Free Republic

Last month, Brown-Forman Corporation, the parent company of Jack Daniels, announced that it would scale back the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that critics say violate nondiscrimination law. Specifically, the company stated that it would no longer pursue “quantitative workforce and supplier diversity ambitions,” effectively ending efforts to engineer a specific corporate demography via racial and gender quotas. Compensation will now be tied strictly to business performance, the company added, rather than to metrics that incentivize discrimination. Brown-Forman also pledged to review all training programs to ensure they align with the firm’s “evolved strategy,” signaling a potential departure from the...

...Referring to one of ABF’s constituent brands, Primark, Mr Weston said the retailer annually lost more to shoplifting than it paid in business rates... Shortly before Mr Weston’s despairing announcement, Paul Gerrard, who runs public affairs at the Co-op...spoke of “people coming into our stores with wheelie bins, people coming into our store with builder’s bags to steal the whole confectionery section, the entire sprit section, the entire meat section”... The lawlessness that gives Britain such a dystopian feel – the marauding shoplifters, the Rolex rippers, the smartphone thieves, the lethal parade of teenagers with knives whose conception of the...

The regime of Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been able to expand its position as an energy supplier to Europe. The EU now imports more from Russia than from the United States, reports Die Welt. According to the newspaper, for the first time in almost two years, EU countries imported more gas from Russia than from the United States in one quarter. This is evidenced by the data of the Brussels-based consulting company Bruegel. According to these data, for the quarter from April to June, the EU purchased 12.7 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia, and 12.3 billion from...

Social media users trashed President Biden’s Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo for admitting to ABC News on Wednesday that she wasn’t “familiar” with the day’s major revision to the jobs numbers. ABC News correspondent Kayna Whitworth asked Raimondo what she thought of the jobs numbers revision by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “I am curious as to your thoughts on today the Bureau of Labor saying that more than 800,000 fewer jobs were actually created than initially reported,” Whitworth said. The reporter played a clip of former President Donald Trump talking about the report at his rally in North Carolina...

We wrote Friday that Kamala Harris was likely to continue President Biden’s unfinished Build Back Better agenda, but it turns out we were far too optimistic. The policy priorities the Vice President laid out Friday are much worse, including a plan to impose national price controls on food and groceries.

It’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is. “Price gouging” is the focus of Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic agenda, her presidential campaign says. She’ll crack down on “excessive prices” and “excessive corporate profits,” particularly for groceries. So what level counts as “excessive,” you might ask? TBD, but Harris will ban it. That’s the thing about price gouging: As has been said of hardcore pornography, you know it when you see it. It’s not hard to figure out where this proposal came from. Voters want to blame someone for high grocery bills, and the presidential candidates have...

“The goal of Socialism is Communism.” - Valdimir Lenin All we had to do was sit back and wait. Kamala Harris's a first quasi-solid policy proposal was plagiarized directly from Donald Trump. It was Trump's proposal to end taxes on tips. Then Harris decided that she thought of it. Now we have her first real policy and it's everything you'd expect from her. She needed a villain - it's the food industry- and she has decided on a plan to slay the demon. She will lower your food costs by making food disappear. Vice President Harris on Friday will outline...

Early in the pandemic, a local merchant I know in New York, an immigrant who owns a small stationary store, worked tirelessly to obtain the goods his customers all then believed were needed—masks, hand sanitizer, and so on. He paid a markup for these goods, not to mention the time it cost him to secure them, and naturally passed the higher prices on to his customers. But given the emergency, he faced a price limit on what he could sell the masks for, with steep fines if he didn't comply. He fought these mandates in court and nearly lost his...

Washington Post: Kamala Harris to propose ban on ‘price gouging’ for food, groceries https://washingtonpost.com/business/2024/08/15/kamala-harris-economic-policy-2024/Me: The Maduro diet: How most Venezuelans lost an average of 43 pounds in two years https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2020/07/15/43-pounds/

* Vice President Kamala Harris will propose the first-ever federal ban on “corporate price-gouging” in the food industry, her campaign announced. * Harris will also pledge that if elected, she will direct the Justice Department to increase scrutiny of potential mergers between grocers and food producers. * The ban is part of a broader effort by the Democratic presidential nominee to respond to voters’ ongoing frustration with the high cost of meat and groceries. WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to propose the first-ever federal ban on “corporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries,” her campaign announced late...

California’s top air quality regulator today urged the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency to “immediately” approve the state’s regulation phasing out diesel trucks. Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph was among more than 250 people who signed up to speak today at a virtual hearing focusing on whether the EPA should grant California a waiver that allows the state to enact its regulation. The hearing was expected to last 12 hours.

He shut down a lot of the mom-and-pop shops, those folks that were just trying to make a living and provide a great product and a great service," Hanson told Fox News Digital. "In contrast, he allowed big box stores, etc. to stay open. Really incredible, an incredible use of tyranny against the people." Hanson eventually decided to re-open her business and defied Walz's renewed shutdown order for bars and restaurants six times between December 2020 and January 2021. She was convicted in December 2021 on misdemeanor charges and received the maximum sentence of 90 days and a $1,000 fine....

A former Minnesota bar owner who now commutes two hours a day to sling suds in neighboring Wisconsin said Gov. Tim Walz’s restrictive pandemic-era lockdowns in the state “decimated” local businesses — and caused financial ruin for those who stood up for their livelihoods. “I think he’s an evil man who overstepped his role as the governor. He took small businesses and ripped them up. He destroyed us,” Lisa Zarza. ... She said when shelter-in-place and business closures first went into effect in March, 2020, “I did everything I was supposed to do. I wore my mask, I social distanced....

The US Navy's counter-Houthi mission will not be enough on its own to stop the Iran-backed rebels from attacking vulnerable merchant ships, the admiral overseeing operations in the Middle East said this week.Vice Adm. George Wikoff, the commander of US Naval Forces Central Command, said that it will take more than force and firepower to deal with the Houthis. Rather, Washington and its allies must come up with an alternative way to apply pressure on the group."The solution is not going to come at the end of a weapon system," Wikoff said Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center...

If you are experiencing increased healthcare insurance and prescription costs, one reason may be the growing, middleman business of pharmacy benefit managers (PBM). The most recent article at The Alabama Examiner addresses Tennessee's PBM reform enacted in 2021. Alabamians are working hard to save our hometown pharmacies being driven out of business! https://www.alabamaexaminer.com/post/pbm-reform-enacted-in-tennessee-why-not-alabama

BEIJING (AP) – Italy and China signed a three-year action plan on Sunday to implement past agreements and experiment with new forms of cooperation, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on an official visit to the Chinese capital. Meloni is trying to reset relations with China as fears of a trade war with the European Union are interwoven with continued interest in attracting Chinese investment in auto manufacturing and other sectors.

eBay will no longer accept American Express payments starting August 17th, the company announced on Wednesday. It blames the change on the “unacceptably high fees” for Amex credit card transactions. “Credit card transaction fees continue to rise unabated because of a lack of meaningful competition,” eBay writes in a notice to customers. “There is a need for more robust regulations to drive greater competition to credit card networks and help reduce transaction processing costs.” eBay still accepts Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and other payment methods, like PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Venmo. Amex disagrees with eBay’s move, stating on its...

Bankruptcy courts are working overtime this year, with corporate America seeing the highest monthly bankruptcy count since 2020. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the US recorded 75 new bankruptcies filed by mid-size and large corporations in June. Given ongoing economic pressures, this trend could continue.So far, in 2024, there have been 346 bankruptcy filings, including 17 cases with liabilities exceeding ~$1B — outstripping any comparable figure from the last 13 years.The consumer discretionary sector accounted for 55 of these filings — while the healthcare and industrial sectors each had 40.‘Til debt do us part: S&P Global blames high interest...

Target will no longer be accepting personal checks as a form of payment at its stores beginning later this month, the company confirmed.The Minnesota-based big-box retail chain will stop taking checks this month due to “extremely low volumes,” of such payments, a spokesperson told NBC Chicago.The company has taken “several measures” to notify customers in advance, the spokesperson added.The change will go into effect on July 15 following the end of Target’s popular Circle Week sales event.While personal checks will no longer be accepted, the store will still take cash, credit and debit cards, Target Circle Cards, digital wallets, SNAP/EBT...

The U.S. trade deficit widened for a second straight month in May amid a decline in exports, indicating that trade likely remained a drag on economic growth in the second quarter. The trade deficit increased 0.8 per cent to $75.1 billion, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Wednesday. Data for April was revised slightly to show the trade gap rising to $74.5 billion instead of $74.6 billion as previously reported.