Free Republic

With soaring borrowing costs, the Federal Reserve has slammed the brakes on the once-booming used car market. The latest data on wholesale used-vehicle prices show October's decline on a year-over-year basis was the worst since the financial crisis over a decade ago. The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index for October declined to 200, or about 10.6%, the worst decline since December 2008 when the global economy was melting down (and the 5th largest decline ever)... The Fed's rapid pace of rate hikes this year is slowing demand, as Edmunds data showed the average annual percentage rate on used-car loans was...

New York (CNN Business)The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a gaping disconnect between unprecedented economic pain on Main Street and extreme optimism on Wall Street. The US economy is collapsing as never before. More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment. Millions of small businesses have requested forgivable loans to stay alive. And US GDP could decline at a breathtaking annualized rate of 40% during the second quarter. And yet the stock market is racking up massive gains. Even after retreating on Thursday, the S&P 500 spiked 13% in April. It was the best month for US stocks since January...

White House aide Sebastian Gorka claimed in an interview aired Sunday that mainstream news media are losing influence, citing recent resignations at CNN and cuts at The New York Times. “To those supporters of the Trump administration who are worried by all the fake news reporting of the last 23 weeks, I can assure you, just ignore it,” Gorka, who serves as deputy assistant to President Trump, told radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York. “The fake news complex is collapsing in on itself. We see that with the massive scandal at CNN, having to fire people...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAvEizIQLHE See Surah 9 verse 5

Guv Brown is going to “loan” $6 billion from a previously unknown slush fund to keep CalPERS doors open. That is after he GIVES then $500 million, so they can keep sending out checks. This is an economic disaster for the people of California—and another reason to leave for a Free State beofre your family finances are destroyed. ... employees don’t share in the cost of Unfunded Liabilities. 100% of that cost falls on citizens, whose services get crowded out and taxes get raised to pay off the liabilities. Jerry Brown proposes to borrow from a citizen-funded restricted fund to...

Meanwhile, is a 69-year-old woman who can't remain standing at a reasonably lengthy event on a mild day healthy enough to be president? Everyone’s talking about it, but if you haven’t seen it as it actually happened, here you go: The official line from Hillary’s campaign is that she “overheated,” whatever that means on a day when it’s 74 degrees. I assume this is a lie because it came from Hillary’s campaign. What else do they do? I also offer no particular medical theories about what’s going on here, or if anything is. It’s not my field of expertise and...

Bad-week-after-bad-week for the besieged Obama White House- and this one still ain't even over yet! At a point in time when Obamacare's most unpleasant periods of implementation -and massive tax hikes- are yet to have hit, seems reality has already penetrated much of the public awareness...  at least to the point so that somebody besides medical professionals and small-businesses are frightened by this legislative Frankenstein.  Obamacare has never enjoyed 50% support in any poll I've ever seen- now today, barely a third of regular Joes and Josephines approve, just one point better than the all time low of 34%...

Less than 10 percent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean show living coral cover and are on the verge of utter devastation, a new study reported in the Guardian states. Global warming, pollution and overexploitation are the main causes for the damage to reefs, Carl Gustaf Lundin, a director at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, .. "The major causes of coral decline are well-known and include overfishing, pollution, disease and bleaching caused by rising temperatures resulting from the burning of fossil fuels," Lundin said. .. ... Global warming is a big factor with coral reefs, the National...

FLORENCE, S.C. (AP) — Florence police say a 9-year-old girl stabbed her grandmother after they argued about whether she could watch television. Investigators said the girl stabbed her 64-year-old grandmother in the back with a kitchen knife as she read the newspaper around 2 a.m. Thursday. The woman called paramedics, while the girl called her mother. Authorities say the grandmother was treated and released from the hospital, while the Department of Social Services placed the child in the custody of another relative. The girl will be charged in Family Court. Her name was not released because of her age.

Fascinating that a structure, which was completed in 1982, has finally succumbed to the harshness of a massive winter snowstorm. Even more fascinating is that this structure that has been around for nearly 30 years finally collapses under the weight of ice and snow during, what is supposed to be, the height of a global warming meltdown.

Now you know why Dems running in November are treating him like a leper they've never met, lol- A new, all-time low in Rasmussen's Presidential Approval Index today of -22...and really tanking. He now risks and unimpeded political free-fall right on the eve of the most vital of elections. Small wonder Dems on the campaign trail don't even want to be seen with the spontaneously-combusting Bolshevik Boy Wonder, to them he's become political poison... with "Obama" already a dirty word. Just twelve more weeks now before we set things straight, patriots... what we are witnessing today is the death rattle...

Am I the only one who marvels at the futility of Man as he tries to explain the origin of the universe? The time and effort expended upon this pursuit could be far better spent upon issues that actually lack an answer. Trying to find a new explanation for the cosmos via science is like trying to reinvent the wheel. For the sake of argument let’s assume that the universe happened by accident just as many so-called scientists claim. With this as a starting point we can make the assumption that there was a source of crude matter from which...

(AP) WASHINGTON - Bowing to political realities, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has canceled plans to begin broadcasting television commercials in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and the perennial battleground of Missouri. The decision to shrink his political playing field reduces Kerry's strategic options — at least for now — in the homestretch of the campaign. George W. Bush won all four states in 2000, and Kerry can't win the White House without taking a state or two from the Republican incumbent. While pulling back from some states that Bush carried, Kerry is still strongly competing in several GOP-leaning battlegrounds, including Ohio,...