Free Republic

MULBERRY, Fla. (AP)— Polk County sheriff’s deputies arrested Pastor Terry Jones, 61, and his associate pastor, Marvin Sapp Jr., 34,..He had said he was heading to a nearby park to burn 2,998 Qurans — one for every victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks... Mulberry’s mayor, along with area elected officials, a sheriff’s deputy and several Polk County residents have talked about the need to express love and tolerance for all faiths on Sept. 11. [snip]

On Poland and Detroit. Not For the Faint of Heart. Back to finance. Poland did exactly what I and a few others have been warning about for years with regards to private retirement accounts and pensions. Poland confiscated 50% of all private pension funds last week. PRIVATE pensions. As Warren Pollock and I have been screaming, one of the largest chunks of collateral left in the system is private retirement money, both in the form of 401(k)s and IRAs and in private pension accounts. In the U.S., the latest data for 2012 shows that there are now $10.5 Trillion in...

[To Moderator - the title contained an obscene reference for one to do something physically impossible to oneself.] Mr. Lew, I know you continue to say that the Congress has "no choice" but to raise the debt limit. You're wrong. Congress has the choice to say no. You have a credit card but the limit is set not by your King but rather by Congress. And Congress has the right to cut that card up any time it so chooses. So says the Constitution: Article I Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts...

Are we, the people, going to allow yet another unlawful military action to take place? Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel suggested Friday that the Pentagon was moving naval forces closer to Syria in preparation for a possible decision by President Obama to order military strikes. Hagel declined to describe any specific movements of U.S. forces. He said Obama asked that the Pentagon to prepare military options for Syria and that some of those options "requires positioning our forces." I don't seem to recall a Declaration of War by Congress. And there is certainly no exigent emergency that requires an immediate response...

Last night I had a surreal experience at the American Legion building in Ft. Walton. If you live around here, you know where it is. There's a tank out front. It's a patriotic place. Last night it hosted The Republican Club of Okaloosa County for their regular meeting, dinner and a speaker -- in this case, Jeff Miller (R-FL-1) The food, hospitality, and crowd were a nice change from my usual evening routine (that often includes a nice hard run) but the surreal began when Mr. Miller stepped to the microphone. What followed was an astonishing display of fear, cowardice...

Wondering why the ES is soaring? Because the NYSE just broke, too. NASDAQ HAS DECLARED SELF HELP AGAINST NYSE ARCA (ARCA) NASDAQ DECLARES SELF HELP AGAINST NYSE ARCA AS/OF 15:26:42 E.T NYSE ARCA HAVING DIFFICULTY PROCESSING OUTBOUND TAPE C QUOTES And BATS too: BATS HAS DECLARED SELF-HELP AGAINST ANOTHER MARKET CENTER BATS SAYS ROUTING TO NYSE ARCA HAS BEEN SUSPENDED AS OF 15:39 An absolute circus meant only to preserve confidence in a rigged, manipulated system based on incorrect electronic trades.

I can't remember if I have ever written this up, or maybe just explained it in a interview at some point, but I have had several people ask, so I'll explain it. This is how Hillary Clinton "made" $100,000 off of an initial "investment" of $1000 in cattle futures back in the early 80's. It was textbook money laundering. I know you're shocked - SHOCKED to think that a Clinton could be involved in anything untoward, but I'm afraid it is true. Back in the 80's in Arkansas, Bill and Hillary were the power couple ascending first to the position...

According to researchers at EMPact America, an organization dedicated to studying and preparing for the possibility of large-scale electro magnetic pulse threats that can destroy our modern day electrical infrastructure, the earth came dangerously close to a serious destabilization event. A couple of weeks ago the sun emitted a massive CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) that, had it been earth-directed, would likely have wiped out critical portions of the world’s power grid and sent developed nations back to the stone age within a matter of seconds. ‘The world escaped an EMP catastrophe,’ Henry Cooper, who now heads High Frontier, a group...

The Russian military recently dispatched a guided-missile warship to Cuba as part of what U.S. officials say are growing military, intelligence and economic ties between Moscow and Havana. [snip] “The cruiser Moskva and the large seagoing tanker Ivan Bubnov set off for Havana..." [snip] After Havana, the warship will visit Caracas, Venezuela; Managua, Nicaragua; and Praia Port in the Cape Verde Islands off eastern Africa. The visit to Cuba is part of what the U.S. officials said is a push by Moscow to boost relations with Cuba in the military, energy and transportation sectors. The effort was kicked off in...

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, If you want to frighten Baby Boomers, just show them the list of statistics in this article. The United States is headed for a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude, and we are woefully unprepared for it. At this point, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are reaching the age of 65 every single day, and this will continue to happen for almost the next 20 years. The number of senior citizens in America is projected to more than double during the first half of this century, and some absolutely enormous financial promises...

This gets really tiring....(Robert Reich vomits forth) "In other words, much in modern America depends on where you draw boundaries, and who's inside and who's outside. Who is included in the social contract? If "Detroit" is defined as the larger metropolitan area that includes its suburbs, "Detroit" has enough money to provide all its residents with adequate if not good public services, without falling into bankruptcy. Politically, it would come down to a question of whether the more affluent areas of this "Detroit" were willing to subsidize the poor inner-city through their tax dollars, and help it rebound. That's an...

Listen up folks, after you read the bankruptcy filing for Detroit. 1. Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its citizens. 2. Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its creditors. 3. The failure of the City to meet its obligations to its citizens is the primary cause of its inability to meet its obligations to its creditors. 4. The only feasible path to ensuring the City will be able to meet obligations in the future is to have a successful restructuring via the bankruptcy process that recognizes the fundamental importance of ensuring the...

A very interesting thing happened in the Zimmerman fiasco. The state, in its closing rebuttal arguments, appealed to the hearts of the jury, not to the evidence. Florida is an odd state when it comes to criminal law. In most states the prosecution gets its closing argument, then the defense. In most states the defense goes last, which is in line with the premise that one is innocent until proved guilty, and the defense gets one last stab an introducing reasonable doubt. But in Florida the prosecution gets a rebuttal -- they get the last word before the jury retires...

There are a lot of hard-headed people out in the investment and banking world. Most of them are hard-headed because they have never known anything else. A few are a bit smarter -- they know that their business model is cooked if the underlying assumptions change and they're being intentionally dishonest in trying to grab the last few nickels in front of the steamroller, and to hell with you (their customer.) Then there are those who have it figured out and are attempting to find a way to adapt to what is going to happen. More than 30 years ago...

1. Yes, I saw that Corzine was "charged" by the CFTC. This is essentially meaningless. First, it is a purely civil action. These oligarch psychopaths LAUGH at the whole "civil action" paradigm. Second, the $100 million fine that the CFTC is going after comes NOT from Corzine, but from whatever is left of the MF Global Holdings estate, IF there is anything left at all. Not one red cent would come from Corzine, who was worth at least $600 million at the time of the collapse in the fall of 2011. Third, even if Corzine gets the dreaded "registration ban"...

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful. On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet...

Greece and, for that matter, the rest of Europe are showing cracks again this morning. The Dollar is screaming higher (how's that "dollar collapse" thesis working out?) Gold is around $1,200; up fractionally on the day, but in general not in good shape -- and making a mockery of the "Gold to $5,000" callers. Interest rates are again going up, while The Fed is trying to claim that they really didn't say that they were going to taper. But that's a lie, because they have to stop the QE. This isn't about wanting to exit, it's about being forced to...

Marco Rubio has repeatedly claimed he "wants more" from the Amnesty Bill now moving through Congress. Yes, folks, it's an amnesty bill. Let's cut the crap and call it what it is, because only through calling something what it is can we debate it. "Legalization" of those who are here illegally today is amnesty. I don't care whether it leads to citizenship now or later, the fact of the matter is that it rewards criminal activity by allowing those who stole from Americans and their resources to keep what they stole and remain here in America. There is no restitution....

This auction is a charity auction for hand-made guinea pig scale-mail. (You've read that correctly) Is your pet guinea pig tired of wandering around the house unarmored and vulnerable? Do they get picked on by other guinea pigs? Has your guinea pig ever wanted to go with you to a Renaissance Fair but had nothing to wear? Fear not! A solution is here! Used “The chain mail is hand made and is in great condition. The helmet was purchased and is also in great condition. Neither are "new"... [snip]

The world's oldest known human tumor has been found in the rib bone of a Neanderthal who lived more than 120,000 years ago. The bone was evacuated from a site in Krapina, Croatia more than 100 years ago and has been found to have contracted the fibrous dysplasia tumor, a cancer which is common among modern-day humans. This discovery by David Frayer from the University of Kansas predates previous evidence of the tumor by more than 100,000 years. Before this discovery, the earliest bone tumor was seen in an Egyptian mummy around 2,000 years ago. David Frayer, professor of anthropology...