Free Republic

Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dug in this weekend for what is expected to be a bitter and personal race between the two for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Mr. Trump revved up supporters Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington—an event Mr. DeSantis skipped—while the governor appeared before Republican groups in Texas and gave a speech Sunday afternoon at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. The two will then descend on Iowa, which holds the first GOP nominating contest. Mr. Trump has already launched his campaign; Mr. DeSantis, the front-runner among the...

“ This decision, in my view, will have a chilling effect on our economic recovery at a time we should be doing all we can to restore the economy.”

Already, Vermont is maple syrup capital of the U.S., with production traditionally being a side business for farmers. Could a large-scale operation, tapping into thousands of acres of maple trees in a remote northeastern part of the state, be as sweet? This isn’t the old galvanized-sap bucket-nailed-to-a-tree type of operation. This is industrial-sized maple. And companies know there’s rising demand for natural sweeteners as consumers turn away from products made with high fructose corn syrup. Sweetree LLC plans to become the biggest producer of the sticky-sweet stuff in North America. Though the operation has created full-time jobs in a poor...

Party of Corporatism, Party of Power, Party of Crony Capitalists, UniParty The Progressive RINO Establishment is selling us down the river, as they imbibe with cavalier abandon the good life inside a rainbows-and-unicorns Beltway Bubble; a place where virtue and principle have no redeeming equitable value: in fact, quite the opposite. Morality creates problems if one is interested in conducting “business as usual” inside the Beltway Bubble; the consequences of moral certitude can be harsh, while playing “the game” is lucrative. One violates the unwritten code of crony capitalist Beltway Bubble behavioral norms at their own risk. Regardless of complicity...

“[Bill Gates] questions whether the members of Congress who don't pass laws like he wants on immigration are honoring their duty to the 300 million Americans that we collectively represent. I feel a deep duty to the millions of Alabamians I represent and the whole country, and I do my best every day to ask what’s in their interest. And as far as I’m concerned… those three billionaires [Gates, Buffett, Adelson] have three votes. The individual who works stocking the shelves at the grocery store, the barber, the doctor, the lawyer, the cleaners operator, [and] the person who picks up...

Annual property losses from hurricanes and other coastal storms of $35 billion; a decline in crop yields of 14 percent, costing corn and wheat farmers tens of billions of dollars; heat wave-driven demand for electricity costing utility customers up to $12 billion per year. Commissioned by a group chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Secretary of the Treasury and Goldman Sachs alum Henry Paulson, and environmentalist and financier Tom Steyer, the analysis "is the most detailed ever of the potential economic effects of climate change on the U.S.," said climatologist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University.

THERE is a time for weighing evidence and a time for acting. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my work in finance, government and conservation, it is to act before problems become too big to manage. For too many years, we failed to rein in the excesses building up in the nation’s financial markets. When the credit bubble burst in 2008, the damage was devastating. Millions suffered. Many still do. We’re making the same mistake today with climate change. We’re staring down a climate bubble that poses enormous risks to both our environment and economy. The warning signs...

In the heated debate over inequality, the wealthy are usually portrayed as the cause rather than the solution. But CNBC's first-ever Millionaire Survey reveals that 51 percent of American millionaires believe inequality is a "major problem" for the U.S., and nearly two-thirds support higher taxes on the wealthy and a higher minimum wage as ways to narrow the wealth gap. The findings show that—far from being a purely self-interested voting bloc—American millionaires have complicated views when it comes to the wealth gap and opportunity in America. They are unashamed of their own wealth and attribute their success to hard work,...

Virginia Republicans Organizing to Blunt Tea Party Power Stupid Party is going to moderate itself out of business.

While accusing presidential candidate Mitt Romney of cutting a swath through American industry during his time as a private equity executive, the White House was working with another private equity firm with long-standing Washington ties to save jobs in the Northeast, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

Romney! ObamaCare = RomneyCare = CommieCare. NO Romney! NO WAY!! STOP ROMNEY NOW!!! This is getting serious folks. We *must* stop this guy. We can't let Mitt (or Newt) get the nomination. Along with being way too liberal, Mitt is almost as corrupt as Newt. Romney and his campaign have paid off just about every politician in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. That is how he operates. His campaign shares their campaign contributions by passing some of them along to the campaign funds of politicians they want to influence -- and there are many greedy hands stuck out...

<p>"Mr Immelt also had harsh words for Barack Obama, US president, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” US economic recovery. Business did not like the US president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry.</p>