Free Republic

In its final days, the Trump administration is seeking to disrupt the way progressive activists increasingly impose their will on big business: through banks controlling the loan lifelines to the economy. A regulation just finalized (update) aims to prevent lenders from blackballing businesses in industries opposed by the left by requiring banks to demonstrate that their loan decisions are “based on quantitative, impartial risk-based standards,” rather than political or reputational concerns. The proposed Fair Access to Financial Services Rule (FAFSR) is a response to successful pressure campaigns waged by environmental groups and congressional Democrats, which culminated in every major American...

A Florida bank announced Thursday that it has closed down former President Trump’s account, joining a growing list of entities that have cut ties with the former president following the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot. In his financial disclosures, Trump had stated he had two money-market accounts with Banks United, The Washington Post reports. The accounts held somewhere between $5.1 million and $25.2 million. “We no longer have any depository relationship with him," said Banks United, without giving reasons for its decision to shutter the accounts. Another Florida bank, Professional Bank, last week announced that it would be cutting ties...

The New York Stock Exchange said it no longer plans to delist three Chinese telecommunications giants. In a late Monday statement, the NYSE said it dropped the plans after "further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities in connection with Office of Foreign Assets Control." Hong Kong-listed shares of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom rallied after news of the reversal. The announcement comes after the NYSE said on Dec. 31 that it would move to delist American depositary shares of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom. The exchange had originally planned to drop those listings in order to comply...

Steven looks at the deterioration of Fox News and the network's massive failures in covering the 2020 presidential race. He then assesses the latest calls for civility from the Left and contrasts this with their past statements.

Steven reviews the current state of the 2020 Election, involving recounts, lawsuits, mail-in ballot irregularities, and what this means for the legitimacy of every vote being properly counted and all elections going forward.

BitChute - a YouTube alternative that doesn’t ideologically censor and has many videos from conservatives on it has been deplatformed by one of their providers and taken offline before election results can be announced.

An Air Force helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing at a Virginia airport Monday after someone shot at it, injuring a member of the crew, local and military officials told McClatchy. The UH-1N Huey helicopter is assigned to the 1st Helicopter Squadron at Joint Base Andrews and had been on a routine training flight, the base said in a statement. The injured crew member, who was not identified, was treated at a hospital and released. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the incident.

Radical Democrat Governor Sisolak and Nevada Democrats called a special session this weekend with no public present and inside of 24 hours they rammed through mail-in voting and ballot harvesting. Democrats did this during the special leglislative session. The Democrats are going to cheat at all costs to keep the state from going to Donald Trump! The new Democrat law allows people not related to or friends with elderly voters to fill out their ballots and turn them in to be counted!

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has put forward an initiative to battle inequality - a New Global Deal that will aim to create a fairer model of global governance, Guterres said on Saturday in his lecture commemorating Nelson Mandela. "The COVID-19 pandemic has brought home the tragic disconnect between self-interest and the common interest; and the huge gaps in governance structures and ethical frameworks," he said. "To close these gaps, and to make the New Social Contract possible, we need a New Global Deal to ensure that power, wealth and opportunities are shared more broadly and fairly at the...

Law enforcement officials in St. Louis have allegedly served a warrant on the St. Louis couple who recently defended their home when a large mob of angry demonstrators allegedly trespassed onto their private property. “5 On Your Side has learned St. Louis police officers executed a search warrant Friday evening at the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the Central West end couple who confronted protesters with weapons in June,” KSDK News reported. “Sources tell 5 On Your Side police seized one of the weapons, the rifle, from the couple and they told police their attorney has the pistol seen...

Inspired by the animation in one of the Walt Disney Co.'s most misguided cinematic works, Splash Mountain and its imagery rooted in the dated and racist 1946 film "Song of the South" will soon be a thing of the past. Walt Disney Imagineering unveiled plans on Thursday to retheme the ride to its 2009 animated work "Princess and the Frog," a fairy tale that stars the company's first Black princess. Splash Mountain, its connection to a problematic text and its future, has become a heated social media debate in this moment of cultural reassessment and nation-wide protests following the killing...

The husband of a cosmetics CEO who received widespread backlash after she was caught on camera confronting a man and threatening to call the cops because he stenciled “Black Lives Matter” on his own property was fired from his job Monday. In a statement posted to Twitter, Raymond James wealth management firm said Robert Larkins was no longer an employee. “Raymond James has zero tolerance for racism and discrimination of any kind,” the company said in its post. “An inclusive workplace is fundamental to our culture, one in which people are free to bring their whole selves to their careers,...

For Marc Benioff, the fight against Indiana's widely criticized "religious freedom" law was personal. The Salesforce CEO was a leading voice in the national outcry against Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed last month. Critics argued that the original version of the RFRA would have permitted businesses to discriminate against LGBT people. ----- "One thing that you're seeing is that there is a third [political] party emerging in this country, which is the party of CEOs." The comment provoked pushback from those who already fear the influx of money in politics. Benioff said he misspoke...

Just saw this on Cartoon Network - it's a promo for pride month where it teaches kids that activism is COOL and you should stand up against hate, including interviews with kids using their preferred pronouns who tell the stories! (Mods please edit if I've not formatted the post properly)

Attorney General William Barr made a last-minute push Monday to persuade the administration to modify its position in the Obamacare dispute that will be heard at the Supreme Court this fall, arguing that the administration should pull back from its insistence that the entire law be struck down. ... Barr and other top advisers have argued against the hard-line position for some time, warning it could have major political implications if the comprehensive health care law appears in jeopardy as voters head to the polls in November. According to four sources familiar with the meeting, Barr argued for modifying the...

<p>While lawmakers were hammering out the massive $2 trillion bill, a key focus of which was to keep workers connected to their jobs through a loan guarantee program — Democrats insisted on a huge increase in unemployment benefits.</p> <p>The result was a $600 a week bonus. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was right to call this “unemployment on steroids.”</p>

After watching the outbreak of COVID-19 for the past two months, I’ve followed the pace of the infection, its severity, and how our world is tackling the virus. While we should be concerned and diligent, the situation has dramatically elevated to a mob-like fear spreading faster than COVID-19 itself. When 13% of Americans believe they are currently infected with COVID-19 (mathematically impossible), full-on panic is blocking our ability to think clearly and determine how to deploy our resources to stop this virus. Over three-fourths of Americans are scared of what we are doing to our society through law and hysteria,...

From the r/The_Donald subreddit "(Former, as of minutes ago, top mod of the last few years here) First they changed upvote algorithms to keep us from reaching the masses. Next, they outright censored us from /all. Then, they quarantined us, to make it difficult to even see our words, much less spread them. Then, one by one, they added new rules to stifle what would could even say behind the quarantine. Users were sitewide banned, automod size increased to prevent you from speaking freely. Still not enough, they decided to start banning us for even liking content we see, things...

Research presented at the ACM FAT 2020 conference in Barcelona today supports the notion that YouTube’s platform is playing a role in radicalizing users via exposure to far-right ideologies. The study, carried out by researchers at Switzerland’s Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, found evidence that users who engaged with a middle ground of extreme right-wing content migrated to commenting on the most fringe far-right content. A March 2018 New York Times article by sociologist Zeynep Tufekci set out the now widely reported thesis that YouTube is a radicalization engine. Followup reporting...

The Republican Party’s Statesman’s Dinner originally scheduled to take place on December 7th at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort in Walt Disney World has been relocated to an undisclosed venue in Miami. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had quickly announced that President Donald Trump would be headlining the state’s major annual Republican Party fundraiser after it was rescheduled from the original November 9th date; then set to take place at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort.