Free Republic

Connoisseurs of democratic decadence can savor a variety of contemporary dystopias. Because familiarity breeds banality, Greece has become a boring horror. Japan, however, in its second generation of stagnation, is fascinating. Once, Japan bestrode the world, jauntily buying Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach. Now Japanese buy more adult diapers than those for infants. America has its lowest birth rate since at least 1920 — family formation and workforce participation (which last year hit a 30-year low) have declined in tandem. But it has an energy surplus, the government-produced overhang of housing inventory is shrinking and the average age of Americans'...

The rollout of the Copyright Alert System will be delayed until early 2013, according to the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). The system, also referred to as the “Six Strikes” program, is intended to deter copyright infringement committed through illegal file sharing. CCI indicates that the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy is largely to blame for the delays. "Due to unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy which have seriously affected our final testing schedules, CCI anticipates that the participating ISPs will begin sending alerts under the Copyright Alert System in the early part of 2013, rather than by the...

In an end-of-year press release — posted under the banner headline "Accomplishments Under the Leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder" — the Justice Department boasts of charging "nearly 3,000" bankers with lending discrimination and fraud. [snip] But none of the race-bias cases highlighted by the administration was litigated in court. Evidence was never presented or tested, nor guilt ever proven. What's more, no incident of discrimination was ever specified, and no individual complainants or victims of discrimination were ever identified. All the major defendants — Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust Mortgage — settled while strongly denying Holder's allegations...

From a NYT Editorial: Bushmasters are by no means the only assault weapons of choice among mass killers (the Aurora shooter used a Smith & Wesson), but the brand’s repeated presence in murderous incidents reflects Bushmaster’s enormous popularity in the gun world, the result of a successful marketing campaign aimed at putting military firepower and machismo in the hands of civilians. Gun owners once talked about the need for personal protection and sport hunting, but out-of-control ad campaigns like Bushmaster’s have replaced revolvers and shotguns with highly lethal paramilitary fantasies. The guns, some of which come in camouflage and desert...

A request to investigate violations is being filed this morning with the Chief Ethics Officer of Gannet, the media giant that owns The Journal News, which published gun permit holders' names and addresses, and the Des Moines Register, which published Donald Kaul's call for gun owners to be killed. Gannett's Ethics Policy is unequivocally stated: “To affect change for the good in the communities we serve, to make life better for the people who trust us to know them and do right by them.” "Every day, all of us at Gannett are given the rare and sacred opportunity to affect...

Suffering an IED blast on the battlefield is most certainly a traumatic event, especially when accompanied by witnessing the death or injury of other service members or civilians. Untangling the physical from the mental damage is never easy. But doctors and veterans’ advocates feel that they are running out of time, given the skyrocketing rates of suicide among active-duty soldiers and veterans. According to the most recent statistics, Army and Navy suicides are at a record high: 2012 was the worst year for self-inflicted deaths since the military began tracking them in 2001. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta last summer...

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz is moving forward to establish procedures for removing voters from registration rolls if they can't prove citizenship, with a public hearing scheduled for today that is expected to draw critics who want to stop the change. “Schultz's proposed voter-suppression rules will unfairly target Latino immigrants, intimidate voters from exercising their rights and could result in voters' being purged from the rolls without cause,” said Ana Belen Mancebo, a member of the government watchdog group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.

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The United Kingdom has long been proud to host the Mother of Parliaments. Now, if Prime Minister David Cameron has his way, Britain will be home to the Progenitor of Parliaments. Britain’s Conservatives – the Tories – are deeply divided by the precipitous actions of their young, hip Prime Minister. Mr. Cameron wants to ram through Parliament a measure to end marriage in Britain. He won’t, of course, claim to be ending marriage. But this will nonetheless be the effect of his rule. But Cameron is facing a revolt. A big one. Anne Widdicombe spoke for thousands of Britons when...

A few days ago, going through some memorabilia of my mother's, I found the original promotional material for this syndicated column, launched in 1993. I was billed as "A New Conservative Voice for Young Women!" More than 17 years ago, I set out to explain how a Yale-educated young woman from a secular Oregon family could become a social conservative: Every life is precious. It is better to care for your children than to kill them. Divorce hurts children; it also breaks apart life's most precious commitment -- a family. Men and women are different. A society that pretends otherwise...

This order was issued at 5:17pm [1/2/2013] by Judge England, confirming that each side gets 20 minutes at tomorrow’s [1/3/2013] hearing per local rules

The worst part of the fiscal cliff deal isn't the specifics -- though they do stink. It's being reminded again how utterly detached Washington is from reality. The question, now that we've finally hiked taxes on the rich (and doesn't everyone feel better knowing that life is that much fairer?), is: How are we going to continue paying for the government we've been promised? As it turns out, raising tax rates on the "wealthy," the most pressing issue of the Obama Age, amounts to a mere $62 billion of new revenue. To put it in perspective, the deficit spending this...

The Daughters of the American Revolution, one of the nation’s oldest patriotic organizations, has erased any mention of Jesus Christ in their official book, removed prayers and poems that reference Christian imagery, and directed members to refrain from praying in the name of Christ, an outraged group of members alleged. The dispute has been brewing for more than a year when DAR members learned that the newly revised Ritual and Missal books – the primary guide for chaplains – were altered. They noticed that the name of Jesus Christ had been omitted. The DAR president general did not return calls...

And as we get into this, let’s remember that if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their ass every time they jumped. Got it? OK ….. We learned yesterday from Jamie Dupree that there is no Constitutional requirement for the Speaker of the House to actually be a member! In other words, the Republicans could make Jessica Simpson the Speaker today if they wished to .. and frankly she would probably do a better job than the weak-kneed man we have in there right now, and attendance at her press conferences would certainly go up. But Jessica is pregnant and...

It tells you something about the news media that before the House vote Tuesday, talking heads were warning Americans that unless the GOP House voted for a bill to stall our going over the fiscal cliff, taxes would go up on 98 percent of Americans. President Barack Obama's big talking point matched the cable news narrative. Breaking news: Republicans were ready to raise taxes on the middle class to shield top earners from a tax increase. Now that the cliffhanger deal is done, the old narrative has prompted many reports to bury the new lead: This package, which raises income...

The Speaker of the House will be elected today and some conservatives believe they have the votes necessary to oust John Boehner. In an appearance on CNBC, American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer said there are more than 20 House Republicans willing to vote for someone other than Boehner on Thursday when the 113th Congress convenes to elect a Speaker. Another source from a different organization has similarly confirmed that more than 20 have planned to oppose Boehner.

Tomorrow will bring the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so today we have a few indicators to get a hint as to what may come. The preliminary numbers from ADP look promising, although they usually overshoot the mark. According to the payroll-processing firm, the private sector added 215,000 jobs in December: Private sector employment increased by 215,000 jobs from November to December, according to the December ADP National Employment Report, which is produced by Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), a leading provider of human capital management solutions, in collaboration with MoodyÂ’s Analytics. The report, which is...

Thirty years ago, the USSR was better known as the "Evil Empire." Fast forward to today, when its successor Russia, is apparently the "Tax Free Empire", and less socialist than France, at least to infamous millionaire expatriate Gérard Depardieu, who as reported previously has paid €145 million in taxes over 45 years, and who demonstratively decided to give up his French passport in the wake of France's socialist 75% millionaire tax (subsequently ruled unconstitutional), and as of today, has just been granted Russian citizenship.

Going home: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Wednesday after being treated for a blood clot Republicans have been battering the Obama Administration and any officials associated with the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. The Washington Post reports that Clinton 'remains committed' to appearing in front of the Congressional committees, though no date has been set. The new House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Rep Edward Royce, said the government accountability report on the attack points to 'an unacceptable failure of leadership' leading up to the...

Amazing detail in Brian Stelter's reporting on the sale of Current TV to Al-Jazeera: "Al Jazeera did not disclose the purchase price, but people with direct knowledge of the deal pegged it at around $500 million, indicating a $100 million payout for Mr. Gore, who owned 20 percent of Current. Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1, according to several people who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the deal was not signed...