Free Republic

I asked AI to create some text for me on a particular topic, namely, a thorough treatment of WebAPI protocols and how to reference them. This is what I got. "An unforeseen rendezvous transpired as an explorer traversed the streets. In a quaint alleyway, they graciously signaled for a vehicle on the main road to lead the way. The car heeded their gesture, to their astonishment, veering into the same path. Face-to-face, a grin from the other driver metamorphosed this ordinary moment into a surreal realization; With a touch of whimsy, a connoisseur couldn't resist lauding the captivating allure this...

Continuation of the thread.

The massive spending deal, negotiated by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and agreed to by the president, looks poised to kill off the Budget Control Act of 2011—the law that was meant to restrain federal spending. With that law on the way out, the question arises: Where can fiscal conservatives turn to exert real and lasting fiscal discipline? Thankfully, two members of Congress have introduced a bill to do just that. The Maximizing America’s Prosperity Act—or MAP Act—is a bill proposed by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., that would limit federal spending...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama today banned private ownership of more than a quarter ounce of gold, saying the move was necessary to revive the economy. "Wealthy Americans are bailing out on the economy by taking their money out of circulation and hoarding gold," Obama said as he signed an executive order reminiscent of Depression-era President Franklin D. Roosevelt's ban on the possession of gold. "The wealthy are violating their trust and abusing their position by investing in gold," Obama said. "My order will put an immediate end to this practice, which threatens to hijack the good efforts of...

Gingrich’s Endorsement And The Failings Of The Conservative Media By Jennifer Rubin The conservative punditocracy is all aflutter today about the Union Leader’s endorsement of Newt Gingrich. Both the newspaper’s publisher, Joseph McQuaid, and those chattering about the endorsement offer the latest evidence to the conservative media being downright daft in this primary — a result, I suspect, of their increasingly self-segregation, which abets tone-deafness. Let’s start with the endorsement itself. The editorial board’s rationale is based on the conviction that Gingrich is “bold” — I kid you not — and that he should be recognized for “bringing in the...

President Obama uses teleprompters while giving the commencement address at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan.

Arriving for work at the U.K. Treasury last week, the incoming chief secretary, David Laws, found a note from his predecessor, Liam Byrne, offering advice on the job. “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left,” Laws cited it as saying. “Which was honest,” Laws, whose position is the No. 2 in the Treasury after the chancellor of the exchequer, told a press conference in London today. “But slightly less than I was expecting.” The note underscores the task facing Britain’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition as it seeks to reconcile demand for improved health and education services...

We Are Out of Money American governance won’t begin to inch forward until the political class faces basic facts. American conservatives, particularly the fiscal variety, tend to hold up the European Union as a model of irresponsible, big-spending economic policy. But consider this: According to E.U. rules, member countries cannot maintain budget deficits above 3 percent of gross domestic product; nor can their total debt rise above 60 percent of GDP. As Veronique de Rugy points out in this issue, the U.S. budget deficit in 2009 was three times the E.U.’s limit, and total debt will zoom past the 60...

President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday. In its 2011 budget, which the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released Feb. 1, the administration projected a 10-year deficit total of $8.53 trillion. After looking it over, CBO said in its final analysis, released Thursday, that the president's budget would generate a combined $9.75 trillion in deficits over the...

Health-care reform is a fact. And in spite of some continuing congressional squabbles and legal skirmishes, the outlines are clear. More than 32 million Americans will be able to buy affordable health coverage when the program gets going in 2014. In fact, they will be required to carry insurance. Many people will be covered even sooner. The government is going to set up a $5 billion insurance subsidy program in the next 90 days, to cover those who are uninsurable because of a previously existing medical condition. The really challenging question about health-care reform is will there be physicians and...

The degree of intermediation by the Federal Reserve in the issuance of US Treasuries hit a record in Q2, accounting for just under 50% of all net UST issuance absorption. This is a startling number, as the Fed's $164 billion in Q2 Treasury purchases dwarfs the combined foreign/household UST purchases of $101 billion and $29 billion, respectively, over the same time period. In fact, the Fed was a greater factor in UST demand than all three traditional players combined: Foreigners, Households and Primary Dealers, which amounted to a $158 billion in net Q2 purchases. This dramatic imbalance puts a lot...

It's over — we're officially, royally $ucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's...

MIDI - LIVING ON A PRAYER (well BonJovi, you wanted him, you got him)

Why isn't the economy getting better, even though the government is pumping trillions of dollars into bailouts and stimulus packages and intervening in markets left and right? Because the government is treating the wrong patient. Let's say you travel to the tropics and pick up a parasite. You go to your doctor who gives you very powerful drugs that make you sick. You go back to the doctor, he looks you over, and then adds more potent drugs to your prescription. You go back a third time and say "Doctor, I'm getting sicker and sicker, why isn't it working?" He...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Barney Frank had a press conference today. I saw this press conference. It happened after the program here had already started. One of the things that Barney Frank said in his press conference, "We're very positive toward the incoming Obama administration, but in this case, we are Reaganites: Trust, but verify." Now, what does this mean? What is Barney Frank suspicious of? I think this goes back to a couple things I said last hour and something Barney said. He thinks Obama is way in over his head in terms of thinking he can bring people together...

The US should consider making concessions to Russia on the placement of a missile-defense shield in Europe, in order to get Moscow to back "crippling" concessions against Iran if the time comes, a leading US congressman said Thursday. Howard Berman, the powerful Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview that one reason for a limited dialogue with the Iranians to get them to suspend uranium enrichment would be to encourage other countries to "buy into crippling" sanctions if Teheran failed to do so. Berman said the US-Iran talks should be of a set duration, somewhere...

Taliban insurgents battling the U.S.-backed Afghan government urged President-elect Barack Obama to change course in U.S. foreign policy and withdraw American troops from both Afghanistan and Iraq, an Internet monitoring service said Tuesday. The message posted on a Web site used by the Taliban claimed Obama's victory "reveals the collective willingness of American people not to continue the current despicable and anti-human wars in Afghanistan and Iraq," SITE Intelligence Group said. The authors claimed that Obama had promised to end Bush's policies pledging to "recover the dwindling American economy and find a niche in the comity of nations." But while...

While Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hangs in there, locked in a tough race with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Republican undercard is facing obliteration in the 2008 general elections for the Senate. Polling suggests that a massacre may be in the offing — and one that’s possibly even greater than the worst of previous GOP years: 1958, 1964, 1974, 1986 and 2006. Scott Rasmussen, whose site, www.rasmussenreports.com, follows these races closely, is producing truly hair-raising polling data. Of the open Republican Senate seats in contention, Democratic victory seems very likely in Virginia (Democratic former Gov. Mark Warner now has 55...

Republican John McCain asked disgruntled conservatives to support his presidential bid on Thursday, shortly after Mitt Romney ended his struggling campaign and made McCain the all-but-certain nominee. McCain assured a conference of conservative activists he was one of them, citing his commitment to win in Iraq, halt Iran's nuclear ambitions and rein in the federal government while drawing sharp contrasts with potential Democratic opponents Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. McCain's speech, which drew boos on the topic of illegal immigration, followed by a few hours Romney's surprise announcement at the conference that he was ending his run to allow Republicans...

Monday, December 11, 2006 Incoming House intelligence chief botches easy intel quiz WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks. When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered...