Free Republic

Did you watch CNN’s Democratic debate Thursday night? I actually did, and get this. I was entertained. Thoroughly entertained. I had a feeling it would be a bit more exciting, especially since Bernie Sanders has been out there questioning Hillionaire’s qualifications. At one point, Dana Bash grilled Hillary on releasing the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches, and it was glorious. “Secretary Clinton, if I may, Senator Sanders keeping bringing up the speeches that you gave to Goldman Sachs. So I’d like to ask you, so you’ve said that you don’t want to release the transcripts, until everybody does it,...

Los Angeles was once the epicenter of apparel manufacturing, attracting buyers from across the world to its clothing factories, sample rooms and design studios. But over the years, cheap overseas labor lured many apparel makers to outsource to foreign competitors in far-flung places such as China and Vietnam. Now, Los Angeles firms are facing another big hurdle — California's minimum wage hitting $15 an hour by 2022 — which could spur more garment makers to exit the state. Last week American Apparel, the biggest clothing maker in Los Angeles, said it might outsource the making of some garments to another...

Janna Sundeyeva still remembers life in the Soviet Union, where stores in remote regions would lack meat for months at a time and toilet paper had to be snatched up quickly on the rare occasions it appeared. But the minor indignities paled in comparison to what happened to her grandfather: He had the chance to come to America in 1929, but he opted to stay, sensing an economic thaw. Seven years later, Sundeyeva says, he was arrested and never heard from again. Sundeyeva immigrated to San Francisco from Moldova in 1994, and now she and her husband run a Russian-language...

When signing the bill raising California’s minimum wage, Governor Jerry Brown called the new $15 minimum wage “good politics” but “questionable policy.” He may be more prescient than many realize. There was a time in recent American history when a minimum wage of nearly equal magnitude to California’s was imposed, and “good politics” turned out to be disastrous policy. It is worth remembering this previous minimum-wage experiment as voters assess whether the progressive push for substantially higher minimum wages will deliver prosperity for the working class. President Obama has long supported the so-called Raise the Wage Act, which, if passed,...

(CNN)The forces of Occupy Wall Street, splintered and faded in the aftermath of their 2011 demonstrations, are getting the band back together to boost Bernie Sanders ahead of next week's critical New York primary. Nearly five years since Occupy was evicted from Zuccotti Park, blocks from the New York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan, a coalition of organizers, labor leaders and progressive activists who lined up under the banner of "the 99 percent" are renewing their efforts in pursuit of a more traditional cause: Getting voters to the polls on April 19.

The nation's top intelligence official is considering letting spy agencies drop the lowest level of classification, "confidential," in an effort to shrink the gusher of secret documents flowing out of their offices. The proposal by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, comes amid a simmering controversy over classified information that found its way on to the home email system used by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state. In a memorandum sent last month to directors of the CIA and four other intelligence agencies, Clapper told them to "to take a leading role in reducing...

The GOP has a race problem. White people. Working class whites, who make up half of the Republican voters, are rebelling against the Republican orthodoxies of free trade and trickle down economics that have turned their communities into ghost towns. Shocked by their support of Donald Trump, some elitist conservative thinkers are calling places like Garbutt, NY pockets of misery, welfare fraud and dope addiction. They say let these towns die. Turns out Garbutt is not like that at all.

Arms dealer .. Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar. Yes he's got a lot of names. Also a longtime associate of Osama bin Laden who helped establish training camps for Al Qaeda after the US bombed them. He served as an explosives and weapons trainer at terrorist training camps. And commanded a training camp. He was an arms dealer who worked with Osama bin Laden and plotted to carry out IED attacks against US forces. He also has ties to Zawahiri and the mastermind of the USS Cole Bombing. He's listed as posing a high risk to the US...

Blog/Basic Concepts Posted Apr 4, 2016 by Martin Armstrong Communism-Socialism I have been asked to explain the differences between socialism, fascism, and communism for some people seem to mix them all up. A “socialist” is akin to a fascist for their governments seeks to dictate control. They do not pretend to own private property. Communists seize all private property and place it in the hands of the state. There is no freedom whatsoever. Fascists view the world as a military state and see a liberal democracy as totally obsolete. In this context, they see the goal as the total mobilization...

President Obama will sit down for his first interview with "Fox News Sunday" since being elected president. The exclusive interview, to be conducted by host Chris Wallace, will air on April 10. It also marks the president’s first interview on Fox News Channel since 2014. The interview will be held at the University of Chicago, covering a range of topics including the 2016 election and the president’s legacy.

Barack Obama has called for international tax reform in the wake of the revelations contained in the Panama Papers. “There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally is a huge problem,” he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal.” The US president said the leak from Panama illustrated the scale of tax avoidance involving Fortune 500 companies and running into trillions of dollars worldwide. “We shouldn’t make it legal to engage in transactions just to avoid taxes,” he added, praising instead “the...

With the increasing propaganda wars, we thought a reminder of just how naive many Westerners are when it comes to their news-feed. As Arjun Walia, of GlobalResearch.ca, notes, Dr. Ulfkotte went on public television stating that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job. He recently made an appearance on RT news to share these facts: I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the...

By Oleg Atbashian | First published in the American Thinker Have you heard of the shocking and terrifying diaper gap that is now dividing this nation? It is said to be so dire that the White House is urging immediate government assistance to buy baby diapers. Philosophically, this puts disposable plastic consumer products in the category of inalienable rights guaranteed by the government: among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Diapers. When I lived in the USSR, our Soviet Constitution also guaranteed that our basic needs be provided to us by the caring socialist government. As a result,...

Given the choice between Donald Trump, successful capitalist who loves his country, and the socialist communists of Sanders or Clinton who hate the American System, I won't be able to pull the lever for Trump fast enough The historical run for president by billionaire Donald Trump has been filled with potholes, pitfalls, and protests. With many voters, there is little middle ground with the guy. Either you love him, or you hate him. . . well, hate his decision to try to become President of the United States, anyway. He’s being called “nationalist” and “populist” by the media, but an...

What a young Ingrid Bergman was to feminine beauty Bernie Sanders is to muddled thinking. One of his favorite catchphrases is “In a country as rich as ours…” fill in the blank. “In a country as rich as ours, there should be free tuition at public colleges and universities.” “In a country as rich as ours, the minimum wage should be $15 an hour.” “In a country as rich as ours, no child should go to bed hungry.” After all, we only spend $74 billion annually on food stamps. All of this raises the obvious question: How does a country...

Larry David was back on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend to reprise his all-too-perfect Bernie Sanders character. And despite Sanders's win in Michigan last week, the big joke was how limited his base of support remains -- and its propensity for shenanigans on social media. "I want to thank everyone who voted for me, and apologize to everyone else for making your Facebook feeds so, so annoying," he said. "I mean, I love my supporters, but they're too much, right? I'm great, but I'm not five-posts-a-day great. With all due respect to my supporters, get a life." David-as-Sanders then poked...

Years of crippling socialist policies have left Venezuela so bereft of food, average Venezuelans must spent up to six hours waiting in line to received their allotted rations of basic goods like vegetable oil, flour, or milk. Musician Jonathan Acosta has offered to help ease the frustration by visiting supermarkets and performing for those waiting in line.

This year the Ides of March brings presidential voting to Illinois - a state whose primary often falls so late that it's irrelevant to the nomination process. In 2016, though, Illinois can have impact. Our custom is to offer primary election endorsements to candidates of both major parties. But the 2016 race confronts Illinois voters with uncommon dangers, because so many candidates are playing with fire. The Tribune cannot endorse Trump. While he still holds a lead in delegates, the party is deeply divided. The Tribune today endorses Marco Rubio for the Republican presidential nomination. This being a free country,...

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Monday he understands French Jews' fear amid heightened religious tension in the country after last year's terrorists attacks in Paris by Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists. Valls' comments came in a speech at the annual dinner of the French Jewish council CRIF. He was quoted by The Associated Press. In his remarks, the French Prime Minister expressed his "solidarity" toward French Jews and strongly condemned anti-Semitism whether it comes from the "far-left" or the "far-right". "Yes, Jews of France are afraid to wear the kippa , to go to the synagogue, to do shopping...

Bernie Sanders, the Senator representing the socialist paradise of Vermont, has apparently never seen a poor white person. This is understandable since about 1% of the state's population is black. But Sanders considers himself an expert on the racial divide in poverty. And at last night's debate with Hillary Clinton, the Senator expounded on his theories of race and poverty. Daily Caller: During the CNN Democratic debate Thursday night Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that if someone was white they don’t know what it’s like to be poor or live in a ghetto. “When you’re white you don’t know what...