Free Republic

America should be ready for 18 months of shutdowns in ‘long, hard road’ ahead, warns the Fed’s Neel Kashkari, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. ‘This could be a long, hard road that we have ahead of us until we get to either an effective therapy or a vaccine. It’s hard for me to see a V-shaped recovery under that scenario.’

Neel Kashkari has become the Federal Reserve’s foremost skeptic of the notion that the U.S. is experiencing a severe labor shortage. Kashkari, who is the president of the Minneapolis Fed, points to the lack of significant upward pressure on wages as evidence debunking the claims that the U.S. lacks workers. The logic is pretty simple: if the supply of labor is so limited relative to demand, the price of labor should be swiftly rising. The fact that the price of labor is not rising much suggests that perhaps labor is not in as short supply as some employers and special...

California law enforcement agents have seized 1,200 firearms from people who cannot legally own them because of mental illness or restraining orders. However, Attorney General Kamala Harris said Thursday that more than 34,000 handguns and nearly 1,600 assault weapons are still believed to be held statewide by people who should not have them. Most people bought the weapons legally but were later prohibited from owning guns. But 12 people were arrested on suspicion of illegally owning assault weapons or grenades during a six-week sweep by the state Department of Justice in April and May. Harris said 90 percent of the...

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday morning that proponents of Proposition 8 — the voter initiative in 2008 that amended the state constitution to say “only marriage between a man and a woman” is valid in California — have legal standing to defend the measure in court. That means the matter can proceed to the Ninth District Court of Appeals for a ruling on the merits of the measure. The legal question before the Supreme Court was procedural and unrelated to the substantive question of the constitutional validity of Prop. 8. It only assessed whether proponents of the measure can...

Anaheim is literally pulling the plug on pot shops that keep popping up despite a law forbidding the businesses. Officials have used its operation of utilities to cut off water and power to dispensaries in the city that’s home to Disneyland, the Orange County Register reported Tuesday. …

Practically everyone expects California Attorney General Kamala Harris to win re-election handily in November. The Democrat won 53 percent of the vote in a crowded June primary. A rising star expected to ascend someday to the governorship, perhaps a U.S. Senate seat, Harris has won the endorsement of major newspapers in the state. She's such an attractive candidate that even though it was true, President Barack Obama had to apologize last year for calling her "by far the best-looking attorney general in the country." Yet Harris faces two unusual obstacles in the November runoff. One is Ron Gold, a never-elected...

The Supreme Court is allowing California to continue enforcing a law that bans the sale of foie gras. The justices on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the law from producers of the delicacy in New York and Canada. …

I’ve learned how the game works, from my perch here at Breitling Energy. For one, we advertise and broadcast Powering America Radio on The Patriot, KEIB 1150 AM in Los Angeles, the USAs 2nd largest media market. It also happens to be the transplanted LA home of the Rush Limbaugh show. On occasion, Chris Faulkner’s “Oil and Gas Today” reports fall within the Limbaugh program (it’s called run-of-schedule in broadcasting….where commercials air randomly through the day).. When they hit his show, here come the emails. People “informing” us of Rush’s bigoted bias and “encouraging” us to not support any station...

Plastic bag manufacturers on Friday passed their first hurdle in their effort to delay and eventually repeal California’s new ban on single-use plastic shopping bags before it takes effect. The office of Attorney General Kamala Harris cleared the way for the groups to begin collecting signatures for a referendum vote on the ban on the November 2016 ballot. Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the first statewide ban on plastic bags, citing a “torrent” of plastic pollution in parks and waterways. It followed one of the fiercest legislative battles of the year, pitting bag makers against environmentalists. …

"Who is responsible for the Bay Bridge?" I asked California Gov. Jerry Brown at a San Francisco Chronicle editorial board meeting in May. Before Brown's 2010 election victory, which made him the boss of all Caltrans, Brown was the mayor of Oakland whose political posturing helped delay the retrofit of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, made necessary after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake knocked down a chunk of the span. It took 24 years and $5 billion more than the original budget for the state to complete the $6.4 billion span. Before the new span even opened, the...

Karl Rove was in Sacramento recently and was speaking to the community's business leaders. The event was a $1000 a plate "Leadership Trust" dinner held by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Rove talked about the upcoming governor's race in California and gave his two cents on the Republican candidates. As to be expected, he suggested that Republican put their support behind the establishment candidate and not the Tea Party favorite. Rove said, "that if the Republicans have to pick someone to lose to Jerry Brown, they'd be stupid to not to pick" Neel Kashkari, who is the establishment choice...

How near death is the California Republican Party? It's this bad. Democrats hold every statewide office. Term limits have opened up a few offices; still, no serious Republican plans to run for attorney general, lieutenant governor, treasurer or controller this year. If the lead Democrat for any of those offices were to die in September, there would be no Republican in the race to win in November. A dead person or a nut job could win such a race. Right now, two Republicans are fighting over the honor of losing to Gov. Jerry Brown, while a third seems likely to...

“He was the political figure all politicians fear:the moralist who cannot bear to let any wrong deed go undenounced.As a politician he had the fatal defect of the totally honest man:He insisted on the truth even when the truth was most inconvenient.”Introduction to George Orwell’s Animal Farm by Russell Baker In 2010 billionaire Meg Whitman ran for governor of California. Whitman had everything going for her; she was a former successful businesswoman, and despite being a little “squishy” on immigration and other issues she had the backing of the establishment GOP.Naturally I wanted to do my civic duties and help...

Top California Republican strategists are becoming increasingly nervous about a race the party almost certainly cannot win. There is little hope that whichever Republican makes it through the Golden State’s top-two primary June 3 can beat Gov. Jerry Brown (D). The state’s economy is rebounding, revenues are surpassing expectations, Brown’s approval ratings are strong and his campaign war chest is flush with cash. But Republicans are concerned by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R), an arch-conservative who takes a hard line on social issues, especially on immigration, and has a penchant for making offensive statements. With Donnelly at the top of the...

It is depressing being a member of a vanishing breed but that is what I am. Hopefully they're not dead but hibernating like polar bears especially now that midterm elections are coming up. I refer to moderate Republicans, remember them? They've dropped out, disappeared, like senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Christine Todd Whitman, Colin Powell, John McCain (in his earlier days and probably still secretly) and others who once brought their sane wisdom to the table. But where is the next generation? Now and then there seems to be a voice in the wilderness like Neel Kashkari in California...

As the 2014 primary season draws to a close and focus shifts to the November general elections, the GOP is poised to capitalize on a demoralized Democratic Party, beset by scandal and a legislative agenda that has been largely proven a failure in improving the lives of Americans both nationally and on state and local levels. With most polls pointing to huge gains for the party of Lincoln, including a better than even-money shot at taking the Senate, Democrats have little to pin their hopes to other than an escalation of inner-party turmoil in the so-called GOP "civil war." This...

Senators: Use Federal Capital to Make LoansAmerican Banker By Stacy Kaper October 24, 2008 Several Senate Banking Committee members pressured the Treasury Department on Thursday to require banks that receive an emergency capital injection to use the funds for lending activities and foreclosure prevention. During a hearing on regulatory responses to the crisis, lawmakers said there are concerns that bankers will sit on the added cash. "Why did Treasury not attach a requirement to increase lending as a price for receiving government money?" asked Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the committee's senior Republican. Lawmakers also used the hearing to press...

A former Treasury official has told the watchdog for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout program that President Obama's promise to restrict lobbyist access to the bailout was made purely for political reasons. Months after the administration's pledge, the lobbyist rules haven't been implemented and Neel Kashkari, the one-time czar of the agency's Troubled Asset Relief Program, told the office of the special inspector general for TARP that the pledge to craft safeguards against lobbyist influence was a defensive move. "Mr. Kashkari believed that this statement was purely for political reasons with Obama's new entering administration, and that there was...

The Treasury Department plans to tap Neel Kashkari, an assistant secretary of international affairs and a former Goldman Sachs banker, to oversee the government's $700 billion financial rescue program, sources familiar with the situation said yesterday. Kashkari has been a close adviser to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on the credit crisis and helped draft the legislation for the massive rescue plan. He is expected to run the program on an interim basis until the Treasury finds a permanent head, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. Kashkari's replacement would...

My Statewide Choices: California Governor ;Tim Donnelly Donnelly is a Republican State Assemblyman who deserves your vote. He is not as smooth-talking as other politicians, but he believes in Constitutionally-limited government and wants to apply the Constitution according to its original intent, per the Federalist Papers and other historical writings of its Framers. If you are considering Neel Kashkari for Governor, wake up and smell the coffee. Not only did this idiot support and vote for Obama against John McCain in 2008, but he is being pushed by the Republican establishment. He's a big-government RINO who even endorsed Sharia Law...