Free Republic

"The limit of production in this country (the United States) is being reached, and although new fields undoubtedly await discovery, the yearly (oil) output must inevitably decline, because the maintenance of output each year necessitates the drilling of an increasing number of wells. "Such an increase becomes impossible after a certain point is reached, not only because of a lack of acreage to be drilled, but because of the great number of wells that will ultimately have to be drilled." This assessment could have been written recently about the outlook for oil production from North Dakota's Bakken formation or by...

Many educated, middle-class Syrians who had embraced the opposition now feel alienated by its drift toward extremism — and are aligned with neither side.

The Rev. Louie Giglio, designated to give the benediction at this year’s presidential inauguration, has withdrawn, under apparent pressure, after the surfacing of remarks he made, some 25 years ago, about the sinfulness of homosexuality. Note that the pastor of the evangelical Passion City Church in Atlanta has been pushed off the stage not because of a deed, but because of words he said -- words expressing a widely held Christian belief that homosexuality is a sin. Let’s recall that freedom of religion appears in the First Amendment of our constitution, alongside the protection of freedom of speech. So what...

The Algerian military operation brings to mind the Russian modus operandi against the Chechens barricaded with hundreds of hostages in the Moscow Dubrovka Theater. According to most media outlets, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb brigade, led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, is responsible for the hostage taking in the Algerian BP oil facilities in In Amenas. According to the spokesman of Belmokhtar’s brigade quoted by Sahara Media, the kidnapping of the foreigners is in revenge for Algeria’s consent to French use of its airspace for flights headed to Mali. In the opinion of this author the kidnapping has only indirect connection with...

Imagine if the 'New York Times' adequately held Palestinian leaders to account, as it did with the Egyptians. Would it be a problem if a society, following the encouragement its leaders, nursed millions of children on hatred for a religious group? Would it matter if a people was taught that bigotry is a form of worshiping God? Few would deny that such incitement does matter, as it would have a dangerous impact on both those encouraged to hate and on the targets of that hatred. So it is important that The New York Times reported Tuesday on Mohammed Morsi’s chilling...

Before jumping to conclusions regarding Israelis’ ability to recognize their own interests, Israel’s friends and critics should at the very least appreciate their legitimate concerns. Perhaps the leak was not calculated to weaken Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing allies. Perhaps it was by chance that just one week before Israelis go to the polls, US President Barack Obama was quoted by Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg as saying that Netanyahu was “moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation” and that Israel under Netanyahu “does not know what its best interests are.” True, if Obama did indeed criticize...

A prominent global warming scientist, Peter Gleick, who was chairman of the ethics committee at the American Geophysical Union, admitted last year that he stole some documents- and he may have forged others- from the conservative think-tank the Heartland Institute. But that’s all in a day’s work for a work-a-day climate warrior. The important thing isn’t the quest for the truth in global climate research, but, as Charlie Sheen would say, winning. With winning comes cash.    Because for some time it’s been clear, that in the climate debate, instead of actually accomplishing something worthwhile, all the attention will be...

President Obama is beginning his second term today, and while Democrats are celebrating, there are some Republicans and conservatives who are viewing the festivities with more than the usual regret. Until just after the November election, they were among the 300 Washington-based members of Mitt Romney’s transition team, known internally as the “Readiness Project.” No, hiring such a large staff to prepare plans for a Romney presidency didn’t represent an egotistical measuring of the drapes by the candidate. It was mandated by a new federal law, the Presidential Transition Act, which a Democratic Congress passed in 2010 to ensure that...

<p>The "legacy thing" may be harder than Barack Obama imagines. Beginning his second term, Obama has a focused, though unstated, agenda: to achieve presidential greatness in the eyes of historians and Americans. In this, he will almost certainly fail. He is already a historic president as the first African-American to be elected, but there is a chasm between being historic and being great.</p>

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - It’s Not the Message, It’s Not the Messenger, It’s the VoterPosted By Bruce Thornton On January 21, 2013 @ 12:53 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 13 Comments Nearly 3 months after the presidential election the Republicans are still trying to fix what they think went wrong. A popular culprit is the Republicans’ alleged failure to communicate forcefully or persuasively a message that would move voters presumably receptive to conservative policies and principles. Just in the last week Jonah Goldberg, Daniel Henninger, Ari Fleischer, Ross Douthat, and Karl Rove have worked variations on this theme....

Once upon a time, it was common for an American child to be packed off to school with a rifle on his back and for him to come home smiling and safe in the evening. Shooting clubs, now quietly withering away, were once such a mainstay of American high-school life that in the first half of the 20th century they were regularly installed in the basements of new educational buildings. Now, they are in their death throes, victims of political correctness, a willful misunderstanding of what constitutes “gun safety,� and our deplorable tendency toward litigiousness.In 1975, New York state...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Algerian Killers: “We’ve Come In the Name of Islam, To Teach the Americans What Islam Is�Posted By Daniel Greenfield On January 20, 2013 @ 8:52 pm In The Point | 13 Comments But the trouble is that no one seems to learn the lesson no matter how often it’s taught. The 9/11 attackers came in the name of Islam to teach Americans what Islam is. The Benghazi attackers came in the in the name of Islam to teach Americans what Islam is.  And the lesson is still unlearned. The four-day hostage crisis in the...

During the past week, whenever I found myself alone in the car during good drive-time talk radio (i.e., Rush), I did something unusual: I didn’t listen. Instead, I turned to mindless pop music. I was thinking about this peculiar behavior on my part, because I truly love Rush. I think he’s a radio genius, someone who understands perfectly the lines between entertainment, news, and analysis. He’s also one of the sharpest political thinkers out there. No wonder the Left hates him. But still…. I didn’t want to listen. Analyzing my bizarre retreat from Rush, I realized that my problem is...

I’ve spent a better part of my day today answering media queries about Louisiana Gov. Jindal’s new tax plan, which is detailed here. His goal is to eliminate the corporate income tax, the individual income tax, and the franchise tax. Details are still a bit scant, but according to initial reports and some conversations I’ve had with people on the ground in Louisiana over the past few weeks, the plan is to pay for this tax elimination by expanding the sales tax base to services and raising the rate on that tax. We’ll be issuing more analysis on this...

A perplexed Andrea Mitchell on Thursday highlighted a new NBC poll finding high favorability numbers for the National Rifle Association, results she deemed "surprising." The veteran journalist proclaimed: "The NRA brand has been fairly toxic in many of the debates, the gun debates especially since Newtown, but their membership base is broad and deep." One reason the brand has been "toxic" is because of relentlessly negative coverage from reporters. Yet, NBC political editor Mark Murray explained, "Despite a lot of the criticism the NRA has received in the month after the Newtown shootings, the NRA has a 41 percent favorable...

Byron York Chief Political Correspondent The Washington Examiner @ByronYork Popular in PoliticsUtah sheriffs warn Obama of deadly war over guns Newsweek: Obama is 'The Second Coming' Top Dem promises to pass budget — but only to raise taxes Lupe Fiasco gets booted from inaugural event after rapping anti-Obama song Chuck Schumer: GOP has to back tax increases to get a budget In recent days Republicans have had some success pointing out that it will soon be four years since Senate Democrats have allowed Congress to pass a budget — something the Congressional Budget Act requires lawmakers to do each year....

I’m getting sick and tired of the Obama administration using children selectively in order to help the president advocate his public policy positions. As I sat and watched his recent press conference, I finally understood his opposition to the Iraq War. It seems he and the late President Hussein are kindred spirits who share more than just a name. They share a sick penchant for using children as human shields in the middle of war. And make no mistake about it; America is currently at war with itself on many different fronts. As I sat and watched Obama surrounded by...

Word is, Phil Mickelson is mad as hell about rising tax rates, and he’s not going to take it anymore. What follows is a brief portion of an interview Mickelson gave earlier today after carding a final-round 66 at the Palmer Course at PGA West in La Quinta – which I assure you, is not associated with the La Quinta next door to your local Denny’s – in which the golfer hinted that he is considering drastic career changes because of a combined tax rate nearing “62, 63 percent:”

At the Associated Press today, Darlene "Supine" Superville filed a report on Barack and Michelle Obama's church attendance "at the historic Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church." Ms. Superville told readers that "The Old Testament reading during the service came from the book of Exodus, Chapter 14, in which the Israelites cross the Red Sea as Moses leads them out of Egypt." That's nice, but she failed to report how church pastor Ronald E. Braxton used that passage in his sermon.

As part of President Barack Obama’s 23-point gun control plan, he nominated Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones–who currently doubles right now as the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives–to be the ATF director. Jones was personally a part of the high-ranking Department of Justice unit that first met on October 26, 2009, to create the new DOJ policy that was used to justify “gunwalking” in Operation Fast and Furious. In Fast and Furious, the ATF “walked” roughly 2,000 firearms into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. That means through straw purchasers the agency...