Free Republic

Inflation was muted last month, but plenty of consumers are still grumpy about high prices — and many say the government is primarily to blame. That’s according to recent research distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Economists surveyed about 3,000 adults to gauge their understanding of the causes and consequences of inflation. It’s a big problem for President Joe Biden, who has faced historically low approval ratings of his handling of the economy. Inflation — and Americans’ pessimistic view of it — amounts to “one of the most punishing and damaging domestic setbacks of any president in the...

VIDEOWhen there are grey skies I don't mind the grey skies You make them blue, Sonny Boy Friends may forsake me Let them all forsake me I still have you Sonny Boy.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year agreed to a tax increase that aimed to do two things: Help balance a budget with a multibillion-dollar shortfall, and pay doctors more money to treat patients covered by Medicaid — the taxpayer-funded health insurance program for people with low incomes that now covers one out of every three people in the state. A year later, California is relying on this tax more than ever. Newsom raised it again in March to help cover another multibillion-dollar shortfall this year. And he's proposing to raise it a third time to generate even more money as...

Donald Trump wants to talk about revenge, and neither Sean Hannity nor Dr. Phil can stop him. Both have tried. Fresh off his historic guilty verdict in New York, Trump’s public comments, including in interviews with both men, have increasingly focused on the idea of “retribution” against his enemies if he returns to the White House. It’s rhetoric driven by Trump’s obsession that President Joe Biden and Democrats orchestrated a series of legal problems intended to derail his presidential campaign — a political persecution theory not supported by the facts. On May 30, a New York jury unanimously found Trump...

Recruitment professionals and victims of ‘ghost posting’ say the practice hurts everyone, including the companies that create them.. Amid complex hiring processes, a shadow is spreading in the American business world. Companies are using fake online job openings to project an image of growth, keep existing employees motivated, and cultivate a pool of possible future candidates with no intention of hiring, according to research. The practice is commonly known as “ghost posting” and it accounts for 43 percent of online job openings across multiple industries. A Clarify Capital survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers showed that, beyond fake growth...

Marxism was easily the most destructive political theory to ever be put into practice. Over the course of the 20th century it was responsible for the purposeful killing of well over 100 million people. To put that evil into context, the slave trade into the United States was 400,000 people, the number of Congolese dead during the reign of King Leopold II of Belgium is estimated as high as 10 million and the total number of deaths during WWII was 73 million. But Communism beats them all, combined. And the vast majority of those numbers came from governments killing their...

Negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have been trying for months to mediate a ceasefire and free the hostages, more than 100 of whom are believed to remain captive in Gaza. Hamas wants written guarantees from the United States for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip in order to sign off on a US-backed truce proposal, two Egyptian security sources said. Mediators Qatar and Egypt said Hamas had responded on Tuesday to the phased ceasefire plan for an end to the eight-month war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group, without giving...

Biden’s Problems Are the Real ThreatsDemocratic analysts don’t seem to understand why the all-out legal assault on President Donald Trump isn’t working. It’s because they keep talking among themselves and not with the American people.The American people don’t live and work in the New York-Washington political-media-government bubble. If reporters and analysts listened to Americans, as we do at America's New Majority Project, they would learn how decisive the choice between President Joe Biden or President Trump is. They would also see how difficult, if not impossible, it will be for President Biden to get easily re-elected.The propaganda media is trying...

The middle class and low wager workers are made for kicking. And that’s with Bidenomics did. The headline consumer price index was unchanged MoM in May – the smallest change since July 2022 – just less than the +0.1% MoM expected. On a YoY basis, headline CPI rose 3.3% (less than the 3.4% exp) – but very much stuck in a range well above the 2% target for over year now… Source: Bloomberg Energy was the biggest drag on the headline CPI MoM…(Gasoline prices tumbled 3.6% in May from April, one key reason why the headline CPI was flat on...

It was quite a week for the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden. She attended the trial of her stepson, Hunter Biden, in Wilmington, Delaware the first three days of the week. Then, she flew to France to participate in the ceremonies for the 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday, with her husband, President Joe Biden. Then, she flew back to Wilmington, Delaware to attend her stepson’s trial on Friday, before flying back to France to join her husband at an elaborate state dinner on Saturday at the Elysee Palace.

Today marks the centenary of the birth of George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st president of the United States. With one exception — his eldest son in 2004 — he is the last Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote. He was a remarkable man in many ways, having been decorated as a U.S. Navy pilot during World War II, and his resume before the presidency was broad. After becoming a successful oil executive, he was a two-term congressman, unsuccessful candidate for the Senate, ambassador to the United Nations and to China, chairman of the Republican National Committee and director...

Joe Biden is in decline. Despite left-wing protestations to the contrary, of that there is no question or doubt. The only question is how long can he hang on? The Wall Street Journal issued a damning report: US President Joe Biden, 81, shows signs of cognitive decline in closed-door meetings, reports the Wall Street Journal, basing its months-long investigation on interviews with more than 45 people. The White House and other Democrats pushed back forcefully on the report. The majority of those who expressed concern were Republicans, said the WSJ, but some Democrats also revealed that Biden had shown signs...

Does anyone use a cell connection for internet service ?I have Comcast (the only one available here), and it's expensive, but relatively reliable.I use a pay as you go TRACPHONE for approx. $20 a month and I wonder how it would work to use my cell connection.My Tracphone is essentially an emergency tool, very little data but unlimited voice and text.What is required of a crell phone to use as an internet connector ?

Americans still read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, 75 years after it was first published on June 8, 1949. At the time, the year 1984 was far in the future; now it’s 40 years in the past. Yet our present feels more than ever like Orwell’s dystopia. The novel is set on Airstrip One, a totalitarian version of what is today Britain. Its protagonist is Winston Smith, a censor working in the Ministry of Truth. His job is to alter historical records to conform to whatever the ruling party now decrees. He rewrites history and the very documents on which historians...

On this date in 1987, then President Reagan made his famous Tear Down This Wall Speech. “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace–if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe–if you seek liberalization: come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

The financial world is bracing for a significant upheaval following Saudi Arabia's decision not to renew its 50-year petro-dollar deal with the United States, which expired on Sunday, 9 June, 2024. The lapsed security agreement - signed by the United States and Saudi Arabia on 8 June 1974 - establishes two joint commissions, one on economic co-operation and the other on Saudi Arabia's military needs, and was said to have heralded an era of increasingly close co-operation between the two countries. American officials at the time expressed optimism that the deal would motivate Saudi Arabia to ramp up its oil...

Trump-backed candidate Sam Brown soared to victory Tuesday night in the Nevada Republican primary senatorial race. Brown, who had served in Afghanistan, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump on Sunday and received 58,395 votes, or 56.9 percent, according to the Associated Press (AP). Other candidates such as Jeff Gunter, the former United States Ambassador to Iceland during Trump’s administration, received 16,713 votes, or 16.3 percent, while former Nevada State Rep. Jim Marchant (R) received 6,923 votes, or 6.7 percent.

A now-arrested Arizona man was plotting a racially motivated mass shooting in Georgia to incite a race war ahead of the upcoming election, the federal authorities say. The Department of Justice says 58-year-old Mark Prieto was planning a mass shooting and wanted to recruit others with racist beliefs. Court records allege Prieto revealed his plan to FBI informants, which involved shooting up a rap concert in Atlanta, Georgia because he believed there would be more Black people there. Prieto wanted to carry out his plan sometime before the election. He's charged with firearms trafficking for use in a hate crime,...

Almost nothing in the appearance of Yaron Avraham, a religious Jew, can provide any hint of his past life and horrible childhood experiences. YARON AVRAHAM wearing his IDF uniform and tefillin. (photo credit: Courtesy) “I’m sorry for all the mess, I’ve been busy with setting up my new restaurant, a dream come true,” said Yaron Avraham, 46, smiling apologetically while talking to The Jerusalem Post. Almost nothing in the appearance of Avraham, a religious Jew, can provide any hint of his past life and horrible childhood experiences. Avraham was born in Lod to a radical family affiliated with the Islamic...

A California State Legislature committee has approved a bill that could allocate a staggering $800 billion for slavery reparations—a sum that is more than 2.5 times the state’s annual budget. This decision comes from a state that historically never practiced slavery and will be paying individuals who themselves were never enslaved. The reparations initiative stems from the recommendations of California’s Reparations Task Force, which convened for the first time in 2020. The task force, made up of eight black members and one Asian member, was established through Assembly Bill 3121. According to the California Attorney General’s website, the committee’s purpose...