Free Republic

Eighty-one major corporations with operations in the U.S.—including Google, Facebook, Apple, Coca Cola and General Motors—have taken a White House pledge “to demonstrate their support for action on climate change and the conclusion of a climate change agreement in Paris that takes a strong step forward toward a low-carbon, sustainable future.” Signing the White House’s American Business Act on Climate Change Pledge shows a continuing commitment to action preventing global warming and is intended to set an example for other companies to pursue similar policies, according to a statement released by the White House. It also shows the signatories’ support...

Last year I took an Ethics class at school. Our professor gave us a lecture about the pros and cons of Capitalism. And at the end of the lecture, he asked us if we could define "crony capitalism". We all drew a blank. We'd all heard the phrase, but we didn't quite understand it. So he broke it down to us in very simplistic terms: "Let's sat that you own a cow. And your neighbor owns one hundred cows. But he's so greedy that he wants your cow, too. So he bribes corrupt politicians to pass laws that will take...

What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.

The standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) deescalated on April 12, when the bureau announced that it will stop its operation to confiscate Bundy’s cattle.But another aspect to this ongoing story is jumping: The blogosphere is alive with allegations that Senator Harry Reid (pictured), and his son, Rory, have motivations of their own for wanting Bundy’s cattle off the disputed lands.Though the major media announced that a “deal” had been reached between Bundy and the BLM, Bundy explained what transpired differently in an interview with KLAS TV in Las Vegas: “There is...

People in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico may not be grappling with the botched Obamacare website rollout, but the program could spell disaster for the island, which is facing a financial crisis and where half the population already is dependent on free health insurance, members of the island's medical community warned. Puerto Ricans, who are born U.S. citizens, do not enroll on the healthcare.gov because their government decided not to offer health-insurance exchanges, which offers private plans. Instead, the Affordable Care Act, commonly dubbed Obamacare, has mostly arrived on the island in the form of a $6.3 billion social...

At this point we have no idea how many people will become newly insured under ObamaCare. For the first year out, the number of people with insurance may actually go down! But the administration's goal is to insure an additional 30 million people and eventually a lot of those people will acquire health plans. When they do, the economic studies predict that they will try to double their use of the health care system. Adding to this increased demand will be new mandated benefits. The administration never seems to tire of reminding seniors that they are entitled to a...

Of all of the last-minute delays, website bungles, and Presidential whims that have marred the roll-out of Obamacare’s subsidized insurance exchanges, what happened on Thursday, December 12 will stand as one of the most lawless acts yet committed by this administration.

The Obama administration has been accused of cronyism after it was revealed the First Lady's Princeton classmate is a top executive at the company contracted to build the beleaguered Obamacare enrollment website. Toni Townes-Whitley is senior vice president at CGI Federal, the U.S. arm of a Canadian company, which won the no-bid contract for the problem-plagued website. Townes-Whitley, from the Princeton class of ’85, and Michelle Obama are members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni, according to The Daily Caller.

When Element Power announced on April 10 the closing of a deal to build wind turbines for Blackrock in Ireland, nothing was said about the more than 14,000 other wind turbines lying idle around the world. Nothing was said about Element’s recent termination of another deal to build 40 wind turbines over 4,000 acres on top of Black Lava Butte and Flat Top Mesa in California, citing in its “request to relinquish” that there were “insufficient wind resources” to make that project viable. Those 14,000 wind turbines lying idle in California’s Altamont Pass, Tehachapin, and San Gorgonio areas and elsewhere...

Since last weekend, Mr and Mrs Regular Citizen have been denied the access people used to be granted to tour the White House, purportedly because of the clampdown on federal spending since the "sequester" that imposed cuts across the board. And their cancellation is an austerity measure that saves a pittance, while more frivolous taxpayer funding for items like the White House dog walker continues. Meanwhile, noble Americans can buy time with the president for a suggested donation of $500,000 to his new campaign group, Organising for Action.

It’s a lucky thing for Tesla Motors shareholders that the U.S. Department of Energy loves the company’s loan applications. Without the hundreds of millions of dollars has received from the federal government this year, the electric-car maker’s financials would be gasping for air as 2012 winds down. Given the ugly state of Tesla’s finances — and the company’s sky-high valuation: almost $4 billion — it will rank among the top candidates in Silicon Valley for a 2013 stock collapse, unless it receives significantly more cash next year. The Palo Alto, Calif., company’s financials are, in fact, in worse shape even...

Suppose you saw a building on fire. Would you seek counsel from the arsonist who set it ablaze for advice on how to put it out? You say, "Williams, you'd have to be a lunatic to do that!" But that's precisely what we've done: turned to the people who created our fiscal crisis to fix it. I have never read a better account of our doing just that than in John A. Allison's new book, "The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure." Allison is the former CEO of Branch Banking and Trust, the nation's 10th largest bank. He assembles...

If there's been one topic that has entirely dominated the post-election landscape, it's the fiscal cliff. Will taxes be raised? Which programs will be cut? Who will blink first in negotiations? For all the talk of the fiscal cliff, however, I believe the US is facing a much more serious problem, one that has simply not been talked about at all: corruption. But this isn't the overt, "bartering of government favors in return for private kickbacks" corruption. Instead, this type of corruption has actually been legalized. And it is strangling both US competitiveness, and the ability for US firms to...

In mid-2008, General Motors was a failing company. Unable to unload their product line of gas guzzlers, the wrong cars and trucks to be trying to sell at a time of record high gasoline prices, the company's high union-driven high labor costs were combined with the extremely high pension and health care costs it had awarded its unions in better times, the company was quickly heading for bankruptcy and quite possibly for liquidation. In that environment, GM decided to bet big on a new mass market production car, one that could deliver 50 miles per gallon - more than double...

This is the first I’ve heard of this, but if true, it’s troubling because it’s one more reason that experience in business really doesn’t translate to governance. Right Across the Atlantic is reporting that Romney went on a trip while governing Massachusetts, paid by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, that ultimately looked like a sort of crony capitalism deal, but Romney side-stepped it by going on vacation so that his Lt. Governor would sign the bill, relieving him of any ethics investigation worries. In fact, the whole manner of the episode is troubling, and you should check out the article in...

Gingrich returned to the stump Thursday with a heavy dose of populism and defended himself against charges of being anti-capitalist and anti-free enterprise. "I think when you have crony capitalism of politicians taking care of their friends, that's not free enterprise, that's just backdoor socialism in which the rich get all the money and the rest of us get left, get left with all the debt," Gingrich told an audience of senior citizens gathered at the state fair grounds for a convention. Gingrich said he's been "amazed" by the intensity of critics who he said are attacking him for questioning...

Economic Systems: The former head of the Service Employees International Union says capitalism is on the ash heap of history and sees China as our role model. We have seen his future, however, and it doesn't work. President Obama once reportedly told aides, according to the New York Times, that things would be easier if he were president of China. Presumably he meant there would be no pesky things like a Congress, free elections and a free press to deal with. Former SEIU chief Andy Stern, who may still hold the record for visits to the White House under this...

Several of Barack Obama's top campaign supporters went from soliciting political contributions to working from within the Energy Department as it showered billions in taxpayer-backed stimulus money on alternative energy firms, ABC News and iWatch News have learned. One of them was Steven J. Spinner, a high-tech consultant and energy investor who raised at least $500,000 for the candidate. He became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's key loan program advisors while his wife's law firm represented a number of companies that had applied for loans. Recovery Act records show Allison Spinner's law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, received...

It’s as if Solyndra never happened. The Obama Administration is giving $737 million to a Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. PCG is an investment partner with SolarReserve. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law happens to be the number two man at PCG. Team Obama is spending $737 million to create 45 permanent jobs. The Hill reported, via Free Republic: The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project. The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009...

As Tina wrote yesterday, Americans still favor government subsidies to companies unable to otherwise compete in the green-tech industry. That may be especially true of Nancy Pelosi and her family, but not exactly for reasons of environmental improvement. Let’s start with this report from The Hill, via Gateway Pundit and Instapundit, on the latest approved green-tech loan from the Department of Energy: DOE announced a $737 million loan guarantee to help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve....