Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Stephen K. Bannon, 10 months removed from the job of chief strategist to President Trump and five months after his ouster from the arch-conservative news site Breitbart News, is betting that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can disrupt banking the way Mr. Trump disrupted American politics. Mr. Bannon won’t reveal very much about his cryptocurrency plans — he worries that the controversy that comes with his name could have a bad impact on projects just getting off the ground. But he has had private meetings with cryptocurrency investors and hedge funds where he has discussed working on so-called initial...

Atlantic mackerel, a fatty schooling fish, for years has been caught by fleets in parts of Europe and sold around the world—where it gets pickled, grilled, smoked, and fried. It is among the United Kingdom's key exports. But a decade ago, warming temperatures began driving this popular fish north, into seas controlled by Iceland. Almost overnight, this seafood gold began shredding relations between some of the world's most stable governments. It led to unsustainable fishing, trade embargoes, and boat blockades. It even helped convince Iceland to drop its bid to join the EU. And that was among friendly nations. Welcome...

US President Donald Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on $50bn worth of Chinese goods, accusing Beijing of intellectual copyright theft. The US will impose further tariffs if China retaliates, the White House said. The tariffs affect more than 800 types of products and are due to come into effect on 6 July. China has already vowed to retaliate, raising fears of a trade war between the world's two largest economies. Mr Trump said the tariffs were "essential to preventing further unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China, which will protect American jobs."

"The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2018 is 4.8 percent on June 14, up from 4.6 percent on June 8," the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said in its latest GDPNow report on Thursday. After this morning's retail sales release from the U.S. Census Bureau, the nowcast of second-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth increased from 3.4 percent to 3.6 percent. The next GDPNow update is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, June 19.

😧Kellogg Company announced Thursday it is voluntarily recalling certain boxes of Honey Smacks cereal for what it's calling a possible health risk because the product may be contaminated with salmonella. The recall comes after warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the tainted product has sickened 73 people in 31 states, including 24 hospitalizations. There have been no deaths reported so far. The FDA says that the recalled products were distributed across the U.S. -- including Guam and Saipan -- and internationally in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, the Caribbean and...

WASHINGTON — Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is responding to ethics concerns raised over a proposed consulting contract that is tied to a huge transportation project.The $68.5 million contract, related to Hogan’s $7.6 billion plan to widen parts of the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270, was pulled from consideration Wednesday by the Maryland Board of Public Works, which approves state contracts.“We held up the approval just to make sure that there isn’t any conflict,” Hogan told WTOP in an interview Friday. “I expressed some of the same concerns that other people have and that’s why the board of public works...

WASHINGTON — A group of powerful business leaders is calling for more toll lanes on highways from Richmond, Virginia, to Baltimore.The first focus of the Greater Washington Partnership’s toll lane push is expected to be on Maryland’s plans for toll lanes around the Capital Beltway and up part of Interstate 270, with lobbying from the CEOs of some of the largest companies in Maryland, Virginia and the District to get the rules in Maryland to match those on Virginia’s Interstate 495 Express Lanes.Virginia’s lanes are free with a minimum of three people in the car and an E-ZPass Flex, while...

Canadians have started to boycott U.S. goods in the wake of President Trump's war of words with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the recent steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, the European Union, and Mexico. CTV News reported on Thursday that Canadian shoppers were boycotting Florida oranges, Kentucky bourbon and California wine over the diplomatic rift. Canadians have also employed hashtags such as #BoycottUSProducts, #BuyCanadian and #BoycottUSA.

President Trump repeatedly points out that black unemployment is at its lowest point ever. His premise is that more black persons with jobs is a good thing. If you’re rational, you’ll agree. But if you’re a Democratic politician, your job — and sense of moral superiority — depends on blacks remaining unemployed. Because if they’re unemployed, it means they’re more dependent on government health care, government welfare, food stamps, and all the rest. Ditto for other minorities. Democratic leftist politicians want black people on the plantation. Not literally, because there are no plantations. The modern plantation is the government dependence...

A federal appellate court ruled health insurers are not owed billions of dollars in funding under the ACA's risk corridors program, according to Law360. Here are five things to know: 1. In two cases brought by insurers Moda Health Plan and Land of Lincoln Mutual Health, the federal appellate court decided Congress could legally withhold risk corridors funds from the two health plans. 2. The temporary risk corridors program was designed to level the financial playing field for payers during the first three years of the ACA's implementation, 2014-16. Under the program, the government collected payments from insurers with lower...

Surging consumer spending is driving GDP well above prior estimates, and it is now tracking near 4 percent for the second quarter. That's almost double the pace of the first quarter. Economists say the consumer is seeing the impact of the tax cuts and is spending, as a result of more disposable income Armed with new-found proceeds from the tax bill, American consumers went shopping in May, driving retail sales — and economic growth — sharply higher. The economy in the second quarter is tracking close to 4 percent growth — a level President Donald Trump raved about last December,...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration and against China on Thursday on a disputed aspect of their fraught trade relationship, throwing out a lower court ruling that had allowed two Chinese vitamin C makers to escape $148 million in damages for violating American antitrust law. In a case that brought the trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies before the top U.S. court, the justices ruled 9-0 that the lower court gave too much deference to Chinese government filings explaining China’s regulatory policy. The justices sent the case back for reconsideration by the New...

. Earlier this week Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was forced to apologize after eating at Chick-fil-A… during Pride Month! The horror! Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey ignited a backlash online after revealing that he ate at Chick-fil-A this month. On Saturday, Dorsey posted a photo on Twitter with the caption "Boost @ChickfilA," showing he had saved 10% on a $31.58 order at the fast-food chain. A "boost" is a cashback reward Square users can earn when using a Cash Card, which is a debit card from the payment platform. Critics immediately seized on Dorsey's support of Chick-fil-A — whose...

Blame America. Canadians have taken to practicing pocketbook diplomacy in defense of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is caught in a trade war of words with President Trump, by boycotting American goods and canceling vacations to the United States, according to a report. Shoppers are shunning Kentucky bourbon, California wine and Florida oranges, and avoiding American companies like Starbucks, Walmart and McDonald’s, On Twitter, hashtags like #BuyCanadian, #BoycottUSProducts and #BoycottUSA are spreading as outrage over Trump’s trade tariffs grows. An Ottawa man posted a “Trump-free grocery cart” full of products from Canada or from “countries with strong leadership.” Vacationers said...

I’ll trade you a piece of Yosemite Valley and all of the Napa wine country for Disneyland and the Santa Monica Pier. For the first time since before the Civil War, California voters will decide this November whether to spilt the Golden State into three entities, dubbed California, Northern California and Southern California. An initiative to divide the state, pushed by Silicon Valley venture capital investor Tim Draper, received enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot. Supporters say splitting the state would lead to improvements in infrastructure and education while lowering taxes.

Germany has responded to US President Donald Trump’s egotistic policy of ’America First’ by calling on the European Union to “bundle its strength” and show more courage — continuing the more bellicose German rhetoric that followed the US decision last week to withdraw from a G7 statement. “Under President Trump, the Atlantic has got wider,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Wednesday, standing at a podium emblazoned with the hashtag #EuropeUnited. “Where the US administration overtly calls our values and interests into question, we certainly need to take a more robust stance.” During the speech, delivered to a room...

It's been the dream of Chicago's city government under several recent mayors to bypass the gridlocked loop traffic by building a high-speed rail system to O'Hare Airport. Now it appears that the first steps to achieve that goal are being taken. Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office announced that a proposal is being negotiated with tech billionaire Elon Musks's Boring Company and the city government. There is no timeline and no cost estimates for the project, but Boring Company will finance the entire project.

Retail sales increased more than expected in May as consumers bought motor vehicles and a range of other goods even as they paid more for gasoline, the latest indication of an acceleration in economic growth in the second quarter. Other data on Thursday showed a further tightening in labor market conditions, with first-time applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly falling last week and the number of Americans on jobless rolls declining to a near 44¹/₂-year low. The reports came a day after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for a second time this year and offered an upbeat assessment of the...

When private companies close thousands of stores for an afternoon to conduct anti-bias training it usually doesn’t affect American taxpayers, but in Starbucks’ case it does. In addition to approximately $400,000 in U.S. government contracts, the global coffeehouse chain has received millions of dollars from Uncle Sam for a coffee yield improvement project in Colombia, records uncovered by Judicial Watch show. Additionally, the anti-bias curriculum that was recently forced upon 175,000 employees was designed by a nonprofit that’s largely funded by leftwing billionaire George Soros. The group’s (Perception Institute) leadership has close ties to Democratic party politics, including Planed Parenthood...

A labor shortage issue is increasingly weighing on small businesses around the country. This comes despite record-high confidence on Main Street. In May, one-third of small-business owners reported job openings they could not fill, and 12 percent reported using temporary workers. Mike Fredrich shows off unmanned presses in his Manitowoc, Wisconsin, company. They're ready to start production at MCM Composites, a 55-person enterprise that makes custom thermoset molding. The only problem? Fredrich has no one to operate them. "These tools are heated to 300 degrees," he said. "But we're not running them. Had we had the people for the first...