Free Republic

Tensions between a president and a Federal Reserve chairman are nothing new. Up until now, they may have reached a peak when Lyndon Johnson shoved William McChesney Martin at the LBJ ranch. Martin gave in a while later, another step into the inflationary quagmire from which the U.S. emerged only after Paul Volcker reasserted the Fed’s independence. However bad that Texas moment, it falls far short of the Department of Justice’s serving the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas on Friday. They relate to testimony given to the Senate Banking Committee concerning an over-budget renovation project and come with the...

Progress in the fight to throttle back inflation appeared to stall in December amid price pressures from groceries, dining out, utility gas, clothing and other categories of consumer spending. The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 2.7% in December from 12 months earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday. That was unchanged from the previous month and in line with estimates. “The bottom line is, I think inflation is still uncomfortably high,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “Inflation for staples, necessities, remains elevated.”

Meta Platforms on Monday named former Trump administration official Dina Powell McCormick as its president and vice chairman, boosting the company’s lobbying efforts in the U.S. capital. President Donald Trump congratulated Powell McCormick in a post on his Truth Social account minutes after the company announced her promotion. “Congratulations to DINA POWELL MCCORMICK, WHO HAS JUST BEEN NAMED THE NEW PRESIDENT OF META. A great choice by Mark Z!!! She is a fantastic, and very talented, person, who served the Trump Administration with strength and distinction!” the president wrote. Her appointment is the latest in a series of changes Meta...

Federal regulators on Tuesday told drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to remove label warnings about potential suicidal thoughts and behaviors from their blockbuster weight-loss medications. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said a comprehensive review “found no increased” risk related to suicide among users of the GLP-1 drugs for obesity, including Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Saxenda and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. A preliminary review in January 2024 showed no link between the drugs and suicidal thought or actions, the FDA said. At that time, however, officials said they could not rule out that “a small risk may exist.” The new...

California is once again at the center of a high-stakes debate over taxes, population trends and the future of the state’s economy, as a prominent tech investor warns that a new wave of residents could leave within the next year. The warning lands at a moment when official data shows modest population growth returning, even as moving companies and demographers track persistent outflows to other states. The question is not whether people are leaving, but whether policy choices in the coming months will turn a steady trickle into the kind of large-scale relocation that reshapes communities and tax bases. The...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that the state’s proposed wealth tax is bad economics. Newsom said he feels vindicated in opposing the proposed wealth tax after reports showed some of California’s wealthiest residents moving money and businesses out of the state, warning the measure would damage the economy and drive away investment. “This is my fear,” Newsom said in a Politico interview on Monday. “It’s just what I warned against. It’s happening.” “The evidence is in. The impacts are very real — not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of … people...

United Parcel Service has slashed 48,000 jobs and shuttered 93 facilities in the first nine months of 2025, marking what CEO Carol Tomé called the company's most significant strategic shift in its 118-year history. This overhaul ditches low-margin e-commerce volumes, especially from Amazon, in favor of higher-profit areas like healthcare and small business shipping, fueled by a $9 billion automation investment and a planned 50% cut in Amazon deliveries by mid-2026.

Trump presenting a speach at the Economic Club of Detroit

SUPPORTING AMERICA’S LUMBER INDUSTRY: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Proclamation invoking Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Act) to delay increases in tariffs for upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities for another year.The United States continues to engage in productive negotiations with trade partners to address trade reciprocity and national security concerns with respect to imports of wood products. The United States will therefore delay the increase in tariff rates for upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities that was set to take place on January 1, 2026, under the September 29, 2025 Proclamation for an...

JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon has warned that the Trump administration's attacks on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will backfire. Dimon defended the Fed as he spoke with reporters after his bank issued its fourth-quarter earnings results on Tuesday. 'Everyone we know believes in Fed independence, and so do we, and anything chips away at that is probably not a great idea,' Dimon said. 'It will have the reverse consequences. It will raise inflation expectations and probably increase rates over time.' The nation's pre-eminent banker added: 'I don't agree with everything that the Fed has done,' but 'I do have...

In the annals of political lawfare there’s dumb, and then there’s the criminal subpoena federal prosecutors delivered Friday to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. President Trump would do himself and the country a big favor by firing those responsible for this fiasco. The subpoena relates to testimony Mr. Powell gave to Congress in June concerning renovations to the Fed’s office buildings in Washington, D.C. Those renovations raised a brief ruckus over the summer after Administration officials such as Russ Vought of the Office of Management and Budget accused the Fed of running over budget on a needlessly grandiose project. Fair...

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street ticked to more records Monday after bouncing back from losses taken because of worries about the worsening feud between the White House and the Federal Reserve, one that experts warn could lead to higher inflation in the future. The S&P 500 tacked 0.2% onto its prior all-time high set on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered an early loss of nearly 500 points and added 86, or 0.2%, to its own record, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.3%. Some nervousness was still evident in the market, though, amid concern that the Fed may...

Nvidia and Palantir's competitive AI edges won't last, argues Michael Burry Famed for predicting the housing market crash and a vocal skeptic of the AI boom, Michael Burry is now invoking one of the world's most famous investors to add gravitas to his argument. Burry used an escalator built by Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) Chairman Warren Buffett, in a department store he owned in the late 1960s, to illustrate how vast AI spending may not leading to value accruing across its supply chain. "When the department store across the street put an escalator in, he had to, too. In the end,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st8GKlONVz8 Jan 11, 2026 The CIA has been quietly helping Ukraine target Russian oil infrastructure, and in this video I explain why that shift has nothing to do with explosions and everything to do with breaking systems. This isn’t Hollywood spy stuff. It’s industrial warfare aimed at the parts Russia cannot easily replace. I break down how Ukraine moved from flashy refinery strikes to precision attacks on critical bottlenecks, why intelligence agencies excel at identifying industrial choke points, and how hitting the right component can keep a refinery offline for weeks or months. This is pressure applied at the foundation...

“Uninvestable.” That’s how Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods on Friday described Venezuela under the current socialist regime. It’s also what Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his comrade Cea Weaver plan to make New York City’s housing market. As rent restrictions drive thousands of apartment buildings across the city into disrepair and threaten a cascade of foreclosures, Mr. Mamdani has tapped Ms. Weaver to implement his goal of “decommodifying” housing. Their plan: Drive out private investors by making it impossible to turn a profit and keep properties in serviceable condition. Then the government will seize the buildings and hand them over to...

In yet another major blow to the German automobile labor market, Mercedes has announced it will be relocating production of its A-Class from Rastatt, Germany, to Kecskemét, Hungary. While Hungary’s foreign minister is taking a victory lap, Germany’s largest opposition party is sharply crticizing the government as signs grow that Germany’s automobile market is faltering. Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó has officially confirmed Mercedes move, writes Budapester. Szijjártó credited the success to “an economic policy based on sound common sense and a stable government that continually attracts new investment projects from global companies in America, Asia, and even Germany.” However, the...

Reality does not negotiate. There are decisive geostrategic consequences of the two Gates of Silver closing at the same time. The first Gate of Silver that closed is that the world’s silver price is now the price of physical silver, which is fixed largely in Shanghai and in Chinese Yuan (CNY), not US Dollars (USD). The second Gate of Silver that closed is that as of January 1st. China not only dominates the world’s silver refining capacity no matter where silver is mined, it requires a permit to export silver, so Beijing decides to whom silver can be exported. For...

We’ve spent many an article bringing you the foibles of California. Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Democrat supermajority (there are currently 90 Democrats running Sacramento's legislature, with only 30 Republicans) have brought high taxes, crime, homelessness, rampant illegal immigration, and (in)affordability. These are just a few of the issues they have faceplanted on, turning the state that was not so long ago a place where people once dreamed of living into a laughingstock. heir latest boneheaded proposition is to further tax billionaires, who already pay a massive share of the state's revenue. Whether or not you like really, really rich...

Jan. 5 (UPI) -- A Utah police department's use of artificial intelligence led to a police report stating -- falsely -- that an officer had been transformed into a frog.

For millions of Americans, buying a home no longer feels like a goal. It feels like a gamble they are destined to lose. Prices rise faster than savings. Mortgage payments outpace wages. Each rejected offer chips away at confidence.Donald Trump says that cycle must stop.His plan to ban large institutional investors from buying houses has struck a nerve across the US. It speaks directly to people who believe the housing market no longer serves them.The message is blunt. Homes are for people, not corporations.A Promise Built on FrustrationFor many, housing affordability defines their daily lives. Their circumstances have changed; many...