Free Republic

Biden to helm China policyBy BYRON TAU | 1/2/12 10:22 AM EST The Atlantic's Steve Clemons reports that Vice President Joe Biden will take the lead in formulating the Obama administration's China policy: While the Departments of State and Treasury have held important functional roles in conducting the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings, raising the bilateral status of US-China relations with ongoing meetings between two senior US Executive Branch officials with two of China's most senior leaders, Vice Premier Li Keqiang and State Councillor Dai Bingguo, there has been a general sense that neither Timothy Geithner nor Hillary Clinton...

Clint Bolick looks like any other high-powered lawyer, for the most part. But glance down at his index finger, which sports a scorpion tattoo, for first-hand evidence of his unconventional streak.Mr. Bolick has fought for the right of Arizonans to have their toes nibbled. After successfully defending a tattoo artist, he celebrated by having himself inked. From his perch here at the Goldwater Institute, a high-powered libertarian think tank, Mr. Bolick has even picked a fight with an entire professional hockey team.From a conservative point of view, there is no end to the government interference in individual liberties going on...

The plaintiffs in the lawsuits and other opponents of the current policy allege that its language, which instructs staff to stay neutral on discussions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender topics in the classroom, perpetuates a hostile environment for the GLBT community in district schools. Several teachers have also said the policy is difficult to interpret and apply. But the majority of school board members have stood behind it, saying it is an important policy to keep teachers neutral on a controversial and sometimes polarizing topic. The new policy states that "teachers and educational support staff shall not advocate personal...

Too many people in Tennessee are asking for antibiotics and too many doctors are prescribing them — a practice that renders once-powerful drugs ineffective against infections, according to a recently released study......“Unless we do something really radical and different, we’re going to lose these drugs,” said Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist and economist in Washington, D.C., who was a co-author of the study. “It’s not like we’re going to. We already have in many instances and things are just getting worse...” (Excerpted) http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111118/NEWS07/311180046/Tenn-ranks-3rd-antibiotic-use

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) held their 26th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) in Chicago this year. I have missed the last few events and was excited to attend this year's conference. I'm not sure how many I have attended, but for me, this was the best. Many criticized going and spending money in Chicago, Illinois, which is enemy territory for gun owners. Illinois is the only state with no legal concealed carry, with Chicago leading the fight against gun ownership in that state. But you don't win wars by playing defense. You must play offense to score points....

At the end of World War II, the U.S. defense and national security apparatus faced a variety of challenges left over by the conflict. One of the most important was the formulation of a process to collect, collate, evaluate, analyze, produce and disseminate strategic intelligence to guide decision-makers in the formulation of national policy. Implicit in this search was the need for a professional cadre of analysts able to carry on this process with impartiality and with full awareness of their own psychological limits, able to forge strategic intelligence products with minimal institutional bias – thus the Central Intelligence Agency...

Alaska Rep. Don Young suggested Tuesday he plans to introduce a bill to repeal every regulation that's been put into effect in the last 20 years, an idea that could have huge implications for everything from aviation safety to oil drilling if it actually happened. "My bill is very simple, I just null and void any regulations passed in the last 20 years," Young told the Anchorage Downtown Rotary Club. "I picked 20 years ago because it crossed party lines and also we were prosperous at that time. And no new regulations until they can justify them." At least some...

Thanks to Mark Vanderberg and Doc Wesson of the Gun Rights Radio Network you can see the entire two days of the conference here:

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind in a pro-Israel rally in New York: Obama's administration doesn't understand Israel's problems. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) spoke on Tuesday in a pro-Israel rally in New York City, ahead of the vote in the United Nations on the Palestinian state. It was the same rally in which Texas governor Rick Perry also spoke, blaming President Barack Obama and his Middle East policies for the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral statehood bid.

It is currently reported that Obama intends perhaps on Monday, to propose a minimum tax on millionaires, a "Buffet tax," sounding conceptually like a new version of the "alternative minimum tax." It has already been acknowledged that even if enacted into law such proposed minimum tax on the wealthy is not likely to have a significant impact on US tax revenues. It may, however, along with other tax proposals by this administration or as part of current law, have significant economic impacts. Under the often ignored principle that proposed legislation should be entitled according to its most essential impacts if...

The blood of the ongoing murder of migrant blacks in Tripoli has a name on it many will never see: President Barack Obama and his Foreign Policy. Gadaffi is gone; his family safely ensconced in Algeria and the Obama-supported rebels left in charge are now conducting a “large scale cleaning in the areas under their control with the extermination of all blacks in the capital”, according to The Independent. Without the permission of Congress and minus the blessing of We the People, Obama took the US to war in Libya. He sided with the rebels and ultimately, in effect the...

Rand Simberg’s witty, acerbic video series “Space Policy Explained” has a new chapter. Space Policy, Explained (Part 1)Space Policy, Explained (Part 2)Space Policy, Explained (Part 3)Space Policy, Explained (Part 4)Space Policy, Explained (Part 5)

For fear of being a political post, here are some ideas: 1: The debt ceiling will need to be raised temporarily. However the baseline budgeting process should be thrown out. Let the Federal Government budget just like any other company. (Actually these guys haven't even done a budget in 2 1/2 years). No automatic raises. Current budgeting process also encourages various governmental agencies and departments to spend more. If they don't, next year they get less money. Thus they are always hungry for more money to spend instead of finding ideas to save money. This system is all pervasive -...

Solution number two in the "seven breakthrough solutions" has been a point of contention between faculty and the board of regents as it is eerily similar to the Student Led Awards for Teaching Excellence commonly called SLATE. Though Chancellor McKinney initiated the program in 2008 designed to reward teachers for excellence in the classroom. Chancellor McKinney modeled the SLATE program off a similar one at The University of Oklahoma, which was lobbied for by the father of Jeff Sandefer, the writer of the "seven breakthrough solutions." Professor Jamie Grunlan, who gave an impassioned speech May 26 to the board of...

Last month, faculty members circulated an open letter to Richard Box, Chairman of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, expressing concern over the seven solutions and garnering over 800 signatures of support. Finally, on May 26 Professor Jaime Grunlan gave an impassioned speech to the Board of Regents questioning the SLATE program, which grants professors cash rewards for the best student evaluations and was met with thunderous applause. With all the concern over these "Seven Breakthrough Solutions," we will spend the next several days looking at each solution. Breakthrough solution one is to "Measure Teaching Efficiency and Effectiveness...

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said his company and his industry would be helped, not hurt, if consumers paid higher gas taxes. In an interview published in Tuesday's Detroit News, Akerson floated the idea of a $1 a gallon increase in the gas tax as a way to encourage buyers to purchase smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Greg Martin, spokesman for GM's Washington office, confirmed that the quotes reflect Akerson's and GM's view. Akerson said he would support a jump in the gas tax if it came instead of tighter fuel economy regulations that GM (GM, Fortune 500) and other...

In an interview with CNBC’s Jane Wells, rock n’ roll singer Gene Simmons slammed President Barack Obama on his proposal to weaken Israel in support of the Hamas-Fatah alliance. “How about you live there and try to defend an indefensible border?… He has no f**king idea what the world is like.”

Girl Killed by Abortion Drug Followed Old Planned Parenthood Policy Lisbon, Portugal -- A teenage girl who was recently killed by a deadly infection following usage of the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug followed the same Planned Parenthood protocols for taking the drug that claimed the lives of women in the United States. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/18/girl-killed-by-abortion-drug-followed-old-planned-parenthood-policy/

Girl Killed by Abortion Drug Followed Old Planned Parenthood Policy Lisbon, Portugal -- A teenage girl who was recently killed by a deadly infection following usage of the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug followed the same Planned Parenthood protocols for taking the drug that claimed the lives of women in the United States. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/18/girl-killed-by-abortion-drug-followed-old-planned-parenthood-policy/

Denmark was on a collision course with the European Union on Thursday as it defended a plan to unilaterally enforce stricter border controls, a policy which reflects growing resentment across Europe toward the EU “open-border” policy. "We see a rise in cross-border crime: drugs, east European gangs, human trafficking, money smuggling... And one of the efficient ways to fight this is border control," Danish Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said Wednesday on Danish television, adding that the enforcement measures would “be put in place as soon as possible.” Danish authorities have planned to invest over €20 million in more customs...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will lay out a vision for his policy toward the Middle East on Thursday, using Osama bin Laden's death as a chance to recast the U.S. response to political upheaval in the Arab world. Obama, who has enjoyed a boost in his standing at home and abroad with the death of the al Qaeda chief, will give his much-anticipated "Arab spring" speech one day before White House talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president is expected to re-commit to seeking an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal but seen as unlikely to present major new...

Gas Cost: Is it just us, or do Obama's policies sound suspiciously like that "Annie" song: Don't worry about today's killer pump prices, a bright energy sun will come out tomorrow. When gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama had a simple message for voters: There's nothing that can be done about it today. Certainly not offshore drilling. Obama trashed Sen. John McCain's call to open up vast tracts of offshore oil to exploration and drilling. It would not, he said in June 2008, "lower gas prices today. It would not lower gas prices this...

With fighting intensifying between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, the Arab League on Sunday announced plans to ask the UN to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza. Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305545#ixzz1JDWz1jI1

The budget stalemate between the right and the left comes down to a basic difference in economic views, the left feels that we need to tax more in order to consume more money, and the right believes that we need to consume less money in order to tax less. Whichever side of the argument you come down on, it's not hard to see which of these positions is fundamentally unsustainable. And it is amazing that the same people who can and do lecture for hours on environmental sustainability, seem to have no grasp of economic sustainability. If you tell them...

Every scheme and every so-called compromise King Obama signs off on has but one goal. Redistribute from the rest of the world to US states and US voters via Fed monetary policy. Am I correct?

AMID THE animated rodents, smushed test-babies, snack-food perversions, and crude humor of Sunday’s Super Bowl ads was a powerful, two-minute homage to Detroit, America’s most abject city. Over a pulsating soundtrack of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,’’ viewers were treated to panning shots of some of Detroit’s lovingly restored landmarks from the days when the auto industry made it the richest city in the United States. Today it is the poorest, with a 36 percent poverty rate. Far from avoiding its grim, rust belt image, the ad — ostensibly to introduce a new Chrysler luxury sedan — celebrated the city’s guts-and-grit industrial...

...Top CIA official Stephanie O'Sullivan told senators Thursday that Obama was warned of instability in Egypt "at the end of last year." She spoke during a confirmation hearing to become the deputy director of national intelligence, the No. 2 official to Clapper... ...Of major concern to U.S. intelligence officials is the possibility that the political upheaval in Egypt could be "hijacked" by the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned but politically popular religious and political movement that provides social and charitable support for much of Egypt's poor... ...Scheuer said the CIA has devoted resources to Egypt for years, fostering such a close...

Standing with the dictator ally instead of freedom-seeking citizens was the wrong course for Obama. Fox News says Mubarak will not seek re-election, a huge victory for those protesting in the streets. We asked earlier if Obama was really in a Pickle, sort of a darned if he does, darned if he doesn't kind of situation. We argued he was not and that he should have supported protesters. We were right. Foxy Blondes News says Mubarak will not seek reelection. Protesters quickly turned on Americans when they learned President Obama was pulling an Iran on them and telling them to...

Barack Hussein Obama is conceivably the most anti-Israel president the United States has had since the State of Israel was formed, yet American Jews voted in large numbers for him. In a stunning, shameless act of naked hate and bigotry, Barack Hussein Obama will align with the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the UN to ethnically cleanse Israel of the Jewish people. This would be the first time a US President did not veto a critical resolution in what is now an interminable stream of Islamic anti-semitic resolutions introduced by an increasingly Islamicized United Nations. Anyone with even so...

'I made a mistake': Al Gore's U-turn on corn ethanol as he admits the food-vs-fuel competition is real By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 4:43 AM on 23rd November 2010 Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was 'not a good policy', weeks before tax credits are up for renewal. U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on December 31. Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7billion last year according...

For help understanding the foreign policy headlines of the past week, let's return, briefly, to the spring of 1983, when Barack Obama was a student at Columbia University. What were the burning international issues of that time? Well, first was the "nuclear freeze" movement, which was prompting mass demonstrations around the world by people worried about the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States. Obama published an article about it in a campus magazine in which he invoked the vision of "a nuclear free world." The Middle East, meanwhile, was still reeling from the 1982 Israeli invasion of...

If no one knows what tax rate will be applied, or even what will be taxed (and it certainly doesn’t appear to be anyone in Congress or the president), it’s difficult for an investor to make confident investment decisions. With the tax factor unknown, what can be said with certainty is that there is a lot of real money at risk on any investment. Clearly, tax uncertainty doesn’t seem to make up much of the analysis by those who make their living brokering investments or investment services.

President Barack Obama and his economic team have decided to follow Japan’s economic path… the same one that resulted in Japan’s “Lost Decade!” Obama wants to be re-elected so badly, that he and Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve Bank are proceeding with methods they think will improve the economy quickly. That’s the catch though, this quick fix (if it even works) leads to long-term nightmares. Obama gains, U.S. pains. …On Dec. 29 of that year, the Nikkei 225 Index topped out at 38,957.44, before closing at 38,915.87. By the following September, it had nearly been halved – and there...

. . . Germany has pushed for a replacement of the programme, which expires in 2013, and increased economic coordination in the EU — a goal advanced last month when plans it put forward with France to make limited changes to the bloc's treaty and tighten budgetary rules gained approval. France and Germany should maintain their leadership role in Europe, Schaeuble said, especially in order to harmonise its economic policy and bolster stability given current economic uncertainties. These are being worsened by reckless policy in part from the the United States, Schaeuble said, sharpening his criticism of the Federal Reserve's...

Bernanke Speaks: What to Expect From Fed ChairmanOctober 14, 2010, 8:19 PM ET By Jon Hilsenrath Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gives an important speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Friday morning on monetary policy in a low-inflation environment — important because it comes just a few weeks before the Fed’s next policy meeting and because the time is ripe for him to lay out his thinking on the Fed’s next steps more clearly. Here’s our best guess about some of the issues that we think are on his mind: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke –Quantitative Easing: Even though...

A Cabinet minister was branded 'abhorrent' today after saying that the state should not provide limitless support to benefits claimants with large families. Campaigners reacted with fury after the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt savaged the policy of sizeable handouts totalling more than the average household earns. Mr Hunt claimed that the Government's proposed cap on benefits reflected the need for claimants to 'take responsibility' for their children.

Chicago... according to the Wall Street Journal, "Federal authorities charged a 22-year-old man with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, saying he placed a backpack he thought contained explosives on a crowded street near Wrigley Field. The suspect, Sami Samir Hassoun, plotted for months to terrorize Chicago, unaware that his associate in the scheme was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a 25-page federal indictment filed Monday.Officials said Mr. Hassoun placed the backpack, which authorities had loaded with harmless materials, in a trash can near a sports bar just after midnight last Sunday near...

The proposed changes in ICE policy state: “Immigration officers should not issue detainers against an alien charged only with a traffic-related misdemeanor unless or until the alien is convicted." The ICE proposal would prevent law enforcement officers from reporting illegal immigrants identified during the course of a traffic-related stop or arrest to federal authorities unless: they are a convicted felon; they are wanted for a felony; they are part of an existing investigation; they were involved in an accident involving drugs or alcohol, or they fled the scene. The draft proposal was posted on ICE's website last month with a...

Doom, Gloom and Boom publisher Marc Faber says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's monetary easing policies are creating many more jobs outside the U.S. than in it.

"It is a fallacy to believe that easy money and the purchase of Treasuries will boost economic activity in the U.S.," Faber told Bloomberg. "Over the last two years, we eased massively in the U.S. and where did the growth take place? In Asia."

"So when we talk about job creation, do you think that Intel or a small businessman will hire more people in the U.S. because of further monetary printing?"

"No! They will build...

PHOENIX (Reuters) – A shake-up in immigration policy may lead to deportation proceedings being dropped for thousands of aliens who entered the United States illegally but are applying to stay in the country, officials said on Friday. They said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) seeks to end deportation proceedings against detained illegal immigrants who have applications pending to become legal U.S. residents, if agents determine they have no criminal history and do not present a security threat. The policy shift emerged from an internal memorandum ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton sent last week to the agency's principal legal...

In 1992, Congress gave Fannie and Freddie a “mission” to promote affordable housing, and directed them to study a few very new ideas to accomplish this goal: “establish a downpayment requirement for mortgagors of 5 percent or less; allow the use of cash on hand as a source of downpayments; and approve borrowers who have a credit history of delinquencies if the borrower can demonstrate a satisfactory credit history for at least the [most recent] 12-month period.”

The question: In the coming days and weeks, the Hamptons, the Vineyard and all the other August escapes from workaday life will likely see a bull market in pessimism as financiers and powerbrokers reach into their summer book bags to relive the recession or look ahead to even greater disaster. "Lofty geo- globaloney tomes on the future of the world" is how the economist Nouriel Roubini has described his summer reading list. Alan Greenspan has said that he will delve into "Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World," which sounds more like a penance than poolside pleasure. Which...

Jim Robinson has laid down the law with regard to tech thread flame wars. I am motivated to make sure we tech-thread-heads are aware of this. This vanity is a heads-up with regard to Jim's comments last night, and I've added a few thoughts of my own as an observer. Here's what Jim said: To All: [That goes for everyone.] I don’t see any reason whatsoever to be having flamewars on FR over computer products. Those who have a problem with Apple should just not buy the product and that takes care of that. Don’t come to FR to flame...

The great political writer John Podhoretz recently asked in a column,"How should a self-described patriot think, act and talk about the United States if that self-described patriot believes the elected leadership of the United States has led the country into a ditch that threatens to expand into a bottomless chasm?" Podhoretz is not alone among right-of-center thinkers who feel that President Obama's love of tax increases, nosebleed spending, and desire to heavily regulate large portions of the economy will send us down a path we can't recover from. Not to defend Obama's policies for one second, but all this worrying...

Some thoughts I've had lately while seeing how stretched our military (and especially the reserve component - which includes the Guard - has been over the last 6 years). Please comment - I'm really in a quandary. Colonel, USAFR

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” — Warren Buffett “The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled, it burns like a consuming flame.” — Theodore Roosevelt One of the first things they teach you in business school is the concept of the value proposition. Simply stated, value proposition is the benefit a consumer receives from purchasing a good or service. Value proposition has always been a key component of any business. But in tough economic times, the concept has become even more important. With budgets tight, people are justifying their...

With a massive new health care law and financial reform legislation looming, companies are more worried than ever about the impact new regulations and legislation will have on their operations and their bottom line. Not knowing what to expect from these pending regulations, businesses are acting cautiously to forestall any negative impact. These actions are squelching economic growth and job creation, as companies are forced to freeze investments and hiring until they understand how they will be affected by these new mandates.

Speaking at Freedom Fest in Norfolk, Virginia Sarah Palin laid out her very aggressive agenda for the nation. This is a powerful indictment of the Obama regime, and the corrupt “lamestream media” as well. Fresh from her speech at California State University, at Stanislaus, where she spoke of American exceptionalism, and the need to get back to the basics in education, and raised more money for the university than any other speaker in history, Sarah came to Virginia ready to take on the big issues that we face. With every passing speech, every new appearance, Sarah Palin looks more powerful,...

If you define a recession as a period of declining real income and output, then it ended more than a year ago. But despite the fact that income and output are rising, with rapid productivity growth and declining labor costs, private employment today is about a million jobs less than a year ago. Why aren't private sector jobs coming back, and what can be done about it? There are two economic views on this. What I would call the "older" view does not have much to do with economics at all, given that incentives rarely enter the discussion. This view...

Words matter. Words often hold great meaning. That is especially true when it comes to the words of our founding documents like the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. Those words are especially cherished. Yet in the past year it appears the Obama administration has been changing one key word in that sacred scroll. Last month the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2010 report revealed grave concern about both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejecting the term “freedom of religion” for the term “freedom of worship” in public pronouncements. Why the change when the First Amendment...