Free Republic

One lesson from the ongoing scandal is that it lifted the curtain of foreign governments’ covert influence campaigns in the United States. Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop revealed much information, including Hunter’s shady business dealings in Ukraine and China, raising questions about the extent to which President Biden was involved in his son’s business activities. This ongoing scandal lifted the curtain of foreign governments’ covert influence campaigns in the United States. No government has conducted such influence campaigns more effectively than Communist China. To understand China’s influence campaigns on foreign soil, one has to get familiar with a secretive Chinese government...

Stock futures tumbled Sunday night to kick off a new trading month, as investors weighed new U.S. tariffs on goods from key trade partners and their potential impact on the economy and corporate profits. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 463 points, or 1%. S&P 500 futures dropped 1.6%, while Nasdaq-100 futures lost 2.1%. President Donald Trump on Saturday slapped a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada. He also placed a 10% levy on imports from China. The U.S. does about $1.6 trillion in business with the three countries. Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs of...

Last month, during the thick of the holidays, I found myself in a rare though not totally unprecedented predicament: I wasn’t sure which way to bet on the stock market in the year ahead. In my December column, I told you there were three possible 2025 outcomes – all of them seemingly likely, and to a vexingly similar degree. I also told you that I’d come back to you when I could conclude which is, in fact, the most likely. Well, I’m back – and with an answer that has surprised me in more ways than one. Recall the three...