Free Republic

President Javier Milei entered office like Jack Nicholson breaking his way into the bathroom in "The Shining" — with an axe. Armed with emergency powers granted by the Argentine Congress, he balanced the country's out-of-control budget in one month, fired government workers by the thousands, eliminated more than 200,000 "corrupt" social welfare programs, and even cozied up to NATO. “There’s a lot more chainsaw" to come, Milei promised in March, and I momentarily almost became gay.The usual fearmongers mongered the usual fears.A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an opinion piece — complete with a demonic-looking, high-contrast black-and-white...

Cathy R., 63, has a master's degree and has worked all her life, though she's very worried for her future. The clerical worker in Minnesota has struggled to rise up the ranks throughout her career. She said she's earning a salary similar to some entry-level positions despite nearly three decades in her current role. She's nervous that even though she's eligible for a pension in a few years, it won't supplement Social Security payments nearly enough to live comfortably. "I can't afford life while working. How can I even think of retiring?" the St. Paul, Minnesota resident said. ...Cathy grew...

President Biden claimed on Wednesday that inflation was at 9% when he entered the White House in January 2021, when, in fact, the consumer price index (CPI) was at a mere 1.4% at the time. "No president has had the run we’ve had in terms of creating jobs and bringing down inflation," Biden told CNN's Erin Burnett in an interview. "It was 9% when I came to office – 9%." It’s a notion Biden has alluded to before. In April, the president said: "Look, we have dramatically reduced inflation from 9% down to close to 3%. We’re in a situation...

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed a bill Thursday that kicks Planned Parenthood in the state off Medicaid funding. The bill, which is expected to go into effect later this year, makes it unlawful for any public funds to be sent to any abortion facility or “any affiliate or associate of such abortion facility.” Missouri now joins Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas, according to Planned Parenthood, as states that have blocked the organization from receiving Medicaid funding.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo scored another win in his efforts to unravel the state’s new ethics commission, as part of an ongoing spat over his pandemic-era book deal. A mid-level appellate court upheld a lower court judge’s decision to scrap the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, COELIG, which had ordered the ex-gov to fork over proceeds from his pandemic era memoir. “The Legislature, though well-intentioned in its actions, violated the bedrock principles of separation of powers,” the five-judge panel wrote in its unanimous ruling. The former Governor, who stepped down in 2021 amid a wave of sexual harassment...

The high interest rates and crippling inflation brought to you by President Joe Biden’s disastrous economic policies mean young people are saddled with more credit card debt than previous generations. “Housing inflation has proven to be one of the stickiest components to drive up the cost of living, with rents outpacing salaries in all but six of the top 50 metropolitan areas,” reports Yahoo Finance. “Rising food prices and heavy student loan debt also factor in as young Americans are forced to tighten their belt by reducing expenses to their essentials.” Maybe these idiots should stop moving to metropolitan areas.

Disney World has quietly axed one of its classic characters from doing meet-and-greets at the park, which is a move that comes after the character was flagged internally for its controversial portrayal in films. Tinker Bell, a character from Disney's (DIS) 1953 "Peter Pan" movie, first disappeared from Disney World during the Covid pandemic, along with every other character, as closures shut down the entire resort. When the theme park reopened, Tinker Bell never returned, and now her signage has reportedly been removed from Town Square Theater at Magic Kingdom, the only location where she used to conduct meet-and-greets with...

Mass migration has not delivered significant GDP growth per capita for the United Kingdom, but it has increased strain on the country, according to a new study. While illegal immigration recently hit record highs in the United States, legal immigration poses a significant issue for the U.K., where legal migration levels are more than 25 times the level of illegal levels, according to a report Wednesday from the Centre for Policy Studies, a U.K. think tank and advocacy group. The percentage of foreign-born people in the U.K. nearly doubled over two decades, with 9% of the population being foreign-born in...

Reports confirm Washington has created a vicious cycle for struggling families, not to mention the federal government as a whole.It took a hot second, but even entities on the political left have begun to discover how Washington’s uncontrollable spending has made life worse for American families.In recent weeks, both The New York Times and International Monetary Fund (IMF) — no raging conservatives — have analyzed how persistent budget deficits caused by Washington’s spending have exacerbated inflation woes. The moves suggest a solution underpinned by a return to basic common sense: namely, that if Washington finally gets its own fiscal house...

Pay day seriously pales compared to rent day — and it’s only getting worse. A new report has found that, since 2019, rent has gone up on average 1.5 times faster than wages in 44 out of the nation’s 50 largest metros, and nowhere more so than in New York City. According to an analysis by StreetEasy of data from Zillow, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and its own site, the Big Apple has seen the greatest gap in rent growth relative to wage growth in recent years. Specifically, the city watched wages go up 1.2% between 2022 and...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Obama Adviser David Axelrod said that President Joe Biden isn’t leading with empathy with his economic messaging and “if he doesn’t win this race, it may not be Donald Trump that beats him, it may be his own pride.” Axelrod stated, “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand, all these months later, he went — I thought they spent $25 million, mistakenly, last fall, touting Bidenomics and making the same argument that the President’s making here. It is absolutely true, the world was plunged into an economic crisis...

Grammy-winning rapper Macklemore has expressed solidarity with anti-Israel protesters and condemned Israel’s military campaign against Hamas terrorists, choosing a sellout crowd in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, to deliver his pro-Palestinian views. He told the gathered 5,000 Kiwis in a short speech 40 minutes into his two-hour set: I stand here today and every day forward for the rest of my life in solidarity with the people of Palestine, with an open heart, in the belief that our collective liberation is at stake – that we all deserve freedom in this life of ours. Yesterday [Tuesday], I put out a song...

...we need to go back to when agriculture was inefficient. Good idea. There are too many proles anyway, right? Time to thin the herd. ... Climate change hysteria is a magic force in the hands of an elite that has been preaching deindustrialization and mass culling of human beings since the early 1960s. What was once a fringe movement led by the truly insane Club of Rome and Paul Ehrlich has gone mainstream, at least among the Leftists who are at the top of the social pyramid these days. The UN, WEF, IPCC, MSM, and of course the EU and...

Chicago residents expressed frustration and anger with President Biden ahead of his visit to the city, warning that Black voters are turning on the Democratic Party in huge numbers. P-Rae Easley and Betty Guider joined "FOX & Friends First" on Wednesday to explain why they think the city is no longer "the Democratic stronghold that they anticipated." "The city is completely fed up with the Democratic Party. We are stepping over illegals every day. They are now trying to break into people's homes. Gas is through the roof, groceries are through the roof, violence is up. Nothing is comfortable here...

A well known New York City real estate lawyer has reportedly prompted the state of New York to investigate Judge Arthur Engoron after he claimed to have given the judge unsolicited advice. Engoron ordered former President Donald Trump in March to pay a $454 million judgement after 30 lenders turned him away. Trump - who frequently referred to Engoron as 'crazed' and 'corrupt' - posted $175 million in bond before a deadline to avoid asset seizure as he appeals the ruling.

President Joe Biden stubbornly refused to admit Americans' struggles with inflation might cost him the election in a rare interview Wednesday. A growing economy could inspire confidence in Biden's leadership ahead of the election, but the issue of persistent inflation could ruin that. Biden, who was in Wisconsin to tout his record on the economy and to announce an investment by Microsoft to build a factory, defended his handling of inflation.

AstraZeneca formally admits that its COVID-19 vaccine can cause rare side effect The admission is confirmed by AstraZeneca in legal documents responding to a group action claim launched by Leigh Day partner Sarah Moore under section 2 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 against the pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca. It is expected that the claims could be worth millions of pounds. Fifty-one claimants represented by Sarah are pursuing the claim due to injuries allegedly caused by the Vaxzevria Astra Zeneca COVID-19 Vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca UK Limited (AZUK). Twelve of the claimants are acting on the behalf of a loved one...

This is a conversation that comes up in Washinton every few years before it fades away without anything being done about it. The clock is ticking for the Social Security system. It's still solvent for the moment, but at the current rate of retirement for senior citizens and the shrinking number of young people entering the workforce, the program will begin running short of cash in roughly nine years. (Possibly a bit longer if the economy strengthens.) The math is fairly straightforward and it obviously needs to be fixed, but thus far, as NPR's Scott Horsley reports, a politically palatable...

Breitbart economics editor John Carney said Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” that “overspending by the federal government” under the Biden administration caused inflation, not tariffs implemented by former President Donald Trump. Kudlow said, “Because Trump might raise tariffs or use tariffs as a tool to enforce reciprocity, they’re all up in arms saying tariffs will cause inflation but you say they will not?” Carney said, “They didn’t cause inflation. They screamed about inflation when Trump was president last time around and we didn’t see it. It just didn’t happen. I tracked month after month these numbers, everything you could...

During an interview aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” President Joe Biden stated that while “corporate greed” has caused an increase in the amount of money people have to spend on groceries and people feel real pain from the cost of groceries and food and he’s angry people have to spend more, “if you take a look at what people have, they have the money to spend.” Host Erin Burnett said, “[T]here’s real pain. Grocery prices are up 30% — more than 30% since the beginning of the pandemic, and people are spending more on food and groceries than...