Free Republic

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urged the central bank’s forecasters on Wednesday to remain flexible and “think outside” traditional economic models, as they continue to offer projections for a post-pandemic economy that has repeatedly confounded expectations. Powell touted the Division of Research & Statistics, which provides the Fed with economic data and analysis ahead of its interest rate decisions, at a conference celebrating the division’s 100th anniversary.

US inflation is lower than it was a year ago (cheers from The View CNN and MSNBC cheerleaders), but inflation remains stubborning above The Fed’s 2% target rate and will likely remain above 2% for the nexf few years. So mortgage demand is much like inflation … mortgage demand increased in the latest week but generally is very low compared to last year. Mortgage applications increased 2.5 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 3, 2023. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage...

Shocking surveillance video captured the moment a crew of brazen would-be crooks burst into a California convenience store using a massive backhoe — only to leave empty-handed as a terrified clerk looked on. Footage of the Monday morning mayhem at the AMPM store in West Oakland shows the bucket of the construction vehicle crashing through bullet-proof glass and smashing an ATM machine while the unnamed clerk runs for his life, according to KGO-TV.

A captivating video showcasing the skateboarding talents of either a French bulldog or a Pug (the breed is not confirmed) has left netizens utterly amazed. This awe-inspiring footage, recently shared on Pinterest, features the adorable pup effortlessly gliding on a skateboard with more finesse than most humans could ever dream of!

Or from 2018. Or from 2022. Or from any election where the feckless RNC is tasked with holding the line against a relentless assault on Americans’ rights and freedoms. Based on these off-year election results, things are going to get a whole lot worse for Republican voters to mobilize to make necessary changes in their government. First, let’s get to the gubernatorial elections. Governor of Kentucky Andy Beshear was re-elected after beating Trump-endorsed candidate Daniel Cameron, an evangelical running amidst an unpopular near-total state ban on abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Beshear’s...

Maine voters rejected a ballot initiative Tuesday that would have replaced the state’s electric utilities with the first state consumer-owned utility. The initiative, Question 3, would have created the Pine Tree Power company through a takeover of Maine’s two investor-owned utilities, Versant and CMP. The Associated Press called the race Tuesday night with about 68 percent of the vote counted, indicating only about 30 percent of voters supported the proposition.

The US economy is drowing in debt, going down, down, down. US Federal debt just hit $33.71 TRILLION. And unfunded liabilities (promises from Uncle Spam) are now $211 TRILLION. That is 526% of the the current debt load. Which means either lots of additional debt, higher tax rates or cuts in entitlements. The cost of US debt continues to soars as The Fed combats Bidenflation. Livin’ La Vida Biden! And Bidenomics!!!

... Indian authorities have barred any solidarity protest in Muslim-majority Kashmir and asked Muslim preachers not to mention the conflict in their sermons, residents and religious leaders told The Associated Press. .. But in Kashmir, being quiet is painful for many. “From the Muslim perspective, Palestine is very dear to us, and we essentially have to raise our voice against the oppression there. But we are forced to be silent,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key resistance leader and a Muslim cleric. He said he has been put under house arrest each Friday since the start of the war and...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made a surprise visit to Ukraine to meet with government leaders to discuss the county’s economic recovery, the Department of Transportation announced Wednesday. Buttigieg will discuss efforts to “return Ukraine to economic self-sufficiency,” including supporting investments in transportation infrastructure that will “return to private-sector led growth,” the department said.

A top executive from the company behind the voting machines that “flipped votes” in Pennsylvania on Tuesday has admitted that “someone from our team programmed the election.” The voting machine issued caused votes in an eastern Pennsylvania county to appear to be “flipped” on a ballot question, officials said Tuesday. Voters were asked to decide whether Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges Jack Panella and Victor Stabile should be retained for additional 10-year terms. The “yes” or “no” votes for each judge were switched on a summary displayed to voters before they cast their ballot, said Charles Dertinger, the Northampton County director...

Earlier today, we reported on the sad reality that Ohio had voted to enshrine the right to murder babies into its Constitution, a seismic shift that was partially carried forward by an unlikely contingent—25 percent of white evangelicals according to exit polls conducted by the Washington Post. This alarmingly high minority within the evangelical community, by their ballot, have signaled a disturbing shift in the moral landscape of the Church. In the face of such a vote, one must question the influence of evangelical leadership. Figureheads like Brent Leatherwood and organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty...

NATIONAL CAPPUCCINO DAY National Cappuccino Day on November 8th whips up a frothy, hot cup of cappuccino. It's a perfect drink on a frosty morning, meeting with friends or just to enjoy a creamy cuppa. #CappuccinoDay Traditionally prepared with espresso, hot milk, and steamed milk foam, a cappuccino is an Italian coffee drink. The word cappuccino comes from the Capuchin friars and is the diminutive form of cappuccio in Italian, meaning hood or something that covers the head. This popular coffee beverage got its name not from the hood on their habits but from the color of the hooded robes...

Leading pro-life groups are responding to yesterday’s vote in Ohio, where voters approved issue 1, which creates a so-called right to kill babies in abortions in the state constitution. Pro-Life advocates told LifeNews they would keep fighting to protect babies from abortion and work hard to change hearts and minds in the pro-life direction. Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, told LifeNews that the pro-life movement has to work overtime to combat the massive disinformation campaign from liberals and the media. Misinformation campaigns funded by Big Abortion and its sympathizers pushed a “women will die without Issue 1”...

Eagle-eyed NFL fans believe they already know who will take to the field at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas in February. We are still 95 days out from the highly-anticipated climax of the NFL season but that still hasn't stopped fans from sharing a wild conspiracy theory online. Some have predicted that the two teams who battle for the Vince Lombardi Trophy are pre-selected by the NFL and their team's colors combine to make up that year's Super Bowl logo. Explaining this theory, popular X account NFL Memes initially pointed out that the logo for Super Bowl LVI was...

An Alabama mayor and pastor who killed himself after local media reported on his cross-dressing alter ego wrote erotic fiction using thinly-veiled identities of people in his community, it has emerged. F.L. 'Bubba' Copeland, 62, died by suicide on November 3 after details of his 'alter ego' Brittini Blaire Summerlin were shared online. Copeland was the mayor of Smiths Station, a town of almost 7,000 people 10 miles from Columbus, Georgia. He also owned a grocery store in the town, and was lead pastor at the First Baptist Church of Phenix City, just across the river from downtown Columbus. Copeland,...

Shootings happen over and over in the same locations. About half take place in just 1% to 5% of the land area in U.S. cities – in other words, in a tiny percentage of the nation’s homes, stores, parks and street corners. These same neighborhoods tend to suffer from what criminologists call concentrated disadvantage – an unsavory mix of high crime rates, illegal drug markets, poverty, limited educational and economic opportunities, and residential instability. Cumulatively, these factors decrease the residents’ ability to maintain public order and safety in the ways that safer neighborhoods do informally by confronting violent behavior or...

X, the company formerly known as Twitter, handed out stock grants to employees on Monday that showed it was worth about $19 billion, down about 55 percent from the $44 billion that Elon Musk paid to buy the firm a year ago, according to internal documents seen by The New York Times. Mr. Musk paid $54.20 a share to buy Twitter just over a year ago. The tech billionaire has since said he overpaid for the social network. In March, he wrote in an email to workers that he believed the company was worth $20 billion, calling it “an inverse...

[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]On October 18, pro-terrorist insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol after a hate rally by two anti-Israel groups: IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. Both hate groups had issued statements that either justified or rationalized the Hamas atrocities against Israelis.IfNotNow’s statement after the Hamas rapes, killings and kidnappings argued that, “we cannot and will not say today’s actions by Palestinian militants are unprovoked. Every day under Israel’s apartheid system is a provocation.” Jewish Voice for Peace described the Hamas attacks as...

The 5 story second century AD brick-faced insula apartment building is one of the best preserved ones from the ancient Rome. It is located at the base of the Capitoline hill. It was spared during the construction of the Vittoriano monument, and before that, two different churches abutted the structure; medieval S. Biagio and Baroque S. Rita.Capitoline Insula - best preserved apartment building from Ancient Rome | 3:16Ancient Rome Live | 45.1K subscribers | 7,017 views | December 5, 2019

In the month since the horrific jihadist attacks on Israeli civilians, worldwide protests and antisemitic rallies, replete with Nazi-era slogans and tropes, began even before Israel launched its war against Hamas. In the U.S., these demonstrations include unprecedented coalitions of Muslims and “woke” leftists, a seemingly oxymoronic alliance, given that everything else Islam and leftism stand for are mutually exclusive.Yet there is a deeper connection between Islam and the left, one that goes beyond tactical alliances––an inveterate hatred of the modern West and its defining goods like tolerance, political equality, unalienable individual rights, separation of church and state, and especially...