Free Republic

Denunciations of the art market are a dime a dozen, the bogeymen equally manifold: speculative collectors, corrupt dealers, artists enlisted to mint an alternative currency for global circulation. But when one of the world’s most high-profile economists calls for the art market’s regulation, as Nouriel Roubini did last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, people tend to listen. Speaking at a lunch event hosted by the weekend edition of the Financial Times, Roubini denounced the use of art “for tax avoidance and evasion.” “While art looks as if it is all about beauty, as a business it...

Human Events’ readers, in an online poll, recently voted billionaire financier George Soros “the single most destructive leftist demagogue in the country.” Here are the Top 10 Reasons George Soros Is Dangerous1. Gives billions to left-wing causes: Soros started the Open Society Institute in 1993 as a way to spread his wealth to progressive causes. Using Open Society as a conduit, Soros has given more than $7 billion to a who’s who of left-wing groups. This partial list of recipients of Soros’ money says it all: ACORN, Apollo Alliance, National Council of La Raza, Tides Foundation, Huffington Post, Southern Poverty...

The Church of Scientology has aired a Super Bowl ad in light of ongoing controversy over a Sundance documentary centered on the religion. The ad features voiceover accompanied by quick clips of footage including a person hiking, a DNA strand and a close-up of an eye. [READ MORE Scientology Creates Twitter Account to Discredit New Movie] "We live in an age of searching: to find solutions, to find ourselves, to find the truth," the announcer says in the ad. "Now imagine an age in which the predictability of science and the wisdom of religion combined. Welcome to the age of...

VIRGIN Australia has become the first airline to react to months of declining jet fuel prices, announcing it will restructure its US airfares to reflect the savings. Although it will not do away with the fuel surcharge altogether, the airline will incorporate fuel costs into fares the same as other operating expenses. Flights from Brisbane and Sydney to Los Angeles, are the only routes Virgin Australia operates which attract a fuel surcharge of $680.

The GOP accepts the notion of climate change - but not the way Democrats wanted them to.Senate Republicans head-faked Democrats on climate change Wednesday, agreeing in a floor vote that the planet’s climate was changing, but blocking language that would have blamed human activity. In a complicated maneuver that was the first politically perilous test for Senate Republicans, the new majority party split up the votes that Democrats had hoped would force the GOP into an awkward roll call on whether they believed in the science behind climate change — just hours after President Barack Obama slammed Republicans in his...

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi announced the launch of an open-ended, expanded monthly 60 billion euro ($70 billion) private and public bond-buying program on Thursday. The long-anticipated introduction of euro zone government bond purchases will bring the ECB's buying program into line with the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE). The program will be open-ended, lasting until at least 2016, Draghi told reporters at his regular media conference on Thursday, and will start in March this year. The hope is that it will boost the region's painfully low inflation rate, which came in at an annual minus 0.2...

Obama: Many of you have told me that this isn’t what you signed up for—arguing past each other on cable shows, the constant fundraising, always looking over your shoulder at how the base will react to every decision. Imagine if we broke out of these tired old patterns. Imagine if we did something different.Well, that “different” he mentioned didn’t last long. Less than an hour after the speech, a fundraising e-mail from the Democratic Party went out, signed by the president. One frustrated tweeter wrote—quote—“You can’t be serious. After taking a dig at constant fundraising, Obama sends out a fundraising...

Florida's Cell phone and TV tax is a heavy burden on Florida's families......

While few Americans were fortunate enough to see a holiday bonus this year, there is one gift that American motorists have been enjoying of late; lower gas prices. Currently sitting at more than a dollar below the average price last year, U.S. drivers are projected to save somewhere between $380 and $750 dollars during 2015 if the prices hold. While wages have remained stubbornly flat for most workers, gas prices have provided a rare glimmer of hope for American workers, who have been struggling with an anemic job market, labor participation rates not seen since the 1970s, and median family...

Are the NYT's and James Risen at fault here? Investigators of the failed car bombing in Times Square are looking for a money courier they say helped funnel cash from overseas to finance a Pakistani-American's preparations to blow up the crude gasoline-and-propane bomb in the heart of New York, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Investigators have the name of the courier they believe helped Faisal Shahzad pay for the used SUV and other materials to rig up a car bomb that would have caused a huge fireball in Times Square if it had gone off, the official...

"....While he ended 2012 a scorned member of the Republican family, he has spent the past year a virtual kingmaker. His endorsement carried weight in the 2014-midterm primaries and he was a sought-after surrogate on the campaign stump. This “failed” nominee was so important to the GOP that his “ideas” summit,held last summer in Utah, drew the whole field of party luminaries and presidential contenders, from former running mate Rep. Paul Ryan to Sen. Rand Paul, Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Rob Portman, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee.[SNIP]With all of that said, however, I’m not sure if Romney is actually running...

Why are you and I enjoying the bounty of the richest country in the history of the world instead of grubbing around in the forest for roots and berries the way our ancestors did?It turns out people appear to have two very different answers to that question. And it’s not just ordinary people who disagree. Even the experts – economists and historians – disagree. That’s the view of Johnathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. (HT: Tyler Cowan)Haidt says problems that are “tame problems” can be solved by experts. These are problems like: How can...

U.S. policy created for humanitarian reasons 50 years ago has fueled a criminal pipeline from Cuba to Florida, enabling crooks from the island to rob American businesses and taxpayers of more than $2 billion over two decades. A yearlong Sun Sentinel investigation found money stolen in the United States streaming back to Cuba, and a revolving door that allows thieves to come here, make a quick buck and return.

FULL TITLE: FDA Approves Merck's HPV Vaccine, GARDASIL®9, to Prevent Cancers and Other Diseases Caused by Nine HPV types – Including Types that Cause About 90% of Cervical Cancer Cases KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved GARDASIL®9 (Human Papillomavirus 9-valent Vaccine, Recombinant), Merck’s 9-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, for use in girls and young women 9 to 26 years of age for the prevention of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and anal cancers caused by HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52 and...

New York City preschoolers will be heading back to class next week with memories of new holiday toys, vacation adventures, and, health officials hope, a flu shot.In fact, because of a new city requirement, young children can, for the first time in the city’s history, be excluded from class if they have not received a flu vaccination.The new rule, which applies to some 150,000 children in city-licensed day care centers and preschools, was quietly adopted by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the waning days of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration. 

Target has stirred outrage with an “Annie”-themed ad campaign featuring a white model in place of the black actress who stars in the latest film version of the rags-to-riches story. An online petition calling for the big-box retailer to remove the ads and apologize to "Annie" star Quvenzhané Wallis had accrued more than 10,000 signatures by Wednesday morning. The petition launched on Monday.

To those nattering nabobs of negativity who don’t trust government to do the right thing, or even to stop doing the wrong thing once discovered, I just want to say: “You’re right.” Again. Last April, a Washington Post exposé about a bizarrely tyrannical debt collection program caused the Social Security Administration (SAA) to publicly promise it would cease and desist from said program. The Social Security bureaucracy had been snatching the income tax refund checks of grown children whose parents, many decades ago, had allegedly been sent excess money intended for the care and feeding of these then-youngsters by this...

A bit of Hollywood history unfolded on Wednesday. And it might be a glimpse into the future. The controversial Sony Pictures comedy "The Interview" was released on YouTube, Google Play, the Microsoft Xbox video game console, and a special Web site. The movie, which started streaming online around 1 p.m. ET, costs $5.99 to rent and $14.99 to buy. So it is having historic simultaneous release in both living rooms and, come Christmas Day, about 300 independently-owned theaters across the United States.

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people — including 13 women working as corrections officers — who face racketeering, drug and money-laundering charges. It alleges that Tavon White, an inmate known as "Bulldog," took control of the prison gang soon after his arrival in 2009 on an attempted-murder charge. He is accused of building a network of...