Free Republic

As the girls dig in to their math problems, Farrier contemplates the Republican presidential candidates who are vying for the support of homeschoolers like her. "They're wooing us. It feels really good," she says.

When Bank of America announced last week that it would charge $5 a month to customers who make purchases with their debit card, customers railed against the bank. Many conservatives and libertarians said the anger should be aimed at Congress and the Obama administration, which, through last year's Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, effectively outlawed the old debit card business model, spurring Bank of America to make this change. But the real culprit is Walmart and the retail lobby, which used government to squeeze banks and fatten their own bottom line. Walmart won, banks lost, and now customers are stuck with...

Madison - The top four spenders on lobbying the Legislature during the first half of 2011 were labor unions fighting against Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to curb collective bargaining, a report released Thursday showed. The four unions spent $6.3 million in the first six months of the year, the Government Accountability Board reported. Walker introduced his plan in February and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it in March. The unions helped organize rallies at the Capitol in protest over the bill that grew as large as 100,000 people. The debate, which captured the nation's attention, also spurred Democratic senators to leave...

When congressional leaders earlier this month named six lawmakers from each party to a debt reduction “supercommittee,” investing unprecedented power in a tiny cadre to slash funding, they set off a wild scramble among special interest groups to gain access and protect their interests. Yet many groups with the most at stake didn’t have to change their plans. Some members of the supercommittee received more campaign contributions in July from political action committees controlled by corporations, unions and other lawmakers than anyone else in Congress, disclosures filed this weekend show. Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican who chairs the tax-writing House...

WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India’s control of much of Kashmir — including funneling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed Tuesday. Representative Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania was among the politicians who may have unwittingly received donations that originated from Pakistan's military. Representative Dan Burton of Indiana is another politician who may have unknowingly received money funneled from Pakistan's military. The allegations of a long-running plan to influence American elections and...

Missoula, MT --(Ammoland.com)- You may remember that following the 2009 legislative session, Helena Mayor and lobbyist for the Montana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (MSPOA), Jim Smith, filed a complaint against me with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices (CPP). In that complaint, Smith alleged that I had violated Montana law by illegally lobbying the Legislature without having been registered as a lobbyist with the CPP. I responded that I was merely exercising my First Amendment rights to speak to legislators and to you. Montana law requires people to register as lobbyists if they are paid to influence the Legislature...

This new interview with American author Alice Walker gives a brilliant insight into what motivates trendy pro-Palestinian sentiment in the West today. Notice how effortlessly she flits between talking about Palestinians in Gaza and chickens in factory farms. In one breath she talks about the “cruel and inhuman” treatment meted out to Palestinians, who are “frazzled and suffering everyday”. And in the next she talks about chickens that are “raised under horrible, torturous conditions”, and the fact that people who tuck into chicken dinners don’t realise that they are eating “something precious, beautiful, rare”. Palestinians and chickens – these seem...

Bribery charges upset Qatar's soccer field of dreams - News Britain's Sunday Times newspaper earlier this month alleged that two members of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) took bribes of $1.5 million to back Qatar's 2022 bid.

Washington, D.C. radio station WMAL is once again being accused of firing a popular talk show host because of his criticism of radical Muslims. The station, a major source of news and information for the nation’s capital, claims that popular morning host Fred Grandy resigned on his own, but Grandy tells AIM that he was essentially forced to leave after his wife, who is also outspoken about radical Islam, was cut from the program...........

To big rounds of applause, three of the world’s richest men — Richard Branson, Ronald W. Burkle and Vinod Khosla — trooped onto a New York ballroom stage with former President Bill Clinton to pledge support for renewable energy projects to combat global warming and create jobs. It was September 2006, and the Clinton Global Initiative, the annual star-studded networking event for philanthropists and investors, had generated commitments to spend billions on ethanol and other alternative fuels. Cast as good works, many were also investments by businessmen hoping for a profit. And sitting in the audience was an influential public...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A ruling by the Obama administration allowing the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol is running into legal hurdles from trade groups opposing the plan. The National Petrochemical and Refiners Association sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday over the decision to allow the sale of gasoline containing higher blends of corn-based ethanol, the second major group to protest the ruling. The Obama administration said in October that gas stations could start selling the ethanol blend for vehicles built since the 2007 model year, increasing it from the current blend of 10 percent ethanol.

ABC News continues to behave like they are working hand-in-hand with the Obama Administrations’ health care take-over message machine. The latest effort came from ABC News Political Director Amy Walter as she offered a harsh warning to Republicans: Don’t mess with ObamaCare (video below). In 2009, ABC News reporter Linda Douglass was named the Director of Communications for the White House Office of Health Reform. Her infamous warning against mis-information from the right about ObamaCare with her plea for Americans to report their fellow citizens who spread the conservative message on the health care legislation to “Flag@WhiteHouse.gov” got most of...

Stil doubting the 'power' of the ARAB LOBBY, after the giant U.S. lost to 'bad sportsmen' of Qatar? Think again! US World Cup snub shows Qatari lobbying power | ProSports Colorado Dec 2, 2010 ... In Qatar, FIFA officials saw an opportunity to accomplish two goals in ... The reality is that Qatar is the uber-elite of the Arab world, ...http://www.prosportscolorado.com/2010/12/02/3839-us-world-cup-snub-shows-qatari-lobbying-power/ And this is just a tip of the iceberg of global Arab lobby. Of course it's not just about sports. Now, understand how the [international arena, like: the] United Nations and Amnesty work, and for whom - most of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is considering giving a speech in January to the Chamber of Commerce, a major business lobby, as part of a new outreach to corporations, a White House official said on Saturday. The White House and the chamber have tussled repeatedly during the first two years of Obama's administration over policies that the group has portrayed as unfriendly to business. After the November 2 congressional elections, which handed Republicans control of the House of Representatives and shrank Democrats' majority in the Senate, Obama said he had to do a better job of making sure the...

Blaming congressional inaction, the nation's largest doctors' lobby is urging lawmakers this month to block a steep cut scheduled to hit Medicare doctors at the start of December. The American Medical Association (AMA) is warning that a failure to prevent the cut would be "a catastrophe for seniors" because many doctors would stop seeing Medicare patients altogether. Physicians are facing a 23 percent cut on Dec. 1, and an additional 1.9 percent cut is scheduled for Jan. 1. "This is not about doctors," AMA President Cecil Wilson told reporters on a press call Monday. "It's about access to care for...

Today, Bard shows, the Arab lobby's goals include feeding America's oil addiction, obtaining more sophisticated weaponry, and weakening our alliance with a democratic Israel. [...] The most powerful member of the Arab lobby is Saudi Arabia, which has a nearly eighty-year relationship with the United States. From the earliest days, when American companies first discovered oil in the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis have used a variety of tactics, including threats and bribes, to coerce U.S. policy makers to ignore their human rights abuses, support of terrorism, and opposition to American interests. Today, Bard shows, the Arab lobby's goals include feeding...

Success or failure for a political lobbyist often comes down to access; without easy access to legislators, it is naturally much harder to apply the pressure to drive legislation in the desired direction. But lobbyists in Austin, Texas, may soon begin applying a variation on Chairman Mao’s saying, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” — albeit not in the way the Marxist dictator had in mind. The possible trend toward lobbyists “packing heat” may come about due to an aspect of Texas’ laws regulating concealed handgun licenses (CHL). Over 402,000 Texans have been issued a CHL,...

President Barack Obama’s political director failed to disclose that he was slated to receive a nearly $40,000 payout from a large labor union while he was working in the White House. Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. . .

Also sanctions a call to "Throw the Jews in the ovens"Jeremiah Wright's dislike for "them Jews" and Israel is well known, and perhaps Barack Obama--who belonged to Wright's racist church for more than 20 years--shares this dislike as shown by the fact that his campaign staff officially sanctioned the phrase "Israel lobby" as code for "Jewish lobby." From My.BarackObama.com, Hi [EMK], Thank you so much for your involvement in the My.BarackObama online community. Your voice is valued here; however, we were forced to remove your recent blog post that referred to the “Jewish lobby.” Please use the more specific and...

Daley’s vehement opposition to private handgun ownership exemplifies the demagoguery which the entire gun prohibition movement embraces in its campaign of public disarmament. The people have wised up. As a result, anti-gun groups have lost so much momentum that they have been unable to push their agenda even with a Congress controlled by the far left fringe of the Democrat party, and with an anti-gun president in the White House. Americans are not as gullible as the gun prohibition lobby thought. The public has seen restrictive gun laws fail. Gun-free zones haven’t stopped shootings at schools or shopping malls. Gun...