Free Republic

Where I live they are building houses again. The neighborhood beside me should have been built 5 years ago and finally the bulldozers are in motion again. But don’t call it a recovery. There is no vibrance in the market. Just a subset of people escaping places like California with solid state jobs at the University.But even here there is concern. 2 years ago the builders began again, thinking the market had finally turned. But after a brief uptick things settled down again. The all cash buyers disappeared and all that was left were regular people who actually needed mortgages.And getting...

Since at least the time of the outset of the Iraq War—and quite possibly well before then—there has been much debate among those to the right over why Islamic militants have set their sights upon America and the West. George W. Bush expressed the consensus among most Republican politicians and commentators when he remarked that they hate us because of our values. Ron Paul, in contrast, represents most libertarians when he attributes to America’s enemies a hatred of, not American liberties, but American foreign policy. Both groups are both right and wrong. For failing to see this, they argue past...

For the past several years there has been a divisive tactical debate within our movement that essentially boils down to this question: how much should we compromise what we believe on behalf of political expediency? I have been an active participant in this debate. In fact, IÂ’ve been on all sides of it over the years as my views have changed. But I must admit that at times my passion for this issue has gotten the better of me, and I havenÂ’t always been respectful of my fellow pro-lifers who disagreed with me. IÂ’ve also been on the receiving end...

On Thursday, January 15th, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) discontinued its three year effort to maintain its minimum currency floor of the Swiss franc. In a single day the move sent the Swiss Franc (SWF) climbing a massive 21% against the U.S. dollar and 41% against the euro. The move sent shockwaves of unprecedented ferocity through the massive foreign exchange (FX) market, which is by far the largest, and most highly levered, trading market in the world. The monetary tsunami threatened both FX participants and even their brokers. But more importantly, even as the rest of Europe looks to suffocate...

In the wake of ECB's €60 billion a month QE madness (see "QE already Working" Says IMF Lagarde; Ho-Hum Details Announced; Gold the Place to Be), one might be wondering what it may do to European bond yields. German 10-Year Bond Yield image: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-of_KecAryfU/VMKLTNvRyfI/AAAAAAAAcFk/6Kswiqag_hg/s400/German%2B10-Year%2Bbond%2Byield.png click on chart for sharper image Since September of 2013, yield on the German 10-year bond has plunged from around 2% to 0.367%. ECB Risks German Bonds Mismatch Exceeding 100 Billion Euros With €720 billion annual asset purchases, a huge portion of the bonds the ECB buys will be German. Bloomberg explains ECB Risks German Bonds...

The conflicting messages from Wall Street and the end of the world collided Thursday. Wall Street’s Odd Way of Showing LoveVirtually, all firms on the street are bullish in 2015 for a variety of reasons that include economic momentum, wage growth, an accommodative Fed (even a rate hike would be infinitesimal), and a strong dollar.Yet, every single day this year, there have been more stock downgrades than upgrades. In fact, year-to- date, it is almost a two to one ratio. This morning, the ratio was almost 4 to 1, with only 11 upgrades. Analyst Rating Changes Yesterday Year to Date Upgrades...

Everyone, it seems, is worried about global economic stagnation.And there is good reason to be concerned. Europe is in the doldrums. Japan is stagnant. The developing world is hampered by intervention, corruption, and absence of property rights. And the United States is stumbling through an abnormally weak recovery.But what’s the solution to this economic malaise?The international economic policymaking elite seems to think easy money is the right elixir. The Wall Street Journaleditorial page is underwhelmed by this approach. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi announced a plan to buy what amounts to €50 billion ($56.84 billion) a month in government bonds...

First they came for the coal mining and power plant industry, and most people did not speak out because they didn’t rely on coal, accepted Environmental Protection Agency justifications at face value, or thought EPA’s war on coal would benefit them. In fact, Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon gave the Sierra Club $26 million, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave the Club $50 million, to help it wage a Beyond Coal campaign. The Sierra Club later claimed its efforts forced 142 U.S. coal-fired power plants to close, raising electricity rates, threatening grid reliability, and costing thousands of jobs...

"I wouldn't have even considered abortion if it weren't legal." A woman was speaking about her own experience in front of the Supreme Court on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the decision that made abortion legal in the United States. The rally was organized by a group called Silent No More. And as the young people who, on Jan. 22, flooded the nation's capital for March for Life, coming from North Dakota, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, and all over the Northeast, got back on their buses to head home, her testimony echoed. This year, for...

When a recently-freed political prisoner who was foreign and black (and a former communist terrorist by his own admission) visited the U.S. in 1990 to request economic and diplomatic sanctions against the segregationist government that jailed him the U.S. media and political establishment went absolutely bonkers with acclaim and adulation. “The hero of oppressed people everywhere!" (hailed ABC.) "A larger than life figure!" (gushed CNN) "A virtual symbol of freedom!" ( heralded CBS). "His name has a mystical quality--a worldwide hero!" (rhapsodized Dan Rather.) “A Hero in America!” (headlined Time magazine.) Other reports compared Nelson Mandela to the Pope, Jesus...

Tuesday’s State of the Union speech was yet another glaring reminder of just how out of touch our president seems to be with reality and the true threat of radical Islam on the West. Our son Aaron was a U.S. Navy SEAL. He’d seen the enemy our president refuses to acknowledge face-to-face. His heart had been seared by the blackness of those who exist solely to discharge the terror of Jihad not only on America, but the entire globe. After returning from a deployment in 2010, he uttered hauntingly clear words to his father, “Dad, they hate us, but they...

Obama’s pouting again. The jerk’s in a snit because the media is finally being critical of Obama in a way nobody on the Left side of the aisle has ever been. It would be funny, if it weren’t so serious. “There was a general tone of suspended disbelief when he started talking about foreign policy,” said NBC’s Richard Engel in regard to Obama’s State of the Union Speech. “There are not a lot of success stories to be talking about in foreign policy right now. And the general tone, which was, moving on, starting again, starting a new chapter, moving...

"The shadow of crisis has passed," President Obama told us on Tuesday night. “The State of the Union is strong," he added. But is it really? If you had accumulated a debt that is more than 20 times the size of your household income, would you say your household finances were in good shape? Well, that’s where we are as a country. Under about a dozen federal entitlement spending programs, we have made promises that we haven’t been willing to pay for. In the process, we are leaving an enormous financial burden for our children and grandchildren. So what did...

All you then have to do is keep out of his mind the question, “If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?” – C.S. LewisMoses murdered an Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. David had a loyal soldier killed in battle to cover up his infidelity with the man’s wife. Peter denied Christ three times before the cock crowed even though he knew He was the Messiah. These were...

Comments by Steven Emerson on Fox News have prompted a heated debate over whether predominantly Muslim “no-go zones” exist in Europe. On Jan. 11, Emerson said they “exist throughout Europe … they’re places where the governments like France, Britain, Sweden, Germany don’t exercise any sovereignty. .. you basically have zones where Shariah courts were set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where the police don’t go in, and where it’s basically a separate country almost, a country within a country.” Although Emerson, whom I admire for his moral courage and investigative skills, immediately apologized for his “terrible error” of...

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama painted a ‎rosy picture of America’s condition at home and abroad, presenting a delusional list of his ‎own accomplishments since taking office six years ago. ‎ A careful dissection of each of his falsehoods — which were nearly as numerous as the ‎standing ovations he received from the Democrats in the room every time he punctuated a ‎sentence — could fill the pages of a lengthy book. But the abridged version is as follows: ‎Everything would be even rosier if the Republicans were to stop opposing his...

The Destruction of Jerusalem (70 C.E.) Neither are great civilizations built in a day, nor do they collapse all of a sudden. Deterioration is gradual, therefore noticeable. In the Land of Israel, the First Temple was destroyed due to idolatry. The Second Temple was destroyed due to baseless hatred. In the 21st century, the subtler combination of irrationality with pusillanimity constitutes the fatal concoction. Our relationship to the obvious serves as an index through which the symptoms of decline are noted. Let all concerned for the commonwealth take caution, for here is how we sophisticated moderns lose civilization: 1.Cognitive Dissonance...

Say conservatives have their way with Obamacare, and the Supreme Court deals it a death blow or a Republican president repeals it in 2017. Some people who got health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act may lose it. In which case, liberals like to say, some of Obamacare’s beneficiaries may die. Columnist Jonathan Chait wrote recently that those who may die are victims of ideology — “collateral damage” incurred in conservatives’ pursuit “of a larger goal.” If these are the stakes, many liberals argue, then ending Obamacare is immoral. Except, it’s not. In a world of scarce...

A widely distributed political cartoon by Ranan Lurie, published after the massacre of four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris, depicts a tiny shrub above ground, and just below the surface, supporting the plant, is a web of thick twisted roots spread in the design of the swastika. These Nazi roots are more than a cartoonist's imagination, carefully tended by the anti-Semites of France, exposed when the French rounded up their Jews, men, women and children, and shipped them to the death camps of World War II. If the cartoonist had dug deeper, he could have drawn the roots...

Listening to President Obama, it is clear he considers himself a superior intellectual force, smarter than everyone and everything that has come before. This was a State of the Union speech defined by its hypocrisy. The most divisive President lecturing on unity. The most political President lamenting the realities of politics. The greatest fundraising President expressing sorrow about constant fundraising. The most partisan President calling for bipartisanship. He’ll veto any change to just about everything, but hey, he will work with Republicans! His true feelings were revealed the one moment he was sufficiently brave enough to go off the teleprompter,...