Free Republic

North Dakota has now recorded back-to-back months in which the massive Bakken petroleum system has failed to live up to production expectations. Reasons behind lackluster performances in October and especially in November have led the state’s top oil man, Lynn Helms, to issue a “wake-up call” for those who believed the good times would continue unabated. “We’ve gotten very used to the increase in production, almost regardless of what was happening out there,” Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, said in a Jan. 11 conference call. For the first time in 19 months, North Dakota’s oil production declined...

Fraudulent Chinese corporations are nothing new - we have been warning about them since late 2010, spurring the creation of a cottage industry focused exclusively on unmasking such public reverse merger companies (and generating trading profits along the way). One company, however, which apparently was completely unaware of the how pervasive Chinese corporate fraud, is industrial machine titan Caterpillar. This was made clear when, after hours on Friday night of course, the company revealed that it had been misled by "deliberate, multi-year, coordinated accounting misconduct" at a subsidiary of a Chinese company it acquired last summer, leading it to write...

Adopting a hard-line stance ahead of the elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Friday interview promised that, if reelected, he would not uproot West Bank settlements in the coming four years. Speaking in an interview with Maariv, Netanyahu said his track record testifies to the fact that he his government had strengthened, not dismantled, settlements, and established the Ariel University in the West Bank as a full-fledged academic institution. Earlier this week, Peace Now reported that 2012 was a record year for settlement construction; hours later, the Construction and Housing Ministry announced tenders for 198 housing units for Jews...

A Bulgarian politician today survived an extraordinary assassination attempt when a man stormed the stage and held a gun to his head as he was giving a speech. Fortunately for Ahmed Dogan, leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, the weapon misfired giving him time to react and hit the would-be assassins hand out of the way. Before he can attempt a second shot the unidentified suspect is tackled to the ground by security guards and delegates attending the conference in Sofia. Television footage showed the man jumping out of the audience and interrupting a speech by 58-year-old Dogan,...

California’s dislike of business, and willingness to tax it into oblivion, is storied. As State Senator Ted Gaines (R-Roseville) is quoted saying in Crazifornia: I am tired of my constituents and other business owners here being treated like pinatas by regulators and politicians who smack them around until some fine or penalty falls out. Or some newly created tax liability – like the new retroactive (to 2008) tax that’s going to smack the Golden State’s golden goose upside the head. Henry Blodget explains in Business Insider: As a way of encouraging entrepreneurs and investors to start companies in California, the...

Call it the passive-aggressive economy. When Congress pumped billions of dollars of stimulus spending into the economy, it sputtered and wheezed like a patient having a heart attack. Now that Congress is raising taxes and cutting back on stimulus measures, the economy seems more resilient than expected. For President Barack Obama, it could mean a much more durable economy over the next four years than he enjoyed in his first term. Toward the end of 2012, economists warned repeatedly that the fiscal-cliff standoff would harm economic growth and perhaps even cause a recession. The last-second solution avoided the worse possible...

Barack Obama vilifies both “Wall Street speculators “who pay themselves big bonuses when times are bad” and the greedy top Two Percenters who do not pay “their fair share” by exploiting tax loopholes. With such strongly articulated views, his nominee for Secretary of Treasury, Jack Lew, and his current Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner, appear to be unlikely choices for such a sensitive cabinet position. Jack Lew collected over two million dollars for his short stint at the collapsing Citigroup. Tim Geithner, whose earnings placed him in the top two percent, conveniently forgot to pay a substantial portion of his...

Budget Policy: Even if we don't raise the debt ceiling, enough revenue will still come in to the Treasury to pay our interest, our bonds and essential services. The government will not shut down- only its ability to borrow. Like the fiscal cliff, the dangers of hitting the debt ceiling, while dire, are not necessarily fatal. It would, however, concentrate the minds of the American taxpayer wonderfully and force Washington to do what American families do every day around the kitchen table - take the paycheck and pay the bills in order of priority. Pay the gas company and the...

or liberals facts are never really important. “Truth” to liberals like Democrat New York City Congressman Jerrold Nadler is what he “feels” it is. Nadler has said: “Hunters don’t use large ammunition clips, and as far as self- defense, I mean who are you defending yourself against? If you’re defending yourself against a robber… two or three or four shots should be enough—period.” It’s a safe bet Nadler has never faced an assailant fueled by adrenalin drugs and alcohol. That doesn’t matter, of course, since no one will ever challenge Nadler on his supposed knowledge of the danger presented by...

House Speaker Mike Chenault says federal law enforcement officers should be arrested in Alaska if they attempt to enforce any future federal law banning personal possession of assault rifles or large ammunition clips or if they attempt to register any Alaska firearm. On Wednesday, just as President Obama was announcing new firearm-control initiatives in the aftermath of the child murders at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Chenault offered his countermeasure in House Bill 69. His bill would extend the reach of a law passed in 2010 by asserting that any firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition possessed by anyone in...

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (WSAZ) -- A dead science teacher, weapons of mass destruction, first responders in hazmat suits and the Ohio Army National Guard all near the Municipal Stadium in Portsmouth, Thursday. There's no cause for alarm -- this is just a drill! The mock disaster training exercise is being done with Scioto County first responders and the Ohio Army National Guard 52nd Civil Support Unit. "It's the reality of the world we live in," says Portsmouth Police Chief Bill Raisin. "Don't forget there is such a thing as domestic terrorism. This helps us all be prepared." The make-believe scenario is...

SOFIA, Bulgaria — Police in Bulgaria detained a man after he pointed a gun at an ethnic Turkish party leader as he was delivering a speech in the capital. No shots were fired. The video from the Saturday event in Sofia shows the man climbing the podium where Ahmed Dogan, the leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, was speaking on Saturday, and pointing the gun to his face. Dogan struck the man before other delegates wrestled the assailant to the ground, and police took him away.

John Brennan is an open Israel-hater who was National Security Advisor for the last four years, in charge of White House-directed secret ops, and has now been nominated to head the CIA, the most visible post in the jungle of US intelligence. Brennan is the covert operations meister for the most leftist administration in US history. Unless the US Senate comes to its senses, Brennan will be Secret Puppeteer in Chief. With characters like John Kerry and Chuck Hagel heading the anti-Israel parade, John Brennan is trying to slip under the radar. Brennan's at NSA work wasn't made public, but...

(CNSNews.com) –While President Barack Obama is moving ahead with executive orders and legislation to further tighten gun control in response to the mass murder committed by Adam Lanza at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., neither the toxicology report on Lanza's corpse nor the police report on his crime have been completed

Bashar Assad is upbeat after 60,000 Syrian deathsWith a buildup of 16 Russian warships carrying thousands of marines on the Syrian coast “to deter the West from deploying ground forces in Syria,” Syrian Bashar Assad could afford to brazen it out in his first public speech in seven months. Speaking at the Damascus opera house, Sunday, Jan. 6, Assad said Syria no longer takes dictation from anyone and called on Syrian citizens to defend the country against “a war fought by only a handful of Syrians and many foreigners.” He rejected dialogue with the opposition which he referred to as...

The city of Chicago agreed today to pay a record $22.5 million to a woman who was released from police custody in 2006 and instead of being taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, she was released into a high crime area where she was gang raped and plummeted seven stories. Christina Eilman, was 21-years-old when the crime occurred and she suffered permanent brain damage from the fall and has needed constant medical care ever since. Eilman, who is bipolar, was taken into police custody at Midway Airport after suffering a mental breakdown on her flight from California. Rather...

Having lost her appeal, 15 year-old student Andrea Hernandez is leaving John Jay High School after school officials denied her request to allow her to continue her "education uninterrupted" by permitting her to use her old (chipless) ID badge which "does not signify participation in a program which I believe conflicts with my religious beliefs." In her handwritten letter, Hernandez writes: "I do not wish to wear the new badge, even without the RFID chip, because it signifies participation in the program." Hernandez, who has been threatened with expulsion for refusing to wear a chipless RFID tracking badge, had her...

As the Michigan state Senate finishes its second week of the new legislative session, pro-gun legislators have already begun to advocate for the rights of law-abiding gun owners. State Senator Thomas Casperson (R-38) filed a bill that would keep the personal information of permit-to-purchase applicants confidential and exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests. This bill, Senate Bill 49, has been scheduled for a hearing on Wednesday January 23 in the Senate Judiciary Committee at 8:30 am. In other parts of the country, anti-gun media outlets abused their privileges under the Freedom of Information Act and have jeopardized the safety...

During the 2008 presidential campaign, gun rights author and scholar John Lott recounted meeting Barack Obama for the first time while he was a lecturer at University of Chicago. When the two met, Lott's reputation on guns preceded him, and Lott claims Obama said, "I don't believe people should be able to own guns." Read that again, and let it soak in; Barack Obama reportedly said, "I don't think people should be able to own guns." In my correspondence with Lott, he stood by his story. And there's little reason to doubt Lott's account, especially when you take Obama's history...

When in 2008 Senator Ted Stevens was indicted on corruption-related charges, the very first word in ABC News's headline was "Republican." And the R-word was mentioned four more times in the story. But when ABC's Good Morning America ran a segment this morning on the indictment on charges of corruption of Ray Nagin, former Mayor of New Orleans, it never revealed—either by spoken word or screen graphic—that Nagin is a Democrat. Note that this was not some short news blip: GMA took a full minute-and-a-half to tell the story, but couldn't find a few seconds to mention Nagin's party affiliation....

State Rep. Sean Roberts will be among 15 bill authors of a measure named the Oklahoma Firearms Freedom Act. House Bill 2021 would assert the Second Amendment rights of Oklahomans by exempting guns or ammunition made in the state from federal regulations. The bill specifies that to qualify for the exemption the guns must be clearly marked as “Made in Oklahoma” and kept within state boundaries. In 2010, the legislation was introduced as Senate Bill 1685, but was vetoed by then Gov. Brad Henry after passing in both the House and Senate.

On Monday, President Obama will preside over the grand reopening of his administration. It would be altogether fitting if he stepped to the microphone, looked down the mall, and let out a sigh... There's no indication that the president's clashes with House Republicans will end soon... The challenge for President Obama’s speech is the challenge of his second term: how to be great when the environment stinks...The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP... How should the president proceed then, if he wants to...

Rallies have been scheduled to protest Barack Obama’s gun agenda, members of Congress are pondering their resistance and American consumers are speaking daily with ever-new records for gun purchases. Now states are getting into action, with several legislatures already developing bills that would simply pull the rug from under the president’s agenda by specifying that unconstitutional rules or regulations, or executive orders, won’t be allowed. Rep. Kendell Kroeker of Wyoming introduced HB 104, The Firearms Protection Act, and spoke to WND about the bill. “The new bill expands to any gun owned in Wyoming and any gun regulation handed down...

MOUNT CARMEL, Pa. — A 5-year-old Pennsylvania girl who told another girl she was going to shoot her with a pink toy gun that blows soapy bubbles has been suspended from kindergarten. Her family has hired an attorney to fight the punishment, which initially was 10 days but was reduced to two.

JACKSON, Miss. — The state Health Department this week conducted an unannounced inspection of Mississippi's only abortion clinic to see if it's complying with a 2012 state law that eventually could put it out of business. Findings from the Wednesday inspection aren't being released to the public yet, but clinic owner Diane Derzis said last week that her Jackson Women's Health Organization had been unable to meet the law's requirements.

The world is moving step by step towards a de facto Gold Standard, without any meetings of G20 leaders to announce the idea or bless the project. Some readers will already have seen the GFMS Gold Survey for 2012 which reported that central banks around the world bought more bullion last year in terms of tonnage than at any time in almost half a century. They added a net 536 tonnes in 2012 as they diversified fresh reserves away from the four fiat suspects: dollar, euro, sterling, and yen. The Washington Accord, where Britain, Spain, Holland, Switzerland, and others sold...

RUSH: We have, of course, the gun control battle raging on. The status of the Republican Party, where are they today, where do they stand, what are their prospects? We have the New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, he condemned the NRA ad. Did you see that? Let me find the sound bite. I told the broadcast engineer we're gonna start with Lance Armstrong, and I just decided we're not. Now, I gotta find Chris Christie. There it is. Number one.

Most people think spare change just weighs them down. But one California man put his to good use - saving up enough coins and dollar bills to pay his hefty $14,000 property tax bill. Larry Gasper shocked tellers at a Redding bank branch when he showed up with a wheelbarrow full of change this week.

Al Gore Nets Another Fortune on Apple Stock By Javier E. David Former U.S. vice president Al Gore recently netted a huge payday by selling his cable station. Now, it appears he's making another big profit buying Apple's (AAPL) stock on the cheap. Al Gore According to a filing with the Securities and Exchanges Commission, Gore -- a director on Apple's board -- exercised an option to purchase nearly 60,000 shares of the tech giant at the bargain basement price of $7.48, costing him a total of about $445,000. But with Apple's current market price at about $500 a share,...

Several unions have contributed to President Obama’s inauguration. At least nine unions are listed as donors to the inauguration, according to the latest update on the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s website. The committee has been releasing donors’ names to the inauguration every Friday for the past several weeks. The unions that have donated to Obama’s second inauguration include the American Federation of Government Employees; the American Postal Workers Union; the International Association of Fire Fighters; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Laborers International Union of North America; and the United Food & Commercial Workers. Labor was a key ally of...

Nigeria has revealed the presence in the country of terrorists trained in Mali, the northern part of which is in the hands of armed Islamist groups who seized it last year. The influx of the terrorists may have heightened the activities of the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram, which has been more active lately. The sect has killed over 3,000 people in gun and bomb attacks in northern Nigeria since 2009. Nigeria has started the deployment of over a battalion of troops to Mali to participate in the African-led International Support Mission for Mali (AFISMA), which is battling alongside Malian...

U.N experts returned from Tehran on Friday without sealing a long-sought deal that would restart a probe of suspicions that Iran worked on atomic arms, adding to doubts that upcoming separate talks between six world powers and the Islamic Republic will succeed in reducing fears about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Herman Nackaerts, who headed the team of International Atomic Energy Agency experts, said the two sides would meet again in the Iranian capital Feb. 12. But even if those talks make progress, they will come too late for an Iran-six nation meeting tentatively scheduled for the end of this month. …...

The answer is hitting you right in the face, as to what we need to get rid of! Why is it that none of the disturbed and evil men, who steal guns, then go and kill movie-goers and children in school, has ever been identified as a conservative NRA member? Ft. Hood~~~ Registered Democrat ~ Muslim Columbine ~~~ Too young to vote; both families were registered Democrats and progressive liberals Virginia Tech ~~~ Wrote hate mail to President Bush and to his staff ~ Registered Democrat Colorado Theater ~~~ Registered Democrat; staff worker on the Obama campaign; Occupy Wall Street...

There have been calls for an inquiry after minister disclosed that birth rates for girls and boys vary noticeably according to where their mothers were born. It was the first official statistical evidence potentially backing up concerns that sex-selection abortions are being carried out in Britain. Fiona Bruce, the Conservative MP for Congleton, has tabled an early day motion which calls on the Department of Health to ensure the data of aborted foetuses is reported “so that statistical evidence of crime cannot be hidden”. The early day motion was also signed by Jim Dobbin, the Labour MP for Heywood...

A vocal contingent of rural lawmen and red-state lawmakers say they won't go along with any new federal crackdowns on the ability of law-abiding Americans' to own guns, and that they'll even side with residents against federal authority in any gun seizure cases resulting from looming gun-control measures. Remarking on "worrisome times," Sheriff Stacy Nicholson of Georgia's Gilmer County writes on Facebook that "I, along with a large number (which is growing daily) of Sheriffs across the state of Georgia as well as the entire United States, have no intention of following any orders of the federal government to perform...

Searchlight —Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he is hoping to build an immigration reform bill with bipartisan support but that some related issues are not up for debate in his view.Meeting Thursday morning at his Searchlight home, Reid outlined his top priorities for the U.S. Senate in 2013, including immigration reform, to reporters who cover the Southern Nevada Hispanic community. “There will be nothing done in my Senate (on immigration reform) without a pathway to citizenship,” he said.

Perhaps as many as a million people marched in Paris last Sunday and at French embassies around the world against proposed legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage in France. One of the surprises in the French campaign for traditional marriage is that homosexuals have joined pro-family leaders and activists in the effort. “The rights of children trump the right to children,” was the catchphrase of protesters like Jean-Marc, a French mayor -- who is also homosexual. Even though France is known for its laissez faire attitude toward sex, pro-family leaders were quick to organize huge numbers. When President Hollande announced...

Ted Nugent, the 64 year old rock star and NRA board member, unloaded his opinion on current gun control measures, our elected leaders and gun free zones to the team at Guns.com while at the SHOT show. The SHOT show, being held this year in Las Vegas, is the nation’s largest shooting industry trade show with 60,000 attendees. Nugent is a gun rights quote machine. “If you want another Concord Bridge, I’ve got some buddies” “Anyone who questions the most basic fundamental right of self-defense is a dangerous, freedom threatening, scary person that we must beat down” On gun free...

A New Jersey assemblywoman has introduced a bill that would add an extra 5 percent sales tax on guns and ammunition. The money would fund safety improvements to public buildings. Since the incident in Newtown, you start to listen to people. I’m listening to students, I’m listening to educators, I’m listening to everybody,” said Assemblywoman Connie Wagner (D-Bergen). “I think the first thing has to be to take care of our infrastructure. then comes up the second question, well how are we going to pay for this?” Under the bill (A3727), gun purchasers would pay the extra sales tax on...

There are three big unfolding stories for international politics and the global economy: The next stage of China's rise, the continuing turmoil in the Middle East and the redesign of Europe. The three countries with the most to lose from these trends are, respectively, Japan, Israel and Britain. They also happen to be America's most reliable allies in the world's three most important regions. As 2013 unfolds, the special relationships that these countries enjoy with Washington won't protect them from the worst effects of these sweeping changes. That is also bad news for U.S. foreign policy. The further expansion of...

For a student of military history, the most astonishing fact about the current international scene is that there isn't a single conflict in which two uniformed militaries are pitted against each other. The last one was a brief clash in 2008 between Russia and Georgia. In our day, the specter of conventional conflict, which has dominated the imagination of the West since the days of the Greek hoplites, has almost been lifted. But the world is hardly at peace. Algeria fights hostage-takers at a gas plant. France fights Islamist extremists in Mali. Israel fights Hamas. The U.S. and its allies...

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also said the Republican approach was reassuring. "If the House can pass a clean debt ceiling increase to avoid default and allow the United States to meet its existing obligations, we will be happy to consider it," he said in a statement.

Sneaky executive order bankrolls anti-Second Amendment propaganda. The directives on gun violence President Obama signed Wednesday were meant to seem harmless. A closer look at the president’s first memorandum reveals it to be a sneaky assault on congressional authority in order to fund gun-control propaganda. Getting this done has been on the White House “to do” list for some time. In his 2013 budget submission, Mr. Obama deleted the prohibition that has been in effect since 1995 on the use of federal funds to advocate or promote gun control.

This Humean notion of Americanism that acknowledges the right of a self-governing people to secede is framed in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is primarily a document justifying secession, but it has been thoroughly corrupted by Lincoln’s reading of it and the ritualistic repetition and expansion of that reading. The Lincoln tradition reads the Declaration as affirming a metaphysical doctrine of individual rights (all men are created equal) and takes this to be the fundamental symbol of the American regime, trumping all other symbols, including the symbol of moral excellence internal to those inherited moral communities protected by the...

Barack Obama's Jobs Council hit a notable milestone on Thursday: one year without an official meeting. The 26-member panel is also set to expire at the end of the month, unless Obama extends its tenure. The group, formally known as the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, last convened on Jan. 17, 2012 for a White House session where it presented formal recommendations to Obama. It was the panel's fourth official meeting since it was created in early 2011. A spokesman for Jobs Council chairman Jeffrey Immelt, who's the CEO of General Electric, referred questions about the panel's future to...

It's time to STAND AND FIGHT for freedom! That's why I'm going on Sean Hannity's show tonight for one full hour. If you want to hear the facts about gun control's failures, and hear the truth about how NRA is fighting to make our families, homes, schools and communities safer, then I urge you to watch. If you can't watch tonight, record it so you can watch it this weekend. And if you want to help NRA win the battle to protect the Second Amendment, please tell family, friends and fellow gun owners to watch as well. The nightmare battle...

Nearly twice as many voters say there would be less violent crime if more law-abiding Americans owned guns, than if guns were banned. In addition, while American voters generally favor strengthening gun laws, 71 percent do not think tougher laws can stop shootings like the one last month in Newtown, Connecticut. Some 22 percent say new laws can prevent the next Sandy Hook. These are just some of the findings from a Fox News poll released Friday.

Holder goes for the guns

The Ticking Trillion Dollar Debt Bomb Politics / US DebtJan 18, 2013 - 08:41 AM By: Graham Summers Since the EU Crisis went into overdrive in 2010, EU politicians have largely resorted to political posturing rather than implementing any actual financial solutions to the EU’s debt and banking crisis. To clarify that statement, we view a “real solution” as one that A) cleared bad debts from the system, B) brought debt levels down to manageable levels, and C) got the troubled country’s economy back on track. By way of example, real solutions would involve outright debt defaults, bank failures, and...