Free Republic

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...

Former Texas Republican Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul confirmed in an interview with the Fox Business Network that he will not be supporting Donald Trump for United States president. He said in jest that he’s waiting for Trump to become a libertarian. When asked if there’s anything that Trump could say that would help change his mind, Paul replied that he wouldn’t know what to believe since “he’s all over the map.” The entire four-minute interview is embedded below: (VIDEO-AT-LINK) This is different from his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who said he will support the GOP nominee,...

It’s always a sad day when someone you admire tremendously, who has entertained and challenged you for years lets you down and reveals themselves to really stand up only for themselves instead of the ideas of freedom they claim to support. Reason Magazine highlights some deeply discouraging remarks from Penn Jillette, the libertarian co-host of the extraordinarily great Showtime show “Penn and Teller’s Bullsh*t”: Are there any groups you won’t go after? We haven’t tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn’t want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I’m not sure. And we haven’t tackled Islam because we have families.

Are there any groups you won't go after?We haven't tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn't want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I'm not sure. And we haven't tackled Islam because we have families. Meaning, you won’t attack Islam because you’re afraid it’ll attack back ...Right, and I think the worst thing you can say about a group in a free society is that you’re afraid to talk about it—I can’t think of anything more horrific. [...]

I don’t speak for all Libertarians any more than Sean Penn speaks for all Democrats. I’m not even sure my LP membership card is up to date. I’ve voted Libertarian as long as I can remember but I don’t really remember much before the Clintons and the Bushes. Those clans made a lot of us bugnutty. When I go on Glenn’s show he calls me a Libertarian, I think that’s my only real credential. There are historical reasons and pragmatic reasons to be a Libertarian, but there are historic and pragmatic reasons to be a Democrat, a Republican or a...

The outspoken atheist Penn Jillette destroys the modernist Piers Morgan in a debate on Catholicism and the papacy.

Did Penn & Teller Set a World Record for Most Falsehoods in One Show? Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, has said, "Penn & Teller's Nazi-like assault on Catholicism that took place on August 27 will go down in history as one of the most vile, obscene programs ever aired in any nation." However, will the show also go down in history for airing the most number of lies, falsehoods, and misleading statements in a single half-hour show? Not counting credits, the guilty episode runs less than 26 minutes. Here's a lie-by-lie list of the falsehoods that Penn Jillette...

From Tommy Smothers.

Jillette: "I sat on TV, while my hero Tommy Smothers yelled in my face how pissed off he was at me for appearing on Glenn Beck. It broke my heart."

Three campaign advisers to 2012 presidential candidate Ron Paul were convicted Thursday in a federal case alleging they conspired to cover up the campaign’s payments to a former Iowa state senator who had agreed to endorse their boss. Prosecutors said it is illegal to cause a campaign to file inaccurate spending documents. They’ve pursued charges since July 2015 when a grand jury first indicted the men. Paul’s campaign chairman Jesse Benton, campaign manager John Tate and deputy manager Dimitri Kesari argued they broke no laws when they paid a video production company, which passed on $73,000 to former Sen. Kent...

DemocracyNow.org - Controversy erupted on the convention floor when a dispute broke out over whether to seat the delegates of presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Part of Maine's delegation stormed off the floor in protest of a decision to strip away half of Paul's delegates. Supportive members of other delegations rose to their feet and hollered their objections, angered by new rules that they say they will make it harder for grassroots candidates to stand a chance in future elections. Democracy Now! producer Deena Guzder was on the scene and filed this report.

Last week, President Obama and Vice President Biden held a hastily arranged secret meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen. According to the one paragraph statement released by the White House following the meeting, Yellen, Obama, and Biden simply "exchanged notes" about the economy and the progress of financial reform. Because the meeting was held behind closed doors, the American people have no way of knowing what else the three might have discussed. Yellen's secret meeting at the White House followed an emergency secret Federal Reserve Board meeting. The Fed then held another secret meeting to discuss bank reform. These...

Washington has jumped at the opportunity to provide massive amounts of weapons to Syria's so-called moderate rebels amid the ongoing ceasefire; it seems that the White House is not bothered by the fact that half of its arms have found their way into the hands of al-Qaeda, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams note. Rebel fighters from the First Battalion under the Free Syrian Army take part in a military training on June 10, 2015, in the rebel-held countryside of the northern city of Aleppo The Syrian ceasefire is hanging in the balance, former Republican congressman Ron Paul and political analyst...

Donald Trump played up his plans to tax companies that move jobs out of the United States as he tried to appeal to blue collar workers in a New York rally Sunday. Speaking for about an hour Sunday in Rochester, N.Y., Trump recited statistics about the area's loss of manufacturing jobs and economic hardship in recent years. He reiterated his desire to tax goods sold by companies once based in the United States that moved away to find cheaper labor. The plan has been widely panned by economic experts. But the Rochester crowd ate it up. "I'm the only one...

In a deal that defies currently accepted norms, Donald Trump has rented out the 50th floor of the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street to American Precious Metals Exchange (APMEX) and has allowed the company to pay the security deposit in gold.Trump agreed to accept three 32-ounce bars of gold in lieu of the cash security deposit. As of this writing, gold was trading at $1227.40 per ounce, making the 96 ounces of gold that Trump is holding worth $117,830.40. That should be more than sufficient to cover the security deposit for the 10-year rental.The deal is a win-win situation...

It may be April 1, but apparently Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is not joking about supporting Donald Trump for the Republican nomination if — if — he emerges as the party's nominee in the general election. Paul said Friday morning that he would support whoever is named the Republican nominee, even if it's Trump, telling a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter during a visit to the metro area in Kentucky that backing the Manhattan businessman would be better than going for Hillary Clinton. The senator, according to the report, specifically criticized Clinton's comments in Ohio that she would "put a whole lot...

In recent years the U.S. has been steadily traversing down a path of destruction. While many Americans have begun to open their eyes to America’s plight, most are still oblivious to the factors that led to our downfall. Recently, the media has been touting recovery, but there are numerous urgent changes that need to be implemented before the U.S. can even think that we are emerging from today’s recession/depression. The New Depression The economic decline in the United States began long before the official beginning of the recession in December 2007. The U.S. is not merely experiencing a “down cycle.”...

The rapid deterioration of our economy is attributable to the wholesale liquidation of our best companies to foreign interests. The U.S. has sold more than 16,000 of our best companies in the last 30 years to these foreign interests. This trend erodes our ability to generate earnings, and tax revenues to sustain our current standard of living – resulting in our reliance on imports thus creating uncontrolled and escalating foreign debt. Holding our debt our jobs and the production of our goods, foreign countries have ultimate leverage over our policies and our future. If we allow this to continue, it...

It was not long after last week's horrifying bombings in Brussels that the so-called security experts were out warning that Europeans must give up more of their liberty so government can keep them secure from terrorism. I guess people are not supposed to notice that every terrorist attack represents a major government failure and that rewarding failure with more of the same policies only invites more failure. I am sure a frightened population will find government promises of perfect security attractive and may be willing to allow more surveillance of their personal lives. They should pause a little beforehand and...

According to a recent poll, 73 percent of all Americans oppose increases in federal spending. Since this anti-government spending sentiment is a major reason Republicans control the House and Senate, one would expect the Republican Congress to hold the line on, or even cut, government spending. Yet, despite the Republican leadership’s rhetoric about "fiscal responsibility," this year’s House Republican budget spends $104 billion more than the GOP’s 2013 budget. Some conservatives, most notably the Heritage Foundation, have criticized the GOP budget. Heritage and the conservative House Republican Study Committee (RSC) have both prepared conservative alternatives to the official Republican budgets....