Free Republic

Ten years ago, subprime mortgages went from a little-known form of lending to a precipitating cause of the international banking crisis that led to the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009. Like these mortgages, another relatively obscure financial problem could end up being the next big taxpayer bailout. Unless the funding crisis for multiemployer pension plans is addressed, the “solution” will look more like the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, under which the taxpayers lost $123.8 billion. In his testimony last November in the House, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Director Thomas Reeder wrote, “Legislation is needed to...

If you ask most Indians in what kind of society they want to live, they’ll tell you they want to live in a free and tolerant India. Indians want to live in harmony as Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and as members of any religion of their choosing. They don’t want to be accused of being anti-nationalist because of their diverse identities and beliefs, or of participating in fraudulent conversions when they practice and share their faith as enjoined in the constitution. Christians want to celebrate Easter and Christmas in peace, in the same way Muslims want to celebrate Ramadan and...

NPV was started back in 2007. Never mind that it already violates the law - as I understand states must get Congressional approval before entering into contracts that affect the federal government. So far, ever since 2007, the Democrat has won the popular vote in every presidential election and in every NPV state. When NPV gets enough states to reach 270, there will be a situation where one candidate wins the popular vote in a state but is denied the electoral votes from that state because of NPV. This alone would be enough to cause a lawsuit, and on top...

A woman who thought she was suffering from Crohn’s disease for six years found the “sauce” of the problem when doctors discovered pieces of a Heinz sauce packet in the lining of her intestine. The 41-year-old woman went to doctors after she experienced abdominal pain and bloating that was similar to Crohn’s disease symptoms, an inflammatory bowel disorder, the British Medical Journal said in a report. Doctors at Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospital in Britain’s Slough monitored the symptoms and gave her standard treatment for the disease — but to no avail. The woman’s symptoms became so severe that doctors...

On yesterday's America's Newsroom on Fox, Sandra Smith had a segment in which Rich Lowry and democrat Ben Kissel were discussing the new Papadopoulos canard the NY Times is trying to sell as the spark for the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign. Near the end of the segment Kissel reverted to parroting the claim that the GOP had paid for part of the Trump dossier. That is completely false. One more time for you democrats: Oct. 2015: It was reported late Friday that the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer, hired Fusion GPS to...

When we think of winter outfits, we think of sweatpants, UGGs and a big fluffy hat to match. Melania proves otherwise. After spending their Christmas and New Years at the Trump Mar-a-Logo resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the Trump family made their way back to the White House. Even the frigid, winter temperatures of Washington DC (at 20 degrees, ahem) caught up with Melania Trump, who was spotted deplaning Air Force One in a cozy -- and of course, chic -- winter outfit. The first lady took airplane travel to the next level in a tan breasted peacoat, turtleneck and...

In the stew of false information and conspiracy theories that swirls online, perhaps no idea is as flummoxing as the belief in a flat Earth. Flat-Earthers believe that the Earth is a flat disc ringed by an ice wall. All those elegant models of a round Earth that perfectly explain seasons, eclipses, sunrises and sunsets? Lies and cover-ups, they say. Pictures of the round Earth from space? Government conspiracies. The fact that you can see ships disappearing hull-first over the curve of the horizon with your own eyes? Well, flat-Earthers claim to see something different. It's been a big publicity...

Of all the new laws going into effect Monday (legal cannabis in California, higher minimum wages in several states, and many more), you may be surprised about which one drew the most backlash online. It appears to be Oregon House Bill 2482, which allows people who live in counties with 40,000 residents or less to pump their own gas. Oregonians aired their frustrations on Facebook over the new law. And just about everyone else in the country made fun of them. New California laws going into effect in 2018 New era opens in California with first sales of recreational marijuana...

What's fun with music videos is to take a song that tells a particular story - like Jackson's putting up and breaking down the stage during his music tours - and set the song in a completely different context, where it tells a completely different story. That's why I call these Literary Music Videos.

On the afternoon of November 8, 2016, Kellyanne Conway settled into her glass office at Trump Tower. Right up until the last weeks of the race, the campaign headquarters had remained a listless place. All that seemed to distinguish it from a corporate back office were a few posters with right-wing slogans. Conway, the campaign’s manager, was in a remarkably buoyant mood, considering she was about to experience a resounding, if not cataclysmic, defeat. Donald Trump would lose the election — of this she was sure — but he would quite possibly hold the defeat to under six points. That...

Late Tuesday afternoon and shortly after UN Ambassador Nikki Haley officially announced U.S. foreign aid cuts to Pakistan over terrorism sponsorship, President Trump called out the Palestinians for walking away from peace talks. In doing so, he threatened to withhold financial aid.  It's not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others. As an example, we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue...— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ...peace treaty...

The FBI has released the final numbers for 2017 gun sales. While 2016’s sales record of 27 million still stands, last year’s 25,235,215 comes in second by a mere eight percent. While the mainstream media claimed a steep decline in firearm sales, those fake news reports proved nothing more than wishful thinking. From the Washington Post (where Democracy dies in darkness): BOSSIER CITY, La. — Sales of guns and ammunition in the United States have dropped precipitously since Election Day, according to FBI statistics, trade groups, gun shop owners and corporate reports, what many say is the result of electing...

Word For The Day, In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". SACERDOTAL [sass ur DOH tel] hear it pronounced adjective Definition 1 : of or relating to priests or a priesthood : priestly 2 : of, relating to, or suggesting religious belief emphasizing the powers of priests as essential mediators between God and humankind

FULL TITLE: Behar: Trump Needs to Be ‘Hospitalized’ — ‘He’ll Blow the Whole World Up So His Stupid Sons Don’t Have to Go to Jail’ Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” while discussing President Donald Trump’s tweet about nuclear buttons and North Korea, co-host Joy Behar said Trump was worried about FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and therefore he would “blow the whole world up so his stupid sons don’t have to go to jail.” (see tweet at link) Joy Behar said, “Trump needs to be medicated and hospitalized at this point, or he is just going to kill...

This is total Fake News and taken out of context, don’t believe the liberal propaganda Machine! #MAGA The bottom of his twitter is the CNN report. "Bannon: 2016 Trump Tower Meeting was ‘treasonous’"

Around 55,000 planned procedures are expected to be axed in a desperate attempt to free up beds, the Evening Standard reports. One senior doctor claimed that patients are being treated in “third world” conditions in some hospitals. Other NHS trusts have abandoned basic rules that state that men and women should be kept on separate wards and some patients are facing a 12-hour wait to receive Accident and Emergency care as hospitals run out of space. The emergency has been preceded by a growing flu crisis, and as of Tuesday, 12 NHS trusts covering millions of people have said they...

The Hill published a story today based on leaks from a recent House Judiciary Committee meeting where FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed elements of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Republicans on the committee say McCabe outlined some irregularities that suggest the outcome of the investigation was rigged in Clinton’s favor. Among the new findings is that an unnamed tech specialist who used Bleach Bit to wipe Clinton’s server after a congressional subpoena was issued admitted lying to the FBI [emphasis added]: A computer technician who deleted Clinton emails from her server in March 2015 after a congressional subpoena...

In a blistering statement issued by the White House, Trump said Bannon has "lost his mind." "When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," Trump said in a statement. "Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books." "Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make...

Never Back Down Masterful. Epic. An appropriate theme for 2018, don't you think?

President Donald Trump distanced himself from his former chief strategist Steve Bannon on Wednesday, contending that "he not only lost his job" but also "lost his mind" when he left the White House. On Wednesday, excerpts from an upcoming Michael Wolff book showed that Bannon called a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer "treasonous" and "unpatriotic." This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.