Free Republic

One of the defining features of former President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was his – at least at the time – unorthodox opinions on trade. With the notable exception of Bernie Sanders, the other candidates parroted the longstanding bipartisan consensus on free trade. Trump promoted protectionist policies and tariffs.“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world,” Trump said at a 2016 campaign rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In his remarks on the campaign trail, you could hear echoes of his interviews from the...

Will the last person to leave California please turn off the lights? Assuming they aren't in the middle of one of California's increasingly frequent brownouts, that is. Relocation firm moveBuddha looked at searches for 100,000 moves just this year, and five of the top ten were people looking to get out of the Golden State for almost anywhere else. "5 of the top 10 exit metros are in California, the firm reported on Monday. "Los Angeles has the highest interest in outbound moves, with 42% more outbound inquiries than runner-up San Francisco. Per capita, the prize goes to San Francisco."The...

American college graduates are losing jobs and opportunities in President Joe Biden’s high-migration economy, admits the Washington Post. “Despite strong labor market, new college graduates struggle to find employment,” says the June 16 article, which continues: Hiring in professional and business services — which includes jobs in tech, consulting, finance and media that are popular among new grads — has fallen 12 percent, according to federal data … Today’s recent graduates ages 22 to 27 have a higher unemployment rate — 4.7 percent, as of March — than the overall population, according to an analysis by the New York Fed.

The IRS plans to end a major tax loophole for wealthy taxpayers that could raise more than $50 billion in revenue over the next decade, the U.S. Treasury Department says. The proposed rule and guidance announced Monday includes plans to essentially stop “partnership basis shifting” — a process by which a business or person can move assets among a series of related parties to avoid paying taxes. Biden administration officials said after evaluating the practice that there are no economic grounds for these transactions, with Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo calling it “really just a shell game.” The officials said...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The SS United States, a historic ship that still holds the transatlantic speed record it set more than 70 years ago, must leave its berth on the Delaware River in Philadelphia by Sept. 12, a federal judge says. The decision issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Anita Brody culminated a years-old rent dispute between the conservancy that oversees the 1,000-foot ocean liner and its landlord, Penn Warehousing. It stemmed from an August 2021 decision by Penn Warehousing to double the ship's daily dockage to $1,700, an increase the conservancy refused to accept. When the conservancy continued to...

"White supremacy is ingrained everywhere," Moriarty said. "White supremacy is what we all live in. It's the water." Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty speaks at an April 30 Board of Commissioners meeting. (Hennepin County) ************************************************************ During a May 28 event, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty explained she believes there’s an effort to cause the public to fear crime. “Moderate Democrats have done a lot of work in making people afraid of downtown Minneapolis,” she said. “There is a concerted effort to make people afraid of crime.” The conversation took place between Moriarty and Dr. T. Anansi Wilson, a Mitchell Hamline...

A few things that President Trump with a Republican House and Senate can do to immediately stop the downward spiral: Fire all the Democrat lawyers and activists you possibly can from government perches. Cut the government, cut the spending, for the first time ever. Slash the income tax for personal and business. Again. Make it permanent this time. Drill, baby, drill! Achieve energy independence again. Become a net exporter again. Secure the border. again. Deport all the illegals that can be deported. Then deport some more. Reapply the tariffs. Again. Get us out of foreign wars. Again. Tell the UN,...

(NewsNation) — Americans’ morning commutes are getting longer as remote work and rising housing costs continue to change the way people live. The share of “super-commutes,” those 75 miles or longer, is up by nearly a third since the start of the pandemic, according to new research from Stanford University. Those trips to the office typically take two hours and 20 minutes each way, nearly five hours total, the study found. For workers who super-commute daily, that’s almost a full 24-hour day of travel per week. However, a daily journey may not be the norm. Researchers suspect hybrid work is...

Vance thinks that jobs lost because of incompetent central planning don't matter—but that jobs lost to immigrants do.In an interview published this week by The New York Times, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) calls for a more muscular federal government to intervene even more aggressively in the economy than it already does, to create what Vance calls "incentives" for American workers. In doing so, Vance inadvertently reveals one of the major flaws in this line of analysis. Vance's opinions about these things carry significant weight, in no small part because he's on the shortlist to be Donald Trump's running mate. With...

President Joe Biden is prepared to release more oil from the country’s strategic reserves if gas prices increase during the summer. This is the latest plan by the Biden administration to counter higher prices at the pumps and the more expensive prices on various goods due to inflation. A Biden administration energy adviser suggested gas prices are “still too high” for many in the country and said he favors taking action to “cut them down a little bit further.” “We will do everything we can to make sure that the market is supplied well enough to ensure as low [a]...

(NEXSTAR) – The U.S. may have fallen off the list of the happiest countries for the first time this year but that doesn’t mean there aren’t pockets of happy folks across the nation. In fact, 10 U.S. cities recently ranked among the happiest cities in the world. Researchers with the Institute for Quality of Life, a London-based organization, recently released its latest ‘Happy City Index’ of the 250 happiest cities in the world. They analyzed various “indicators…that directly relate to the quality of life and the sense of happiness of its residents.” Cities needed to have at least 300,000 inhabitants,...

A stretch of Midtown Manhattan has become a “strip of despair,” where smacked-out addicts shoot up, light up and conk out at the feet of commuters and tourists, locals say. “I see a lot of things around here,” one shop owner told The Post of the so-called Eighth Avenue corridor near Penn Station, where there is a cluster of addiction clinics and homeless shelters. “Fights, drugs — oh my God — bad things. “I don’t know if they have knives or guns,” she said, explaining how people who appear to be both extremely high and severely disturbed regularly barge into...

The End Of The Petrodollar Is The End Of America’s Global DominanceEvery nation has had to convert its currency to the U.S. dollar, making it the de facto global currency. Thanks to Joe Biden, it’s all gone.The petrodollar agreement with Saudi Arabia began in 1974, two years into Joe Biden’s first term as a United States senator. It ended this week, a half-century later, during Biden’s first term as U.S. president. Among all the news stories that matter, few rank higher than this. It’s bigger than President Trump and Hunter Biden’s convictions, bigger than jobs reports and inflation numbers, and...

NEW YORK (AP) — With Pride Month in full gear, U.S. shoppers can find the usual merchandise many stores stock for the June celebration of LGBTQ+ culture and rights. But analysts and advocates say the marketing is toned down compared to previous years, and at some chains, there’s no trace of Pride at all. The more subdued atmosphere underscores the struggle of many retailers to cater to different groups of customers at a time of extreme cultural divisions. This year’s Pride Month is unfolding amid a sea of legislation and litigation over LGBTQ+ rights, especially the ability of transgender young...

Were one to listen to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, or Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, one might come away with the impression that electric vehicles (EVs) are so popular, the government’s intention of mostly replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with EVs by 2030 was a foregone conclusion. After all, the Mummified Meat Puppet Administration (MMPA) tells us they’ll build a half million fast chargers across America by then to handle the load, and they’ve allocated $7.5 billion we don’t have to that noble endeavor. Confronting Secretary Pete with the fact that in two years his bureaucracy has managed to build...

While most ebikes on the road today will come with a battery pack, some are riding down the hydrogen fuel-cell cycle path. HydroRide not only has fuel-cell ebikes available, but also a compact refill station to top up H2 canisters. The global ebike market is estimated to grow in value to almost US$120 billion by 2030, and it's not surprising. Whether commuting or leisure riding, pedal-assist bikes take some of the strain out of the journey while also opening up routes for older riders. The vast majority of ebikes on the street roll with Li-ion batteries, but they can spend...

S​ummer 2024 is likely to be one of the hottest on record in the United States, according to an updated outlook released Friday by The Weather Company and Atmospheric G2. The heat will be widespread. Above-average temperatures are expected from the Southwest and Rockies to the East Coast, with parts of the Midwest, Plains, northern New England and the Southwest being the most above average. "We've run out of superlatives to describe what we expect as an historic summer." - Todd Crawford, Vice President of Meteorology, Atmospheric G2 The lone exception may be the West Coast, from western Washington to...

Honduras announced on Friday night the construction of a mega-prison for 20,000 inmates, among more than a dozen measures, by declaring a “security emergency” to combat the overwhelming crime. In a national radio and television broadcast, President Xiomara Castro and other members of the National Defense and Security Council (CNDS) unveiled the “crime solution plan” in response to public outcry over the surge in violence. “Given this declared security emergency, the immediate construction of an Emergency Detention Center (CRE) with a capacity for 20,000 inmates in the unpopulated area between the departments of Olancho and Gracias a Dios (east) is...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Data this weekend indicates a low potential for a tropical depression or storm to form and track due west into the east coast of Florida or southeast Georgia by late Wednesday into Thursday. Such an event would be "extremely rare" for June, said FOX 35 Storm Team Meteorologist Noah Bergren. "Historically, only three storms have made landfall from the east in June," he added. "The most recent was Tropical Storm Danny in 2021, which hit South Carolina."

The House of Representatives on June 14 passed its annual defense policy bill with GOP-approved culture war amendments that are certain to put the House on a collision course with the Democrat-controlled Senate.The final tally on the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) vote was 217–199, with six Democrats voting in favor and three Republicans voting against.The $883.7 billion bill, which has more than 1,000 pages, provides continued funding for military aircraft, ships, vehicles, and weapons programs. It also includes a 4.5 percent pay raise for U.S. service members and about 15 percent in additional pay for some junior enlisted...