Free Republic

How in the world does the government expect us to trust the economic numbers that they give us anymore? For a long time, many have suspected that they were being manipulated, and as you will see below we now have stone cold proof that this is indeed the case. But first, let's talk about the revised GDP number for the first quarter of 2014 that was just released. Initially, they told us that the U.S. economy only shrank by 0.1 percent in Q1. Then that was revised down to a 1.0 percent contraction, and now we are being informed that...

Robert Petzel resigned last week as the top health official for the Department of Veterans Affairs, just one day after testifying before a Senate committee that he knew VA health clinics were using inappropriate scheduling practices as early as 2010. Whistleblowers claim the schemes continued until this year, leading to a recent wave of outrage that sent the VA and White House scrambling to correct the alleged problems and restore confidence in the department. Petzel admitted that he knew of the issue after Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) questioned him about the memo below, in which a top VA executive warned...

Heat broadcaster Eric Reid and Tony Fiorentino will be hosting their annual "Call of the Game" dinner...the Jim Mandich Courage and Commitment Award will be presented to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, with an acceptance speech from congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

The crisis in Crimea has been many years in the making, and made it ripe for the taking. To paint Russian leadership as reactionary, ham-fisted hardliners is to ignore a decade of methodical deployment of soft power techniques, patient construction of fifth columns, and the massive incentives Russia has not to blow the place up. Focus on Russia’s military is misdirection; it is absolutely important, but the real benefit to brinkmanship is to make other outcomes seem downright reasonable. In light of recent setbacks, two potential outcomes are both reasonable (when compared to the extremes of military conflict and secession)...

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents. Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in...

eadlines across the mainstream press early this morning reported on the sad story of a four year old Syrian boy found alone in the desert, fleeing to Jordan. Mirror.co.uk for example, published the following: A four-year-old boy separated from his family while fleeing Syria has been found crossing the desert alone. Clutching a plastic bag containing his possessions, Marwan makes his way across the border into Jordan. The brave youngster was helped by United Nations staff who managed to reunite him with his worried family. Skeptical of the emotional shot, I posted a link to the story on Facebook, with...

Researchers find men use anger as manipulation tool with other men 1 hour ago by Bob Yirka report anger (Phys.org) —Researchers Uri Gneezy, with the University of California and Alex Imasc with the University of Amsterdam have together found that men understand the impact anger has on decision making and use that knowledge to help them manipulate other men when engaging in contests of both skill and strength. They have had their paper describing a study they conducted on the subject printed in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ....

This one is truly a “man bites dog” story. Never before has a campaign for a seat on a local community college board mattered so much to so many, and we have Dave Wilson in Houston to thank for it. For Dave Wilson has proven that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Dave Wilson would’ve made C. Thomas Howell’s character in the 1980s cult classic movie Soul Man proud. The Caucasian Wilson took a page right out of that movie’s controversial playbook by leading voters in a largely black district to believe he was also black in order to win...

Political Director of ABC News, Rick Klein pleaded with investors today to tank the stock market in order to “shake things loose” in the GOP ranks. In his ABC’s The Note piece today, Klein seriously proposed a stock sell-off designed for the express purpose of breaking the will of Republicans. When does Wall Street cast its vote? Bipartisan meetings are nice, and new plans that depend on the other side budging certainly can’t hurt at this stage of a standoff. But there may be only one way to jolt the system: SELL. Klein’s rationale: recent talks with beltway strategists suggest the GOP is...

Why is it that natural gas sells in the U.S. for $3.94 per 1,000 cubic feet and in Europe and Japan for $11.60 and $17, respectively? Part of the answer is our huge supply. With high-tech methods of extraction and with discovery of vast gas-rich shale deposits, estimated reserves are about 2.4 quadrillion cubic feet. That translates into more than a 100-year supply of natural gas at current usage rates. What partially explains the high European and Japanese prices is the fact that global natural gas markets are not integrated. Washington has stringent export restrictions on natural gas. Naturally, the...

has been common knowledge to anyone paying attention within the alternative news community for years, but once again the media is now admitting that the US military and intelligence agencies are indeed running massive propaganda campaigns that cover a vast array of online networks.  US military soldier on social media. How many times now has such ‘conspiracy nonsense’ now been reported years later by the mega media as undeniable fact? In the case of the US intelligence propaganda machine that even the New York Times has covered in an article entitled ‘The Real War on Reality‘, we are seeing just...

As the violent standoff between the Egyptian military and President Mohamed Morsy continues, U.S. ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson has become a lightning rod for critics of U.S. policy in the country. The tip of the spear for U.S.-Egypt diplomacy, Patterson's June 18 speech discouraging street protests has come to symbolize the administration's inability to recognize the potency of Egypt's liberal opposition. "Some say that street action will produce better results than elections," Patterson said. "To be honest, my government and I are deeply skeptical." Now, with the Egyptian military's 48-hour deadline for Morsy to yield to protesters demands passed,...

BARRON'S: There Were Two Gigantic, Suspicious Sales Of Gold On Friday That Caused The Price To Plunge Joe Weisenthal May 19, 2013, 10:34 AM Gold went down the toilet again on Friday, and is now close to revisiting its April lows. This gold weakness is causing a lot of consternation to fans of it who don't understand how the precious metal can keep falling, when central banks around the world continue to press down on the gas pedal. A lot of gold bugs think the price is being manipulated somehow, or that there's some divergence between what's going on in...

U.S. Government Investigation Of Gold Price Manipulation Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013March 15, 2013 - 04:16 PM GMT By: Midas Letter Yesterday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulator who ostensibly regulates the banks and major financial institutions who participate in the futures and commodities trading business, announced they were going to examine whether prices are being manipulated in the “world’s largest gold market”, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal. For long time observers of the gold price and the fundamental and not-so-fundamental influences on its price movements, the announcement might have elicited a gasp of...

Refresher Course: "...Saul Alinsky has been discussed in such a matter-of-fact way that many casual observers have heard of him." The following is a list of Alinsky’s 12 rules for upheaval: RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” RULE...

Markets generally up with all of the uncertainty in the world. Pundits say markets don't like uncertainty. Pundits either ignorant or lying. Next, when and if economies start to improve, are markets going to crash?

I'm giving up on Drudge report for a while, not going to visit it. There is too much subtext going on, incitement and hyperbole, propaganda and manipulation. The picture that often accompany headlines are not in context with the 'moment' but rather stock photographs that portrait an emotion or sense of predicament that the author wants us to feel. Almost every headline for the past few months have been foreboding impending doom of some sort that I don't want to deal with or be reminded about on a daily basis. Just sticking with Fox News, they temper that stuff down...

Georgia lawmakers sat in a seminar involving the UN’s controversial Cold War era mind control techniques used to move Agenda 21 forward. The seminar, as could be expected, was roundly mocked by the media even though the UN makes no secret of their abominable plans for the world’s future.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate rose from 7.8% to 7.9% for October. The number of unemployed in the US rose from 12,088,000 in September to 12,258,000 in October. An increase of 170,000. The good news is that non farm payrolls increased by +171,000. Bear in mind that these numbers are misleading because Lockheed announced layoffs of 123,000, but was asked by the Obama Administration to delay the layoffs until after the election. So, add 123,000 to the number of unemployed and deduct 123,000 from the NFP jobs created of 171,000. So, the actual increase in...

Today, a Defense Department official confirmed to Breitbart News that there is advance planning for a “substantial air package” against targets in Libya. Military sources suggest that this means that flight missions against Libyan targets will include manned flights, not merely drones. The New York Times reported yesterday that the Obama administration is preparing an operation to “kill or capture militants” involved in the Benghazi attack resulting in the murder of our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. According to the Times, the Joint Special Operations Command is putting together “so-called target packages of detailed information about the suspects.”...