Free Republic

The Biden administration reportedly spoke to journalists and producers from major news outlets during the last week to influence reporting on the nation's economic woes in the Biden administration's favor. CNN Chief Media Correspondent Oliver Darcy said Monday in "Reliable Sources" that a source told him that the Biden White House "has been working behind the scenes" to "reshape coverage" on the economy "in its favor," according to a transcript of the show's December 6 episode. Throughout the past week, senior White House and Biden administration officials reportedly held briefings "discussing with newsrooms trends pertaining to job creation, economic growth,...

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services rose to a record high in August, largely on the back of a rise in imports as businesses continued to build up inventories in response to strong consumer demand. The Commerce Department said in an Oct. 5 statement (pdf) that the trade deficit—the difference between exports and imports of goods and services—rose by 4.2 percent in August, hitting an all-time high of $73.3 billion. Imports rose 1.4 percent to $287 billion, while exports edged up 0.5 percent to $213.7 billion. Consumer goods imports saw a relatively sharp rise of $2.7 billion in...

China power problems are affecting 20 out of China’s 34 provinces. Cement production has been reduced by 29% and aluminum production capacity has been reduced 7%. Heavy industry has seen the most cutbacks. Coal prices are up but China’s utilities have energy price controls. There were quotas on coal mining. The rolling blackout and other power shutoff is also hitting hospitals and street lights. The power shutoffs are very broad and the facts do not align with various excuses and stories coming from China. China’s leadership has not been on top of the power shortage problem and has been months...

Aria Neukam says she loves that Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has lots of plans. She knows the senator has an education plan, a Medicare for All plan, an environmental plan. Ms. Neukam says she doesn’t know exactly what is in those documents, but that isn’t the point. She says she thinks President Trump’s governing style is ad hoc and unorthodox, and she prefers a leader who has spelled out what they are going to do and how to do it. “In truth, when she says ‘I have a plan,’ I trust that there is some well-researched plan out there,”...

European Union officials have drawn up an aggressive 173-page plan to counter both President Donald Trump’s trade moves and American tech giants including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. According to a document obtained by POLITICO, European Commission officials are pushing their president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, to set up a European Future Fund that would invest more than $100 billion in equity stakes in high-potential European companies. The goal: get Europe competing head-on with the American and Chinese tech giants it has lagged behind for decades. They’re also advocating for Europe to show more grit in Trump’s trade war,...

After years of stymied efforts to address the nation's aging and congested highways and transit systems, Congress found the sweet spot for passage on Thursday -- a 5-year, $305-billion bill laden with enough industry favors, parochial projects, safety improvements and union demands to gain overwhelming support. The bill was approved 359 to 65 in the House, and 83 to 16 in the Senate. The bill now goes to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature. The bill boosts highway and transit spending and assures states that federal help will be available for major projects. It doesn't include as much...

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the Government will cut taxes to bring the overall rate for low and middle income earners below the 50 percent threshold. Outlining a broad approach to taxation reform, Mr. Kenny said the current 51 percent rate is penal and “bad for recovery”. […] “I am committing this evening that as part of the upcoming general election campaign, that Fine Gael will publish a detailed, fully costed five-year economic plan,” he said. […] Mr. Kenny also committed to “protect and further” Ireland’s often controversial corporate tax regime as well as publishing a “comprehensive multi-year capital plan...

When President Obama signed a law yesterday funding federal transportation projects for the next three months, he lamented that the United States did not have a five-year federal plan for transportation—and warned Congress that “big, powerful countries” like the Peoples Republic of China did not do it the way the U.S. is doing it now. “I guarantee you this is not how China, Germany, other countries around the world—other big, powerful countries around the world—handle their infrastructure,” Obama said. …

When the 0.2% GDP growth number came out on Wednesday, economists were quick to emphasize that it was just a temporary blip. [snip] Such words would be comforting indeed if it weren't the fifth April out of the past six that economists made almost the exact same claim

The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank appears to be betting against the American economy. The branch believes that the national economic growth rate has fallen dramatically. Blaming the downgrade on issues such as harsh weather, the projected growth rate has been slashed several times already, now down to zero. First quarter growth has slipped from an already anemic near 2.0% continually down. This comes as Americans have more money to spend from falling gas prices. Many factors are going into the decision, which mirrors similar moves during previous winters. The Fed believes that much of the slowdown is due to the...

Promising to help America’s middle class, President Barack Obama on Monday sent Congress a record $4 trillion budget that would hammer corporate profits overseas and raise taxes on the wealthy while boosting tax credits for families and the working poor. Obama’s budget also would steer hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s crumbling infrastructure of roads and bridges, help provide two years of free community college and reverse the across-the-board, automatic budget cuts that have slammed the Pentagon and nearly every government department. In the face of certain opposition from Republicans, an optimistic Obama hailed a “breakthrough year for...

A rather exasperated President Barack Obama pressed Congress to find a solution to the looming Highway Trust Fund crisis, arguing "it's not socialism" to want to build new highways and bridges in the country. "It's not crazy. It's not socialism. It's not the imperial presidency," -SNIP- "It's not like they've been busy with other stuff! No, seriously," Obama said. Republicans and Democrats in Congress are still divided on both a short-term solution to finance highway projects through the rest of the year and a long-term fix for the shortfall. Two senators introduced a bipartisan plan to incrementally raise the 18.4...

Obama channels Bullwinkle: "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a second term agenda out of my hat..."Nuttin up my sleeve...Presto! (He pulls forth Joe Biden's head from the hat.) "Sorry - Wrong Hat!" National Journal: After weeks of being challenged by Democrats and Republicans to lay out his second-term agenda, President Obama's campaign is releasing a 20-page booklet called "Blueprint for America's Future" on Tuesday and airing a new television ad to support it.While several of his policy initiatives are not new, laid out in the last State of the Union address and during Obama's convention speech in September, they...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama plans to create a special advisory council to recommend ways to boost the economic outlook and quality of life for the estimated 60 million people who live in rural areas of the U.S., a White House official said. Obama was expected to sign an executive order Thursday establishing the White House Rural Council and naming Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, of Iowa, to be its chairman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KHcQsjFdC8&feature=channel Joseph Stalin declassified. Newly revealed documents about Stalin and the founding of the USSR and his inner circle. About the purges and memos concerning STalin.

SACRAMENTO - As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger mulls an infrastructure bond of perhaps $50 billion or more, his office has failed to comply with a law requiring it to submit a five-year plan on the state's building needs. The requirement was enacted in 1999, when California was flush with money from the stock market boom, and was intended to prevent wasteful spending. The idea was that if legislators were given a report showing everything that was needed over a five-year period, instead of just one year, they would have a better perspective from which to assign priorities to requests for new...

`Visionary' plan would put `a roof over every bed in King County' by 2014 2005-03-12 by Jeff Switzer Journal Reporter  A first-ever plan to end homelessness in King County -- not just manage it -- was issued Friday with a target date of 2014.But the pricetag to meet the vision of ``a roof over every bed in King County'' could be from $680 million to $1 billion.``If we set our sights high, that everybody in King County would have a house, it sets for us a standard we'll be always chasing,'' said Jeff Natter, newly named program director of...