Free Republic

Ahead of the Christmas holiday, Congress gave taxpayers the gift of a 4,155-page, pork-laden $1.7 trillion spending bill. It will add to the ballooning $31.4 trillion national debt and hasten the country's lurch toward a fiscal and monetary crisis. The U.S. debt to GDP ratio of 120% already stands at its highest level since the end of World War II. If GDP turns negative again in 2023, as many economists predict, Uncle Sam's debt predicament would become even more dire – especially if borrowing costs continue to rise. Servicing costs on the national debt are set to skyrocket. Interest on...

New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney is calling for President Joe Biden to be impeached from office. “How I feel about Joe Biden? I see this guy as a talentless, career politician and completely derelict in his duty, which is why I’ve called for him to be impeached! One of the things about the Republicans that is kind of frustrating at times is, we don’t fight. We have to fight every single day, right now. I stand up to the status quo in both parties, I have a core set of principles. Can we preserve this Republic? It is all...

Former President Donald Trump’s tax returns will be released by the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday morning. “The returns will be placed into the congressional record on Friday morning during a House pro forma session. That pro forma session will occur around 9 a.m. ET on Friday. There will also be a formal announcement Friday from the committee. The highly anticipated release comes after the panel last week asserted that the IRS failed to properly audit the former president’s taxes while he was in office, CNN reported. “The committee released a report that detailed six years’ worth of...

On an unknown date around the 560s B.C.E., the storyteller Aesop is supposed to have been executed in Delphi by being hurled from the Hyampeia rock. The semi-legendary fable-fashioner is not quite so irretrievable to history as, say, Homer, although assuredly many or all of the tales that have accrued under the heading “Aesop’s Fables” trace to origins other than this man. Supposed to have lived from the late 7th to mid 6th centuries B.C.E., Aesop is first referenced by history’s first historian, Herodotus. But by way of summation, we cannot improve upon Plutarch‘s succinct description of Aesop’s fate in...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

US existing home sales in November collapsed by -38.6% YoY as M2 Money growth runs out of gas. The above chart is similar to yesterday’s “Ski Slope” chart of US home prices YoY. What will President Biden do about this dire situation? Our “Vacationer in Chief” is off on yet another vacation to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, so probably nothing. Now that Biden is sunbathing, what will his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen do?

So-called heretics from history had some major predictions for 2023, and most of them revolve around the apocalypse. Let’s start with Nostradamus, a French astrologer who forecast the arrival of the Antichrist, World War III, mass depopulation, a drying ocean, and the burning down of the British monarchy — all in 2023. In his writings, Nostradamus predicted “seven months Great War [and] people dead through evil” as our apocalypse appetizer, according to the New York Post. As for Buckingham Palace, apparently it’s going to see a “celestial fire on the royal edifice,” the outlet noted. Some might argue that this...

Unsuccessful...candidates are entitled to go to court, but if they don’t have real evidence, it’s an exercise in begging to lose... That’s what happened in Arizona to Kari Lake... who fell short by 0.7 percentage point, or 17,117 votes, ...outside of recount range. “A court setting such a margin aside...has never been done in the history of the United States,” state Judge Peter Thompson ruled... Maricopa County...had inexcusable problems with its ballot printers...which contributed to long lines. But this was hardly the stuff of conspiracy theories... Some ballots were printed slightly too small...which stopped the county’s tabulators from accepting them....

U.S. government pension funds currently have the lowest cash holdings since the 2008 financial crisis, and corporate pensions’ cash holdings are barely above the 13-year low they hit in 2021, which could spell disaster in the event of a financial crisis. Over the past 15 years, public pensions had 2.45% cash holdings and private pensions had 2.07% on average, but those have dropped to 1.9% and 1.7% respectively, according to The Wall Street Journal. The figures were higher even in 2008, when some retirement funds had to sell at inopportune times to make payments; one economist told the Daily Caller...

Pope Francis asked for prayers for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Wednesday, saying his predecessor is “very ill.” The surprise request came at the end of Francis’s audience at the Vatican. "I would like to ask all of you for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict,” Francis said. “Remember him, he is very ill, asking the Lord to console him and sustain him." Francis did not expound on other details regarding Benedict’s health. Following Francis's comments, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a statement explaining to the Associated Press that Benedict's health situation "at the moment remains under control, constantly...

Lawmakers in Alberta, the largely rural Canadian province situated above Montana, have recently rejected Canadian authoritarianism headed by WEF puppet Justin Trudeau — the open admirer of Chinese-style communism who recently called public protests against his iron-fisted rule “troublesome.”PM Justin Trudeau at a hearing today: “Using protests to demand changes to public policy is something that I think is worrisome” pic.twitter.com/rtKERsGnM6— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 25, 2022Via The Guardian:Alberta has passed a controversial “sovereignty act” that could allow the province to ignore federal laws, setting the stage for a combative relationship with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and tense...

(Daily readings from the USCCB)When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Matthew 2:13The most glorious event ever to take place in our world also filled some with hatred and rage. Herod, who was jealous of his own earthly power, felt greatly threatened by the message shared with him by the Magi. And when the Magi failed to return to Herod...

The health of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has worsened in the last few hours, a Vatican official said on Wednesday. "The situation at the moment remains under control and is constantly followed by doctors," Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni told reporters, adding that he could "confirm that in the last few hours there has been an worsening of his condition due to advancing age."

When it comes to the absurdity of American taxpayers giving “reparations” to black descendants of slaves, it’s hard to limit the number of objections. Apart from the fact that American slavery, though horrific, was legal; that it ended 157 years ago; that the government did not own slaves, the private sector did; that most Southerners did not own slaves; that nearly all slave owners were Democrats — so why should non-Democrats pay?; that hundreds of thousands of white Northerners lost their lives and suffered serious injuries fighting in the Civil War that ended slavery; and that today, as conservative writer...

Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Los Angeles all rank among the nation’s 10 “neediest” cities, according to an analysis by the personal finance website WalletHub. The report ranked 182 cities on 28 economic indicators, including child poverty, food insecurity and inadequate kitchens. Detroit ranked as the neediest metropolis. One Detroit renter in five faced eviction this year, according to a report in The Detroit News. Brownsville, Texas, ranked second. One-quarter of the city’s population lives in poverty, twice the national average, according to a recent account in 24/7 Wall St. Cleveland ranks third. Cleveland’s poverty rate is 29 percent, according to...

Economists call someone who gets paid more than necessary to produce a good or service a “rent-seeker.” Arguably the preeminent rent-seeker in higher education, Terry Hartle, announced his retirement recently from his position as chief lobbyist at the American Council of Education (ACE). Terry is a master at the rent-seeking craft, persuasive in cajoling legislators into approving laws that lead to vast numbers of dollars being dropped onto college campuses. Some of those dollars have allowed academics to do things we otherwise couldn’t have done—to live a better life. When speaking to legislative groups, I often assert, “I want to...

Bob Marley's grandson Joseph Marley (also known by stage name ‘Jo Mersa') has died aged 31, according to reports. Jamaican-American reggae artist Joseph Mersa Marley has reportedly died, as the star was found unresponsive in a vehicle. The star, who was the grandson of legendary musician Bob Marley, was just 31 years old. According to an announcement from streaming service TIDAL, he was found unresponsive in the vehicle yesterday in the United States, although a location was not specified. The star had reportedly suffered from asthma his entire life, and the Florida radio station WZPP claimed he died of an...

The latest Twitter file drop makes it even more explicit than before: the American government was Twitter’s secret partner. That’s why Joe Biden felt comfortable ordering an ostensibly private corporation to silence critics. Readers of The Conservative Treehouse are surprised because the site predicted this partnership months ago. While his details may be off, his instincts were spot-on. Before the 10th drop, we learned that the FBI and CIA were constantly demanding information from Twitter and instructing it about which accounts it needed to drop. The 10th drop shows that this went all the way up to the White House.The...

After noting that there “has been a marked uptick in religiously motivated attacks by Palestinian Muslims on Christians in Bethlehem,” a Nov. 21, 2022 report offers some examples:Just over two weeks ago, a Muslim man was accused of harassing young Christian women at a Forefathers Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour near the city of Bethlehem. Soon after, the church was attacked by a large mob of Palestinian men who hurled rocks at the building while congregants cowered inside. Several of the congregants were injured in the attack.The Palestinian Authority, responsible for security in the area, did nothing.In October, unidentified gunmen...

Big government loves to trod on the little guy, the citizen, the tax slave. As history would show, economic collapse ushers in absolute tyranny; no wonder "they" can barely hide their agenda for financial ruin. Just take a look at this breakdown of Rand Paul’s Festivus report which details nearly half a trillion dollars just in interest on the national debt because people like Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney remain beholden to self and special interests using our money.Enter the newest EPA “regulations” — what a nice euphemism for the illegality of the Fourth Branch of bureaucrats making de facto...