Free Republic

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's finances are becoming increasingly precarious, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki warned on Monday, just as markets test whether the central bank can keep interest rates ultra-low, allowing the government to service its debt. The government has been helped by near-zero bond yields, but bond investors have recently sought to break the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) 0.5% cap on the 10-year bond yield, as inflation runs at 41-year highs, double the central bank's 2% target. "Japan's public finances have increased in severity to an unprecedented degree as we have compiled supplementary budgets to respond to the coronavirus and...

ROME — Norway’s University of Bergen has launched a study of the role played by white paint in extending white supremacy around the globe. The university has received a $1.2 million government grant for its research project “How Norway Made the World Whiter” (NorWhite) to investigate “how white paint has contributed to white supremacy around the world.” The project studies the Norwegian innovation of the white pigment titanium dioxide to show “how Norway has played a globally leading role in establishing white as a superior color.”

The song by The Queen of Soul is being called 'offensive' by LGBTQ activists

Left-wing activists who pull stunts for cameras are basically acting out. When Shakespeare wrote ‘All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; And one man in his time plays many parts’, he meant it as a metaphor for human behavior. Little did the Bard know that someday actors would play parts on the global stage and reap fame and copious pecuniary gains from the performance. Enter the world’s most famous hooky player and ‘climate activist,’ Greta Thunberg. She is known all over the world for her infamous scowl and the permanence of her petulance. She...

California Governor Gavin Newsom and his wife, “First Partner” Jennifer Siebel Newsom, have quite a money-making scheme going on: “He runs the state and she’s a nonprofit founder, entrepreneur, and filmmaker,” Open the Books reports. “While her husband attends to state business, Siebel Newsom engages in her passion: advancing ‘gender justice’ through her charitable nonprofit The Representation Project. According to tax documents the organization is ‘committed to building a thriving and inclusive society through films, education, and social activism.’” Jennifer Siebel Newsom solicited state vendors and the governor’s campaign donors for large gifts to her charity, The Representation Project. Siebel...

The “Hermeneutic” of Correction and Rejection: Taking Vatican II Away from the Heretics“A certain number of important theological questions about which no agreement could be reached were left open by choosing formulations that could be interpreted differently by particular groups and theological tendencies at the Council.” (Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, as quoted in Fr. Matthias Gaudron’s The Catechism of the Crisis in the Church) Those who have sought to destroy the Church for the past several decades have routinely used Vatican II and its “Spirit” to justify their anti-Catholic initiatives. All Traditional Catholics oppose these attacks on the Church,...

Dozens of House Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the debt ceiling, which would allow the government to borrow without any limit set by Congress. The federal government hit the $31.381 trillion debt ceiling last week, and House Republicans are pushing for commitments to cut back on the record growth in federal spending before agreeing to allow more borrowing. But Democrats accuse Republicans of setting up the possibility of prohibiting a debt ceiling hike, which would make the government unable to fund all of its current obligations.

A former top FBI official in New York has been arrested over his ties to a Russian oligarch, law enforcement sources told ABC News Monday. Charles McGonigal, who was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the FBI's New York Field Office, is under arrest over his ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who has been sanctioned by the United States and criminally charged last year with violating those sanctions. McGonigal retired from the FBI in 2018. He was arrested Saturday afternoon after he arrived at JFK Airport following travel in Sri Lanka, the sources said.

Democracy, like the polar bears, the bald eagle and the 99-cent pizza slice, is threatened. We know that’s true because the media, the least democratic body outside of North Korea, tells us this all the time. And we know that it must be true because apart from its daily panics over some political, medical, environmental or economic crisis that will later turn out to be imaginary or overblown, the media has an unbroken track record of honesty and truth that almost equals that of Bill Clinton. So who better to warn us about the threat to democracy than an undemocratic...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during an exhaustive interview with the New York Times that she believes there are “other great candidates” outside of President Joe Biden who could challenge and defeat former President Donald Trump in 2024. When asked about President Biden, Pelosi spoke highly of him, asserting that he has “done a great job” in office. However, she said it will ultimately be up to him to choose to run again in 2024, which could very well pit him against Trump yet again. “Is age a positive thing for him? No,” the 82-year-old congresswoman said of...

The October 2020 letter alleging that damaging content on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop was Russian disinformation and was signed by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Director of National intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan and others is now admitted to be a lie. Former US intel official Douglas Wise now says "we all knew the Hunter laptop had to be real, but signed the letter claiming it wasn't because we all knew that, true or false, it was essential to prevent Trump from being reelected. As post-election polls showed, 17% of those who voted for Biden...

Major US banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and others, will push into the digital wallet space in the second half of this year to take on Apple Pay and PayPal. Early Warning Services LLC (EWS), the bank-owned company that operates the money-transfer service Zelle, will be managing the new digital wallet, according to WSJ. The wallet has yet to be named but will be separate from Zelle and allow shoppers to pay at merchants' online checkouts with linked debit and credit cards. EWS plans to offer the new digital wallet later this year and can handle up...

(Last Updated On: January 18, 2023) NATIONAL PIE DAY National Pie Day on January 23rd celebrates one of the Nations’ favorite desserts. No matter how you slice it, pie in just about any form makes a crowd happy. Fruit pies, berry pies, cream pies – they are mouthwatering servings of homemade goodness. #NationalPieDay Each week we offer a new poll of a popular National Day… National Pie Day poll results are in! National Pie Day simply celebrates the pie. Everyone is invited to bake their favorite pie, but more importantly, the day reminds us to enjoy eating pies! The only...

Brazil and Argentina plan to advance talks about a common currency for financial and commercial transactions in an effort to improve economic integration, leaders of the two nations said on Jan. 21.Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in on Jan. 1, and Argentine leader Alberto Fernandez shared details about the talks regarding a shared currency in a joint article published on the Argentine website Perfil, CNBC reported.“We intend to overcome the barriers to our exchanges, simplify and modernize the rules and encourage the use of local currencies,” the two leaders wrote.“We also decided to advance discussions...

House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) formally asked Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) this weekend to seat Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Jeffries requested in a letter shared by Punchbowl News that McCarthy “honor past practice” and accept Jeffries’ recommendations of Schiff and Swalwell to the committee. “It is my understanding that you intend to break with the longstanding House tradition of deference to the minority party Intelligence Committee recommendations and deny seats to Ranking Member Schiff and Representative Swalwell,” Jeffries wrote. “The denial of seats to duly elected Members...

Authoritarians want us to forget the suffering we endured in the last three years and move on. But many people demand a Covid reckoning.New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation this week after being the nation’s leader for six years. She cited “burnout” as the reason. But many believe Ardern chose to exit early because she expected to face a humiliating defeat in this year’s election. Many Kiwis (a nickname for New Zealanders) are fed up with her government’s harsh Covid-19 restrictions. Ardern was only 37 when she was elected as prime minister. She championed leftists’ favorite causes,...

Up until recently, I was of the common mind that, yes, Xi will invade Taiwan, and very soon. With an incredibly incompetent bozo leading America, and the U.S. military playing with itself, it does seem an optimum moment for Xi to act. And I think he will do so. But we are talking about China here. An attack could come at any moment. Or it may not be for a while. Flip a coin. Predicting Xi’s actions is extremely problematic. China is a very complicated place, made even more complicated by the darkness of the inner workings of the CCP....

It’s perhaps not surprising, but there appears to be a major news blackout concerning the horrific charges against a gay couple from Georgia who allegedly pimped out their minor children for sexual abuse. Last week, Mia Cathell of the conservative website TownHall.com, launched what’s become a four-part series investigating the alleged abuses committed by William Dale Zulock and Zachary Jacoby Zulock against two boys, ages 9 and 11, they had adopted...

USA Today reported that the Monterey Park, Calif., shooting that left 10 people dead has “revived the fears and trauma” of “anti-Asian hate” for the Los Angeles Asian community.72-year-old Huu Can Tran’s murderous spree began in Monterey Park late Saturday night at the Chinese-owned Star Ballroom Dance Studio, continued at the Lai Lai Ballroom in Alhambra shortly afterward, and ended midday on Sunday with Tran’s suicide. Tran’s face had been plastered everywhere as the suspect hours before a SWAT team had surrounded his white van and discovered his dead body around 1 p.m. on Sunday. Nevertheless, USA Today went with...

Ideas that start on the progressive fringes have a way of becoming government policy these days, as President Biden’s $400 billion student loan cancellation shows. Lo, Democrats in Congress are now pressing the President to impose rent control nationwide. The White House is considering a series of executive actions that are ostensibly intended to protect tenants. Rents on average increased 17.6% in 2021 and another 3.8% last year. One culprit was near-zero interest rates while they lasted, which inflated housing prices and made it harder for young people to buy a home. The result: More demand for rental housing. Landlords...