Free Republic

Trailer for new film "Sully", in theaters Sept. 9th

It may seem unusual that an economist would talk about culture. Usually, we talk about prices and production, quantities produced, employment, the structure of production, scarce resources, and entrepreneurship. But there are certain things that economists can say about the culture, and more precisely, that economists can say about the transformation of the culture. So what is culture? Well, to put it simply, it is the way we do things. This can include the way we eat — whether or not we dine with family members on a regular basis, for example — how we sleep, and how we use...

There is perhaps no lost-treasure mystery more seductive than that of the priceless Amber Room of Peter the Great, which disappeared in the chaotic closing hours of World War II. Now Bartlomiej Plebanczyk, an unassuming historian and museum director in northeastern Poland, believes he has found it. Elderly villagers told Mr. Plebanczyk that they had seen a German convoy unloading big crates into a secret chamber in a stark, moss-covered Nazi bunker near the Russian border in early 1945. So the Mamerki Museum, whichhe leads, recently completed a ground-penetrating radar scan of the derelict bunker that he said confirmed the...

Since 1992, Republicans have been smarting their loss by claiming that Ross Perot stole enough votes to elect Bill Clinton. Even as much as the loyal opposition seeks to demystify the winner's victory, the Perot-elected-Clinton lie has only served to force the GOP to adopt pro-immigrant pro-big-gov narratives. Perot was more liberal than Slick Willie himself. http://www.ontheissues.org/Ross_Perot.htm He was pro-abortion, pro-homo, and for tax hikes on fossil fuel, the driver of American jobs. Bush I's job approvals in 1992 were as low than Jimmy Carter's in 1980 http://spectator.org/63682_bushioisie-wrong-ross-perot-didnt-cost-ghw-bush-white-house-1992/ http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx Of course Bush was 1000x better than Surrender Monkey Dhimmi, but...

Today, June 5th, is the anniversary of the birth of John Maynard Keynes, once upon a time the great foe of the gold standard. Today also, coincidentally, happens to be the anniversary of the date celebrated of FDR’s “taking America off the gold standard.” These events are not mere historical curios. The current presidential campaign, and underlying political climate, shows we are finally, maybe definitively, emerging from the academic economists’ anathema on the gold standard... ...Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is on record as strongly appreciating the gold standard... ...The “interwar gold standard” in fact was a barbarous relic....

The media’s wall-to-wall coverage of Donald Trump and the presidential horserace is a distraction from the main event. The point of the horserace—and of all politics—is to run a government capable of dealing effectively with the nation’s problems. But effective government is precisely what we don’t have. America’s greatest challenge is that it is burdened by a government that doesn’t work, and indeed is dysfunctional. Why is the nation so poorly governed? This is the question that we address in our new book, Relic. What we show is that the fundamentals of an answer can be traced to the Constitution—which,...

Prior to the election of AmericaÂ’s longest serving socialist president, our money was backed by gold. Anyone holding our paper currency could demand to exchange it for gold at a set price. In 1913, the gold standard was officially made part of the Federal Reserve and the price of gold was fixed at $20.67 per ounce. The same law mandated that the Federal Reserve kept enough gold on hand to equal 40% of the currency issued at the time.On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into office for the first time. The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt closed...

DANBURY - Aimee Toms was washing her hands in the women’s bathroom at Walmart in Danbury Friday when a stranger approached her and said, “You’re disgusting!” and “You don’t belong here!” After momentary confusion, she realized that the woman next to her thought - because of her pixie-style haircut and baseball cap - that she was transgender. Besides being a pretty normal choice of style for women, Toms’ has a short haircut because she recently donated hair - for the third time - to a program that makes wigs for child cancer patients. “I’ve had people call me all sorts...

More evidence is arising to show that the pilot of Flight 804 went suicide. People ask: if indeed the pilot went suicide ‘Muslim Kamikaze style’, why plunge the aircraft loaded with mostly Muslim passengers into the sea and how does that make any sense from an Islamic perspective on Jihadi martyrdom? Answer: everything. Shakeer’s [Flight 804's pilot] link to Amr Khaled, just like Shah’s link with Anwar Ibrahim should raise some serious alarm bells. Both Ibrahim and Khaled are linked to their love to the Muslim spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. Anyone can click to see the man is a...

Full title BREAKING: The Captain Of Flight MS804 Is A Muslim Linked To Major Muslim Terrorist Involved In Killing Americans In Benghazi So look what we have here. Amr Khaled is a well known Muslim Brotherhood Jihadi of the first class known in Egypt. And what do we know. Look here. He shares his friendship and old photos on that flight with the captain of the crashed Egyptian flight MS804, Mohammed Said Shaker/Shukeir. This spells trouble. So who is Amr Khaled? He is a Jihadi who lent material support to Jihadists in Benghazi that killed Americans. For evidence, here, Ahmad...

Isn't democracy wonderful? (A great rant - See video at link. If you can't vote FOR someone, you can always vote AGAINST someone. There are plenty of scumbags on the ballot to vote against)

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts on Senator Ayotte for VP. She appears to come across well and could fit in well with Trump. I have been pushing Rubio but maybe she is a viable option as well. She doesn't appear to me as someone who would suck all the oxygen out of the room and where it would be all about her which was a concern I had about picking a woman.

One area in which Trump can be nailed down is his overall view of trade. As I explained at Conservative Review, when it comes to Trump’s own financial dealings, he is an unrepentant globalist, from which he has made a fortune. But these days, as he runs for president, the billionaire is a radical protectionist who has repeatedly declared his intention to impose massive tariffs aimed at the economies of other countries, such as Japan and Mexico, and a forty-five percent tariff on products from China. Such broad tariffs would most certainly result in retaliation by the targeted countries. This...

Republicans have a major electoral-map problem in November. Major. Donald Trump’s victory last week in Indiana’s primary not only effectively sealed the GOP nomination for the real estate billionaire but also brought into sharp relief how difficult it will be for any Republican to get to 270 electoral votes and beat Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president this fall. Start here: Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election between 1992 and 2012. Add them up, and you get 242 electoral votes.

We all know that a default was inevitable on the debt. There is no way to pay back all obligations within severs lifetimes. Any possibility that Trump was chosen because of his outsider status to win? He would take the blame for the default and retire after a term, then the uni-party could continue with business as usual.

Admitting that the political situation is extremely volatile, the non-partisan Cook Political Report has shifted 11 states toward Democrat Hillary Clinton for the November election. The Hill: “This has been an exceedingly unpredictable year,” the analyst said. “Although we remain convinced that Hillary Clinton is very vulnerable and would probably lose to most other Republicans, Donald Trump's historic unpopularity with wide swaths of the electorate — women, millennials, independents and Latinos — make him the initial November underdog.”  Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin were all shifted from toss-up states to leaning Democratic. The “solid Republican” states Missouri and Indiana were...

Monday on MSNBC’s “Hardball” while discussing his New York Magazine article about Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump entitled “America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyranny,” the former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan said Trump was a “reality television asshole,” to which host Chis Matthews apologized to his audience for at the end of the segment.

Politico reported today on a Florida poll conducted for a business group in the state that shows Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump by 13 points and Ted Cruz by nine. Why is that important? Because if Clinton wins Florida and carries the 19 states (plus D.C.) that have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in each of the last six elections, she will be the 45th president. It's that simple. Politico reported today on a Florida poll conducted for a business group in the state that shows Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump by 13 points and Ted Cruz by nine....

I'll keep this vanity short ... Mods: please feel free to pull it if it's inappropriate.Why have so many here on FR turned on Ted Cruz in such a vicious way? We cheered when we first heard about Ted taking on the establishment in TX to win the primary in the race to fill Kay Bailey Hutchison's vacated Senate seat, in a bad year for the GOPWe cheered again when Ted exhorted us to 'Stand With Rand' when he offered public support for Rand Paul's filibuster over the NDAAOnce more, we cheered when he stood on the Senate floor and...

Riding on a string of big victories in the presidential primaries, Donald Trump has not only extended his lead against his GOP rivals, but also he has gained ground against Hillary Clinton, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll. ------------------------------------------------ The poll finds that Trump now leads Ted Cruz by 19 points — 48% to 29% — which is more than double his lead last month. At the same time, Hillary’s lead over Trump is now just seven points (47% to 40%), down from 12 points last month. What’s more, 65% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now pick Trump as either...