Free Republic

April was not the cruelest month for investors—although the tariffmageddon-obsessed naysayers may be smarting. Despite a month of wild swings and gloomy forecasts, U.S. stock markets ended April nearly flat, brushing off predictions that Trump’s trade policies would trigger a historic collapse. The S&P 500 finished the month down just 0.8 percent. The Dow dropped 2.1 percent, and the Nasdaq edged lower by 0.3 percent. That mild performance stood in stark contrast to a mid-April Wall Street Journal article that warned of a “Trump rout” and suggested the Dow was on track for its worst April since 1932. It wasn’t....

Tesla started a formal process to find its next CEO last month, amidst declining public opinion about billionaire Elon Musk, according to a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal. “Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive,” the Journal reported Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter. “The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm … The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or...

President Trump continues to walk back his original tariff assault, and markets are pleased. They rose again Wednesday after Mr. Trump said he won’t fire the Federal Reserve Chairman and is likely to retreat from his highest China tariffs. Is this Mr. Trump’s François Mitterrand moment? Readers of a certain age will recall how the French Socialist President swept into power in 1981 promising a far left agenda of government control over the private economy. The market reaction was brutal. Within a year he had put socialism on pause and by 1983 he had abandoned most of it. He went...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed a bombshell Wall Street Journal report on former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline a month after the California Democrat confided in friends that she was alarmed by how much he had aged, according to a new book. “He was not the same Joe Biden,” Pelosi reportedly told a friend of the then-president’s condition after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom award during a May 2024 White House ceremony. The claim is from author Chris Whipple’s new book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.” Whipple wrote...

Donald Trump has repeatedly said that his move to impose wide-ranging tariffs is based on the simple concept of reciprocity: The U.S. should put the same conditions on imports from other countries that they impose on our goods through tariffs and other trade barriers. But the tariff scheme he announced isn’t reciprocal and isn’t based on measuring foreign trade barriers. Instead, it simply measures bilateral trade deficits and comes up with tariff numbers from there. Those are two very different things, and could be one reason why global financial markets are reacting so badly. The upshot is that, in the...

After a handful of underwhelming relationships and dozens of disappointing first dates, Andrea Vorlicek recently called off the search for a husband. The 29-year-old always thought she’d have found her life partner by now. Instead, she’s house hunting solo and considering having kids on her own. “I’m financially self-sufficient enough to do these things myself,” said Vorlicek, a Boston-based accountant. “I’m willing to accept being single versus settling for someone who isn’t the right fit.” She sees her plans for an independent future as making the best of a lousy situation. “I don’t want to sit here and say I’m...

The op-ed was entitled “Can White Men Finally Stop Complaining?” and it appeared the other day in the Wall Street Journal. White men, it charged, have a “victim mentality” – even though they’re back on top. Not only has Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, but for white dudes, everything’s coming up roses: The manosphere won. Bro podcasters top the charts. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg declares his company needs more “masculine energy.” Elon Musk shares a post saying only “high-status males” should run the country. The White House kills diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, and so do multiple companies,...

The Five Eyes is the most powerful spying alliance in history. Forged in the conflagration of World War II, the intelligence-sharing pact among the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand helped defeat Nazism and Communism, fend off al Qaeda and Islamic State and shield its members from the ever-growing risk of cyberattacks. Now former and serving members of the Five Eyes and outside experts say it is facing its biggest challenge ever: President Trump’s pledge to curb the “Deep State” by overhauling America’s vast intelligence apparatus. Trump left the Five Eyes alone during his first term and hasn’t named...

To defend and burnish Tulsi Gabbard’s image as her political star was rising, her congressional campaign hired a public-affairs firm in 2017 that tried to suppress coverage of an alleged pyramid scheme connected to her Hindu sect, according to interviews, emails and Federal Election Commission records. Gabbard, a former House member who is now President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was raised in the Science of Identity Foundation, a sect tied to a direct-marketing firm accused of running a pyramid scheme in several countries. Neither Gabbard, the sect nor the firm, QI Group, wanted the relationships scrutinized. Gabbard’s...

Matt Gaetz's past behavior isn't role-model material. By his own admission, Gaetz, in his 30s was "playing too hard....womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have." But that doesn't excuse CNN for its double standard on the subject. At the end of a segment on today's CNN This Morning regarding the House Ethics Committee's impending release of its report on its investigation of Gaetz, host Kasie Hunt, speaking of Gaetz's activities, dubiously wondered, "in his 30s?" Hunt was apparently suggesting that the 30s are too old to still be a hard partier. Annie Linskey of the Wall Street Journal...

*** Mr. Gigot asks how Mr. Trump would persuade Xi Jinping to stand down from a blockade of Taiwan. “Oh, very easy,” the former president says. “I had a very strong relationship with him.... *** Mr. Trump returns to Mr. Gigot’s question: “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you”—meaning impose tariffs—“at 150% to 200%.” He might even shut down trade altogether. Mr. Gigot: “Would you use military force against a blockade on Taiwan?” Mr. Trump: “I wouldn’t have to, because he respects me and he knows I’m f— crazy.”...

Shares of Intel jumped 3% Friday as The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren Thomas, Laura Cooper, and Asa Fitch reported that Qualcomm has approached Intel about acquiring it for perhaps as much as $90 billion, citing multiple unnamed sources. The “massive” deal, as the authors put it, is financially daunting, as Qualcomm has just $13 billion in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet against $13 billion of long-term debt. Even a mostly stock exchange would require some large debt raise. Intel, moreover, already has $19 billion of net long-term debt. The deal is much larger than Qualcomm’s attempted acquisition of...

Two astronauts who flew to the International Space Station on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will return to Earth next year on a SpaceX vehicle in yet another humiliating blow to Boeing's reputation.NASA's Plan B: Why SpaceX Is Completing Boeing's Starliner Mission | 6:40The Wall Street Journal | 5.53M subscribers | 389,477 views | August 24, 2024

‘He wouldn’t have needed a license if it were an iguana,” Justice Neil Gorsuch says. That sounds like a punch line, but “he” in this story is Marty Hahne, a Missouri magician. “It,” the non-iguana, is Mr. Hahne’s live rabbit. As a magical prop, the bunny is a classic, and probably more easygoing than a big lizard would be about getting yanked out of a hat for shrieking children. Justice Gorsuch, seated at a coffee table in his Supreme Court chambers, is narrating an anecdote from his book that goes on sale Tuesday, “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too...

WASHINGTON—Kamala Harris is making abortion rights central to her candidacy for president as Republicans struggle to articulate a winning message on the issue. In contrast with President Biden, who was reluctant to say the word abortion, the vice president has campaigned aggressively on it since the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that eliminated the constitutional right to the procedure. At the White House, she has met with abortion providers and women who have had abortions. Earlier this year, Harris was believed to be the first president or vice president to visit an abortion clinic. After locking up the support to be...

A new poll from The Wall Street Journal has found Vice President Kamala Harris neck and neck with Donald Trump after President Biden vacated the Democratic nomination for November’s election."Only 37% of Biden voters were enthusiastic about him in early July, and now 81% of Harris voters are enthusiastic about her," Democratic pollster Mike Bocian, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster David Lee, told the Journal. "This is an astounding change."The former president maintains a 2% lead over Harris in a two-person race, within the Journal’s 3.1% margin of error, indicating Harris has cut into the six-point lead Trump...

In short:The Wall Street Journal faces criticism for sacking a journalist who was elected head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. - Chinese state media celebrated Selina Cheng's sacking, calling the Hong Kong media union "a malignant tumour". -What's next?Cheng told the ABC she intended to take legal action against the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong. The Wall Street Journal faces widespread criticism over its decision to sack a Hong Kong journalist who refused to withdraw from the election for a leadership post in the city's largest media union. Selina Cheng, who worked in the Journal's Hong Kong bureau...

The need for stability and experience should eliminate the young MAGA-in-a-hurry types like Sen. J.D. Vance or Members of the House. As the GOP convention nears, and voters focus on the election, the race remains closer than it should be given Mr. Biden’s infirmities. Swing voters still worry about Mr. Trump and the possibility of four more years of turmoil. The former President can help his campaign, and the country, by projecting stability and calm. We know many readers will think this is impossible, and maybe it is. Yet he showed admirable restraint after the debate last week, letting Democrats...

Even those who dislike the former President see a case of legal and political malpractice.How dare Mitt Romney. And Sens. Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell. The anti-Trump press corps is dismayed that Republicans of all stripes, even those who aren’t fond of Donald Trump, have criticized the Manhattan prosecution and guilty verdict. The media coverage after the verdict has followed the usual Trump-era pattern. Democrats pursue some anti-Trump operation—impeachment, a Russia collusion probe, a prosecution. The press then descends as one to chide Republicans, with the unsubtle implication that they must be unethical sellouts if they oppose what Democrats are...

Israeli tanks advanced further into Rafah on Tuesday, according to witnesses, as the Israeli military said it was expanding operations in the southern Gaza city amid growing international condemnation. The tanks passed near the Al-Awda mosque, a central Rafah landmark, Palestinians in the city told The Wall Street Journal. The Israeli military didn’t comment on the specifics of its push into Rafah, but Israel’s Army Radio said the military had added a brigade to the five already operating in the city and troops were engaging in close-quarters combat with Hamas. Israel is trying to thread a needle by pursuing a...