Free Republic

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America picket lines in New York City on Monday, encouraging workers to keep fighting and taking aim at executives such as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and their “insatiable greed.” “While this is a fight against AI, more than AI, this is a fight against greed,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “How many private jets does David Zaslav need? For real. How many private jets do the CEOs need? It is insatiable. It is unacceptable. I do not know how any person can say, ‘I need another $100 million before another person...

Now look at them Bozos, that’s the way you do it. You dump on Trump on C-Span TV. That ain’t working, that’s the way you do it. Money from donors and your trips for free. Ah yes, a little Dire Straits for a nation in dire straits. Every four years, America holds a presidential election, and every four years a bunch of people with no chance of winning enter the race and raise money. They do so because they can spend the money they raise pretty much as they want. It beats working for a living. The federal government used...

Mike Pompeo’s new memoir might not be flying off the bookshelves—but bulk orders from his political action committee on the day that it was released appear to have propelled it onto the New York Times bestseller list, anyways. Champion American Values, a PAC promoting the former secretary of state and likely Republican presidential candidate, spent $42,000 on the bulk orders of the book on the day it was published, according to a Monday filing with the Federal Election Commission. The purchase was first reported by Forbes. That was enough to get “Never Give An Inch: Fighting for the America I...

New York City's first public health vending machine giving out free crack pipes, condoms and Narcan, an overdose-reversing drug, was already empty less than 24 hours after being unveiled by officials. But eager city officials determined to keep residents in rich supply of clean drug apparatus were quick to revisit the site on Tuesday afternoon with more. Elan Quashie, the Opioid Overdose Program Director at Services for the Under Served, said: ‘We’re going to restock every day. Probably multiple times a day.’ He said he was not surprised that the items were taken so quickly, adding: ‘I kind of knew...

Before the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. led the world in economic growth. It accounted for over 1/3 of total global consumption growth. In mid-2007, U.S. household wealth hit a peak of $61.4 trillion. The average home value appreciated 124% between 1997-2006. Overinflated confidence, consumption, and value went largely unchecked. Growth became the status quo. Though few regulators and investors noticed as it was happening, those who study history look back and see the early 2000s as a classic economic bubble, made worse by shoddy loans and deregulated banking.

This is a story about weed (i.e., marijuana or cannabis), and it’s a story about greed — greed on the government’s part, which encourages more greed on the part of those willing to break the law for profit. There has been a long-running debate over legalizing the recreational use of drugs, especially marijuana. Proponents argued that legalization – or at least decriminalization – would undermine black market sales of those drugs. Prices would fall and organized crime and gangs, which have long profited from the distribution and sale of illegal drugs, would diminish. Meanwhile, the government could regulate vendors to...

If we reach what we call success here, then we have, in essence, created a world with no need of the Living God. For those that might not yet fully understand, it would be little to do with the Lord and a whole lot to do with the world.

Documenting chemical castration, irreversible surgeries, the people behind it, and much more.Videos and names the hospital tried to hide.A ghoulish ideology gone out of control!People are becoming aware that there are now dozens of children’s hospital clinics and hundreds of independent clinics across the U.S. (and many more around the world) that practice so-called “gender medicine” on young children and teenagers. (In addition, many – if not most – mental health professionals have climbed on board with the transgender ideology.)

Beyond government mismanagement of multiple U.S. war efforts, Americans have seen so many examples of outright government deceit. FBI and intelligence leaders fostered the notion that President-elect Trump was compromised by Russia. The "Russia hoax" persisted for more than two years as a cloud over the head of President Trump and incapacitated the country. Congressional leaders such as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff promised the American people that he had direct evidence about Trump that warranted the president's impeachment. Later, it became clear that he did not, but that has not stopped him from continuing to push his fabrication...

Overall, JPMorgan Chase is telling us that the “most vulnerable” banks in this country have “lost a total of about $1 trillion in deposits since last year”…

Financially-Strapped Vatican Opens Its First-Ever Shopping MallROME — The economically-ailing Vatican has inaugurated a 120,000-square-foot shopping mall to cater to the millions of tourists and pilgrims that visit it each year.After eating millions of dollars in losses on bad investments and running a serious deficit for several years in a row, the Vatican has opened the “Caput Mundi” Mall a stone’s throw from Saint Peter’s Basilica as an added revenue stream to supplement its flagging finances.The new mall boasts over 40 boutiques featuring select Italian and foreign brands and includes clothing, accessories, jewelry, toys, cosmetics, and an exclusive and innovative...

If you are a consumer today, inflation is only one of the problems harming you. As prices go up, quality continues to go down. What most stores have to offer you might crassly be called “cheap crap.” In fact, economic writer Charles Hugh Smith has repeatedly warned that the “crapification” of the U.S. economy is the natural result of a “neoliberal-hyper-financialization-hyper-globalization model,” in which quasi-monopolist manufacturers mass-produce goods with the cheapest possible components, while customers with scant other buying options are forced to accept that few purchases will last.

[Catholic Caucus] The "Case" of the Pienza Monastery. Restoring the Truth. Msgr. ViganòMarco TosattiDear StilumCuriali, we receive and gladly publish this text received from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Happy reading and sharing. §§§SOME CLARIFICATIONSto restore the truth about the situationof the Monastery “Maria Tempio dello Spirito Santo” of PienzaPart OneThe sequence of events After the disclosure of conflicting and contradictory news relating to the recent events that have involved the cloistered community of the Benedictine Monastery of Pienza, I consider it my duty as a Pastor to intervene to re-establish the truth of the facts, as they are verifiable to...

What does the Titanic have in common with NFTs? Not much. One lives on in the collective psyche as a monument to hubris while the other refuses to just sink already. Still, apropos of nothing except the smell of filthy blockchain-adjacent lucre, RMS Titanic Inc (RMST), which has been collecting artifacts associated with the ship since the 1980s, has hooked up with NFT flinger Artifact Labs and Venture Smart Financial Holdings to "bring the RMS Titanic and its physical artifacts into Web3." The ship sank into the frigid Atlantic in 1912, taking the lives of more than 1,500 people aboard....

The cost of a dozen eggs has now surpassed the price of a pound of beef, marking the first time that’s happened since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping data in 1980. The average price of a dozen large Grade A eggs ran at $4.82 in January 2023, while a pound of ground beef was $4.64. In January 2022, eggs were $1.93, and beef was $4.77, but egg prices have soared by 70% in the last year alone. Farm Action, a farmer-led advocacy group, says the “real culprit” behind sky-high prices is a “collusive scheme” among top U.S....

Those who see the madness for what it is have only one escape: go to ground, fade from public view, become self-reliant and weather the coming storm in the nooks and crannies. A great madness sweeps the land. There are no limits on extremes in greed, credulity, convictions, inequality, bombast, recklessness, fraud, corruption, arrogance, hubris, pride, over-reach, self-righteousness and confidence in the rightness of one's opinions. Extremes only become more extreme even as the folly of previous extremes wearies rationality. Imaginary sins are conjured out of thin air to convict the innocent while those guilty of the most egregious fraud...

Pfizer is looking to raise the price of its COVID-19 vaccines in the United States by up to four times once Washington’s purchase program ends, according to the company’s U.S. president, Angela Lukin. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is presently provided free for all Americans by the U.S. government. Next year, when the U.S. public health emergency expires, the COVID-19 vaccine market will move to private insurance. The federal government is paying roughly $30 per dose for the Pfizer vaccine. When the government purchase program shuts down, Lukin expects a dose to be priced around $110 to $130. “We are confident that...

Video at the link. Transcript from The Last Refuge (link in comments): [Transcript] – It is hard to think the unthinkable – but there comes a time when there’s nothing else for it. People raised to trust the powers that be – who have assumed, like I once did, that the State, regardless of its political flavour at any given moment, is essentially benevolent and well-meaning – will naturally try and keep that assumption of benevolence in mind when trying to make sense of what is going on around them. People like us, you and me, raised in the understanding...

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced his administration would cancel $10,000 in student debt for many borrowers, while extending a pause on monthly loan payments through the end of the year. For students and young people in Pittsburgh, it should have been a cause for celebration; but just hours after the announcement, reactions skewed negative as left-leaning activists argued the president should have honored his campaign commitment to cancel all student debt. Meanwhile, Republicans chided Mr. Biden for what they see as the president bowing to the progressive movement. “In my opinion, it’s not enough,” said Allie Holler, a University...

Country star Wynonna Judd is planning to formally contest her late mother’s will which left her entire $25million fortune to her husband. Naomi Judd, who was the long-time singing partner of her daughter Wynonna as The Judds, left her two daughters out of her will in a baffling move. Both Wynonna, 58, and Ashley, 54, did not feature in the will, and did not get any part of her estate, with the Nashville superstar leaving everything to her widower Larry Strickland. The couple had been married for 33 years, with Naomi making Strickland the executor of her estate in a...