Free Republic

The U.S. government, like so many creaky monarchies and dubious regimes in history, may be conspiring to repudiate its own debt, suggests a former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. U.S. Treasury debt obligations have long been considered the most secure and most certain of repayment in full, including interest. It's part of the reason the dollar has stayed strong, and why the United States has been able to borrow so much, so cheaply, for decades. Increasingly, that trust is for the first time becoming questionable. "Congress, with the complicity of the White House and the Fed,...

Bush Derangement Syndrome: Russia as a Strategic Partner The president must withdraw the U.S.-Russia civil nuclear-cooperation pact. By Andrew C. McCarthy It was a relief to see President Bush take some meaningful action in response to Russia’s aggression against Georgia on Wednesday — something beyond looking sternly into Vladimir Putin’s soul between beach volleyball serves in Beijing. Thursday’s announcement that U.S. missile batteries will be installed in Poland is also welcome. More telling, though, is the step the president hasn’t taken: a necessary step, but one tantamount to a concession that the administration’s Iran policy has been a farce. The...

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said “Iraq” when he apparently meant “Afghanistan” on Monday, adding to a string of mixed-up word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition. Just in the past three weeks, McCain has mixed up Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, and even football’s Packers and Steelers. Ironically, the errors have been concentrated in what should be his area of expertise - foreign affairs.

The ethanol industry, until recently a golden child that got favorable treatment from Washington, is facing a critical decision on its future. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily waive regulations requiring the oil industry to blend ever-increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. A decision is expected in the next few weeks. Mr. Perry says the billions of bushels of corn being used to produce all that mandated ethanol would be better suited as livestock feed than as fuel. Feed prices have soared in the last two years as fuel has begun competing with...

I thought this was interesting and thought provoking at the very least: For those who may be confused by the controversies surrounding the "New World Order", a One-World-Government, and American concern over giving the UN more power; those unaware of the issues involved; and those wishing more background, I offer the following. Originally presented for an Honors Class, "Dilemmas of War and Peace," at New Mexico State University, the paper was ridiculed and characterized by Dr. Yosef Lapid, (an acknowledged and locally quoted "expert" on Terrorism and Middle Eastern affairs) as "paranoid... possibly a symptom of mental illness." You may...

We don't have just two choices Hordes of Democrats and Republicans are unimpressed by their choices for president this year. Many on both sides are willing to crawl across broken glass, this time to avoid voting for their party's candidate. The two major parties, neither one of which are even mentioned in the Constitution, think they have us in a corner where we must vote for either Barack Obama or John McCain, or the other guy will win. But it isn't true; especially in states where it's already a foregone conclusion who will win? Everyone knows McCain will win Texas'...

WASHINGTON -- Speculative traders' interest in crude oil has grown to the point that they now account for roughly 70% of all trading in West Texas Intermediate crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared with 37% in 2000, according to an investigation by a congressional subcommittee that forms part of an escalating political assault on Wall Street's role in the run-up in oil prices. The subcommittee's findings, based on data obtained from federal commodity-futures regulators, are the latest sign that Washington is gearing up to try to limit the role of hedge funds, investment banks and other speculative traders...

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it...

All part of his daring master plan to make his name as widely reviled among the right as Ralph Nader’s is among the left. Polls in Georgia and North Carolina over the last two weeks show Mr. Barr winning 8 percent and 6 percent respectively of the presidential vote, and in both cases helping keep likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama within striking distance of Mr. McCain in those states — which, taken together, account for more electoral votes than Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio… [InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt] Towery said North Carolina and Georgia are exactly the places that Mr....

Probably almost everyone is familiar with the hyperinflationary episode that engulfed Germany after the First World War. That nation’s economy was crippled by monetary problems that resulted in dreadful personal hardships, even though up to that time Germany had achieved one of the highest living standards in the world. The newly formed German government, named for the city where their constitution was drafted after the Kaiser’s abdication in 1918, kept pumping up the money supply. The process started relatively slowly, but quickly the pace of money creation accelerated. The Weimar government was paying its bills on credit – just like...

The Emancipation Proclamation, more than any act, exposes the real President Lincoln and hits at the core of why the mythical day of June 19 is celebrated. Issued on the 22nd day of September in 1862, [the Emancipation Proclamation] stated that on the first day of January 1863, "all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Clearly, this was a war measure for suppressing the so-called rebellion. If the Confederate States of America stop rebelling...

As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial. Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans. Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we...

WASHINGTON - May 23, 2008 - Fingerprints are considered to be among the most personal of information, and fingerprint databases created and proposed in the name of national security have generated much debate. Recently, “Server in the Sky” - a proposed international database of the fingerprints of suspected criminals and terrorists to be shared among the U.S., UK and Canada - has ignited a firestorm of controversy, as have cavalier comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that fingerprints aren’t “personal data.” Yet earlier this week, a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security passed...

You so called conservatives that will vote for McCain for president if he wins the nomination will hurt the conservative movement for decades. How do you think you will feel when McCain wins, Will you Jump up and down? THE RINOS WIN!!!, THE RINOS WIN !!!!, McCain Will then pass Liberal laws. Are you going to support him. But If my man Hillary wins Now at least I know who I'm fighting against from that day forward. Hillary and the DEMS. I been a freeper for 8 years, GO check my comments yhat go way back before you call me...

I'm currently of the opinion the disaster that has been president Bush for the last few years (yes, I was a supporter of George till he quit being a conservative) should cause Obamanation to win. I'm all for fighting the war over there. What I'm not for is letting the current congressional majority pass whatever they want and the President not showing any leadership skills with Republicans currently in congress. RINO's like McCain have ruined the party with their descent to moderation from Regan style Republican values. Obama should win this election so the nation can see the real differences...

Did you hear that Obama criticized us for driving big SUVs and eating our foods? I heard it on Fox News' 'Special Report' a few minutes ago. Mr. Barak Hussein Osama Bin-Laudin Obama, I do not want my GOVERNMENT to tell me either: a)What kind of car I can drive or b)What food I can eat. I live in a FREE COUNTRY -- so I don't need a NANNY STATE to tell me what to do. That is SOCIALISM you JACK@SS!!

Back in August, during the panic over mortgages, Alan Greenspan offered reassurance to an anxious public. The current turmoil, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman said, strongly resembled brief financial scares such as the Russian debt crisis of 1998 or the U.S. stock market crash of 1987. Not to worry. But in the background, one could hear the groans and feel the tremors as larger political and economic tectonic plates collided. Nine months later, Greenspan's soothing analogies no longer wash. The U.S. economy faces unprecedented debt levels, soaring commodity prices and sliding home prices, to say nothing of a weak...

What makes this presidential election different from all other presidential elections? And different from what we expected when the year began? First, neither party’s presumptive nominee was chosen by massive support from primary voters, as John Kerry was in 2004, George W. Bush in 2000 or Bill Clinton in 1992. That may not seem obvious in the case of John McCain, who effectively clinched the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. But look at the numbers: In January, McCain won New Hampshire 37 percent to 32 percent, South Carolina 33 to 30 percent and Florida 36 to 31 percent....

May 14, 2008 | "She Came to Stay." That was the American title of Simone de Beauvoir's first book, a 1943 roman à clef about a manipulative and self-absorbed young woman who saps the energy and willpower of her admirers and plunges them into the existential abyss. Bulletin to all nations: help! Tornadoes, typhoons and earthquakes batter the globe, while the U.S. is teetering into recession and paralyzed by a stupid war it can neither win nor quit. But somehow we are locked at the hip to Hillary Clinton, who won't stop her manic tarantella until her party whirls into...

Crude oil has topped $110/barrel. Although our largest single supplier is (surprise?!) Canada, others aren't so favorably inclined or located. Gasoline prices soar to new highs, even when adjusted for inflation (1960's 31¢/gal. should equate to $2.21/gal. today — a real bargain). Why don't we grow our own fuel? Biofuel. Full article here: http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=36&article_id=6791&print_page=y