Free Republic

For too many years, in too many places, our country has seen acts of gun violence that have resulted in heartbreaking losses. We are all too familiar with them and there is no need to recount them here. Over the same amount of time, we have waited for our grief to turn into action and see our nation adopt common-sense measures that would help prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands. That action has sadly never come and as the weeks pass after the most recent mass shooting, it appears we are stuck in the same cycle of tragedy...

Citigroup Inc. (C.N) added restrictions on firearms sales for new retail-sector clients, the Wall Street bank said on Thursday, the strongest move to date by a major U.S. lender following last month’s high school shooting in Florida. In an e-mailed statement, Citi said it will require those clients only sell firearms to customers who have passed a background check, restrict sales of firearms for people under 21 years of age, and not sell so-called “bump stocks” or high-capacity magazines. The bank’s new rules come weeks after a shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people, the second-deadliest shooting...

In an op-ed published in the Financial Times, John Reed says large banks like the one he used to run are now "inherently unstable and unworkable." The man who was one of the chief architects of the "Big Bank" model now says says the United States never should have repealed the Glass-Steagall banking act in 1999. That's exactly what Democratic presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley have been arguing on the campaign trail. They want the law reinstated. Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidates do not. As CEO of Citi from 1984 to 2000, Reed was one of the...

In 2008 Michael B. Froman, then Citigroup executive, sends John Podesta a list of cabinet members. The email is dated Oct. 6, 2008 and bears the subject line “Lists.” It went to Podesta a month before he was named chairman of President-Elect Obama’s transition team. Froman’s list proved remarkably prescient. As it proposed, Robert Gates, a Bush holdover, became secretary of Defense; Eric Holder became attorney general; Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security; Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff; Susan Rice, United Nations ambassador; Arne Duncan, secretary of Education; Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services; Peter Orszag,...

While Donald Trump decides who will be in his cabinet, here is a reminder to the Mainstream media… Obama didn’t even pick his cabinet, Citibank did. In a John Podesta email revealed by Wikileaks, one month before the Presidential election of 2008, the Wall Street giant Citibank submitted to the Obama campaign a list of its preferred candidates for cabinet positions in an Obama administration. This list corresponds almost exactly to the eventual composition of Barack Obama’s cabinet.

Perhaps the most startling discovery of the WikiLeaks dumps so far didn't come from the most recent emails surrounding the various Hillary scandals, though there are many great ones, but from 2008 when John Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team.  The email came from Michael Froman, a former Citibank executive, who single-handedly built the entire cabinet of what was supposed to be the "main street" President.     The email in question was even sent from Froman's Citibank email address (rookie!) and includes "A list of African American, Latino and Asian American candidates, broken down by...

A Dallas man who worked at Citibank Regents Campus in Irving, Texas, in 2012 and 2013, Lennon Ray Brown, and who admitted causing damage to a protected Citibank computer, was sentenced today by U.S. District C. Godbey to 21 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $77,200 in restitution, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas. the government read a text that Brown sent to a coworker shortly after he shut down Citibank’s system that read, “They was firing me. I just beat them to it. Nothing personal, the upper management need to see what...

Due to strict currency controls in place since 2003, the Venezuelan government relies on Citibank for foreign currency transactions.

One of the key metrics on the strength of a campaign is how well their fundraising, and allocation of resources are going. In that measure Ted Cruz's campaign is on fire. According to FEC reports, for the most recent filing period, Ted Cruz had more cash on hand than the Republican National Committee. For the period ending on December 31, 2015 Cruz reported having $18,734,794.46 cash on hand. For the same end date the Republican National Committee had $18,723,782 on hand. Cruz had about $11,000 more in his war chest than the RNC. It shows a particular strength for his...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted 2016 rival Donald Trump on Monday, questioning his ties to Democrats and previous support for liberal positions as the two battle for the top spot in Iowa."If he's giving checks to Democratic politicians and he supports their views... then it starts to suggest, 'gosh if he publicly supports their views if he finances their causes,'" Cruz told Boston radio station WRKO. "Then suddenly when he announces as a candidate for president, every single one of his views changes - listen if he has had a change of heart, I am thrilled." Cruz, who is competing...

What does Donald Trump really think about Ted Cruz? Watch this video to see what he says behind closed doors.

"Donald Trump can typically do no wrong - until he attacks Ted Cruz."HOUSTON, Texas — Today, at a rally held in Myrtle Beach, SC, New York billionaire Donald Trump attempted to attack Ted Cruz using a New York Times hit piece and was booed by the crowd. Watch the video here:Donald Trump Booed for Attacking Ted Cruz (Video)NBC News: Donald Trump Booed By Conservative Crowd After Attacks on Ted Cruz Among conservatives, Donald Trump can typically do no wrong - until he attacks Ted Cruz.On Saturday, Trump drew boos from a grassroots conservative crowd during remarks at the South Carolina...

(AP) Donald Trump is slamming Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz as a "great hypocrite" for tapping big financial institutions for loans while portraying himself as an anti-establishment outsider. Trump kept the new feud between the two front-runners alive in New Hampshire and on Twitter before a tea party convention in South Carolina at which both are appearing. ... Trump challenges Cruz for taking loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank when he was running for his Texas Senate seat.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Saturday was briefly trapped in an elevator before giving a speech at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention. The Texas senator quipped after he was released that GOP rival Donald Trump was to blame. "All right, so who put Donald Trump in charge of the elevator?" he said to reporters gathered outside of the elevator.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reportedly failed to disclose a second loan for as much as $500,000 from Citibank to fund his 2012 Senate campaign, according to a letter he sent to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Thursday. The disclosure comes after the Republican presidential candidate was already facing scrutiny for failing to adequately report a Goldman Sachs loan of up to $500,000 he also used to fund his 2012 bid. The one-page letter, obtained by The New York Times, said both loans were "inadvertently omitted" from the required filings. The Citibank loan was a line of credit, according to...

The New York Times outlines another loan for Senate Candidate Ted Cruz that was “Inadvertently Omitted” in 2012 by the campaign team of Heidi and Ted Cruz.   But, no-one seems to ask the key question “why”? There are two issues behind the Wall Street loans which Ted Cruz omitted from his campaign finance disclosures to the FEC, neither of which have anything to do with a candidate taking out an equity line of credit. ♦  The first key issue is a matter of political integrity.  In 2012 Senate candidate Ted Cruz was campaigning against big banks, bank bailouts specifically, and taxpayer funded bailouts...

DORCHESTER, S.C. - Responding to a report that said he did not disclose a loan from his wife's employer during his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz called the issue a "technical and inadvertent filing error" that he will fix if necessary.

The warnings are getting louder. Is anybody listening? For months, I have been documenting on my website how the global financial system is absolutely primed for a crisis, and now some of the most important financial institutions in the entire world are warning about the exact same thing. For example, this week I was stunned to see that the Telegraph had published an article with the following ominous headline: “$3 trillion corporate credit crunch looms as debtors face day of reckoning, says IMF“. And actually what we are heading for would more accurately be described as a “credit freeze” or...

After failing to criminally prosecute any of the financial firms responsible for the market collapse in 2008, former Attorney General Eric Holder is returning to Covington & Burling, a corporate law firm known for serving Wall Street clients. The move completes one of the more troubling trips through the revolving door for a cabinet secretary. Holder worked at Covington from 2001 right up to being sworn in as attorney general in Feburary 2009. And Covington literally kept an office empty for him, awaiting his return. The Covington & Burling client list has included four of the largest banks, including Bank...

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