Enzi (R-WY) and House Budget Committee chief Tom Price (R-GA) issued a joint statement tonight saying Donovan wasn’t welcome to testify because the administration wasn’t serious about addressing the...

The decision states face of whether to expand Medicaid to non-disabled, working-age, childless adults—the Affordable Care Act (ACA) primary expansion population— involves tradeoffs. These tradeoffs include higher taxes, reduced spending on items like education, transportation, or infrastructure, or reduced spending on other Medicaid populations such as the disabled, children, or the elderly. The ACA funding formula allows states to pass a much greater share of the costs of covering non-disabled childless adults to federal taxpayers, but the tradeoffs still exist. In a previous piece, I argued that states could have expanded Medicaid to this population before the ACA and received...

On the surface, the January jobs numbers appear to be "not bad."  There were 151,000 jobs created, and the official unemployment rate dropped below 5%. But the story inside the numbers is really, really awful.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates job creation and loss using two different measurements: the Current Population Survey and "Establishment" data from the Current Employment Statistics.  Usually, the two measurements are roughly the same.  But how do you explain this, BLS? Consider these BLS numbers based on household data. In January, there were 25,328,000 "foreign born" workers employed, a one-month drop of 98,000. In January, there...

Intermarriage and assimilation blur racial and ethnic lines, but the Census Bureau is determined to keep them sharp. The U.S. Bureau of the Census has projected that America will have a "non-white" majority by 2044. A new and quite stunning article in the Winter 2016 issue of The American Prospect (a left-of-center journal) debunks that claim and undermines the widespread faith that the Census Bureau knows what it is doing. The article, by the sociologist Richard Alba, is entitled "The Likely Persistence of a White Majority: How Census Bureau statistics have misled thinking about the American future." Its two key...

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., charged the Obama administration with quietly signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in New Zealand, and said the White House tried to minimize it because it knows the public isn't pleased with the deal.

Governor Raimondo’s proposed new truck-tolls, headed this week for House and Senate votes, may cost Rhode Island business, according to an announcement Saturday by Ocean State Job Lot. The company said it is putting on hold its "plan for expansion within the state," specifically what it described as a 500,000-square-foot, $50-million distribution center. At a Saturday morning news conference at Ocean State Job Lot's new store at 5947 Post Road in North Kingstown, David Sarlitto, the company’s executive director, issued this statement: "At the re-location opening of its flagship store in North Kingstown today, Job Lot announced its opposition to...

The results of the Iowa caucus proved that even Iowans-long seen as fervent proponents of ethanol-don't view Washington's favoritism to it as necessarily still required. Much like many campaigns out there, the Renewable Fuel Standard that mandates the use of biofuels in our gasoline has been full of empty promises. When Congress passed the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2005 and expanded the mandate in 2007, policymakers promised reduced dependence on foreign oil, a new source of cleaner energy to lower gas prices, a stronger economy, and an improved environment.This was certainly wishful thinking, as none of it has come true.Instead,...

The Pentagon's top weapons tester has condemned aspects of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program in a new report, raising questions about the $1.5-trillion effort's ability to meet its already slipped production schedule, synthesize information on the battlefield and keep aircraft available to fly. The 82-page report was distributed to Congress last month, and released publicly this week. It was completed by Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation. He reports directly to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, and carries out independent assessments for both Carter and members of Congress.

On a recent afternoon, executives at Goldman Sachs invited a few hundred major investors to the Conrad Hotel in lower Manhattan. The bankers and their guests filed into a large room and turned their eyes to Hillary Clinton. But Clinton offered a message that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, according to accounts offered by several attendees, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish. Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, in effect: We all got into this mess together, and we’re all going to have to...

Millions of people around the world are emerging from poverty thanks to rising economic freedom. But by sharp contrast, America's economic freedom has been on a declining path over the past decade.America's declining score in the index is closely related to rapidly rising government spending, subsidies, and bailouts.According to the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom, an annual publication by The Heritage Foundation, America's economic freedom has tumbled. With losses of economic freedom in eight of the past nine years, the U.S. has tied its worst score ever, wiping out a decade of progress.The U.S. has fallen from the 6th freest economy...

Even though economists see a mere 20% chance of recession in 2016, I am increasingly confident a recession began in December 2015. It was another disastrous factory orders report this month. December factory orders fell 2.9%Durable goods orders -5.0%, nondurable goods -0.8%November factory orders revised from -0.2% to -0.7%.Core capital goods orders fell steep 4.3%Inventories rose 0.2%The inventory-to-sales ratio rose again which portends weakness for future hiring and production.Shipments fell a steep 1.4% The Econoday Consensus Estimate was -2.8%, nearly on the mark in a range of -3.7% to +0.2%. It’s mind-boggling that an economist would predict a rise. Are...

.....nature today is their primary guide rather than thought, most greens cannot tell the difference between science and Malthusian math. Herein lies the real problem facing the Western world today, as it has conjured up an imaginary crisis of its own making with regard to the global warming/climate change myth. Malthusian math construes environmental data that invariably leads to millenarian and/or apocalyptic concerns and dangerous anti-human political policies that are holistic and totalitarian by design, and thus fascist to the core.

A pernicious cycle of collapsing commodities, corporate defaults, and currency wars loom over the global economy. Can anything stop it from unravelling? A global recession is on the way. This truism of economics holds at any point in which the world is not in the grips of a contraction. The real question is always when and how deep the upcoming downturn will be. "The crash will come, but it would be nice if it came two years from now", Thomas Thygesen, head of economics at SEB told over 200 commodity investors and analysts in London last month. His audience was...

It's all happening so fast, it's hard to keep up with all the b.s. coming out of the president and his White House in his last year. In case you missed it, Obama just proposed raising the gas tax to what would amount to 136%. By proposing a $10 per barrel tax on every barrel of oil produced in the U.S., Obama wants to add a 25 cent gas tax on every gallon of gas you purchase at the pump. He wants to use it to pay for his green transportation initiatives. Considering federal gas tax is 18.4 cents...

Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, combined to earn more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001 until Hillary Clinton launched her presidential campaign last spring, a CNN analysis shows. In total, the two gave 729 speeches from February 2001 until May, receiving an average payday of $210,795 for each address. The two also reported at least $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to big banks, including Goldman Sachs and UBS, with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, collecting at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches to big banks.

On Super Bowl Sunday, proud adoptive mom Leigh Anne Tuohy will watch her son play football for the second time in the biggest American sports game of the year. Tuohy’s son Michael Oher is the offensive lineman for the Carolina Panthers and formerly the Baltimore Ravens, who he helped to achieve victory in the 2013 Super Bowl. Oher’s life had a troubled beginning. When Oher was born, his mother was addicted to drugs and his father was in prison. He struggled in school, moved through homes in foster care and spent time homeless until he met Leigh Anne and her...