Free Republic

Full Title: How Awesome Would the U.S. Economy Be If It Were Set Free from Massive Government Regulations? Imagine if the U.S.’s economy had grown an extra 1% every year since 1949 as a result from less strangulating federal regulation. This is the thesis for a recent Forbes article by Rich Karlgaard, the magazine’s publisher and head writer. Using the concept of compound interest, along with an assertion that runaway federal tinkering and silly regulations have had a massive impact on the country’s economic growth over the decades, he gives a handful of answers to the question: “Where would the...

PROVIDENCE , R.I. – The state health director appealed to a congregation of Liberian Americans Sunday to set aside their anger and mistrust of their home country’s faltering response to the Ebola outbreak to help stop an epidemic that has surely killed far more people than official estimates show. “Ebola in Liberia isn’t a problem of a virus,” Dr. Michael Fine told about 150 members of the congregation of Christ Center of Praise. “It is a problem of poverty and mistrust.” If members of Liberian enclaves around the United States, such as those in Rhode Island, Minneapolis and Dallas, call...

Around 400,000 people marched through Manhattan yesterday to send a message to world leaders regarding the dire consequences of climate change, and the urgent, desperate necessity of enacting sweeping reforms to stop it. It appears at least 150,000 of those people tossed away their paper Starbucks cups... From the looks of it, much of what was heaved onto the ground by activists caught up in the fervor wasn't trash at all—a healthy amount of the detritus piled in the gutters was recyclable, indicating that attendees couldn't even be bothered to stuff their spent Gatorade bottles into their bags until they...

Latest TV Campaign Ad, Governor Scott Walker (R, WI)

Prozac may not be the only way to get rid of your serious blues. Soil microbes have been found to have similar effects on the brain and are without side effects and chemical dependency potentials. Learn how to harness the natural antidepressant in soil and make yourself happier and healthier. Read on to see how dirt makes you happy. Natural remedies have been around for untold centuries. These natural remedies included cures for almost any physical ailment as well as mental and emotional afflictions. Ancient healers may not have known why something worked but simply that it did. Modern scientists...

A set of studies based on three years of research concludes that by 2040, the need for drinking water and water for use in energy production will create dire shortages. Conventional electricity generation is the largest source of water use in most countries. Water is used to cool power plants to keep them functional. Most power utilities don’t even record the amount of water they use. “It’s a huge problem that the electricity sector do not even realize how much water they actually consume,” says Professor Benjamin Sovacool of Denmark’s Aarhus University, one of the institutions involved in the research....

LIVE THE WAGE: Politicians can’t seem to figure out how to live on $77 a week – could you? In an effort to gain sympathy for raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, numerous politicians accepted a challenge to “Live the Wage.” To no one’s surprise, they couldn’t do it. They were going to live for a week on $77 because that’s all that the challenge sponsors say a full-time worker earning minimum wage makes, after average taxes and housing expenses are deducted, of course. But then, they weren’t supposed to be able to get by on that...

She once called Donald Trump "a maggot, a cockroach and a crumb." This week, he remembered her as "an impossible person." The woman who became a folk hero for resisting decades-long efforts by big-name developers like Trump to displace her Atlantic City boardinghouse is now 91 and, at last, ready to sell. But it remains to be seen if anybody still wants to buy. Vera Coking has moved to California to be near her family. And the 29-room property she and her husband bought for $20,000 in 1961 and fought to hold onto is on the auction block Thursday for...

All the conventional policy fixes proposed by Demopublican politicos, technocrats and the vast army of academic/think-tank apparatchiks are the equivalent of slapping a coat of paint on a fragile facade riddled with dryrot. All these fake-fixes share a few key characteristics: 1. They focus on effects and symptoms rather than address the underlying causes, i.e. the dry rot at the heart of our government, society and economy. 2. They maintain and protect the Status Quo Powers That Be- no vested interests, protected fiefdoms or Financial Elites ever lose power as a result of these policy tweaks. 3. They are politically...

Voters and insiders alike are still getting used to August primaries after years of post-Labor Day elections. So while voter turnout is expected to be low on Aug. 12, some top races are getting the attention of insiders because of their political implications and the personalities involved. In total, voters around the state have 40 partisan primary contests to choose from. Because many of them are in very Democratic or Republican-leaning districts, the primaries likely will decide who will next hold the office. Here's a look at some of the top primary contests less than a month out from primary...

President Obama will celebrate the 4th of July weekend in part by ritually sacrificing majestic bald eagles on the altar of “green energy.” Liberals might call that progress. Real Americans would rightly call it what it is: bird murder. Last week, the Obama administration gave a California wind farm permission to kill bald eagles with impunity for up to 30 years. The birds are supposed to be protected under federal law; without a waiver from the president, killing them would result in six-figure fines and up to 18 months in prison per eagle. The move is just the latest escalation...

Low-wage workers clocked the shortest workweek on record in May, excluding a few stormy months of the past winter when weather-related absences spiked. In industries where pay averages up to $14.50 an hour, nonsupervisors clocked 27.4 hours, on average, less even than at the depths of the recession in mid-2009, an IBD analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data finds. For the rest of the private sector (managers and higher paying industries), by contrast, the workweek has fully recovered from the recession and tacked on an extra 15 minutes or so. Amid a strengthening job market, the BLS hours worked...

Remember the President’s repeated assurances that his bailouts and Obamacare would revive the economy? Those claims probably sound pretty hollow to the President’s one-time supporters, young adults. These eight graphs, which examine adults under the age of 25 who have moved out of their parents’ home, via PolicyMic, show that this group is suffering the worst from dwindling incomes and long-term unemployment.

Excellent interactive chart that shows, by County/Zip Code, how much your insurance costs have risen/will rise under the Un-Affordable Care Act.

In the denouement of the film There Will Be Blood, the antihero Daniel Planview dramatically reveals to his nemesis that he has secretly siphoned away all of the latter's underground oil. "Drainage!" he bellows, as only Daniel Day-Lewis can, "Drained dry. I'm so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching? And my straw reaches across the room, and starts to drink your milkshake. I... drink... your... milkshake! [sucking sound]" Through inflation (expanding the money supply), as I will show, the...

"Today is a win for transparency in government and the taxpayers of Wisconsin. The Court of Appeals has agreed with the MacIver Institute that Sen. Erpenbach cannot carve out a special exemption to the open records law for whomever he chooses or try to hide public information when he works for Wisconsin taxpayers," Brett Healy, President of the MacIver Institute said. "Government employees and their unions should not be given a cloak of anonymity to hide their attempts to influence the legislative process. Today's decision requires them to play by the same rules as everyone else." The Court of Appeals...

When the season dawned, Michigan State was the consensus pick to win the Big Ten. And for good reason, with talents like Gary Harris, Adreian Payne, Keith Appling and Branden Dawson, among others. Wisconsin? The Badgers were supposed to be good—they always are under Bo Ryan, never finishing lower than fourth place. But Ryan’s club has taken things to another level this season during an unexpected march to the Final Four as a No. 2 seed after going 12-6 in the Big Ten. At one point this season, Wisconsin was 4-5 in Big Ten play. Look at the Badgers now....

For the survivalist, outdoor enthusiast, hiker or end of world planner, this is the perfect long life vacuum packed one day supply of food. Set up like the military MRE Meal-Ready-To-Eat, this is a vacuum packed daily ration of food. And it all weighs under a pound. The total cost of this DIY full day supply of food is just a fraction of the cost of commercial freeze dried food packs. Anyone who has gone on an extended hike knows that every ounce of weight you carry adds up fast. It is important to get all of your gear down...

The rise of the modern "prepper" is no accident, with shows like National Geographic Channel's, 'Doomsday Preppers' heralding a larger shift in social awareness. In the wake of storms like Katrina, Irene, and Sandy, even stubborn New Yorkers are realizing that Mother Nature packs a punch, and that most people aren't ready to roll with it. This, combined with rising concerns about economic troubles ans a bumbling government, has caused a flood of newbie preppers to take to the stores, eagerly looking for the security of stored food, water, and medicines. The prospect can be daunting, especially if you're trying...

DRESSER, WI - Wisconsinites embrace winter almost as much as they love their cheese. It was only a matter of time until someone combined the two. "Only in Wisconsin," laughs Polk County plow driver Kevin Jensen. A flip of a switch and his truck starts dispensing a mix of salt and cheese brine, straight from a local dairy plant. "I've gotten ribbing from other counties," admits Moe Norby, the Polk County Highway Department technical support manager who came up with the idea. Norby contacted F & A Dairy Products in Dresser which bathes its mozzarella and provolone cheeses in tanks...