Free Republic

Americans have long complained that the dollar doesn't buy much anymore. Suddenly, the dollar's problem may be that it buys too much — a change that has huge implications across the global economy for consumers, businesses, investors and governments. The U.S. currency's value has surged over the last nine months, reaching levels against some world currencies last seen more than a decade ago. In Europe, it now costs just $1.09 to buy one euro, down from $1.37 a year ago and almost $1.50 four years ago. To put it another way, an American tourist strolling the streets of Paris this...

On April 9, Breitbart News had the opportunity to talk with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) about guns and gun rights, and he told us that the Second Amendment “serves as a fundamental check on government tyranny.” Cruz answered a question about the importance of the Second Amendment: Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story described the Second Amendment as the palladium of our liberties. It is foundation to free men and free women being able to defend their homes, their families, their lives and liberty, and it also serves as a fundamental check on government tyranny. As a follow-up to the first...

<p>Of fully 40 different demographic subgroups measured, the only one in which more people think businesses should have that right than shouldn’t is Republicans. And even among Republicans, it’s only a plurality who say so. There were no clear majorities for the right to refuse service on religious grounds among any group tested.</p>

Everything this nation once stood for is being turned on its head. Free speech, religious expression, privacy, due process, bodily integrity, the sanctity of human life, the sovereignty of the family, individuality, the right to self-defense, protection against police abuses, representative government, private property, human rights—the very ideals that once made this nation great—have become casualties of a politically correct, misguided, materialistic, amoral, militaristic culture. Indeed, I’m having a hard time reconciling the America I know and love with the America being depicted in the daily news headlines, where corruption, cronyism and abuse have taken precedence over the rights of...

As he pulls together his expected presidential campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sen. Rand Paul is confronted by defections from an unexpected quarter: the die-hard idealists whose energy powered his father’s campaigns. That network of committed supporters was expected to convey to Paul, the natural successor to Ron Paul’s libertarian movement, providing him with a plug-and-play ground organization in the make-or-break early voting states. But instead of embracing the Kentucky senator, many of those grass-roots activists are turning their backs on him, disillusioned by the younger Paul’s concessions to mainstream politics. Story Continued Below One of the most prominent...

Editor’s note: Amid the discussion about the religious liberty laws in Indiana and Arkansas this week, there’s been a lot of misinformation—and a lot of thoughtful concerns about what religious freedom laws actually allow and what they ban. We talked to Heritage Foundation’s William E. Simon Fellow Dr. Ryan T. Anderson to get the facts—and to find out whether, as your liberal relatives will likely argue as the political discussions happen this holiday, the original Indiana religious freedom law would have allowed discrimination.What’s religious liberty all about?Religious liberty is about protecting people’s fundamental natural rights. People have rights—including the...

Indiana lawmakers announced Thursday morning that they had reached a deal to update the state's controversial religious freedom law so that it states the law cannot be used to discriminate against anyone, including gay and lesbian customers...... language in the legislation states that the law does not, "Authorize a provider to refuse to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment, or housing [based on] sexual orientation, gender identity, or United States military service." The references to "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" are the first to appear in an Indiana law.

Seen on social media--this should go viral, it is a great explanation with real world examples of the law in action.

PHILADELPHIA — Following a court ruling that said SEPTA must accept some anti-Muslim advertisements, those ads may begin running on dozens of buses as early as tomorrow. Today, leaders of several faiths came together to counter the ad’s hate message with a little love. Scores of Christians, Jews, and Muslims today joined Philadelphia elected officials for a rally in Love Park designed to protest the incendiary bus ads, which link Adolf Hitler to Islam. “We have to speak out against hate,” said Bilal Qayyum, who converted to Islam more than 45 years ago. “It does nothing to help the city...

As I watched "Good Morning America" today, I saw a segment where the media was bringing pressure to bear on the Indiana legislature and governor. George Stephanopolous was questioning governor Pence: George Stephanopolis:Final question, final yes-or-no question, Governor. Do you think it should be legal, in the state of Indiana, to discriminate against gays or lesbians? And this is how they characterize the debate. They portray one side (theirs) as heroic, and the other side (ours) as evil. Governor Pence was not prepared for this ambush. His response was scatter shot and muddled. Among the things he could have said...

Indiana's Republican legislative leaders said Monday they're working on adding language to a new state law to make it clear that it doesn't allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.... Supporters of the law insist the law will keep the government from compelling people to provide services they find objectionable on religious grounds. Arkansas is poised to follow in Indiana's footsteps, as Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said he'll sign a measure moving through the state's Legislature.

.....San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee on Thursday placed a travel ban on city-funded trips to Indiana, saying, “San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally-sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people by the State of Indiana.”

Here is a short pop quiz. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress earlier this month about the parameters of the secret negotiations between the United States and Iran over nuclear weapons and economic sanctions, how did he know what the negotiators were considering? Israel is not a party to those negotiations, yet the prime minister presented them in detail. When Hillary Clinton learned that a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives had subpoenaed her emails as secretary of state and she promptly destroyed half of them -- about 33,000 -- how did she know she could get...

On Monday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz taught the Republican Party a lesson it desperately needs to learn. Mr. Cruz taught the GOP something about winning. The Republican Party, at least at the national level, is pretty pathetic. The Republicans have lost four of the last six presidential elections. Republicans have actually lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Even the two races that George W. Bush won were close. The 2000 election was not decided until weeks after Election Day and even in 2004, Democrat John Kerry kept it close enough that he did not...

My Fellow FREEPERs, It is with a heavy heart, I have undertaken to start a serious national discussion on secession as, perhaps, the only means by which we can restore the balance to our nation and preserve for our posterity the freedoms given to us by our Founding Fathers and passed down to us for the last 239 years. I have reached the conclusion that our nation has passed the tipping point which the Founding Fathers and Alexis de Toqueville warned us would lead to the death of our republic: when a majority of people believe they can continuously vote...

There is a fierce and sometimes bitter debate among conservatives over an Article V convention of the states to amend the Constitution. Both sides have worthy arguments. Opponents of a convention say that the Constitution need not be amended, but simply enforced. They fear that a convention will produce amendments that detract from the Constitution, leaving our constitutional protections of liberty worse than they are now. The fear is justified. Proponents of such a convention accurately note that the Constitution has been effectively amended by the legislative, executive and judicial branches, but not through the amendment process set forth in...

Conservatives often find themselves at odds with the libertarian crowd. However, is that anger really warranted? As President Reagan once said, “If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” True conservatives and libertarians, let’s not pretend there aren’t fakers on both side, all agree on the fundamentals: limited government, personal responsibility, and economic freedom. Neither group wants the government interfering in our daily lives and telling us what we can and cannot do. Now there may be slight disagreements on how that plays out in the policy arena, but we should not allow...

Because I'm a Conservative, I believe in a strong separation of church and state. As Eliade wrote in The Sacred and the Profane, "the sacred always manifests itself as a reality of a wholly different order from 'natural' realities." We do a disservice to the truly sacred when we force it into Caesar's world. What is sacred to me is between myself and my Maker--and forcing that into the public square diminishes both of Us. Because I'm a Conservative, I care about the environment. Whether prompted by the Bible or by our own sense of morality (itself a part of...

In opposing the godless and bloody French Revolution, Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, concluded that, “I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government; with public force; with the discipline and obedience of armies;…with morality and religion;…with peace and order; with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what...

The best environment for man is the environment of liberty.” – Václav Klaus Liberty is a fundamental human right and the cornerstone of our existence. But in our current world, liberty is being attacked from all directions, whether through higher state control or individuals themselves. Liberty is in search for its protector. Those that value and actively promote the ideals of freedom and liberty are few in such an enclosing environment. In the following article, Claudio Grass, Managing Director at Global Gold Switzerland, ventures into a discussion with one of the vanguards of liberty, former President of the Czech Republic,...