Free Republic

Best-selling author Harry Dent says the stock bubble we have today is the biggest in history.  Dent contends, “Now we’re in a third bubble, and each of these bubbles peaks at higher highs, and then they each crash to lower lows.” “We’ve been looking for the Dow to peak right around here between 17,000 and 19,000.  So, we are right in the middle.  We are looking for an even bigger correction likely in late 2016 to 2017.  This whole thing has been in an artificial bubble” “We’d be in a depression right now if it were not for $11 trillion...

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html This is a US Government website which tracks our (negative, and getting ever worse) trade deficit with the Peoples Republic of China. Last year we ran an all-time new record trade deficit with China of 342 billion dollars. Guess what?

For those who hold to traditional Christian theology, explaining what happened to Jesus on the cross doesn’t take long: Humans are sinful…sin makes God angry…God requires a sacrifice to quell God’s anger…God sent his son Jesus to be that sacrifice. So, on the cross, God killed (or perhaps just permitted) the execution of Jesus in order to satisfy God’s anger against sinful humanity. Got it? Good. That settles it. Actually, that doesn’t settle it if you’re Tony Jones, a theologian and author of “Did God Kill Jesus? Searching for Love in History’s Most Famous Execution.” He argues that notions of...

The next time they appear in court for homeschooling, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich could face four years in prison—each. “I am sad today,” said Dirk Wunderlich, recounting how on April 28 he lost his most recent case in the German state of Hesse, and also heard dire warnings from the presiding judge. “We had hoped the judge, who seemed open-minded and friendly, might give us a chance,” Wunderlich added. “But no, he said he could not: The law is the law.” In their most recent court appearance, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich were fined 450 euros each (about $1,000) for not...

For all the good their Ivy League degrees did Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton—when you consider the smoking ruin that is their foreign policy record—you'd think John Heilemann would have the good sense not to make an Ancient Eight sheepskin the sine qua non for a presidential candidate. But with his MSM elitism on full display, on today's With All Due Respect Heilemann had the chutzpah to suggest that Mike Huckabee doesn't clear the Commander-in-Chief bar because he lacks a degree from Harvard's Kennedy School or Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. Huck has simply picked up some foreign policy talking points...

PARIS -- Stupidity and obesity are now matters of U.S. national security. And it's only the tip of a more significant iceberg that threatens America from within. An organization called Mission: Readiness comprised of more than 500 retired generals and military leaders routinely publishes reports -- including one just last month -- detailing how a significant number of American kids these days are either too fat to be effective fighters or too low-scoring in math, literacy and problem-solving to pass the basic military enlistment exam. Granted, the way modern warfare is heading, future recruits might spend their days sitting at...

As several small businesses have made headlines recently by rejecting lesbian and gay customers, Wells Fargo is trying to publicly embrace the LGBT community and attract their business. On Monday, the bank will release nine different TV commercials in markets across the country, featuring a diverse range of people. One of the ads will show a lesbian couple learning sign language because they're adopting a hearing-impaired child. The ad is the first of its kind for the banking industry. "The notion of all of these ads is really telling stories to create a sense of togetherness," said Jamie Moldafsky, chief...

The foul-mouthed women of Fox News were a disquieting element of doing his weekly show for the conservative cable TV network, ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told an Iowa radio interviewer. Huckabee is back courting the Hawkeye State — he won Iowa’s 2008 precinct caucuses — in preparing his second bid for the White House. The religious right champion quit his weekly show on Fox News to get ready for the 2016 Republican race. A Baptist preacher, Huckabee confessed to culture shock when doing his show in New York. “In the South, or in the Midwest, there in Iowa, you would...

It wasn't a fair fight. On one side, you had two men in body armor, toting assault rifles and showing every willingness to open fire now and count their victims later. On the other, you had a security officer -- a traffic officer by day -- with a pistol. Somehow, the officer won. Authorities have not released the name of the overmatched Garland, Texas, police officer who stopped a pair of gunmen Sunday night. But they have described what he did, actions that could be characterized as equal parts skillful, heroic and miraculous. The event started, by all accounts, without...

An anti-Semitic flier supporting Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards’ Senate campaign in Maryland was distributed at a Prince George’s County budget council meeting on Monday, Jewish Insider reported on Tuesday.According to a copy published by Jewish Insider, the leaflet claimed that the “Israel lobby” was “undermining African American political power” in the state by financing black challengers to Edwards in order to split the vote and help elect her Senate primary opponent, Rep. Chris Van Hollen. (click on the image for full size) It also blasted Van Hollen for “sen[ding] 1.2 billion dollars in Maryland Federal taxpayer money to the Apartheid...

So many disputes in our liberal democratic society hinge on the tension between inequality and fairness: between groups, between sexes, between individuals, and increasingly between families. The power of the family to tilt equality hasn’t gone unnoticed, and academics and public commentators have been blowing the whistle for some time. Now, philosophers Adam Swift and Harry Brighouse have felt compelled to conduct a cool reassessment. Swift in particular has been conflicted for some time over the curious situation that arises when a parent wants to do the best for her child but in the process makes the playing field for...

McConnell just filed cloture after allowing only 2 amendment votes on the Iran bill.

MARRAKESH, Morocco — Bill and Chelsea Clinton are convening foreign leaders here at a lush golf resort set in a palm grove this week to showcase their foundation’s charitable work. But the conference also highlights new controversies engulfing the Clinton family’s vast philanthropic enterprises as Hillary Rodham Clinton begins her presidential campaign. A liberal human rights organization and several Republican lawmakers, for instance, are criticizing the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation for accepting donations from a Moroccan government-owned mining company, whose seven-figure sponsorship of this week’s gathering came amid growing scrutiny of foreign-government donations. Meanwhile, some blue-chip companies that...

You know it’s not going to be good when a 10-page letter of complaint breaks off in the middle and says, “But wait, there’s more.” That’s the case of a letter from officials with Liberty Counsel that was sent to Polk State College in Florida about the “pervasive anti-Christian bias” a teacher, Lance Russum, imposes on students. The letter demands a “full and independent review of Mr. Russum’s behavior and course content,” an appropriate grading of a 16-year-old student’s assignments, which earlier were given “zero” grades because of her beliefs, “a written apology” and assurances that future courses “will be...

One of the Baltimore police officers who arrested Freddie Gray wants the police department and prosecutor to produce a knife that was the reason for the arrest, saying in court papers that it is an illegal weapon. The motion was filed Monday by attorneys for Officer Edward Nero in Baltimore District Court. Nero is charged with second-degree assault, misconduct in office and false imprisonment — charges that can only be proven if Gray was wrongly arrested, said Andy Alperstein, a Baltimore attorney who has represented police officers but is not involved in the Gray case. If the knife was illegal,...

Via Mediaite, this is a lame answer but not as lame as some commenters in Headlines are treating it, I think. They’re not backing away from the Pam Geller event because they’re afraid of being targeted by jihadis. These guys will be targeted forever, whether or not they continue to blaspheme Islam, and they know it. Jean-Baptiste Thoret, the magazine’s film critic and the man in the glasses here, told an audience a few days ago that the surviving cartoonist who drew the “Je suis Charlie” cover is now a de facto prisoner with constant armed protection even though he’s...

GARLAND. Texas – It’s become a familiar refrain in the aftermath of a terrorist attack or the discovery of a jihadist cell. Elton Simpson, 31, was described by someone who knew him as a “very kind” religious man who “didn’t seem to be a threat to anybody.” Yet Simpson, a convert to Islam, and his roommate, Nadir Soofi, armed with assault rifles and wearing body armor, intended to enter the Curtis Culwell Center northeast of Dallas on Sunday night and slaughter some 200 people inside attending the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest,” including this reporter, according to Garland Police Chief...

Laureano Márquez was performing a benefit at his old high school in the Venezuelan city of Maracay. The comedian dwelled on the absurdities of life in this oil-rich nation, where gas is cheaper than water but it's hard to find milk, toilet paper and many other everyday goods. In the supermarket, Màrquez said, desperate customers will steal scarce items right out of your shopping cart. "In Venezuela, you get robbed of stuff that isn't even yours yet," he said to a round of laughs. Turning serious, Marquez tells the crowd that the socialist revolution, launched 16 years ago by the...

Members of the Assembly discussed into the late evening Monday a proposal that would increase the minimum wage across the state by the end of 2016 and raise the wage even higher in New York City and its suburbs. It eventually passed 94-43 just after 7:45 p.m. -snip The proposal would raise the statewide minimum wage to $10.50 by Dec. 31, 2016. The minimum wage in New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties would simultaneously rise to $12.50. Another increase to $11.55 statewide and $13.75 in the New York metro area would come by the end of 2017, and yet...

WAKE, N.C. — A Christian legal organization has filed a federal lawsuit against a public library in North Carolina after officials denied use of the facility for a lecture simply because the presentation was considered to be “religious instruction.” Liberty Counsel, which has offices in Virginia, Florida and Washington, D.C., regularly conducts lectures throughout the country on the role of Christianity in the founding of America. In March 2013 and November 2014, the group sought to use the Cameron Village Regional Library in Wake, N.C. to present a lecture. However, it was denied both times. According to a complaint filed...