Free Republic

Unlike other central banks that have considered to use negative interest rates to prop up their economy, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced today that they will be using “complex numbers” as interest rates by the end of the next fiscal quarter. Jerome Powell indicated that the initial idea for the major policy shift came to him in an entirely unexpected setting. “We were having a meeting concerning our IT budget and future technology improvements within the Reserve. Towards the end of the meeting, even though we had not officially considered it, I tossed out the question if anyone had an...

Twenty-two aldermen today called on the city to quickly commission a study on the feasibility of a municipal takeover of Commonwealth Edison’s infrastructure in Chicago. The proposed order, spearheaded by democratic socialists on the City Council, comes as the city’s franchise agreement with ComEd is due to be renewed. That agreement, which permits ComEd to operate in the city, dates back to 1947 and has been negotiated only twice. The last time it was renewed was in 1992. “Chicago has an opportunity to define its energy future,” 35th Ward Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said in a statement. “Through municipalization, Chicago could...

Working summers at an authentically quaint roadside produce stand, a teenage salesperson is schooled in the not-so-subtle art of how to con a foodie from the big city. Illustrations by Eric Palma. I met my first New York foodie over twenty years ago, when I was seventeen, hawking “local bananas” at a roadside produce stand in rural New Jersey. It was my first job, and I worked all day on my own. Arriving early in the morning at the little wooden hut, ten miles from the nearest town, I stocked the displays from the refrigerated trailer behind the stand, building...

In an interview with CNN on Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris argued that President Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his promises to workers. And she issued a dire warning about autoworkers' jobs in particular. "He said he was going to help working people, and it is estimated that as many as 300,000 autoworkers may be out of a job before the end of the year," she said aboard her campaign bus in Iowa. That was a more conservative figure than Harris used July 12 on the radio show "The Breakfast Club," during which she said, "He's helped the top...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A man died shortly after competing in a taco-eating contest at a minor league baseball game in California, authorities said Wednesday. Dana Hutchings, 41, of Fresno, died Tuesday night shortly after arriving at a hospital, Fresno Sheriff spokesman Tony Botti said.

The specter of white supremacy haunts America. Let us empower the government to crush it. Just yesterday, “the deplorables” were to be deplored because they were “racist, sexist, homophobic,” clingers to “God and guns,” and Russian dupes to boot. Today, the agility and unanimity with which our politicians and media—heck, the ruling class—have shifted to indicting roughly 72 percent of the population as white supremacists, likely violent, would fill with envy their homologues in China, Cuba, North Korea, and other tyrannical places. By comparison, Joseph Goebbels had sloppy message discipline. Not even the Soviets in their salad days were so...

More inciting hatred for white people

David Mamet’s latest play Bitter Wheat opened in London’s West End in June to largely negative reviews, which is somewhat surprising, because it’s terrific. Then again, maybe it’s not so surprising. Most theatre critics are bleeding-heart leftists, and following his embrace of a more conservative attitude, they simply regard David Mamet as a traitor. It’s petty, but it really is that simple. What Mamet has accomplished with this play — ostensibly a theatrical treatment of the birth of the #MeToo movement — is to present the liberal elite mindset for what it is: self-centred virtue signalling coupled with a complete...

Pope Francis said recently that he was “concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934.” He was talking about the rise of extreme nationalism and populism, which he feared could lead to the fragmentation of the European Union. The pope should be worried about any current resemblances in Europe to the Nazi past, but the pope’s praise of the European Union as an antidote is premature. Indeed, the European Union itself is on the verge of reviving the Nazis’ stigmatization of Jewish-made products on the pretext that they come from “occupied” Palestinian territories. According to sources...

Campus Reform's Ethan Cai recently visited George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to ask students to sign a petition supporting the motion to change the "offensive" and "oppressive" white stick figure in LED crosswalk signs. Cai visited the university undercover, urging students to sign the outlet's fake petition. The petition urged the university "to consider changing the crosswalk signs," because a white man telling students when it is OK to cross the street is oppressive. "As we students cross the street," the petition read, "we are told by the symbol of a white man when it is OK to cross....

While universal background checks are pushed as a response to the El Paso and Dayton shooting attacks, it should be remembered that such checks are unenforceable without a gun registry. In other words, once such checks are in place, it is only a matter of time before lawmakers — in one party or the other — suggest a loose registration scheme. They will most likely do this in the days after the first mass public attack that occurs once universal background checks are the law of the land. Think about it — universal background checks presume that the government knows...

FULL TITLE: EXCLUSIVE: Jeffrey Epstein had a painting of Bill Clinton wearing a blue DRESS and red heels and lounging in the Oval Office inside his Manhattan mansion - visitor reveals bizarre image inside pedophile's $56m lair Jeffrey Epstein had a bizarre portrait of Bill Clinton in a dress hanging in his Manhattan mansion, DailyMailTV can reveal. The picture depicting the former president apparently lounging on a chair in the Oval Office, wearing red heels and posing suggestively in a blue dress redolent of Monica Lewinsky was in a room off the stairway of the Upper East Side townhouse. The...

Before dawn on 14 August 1942 a lone B-17 Flying Fortress taxied to the end of the runway at a remote jungle airstrip seven miles from Port Moresby, New Guinea to scout for Japanese shipping. Aboard are four veterans of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Royal Australian Air Force copilot, a former cavalry trooper, a Scottish gunner, and a navigator that, despite having just turned 21, was already a veteran of 45 sorties. The pilot runs up the throttles and the bomber disappears into the pre-dawn sky for a nine-hour reconnaissance patrol. The crew will never be seen again....

<p>EXCELSIOR, Minn. (ChurchMilitant.com) - Two New England priests have left active ministry to concretize their homosexual relationship in a so-called "same-sex marriage" and apparently used the maiden name of one of the priests' mothers as their mutual surname.</p> <p>Father Joseph Cooper and Fr. Michael Clements recently "married" and moved to Minnesota, leaving behind a trail of hurt and betrayed parishioners as well as financial questions of a possibly criminal nature.</p>

New indictments are expected in the wake of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s death by apparent suicide, as the case shifts to focus on unnamed co-conspirators, according to criminal defense lawyers. Two criminal defense attorneys told The Epoch Times that if the government was investigating Epstein to such a degree that they were able to make an arrest, it can be assumed that federal prosecutors in New York were also gathering evidence on those in his inner circle. One attorney specifically mentioned the disgraced financier’s former girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly assisted Epstein in luring minors. He said...

RUSH: You’ve seen where shots were fired at an ICE office in Texas? Now, if we’re going to play this game, who has been demonizing ICE? Well, yeah, liberal Democrats. But at the top of the list would be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been running around claiming that ICE and Trump are keeping young kids and others in “concentration camps.” So now here comes some Looney Tune shooting up an ICE office. Now, is the Drive-By Media going to do weeks and months of exhaustive research of transcripts of public statements made by people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Joaquin Castro...

RUSH: Since there are an increasing number of people tuning into this program each and every day, my good friends, we’ll take the opportunity of this occasion to explain something once and for all since, as I mentioned, the entertainment tabloid TV shows decided to do exhaustive in-depth investigations into just where this nickname “Fredo” came from. don’t blame them. They’re watching this happen all day yesterday. Where did this come from? The Drive-Bys are not reporting it. In fact, the best story on this so far that gets it exactly right, unsurprisingly, is the Fox News website. And we’ll...

Full title: Man, 46, arrested for punching Andy Dick outside a New Orleans bar 'claims the controversial comedian grabbed his genitals before the attack' Dick claims he was knocked unconscious for 15 minutes after he fell to the ground following the attack.

This is a very sobering map showing the locations of homicides in Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County area from 2005 to date.

Full title: The world's first solar road has turned out to be a colossal failure that's falling apart and doesn't generate enough energy, according to a report The world's first solar road has turned out to be a colossal failure that's falling apart and doesn't generate enough energy, according to a report The unfortunate truth is that this road is in such a poor state, it isn't even worth repairing. Last May, a 100-meter stretch had deteriorated to such a state that it had to be demolished. According to Le Monde's report, various components of the road don't fit properly...