Free Republic

As this vitriolic, unpredictable, outrageously entertaining presidential campaign enters its final stages I find myself pondering what happens next. I was reminded of the last scene in the 1972 movie, The Candidate. The movie is about a young untested non-politician candidate for U.S. Senator in California who puts his fate in the hands of a veteran political operative and overcomes a double digit polling deficit to win a huge upset victory. His entire focus during the campaign was to win. In the final scene of the movie he is standing among the celebrating campaign staffers and the fawning press corp....

NEW YORK — For a time, Occupy Wall Street was everywhere with its grass-roots encampments — first in New York City, then globally — and the refrain, “We are the 99 percent!” And then it was gone. Its most famous camp in lower Manhattan was cleared out in an overnight police raid two months after it started, and other Occupy locations fizzled soon thereafter. But five years later, demonstrators gathered once again in New York’s Zuccotti Park on Saturday to commemorate the movement and what they said has been its lasting impact.....

Wall Street is pricing in a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton, but if she starts to lag, there could be a big unwinding of stock and bond market positions, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's David Woo. Woo said the market is also pricing in a split Congress, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats the Senate. That would maintain the deadlock in Washington. "You have a Democrat president, and a Republican controlled Congress which means you have gridlock in Washington. The market is pricing in this gridlock, meaning it's going to be that much of the burden of...

The Fed has not only failed to fix what's broken in the U.S. economy--it has actively mad those problems worse. The Federal Reserve claims its monetary interventions saved America from economic ruin in 2009, and have bolstered growth ever since. Don't hurt yourself patting your own backs, Fed governors past and present: it's bad enough that the Fed can't fix the economy's real problems--its policies actively make them worse. After seven long years of politicos and the financial media glorifying the Federal Reserve's policies as god-like in their power and efficacy, let's take a quick look at the results of...

<p>Now the furious owner of the 14-bedroom estate in Bridgehampton plans to sue Barna, 31, for $1 million, saying the Wall Street hot shot had claimed the party would be a fundraiser for an animal charity for a mere 50 guests. Plus, Barna is disputing the $27,000 Airbnb rental and is refusing to pay.</p>

The AP review of Clinton's calendar — her after-the-fact, official chronology of the events of her four-year term — identified at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors and loyalists, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests that were either not recorded or listed with identifying details scrubbed. The AP found the omissions by comparing the 1,500-page document with separate planning schedules supplied to Clinton by aides in advance of each day's events. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, the records show...

Politics Election 2016 Several GOP Business Leaders Are Backing Clinton Democratic presidential candidate to get backing from executives, some of whom cite unease with Trump’s candidacy By Laura Meckler June 23, 2016 12:09 a.m. ET More than 50 business executives, including several longtime Republicans, endorsed Hillary Clinton for president on Thursday as her campaign seeks to capitalize on discomfort with Republican Donald Trump. They include Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president at AT&T Services Inc., and Dan Akerson, who held top positions at General Motors Co. and Nextel Communications Inc. A Clinton campaign aide provided the list. The endorsements reflect...

By making the stock market the only game in town, the Powers That Be can no longer afford to let it decline for any reason. Market technicians have long observed that the holes in charts left when markets gap up or down at the open of trading almost inevitably get filled later on. When the market gaps down, it will eventually rise to fill that gap. When the market gaps up, it will eventually decline to fill that open gap. Since there are open gaps galore lurking in the lower depths of the S&P 500's chart, that would typically suggest...

“Someone” is getting desperate. Throughout the last week, anytime stocks have begun to correct or drop, “someone” has bought S&P 500 futures to prop the market up. Anyone who’s been involved with the markets for a while knows the difference between real buyers and manipulation. This is manipulation plain and simple. Look at all those “V” rallies. Three days in a row stocks opened DOWN and someone immediately stepped in and began buying aggressively. Another tell-tale sign of manipulation: the buying halts almost the moment stocks get to 2,100 on the S&P 500. At this point the manipulation ends. And...

Wall Street seems to be growing more comfortable with the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidential election, according to a recent poll by Strategas Research Partners. A survey conducted by the firm among more than 650 institutional clients, shows that 50 percent of the respondents believe the billionaire businessman will secure the presidency, compared with only 22 percent back in April. Even as Trump's prospects improved in the eyes of investors, the stock market has climbed almost 2 percent in May and hovers near an all-time high. "The most jarring change is that it appears that the possibility of...

FIRST, if you have not followed the “Tripwire Series” this update might take a while to fully digest. There are key indications the real presidential decision-makers have shifted. I would strongly suggest you watch this video before continuing, and remind yourself that Andrea Mitchell is Alan Greenspan’s wife (this is one of the “keys” moving forward). The video is Mika Brezinski outlining the latest State Department report on the Hillary Clinton E-Mail Scandal: “it feels like Hillary Clinton is lying”

On Tuesday Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of “cheering” the housing crisis that saw millions of Americans lose their homes. Hillary Clinton was probably hoping her comments during the crisis would not surface.

A Merrill Lynch analyst ate a handful of magic mushrooms in his Manhattan apartment Sunday morning - and then plunged to his death out of his 26th floor window. Alex Lagowitz, 23, was found dead on a third floor, outdoor patio around 10 a.m. - directly below his bedroom window at Windsor Court on East 31st Street and Lexington Avenue in Murray Hill. It’s still unclear if he purposely jumped or lost his balance and fell out of the window.

On Wednesday, Bernie Sanders had lunch at the Chieftain, a cozy pub near the San Francisco Chronicle. In days gone by, it served as a lunch spot for parched journalists. Earlier, Sanders had addressed a rally in San Jose; he had another scheduled in Vallejo, California, that night. When he exited the Chieftain by a back door onto Howard Street, passers-by shouted out his name. A man who hailed Sanders as his "hero" asked the Democratic presidential hopeful to pose for a photo. There were more selfies with more fans who could not believe their luck in stumbling upon a...

Beyond the larger context of Globalists VS Nationalists, the internal opposition to Common Sense economic conservatism/nationalism can be fundamentally broken down into two categories: ♦  The first group are those who are fundamentally naive about large and historic economic issues; and how the economy was changed, forced to change, through the past forty years by financial interests who created a second, “false“, paper economy. This first group is generally young, pseudo-intellectual, and their only reference has been while formally educated within the last thirty years (they’re under 50).   Most of the oppositional (conservative) punditry falls into this category.  Important to note, this...

When contemplating the “inevitability threshold” we anticipated last year the Wall Street power brokers would switch to supporting Hillary Clinton if Donald Trump became inevitable.  […]  The Tripwire we identified back in July 2015 remains today.  If Wall Street (writ large) views Donald Trump as inevitable, they will re-evaluate –QUICKLY– the opposite side of their controllable coin.  Meaning they will evaluate Hillary Clinton. Wall Street (The U.S. CoC, Tom Donohue, and all varied interests, DNC/RNC et al) set this up as a win/win. A Clinton/Bush strategy.  If Trump is believed to be inevitable in victory over Bush, they need to re-evaluate the Clinton...

Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running mate, sold stock in US banks on the same day he attended a confidential meeting where top level officials disclosed the sector was heading for a deep crisis. The congressman on Monday denied profiting from information gleaned from the meeting on 18 September 2008 when Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, then treasury secretary Hank Paulson and others outlined their fears for the banking sector.

On Friday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon asked Donald Trump about the appointment of his business associate Steven Mnuchin as campaign finance chairman. The move has been criticized because of Mnuchin’s long tenure with Goldman Sachs–the financial giant seen as a Wall Street villain by the populist constituency that propelled Trump to victory in the GOP primary. In fact, during the Republican primary, Senator Ted Cruz was criticized because his wife Heidi worked for the company. “Some people are saying, ‘He’s selling out to Wall Street already; he’s gonna have all kinds of favors he’s going to...

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn told CNBC on Thursday he has sold his Apple position as the tech giant's stock continues to shed value after disappointing earnings. "We no longer have a position in Apple," Icahn told CNBC's "Power Lunch," noting Apple is a "great company" and CEO Tim Cook is "doing a great job."

According to a study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in March of last year, U.S. taxpayers have already injected $187.5 billion into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two companies that prior to the 2008 financial crash traded on the New York Stock Exchange, had shareholders and their own Board of Directors while also receiving an implicit taxpayer guarantee on their debt. The U.S. government put the pair into conservatorship on September 6, 2008. The public has been led to believe that the $187.5 billion bailout of the pair was the full extent of the taxpayers’ tab....