Free Republic

The debate over global warming is now entering the classroom and its proponents are alarmed. It seems the “dogma” of the existence of global warming is running into problems as boards of education in several states have established a standard that requires the presentation of climate change “denial” as a valid scientific position. Legislators in other states have introduced bills that require equal time for climate change skeptics’ views in the classroom. With new national science standards from kindergarten through twelfth grade due by the end of 2012, we can expect to see a heated debate over climate change appear...

Unbeknownst to the press, President Obama met this evening with former president George H.W. Bush and his son, former Florida governor Jeb Bush in the Oval Office. White House officials did not list the meeting on the president's schedule but released a photo through Flickr and Twitter. According to the date and time stamp on the photo, it was taken shortly after 5 p.m. That's about the time Obama returned to the White House from a fundraiser at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. White House officials did not immediately respond to questions about the subject of the meeting and its exclusion...

Only a few days ago I attended a community meeting here in the Flathead Valley of Montana which revolved around the first of a series of gubernatorial debates covered by webcast across the state. The number of Republican candidates vying in the primaries of this election is a bit absurd, and after witnessing the half-hearted or outright fake performances by most of them, I can see quite clearly that the state of Montana is being targeted by Neo-Con interests posing as Constitutionalists in an attempt to neutralize the extraordinary advance of the Liberty Movement here. What struck me most sharply...

A Judge has ruled that the ballot will stand as is for the Virginia primary with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney as the only candidates in the presidential primary. In a 22 page ruling the Judge basically said that the Plaintiff’s: Perry,Gingrich,Santorum,Huntsman waited too long to file their request for an injunction. The Judge said: “In essense, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair,” Judge Gibney pulled no punches here: “They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago; the limitations on circulators affected them as soon as they began to circulate petitions. The...

The “improving” unemployment statistics being touted by the Obama Administration have been helped along by the nearly one million people who have left the workforce. The ballyhooed 8.5% unemployment rate would’ve been 9.1% if these people weren’t so discouraged that they’ve given up on the idea of ever finding a job. “While I would never expect the Republicans to admit this, the fact is that Democratic policies are enabling a growing segment of our society to join the ranks of the leisure class,” boasted Democratic Nation Committee Chairperson, Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (Fla). “It’s not as if everyone who has a...

When asked by TIME Magazine whether Mitt Romney is a job creator or destroyer, Warren Buffett said that while businesses shouldn't hang on to people they don't need, "I don't like what private-equity firms do in terms of taking out every dime they can and leveraging [companies] up so that they really aren't equipped, in some cases, for the future." Voters need to understand the kind of economy Mitt Romney's experience entails - and it doesn't sound like the kind of economy that's built to last. Gasparino Speaks to Daley How will Romney respond? Does not signify in the end....

WASHINGTON — As the housing bubble entered its waning hours in 2006, top Federal Reserve officials marveled at the desperate antics of home builders seeking to lure buyers. The officials laughed about the cars that builders were offering as signing bonuses, and about efforts to make empty homes look occupied. They joked about one builder who said that inventory was “rising through the roof.” But the officials, meeting every six weeks to discuss the health of the nation’s economy, gave little credence to the possibility that the faltering housing market would weigh on the broader economy, according to transcripts that...

SEATTLE, Wash.– Some 300 Chinese Foxconn employees who manufacture X-box 360 machines said they would throw themselves from their Wuhan, China, plant if demands for lost wages were not met. China Jasmine Revolution, an activist revolutionary organization with a name borrowed from the Tunisian revolt that set off the Middle East unrest, reported that employees made their demands for a wage increase for 100 employees on Jan. 2. Management at Foxconn — the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and a crucial link in the supply chains of Apple, Dell, Nintendo and Song — responded with an ultimatum.

We Are All Occupiers Now. If Romney’s opponents embrace the rhetoric and class warfare of the Occupy Wall Street crowd any closer, they’re going to start pooping on police cars. [emphasis mine] So, here we are, at the day of the first primary, and the main objection to Mitt Romney from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry is that he fired a bunch of people? More than his liberal-softie sounding rhetoric in 1994 and 2002? More than his crusade to liberate us from the individual mandate of Obamacare in order to leave the states free to enact their own individual mandates?...

Obama: Republicans Want to Emulate China, Roll Back Minimum Wage, Prevent Unionization By Fred Lucas January 10, 2012 Subscribe to Fred Lucas's posts (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting to make America more like China, of seeking to roll back the minimum wage and of wanting to prevent collective bargaining and said the GOP wants to “get rid” of clean air and water rules. Obama made the comments Monday at a campaign fundraiser at the Capital Hilton in Washington on the eve of the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary. “Republicans in Congress and these candidates, they think...

Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer, works on farming and developing his own seeds for 50 years. When his fields were contaminated, Monsanto threatened him, intimidated him, and tried to take his land away. He took them to court.

In the early 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. While Great Britain's maritime power and its far-flung empire had propelled it to a dominant position among the world's industrialized nations, only the United States challenged Argentina for the position of the world's second-most powerful economy. It was blessed with abundant agriculture, vast swaths of rich farmland laced with navigable rivers and an accessible port system. Its level of industrialization was higher than many European countries: railroads, automobiles and telephones were commonplace. In 1916, a new president was elected. Hipólito Irigoyen had formed a party...

At 15, Jarvis Nelson should be in high school and even thinking about college. Yet Jarvis is in seventh grade, and doesn’t know where he’ll go to high school — or even where he will be living — when he graduates from junior high, hopefully next year. That’s because Jarvis has attended three different schools in the past four months. He’s lived in three different places on the North and South Sides of the city — including his most recent home, a temporary shelter in Lake View. Jarvis, like thousands of other students in Chicago Public Schools, is homeless. He...

Poisoned cat-meat stew is suspected to have been used to kill a billionaire in southern China. Police have detained a local official in Guangdong province in connection with the sudden death of Long Liyuan on 23 December. The official, Huang Guang, is suspected of adding a toxic plant to the stew at a restaurant where they were eating. A police statement said the two were involved in a dispute after Mr Huang allegedly embezzled money from Mr Long. Mr Huang, an agriculture official in Bajia, took Mr Long, who ran a forestry company, to visit a piece of woodland on...

Formerly Great Cities All Over America Are Turning Into Open, Festering SoresJanuary 1, 2012 Once upon a time, the people of the United States constructed beautiful, shiny cities from coast to coast that were the envy of the entire globe. We had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen and life was quite good in America. But now all of our prosperity is coming crashing down and many of our formerly great cities are turning into open, festering sores. Unfortunately, we are drowning in so much debt that we can barely even slow down...

Following criticism from customers for its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, domain registrar Go Daddy today said that it's no longer backing the legislation. "Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman in a statement. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it." In addition, the company...

MONA CHAREN DECEMBER 23, 2011 Merry Manly Christmas and Hanukkah The code of the gentleman is not obsolete. This is the time of year to turn our thoughts to noble sentiments and inspiring stories. William Bennett, who has established something of a cottage industry in uplift, has a new book out that celebrates and explicates all that is bracing, wholesome, affecting, and necessary about men and manliness That such a book is required, it must be acknowledged, is not good news about our cultural health, and Bennett introduces The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood with tidings...

BUENOS AIRES–Argentina's senate passed a controversial bill Thursday that gives the government control over newsprint, boosting the power of President Cristina Kirchner's administration in its battle against the opposition media. The legislation gives the state control over Papel Prensa SA, the country's leading producer of paper used to produce newspapers.

Items in the U.S. cost half what they do in Brazil, due to taxes, inflation and the real. Above, a Macy's crowd. Ana Ligia Paladino traveled 5,000 miles from her home in southernmost Brazil last month to jostle for Black Friday bargains at Macy's in New York City. Waiting in line by 5 a.m., she soon notched her first buys in a planned 10-day shopping spree. "It was a bagunça!" she recalled, using a Brazilian expression that means both mess and mayhem to describe the scene. Brazilian shoppers are taking the U.S. by storm this holiday season, a welcome boost...

Up in the AirWill America lose its dominance of the skies? There were a number of reasons last week to look up to the sky and wonder about the future of airpower. In a world in which the United States will have smaller ground and naval forces, we will likely become more dependent on land- and sea-based airpower to deter or defeat enemies. The proper employment of air assets as part of a joint force allows for nearly instantaneous response to crises, saves American lives, and can bring pinpoint devastation to an enemy’s forces and command-and-control systems. Yet along with...

I decline to make Christmas a grenade in the politicized culture wars our nation is coming to specialize in. I refuse to let the thought or mention of Christmas fill me with anger and resentment. I resolve to let the thought of Christmas be an occasion of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) Does that mean I believe there’s no hostility to Christmas in our culture? Of course there is. There has always been hostility to Christmas because there has always been hostility to Christ in our culture—and in every culture. The rationale for the...

... Never before have so many of the unemployed owed their job loss, not indirectly at all, but quite obviously directly, to the intentional, conscious directives of their president and his direct appointees, the czars and cabinet secretaries who have launched a direct frontal assault on industry after industry ever since their appointments. Consider: Car Dealers: In 2009, though everyone knew that the problems dooming Chrysler and General Motors were their enormous property and property tax obligations caused by too big, too old, factories, and their utterly unsupportable labor and pension costs, Barack Obama ordered the closure of over 3000...

Global Economic Crisis: The U.S. An Insolvent And Ungovernable Country Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2012 Dec 18, 2011 - 11:57 AM By: LEAP As announced in previous GEABs, in this issue our team presents its anticipations on the changes in the United States for the period 2012-2016. This country, the epicentre of the global systemic crisis and pillar of the international system since 1945, will go through a particularly tragic in its history during these five years. Already insolvent it will become ungovernable bringing about, for Americans and those who depend on the United States violent and destructive economic,...

CLEVELAND, Ohio--The giant presses that once stamped out hoods and door panels at Chrysler's Twinsburg plant are finding new homes -- and one of them is China. The Gisele Scan, a 469-foot cargo ship docked at the Port of Cleveland, is taking on massive press sections and parts-filled containers for delivery to the Port of Xingang. It's been slow going because of the weather and the need to carefully position the bulk cargo on board for a safe voyage, said David Gutheil, vice president for maritime and logistics at the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority. The ship will sail eastward, Gutheil...

Vietnam says an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease has killed 156 people, mostly children, and sickened more than 96,000 through late November. ... The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel alert Monday urging people visiting Vietnam to protect themselves from the disease by practicing "healthy personal hygiene."

...Turkey has grown in influence and authority as a regional power in the Western Balkans, Central and South Asia and the Horn of Africa. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has been a key interlocutor, not least on Afghanistan where he made a huge personal contribution to last month's conference in Istanbul. With Turkey as host, for the first time, Afghanistan's neighbours have agreed to implement political and security measures to underpin the cause of reconciliation... Turkish economic growth has been exponential. Turkey is the 16th largest economy in the world and will assume the Presidency of the G20 in 2015....

International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde has warned the Great Depression of the 1930s may repeat itself unless the EU pulls together and gets foreign help. Fresh unemployment statistics added to the gloom by highlighting the social cost of austerity. “If the international community does not work together, the risk from an economic point of view is that of retraction, rising protectionism, isolation. This is exactly the description of what happened in the Thirties and what followed is not something we are looking forward to," Lagarde said in a speech delivered to the US State Department on Thursday (15...

EU countries have raised a red flag over Israel's treatment of its Arab minority in a complaint that touches the heart of its identity as a "Jewish state." The deputy heads of EU embassies in Tel Aviv put forward their concerns in a 27-page-long internal report sent to the European Exernal Action Service (EEAS) earlier this month. The contents were first revealed by Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday (16 December) morning. EUobserver has also seen the "Conclusions" and the "Recommendations" parts of the paper. The Conclusions were endorsed by all 27 member states. The Recommendations were cut from the final...

Census has released their new Supplemental Poverty Measure and I’m afraid that people are still getting the points about US poverty wrong. The SPM does indeed cure some of the problems with the old measures which I discussed here. But it introduces a new and quite glaring error at the same time.This is what leads such as Felix Salmon into the quite erroneous gambit of directly comparing the two methods of poverty measurement and the number of people who are poor in the US.Just to recap the argument about the old method (which is still the official method by the...

A young couple hopping railroad cars across the country was found dead under a mound of coal at a Florida power plant. Christopher Artes, 25, and Medeana Hendershot, 22, shared a passion for illegally hopping freight trains and traveling the country without a set plan...

DECEMBER 15, 2011, 12:58 P.M. ET. UPDATE: US Commerce Secretary: Won't Accept China Ignoring Trade --New Commerce chief signals tough stance with China on trade --Criticizing Congress, urges companies to join in effort to create jobs --Pledges to revive manufacturing, attract more investment to U.S. (Updates with additional comments, background starting in 11th paragraph) By Tom Barkley Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The new head of the U.S. Commerce Department vowed Thursday to hold China accountable for unfair trade practices and revive the American manufacturing base, urging the business community to join in the effort to create jobs. John...

China imposes tariff on US car imports Additional duties will be charged on larger-engined American cars with General Motors, Chrysler and BMW all affected. GMC trucks at a General Motors dealership in Los Angeles China is to charge import tariffs on US cars such as these General Motors SUVs. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters The tension between America and China over international trade escalated on Wednesday when Beijing imposed additional duties on cars imported from the United States. China's commerce ministry accused America's car industry of "dumping and subsidising", thereby causing substantial damage to China's domestic car industry. From Thursday, levies will...

60 Minutes, as usual, had a very nearly excellent program last week on the economic collapse, and they were all upset because no one has been arrested; no particular person appears to be under investigation.  They have a good reason to be upset, but they seemed, at least in this report (and in several previous programs), to be clueless as to why. What happened at the end of 2008 changed history and the direction of the United States.  Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson goes to President George Bush and tells him, “The banks in the United States are about to collapse. ...

A recent multi think-tank publication entitled “Shared Goals, Converging Interests: A Plan for U.S.–Australia–India Cooperation in the Indo–Pacific,” has apparently been the source of an about-face by Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. Co-published by Australia’s Lowy Institute, India’s Observer Research Foundation, and the U.S. Heritage Institute, the authors called for a tripartite defense pact between the United States, Australia, and India in a world where “the rise of China…is posing the first serious challenge to U.S. military preeminence in Asia in half a century.” While there have been no official intergovernmental talks about this particular defense pact, on November 30,...

The holidays are a season for giving and spending time with loved ones. However, this year taxpayers will be adding Uncle Sam to their Christmas list. Of an identified $10.72 billion of holiday spending, 43.36 percent of the price Americans pay to celebrate Christmas is due to government taxes, fees and other costs. This season, not even Christmas trees are safe from the government grinch. The Obama Administration has applied a 15 cent tax on each Christmas tree sold, meaning government now composes 31.19 percent of the price of an average 40 dollar Christmas tree. While implementation of the tax...

How do you decide whether you are wealthy or not? Do you determine that by how much money you spend at the stores? Of course not. You can tell if you are wealthy or not by comparing your assets (the money in your bank account, equity in your home, etc.) to your liabilities (your mortgage, credit card debt, student loan debt, etc.). Well, a lot of Americans seem to believe that just because a lot of money is circulating in our economy that it must mean that we are a wealthy nation. But that is simply not true. To...

OUR COLD WELCOME October 24, 2010: We’ve arrived – or I have. Half my film crew have been arrested and deported. Everything is going fine at Seattle airport until they find out we are doing a film about Sarah Palin. The authorities go mad. They search our bags and detain my two researchers. Sarah, 22, is subjected to a urine test against her wishes – just in case she is pregnant and tries to get citizenship by giving birth on US soil. Her colleague Mark is spreadeagled against the wall and given a rectal search before being handcuffed. The 25-year-old...

T o many, America’s industrial heartland may look like a place mired in the economic past—a place that, outcompeted by manufacturing countries around the world, has too little work to offer its residents. But things look very different to Karen Wright, the CEO of Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Wright’s biggest problem isn’t a lack of work; it’s a lack of skilled workers. “We have a very skilled workforce, but they are getting older,” says Wright, who employs 1,200 people at three Ohio factories. “I don’t know where we are going to find replacements.” That may sound odd, given...

Apple could face disruption to its iPad sales in China after a court rejected its claim to own the iPad trademark in the country and a rival sought to halt sales of the tablet device in two Chinese cities. The developments are the latest in a long-running dispute between Apple and Proview Technology (Shenzhen), a struggling Taiwanese-owned company that registered trademarks for the name IPAD in many countries long before Apple conceived its smash hit tablet computer. >SNIP< Huizhou Intermediate People’s Court has scheduled a hearing in the other for January 7. “We are starting with these two cities, and...

China-geddon: A China crash will be scarier than Europe Venky Vembu Dec 2, 2011 Say you’re at a railway station, waiting for the slow train to eurogeddon. You’ve been told that the eurozone is in deep trouble with all those piles of debt, that it will fall apart inevitably, dismembering the euro and inflicting pain and misery around the world. Months go by, and although there’s a lot of shunting and hooting, and lots of frenetic activity, the eurogeddon train doesn’t steam in. You begin to grow impatient, and wonder if the train is coming at all. And then in...

Greece examining ‘free’ US tank offer ATHENS — Cash-strapped Greece is considering a free offer of hundreds of redundant M1A1 Abrams tanks extended by the US government, the Greek army said on Wednesday. “This is a free offer,” army spokesman Yiannis Sifakis told AFP. “A delegation of officers has travelled to the United States to examine tanks in storage; we are departing on the premise of picking 400 of them,” he said. “The only cost will be that of transport, which is estimated in the region of eight million euros ($11 million),” the spokesman added. Ta Nea daily reported that...

UN Mischief from Durban to Rio by Phyllis Schlafly November 30, 2011 The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa opening on November 28, called COP-17, is one of a series of UN meetings working toward a specific goal. Advertising for this meeting features a long list of invited celebrities including Angelina Jolie, U2's Bono, Ted Turner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore, and Michael Bloomberg. The UN goal is to move the United States into global government by environmental regulations and a vast network of taxes. These newly-imposed taxes will give the UN a tremendous stream of money in...

You're on the trading floor, trying to price out if a 15-year bond issued by General Electric will generate the returns needed to placate your investors. Bad news, your calculator is dead and the trader from Cantor Fitzgerald is readying to signal his buy. What to do? Well, if all you need to do is double the investment in five-years, you're in luck. That's probably not the case, and GE probably isn't issuing 15-year debt. But we compiled a list of six math tricks that might just come in handy. If you have a math trick you'd like us to...

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A woman in the border city of Laredo, Texas who was angry because she had been denied food stamps killed herself and shot and critically wounded her two children late on Monday, authorities said on Tuesday.

Playing baseball games without keeping score. Parents not allowed to cheer for one side or the other at basketball games. Refusing to use red ink to grade tests because it's too jarring. No dodgeball. Participation trophies. Telling kids, "You're special," without their doing anything to show they're special. Newsflash: You may be special to God, your mommy, and your teacher just because you were born, but the rest of us aren't impressed. The world doesn't owe you a living, a promotion, or any special consideration at all. The people who tell you otherwise are doing it because they think you're...

Mayor Mitch Landrieu and other city leaders deemed the sweep of Duncan Plaza and eviction of protestors a success Tuesday morning, just hours after New Orleans police disbanded the high-profile encampment. In a move that had been forecast for days, dozens of officers fanned out across the public square in an early morning operation, forcing out more than a hundred people, some of whom were homeless, and others who identified with the "Occupy NOLA" movement.Landrieu, speaking at a City Hall news conference, said he thought the police sweep was "well-timed and well-organized." One person was arrested, while dozens of others...

HARTFORD —— City officials say Occupy Hartford protesters must leave their encampment at the corner of Farmington Avenue and Broad Street by 6 p.m. Tuesday. Hartford Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts said protesters camping at the area they've named Turning Point Park have been notified that they risk being arrested after the deadline passes. "I don't anticipate any trouble, but I will take appropriate corrective action," Roberts said.

GOP Presidential Candidate Jon Huntsman dismissed Donald Trump and the debate the real estate mogul and reality TV star will be moderating, and told Larry Kudlow he’s the only consistent conservative in the race. The former Utah Governor and former ambassador to China likened the Newsmax-sponsored presidential debate to a reality show, and said he would not be participating. “There’s some dignity associated with a run for the highest office in the land, and it shouldn’t be trivialized and it shouldn’t be dumbed down,” he said. “If Don Trump cares about our nation’s future, he should have been a candidate...

DECEMBER 5, 2011 Trump’s Sideshow Debate In announcing that their candidate would not attend the Newsmax debate set to be moderated by Donald Trump in Iowa later this month, the Ron Paul campaign wrote, “The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the office of the Presidency and flies in the face of that office’s history and dignity.” We could not have put it any better than the Paul campaign, but it is bizarre that such a response was necessary in the first place. The statement goes on...

Argentina has launched a naval campaign to isolate the Falkland Islands that has seen it detain Spanish fishing vessels on suspicion of breaking the country’s “blockade” of the seas around the British territories. Argentine patrol vessels have boarded 12 Spanish boats, operating under fishing licences issued by the Falkland Islands, for operating “illegally” in disputed waters in recent weeks. Argentine patrol commanders carrying out interceptions near the South American coast told Spanish captains they were in violation of Argentina’s “legal” blockade of sea channels to the Falklands. The warning has been backed up in a letter to Aetinape, the Spanish...