Free Republic

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled Friday that interest rate cuts are coming soon. "The time has come for policy to adjust," Powell said in his speech during the Kansas City Fed's symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. "The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks." "Inflation is now much closer to our objective, with prices having risen 2.5% over the past 12 months," he said. "After a pause earlier this year, progress toward our 2% objective has resumed. My confidence has...

CHICAGO — In his history as a candidate for president, Donald Trump has never experienced anything like the past month. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black and Indian American woman, has pushed the White alpha male to the sidelines of the national conversation, denying him the spotlight he craves and constantly demands.Democrats concluded their electrifying national convention here on Thursday night with Harris as the main event, delivering an address sculpted to keep her on the crest of a wave that has changed the contours of the presidential election.The Democrats are in the game, the former president is in a...

That fetid gust of hot air you may have detected wafting from Republican and conservative social media postings over the last day or two was a fabricated claim that Kamala Harris is plotting to tax everyone’s unrealized capital gains if she becomes president. That would be a departure from current law, which taxes capital gains only when the underlying assets are sold, or “realized.” That it’s a mythical allegation hasn’t stopped right-wingers and GOP functionaries from hand-wringing over the economic implications of any such change, and over the purportedly horrible impact on average Americans. Here, for instance, is the far-right...

Kamala Harris’s deputies awarded a speaking slot to advocates for rape survivors just after the slot given to five men who had been convicted in a brutal 1989 gang rape in New York’s Central Park. The enthusiastic audience showed no dismay at the contrast, in part, because the five men were released and exonerated after a jailhouse claim by another man who admitted to raping the same woman.

Rules proposed by the Biden-Harris administration in July intended to stop foreigners from purchasing land near U.S. military installations fail to cover a Chinese Communist Party-linked company building a facility 63 miles from a key National Guard base.... The apparent exception secured by Gotion followed a massive uptick in lobbying, with the Chinese-linked firm spending $2.7 million on lobbyists in the first half of 2024, including on operations aimed at influencing the White House and Treasury Department.... Michigan, led by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, has set aside $175 million to subsidize Gotion’s facility, and the CCP-linked company was eligible to...

Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) said Friday on “CNN News Central” that former President Donald Trump disparages the United States, thus he was not a patriot. Waters said, “The theme that ran through what we were doing last night as Democrats was happened to educate the people about Trump and who has been what he has done the difference between being really patriotic and love in this country and someone that’s despairing the country talking about how the United States is falling apart, it’s no good. She added, “How do you how do you entertain talking with someone who wants to...

The Democratic National Convention reached its appointed destination last night with the acceptance of the 2024 presidential nomination by Kamala Harris.... What we have here is Barack Obama 2.0. Kamala Harris has magically materialized like a fairy to carry on where Obama left off. She is being run by Obama campaign hands. She has dropped the cackling. There is no crying in baseball and there is no laughing in politics. Not in public, anyway. Harris is the subject of a makeover. Listening to the peculiar vacuity of her speech live last night, I thought, now I understand. She is unburdened...

We were wrong. That was the message Friday from TMZ that acknowledged it falsely claimed pop icon Beyoncé would take the stage in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. The entertainment outlet had claimed the hitmaker was set to warm up the crowd before Vice President Kamala Harris strode forward and accepted the Democratic presidential nomination inside the crowded United Center. That never happened and critics were quick to point out the Democratic Party let the rumors run wild in an effort to boost the primetime television audience.

The Kamala campaign is just Oprah with even less substance so it was little surprise when the portly talk show racist showed up at the DNC to cheer her on to her target audience that has dedicated its lives to abortion and celebrity gossip. Oprah warned, “we won’t go back, we won’t be sent back, pushed back, bullied back, kicked back. We’re not going back.” Then the celebrity who spent a generation shamelessly milking her audience claimed that “values and character matter most of all.” And if anyone can find an example of that in Oprah’s life, good luck. “Let...

India's Department of Space has outlined plans to send its first astronaut to space next year, establish a space station by 2035, and land an Indian on the Moon by 2045. Minister of Science and Technology Dr Jitendra Singh called establishing the Bhartiya Antariksh Station – which was first publicly announced in 2019 – and the placing of India’s first man on the Moon as "cornerstone projects" of the nation's space program. The Bharatiya Antariksha Station is intended to house astronauts for 15 to 20 days at an orbit of around 400km above the Earth and was initially planned to...

The Democratic National Convention is set to wrap up tonight, but how does it fare when compared with the Republican National Convention? The Babylon Bee conducted extensive research to compare and contrast the two: RNC: Free AR-15 with the purchase of a bucket of fried chicken DNC: Free mandatory abortions RNC: The nominee received no votes from Democrats DNC: Ditto RNC: Opened with a prayer to God DNC: Opened with a traditional human sacrifice to Moloch RNC: Free ammo for your guns DNC: Free vasectomies to make sure you can only shoot blanks RNC: Hulk Hogan DNC: Drag queens...

"Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn't it?" asked Michelle Obama at the top of her stemwinder speech to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. "You know, we're feeling it here in this arena, but it's spreading across this country we love. A familiar feeling that has been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I'm talking about. It's the contagious power of hope." Hope and change: the twin themes of her husband's winning 2008 campaign. ... The convention's goal was to revive the faded tropes of Obamamania and use them to aid Harris...

Turkey will be the nation to destabilize NATO. The nation has had discrepancies with the EU, US, and most nations within the bloc. “In an environment where 32 allies are together, it is unthinkable to have the same views on every issue,” defense minister Yasar Guler warned. Turkey’s continued diplomatic relations with Russia are raising concerns among NATO members who simultaneously do not want to lose their connection to the Arab world. 2024_07_28_21_34_00_Erdogan_says_Turkey_might_enter_Israel_to_help_Palestinians_Reuters Erdoğan has expressed interest in joining BRICS as soon as this year. This would make Turkey the first member nation of NATO to join the alliance with...

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) on Thursday refused to endorse Kamala Harris’s bid for president one day after saying it is more important to elect her than his own reelection as Montana’s senior senator. Tester hosted a press conference in Missoula and revealed he does not want to endorse Harris because he does not want to “nationalize” his reelection. “I’m not going to endorse for the presidential, and I’ll tell you why, because — two reasons — because I’m focused on my race, and number two, people want to nationalize this race, and this isn’t about national politics. This is about...

Daily Readings from the USCCB“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37–39We are very familiar with this passage above. It is Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees who came to test Jesus. Prior to this, a group of Sadducees tried to trap Jesus and failed. So now it was the Pharisees who gave it their best shot to trap our Lord. Of course, Jesus’ answer was perfect....

Three weeks ago, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe angrily pushed back on senators’ calls to immediately fire or discipline key agents directly responsible for the security failures that led to the assassination attempt against former President Trump at last month’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Since that time, Secret Service leaders have placed several members of the Pittsburgh Field Office on administrative leave, according to three sources in the Secret Service community. (Administrative leave occurs when a federal employee temporarily leaves their position and work duties – either because of a misconduct investigation or medical or mental health issue....

Half of Americans say they don’t want to go anywhere near those disgusting vacay-blockers who will someday fund their government entitlements.Will America become a majority-childless society? A new Pew Research Center survey suggest that sadly may be the case. Such a direction would have alarming consequences for not just individuals but also for our nation.When Pew asked Americans younger than 50 if they ever plan to have children, 47 percent—one-half of those polled—said “no.” That’s up 10 percent from just five years before. In fact, of those younger than 50, 57 percent said they never wanted to have children, even...

CHICAGO — Former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy made a surprise appearance on the final day of the Democratic National Convention, just hours before Vice President Harris is set to take the stage. “I held a conference open to the public, open to the press, earlier today, where I laid out an alternative vision — the vision that not only our party, but the America First movement and Donald Trump stands for — to give voters that choice,” Ramaswamy said when asked by The Hill what his goal was in attending the convention. “And it was to call on Kamala...

Learning isn't necessarily cumulative. Human experience over the centuries provides lessons, some clearer than others. But each generation has to learn lessons anew, and some do not. The lessons about economic growth taught over the long run of history are clear. Growth is not inevitable, and while riches may be accumulated, or appropriated, by the few in high positions, the lives of the very large majority throughout the centuries have been nasty, brutish and short. The exception, the Great Enrichment, began some three centuries ago, around the North Sea, in the Dutch Republic and England, according to economic historian Deirdre...

During his visit to Chechnya on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stopped at the Prophet Isa mosque in Grozny and posed for photos while holding, and kissing, a gold-leaf copy of the Quran. Putin was flanked by his hand-picked Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, and top Chechen Muslim cleric Mufti Saah Mezhiev during his Quran smooch. The Grand Mufti ceremonially read a verse from the Quran, translated into Russian for Putin. The Prophet Isa mosque, constructed in 2020, is a huge and expensive structure that can accommodate 5,000 worshipers at once. “Prophet Isa” is Islam’s version of Jesus Christ, who ranks...