Free Republic

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., has proposed a plan for eliminating the multi-trillion-dollar national debt: Tax everything. Earlier this year, Fattah introduced H.R. 4646, the "Debt Free America Act," which would impose a massive new tax for a period of seven years, while the national debt is being paid off. And once the debt is paid, the bill would eliminate the individual income tax, supplanting it with the new, "transaction" tax instead. Specifically, H.R. 4646 would levy a 1-percent tax on every transaction of any kind that uses check, cash or credit cards (with a path in place for also...

If it hasn’t happened already, Big Hollywood will end up like teachers unions who shilled for Obamacare but that end up getting a waiver to protect themselves from the same great things they lobbied to force on everybody else. In the meantime, the Hollywood left continues to pathetically pedal a bicycle that broke its chain months ago: (VIDEO)

McDonald's Corp. has warned federal regulators that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul. The move is one of the clearest indications that new rules may disrupt workers' health plans as the law ripples through the real world. Trade groups representing restaurants and retailers say low-wage employers might halt their coverage if the government doesn't loosen a requirement for "mini-med" plans, which offer limited benefits to some 1.4 million Americans.

Mystery Chinese SSK fuels Asia's submarine race By Ted Parsons 20 September 2010 The China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation has launched an unidentified new-type conventional submarine (SSK) at its Wuhan shipyard, according to Chinese reports. It is the third new SSK design revealed by China since 1994 and is likely to exacerbate regional anxieties that are propelling many Asian states to increase or establish submarine fleets. Vague or altered internet images of this new SSK, which first appeared on the popular Chinese CALF web page on 10 September, led observers to think that it may be yet another Chinese internet hoax,...

Washington - The U.S. is planning a concerted campaign against lower-level corruption in Afghanistan thought to be directly feeding the insurgency and is ceding more control to Afghans of the higher-level investigations that soured relations with President Hamid Karzai. The Obama administration has made the battle against government corruption a key part of its Afghanistan war strategy for the past year, arguing that graft and fraud within Mr. Karzai's inner circle fuel public support for the Taliban. Now some top officials say corruption further down the food chain has a bigger impact on the insurgency's strength. (Snip) Officials said the

Study: NM state pension plan will run out of money in 13 yearsBy Rob Nikolewski on September 9, 2010 According to a recent study, New Mexico’s pension plan for state employees will run out of money in the year 2023, an event that would trigger a series of excruciating economic and political decisions for lawmakers that would affect not just the retirees inside the system but every New Mexico taxpayer. Economists Joshua Rauh of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business have developed a model of state...

Dear President Obama: I'm aware that you're gravely concerned about the economy and the employment situation. Understandably so since your policies of fiscal and monetary stimulus have failed to create economic growth or employment. Yet despite such failures you advocate more of the same remedies in the face of their failure. On Labor Day you announced new spending of $50 billion on infrastructure construction to create “jobs”. This is in addition to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act commitment of $499 billion for similar projects. According to your website, recovery.gov, only $296 billion of that amount has been spent, so...

While speaking to business leaders in Silicon Valley, California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown announces that he has a plan for the State's fiscal crisis, but he won't reveal it until after the election. At first we thought this was just a joke, but then we checked the candidate's web site. It's true, he doesn't have a plan.

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly has proposed a new plan whereby Jews living in the West Bank will remain in their communities after the territory becomes part of a Palestinian state, WND has learned. Officials in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have confirmed the plan to this reporter, marking the first time an Israeli leader has ever put on the table in a serious way a proposal involving Jewish West Bank residents remaining in a Palestinian state. Conventional negotiations always has assumed an Israeli evacuation of its communities inside any territory taken over by the PA.

Congress seems increasingly reluctant to let taxes go up, even on wealthier Americans. Worried about the fragile economy and their own upcoming elections, a growing number of Democrats are joining the rock-solid Republican opposition to President Barack Obama's plans to let some of the Bush administration's tax cuts expire. Democratic leaders in Congress still back Obama, but the willingness to raise taxes is waning among the rank and file as the stagnant economy threatens the party's majority in the House and Senate.

The Obama administration is moving to release thousands of illegal immigrants detained at facilities across the country if the immigrants have a potential path to legal residency. The move could affect as many as 17,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. It comes amid a push by ICE to focus on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, rather than seek to deport all illegal immigrants.

There they go again. For the fifth time since July, the first family has set plans to board Air Force One for a frilly vacation, a 10-day return trip to exclusive Martha's Vineyard where they are expected to stay at the 28-acre oceanfront Blue Heron Farm that rents for up to $50,000 a week. But first the Obamas will be traveling to the Gulf Coast of Florida for a mini-vacation as a way to encourage other vacationing Americans to head to the beaches that have been shunned by tourists worried about oil-slicked sands due to the Gulf oil spill. They...

Now that I know I’m just a bigot for raising questions about homosexuality (among other things), I may as well just come out with it. Why is it that women who dig women prefer women who look like men, or some strange version of men? If they really like women, why don’t they look like women? Why is it that many homosexual men act like outrageous stereotypical versions of women in order to attract other men? Wouldn’t it make more sense if lesbians were all feminine and homosexual males were more masculine? Just asking. Really, I don’t understand it all...

Senate Bill Marks Next Step in Federal ‘Sustainable Communities’ Plan Friday, August 06, 2010 By Matt Cover, Staff Writer President Barack Obama delivers remarks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 27, 2010. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) (CNSNews.com) – A federal neighborhood planning program to provide grants for environmentally sound, sustainable living communities moved one step closer to being funded Tuesday, when the Senate Banking Committee passed the Livable Communities Act on a 12-10 party line vote. The act would provide money for part of President Barack Obama’s “Partnership for Sustainable Communities,” which seeks to...

The US military announced on Sunday that it has a plan in place to strike Iran should the need arise to do so. During an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US, said that although he believes that a military strike on Iran would have serious effects on the Middle East, the risk of Iran's developing a nuclear weapon is also unacceptable. "I think the military options have been on the table and remain on the table. It's one of the options that the president has. Again, I...

GLENN: Here is there is, and we're going to include this in the free e mail newsletter, The Eight Stages of Social Movement Success by Bill Moyer (Link). Now, Bill Moyer is not the Bill Moyers from PBS. I thought it was the other day, but it's not. It's just another socialist freak. But they were trying to stop the United States from building nuclear power plants, and the plan was that we would have 2,000 nuclear power plants in America operating by the year 2000 and, of course, the left couldn't have that. So he met with everybody and...

Republicans will shortly need to stand for something more than just being against much of the Obama agenda. Only a superior and detailed alternative can win more lasting support than just a midterm correction. Obama, after all — with nationalized health care, amnesty, cap-and-trade, financial overhaul, government absorption of private enterprise, takeover of the student-loan industry, and gorge-the-beast deficits that will ensure a generation of higher taxes — at least seems to have some sort of plan to change America. The absurdity of $1.5 trillion annual deficits is easy to run on; but where in the budget should we freeze...

The Chinese Ministry of National Defense announced on June 24 that all vessels would be prohibited from entering areas located east of Zhoushan to Taizhou city in Zhejiang in the East China Sea from June 30 to July 5. During that time period, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) conducted a six-day, live ammunition drill in a move that analysts say may be in response to a planned joint exercise between the United States and Republic of Korea (ROK) navies in the Yellow Sea. In spite of a lack of expert agreement over Chinese intentions, one aspect of the exercise...

On Sunday near Okinawa, the Japanese navy spotted two Chinese warships sailing south into the Pacific. The Chinese vessels were in international waters, but their proximity to Okinawa, which hosts a preponderance of U.S. and Japanese military forces, alarmed Tokyo. As a courtesy, navies traditionally announce their routine cruises in advance, particularly when one nation's ships might pass close to another's territory. Sunday's infraction of that protocol was not the first for China. Just three months prior, two Japanese warships patrolling around Okinawa had discovered an unannounced flotilla of at least 10 Chinese vessels, including two submarines. During the encounter,...

In this spoof, NASA has a new plan for reaching out to Muslims and making them feel good about their historic contributions to science. Barack H. Obama 666 Pennsylvania Ave Washington, DC 20006 Dear Sir, I cannot tell you how much we appreciate your budget cuts, your cancellation of the space shuttle and any replacement launch vehicle for it, forcing us to rely on Russian Soyuz ships and their space program, which can't It will take approximately 3000 suicide bombers within the SRB's to provide adequate liftoff thrust for the shuttle launch. All systems go! even seem to dock with...