Free Republic

In part one, we revealed there are only two kinds of government when you strip away all the smoke and mirrors. Big Government (BG) or Limited Government (LG). Or as we will see in this chapter, “top down” or “bottom up.” The choice you make determines if you support freedom or slavery. Today we’re going to talk about why in more detail. To start, I need to say that this chapter explores the role of religion as a tool of statecraft. It’s going to discuss how rulers use religion to get what they want. It is not a comment on...

On a recent Monday morning in southern Brooklyn, 20 kindergarteners sat on a rug, staring up at a photo of President Obama. Their teacher, Nitzan Graham, asked them, in Hebrew, to identify the parts of Obama's face, and the children were ecstatic, yelling out the Hebrew words for "nose" and "mouth." When the ruckus had died down, Graham asked Jasmine, a 5-year-old African-American girl with pigtails, to stand up. "What are these?" the teacher asked, pointing to Obama's eyes. "Ena'im!" the girl said gleefully. It's a typical morning at the Hebrew Language Academy, a charter school mostly funded by the...

Gov. Christie today declared that New Jersey had veered to the edge of bankruptcy and ordered a broad array of state cuts in an effort to make up a $2.2 billion deficit in the current budget amid falling revenues. Christie froze aid to more than 500 school districts and public colleges and universities, ordered the end to several state programs and the Office of Public Advocate, and seized unspent money across state government. "Today, we come to terms with the fact that we cannot spend money on everything we want,'' Christie told a special joint session of the legislature. "The...

There are claims of government attempts at tightening its grip on industry and business In the official language, such terms as "excessive earnings," "speculative earnings," and "fair prices," are more and more repeated to condemn speculation. Some of them will take legal shape. Mario Isea, the president of the National Assembly Economic Development Commission, confirmed it on January 20. In addition to the fast approval of the reform to the Law on Indepabis (Institute for the Defense of People in the Access to Goods and Services), the government will take steps towards a new Commercial Code, a law to regulate...

Our state is in fiscal crisis and our taxes are the highest in the nation. But that isn't stopping the Democrats in Trenton. Instead of looking to cut spending and lower our taxes, they are pushing through a series of tax-hiking bills in order to pay off their union backers. All of this during the lame duck session while Jon Corzine has one foot out the door and they think the rest of us aren't paying attention. Specifically, there are four pieces of legislation making their way through the legislature, all of which would mandate that prevailing wage requirements be...

THE Roads and Traffic Authority has proudly announced the success of a road safety program - for our State's native wildlife. To reduce the number of animals killed on NSW roads each year, the RTA has installed more than 200 animal crossings on NSW highways. Rather than wait for a break in the constant flow of traffic, native animals are using specifically built tunnels and bridges to cross roads. And some of Australia's favourite native creatures have been smiling for the cameras as they scurry by. A little possum was snapped crossing over a rope bridge that hangs above the...

The World Health Organization tried this week to dampen fears about mutations seen in the swine flu virus in several countries, noting that both mutations had been found in very few people. A change that created Tamiflu resistance has been found in about 75 people around the world, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, chief flu adviser to the W.H.O.’s director general. Two clusters, in cancer units at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina and a hospital in Wales, were both among patients whose immune systems had been severely suppressed by cancer treatment; some had had their bone marrow, which produces...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2009 – Realignment of military medical facilities in the national capital region ordered by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission is on track to meet the commission’s deadline, senior Defense Department officials said here yesterday. Walter Reed Army Medical Center here is consolidating with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and a new hospital is under construction at Fort Belvoir, Va. “Recommendations proposed a transition from a legacy service-specific medical infrastructure into a premier, modernized joint operational medicine platform,” said Allen W. Middleton, acting principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. “We are...

Just hours after Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa released a report Friday on their investigation into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, the Obama White House gave the lawmakers a trove of new, previously-withheld documents on the affair. It was a twist on the now-familiar White House late-Friday release of bad news; this time, the new evidence was put out not only at the start of a weekend but also hours too late for inclusion in the report.

Sunlike stars that harbor planets are low on lithium, according to a recent study that may offer a new tool in the hunt for planets beyond our solar system. Stars are made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. A small percentage of a star's mass comes from heavier elements, which astronomers refer to as metals. Young, yellow stars like our sun usually have more metals than older, redder stars, although the exact mix of those metals can vary. But astronomers have been unable to explain why otherwise similar sunlike stars have widely different lithium levels.The new study suggests that the...

by Dana Blanton , FOXNews.com President Obama's approval rating has hit a new low of 46 percent, even as a majority of Americans says he is providing the kind of leadership they expected. print email share recommend (2) President Obama's approval rating has hit a new low of 46 percent, according to a FOX News poll released Thursday. An equal number -- 46 percent -- disapprove of the job he's doing. Breaking down the numbers by political party shows how sharply split American voters are over the president's job performance. While 85 percent of Democrats approve of their party leader,...

She is a striking brunette with a decidedly outspoken attitude. She lambasts President Barack Obama as a socialist and has become the darling of America's right-wing activists who flock to her appearances. She is hated by liberals and loved by conservatives. Sarah Palin? Not quite. Meet Michele Bachmann, a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota who is being hailed as a new and increasingly powerful voice in American politics

Today is November 16, 2009. Our country is in deep trouble. We have a President who is demonstrably anti-American. His background and history remain a mystery. His goals and programs are the antithesis of traditional American values of freedom, capitalism, and representative democracy. He is anti-military, tying their hands with inappropriate and dangerous rules of engagement on the battlefield, and prolonging the inability to make a timely decision to send requested manpower to the front lines of the War on Terror in Afghanistan. This President cannot even utter the phrase “War on Terror”, and he is uncomfortable with the term...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- With just 300 or so Muslims in all of Nicaragua, it became an instant mystery here when a big new mosque suddenly seemed to spring up recently in a residential neighborhood. Like, who paid for it?

Fearing Israel will launch an assault on Hizbullah before a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, the Lebanese guerrilla group is getting ready for a new war, the Observer reported on Sunday. According to the British newspaper, Hizbullah has been "busy reinforcing fixed defense positions" north of the Litani River, and after losing many of its bunkers in the south during the Second Lebanon War, is preparing "a new strategy" to defend villages there.

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus. Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what...

After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected. The critique, coming one day before a critical Senate committee vote on the legislation, sparked a sharp response from the Obama administration. It also signaled an end to the fragile detente between two central players in this year's health-care reform drama. Industry officials said they intend to circulate the report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers on Capitol Hill and...

The goal was to build a reporting system that allows the public to follow the zigzagging paths of dollars awarded under the $787 billion federal stimulus package. A financial GPS of sorts. But despite federal lawmakers' pledge of transparency, the final stages of most money trails, along with key information about job impacts, will remain invisible to users of the Recovery.org website when it debuts next month. Only details of a stimulus grant's passage through its first two stops after it leaves the federal government must be reported, according to guidance memos from the White House Office of Management and...

The Obama administration has decided not to seek legislation to establish a new system of preventive detention to hold terrorism suspects and will instead rely on a 2001 congressional resolution authorizing military force against al-Qaeda and the Taliban to continue to detain people indefinitely and without charge, according to administration officials. Leading congressional Democrats and members of the civil rights community had signaled opposition to any new indefinite-detention regime, fearing that it would expand government powers and undermine the rule of law and U.S. legal traditions.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Riki Ellison, Chairman and President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) www.missiledefenseadvocacyalliance.org has developed a White Paper that analyzes the recent missile defense decision by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The White Paper states that the protection of our homeland population is a risk we are facing with the new missile defense plan. Ellison has shared the White Paper with members of Congress, and it is detailed below: