Free Republic

During an interview with CBS’s “The Takeout” podcast that took place before the release of the February inflation numbers, acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said that there is price gouging and “One reason for inflation is that companies are taking advantage of market forces or just charging more in a way that increases their profit, but has nothing to do with worker’s wages.”

During an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, acting Labor Secretary Julie Su claimed that “prices are lower than they were a year ago, and significantly so.” And that gas prices “continue to come down.” Host Joe Mathieu asked, “Well, so you’re clearly up on the state of the job market right now, and workers, I suspect, are too. Lower unemployment, rising wages, but those — again, those two trends come together in an inflationary way. How do you balance those two moving forward?”

The Biden administration is stonewalling public records requests regarding acting labor secretary Julie Su, whose confirmation to lead the agency on a permanent basis faces an uphill battle in the closely divided Senate. Conservative watchdog group American Accountability Foundation last month petitioned the Labor Department for all official correspondence between Su and the nation’s most powerful unions, whose business dominates her public calendars. Last week, the agency blew by its deadline to provide the documents as Su moved toward a confirmation vote in the U.S. Senate. The watchdog said the administration's failure to provide documents from Su's time at the...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday endorsed former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez in his bid for Maryland governor, calling him the candidate with “the best opportunity to flip the state” blue in 2022. “Maryland has an opportunity to flip from red to blue and the most qualified person to do just that is my friend Tom Perez,” Pelosi said in a video announcing the endorsement. “Please join me in supporting him as our next governor of Maryland.” In the video, Pelosi touted Perez’s work on voting and civil rights issues during his time leading the Justice...

President Trump on Tuesday officially nominated longtime labor lawyer Eugene Scalia to be secretary of Labor. Trump said back in July that he planned to tap Scalia, who is the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for the post days after Alexander Acosta resigned as Labor secretary. Scalia served as the top legal officer at the Department of Labor during the George W. Bush administration and previously was a special assistant to Attorney General William Barr during his first stint as the top law enforcement officer under the George H.W. Bush administration. Scalia, currently a partner at law...

President Trump announced Thursday evening that he is nominating Eugene Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to be the new Secretary of Labor. “I am pleased to announce that it is my intention to nominate Gene Scalia as the new Secretary of Labor. Gene has led a life of great success in the legal and labor field and is highly respected not only as a lawyer, but as a lawyer with great experience working with labor and everyone else,” he tweeted. “He will be a great member of an Administration that has done more in the...

President Trump on Thursday night announced he's nominating attorney Gene Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to replace Alex Acosta as secretary of labor. The surprise move -- which top Republicans privately pushed for -- was a visible manifestation of the close personal bond Trump has forged with the Scalia family in recent years. The confirmation process for Justice Neil Gorsuch, who ultimately filled Scalia's seat, sparked the connection. Scalia, 55, is currently a partner in the Washington office of the international law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is expected to face headwinds from...

President Trump on Tuesday defended Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who is facing calls to resign over his role in a non-prosecution agreement with billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein in a sex-crimes case. Trump told reporters at the White House that Acosta has been a “very good” Labor secretary and that Acosta probably wished he had handled the Epstein plea deal “a different way.” The president added that he would be looking at the case “very carefully.” “I feel very badly, actually, for Secretary Acosta because I’ve known him as being somebody that works so hard and has done such a good...

On Thursday, President Donald Trump named Alexander Acosta as his new nominee for secretary of labor — the same man who cut a sweetheart plea deal with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. Acosta, while working as the top federal prosecutor in Miami, agreed not to file any federal charges against Epstein — who was accused of having sex with dozens of underage teen girls — in exchange for him pleading guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor for prostitution. The infamous pedophile had been accused of recruiting dozens of underage girls into a sex-slave network....

President Donald Trump is set to announce Alexander Acosta as his new pick to head the Department of Labor, less than a day after his first choice for the job, Andy Puzder, withdrew from consideration. Acosta served as assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division under President George W. Bush, selected by the president in August 2003. Acosta was a member of the National Labor Relations Board and also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division. Most recently, he was the dean of Florida International University College of Law. If confirmed, Acosta would be...

Four Republican senators have withdrawn their support for Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder after he admitted to hiring an undocumented immigrant as his housekeeper, Law Newz reported. Per sources, Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Tim Scott, and Johnny Isakson have all said they will not support Puzder, a chief executive of Hardee's parent company, because of all the hiccups ahead of his confirmation hearing. Puzder said in a statement Feb. 6 he and his wife had employed a housekeeper for three years but didn't know she was in the U.S. illegally. "When I learned of her status, we immediately ended...

U.S. President Donald Trump's choice to lead the Labor Department admitted to employing an undocumented immigrant as a house cleaner, the kind of revelation that derailed Cabinet nominees in previous administrations. Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc, is one of several Trump nominees who face strong opposition from Senate Democrats and progressive groups. In a statement late on Monday, Puzder said he and his wife had employed a housekeeper for a few years without being aware that she was not legally permitted to work in the United States. "When I learned of her status, we immediately ended...

President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to name as his Labor Secretary fast food executive Andy Puzder, who stands diametrically opposed to Trump’s signature issues on trade and immigration — which won him the election. Puzder is the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which includes Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. Advocates for American wage-earners say that Puzder as Secretary of Labor is alarming because he will be in charge of enacting policies that directly impact American workers, whom Puzder believes are “unwilling” to do certain jobs. Puzder has suggested that available U.S. jobs should instead be filled by imported foreign labor....

Fight for 15 looks down for the count. Andy Puzder understands what almost no liberals have even the slightest clue about: Businesses exist to maximize profit. If an employee enjoys prosperity as a result of providing value to the business and being commensurately rewarded, that’s a good thing that makes everyone happy. But the purpose of the business is not to make employees rich just for the sake of it. It’s to make the shareholders rich. So when dopes take to the streets demanding a minimum wage of $15 with their mindless #FightFor15, Puzder understand exactly what that will mean....

Per Stuart Varney on Fox Business. Will add links when it hits the news.

<p>Theranos, the biotech company started by a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, has another hurdle to cross in its whole "we're totally a legit blood-testing company" campaign. This time, it turns out that tens of thousands of blood tests were voided, making them totally invalid. Whoops!</p>

We haven't really written much about the insane Theranos scandal, though we discussed it on our podcast. The whole story is pretty crazy -- involving a heavily hyped up company that appeared to basically be flat out lying to everyone about what it could do. The company still exists, but barely. The company's founder and CEO, who was plastered across magazine covers and compared frequently to Steve Jobs, has been banned from running a lab for two years, and the company is now facing a $140 million lawsuit from its biggest partner, Walgreens, who claims that Theranos repeatedly lied to...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

It's worth asking why Elizabeth Holmes is still leading the embattled blood testing company Theranos Inc. But there may be a good reason why she still is in charge, one that has little to do with the scandal-ridden company's performance to date. Forget what venture capitalist Tim Draper — one of the first to invest in the Palo Alto company — implied this week that Holmes is being attacked because she's a young, female entrepreneur. The simple fact is that Theranos has not been able to deliver on its technology from a commercial, scientific or regulatory standpoint, and that falls...