Free Republic

The Federal Reserve is going crazy on inflation news! The Fed is expected to raise their target rate to 2.875% by February 2023. With that expectation, mortgage rates (yellow line) are soaring. And with that, University of Michigan’s Buying Conditions for housing has plunged to 43, the lowest levels since 1982 as the US was trying to recover from Carter Malaise. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index just plunged to the LOWEST LEVEL in history on inflation and Fed’s reaction. Average REAL wage growth has now declined to -2.11% YoY. Do Washington DC politicians and bureaucrats feel like we...

I. IntroductionFor the second time in 40 years, a Republican President was forced to clean up the mess left by his Democrat predecessor’s failures in Iran. The first time was when a group of Muslim “college students” overran the U.S. embassy in 1979 and paralyzed the Carter administration for more than a year. The second time was when the Obama administration, in a move reminiscent of British PM Chamberlain’s futile attempt to appease Hitler, sent a plane-load of cash in the middle of the night to Tehran to induce the rogue nation to stand down on its nuclear program. The...

... after surgery to relieve pressure on his brain (CNN)Former President Jimmy Carter is recovering at a hospital in Atlanta after undergoing an operation Tuesday morning to relieve pressure on his brain, according to the Carter Center. "Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is recovering at Emory University Hospital following surgery this morning to relieve pressure on his brain from a subdural hematoma. There are no complications from the surgery," the center said in a statement. Jimmy Carter will remain in the hospital as long as advisable for observation, according to the center. "We do not anticipate any further statements until...

Several weeks ago, an article in the Hebrew-language Yediot Achronot revealed that, according to Palestinian sources, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have received more than $100 million per year over the last few years from Iran. That represents a substantial fraction of the cash that President Barack Obama put on pallets and flew to Tehran shortly before he left office. Today it was announced that two Iranians had been indicted for spying in the United States for the Iranian government. What were they looking at? Missile bases? Nuclear reactors? Grand Central Station? No. They were indicted for taking pictures of “Israeli...

Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has died, a court spokesperson confirmed. He was 87. A liberal champion, Reinhardt was appointed to the bench by President Carter in 1980. He authored key liberal court opinions on hot-button topics ranging from abortion and marriage equality to assisted suicide and immigration. At the same time, the opinions made him a target of criticism from conservative corners — and of regular reversal from the Supreme Court.

In a CBS interview scheduled to air Tuesday, Jimmy Carter did not mince words when denouncing President Donald Trump’s decision to hire John Bolton as his national security adviser. “I have been concerned at some of the things he’s decided,” the 93-year-old former president told “CBS This Morning” host Norah O’Donnell, according to a press release from the network. “I think his last choice for national security adviser was very ill-advised. I think John Bolton has been the worst mistake he’s made.” The excerpt CBS released on Monday did not include commentary from Carter on why he thought Trump had...

No one knows her name, but a young Iranian woman waving a white scarf has become a symbol of almost forty years of struggle by Iranian women, protesting the gender apartheid that clerics brought to our country, overnight, in the winter of 1979. She waved a white scarf in the air as a symbol of peaceful defiance and a campaign, #MyStealthyFreedom, of women fighting for their right to feel the wind in their hair in Iran, the country of my birth. The reaction of the paramilitary forces of the regime has not been so peaceful, with this young woman allegedly...

Former President Jimmy Carter said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was among the factors that led to the deadly attacks last week in Paris. Carter made the assertion Monday night during an appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. “Well, one of the origins for it is the Palestinian problem. And this aggravates people who are affiliated in any way with the Arab people who live in the West Bank and Gaza, what they are doing now — what’s being done to them. So I think that’s part of it,” Carter told Stewart. He called the training in the...

In 1979, after a long campaign of political pressure applied by the Carter administration in the United States, the Shah of Iran fell to the Islamic Revolution, ending a tradition of monarchic rule that had persisted in Iran for thousands of years since the rule of Cyrus the Great. The stage was set for the rise of the Ayatollah, and the establishment of a theocracy in Iran that, today, most Iranians do not even want. But what if none of that had ever happened? While a momentous departure from actual history, it is not nearly so far-fetched as it sounds....

Prior to the late 20th century, the venerable civilization of Iran had virtually always existed under a monarchic government. This was a long tradition of the Iranian people, stretching all the back to Cyrus the Great. That all changed in 1979, when, after thousands of years of monarchy, the King (called the Shah) of Iran was overthrown, and a powerful Islamic cleric called Ruhollah Khomeini rose to the new position of Ayatollah (supreme leader). That much is settled history. What has not been so clear since the Islamic Revolution, however, were the specific feelings and actions of then-US President Jimmy...

As a Democratic presidential candidate, you know you are in tough shape when other Democrats are publicly calling your actions as Secretary of State worse than Watergate. Appearing on Breitbart News on Sirius XM, pollster and strategist former President Jimmy Carter, Pat Caddell, told host Stephen Bannon, just that. “This is the greatest scandal in the history of the United States,” he said. “They all ought to be indicted. This is worse than Watergate.” If you are unfamiliar with Watergate, it is probably the most infamous scandal that is attributed to President Richard Nixon, and caused the former president to...

A TALE OF TWO OBITUARIES By Burt Prelutsky, 6/4/2016 I assumed I would have to wait until Jimmy Carter, 91, died before the outpouring of love and respect over the passing of a public figure would make me quite this nauseous, but, then, I hadn’t counted on Muhammad Ali passing at the age of 74. Ali was a very good boxer. Some have insisted he was the best, while others have claimed Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Robinson were better. For the record, let me confess that in my opinion, being a boxing champion ranks near the bottom of the...

Former President Jimmy Carter believes U.S. intelligence agencies are spying on him — so much so, he eschews email to avoid government spies. "You know, I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored," Carter told NBC's Andrea Mitchell in an interview broadcast Sunday. "And when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write a letter myself, put it in the post office and mail it. "I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored," Carter continued. The 89-year-old said the National Security Agency and others have abused the argument that gathering...

The quislings who want to run a stooge like Mitt Romney Third Party to elect Hillary Clinton are selfish enemies of our freedom. Nevertheless, what they want to do will fail and they will be disgraced. In 1980 the Republican establishment hated Ronald Reagan every bit as much as they hate Donald Trump today. We didn’t know much about this because there was little reliable coverage by a media which, then as now, hated all Republicans. They ignored most of what went on except anything they could be used to hurt Republicans. For those who are unaware of the history...

American hostages held in Iran will get up to $4m compensation each from the US government - 36 years after ordeal The former 1979 American hostages in Iran will get financial compensation after US lawmakers included a payment provision in spending legislation The men and women were taken hostage by militant Iranian student groups at the US embassy spending 444 days in captivity They will be given restitution of up to $4.4million each, or $10,000 for each day they were held There were 66 original captives in the Iran hostage crisis with 13 released in November 1979, and one was...

When the news broke on Monday, Dec. 7 that Jimmy Carter, who recently disclosed he had a serious and likely-fatal form of cancer, suddenly had 'no evidence of cancer,' Carter-watchers went a little crazy. Some people, of course, were thrilled to hear that the former U.S. president was no longer at death's door. Others, especially strong pro-Israel activists were aghast when they read in a widely-circulated news article, that Keytruda, the drug credited for Carter's health turnaround, was developed in Israel. Carter is widely-reviled as a virulent and relentless basher of Israel. A 2014 article in YNet described Keytruda as...

I HAVE known Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, since he was a college student in London, and have spent many hours negotiating with him since he has been in office. This has often been at the request of the United States government during those many times when our ambassadors have been withdrawn from Damascus because of diplomatic disputes. Bashar and his father, Hafez, had a policy of not speaking to anyone at the American Embassy during those periods of estrangement, but they would talk to me.

Former President Jimmy Carter said recently that he provided maps of Islamic State positions in Syria to the Russian embassy in Washington, a move apparently at odds with the Obama administration’s official policy of not cooperating with Russia in the Syrian war. Carter said on Sunday in Georgia that he knows Russian President Vladimir Putin “fairly well” because they “have a common interest in fly fishing.” When he met with Putin in April along with other global leaders to discuss the crises in Syria and Ukraine, the Russian president gave him an email address so the two could discuss his...

Des Moines, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz criticized former President Jimmy Carter's administration during a stump speech in Iowa, one day after Carter announced he was suffering from cancer that has spread to his brain. Speaking on a political soapbox at the Iowa State Fair Friday, Cruz said there were parallels between the Obama and Carter administrations. "I think the parallels between this administration and the Carter administration are uncanny. Same failed domestic policy, same misery, stagnation and malaise. Same feckless and naive foreign policy,"(continued)

After former President Jimmy Carter criticized “the government of Israel” during a Thursday press conference for having “no desire for a two-state solution” with the Palestinians, MSNBC Hardball host and former Carter speechwriter Chris Matthews hailed his old boss: “...he stuck it to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. Why not?...He might as well stick it to the guys who’ve caused him trouble, as he’s seen it, especially Netanyahu. Why not stick it to Netanyahu? He deserves it.” Matthews added: “So I think Carter is still that guy, that gutsy guy who knows how to stick it to guys he’s quite...