Free Republic

Target's stock was downgraded to sector weight from overweight by KeyBanc Capital Markets. Target Corp.'s stock was downgraded to sector weight from overweight by KeyBanc Capital Markets Monday amid consumer spending pressures, specifically the impact of student loan repayments. "While we still believe in the LT [long-term] margin recovery story, we downgrade TGT to SW given increasing consumer headwinds over the next 12-18 months," wrote KeyBanc analyst Bradley Thomas, in a note. Specifically, the resumption of student loan payments represents a "sizeable" headwind for discretionary spending, according to Thomas. Student loan repayments are slated to resume later this year. Under...

Bishop John Stowe Acknowledges “Particularly Hard Year” As Pride Begins; And More NewsBishop John Stowe speaking at New Ways Ministry’s 2017 SymposiumThe following are some items that may be of interest:1) Bishop John Stowe of Lexington released a June 1st message for Pride Month, as he has done previously. This year, however, Stowe recognized the new challenges LGBTQ+ people, particularly those who are transgender and nonbinary, face. In his message, available on Facebook, the bishop, who is a leader on LGBTQ+ inclusion in the U.S., writes:“As you celebrate the annual Pride festival and other events throughout the month, know that...

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. – The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office said it has identified the man involved in an attempted murder-suicide stabbing at a Ponte Vedra Beach restaurant Saturday afternoon. Deputies said the attack happened around 4:30 p.m. at Mr. Chubby’s Wings on Valley Circle. The Sheriff’s Office posted an update Sunday on its Facebook page and identified the accused stabber as 18-year-old Spencer Pearson, who is currently in the hospital being treated for self-inflicted injuries. Investigators said if he survives, he will face multiple felonies, including attempted murder. Deputies said the attempted murder-suicide attack was targeted against a primary...

Bosom Buddies pic.twitter.com/VP9Ck9m5pH— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) June 5, 2023

African-American law professors and critical race theorists are urging the United Nations to order America to pay millions of dollars to each black citizen, reports the London Daily Mail. That would cost America over $200 trillion, many times the size of its economy. Some left-wing legal scholars claim reparations are required by international human-rights treaties signed by the U.S. or by customary international law. Their effort reflects the reality that reparations are very unpopular among American taxpayers, so there is little chance that the federal government will pay reparations, unless it is ordered to do so by the UN. 63...

The cause of global warming is showing no signs of slowing as heat-trapping carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere increased to record highs in its annual Spring peak, jumping at one of the fastest rates on record, officials announced Monday. Carbon dioxide levels in the air are now the highest they’ve been in more than 4 million years because of the burning of oil coal and gas. The last time the air had similar amounts was during a less hospitable hothouse Earth before human civilization took root, scientists said. “To me as an atmospheric scientist, that trend is very concerning,” said...

The US economy was sitting high on the global mountain top before Covid. Then Covid struck, The Federal Reserve and Congress went wild with stimulus spending and inflation went wild. This is Biden Country, a feeble shell of this once great nation. As The Fed tries to counter the years of excess monetary stimulus pre and post Covid by raising rates, we have seen mortgage rates rise 143% under Biden’s leadership. At the same time, the US Treasury yield curves (short 2Y-3m and long 10Y-2Y) remain deeply inverted. As of this AM, The Fed Funds Futures market is pricing in...

Great "Counteroffensive" seems to have run into a brick wall of sorts

Bill Clinton was busy filling Cabinet positions and shaping his economic agenda when a memo landed from a team of political advisors. Although Clinton was still more than a month away from becoming president, the topic was his reelection nearly four years off. Marked confidential and spilling over nearly eight pages, the document outlined a strategy considered vital to Clinton’s hopes for a second term: Lock down California and its generous share of electoral votes so his campaign could "concentrate its energy on other, more tightly contested, states.” In 1992, Arkansas’ five-term governor became the first Democratic presidential candidate in...

Nikki Haley says backing Ukraine is about protecting freedom and stopping tyranny worldwide, setting stark contrast with her former boss Donald Trump.

Governor Ron DeSantis’s chief strategist – Jeff Roe – is being sued by a group of “teachers, families, and businesses” in Nevada over a botched ballot initiative, with a company under his direction allegedly delivering campaign data riddled with bogus, obscene signatures. One bizarre complaint in the lawsuit filed in May is that some of the paperwork provided by Roe’s firm Axiom Strategies even “smelled like bong water”.DeFrauded?The Community Schools Initiative (CSI) hired Vanguard – a “subsidiary or alter ego of Axiom and [Jeff] Roe” – for a Clark County (NV) ballot initiative to “allow cities and municipalities to opt-out...

WHT? SA is the capital of "If it bleeds, it leads", but this is ridiculous. My receptionist's kid was at North Star Mall when it happened and did the right thing: went back into the store she was in and out the back entrance of the store, avoiding a lot of the chaos. And people still think that CC everywhere is an overreaction or paranoia...

Fox News is shaking up its weekend lineup in the wake of the departures of two hosts, Steve Hilton and Dan Bongino. Bongino, who hosted a Saturday night show, left the network last month after the two parties couldn’t reach an agreement on terms. The departure of Hilton is equally un-dramatic: he’s leaving his 9 p.m. Sunday show to dedicate himself full-time to what Fox described as a “new California non-partisan policy organization launching next week.” He will remain with the network as a contributor. In light of those departures, Fox announced a new lineup starting this weekend. The network...

Sources told Reuters of the job cuts on Saturday, which mark the first major job eliminations at the legendary studio in ten years. Lightyear director Angus MacLane had worked at Pixar as an animator for 26 years. He was part of the senior creative team on films like Toy Story 4 and Coco. Lightyear producer Galyn Susman had been at Pixar since the release of the original Toy Story film in 1995, according to Reuters’ sources. Additionally, Michael Agulnek, Pixar’s vice president of worldwide publicity since 2015, was also laid off, the report said. The job cuts took place on...

Here's the story: Woman becomes human hood ornament, driver charged. LINK: https://wnyt.com/top-stories/state-police-search-for-woman-seen-on-hood-of-moving-car/

Exploring the Theological Heritage of Francis’s Most Recent Attack on Proselytism“[I]n spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people.” (Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae) In a May 29, 2023 audience, Francis recounted one of his characteristically hostile attacks on Catholics who engage in proselytism:“I had a bad experience in this, in a youth meeting, some years...

Former Vice President Mike Pence reiterated his call on Republicans to resist what he called the “siren song of populism” during the 2024 presidential race, signaling that it will be his theme throughout his rumored run.Pence issued his plea when speaking during Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual “Roast and Ride” fundraiser in Des Moines, Iowa.“I believe we have to resist the politics of personality and the siren song of populism unmoored to timeless conservative principles, and we need to stand firm on the conservative agenda of life and liberty and a commitment to freedom that has always led us to...

Over the past decade, the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized treatment for patients with advanced lung cancer, helping many live longer lives and improving overall survival for the disease. However, an important question has remained unanswered: How long should a patient with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), who receives immunotherapy as part of their initial treatment, continue with treatment? A new retrospective cohort study suggests that it's reasonable to stop immunotherapy treatment at two years as long as their cancer hasn't progressed. The researchers found no statistically significant difference in overall survival between patients who stopped treatment...

Troops’ use of patches bearing Nazi emblems risks fueling Russian propaganda and spreading imagery that the West has spent a half-century trying to eliminate. Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine last year, the Ukrainian government and NATO allies have posted, then quietly deleted, three seemingly innocuous photographs from their social media feeds: a soldier standing in a group, another resting in a trench and an emergency worker posing in front of a truck. In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of...

The risk-taking motorist was spotted pulling the treacherous stunt Sunday on the 91 Freeway in Corona, California, according to KTLA. Video provided to the news station by another motorist shows a man wearing a neon yellow T-shirt, dark pants and a red bandana tied around his head balancing on the ledge of the open window of a car. The thrill-seeker’s entire body can be seen standing up straight outside of what appears to be a blueish-gray Nissan as it barrels down the California freeway. The startling footage then shows the man opening his arms wide as the wind whips his...