Free Republic

I worked at one of the Big Four accounting firms until two years ago when I retired early. I could see what was coming when they began to push a new program called D&I – Diversity and Inclusiveness. For those of you who have not endured this, it is an intriguing blend of CRT laced heavily with an attempt to implement quotas in the workplace. Many companies have hired high priced talent to head up their D&I programs. Mandatory training is the initial thrust of these efforts. You are forced to sit down and talk about your racial and sexual...

Joe Biden is quickly becoming known as ‘The Inflation President’ as prices rise on just about everything that Americans need to survive, including food. And what’s more, prices are not expected to drop anytime soon because this administration is simply not competent. The Epoch Times reports that due to ever-rising costs on small to mid-sized farms, food prices are set to skyrocket at least through 2022 and likely beyond, meaning wage gains that Americans experienced throughout the Trump administration are quickly dissipating as they pay more at the grocery store, the gas pump and in monthly energy and clothing expenses....

For Bitcoin, there’s only been one constant recently: decline after decline after decline. And the superlatives have piled up really quickly. With the Federal Reserve intending to withdraw stimulus from the market, riskier assets the world over have suffered. Bitcoin, the largest digital asset, lost as much as 8.7% Friday and dropped below $38,000 to its lowest level in six months. Since its peak in November, it has lost 40% of its value. Other digital currencies have suffered just as much, if not more, with Ether and meme coins mired in similar drawdowns. Bitcoin’s decline since that November high has...

What is it with the confused Biden and pipelines? Disaster 1. One day one of his presidencies he signed an Executive Order closing down the Keystone pipeline, throwing thousands of Americans out of work. Thereby, American went from being energy independent to the president begging OPEC to increase production which they refused. Result? What's the cost of filling up your vehicles, America? Disaster 2. No sooner had he closed down Keystone than he met Putin, fell in love, and lifted the Trump sanctions on the Russian NordStream pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Europe, making Russian considerably wealthier. Disaster 3....

Temperatures across parts of Texas will nosedive this week, from balmy highs Wednesday in the 70s and 80s to below freezing Thursday night into Friday, with the chance of a wintry mix. “75 to 35 sounds like a car manufacturer’s braking power, but the numbers are not in miles per hour: It’s the range of temperatures in Houston over the next few days,” said meteorologist Chad Myers. And it’s not just the Lone Star State headed for a Texas-size cold plunge. An extended cold front will stretch from the southern tip of that state to the northern edge of Maine,...

Footage of a Canadian television show has surfaced, bringing up both historic memories and nightmarish concerns. The broadcast to promote covid lockdowns is widely being viewed as a clear manipulation of children in the same way as Hamas, North Korea, and Nazi Germany.

The Trafalgar Group is very accurate in its polling. It found 55.7% of voters prefer a Republican candidate in the upcoming congressional races. 42.2% prefer a Democrat. Let me put that in perspective. Remember the 2010 congressional races when the Tea Party flipped 63 seats for Republicans, which gave them their largest majority in decades? Republicans received 51.7% of the votes overall. Democrats got 44.9%. That was a 6.8-point gap. This is a 13.5-point gap. For those who have to take off their shoes to count past 10, that is double the gap of 2010. The 1994 gap was also...

CNN tried to normalize the communist idea of the government controlling the prices of food and gas as a way to combat inflation. The idea was so bonkers, CNN even admitted that economists have largely panned the suggestion. CNN’s ridiculous story was headlined, “Should the government control the price of food and gas?” The outlet spun the idea that it's “been done before, typically during times of crisis.” But, as CNN conceded: “for most mainstream economists, the answer to this question is a resounding ‘no.’” Former President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee reportedly responded in a...

New Yorker Staff Writer David Owen took a nosedive into eco-extremism. He argued that the refrigerator has become — wait for it — “an agent of climate catastrophe.” Owen pontificated in a blog headlined, “How the Refrigerator Became an Agent of Climate Catastrophe,” that “[t]he evolution of cooling technology helps to explain why supposed solutions to global warming have only made the situation worse.” Specifically, he identified refrigerators, these unassuming little machines, as the vile culprits “of our unfolding climate catastrophe.” Really? Owen wrote as if refrigerators are cartoon villains who chomp on cigars while they devise the destruction of...

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is having trouble with the curve (yield curve, that is). It keeps inching up, meaning that Treasury’s cost of debt financing is inching up too. As Treasury yields keep rising, so does the problem of financing the massive Federal debt load. Here is a chart showing the interest outlays in the Federal budget against the cost of Federal funding at the 10-year and 2-year tenors. Now, The Fed is predicted to raise their target rate 4 times in 2022 (according to Fed Funds Futures data) and it looks like a whopping 100 basis points (or 1%)....

As President Biden completes his first year in office, he finds himself in trouble with a stalled agenda and low poll numbers. But this wasn't always the case. Back in March, Biden hosted a meeting with historians at the White House. For two-plus hours, they discussed big ideas, including how Biden could and should push through historic legislation to change America — the kind of legislation that comes around once in a generation, if not a lifetime. They also discussed Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with Biden at one point reportedly saying, "I'm no FDR, but ... " At the time, Biden...

A leftist group funded by billionaire George Soros secured a massive government contract to help illegal immigrants avoid being deported. The Vera Institute for Justice (VIJ), which “views immigration enforcement agencies as a ‘threat’ to civil liberties, secured a $158 million taxpayer-funded contract to help unaccompanied minors avoid deportation,” according to records obtained by Fox News reporter Joe Schoffstall. VIJ President and Director Nicholas Turner exploited the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the organization’s 2020 annual report to assail America as harboring “structural racism.” In addition, Turner attacked the American criminal justice system as having “roots established...

Massive Federal stimulus (both fiscal and monetary) have led to bidding wars among the wealthiest Americans. Despite clamoring for The Fed to increase rates and speed-up the shrinking of The Fed’s balance sheet, nothing has happened … yet. (Bloomberg) — Home buyers willing to spend almost a $1 million are competing the most for a piece of the red-hot U.S. housing market. Homes priced between $800,000 and $1 million saw the highest rate of bidding wars at 64.6%, followed by 62% for homes between $1 million to $1.5 million and 61.7% for homes above $1.5 million, according to December data...

Last year saw Australians install rooftop solar like never before, with 40% more installed in 2021 than in 2020. Solar system installations now make up 7% of the energy going into the national electricity grid. Alongside the greater uptake of utility-scale solar (such as solar farms), this means cheaper and cleaner electricity is fast becoming a reality, putting the country on track to meet international climate targets. But such a dramatic surge in solar output also poses challenges for Australia's power system for two main reasons. It results in increased periods of large oversupply when weather conditions favor solar energy....

In every war there is an initial invasion, an aggressive action by one party against another. If one is successful in rolling over another country with little or no resistance, like Germany in WWII with their concept of blitzkrieg, a massive, initial push that overwhelms and crushes resistance, it seems unstoppable and politicians fold ahead of it like dominoes. The pandemic was the blitzkrieg to sweep in, overwhelm, subvert and conquer. But obtaining territory is often easier than defending it. Resistance groups spring up and start to chip away at the monolithic power of hospitals, doctors, health officials, government agencies,...

Dear reader, this is where we need to start taking the fight. These companies that intend to continue the vaxx mandate despite the Supreme Court giving them an out is the height of wokism and completely destructive to the rights of working people all over America. This is directed at Carhartt, but you can modify it to fit any company you want. I'm putting it up here so you can copy and paste it into your own emails. I would like for you to send it to Carhartt directly at covidquestions@carhartt.com , but do with it as you please. Dear...

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Protesters on the streets of Hallein, Austria near Salzburg this evening. This week Austria's parliament taking up a new law making COVID vaccination compulsory for all Austrians over the age of 18 by February 1st... A protest in the eastern German city of Gera tonight opposing police violence. DPA News Agency says 1200 participated. Tonight in the German city of Cottbus a protest involving a thousand people opposing restrictive COVID measures and coerced vaccination declared illegal by police... A curfew for the unvaccinated imposed in some parts of the German state of Brandenburg... Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison condemning an...

An international network of so-called “fact-checking” organizations funded by massive liberal organizations called on YouTube to censor more content the network disagrees with. The leftist International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a project of the Poynter Institute, published an open letter whining that YouTube “is allowing its platform to be weaponized by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others, and to organize and fundraise themselves.” In the IFCN’s draconian view, “Current measures are proving insufficient.” IFCN exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to decry how “destructive disinformation and misinformation can be for social harmony, democracy, and public health; too many lives and livelihoods have...

Well, Omicron is hitting hard. Not the virus itself, but governments’ reaction to the virus. The NY Empire Manufacturing Index has tanked into negative territory. New orders are down 5%. On the energy front, West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil futures are up 79% since January 1, 2021 while regular gasoline prices are up “only” 50% over the same period. How about inflation and the Treasury yield curve? Inflation has soared to 40-year highs under Biden as energy prices (WTI Crude Futures) have soared 79%. Maybe they should play the Darth Vader theme when Biden goes to the podium to stammer.