Free Republic

A majority of Americans support the idea of new stimulus checks to combat inflation, according to a poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek. The survey found 63 percent of respondents said they agree—with 42 percent saying they "strongly agree"—when asked if the federal government should issue new stimulus checks to tackle inflation.

The NOPEC bill, which would allow OPEC’s members to be sued under U.S. antitrust laws, has been placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar. Due to the packed legislative schedule before the midterms, the NOPEC bill will likely only be up for discussion after the elections. Interest in the NOPEC bill has intensified since the cartel agreed to a 2 million bpd cut to its November production quotas.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulting in lower supplies to oil markets ahead of peak demand season, IEA 10-Point Plan proposes actions to ease strains and price pain ... THE 10 KEY ACTIONS 1. Reduce speed limits ...

YouTube video.

Republican Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick condemned calls to defund the police and the Black Lives Matter movement, calling people who want to send social workers to domestic disturbances “plain out idiotic” Monday. ...

As cities across the country are discussing defunding or disbanding their police departments, truck drivers are voicing concerns of safety. Seventy-seven percent of truck drivers say they will refuse to deliver freight to cities with defunded police departments.

Refers to an article by Hal Brands, Steven A. Cook, and Kenneth M. Pollack. Trump’s break with decades of U.S. strategy in the Persian Gulf has been conducted in his typically cavalier manner. But it did not come out of nowhere. Americans have been debating their long-standing strategic commitment to the Gulf for several years now. Critics of that commitment have offered multiple arguments for why Washington ought to pull back from the region. Each is founded in realities that should refine U.S. strategy toward the Gulf, but not abandon it, as Trump appears to be doing.

MSNBC "Eleventh Hour" with Brian Williams reports: "Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. Population, 327 million. He could have given each American $1 million and have had lunch money left over."

The tax, which some critics deem a "sin tax," will be to the amount of $0.24 per gallon. The genesis behind the law is to continue the city’s push to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

Kiron Skinner, a top State Department official and respected black foreign policy scholar, was fired earlier this month, but exactly why she was fired remains something of a mystery. Immediately after she was fired, Politico published a piece citing anonymous sources that blamed her “abusive” management style, including “making homophobic remarks” and accusing people of having affairs.

President Donald Trump said on Monday that sky-high Obamacare deductibles ensure that the insurance plans are "practically not even useable" for those who have them, a claim health care experts said is a misleading one because it ignores a core tenet of the law.

AT&T (T) could spin off cable news channel CNN as part of concessions to get Trump administration approval of its Time Warner (TWX) acquisition, speculates a Wells Fargo analyst.

Press Release 12.30.16 Leahy Reaction On Russian Hacking Of A Vermont Electric Utility Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy On Russian Hacking Friday, December 30, 2016 State-sponsored Russian hacking is a serious threat, and the attempts to penetrate the electric grid through a Vermont utility are the latest example. My staff and I were briefed by Vermont State Police Colonel Matthew Brimingham this evening. This is beyond hackers having electronic joy rides – this is now about trying to access utilities to potentially manipulate the grid and shut it down in the middle of winter. That is a direct threat to...

California shooter attended Islamic school in Pakistan MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — The woman who carried out last week's mass shooting in California with her husband had attended an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, while living in Pakistan ... While in Multan, she also attended a religious school, which Pakistani intelligence officials on Monday identified as the Al-Huda International Seminary ... Malik spent more than a year at Al-Huda, taking classes six days a week ...

New York’s city council has taken it upon itself to posthumously honor Ethel Rosenberg, a Soviet spy who helped, in her modest way, the worldwide Communist enterprise to murder some 100 million people. Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424860/New-York-City-Honors-Communist-Monster-Ethel-Rosenberg

The United States Department of Justice is using federal grand jury subpoenas to identify anonymous commenters engaged in typical internet bluster and hyperbole in connection with the Silk Road prosecution. DOJ is targeting Reason.com, a leading libertarian website whose clever writing is eclipsed only by the blowhard stupidity of its commenting peanut gallery. Why are the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet? Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge. Last week, a source provided me with a federal grand jury subpoena. The subpoena1, issued...

On its official website, the Canadian government informs its citizens that “there is no limit to the amount of money that you may legally take into or out of the United States.” Nonetheless, it adds, banking in the U.S. can be difficult for non-residents, so Canadians shouldn’t carry large amounts of cash. That last bit is excellent advice, but for an entirely different reason than the one Ottawa cites. There’s a shakedown going on in the U.S., and the perps are in uniform. ... if you’re on an American roadway with a full wallet, in the eyes of thousands of...

Three items on the continuing National Security Agency controversy: the information that came out this week, a prescient warning from a veteran British intelligence hand, and a prophecy from an interesting source. ... "A nation of sullen paranoids." Boy, is that it. This picks up on a point a friend, a veteran of Republican White Houses, said near the time the controversies were beginning. He told me of a sophisticated person he knew, experienced in journalism and the ways of government, who thought the U.S. government might have had the reporter Michael Hastings killed. He said, musingly, "The future is...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither told CNBC Wednesday that Republicans are "making a little bit of progress" in "fiscal cliff" talks but said the Obama administration was "absolutely" ready to go over the cliff if the GOP doesn't agree to raise tax rates on the wealthy. ...

A Case, of Identity Thieving Attention, young people!! I am writing, this column to inform you that, there is someone on the Internet who is FALSELY IMPERSONATING me, Totally Meghan McCain. This person, clearly not having been matriculated – from a prestigious university like Colombia, as I had, is making me look like a TOTAL IDIOT. When I realized this, I was HORRIFIC. (PS – Am I, the only one who realizes, that word is completely sexist? It, was probably invented by some pasty old white male – Republican – instead of being invented, by someone cool like my dad)....