Free Republic

As the face of CNN, Anderson Cooper makes a very good living as wealthy, privileged white man casting judgments of affiliation upon his political enemies. This includes taking a handful of idiotic white supremacists and declaring they represent millions of Republicans/conservatives, pro-America, Trump supporters, etc. And yet Mr. Cooper himself has a much closer affiliation to slavery than he likely wants his leftist viewers to know. As a descendant of the Vanderbilt family, one of the wealthiest “old money” families in American history, Cooper is a direct descendant of big time slave owners. Cooper’s great-great grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, owned several...

Illinoisans already pay some of the highest, if not the highest, property taxes in the nation. An analysis of the past 15 years shows that property taxes are growing far faster than residents’ ability to pay for them. Between 2000 and 2015, the total property taxes Illinois local governments collected doubled. Household incomes in Illinois, in contrast, only grew 31 percent over that time period. Because taxes have grown so much faster than income, the burden property taxes impose on Illinoisans has grown significantly. In 2000, property taxes consumed 4.4 percent of household incomes. In 2015, property taxes consumed 6.7...

On July 30, 2017, a 61-Year-Old, mild mannered musician, Darius Summers, walked down to the local gas station for a cup of coffee. He had recently obtained a concealed carry permit. Darius is not a large man.A local miscreant “made” Darius, and saw that Darius was armed. He decided that he would rob Darius of his gun. It was a terrible mistake in the victim selection process. The store video shows what happened. It did not turn out well for the large, armed, thuggish teenager. Darius lulled the suspect into a false sense of security. Then he accessed his...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will check out the nation’s gold stash when he pays a rare official visit to Fort Knox on Monday -- while keeping an open mind for future film projects. “I assume the gold is still there,” the former Hollywood producer joked to an audience in Louisville, Kentucky, 40 miles (64 km) north of the U.S. Bullion Depository. “It would really be quite a movie if we walked in and there was no gold.” Fort Knox has been seared into the public imagination since the 1964 James Bond movie “Goldfinger,” in which the British spy, played...

Multiple EPA officials colluded with Monsanto to slow a safety review of the company’s glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup, according to email communications obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests. Monsanto officials first reached out to the EPA in early 2015 regarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s planned toxicology review of the herbicide, which the CDC said would be published by October 2015. This review has yet to be published, something EcoWatch notes was “no accident, no bureaucratic delay, but rather was the result of a collaborative effort between Monsanto and a group of high-ranking EPA officials.” The emails, sent...

Well, it’s about time. After some Confederate statue-topplings, but before any Confederate book burnings, California protesters are now targeting a horse. A beautiful Arabian. The creature’s unforgivable crime? His name is similar to the horse ridden by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee 152 years ago, Traveler. Only Lee’s horse used two L’s–Traveller. Traveler is the official mascot of the University of Southern California. With a sword-waving, faux warrior in the saddle, he gallops all over the home field whenever the USC Trojan football team scores, which it’s expected to do a lot this season. Unless you went to Notre Dame,...

JPMorgan will donate $1 million to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in response to the violent protests that took place in Charlottesville, Va., in early August. Peter Scher, head of corporate responsibility and chairman of JPMorgan, wrote a letter to staff Monday wherein he asserted the bank “stands in support of all those who reject racism and violence,” and pledged to support both the SPLC and ADL in their campaign of “tracking, exposing and fighting” hate groups and other extremist organizations.

Competition for housing is soaring, affordability is weakening and the U.S. housing recovery is grinding to a crawl — and, in large part, the baby boom generation is to blame. No, they're not doing anything immoral or illegal; in fact, they're not doing anything at all, and that is precisely the problem. They're not moving. Baby boomers, the enormous group born between 1946 and 1964, are staying in their big suburban homes far longer than previous generations did at this age, and that is having repercussions down the housing supply line. If baby boomers don't downsize out of big suburban...

Chinese SUV maker Great Wall Motors is considering making a bid to buy Fiat Chrysler's Jeep unit, spokespeople for the company said Monday, in a possible ambitious new step onto the global stage for China's fast-growing auto brands. Great Wall has yet to formally declare its interest in Jeep, but a possible acquisition would be in line with chairman Wang Jianjun's goal, announced in February, of becoming the top specialty SUV producer by 2020. Great Wall "has this intention," said the public relations director for its Haval SUV brand, Zhao Lijia, when asked about a report by Automotive News that...

I was disappointed when President Trump’s first choice for Secretary of Labor, restaurant magnate Andy Puzder, was forced to withdraw his name. He would have made great use of the office as a Bully Pulpit to highlight the many ways the government impedes job growth through counterproductive regulations – such as the absurd notion that it’s possible to legislate better lives for workers by ratcheting up the minimum wage. Nevertheless, I’m pleasantly surprised by the performance so far by the man Trump subsequently chose for the position, R. Alexander Acosta, who was confirmed in April. Acosta, a former U.S. attorney...

Ron Paul's sell-off prediction just got more severe. The former Republican Congressman from Texas believes escalating dysfunction in Washington will create even more pain for Wall Street. "A 50 percent pullback is conceivable," Paul said on "Futures Now" recently. "I don't believe it's ten years off. I don't even believe it's a year off. " According to his calculations, it would cut the S&P 500 Index in half, to 1212, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average would collapse to 10,837. Paul noted that there's a lot of chaos in Washington right now, with an "unpredictable president" and those who...

The state has officially taken over the Interstate 69 Section 5 project from I-69 Development Partners.The Indiana Finance Authority announced it had reached an agreement with the private developer in June to take over construction, operation and maintenance of the project after several delays in the completion schedule. To officially take control of the project, the Indiana State Budget Committee had to approve the plans. Additionally, all parties had to endorse a settlement agreement and bondholders had to be paid in full.The finance authority announced Monday it had completed the settlement transaction to terminate the contract with I-69 Development Partners...

U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators are pledging to work quickly to update the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 23-year-old pact that President Donald Trump has called the worst trade deal in history. Wrapping up the first round of NAFTA renegotiation talks Sunday, the three countries said they planned to meet again in Mexico Sept. 1-5, in Canada in late September and back in the United States in October. They did not offer details on the substance of the five-day talks. …

Visa recently unveiled its own offensive in the war on cash. Visa is offering certain merchants a $10,000 reward if they refuse to accept cash in the future. Not surprisingly, Visa’s competitor is also part of the war on cash. Mastercard is increasing its efforts to encourage merchants to refuse cash. Here’s Bloomberg, quoting the CEO of Mastercard: “Mastercard Chief Executive Officer Ajay Banga has been one of the most ardent supporters of ditching paper currency in the U.S. The 57-year-old first declared his war on cash in 2010.” These private efforts by Visa and MasterCard exist side by side...

Every time the U.S. economy has seem poised to break out of its slow-growth, low-inflation trend, something has undercut its momentum. The federal fiscal-cliff and debt-limit fights, an oil patch recession, the global financial market spillovers from China, and a pullback from peak auto sales all have taken a turn as the economic headwind du jour. Yet what some have called "secular stagnation" or "the new normal" is largely about America — along with much of the rich world — turning gray. Aging has cut 1.25 percentage points from both trend GDP growth and the neutral real interest rate in...

Britain’s goodbye to fossil-fuel cars by 2040 could boost the need for dirtier natural gas-powered stations. The government’s goal to replace petrol and diesel cars with those powered by electricity could see the construction of so-called open-cycle gas stations, said Carsten Poppinga, senior vice president of trading and origination at Statkraft, the Norwegian utility that operates hydro power plants and wind farms across the UK. Such units can keep the grid from buckling from the strain of people charging cars in peak demand periods. The catch? While the plants can start generating power almost instantly, they don’t recycle waste heat,...

Published August 20, 2017 Fox News Now Playing WSJ editorial: Coal is making a comeback Close The chief executive of Pennsylvania-based Corsa Coal Corp. said Sunday the company is opening a second coal mine since President Trump took office, declaring “the war on coal is over” and attributing the growth to the president’s economic policies. “I think it’s a direct link,” company CEO George Dethlefsen told Fox News, pointing specifically to Trump’s efforts to deregulate the U.S. economy and a “very strong market” for steel. “The steel industry is undergoing a real Renaissance,” he said. Dethlefsen also said the Trump...

The Shelby gang's back together again. Calling themselves the Original Venice Crew, former Shelby American team members have joined forces to create an essentially new and moderately updated version of the Shelby GT350R. This crew consists of Peter Brock, Jim Marietta, and Ted Sutton—and they're channeling Carroll Shelby's spirit. Shelby hit upon some road-racing magic when he got his hands on the 1965 Ford Mustang, . He turned what he called a "secretary's car" into a real street-legal race car. It was dubbed the Shelby GT350R and it was fitted with a modified version of Ford's K-Code engine. They also...

Why can’t tech firms shut down terrorists as fast as they do Nazis?After the violence in Charlottesville, Va., some tech firms and social-media sites were quick to ban white supremacists — far quicker than they were when it came to scrubbing radical Islamic terrorists. GoDaddy, Google and even Russian Internet officials booted the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi and white-supremacist Web site, after it published a despicable derogatory story about the woman killed by a white supremacist in Charlottesville. Facebook took hits for failing to remove the event page for the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. Even OkCupid, a dating...

Do you dream of having your very own guest house in France? If so, check out our Property of the Week. Where is it? The property is in a small, quiet village called Aigrefeuille-d'Aunis situated between the beautiful coastal city of La Rochelle (20km) and the picturesque town of Surgères (17km) in the Charente-Maritime department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France. La Rochelle International Airport is situated just 30 minutes away from Aigrefeuille d'Aunis by car, with flights to London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh and Brussels, among other international destinations. How much does it cost? It's on the...