Free Republic

Stock market margin debt jumped by another $25 billion in April, to a historic high of $847 billion, according to FINRA data. It has exploded by $188 billion in six months, and by 61% year-over-year, and by 55% from February 2020: Excess leverage is the precise and predictable result of the policies the Fed is promoting out of one side of its mouth with its interest rate repression and asset purchases.Out of the other side of its mouth, the Fed – via its blissfully ignored Financial Stability Report – is warning about leverage, stock market leverage, and particularly the vast...

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will only grant interviews to “Black or Brown journalists," her spokesperson recently announced. Local NBC 5 reporter Mary Ann Ahern first reported the news: As ⁦@chicagosmayor⁩ reaches her two year midway point as mayor, her spokeswoman says Lightfoot is granting 1 on 1 interviews - only to Black or Brown journalists pic.twitter.com/PAUsacD9Gj

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MBS) should have left the snark on the playground. Their churlish, childish response to reasonable questions from Arizona State Senate President Karen Fann is unbecoming of elected officials. Their constituents deserve better. On May 12, Sen. Fann sent a letter asking MBS to clarify some discrepancies and anomalies observed by the auditors reviewing Maricopa County’s ballots, even inviting MBS officials to attend a meeting at the State Capitol to clear things up. Fann pointed out that certain databases appear to have been deleted, recorded vote totals failed to match up with the physical documents,...

The New York Attorney General's office announced this week that it will be joining the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr's years-long criminal investigation of the Trump Organization. Attorney General Letitia James said: "We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature. We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA." Donald Trump issued a scathing statement via the Desk of Donald Trump slamming the witch hunt.

American presidents are well known for playing golf, but as the video shows, Joe Biden did not do the White House any favors with his sad excuse for a chip shot during a recent game. Not only did Biden not get his ball up on the green, he actually hit the ball in the wrong direction and back out onto the fairway.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Wednesday to press ahead with a fierce military offensive in the Gaza Strip, pushing back against calls from the United States to wind down the operation that has left hundreds dead.Netanyahu's tough comments marked the first public rift between the two close allies since the fighting began last week and could complicate international efforts to reach a cease-fire.Israel continued to pound targets in Gaza with airstrikes, while Palestinian militants bombarded Israel with rocket fire throughout the day. In another sign of potential escalation, militants in Lebanon fired a...

Typically, news organizations rush to cover crises, real or perceived. The Associated Press has taken a different tack, using its influential style guide to play down the human drama unfolding at the southern border. While internal Customs and Border Protection documents repeatedly refer to an immigration "surge" at the border, according to records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the AP recommends journalists no longer use such descriptions to avoid offense and maintain supposed "neutrality." Other documents, circulated internally throughout Customs and Border Protection in May, instruct officials on processing "the surge of undocumented individuals as efficiently as possible." The...

Politicians and bureaucrats have decided that they can wave a magic “COVID” wand and make constitutional rights disappear. College students have been among those hit hardest by the edicts. Many students have been forced to choose between medical choice and privacy and their continued education. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) required students to take a COVID test every two weeks and have their medical results loaded to a third-party app on their smart phones. Many parents and students took exception with the requirements, penalties, and enforcement mechanisms. Students who refused the mandatory testing and app were denied access to classes,...

WHO IS — AND IS NOT — A “NATURAL BORN CITIZEN”? | by Joseph Demaio (May 16, 2021) — When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for your humble servant to respond to comments in greater detail than allowed in the designated section of P&E posts, a longer post is required. Such is the case with this offering regarding assertions made by those who reject the likely application of Book I, Ch. 19, § 212 of Emmerich de Vattel’s 1758 treatise, “Le Droit des Gens” or “The Law of Nations,” to the proper interpretation of Art. 2,...

(President Trump's Operation Warp Speed Update) (60% of American Adults have at least a first shot - 73% of seniors fully vaccinated) Total Vaccine Doses Delivered: 349,210,095 (20,301,300 J&J) Administered: 277,290,173 (9,836,616 J&J) People Vaccinated, At Least One Dose: 159,174,963 Fully Vaccinated: 125,453,423

Fifteen prominent North American seminaries have committed to meeting a series of sexual misconduct policy benchmarks in hopes the move will inspire others to follow suit, and to reinforce policies already in place. The five benchmarks were announced by the University of Notre Dame McGrath Institute for Church Life in November. Tuesday, the institute launched a website that details the benchmarks, outlines the seminaries that endorse it, and identifies the team of laity, priests and bishops that collaborated on the effort. “[It’s important] to be proactive and not to wait for some sort of crisis or problem to react,” Monsignor...

US national cycling champion Gwen Inglis was struck and killed by a car on Sunday while training near her Denver home, authorities said. She was 47. Inglis, the reigning US road race champion in the 45-to-49 age group, was riding with her husband, Mike, around 10am on Sunday in the Denver suburb of Lakewood when a Nissan sedan driven by Ryan Scott Montoya, 29, drifted into the bike lane where she was riding. Montoya remained at the scene and was facing possible charges of vehicular homicide, Lakewood police told local Fox affiliate KDVR-TV. Montoya told police he was not texting...

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - A Point Loma grandmother is sharing her story after she was scammed out of her life savings during a two-day nightmare. Barbara Read, 71, got the call last Wednesday morning. The cellphone caller ID read "Federal Reserve." A man identifying himself as a federal reserve officer told the disabled retiree her identity had been stolen and used in a crime spree. “They knew quite a bit about me,” said Read. ”Someone had been laundering money and counterfeiting money to Colombia, and drug trafficking.” Read was transferred to a supposed sheriff's deputy, who confirmed she was facing...

The post office’s law enforcement arm has faced intense congressional scrutiny in recent weeks over its Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), which tracks social media posts of Americans and shares that information with other law enforcement agencies. Yet the program is much broader in scope than previously known and includes analysts who assume fake identities online, use sophisticated intelligence tools and employ facial recognition software, according to interviews and documents reviewed by Yahoo News.Among the tools used by the analysts is Clearview AI, a facial recognition software that scrapes images off public websites, a practice that has raised the ire...

A new paper presents a stable lithium-metal battery design for the first time. Lithium-ion batteries have flaws that lithium-metal batteries could fix. This new battery adds a self-healing technology that will close cracks where dendrites form. Lithium-ion batteries are the backbone of most of today’s electronic devices, including electric vehicles. But for all of their game-changing benefits, the batteries still have an inherent flaw: dendrites. These thin, snaking, tree-like pieces of lithium form sharp points and end up piercing the battery, causing short circuits and other problems. This ultimately shortens the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries, and leaves major room for...

BERLIN (AP) — The Biden administration will impose sanctions on a number of Russian ships and companies for their role in the construction of a controversial European pipeline project but will waive similar penalties on a German firm and its chief executive, according to congressional aides and the German government, which welcomed the move.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed Tuesday to hold a vote on legislation forming a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, daring Republicans to oppose an effort that has bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. “Republicans can let their constituents know, are they on the side of truth [or] want to cover up for the insurrectionists and for Donald Trump?” Schumer asked at a weekly press conference.

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow shocked the airwaves when he argued that the U.S. tax burden will be greater than that of communist China under President Joe Biden’s tax plan. Kudlow stated that “America will have significantly higher tax burdens than China” if Biden achieves his goals during the May 18 edition of his show Kudlow. Kudlow said this would occur “if we jack up the corporate tax rate from 21 [percent] to 28 percent, if we increase global minimum corporate tax from ten-and-a-half to 21 percent, and if we double the capital gains tax.” In his estimation, “That’s not...

If California education officials have their way, generations of students may not know how to calculate an apartment’s square footage or the area of a farm field, but the “mathematics” of political agitation and organizing will be second nature to them. Encouraging those gifted in math to shine will be a distant memory. This will be the result if a proposed mathematics curriculum framework, which would guide K-12 instruction in the Golden State’s public schools, is approved by California’s Instructional Quality Commission in meetings this week and in August and ratified by the state board of education later this year....

Just three weeks after adding Ivermectin, Delhi now leads India out of the deadly second surge of the COVID pandemic. Cases that had peaked at 28,395 on April 20 plummeted nearly 80% to just 6,430 on May 15. Deaths peaked May 4, and now they are also down 25%. On May 10, the Indian State of Goa adopted an even more ambitious policy of preemptive Ivermectin for all adults in the state. The Chief Minister of Goa is Dr. Pramod Sawant, a progressive 49-year-old physician persuaded by science. In particular, he read Dr. Pierre Kory's Dr. Tess Lawrie's and Dr....