Free Republic

Unemployment has dropped in recent years, yet still—far too many people are participating. One out of every seven Americans received SNAP benefits in 2014, and the program cost $74.1 billion, making it one of the largest means-tested welfare program. You’d think the improving jobs situation would translate to the number of SNAP beneficiaries declining by a much larger margin. But that hasn’t been the case. Another reason for saying that food stamp numbers aren’t really going in the right direction? Look at how the SNAP demographic has changed. Before the 2008 recession, 55 percent of SNAP households consisted of children...

This 888 point crash comes in the 8th month of our calendar We witnessed something truly historic happen on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 530 points, and that followed a 358 point crash on Thursday. When you add those two days together, the total two day stock market crash that we just witnessed comes to a grand total of 888 points, which is larger than any one day stock market crash in U.S. history. It is also interesting to note that this 888 point crash comes in the 8th month of our calendar. Perhaps that is just a...

A nifty piece from the Daily Mail. You would think a cabinet member who had every reason to assume that classified information would be circulating on her server would insist on a company renowned for security. Instead she went with a small outfit in Colorado, largely unknown outside the region, whose pipeline to the Clintons appears to have been the fact that their VP of sales was a big Democratic booster and got them some work at the 2008 Democratic convention.Were state secrets being stored on a server in an apartment bathroom? One [former Platte River Networks employee], Tera...

As someone who’s criticized the Republican establishment and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) since 1992, and slammed Karl Rove and George W. Bush since 2001, I cannot be more thrilled with what Donald Trump has brought to the national conversation. He has done what no one else could – present company included – for these topics and others. These discussions are all more in the news than ever, and we are all better off for it. It’s fun to watch, and it’s important to our national debate. Having said that, Mr. Trump made some comments on MSNBC and in Iowa in...

Homophobic Everyone knew that the Supremes’ obscene gay marriage decree would lead to churches being sued for not betraying their faith with sacrilegious parodies of wedding ceremonies. But this enterprising homofascist decided to cut to the chase and go right after the Bible: A homosexual man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him emotional distress. According to the Christian Post, ex-con turned author Bradley LaShawn Fowler filed the federal suit in the...

From the last Morning Jolt of the week: Trump 2008: Bush Is Evil, Talk to Iran, Obama Cannot Do Worse Than Bush You may have gathered that I remain a skeptic about Donald Trump. Trump fans look at us skeptics with incredulity that we could possibly object to their man, and his ability to “change the debate,” and force the media to discuss topics like sanctuary cities. Those of us not so enamored with Trump look at how that quality suddenly outranks all other qualities in a potential Republican presidential candidate – including consistent conservatism. Permit me to remind you...

A homosexual man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him emotional distress. Bradley LaShawn Fowler, an ex-con turned author, filed the federal suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, the same day a judge refused to appoint him a lawyer for his suit against Thomas Nelson, The Grand Rapids Press reported. “The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these...

In Phyllis Peters’s garage, there is a snow shovel. A nice one: green, shiny, with an ergonomic steel handle. It came from Hillary Rodham Clinton. And it plays a part in a modern-day political legend, about some of the strangest money a candidate has ever spent. Eight years ago, Peters was a volunteer for Clinton’s first presidential run. She had been an admirer of Clinton since her time as first lady. But just before Clinton lost the Iowa caucuses, her staffers did something odd: They bought shovels for Peters and the hundreds of other volunteers.

Frankly, I'm tired of listening to Senator Clinton portray herself as being in the solutions business -- as boasting a nice, fat resume of accomplishments -- while mocking Barack Obama for being a rhetorical empty suit. Is she truly a beacon of experience? Because I couldn't think of a single piece of legislation that has her name stuck proudly on the front of it, no equivalent of McCain-Feingold, for example, I headed straight for her campaign website to see what glorious aspects of her vaunted experience I was missing. Actually, I was missing nothing. There is not one single example...

February 22, 2008 Son of Star Wars takes out toxic satellite in $30m space hit Michael Evans, Defence Editor and Jane Macartney in Beijing Video need to know: expert opinion on the satellite operation The United States provided dramatic proof of its capability to destroy an object in space when a US navy missile scored a direct hit on an American satellite falling out of control. Missile experts said that the Standard SM-3 weapon, fired from the USS Lake Erie, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, took about three minutes to reach the satellite 150 miles (240km) up in the sky, flew above...

* Fiorina claims in Rising to the Challenge that John McCain asked her to help Palin 'get up to speed on the economic issues facing the country' * 'I never did get the chance to fulfill Senator McCain's request ... although I made numerous requests to meet with her during the campaign' * To this day Fiorina, a contender for the 2016 GOP nomination, says she still hasn't met the Tea Party superstar * Palin endorsed Fiorina in 2010 when she was competing in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in California, but it was via Facebook * A...

Hillary Clinton has tried to piggyback on her husband's ferocious reputation, boasting that she "beat the Republican attack machine." Of course, if anybody beat the Republican attack machine, it was Bill. Hillary Clinton wasn't on any ballot in the 1990s. True, her reputation was at stake, but that's a fight she lost: She ended that decade a highly unpopular figure. She remains one today, with about half of the public persistently telling pollsters they have an unfavorable view of her. Nor was Clinton able to shed her baggage when she moved to New York. In her November 2000 Senate race,...

If what follows sounds like a scene from the sci-fi disaster flick Independence Day, imagine what President George W. Bush must have thought on the night of January 8, 2008 as he contemplated his ranch home in Crawford, Texas. At around 8:00 pm, an enormous, hovering craft with ridiculously bright lights, at least 1,000 feet long (though some witnesses said a mile long), was tracked on multiple radars heading straight for the president's ranch at low speed. The craft lacked a required transponder, was totally unidentified, did not respond to any attempts at communication, and was flying through restricted airspace....

Editor’s Note: This story first appeared in the Wall Street Journal. We reprint in part here. Hillary Clinton’s State Department was part of a panel that approved the sale of one of America’s largest uranium mines at the same time a foundation controlled by the seller’s chairman was making donations to a Clinton family charity, records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show.The $610 million sale of 51% of Uranium One to a unit of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, was approved in 2010 by a U.S. federal committee that assesses the security implications of foreign investments. The State Department, which...

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency. What follows is...

Let's collaboratively build a timeline of this disaster, starting with when these agencies were formed, tracking the legislation that was not only passed, but proposed, and quotes from who supported and opposed it. PLEASE INCLUDE URLs so we can link to sources. Here's a start. 1938 Fannie Mae, or the Federal National Mortgage Association, was founded in 1938. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode12/usc_sup_01_12_10_13_20_III.html 1954 1954 Charter Act 1968 1968 Charter Act 1970 Freddie Mac, or the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, was established in 1970 1989 Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 1990, James A. Johnson went to work for Fannie...

Obama: Call To [Muslim] Prayer "Is One Of The Prettiest Sounds on Earth At Sunset" Last March, Obama was interviewed by Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times Op-ed columnist. Here’s what the Times quoted Obama as saying: NY Times “I was a little Jakarta street kid,” he said in a wide-ranging interview in his office [...]. He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran...

Sarah Palin so completely traumatized Weather Undergrounder Bill Ayers in 2008, he is still talking about the former vice-presidential candidate seven years later. In a March 18 Publishers' Weekly interview at Hyde Park's Seminary Co-op bookstore, Ayers injected Mrs. Palin into the conversation. It seems he still can't forget a governor from Alaska who dared to expose his fellow traveler at a private fundraiser on October 4, 2008 in Englewood, Colorado:. VP Candidate Sarah Palin, 2008: Our opponent, though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he’s palling around with terrorists who would...

In 2008, the Bush administration, along with the “six powers,” was negotiating with Iran concerning that country’s nuclear arms program. The Bush administration’s objective was to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. On July 20, 2008, the New York Times headlined: “Nuclear Talks With Iran End in a Deadlock.” What caused the talks to founder? The Times explained: Iran responded with a written document that failed to address the main issue: international demands that it stop enriching uranium. And Iranian diplomats reiterated before the talks that they considered the issue nonnegotiable. The Iranians held firm to their position, perhaps because...

President Barack Obama is nominating a major fundraiser for his presidential campaign to be the next U.S. ambassador to Sweden. The White House says Azita Raji is Obama’s pick for the job. She’s a former investment banker who served as national vice-chair of finance for Obama’s 2012 campaign. She helped raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign as a “bundler” in 2012. …