Free Republic

One unfortunate aspect of tragedies, like this week's Hurricane Sandy, is that wrong-headed government policies so often prolong the pain experienced by disaster victims. Exhibit A are laws, like those in New York and New Jersey, prohibiting "price gouging" — defined as a merchant using the demand created by a natural disaster to charge more for items like gasoline, bottled water or generators. Before the hurricane hit, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie issued a stern warning against raising prices, stating, "The State Division of Consumer Affairs will look closely at any and all complaints about alleged price gouging. Anyone found...

While President Obama's quick to call for spending other people's money on public education, his campaign is extremely slow in paying its own bills — even when those bills are to the very public schools he wants to throw more taxpayer dollars at. Here's what President Obama said today in North Las Vegas at Canyon Springs High School, which is part of the Clark County School District. Obama focused his Nevada visit on education, warning that student achievement will drop if he doesn't win re-election and continue to pour resources into schools, colleges and universities. But when it came to...

LAS VEGAS — President Barack Obama is set to hold a campaign rally at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas on Wednesday, his first visit to Southern Nevada since Nevada Journal revealed that his campaign left taxpayers here on the hook for the costs of events at local public schools.Obama's campaign, Obama for America (OFA), left the Clark County School District with nearly $25,000 in unpaid bills from two rallies at Bonanza and Coronado high schools in 2008. Neither CCSD nor the Obama campaign would confirm for Nevada Journal the campaign's plans to pay for Wednesday's event.In 2008,...

Government created the housing bubble and has failed to fix the inevitable housing crash that followed — even after four years of trying. So what do believers in liberty and free enterprise propose? Freedom. Enforce contracts. Let the market work by allowing foreclosures. Is it going to be painful for some? Absolutely. But that pain — created by government inflating the housing bubble — is inevitable. Prolonging it is only hurting more and more people by delaying the recovery. And that's the true tragedy in this. By rewarding foreclosure, current government policy is ensuring that Nevada will have more foreclosure...

LAS VEGAS — As U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prepares to host his fifth annual National Clean Energy Summit on Aug. 7, a Nevada Journal examination of Nevada’s renewable energy sector shows that over $1.3 billion in federal funds funneled into geothermal, solar and wind projects since 2009 has yielded and is projected to yield just 288 permanent, full-time jobs. That’s an initial cost of over $4.6 million per job. Despite this, Sen. Reid continues to hype Nevada as the “Saudi Arabia of renewable energy,” even though the renewable energy subsidized with federal dollars and mandated under Nevada’s Renewable...

While President Obama's fundraising woes are making national headlines, is his Obama for America campaign looking to cut costs by shortchanging school districts and municipalities for the cost of his events?As the President crisscrosses the country in his bid for re-election, holding campaign rallies and fundraisers in towns and cities across America, local governments keep attempting — and failing — to get his campaign to pay its event-related expenses.In Las Vegas, however, taxpayers — who for nearly four years had been on the hook for about $25,000 — finally received some reimbursement late last month. It was — coincidentally enough...

LAS VEGAS — If the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — commonly called “Obamacare” — is upheld by the United States Supreme Court, small businesses will not just pay tens of thousands of dollars more a year complying with regulations. They could also be forced to close, say two Nevada business owners. “A lot of businesses are bracing for this bill,” said Jeff Ecker, general manager of Paymon’s Mediterranean Cafe in Las Vegas. “Instead of spending money in the community, businesses are waiting to see if all the regulations from [Obamacare] are going to take effect.” Paymon’s has two...

James O'Keefe and the team at Project Veritas have done amazing work exposing just how easy it is to commit voter fraud in states where photo identification isn't required to vote. A member of his team was even offered Attorney General Eric Holder's ballot! In the Project Veritas investigations, an undercover reporter goes into a polling place and claims to be someone he isn't, usually a public figure or dead person. Since no photo identification is required, a poll worker looks up that name, verbally verifies the address and then offers the undercover investigator a chance to sign the poll...

(***Not applicable in Clark County***) It's possible to get fired, but after you're fired an arbitrator will reinstate you — with back pay — even while finding you manipulated the system for personal gain. Behold the wonders of binding arbitration and collective bargaining. Another Clark County firefighter fired last year over alleged sick leave abuse will get her job back. An arbitrator ruled Friday that former Battalion Chief Renee Dillingham, who was fired after emails appeared to show her creating a special roster for sick leave, is to be reinstated with full back pay. Arbitrator Frank Silver wrote, "Her...

Derek Yonai, an economics professor at Campbell University, had a great op-ed in Sunday's Las Vegas Review-Journal on how freeing Nevada's lands from federal control would increase economic growth in our state. The federal government owns approximately 85 percent of Nevada's land, preventing the state from developing those lands to improve its economy and allow for job creation. With just 15 percent of the state left to its people for potential private development, Nevadans are restrained in realizing their entrepreneurial potential. Making due with only 15 percent of one's resources would hinder anyone. Who can flourish on 15 percent of...

LAS VEGAS — The company behind the recently opened Silver State North solar plant is eligible to receive up to $50 million in federal tax credits under the Obama administration’s “stimulus” legislation, even though the plant created only two full-time jobs. According to a Department of Interior memo, Enbridge Energy Partners, a Canadian-based company with extensive energy holdings in the U.S. that purchased the Southern Nevada plant from Arizona-based First Solar, “can apply for payments of up to 30 percent of the eligible costs of the project — approximately $50 million.” The payments are available through the 1603 Program, a...

Lynn Warne is the president of the Nevada State Education Association, and she appeared on Anjeanette Damon's “To the Point” show over the weekend, where she made the following comment about AB 225 and some other minor education reform bills passed by the 2011 Legislature. (7:30 mark) Warne: Provisions in those bills [including AB 225], much of which we supported, really struck at the heart of what we feel are educators' rights, workers' rights, human rights really, and there was no compromise to be had. (Emphasis added)Striking at the heart of "human rights" is a serious charge, so let's consider...

In case you needed any more evidence that President Obama's "all of the above" talking point on energy policy is a joke, Nevada Assemblyman "Tick" Segerblom, D.-Clark County, just wrote an op-ed bragging about how a recent ruling from Obama's EPA will kill coal power. Media analysts from left and right are predicting that the most recent EPA rule-making decision spells the ultimate end of Big Coal as utilities turn to cleaner, cheaper sources for energy. In the five years since the Supreme Court made its ruling, Nevada has moved faster than many other states to accommodate a new regulatory...

From the Reno Gazette-Journal: Nearly two years after Reno started installing energy-producing windmills at city facilities from downtown to Stead, some have proven to be better at generating electricity than others despite claims made by manufacturers. The city’s seven windmills have so far saved Reno $2,785 in energy costs after generating 25,319 kilowatt-hours of electricity. The windmills were installed between April and October 2010 and cost about $1 million out of a $2.1 million federal energy grant given to the city that was part of the stimulus package approved by Congress in February 2009. That’s according to data available...

I’m not interested in rehashing the details of the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke controversy, because this sensationalist storyline has distracted so many people from the infinitely more important debate on whether the federal government ought to be able to force health-insurance providers to cover the purchase of contraceptives. It is, fundamentally, a debate over the very nature of government. It’s a debate that those of us who believe in limited government and individual freedom ought to welcome. And it’s one we need to win. That’s because it’s a debate that so perfectly illuminates the core differences between the two main competing...

I'm referring, of course, to the new Las Vegas City Hall. City officials, led by Mayor Carolyn Goodman, have been putting out a ridiculous talking point, bragging that the new city hall will save Las Vegas $400,000 a year in energy costs. "This is an incredible night for us all," the mayor [Carolyn Goodman] said. She said the energy efficient building, which features 33 "solar trees" in the front that generate electricity, will reduce the energy costs by more than $400,000 a year. The same talking point has also been in the RJ multiple times.* Now, we at NPRI are...

Obama re-election campaign co-chair uses her position as a public school counselor to steer students into volunteering for the Obama campaign in order to earn class credit.

See yesterday's post for a refutation of the "rich don't pay their fair share" fallacy. Today, I'd like to address the economic philosophy behind that statement and why it is also wrong. The unstated, underlying economic assumption that many leftists make is that the rich have to pay their "fair share," because the rich are wealthy only because they have taken from society or the poor and that government must right that wrong through taxes or "spreading the wealth around." Nothing could be further from the truth. What's amazing about free-market capitalism is that the way you get rich is...

No joke. Here's what Secretary Steven Chu, a top official in the Obama administration who's in charge of the U.S. Department of Energy, claimed today at Sen. Harry Reid's National Clean Energy Summit: So the government played an incredibly intimate role in all the technologies that led to prosperity in the United States, and we must not lose sight of that fact. And if you don't believe he said that — and given how ludicrous that statement is, I wouldn't blame you — here's video of his comment (30:50 mark). Browse through these lists of 10 popular inventions and the top...

Alternative headline: What political correctness leads to. The new legislation means that both the mother and father are allowed to leave work for an hour during the day or reduce their working day by half an hour during the first nine months following the birth of a child. The European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled on Thursday that the Spanish law caused an "unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex" because fathers do not have the same rights as mothers. Fathers are currently only allowed to apply for breastfeeding leave if the mother is employed full time.