Free Republic

A Kansas military base abruptly canceled an upcoming prayer breakfast that featured retired Lt. General Jerry Boykin after complaints were lodged that Boykin is anti-Muslim and anti-gay. Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder Mikey Weinstein told Army Times that Boykin’s invitation had caused great angst among soldiers at Fort Riley – leading some to break down in tears. “I have clients of ours weeping on the phone about this,” he said. Weeping? Oh, please. “I sincerely doubt that America can expect to win wars if the people who are tasked to do so are frightened by an old retired general with...

Jun 01, 2016 Jeff Berwick We continue to report on important mainstream investors, professional and private, who have warned about an impending, global financial catastrophe. Now, add Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to that list. George Soros, Stanley Druckenmiller, and Carl Icahn among others have all made dire statements. They’ve also reconfigured their portfolios and taken positions in gold and silver and shorted the market. The latest to join this list of doomsayers is Japanese Prime Minister Abe. This past Thursday at the G7 meeting he warned about the upcoming global crisis. Abe was trying to generate support for global...

May 31, 2016 Jeff_Berwick It seems barely a day passes now without some big name person warning of imminent collapse. The latest is Alan Greenspan. In an interview on Thursday he told Fox News that Venezuela is now under martial law and that “America is next.” He said that what was happening in Venezuela was inevitably going to take place in the US. I agree with this. In fact, we said this exact thing just last week with our article, “Venezuela Descends Into Chaos… Europe and US Next.” Funny enough, a few brainwashed sheeple said we were crazy for saying...

Depending on how much credence you give to "whisper listings," there are between 27 and 50 $100,000,000+ houses on the market; last year, only two houses in that bracket sold worldwide. The glut of super-duper-ultra-luxury houses on the market worries economy-watchers, who view the oversupply as a bellwether for a housing crash -- the last glut (which wasn't nearly as pronounced as the current one) was in 2007/8.

At the RoboUniverse expo in New York City, robots of all shapes and sizes were being put to work. Companies showed off automated machines designed to perform tasks that many humans would consider less than desirable. “There are certain tasks in our society… that will stay on and not be attractive for humans to do. And we cannot get rid of them if we want to live our lives in the usual fashion,” said Preben Hjørnet, founder and CEO of robotics startup Blue Workforce. “Robots have no conscience, no self-awareness, so they’ll never be social,” Hjørnet added, “But they don’t...

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Friday that an interest rate hike would be appropriate in the coming months if the economy keeps improving. While economic growth was relatively weak at the end of last year and beginning of this year, it appears to be picking up now based on recent data, Yellen said during a discussion at Harvard University. She said she expects the Fed to “gradually and cautiously increase” its key interest rate “and probably in the coming months, such a move would be appropriate.” …

About the same time I was listening to those girls sing “Imagine,” this item came across my news feed: By morning, three newborns were already dead. The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward. Doctors kept ailing infants alive by pumping air into their lungs by hand for hours. By nightfall, four more newborns had died. “The death of a baby is our daily bread,” said Dr. Osleidy Camejo, a surgeon in the nation’s capital, Caracas, referring...

Venezuelan President Grants Himself New List of Powers in Response to "Threats" Last Friday, May 13, the President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro signed a new decree establishing an economic emergency that extended the original decree made in January 2016, but which included something called a “state of exception” this time around. The state of exception is intended to allow the government to take “exceptional” measures to control the country’s crisis, as well as to protect the Venezuelan people from whatever the government may consider a threat. But it’s still not clear what Maduro is going to do with such tremendous...

With dire shortages of basic goods, a looming foreign debt payment, horrific street crime and intransigent political divisions, Venezuela is in danger of collapsing into waves of deadly violence, U.S. intelligence officials warned Friday. Venezuela, which controls the world's largest reserves of crude oil, is in the throes of a potentially explosive political stalemate after opposition parties gained a majority in the national congress in elections late last year. President Nicolas Maduro, a leftist, faces a possible recall vote sponsored by the opposition that he is maneuvering to block.

UnitedHealth, the nation's biggest health insurer, will cut its participation in public health insurance exchanges to only a handful of states next year after expanding to nearly three dozen for this year. CEO Stephen Hemsley said Tuesday that the company expects losses from its exchange business to total more than $1 billion for this year and last. He added that the company cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by the Affordable Care Act's coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers. UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it now expects to lose $650 million this...

KOLKATA, India — When Sonali Mehrotra realized that a hulking overpass would come within arm’s length of her third-floor balcony, she took refuge in black humor, telling relatives to look at the bright side: Instead of lugging suitcases up the stairs when they came to visit, they could toss them into a bedroom as they drove in from the airport. Anyway, work on the overpass occurred so sporadically — generally, when elections were coming — that a project originally promised in 18 months was unfinished after seven years. At this rate, she joked, the project might not be completed in...

<p>The world is sleepwalking into a fresh crisis as investors start to lose faith in policymakers’ ability to revive the global economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.</p> <p>In its bluntest warning to date on the costs of policy inaction, the IMF said “financial and economic stagnation" could take hold unless governments prevented a "pernicious feedback loop of fragile confidence, weaker growth, low inflation and rising debt burdens" from forming.</p>

The bottom is dropping out for Donald Trump. While Trump was never popular outside of his loyal slice of GOP voters, a raft of new polls show his national position hitting new lows, including with groups that are supposed to form his base. America's widespread loathing for Trump puts further pressure on Republican delegates to deny him the nomination in July if he falls short of a majority, a move that would set off an ugly civil war but that some in the party believe would be necessary to stave off generational damage. A collection of recent surveys by Real...

Rescue teams in Kolkata, India, scrambled on Thursday to retrieve scores of people believed to be trapped under a partly constructed vehicle overpass that collapsed with a deafening blast around midday.

Stocks haven't done much in a while. Wednesday marked the eight-straight day that the S&P 500 had closed less than 1 percent above or below its prior closing price. Ominously, the last time the market staged this long a period of quiescence was in early August — shortly before stocks took a gut-wrenching tumble. Now, as then, "we are at a precarious position," Erin Gibbs of S&P Investment Advisory said Wednesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "We're trading at fairly high valuation and earnings growth doesn't look that good, so any big shocks — disappointment from China, any movement from the...

The global economy is heading for a storm as faith in policymakers dwindles, according to a stark warning from one of the world’s most respected financial institutions. The uneasy calm in financial markets last year has given way to turbulence, the Bank for International Settlements, known as the central bank for the world’s central banks, said in its latest quarterly report. Financial markets are losing faith in the healing power of central banks and their latest policy weapon - negative interest rates - to boost the world's main economies, the bank said.

The Sentinel has offered to let me publicly take responsibility for my recent building code violation. I appreciate that. Until very recently, I have had a tenant in a small room behind my house. Renting out this unit was not permitted under the city’s Building Code. As someone making rules about housing, I should not have been breaking the rules. This was a mistake. I am sorry.

The Department of Commerce today announced its affirmative preliminary determinations in the anti-dumping duty investigations of imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In the Brazil investigation, mandatory respondent Companhia Siderurgica Nacional received a calculated preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. The second mandatory respondent, Usiminas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais, did not respond to all of Commerce’s requests for information, and therefore received a dumping margin based on adverse facts available. Usiminas and all other producers/exporters in Brazil also received a preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. China Receives Heavy Duties...

Economist, radio host, and CNBC senior contributor Larry Kudlow appeared on Breitbart News Daily Friday morning to discuss economic issues in the presidential race, including his support for Donald Trump’s economic platform, with some disagreement about the best way to handle unfair Chinese trade practices.

A recession in Europe could lead to the collapse of the eurozone, as the single currency would buckle under the political turmoil unleashed by a fresh downturn, a leading investment bank has warned. In a research note titled "Close to the edge", economists at Swiss bank Credit Suisse warned the fate of monetary union hangs in the balance if Europe's policymakers are unable to ward off another global slump and quell anti-euro populism. "The viability of the euro is contingent on the current recovery," said Peter Foley at Credit Suisse. "If the euro area were to relapse back into...