Free Republic

With the recent Weinstein scandal and the bizarre reporting on the Las Vegas massacre, perhaps it is time to take a step back and reconsider once again that much of the controversy over so-called "Fake News" has its origins in Hollywood and the dirty sidewalks of Broadway where both left coasts sandwich in the heartland of America from both sides with a media glitz filled with images that are interpreted from a leftist persuasion. If Hollywood fictionalizes historical movies purportedly based on actual events, can it be trusted to report to us the daily news? In other words, even on...

Tax reform is now the order of the day. Congressional Republicans have been eager all year to rewrite the tax code. Slashing and simplifying taxes is, they believe, the straw that stirs our economic drink. Get this right, they say, and America will enter a new golden age of fast growth. This might well be true. But the details of their tax proposal will pose many political problems for the GOP. Too many provisions give the impression that the party cares more about helping the well-off than about aiding average Americans and their families. This is because the plan’s immediate...

Users of the Dulles Toll Road can expect to pay more in 2019, according to a 2018 draft budget presented to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board today.No increase from the $3.50 toll ($2.50 at the plaza and $1 at the ramp) is planned in 2018; however, it is expected to jump to $4.75 the following year. Numbers presented by the Board’s Finance Committee show that is only the beginning of the hikes.In 2023, the toll is projected to go up to $6. Additional jumps of $1.25 or more are projected every five years for the following two decades, resulting...

With the horrific shooting that recently took place in Las Vegas, debates over gun control have been given center stage in our media and politics once again. And while every pundit seems to have their own surefire way of combatting gun violence, they all gloss over the elephant in the room. Which is, although mass shootings have taken on a repulsive popularity recently, the gun violence surrounding the War on Drugs has created more casualties than every mass shooting in the US combined. And despite the fact that these commentators tirelessly argue the merits and faults of one another’s ideas,...

Dive Brief: The Michigan Department of Transportation announced it will take on private-sector partners to finish a $1 billion state highway modernization project in Oakland County, MI. Using the public-private partnership (P3) model to design, build, finance and maintain the remainder of the project, rather than waiting on public funds to become available, could shorten the construction schedule by up to a decade, The Detroit News reported. MDOT will issue requests for qualifications from potential private partners before the end of the year, and it anticipates the selection process will wrap up in the summer and fall of 2018. The...

Of all the candidates for utopia, Stockton, California would be on the bottom of my list. But a 27-year-old mayor, with the backing of a foundation, is trying for utopia, as seen by supporters of the Mommy State: Universal Basic Income. Futurism.com writes: Stockton, California, is about to become the first city to test government-supported universal basic income in the U.S. The program is the idea of the city's 27-year-old mayor and will be primarily funded by the basic income advocacy group Economic Security Project.

After the rise of the Tea Party in 2009 as a grassroots expression of revulsion at government bailouts, spending, and Obamacare; after a series of insurgent Tea Party primary victories in 2010 over big-spending incumbents and hand-picked establishmentarians; after Republicans re-took the House that November thanks in part to that new jolt of fiscally conservative energy; after the House majority from 2011-14 successfully used its power of the purse to force debate and at least some temporary agreements on the debt ceiling, long-term entitlements, and year-on-year spending, and then after Republicans re-took the Senate and eventually the White House…after all...

The major developing stories this week have been so scantily and poorly covered in the mainstream press that you may want an easy primer. To fully understand it you have to look at alternative media, because just as Harvey Weinstein counted on complicit enablers -- his colleagues, victims and the press -- Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller and a cast of characters, including a press determined to cover for them have hidden what occurred. It’s taken some time, to be sure, but the evidence of their wrongdoing is becoming harder and harder to hide. Stalling and misdirection are their last redoubt....

Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly secretly settled a sexual harassment allegation with a network contributor for $32 million - the largest, by far, of six such agreements that eventually toppled the outspoken commentator, according to a new report. The New York Times said Bill O'Reilly agreed to the settlement in January with Lis Wiehl, a longtime legal analyst at Fox who had worked with O’Reilly and had once offered him legal advice. Despite knowledge of a settlement with Wiehl, Fox renewed its contract with O'Reilly in February, paying him $25 million per year over four years, the paper said....

Congress and the administration should focus on the most pro-growth elements of their tax plan, such as the reduction of the corporate income tax rate, rather than tax relief for the middle class or the expansion of the child tax credit. Corporate income tax reform, we know, will spur investment, bring foreign earned income back into the country, improve workers’ productivity and grow their wages, and create employment opportunities that didn’t exist before.

What do the companies in these three groups have in common?Group A: American Motors, Brown Shoe, Studebaker, Collins Radio, Detroit Steel, Zenith Electronics and National Sugar Refining.Group B: Boeing, Campbell Soup, Colgate-Palmolive, Deere, General Motors, IBM, Kellogg, Procter and Gamble, and Whirlpool.Group C: Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Home Depot, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Office Depot and Target.All of the companies in Group A were in the Fortune 500 in 1955, but not in 2017.All of the companies in Group B were in the Fortune 500 in both 1955 and 2017.All of the companies in Group C were in the Fortune 500 in...

Wall Street pushed back hard on Friday against a report that congressional Republicans are weighing a plan to severely limit the amount of money Americans can contribute to their 401(k)s. The Capitol Hill lawmakers, searching for ways to pay for President TrumpÂ’s broad proposed tax cuts, are eyeing a $2,400 cap on pre-tax contributions to 401(k) plans, used by millions of US workers to save for retirement. Currently, the pre-tax limit for such contributions is $18,000 a year. Contributions to 401(k)s are tax-deferred, which means that the government wonÂ’t be able to get its cut until retirees start withdrawing money...

A Texas law banning sanctuary cities would harm diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Mexico, Mexico argues in a brief submitted to the appeals court reviewing the law. The brief, filed Thursday with the Fifth District Court of Appeals in New Orleans, says whenever state or local officials act improperly in upholding the sanctuary law, the U.S. federal government would be unable to resolve the problem or prevent similar ones. Thus it runs the risk "that actions of a state or its officials regarding immigration enforcement could irreparably damage U.S. foreign policy interests with respect to a particular country." Texas'...

President Trump campaigned on helping the little guy. His latest tax proposal, he says, is about helping the middle guy. “It’s a middle-class bill,” Trump promised an audience of truckers last week. Other administration officials and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) have also claimed that their primary objective in reconfiguring the tax code is to help the middle class, not the wealthy.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Maybe one day they'll finish the renovation project on the Bayonne Bridge. Until then, we're going to have to keep enduring these total closures of the span, including on the weekends, which is a mind-numbingly bad time to shutter the bridge. Not that the Port Authority sees it that way, no matter how much we bang on their cage. We're supposed to have some nice weather this weekend. Mid-70s. Sunny. Lots of folks are going to be out driving. A lot of them are going to be going to New Jersey, either to shop, visit friends...

When the first half of the 21st century is way back enough for a history to be written unencumbered by agenda, President Barack Obama will be remembered as the worst thing that ever happened to the Democrat Party. And to the NFL.* If you think that is a stretch, hear me out… Thanks to George W. Bush’s terrible second term, two unbelievably awful Republican opponents in John McCain and Mitt Romney, not to mention the charisma and impressive political skills as the most leftwing senator in the country, Barry O won two national elections and did so by impressive margins....

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) says it is deeply concerned over proposed legislation that would ban crude oil tankers from operating in Canadian waters off Northern British Columbia. The Canadian Parliament is giving consideration to legislation that would have the effect of establishing a moratorium on the shipment of crude oil in the waters of Northern British Columbia. The proposed legislation is known as Bill C-48: An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia’s north coast. The ICS, representing the world’s national...

A California judge on Friday threw out a $417 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson in a lawsuit by a woman who claimed she developed ovarian cancer after using its talc-based products like Johnson’s Baby Powder for feminine hygiene. The ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maren Nelson marked the latest setback facing women and family members who accuse J&J of not adequately warning consumers about the cancer risks of its talc-based products. The decision followed a jury’s decision in August to hit J&J with the largest verdict to date in the litigation, awarding California resident Eva Echeverria $70...

After crossing the 23,000 line this week, the Dow is up nearly 5,000 points, or about 27 percent, since Election Day. It wouldn’t be there under a President Hillary Clinton or a Jeb Bush. No: Much of the credit has to go to the uncompromisingly pro-business President Trump — the antithesis of what the nation had seen the prior eight years. Nor is it just the stock market: Consumer confidence and economic optimism are up. And the Labor Department reports that claims for unemployment just dropped by 22,000 to 222,000 — the fewest since March 1973. And while, as Charles...

I’d like to better understand the conservative media’s orgy over Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced and disgraceful Hollywood film producer and studio executive who used his power over decades to have his way with starlets. To listen to conservative talkers, the women affronted or assaulted by Weinstein were all Shakespearean talent in the making—female clones of Richard Burton (he had no match among women)—who made the pilgrimage to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hollywood Hills, for the purpose of realizing their talent, never knowing it was a meat market. Watching the women who make up the dual-perspective panels “discussing” the Weinstein...