Free Republic

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The WikiLeaks dump today has something incredible in it and one of the things I like to try to do each and every day is take the complex and make it understandable. Sometimes it's challenging to do because in order to take something complex and make it understandable, the people to whom you're speaking have to have at least a quasi-foundation of understanding of the subject matter. And I think in this case most every one of you do. The specific leak to which I'm referring is a series of emails that show the absolute connection between...

The office of Connecticut’s governor says Sikorsky Aircraft has committed to keeping its headquarters in the state and adding jobs in an agreement that involves $220 million in state incentives. […] The deal calls for Sikorsky to build nearly 200 CH-53K King Stallion helicopters in Connecticut for the U.S. Navy until at least 2032. The incentives pledged by Malloy’s office include grants and tax exemptions. …

For many establishment congressmen of both parties, being elected isn’t a chance to make a difference in the political life of America. It’s a sinecure that allows them to become fat off of special interest money and speaking fees. Americans of all stripes are frustrated with this attitude, which is part of the reason why anti-establishment Donald Trump got the Republican nomination. Now, Trump has made a huge move to end congressional sinecures and the politicos who occupy them. According to Associated Press, Trump told an audience in North Carolina that he would look into term limits for Congress if...

Government officials make phony-baloney claims that their public-private “investments” will pay for themselves. But study after study, on both the progressive left and the free-market right, shows that the economy-stimulating effect of public subsidies for private corporate preferences (movies, sports stadiums, malls, hotels, you name it) is negligible. Loan guarantees. Refundable tax credits and rebates. Tax-increment financing. Tax-exempt bonds. All these enticements dangled by thirsty bureaucrats before wealthy developers, sports team owners and Hollywood moguls who don’t need them amount to blatant redistributions of wealth. The independent California Legislative Analyst’s Office found that for every dollar California spent on the...

But in another depressing development, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Office of Defects probe released its initial report stating that the Tesla Model S on autopilot was speeding and never braked when the car T-boned a tractor trailer and killed its driver.

Available here without going through the Breitbart loops. Many Freepers never got a reply from Breitbart with a password for access to the movie. Try the YouTube link for the full documentary.

A forestry company filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit against Greenpeace Tuesday for misrepresenting the company’s environmental record to raise funds and promote its agenda. Greenpeace knowingly and deliberately made false claims about the company while fundraising, and fabricated evidence of Resolute’s alleged environmental malfeasance, according to the forestry and paper company Resolute Forest Products. RICO is an anti-mafia law designed to combat organized crime. Greenpeace’ is a global fraud,” states the 124-page legal complaint. “For years, this international network of environmental groups collectively calling themselves ‘Greenpeace’ has fraudulently induced people throughout the United States and...

Corporate welfare takes many forms: a tax break to a particular industry, a tariff against foreign sugar producers to shelter domestic producers from competition, a loan guarantee program for exporters, etc. It can also take the form of lawmakers forcing the Department of Defense to provide New Balance athletic shoes -- and only New Balance athletic shoes -- for new military recruits. This story is actually worse than it sounds. Let's start from the beginning: Did you know that the military is required to buy uniforms and boots that are made in the USA? Aside from the unintended effects of...

Transgender people should be able to use whatever bathroom they want, Donald Trump said Thursday. "Oh, I had a feeling that question was going to come up, I will tell you. North Carolina did something that was very strong. And they're paying a big price. There's a lot of problems," the Republican presidential candidate said during a town hall event on NBC's "Today." Referring to comments from an unnamed commentator who on Wednesday said North Carolina should "leave it the way it is right now," Trump said he agreed. "Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they're going...

As president, Donald Trump would sell off $16 trillion worth of U.S. government assets in order to fulfill his pledge to eliminate the national debt in eight years, senior adviser with the campaign Barry Bennett said. "The United States government owns more real estate than anybody else, more land than anybody else, more energy than anybody else," Bennett told Chris Jansing Sunday on MSNBC. "We can get rid of government buildings we're not using, we can extract the energy from government lands, we can do all kinds of things to extract value from the assets that we hold." In a...

When pressed by Matthews, Trump added, "I have, actually, believe it or not, I have a lot of friends that are Muslim and they call me. In most cases, they're very rich Muslims." "But do they get into the country?" Matthews then asked. "Oh, they'll come in," Trump responded, later adding that the ban will have exceptions.

Breathe easy, America. Before you judge Donald Trump's proposed Muslim ban too harshly, consider this: It will not apply to Muslims who are, A. Donald Trump's friends, and B. rich. Feel better? The Republican presidential candidate, with a totally straight face, told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday that he has "a lot of friends that are Muslim," many of whom are "rich" and would get special treatment to let them in the country....

Judicial Watch Reveals More Benghazi, Clinton Foundation Corruption Cover-up on American POWs in Cuba?Clinton Email Scandal PanelJudicial Watch Reveals More Benghazi, Clinton Foundation Corruption This has been an important week in our continuing investigation of Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. We are uncovering critical links between her official duties and the private interests of her family’s foundation. The 276 pages of internal State Department documents we released this week reveal that within two days of the deadly terrorist attack on Benghazi, Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf, the president of Libya’s National Congress, asked to participate in a Clinton Global...

Ten U.S. states still have not regained all the jobs they lost in the Great Recession, even after six and a half years of recovery, while many more have seen only modest gains. […] Wyoming had 3 percent fewer jobs last month than it did in December 2007, when the recession began, the Labor Department said Friday. That is the biggest percentage decline among the states. Alabama's job total trails its pre-recession level by 2.7 percent, followed by New Mexico, where job totals are 2.6 percent lower. Some larger states are also still behind. New Jersey has nearly 1 percent...

Corporations expressed disappointment Thursday and the NCAA vowed to monitor what North Carolina does next now that the state has banned any local government measures protecting people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. American Airlines, which operates its second-largest hub in Charlotte; IBM and Biogen, which have facilities in the state’s Research Triangle; and payments processor PayPal, which had announced plans to hire 400 people in Charlotte only last week, were among major employers condemning the new law. The legislature called a special session Wednesday to void a Charlotte ordinance that would have enabled transgender...

Did you notice that Donald Trump, speaking in Florida on the night of March 5— fresh from victories in two of the four states that went to the polls on Saturday— cited “pharmaceuticals” as villains to be brought to political justice? In fact, in recent weeks the populist mogul has attacked the drug industry repeatedly, in terms that might seem unfamiliar for a Republican—any Republican, that is, other than the consciously iconoclastic Trump. ... To be sure, most of Trump’s 2016 campaign healthcare plan is in keeping with orthodox Republicanism. Most obviously, he urges the “full repeal” of Obamacare. Yet...

We hear the term “crony capitalism” get tossed around a lot but … what does it actually mean? We should find out soon, considering that the current Republican front-runner has been held up as an example of a practitioner of the art. It’s a little more complex than just twisting arms on zoning codes, though, and Prager University engaged Jay Cost to explain the corrosive corruption the term signifies: What is Crony Capitalism? Capitalism is moral because it is premised on a voluntary exchange between independent parties - who agree to the deal only because it creates value for everybody....

Of all the threats to free markets, two of the most dangerous are today having an adverse impact on the justice and viability of our patent system. The concept of "venue" plays a critical role in our judicial system in ensuring fairness and due process for litigating parties. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that a company should not be able to attain business success through relationships with government officials alone. However, those who wish to abuse our current patent system for their own advantage are exploiting local laws and loopholes to undermine small businesses and the country's economy as a...

Trump is Owned by EVERY Bank on Wall St. (Except Citi, Who He Stiffed for $300M)...

The vision embedded in the Founding documents of the United States was of a free and equal people. At the time of the nation’s founding, this was not so much a fantasy but—with the obvious and inhumane exception of slavery—empirical reality. Class distinctions were extant, but they were not necessarily pronounced. The same was true of inequality in wealth and status. Northeastern financial families like the Schuylers had an edge over the yeoman farmers of Shenandoah Valley, of course, but it was nothing compared to the rigid class divisions in continental Europe. The same seemed true for the nation for...