Free Republic

As The Federal Reserve tries to drain-off the extraordinary growth in its balance sheet since COVID without raising its target rate (good luck with that!), it is time to appraise where we are sitting. First, liquidity. Let’s look at the ongoing saga of Chinese conglomerate Evergrande (mainly known as a large real estate developer). Their 8.25% bond has plunged to $23.481 on speculation of a catastrophic default on their bond payments. Then we have Invesco’s Golden Dragon China ETF (measuring a diversified market cap of US-listed companies headquartered or incorporated in China & derive a majority of their revenues from...

For the past two years, the mainstream media has given tons of coverage to the Black Lives Matter movement — and rightly so. More than 80 percent of black Americans, including me, support the movement, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody. But the media is missing many nuances among African-Americans. For one, we don’t all vote alike. Yes, almost 90 percent of black voters went to bat for the Biden-Harris administration last year. But that leaves 10 percent of black voters who didn’t. Meanwhile, 25 percent of black Democrats actually consider themselves “conservative” and 43...

Many years ago I had the privilege of delivering a lecture on the life and ministry of John Calvin in the unlikely context of the Interfaith Seminar of the Catholic Archdiocese of Trento in northern Italy. A lone Reformed voice speaking to a room filled with priests and monks at the historic epicenter of the Catholic Reformation, I may not have been the exact modern equivalent of Leonidas at Thermopylae but I enjoyed being heavily outnumbered nonetheless. At the end of my lecture, every single question I was asked related to the burning of Michael Servetus by the Genevan authorities...

Cruise News Norwegian Cruise Line Ship Changes COVID-19 Testing, Masking Requirements After Omicron Variant Discovered Norwegian Cruise Line Ship Changes COVID-19 Testing, Masking Requirements After Omicron Variant Discovered December 06, 2021 All passengers and crew returning to New Orleans on December 5 after a one-week Western Caribbean sailing on the 3,963-passenger Norwegian Breakaway were tested for Covid-19 before they were allowed to leave the ship. The move, which is new for cruise lines coming and leaving from a U.S. homeport, followed the discovery of what the cruise line is calling "a handful of COVID-19 asymptomatic cases among guests and crew."...

Bob Dole was a happy undergrad at the University of Kansas in 1942. “He didn’t want to go to war,” Richard Ben Cramer writes in chapter 5 of What It Takes: The Way to the White House, his doorstop “masterpiece” (as Jonathan Martin called it when Cramer died in 2013). Dole was happily “fooling around” on campus and at his fraternity, pursuing his studies, going out for football, baseball, and track. When he heard the footsteps of the draft board after him, however, he enlisted in the Army. By the spring of 1944 he had risen to the rank of...

Dr. Anthony Fauci says that officials “feel bad” about slapping a travel ban on seven African countries, now that the omicron variant has been confirmed in several other countries.Fauci explained that, at the time the travel ban was imposed, not much was known about the omicron variant and the administration felt it was better to be safe than sorry.Some nations affected by the travel ban were upset, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling it “travel apartheid.”But Fauci now says that with “more information,” the travel ban will be lifted in a “reasonable period of time.”Fox News:“That ban was done...

Usually at this time of year, San Francisco’s luxury stores are decked with holiday garlands. Instead, they’re boarded up after widespread “flash mob” looting turned Union Square — the city’s most fashionable shopping district — into an area resembling a blighted neighborhood in Detroit. “It’s a ghost town,” said Michelle Tandler, a San Francisco native and high-tech entrepreneur, whose photos of the stores barricaded in plywood went viral on social media this week. “Every store has a security guard. People are going to lose their jobs. And these things have a ripple effect.” Two weeks ago, San Francisco was the...

Although released a week or two ago, I've found myself several times returning to the federal employee vaccine compliance numbers released by the White House Briefing Room. Looking at those numbers, some things just aren't adding up as they should. When consideration is made the fact that the administration has paused and pushed back any "enforcement" actions against employees from the end of November until sometime in January, the numbers start to look a lot more suspicious...and so do the motives behind the numbers that were released.The White House compliance numbers are very high and seem to involve only two...

As Vladimir Putin mobilizes forces on the Ukraine border and Chinese submarines patrol the Taiwan Strait, President Joe Biden’s State Department has made its priorities clear: The slave-made solar panels must flow. Republican senator Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Democratic senator Jeff Merkley (Ore.) introduced a bill in January prohibiting the importation of goods made with forced labor from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where a genocide perpetrated by the Chinese government is afoot. It passed the Senate in a voice vote in July. It was more controversial at Foggy Bottom, where we now know that Deputy Secretary of State Wendy...

A doctor in the UK who was banned from using social media by the General Medical Council for claiming “masks do nothing” has won his case in the High Court. Dr. Samuel White was slapped with and 18 month ban by the GMC after he posted a video to Instagram and Twitter in June questioning the efficacy of face coverings. In the video, White said why he could no longer tolerate working in his previous roles because of the “lies” around the NHS and the government’s response to the pandemic, which were “so vast” he could no longer “stomach” them....

A one per cent to five per cent citywide tax on gross receipts was due to be imposed in January after it was approved by voters three years ago. But the recent spate of smash-and-grab robberies has led to city supervisors delaying the tax until December 31, 2022, in a bid to help retailers who are struggling to compete with illegal drug dealers.

AUSTIN, TEXAS – The Texas power grid is struggling with fluctuating energy prices and sporadic service, but the state’s growing bitcoin mining community believes it can help fix it. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz agrees. “A lot of the discussion around bitcoin views bitcoin as a consumer of energy,” said Cruz at an event in October. “The perspective I’m suggesting is very much the reverse, which is as a way to strengthen our energy infrastructure.” The grid is called ERCOT — short for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is the organization tasked with operating it — and it’s fussy...

But it’s Democrats who have the bigger problem, starting with Biden.Bob Dole’s death at age 98 after a battle with lung cancer reminds us of how much people can contribute in their 80s and beyond. A disabled veteran, Dole served as national chairman of a campaign that raised funds for the building of the National World War II Memorial. Until recently, Dole frequently spent mornings in his wheelchair at the entrance to the memorial greeting visiting veterans. He also was active as a lobbyist, established a public-policy institute in his native Kansas, and wrote his autobiography.But all of that service...

Employers in New York City must require COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers under new rules announced Monday by Mayor Bill de Blasio. This is the first-of-its-kind mandate for private employees, CBS New York reports. The vaccine mandate for private businesses will take effect December 27 and is aimed at preventing a spike in COVID-19 infections during the holiday season and the colder months, the mayor, a Democrat, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We in New York City have decided to use a preemptive strike to really do something bold to stop the further growth of COVID and the dangers it's...

There is no better time for the GOP to craft a new Contract with America to drive the campaigns for both the 2022 midterms and 2024 Presidential election year. That's right, it should focus their campaign strategy for the next three years. Why? Even if there is an overwhelming GOP landslide next November, the chances of having a big enough swing to be able overcome a Biden veto is unlikely. No matter what Republican candidates promise; it will be hard to meet expectations until we have a president in office who will support their agenda. Even with that limitation, it...

Insider (formerly Business Insider) published what was meant to be a heart-rending story about a single mom burdened with $430,000 in student debt and a sick child, all to help promote student loan forgiveness. Instead, the article should remind us that degree jockeys in the liberal arts are, for the most part, incredibly foolish. “Maria” is a 48-year-old with a Ph.D. in some unidentified major (but it’s clearly in the liberal arts), who took out $360,000 in student loans to get her degree. Insider assures us that Maria was very thoughtful about borrowing the money:Maria had a goal to teach...

The Israeli Mossad is on its way to wreaking havoc inside Iran, says British journalist Jake Wallis Simmons. Iran is about to be hit by a new deadly wave of Israeli Mossad operations, senior Jerusalem sources told me. This will happen as a result of a change in Israeli policy, from now on, "When Tehran's proxy militias cause problems in the region, the Jewish state will take revenge on Iranian soil." It will no longer attack the octopus' tentacles, "said one senior source. It has been decided in Israel to go for the octopus head."

Over at the White House, the ongoing supply chain fiasco, which has left dozens of cargo ships stranded near West Coast ports awaiting offloads, is considered something of a joke.White House press secretary Jen Psaki came under fire on Tuesday after joking that it’s a “tragedy” some people may have to wait longer for their treadmill to arrive amid the supply-chain crisis that has disrupted global economies.“The tragedy of the treadmill delayed,” Ms. Psaki laughed when pressed about the supply-chain crisis during her daily press briefing.Well, now we're learning what's really going on here from JustTheNews:More than 100 pharmaceutical drugs...

Come join Clay and Buck every weekday from noon to three eastern time. Inspired by Rush Limbaugh, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton carry on a new form of broadcast excellence in the tradition of the late radio icon as they tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT LUKE 5:17-26 Friends, our Gospel for today tells that wonderful story of the healing of the paralytic. People gather by the dozens to hear Jesus, crowding around the doorway of the house. They bring him a paralyzed man, and because there is no way to get him through the door, they climb up on the roof and open a space to lower him down. Can I suggest a connection between this wonderful narrative and our present evangelical situation? There are an awful lot of Catholics who are paralyzed, unable to move, frozen in regard to Christ...