Free Republic

One of...Biden's priorities is a historic overhaul of global tax rules. The world's most powerful 20 economies are on board. But an island nation of 5 million people is standing in the way.... ....the country has successfully attracted hordes of global businesses with a corporate tax rate of just 12.5%, compared to 21% in the United States and 19% in the United Kingdom.... Now, with 132 governments around the world in agreement on a minimum corporate tax of at least 15% to ensure big business pays its fair share, Ireland is digging in its heels. "We are not in that...

The US will keep in place COVID-19 travel restrictions for foreigners due to the rising number of cases caused by the Delta variant, a White House official said Monday. The decision to not lift the existing travel rules means non-US citizens from numerous countries, including the United Kingdom, China and India, are still barred from entering the US. “Given where we are today with the Delta variant, the United States will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point,” the official told Reuters. “Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated and...

Corporate America sacrificed national interests in service of greed, and so did the U.S. government. As we all know, the source of Corporate America’s unprecedented explosion in profits in the 21st century is the offshoring of manufacturing to China. If you doubt this, please study the chart below of corporate profits. Apologists claim many excuses in an attempt to evade the central role of offshoring production to China, but they all ring hollow: no, it wasn’t increasing productivity or automation or Federal Reserve magic, it was shipping production to China and other low-labor-cost nations. Whether we like to admit it...

The people of Cuba are demonstrating extraordinary bravery by rising up for freedom and democracy against their brutal communist dictatorship. President Biden is reacting with a disgraceful display of foreign policy clumsiness. There’s no better demonstration to the world that freedom and democracy beat the so-called socialist paradise of Cuba than hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily picking up and leaving. The incoming immigrants would enrich America. Cuban-Americans whose families arrived in earlier waves of migration have been distinguished contributors to American life. They include Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, members of Congress Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Maria...

LONDON (AP) — U.S. climate envoy John Kerry called on China to join America in urgently cutting greenhouse gas emissions and described the international alliances that rebuilt Europe after World War II as a model for fighting against climate change. Kerry challenged global leaders to accelerate the actions needed to curb rising temperatures and pull the world back from the edge of the abyss. “Allies, partners, competitors and even adversaries” must work together, he said during a speech at London’s Kew Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage site where scientists are working to protect plants from global warming. “The climate crisis...

Cyber Ninjas, the cybersecurity consulting firm hired by Arizona Senate Republicans to oversee a partisan review of the 2020 election, on Thursday pushed a false narrative that Maricopa County received thousands of mail-in ballots that had no record of being sent out to voters. The firm’s CEO Doug Logan used the baseless claim to urge legislators to subpoena more records and canvass voters at home, grasping for evidence of fraud even as a hand count of a statistical sample of ballots and two post-election audits showed no proof of wrongdoing in Maricopa County’s election. The false claim has reverberated online...

Hillary Clinton and top congressional Republicans Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy will join President Biden on Thursday for a small dinner party with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It’s unclear if Clinton will speak to reporters during her return to the White House — as high-profile visitors sometimes do on the driveway. The meal in the State Dining Room is closed to reporters. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, is not on the 25-person guest list — nor are the top Democrats in Congress. As first lady, Clinton lived in the executive mansion for eight years, but failed to get...

WELLINGTON, Ohio — Former President Trump made his triumphant return to the campaign trail and social media on Saturday night, receiving a rock star’s welcome from thousands who turned out in pro-Trump apparel to show their support for him, his claims of a stolen election and a possible comeback in 2024. At the Lorain County fairgrounds west of Cleveland, Mr. Trump quickly launched into an attack of the Biden administration as “a complete and total catastrophe.” He said Republicans must end Democrats’ control of the White House and Congress over the next two election cycles and “take back America.”

One of three counties targeted by a Pennsylvania state lawmaker for an Arizona-style “forensic investigation” of the state’s 2020 presidential election sought by former President Donald Trump will not allow third-party access to its voting machines. The three commissioners in rural Republican-controlled Tioga County announced the decision Tuesday, six days after receiving a sweeping, five-page request from Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano for access to documents, information and equipment. The county’s solicitor, Christopher Gabriel, said Wednesday that the thrust of Mastriano’s request — under the threat of a subpoena — involves access to Tioga County’s voting machines. That could mean...

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Hallie Jackson Reports” that “paranoid” Republicans are attempting to take away the voting rights of Black and Brown Americans because two Democrats won their U.S. Senate races in Georgia. Jackson said, “I want to ask you about voting rights. As you know, President Biden put this front and center those Texas Democrats have put this front and center. They’re calling for a carve-out on the filibuster. You have long called for abolishing the filibuster, at least you have lately. What does that look like specifically, this narrow cave on constitutional issues? Is...

President Joe Biden warned Tuesday that the country was facing a choice between "democracy or autocracy" following the passage of restrictive voting laws by nearly two dozen states and took direct aim at former President Donald Trump's role in spreading misinformation about the 2020 election. "In America, if you lose, you accept the results," Biden said in a speech on voting rights at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. "You don’t call facts 'fake' and then try to bring down the American experiment just because you're unhappy. That's not statesmanship. ... That's selfishness. That’s not democracy; it’s the denial of...

Prices for U.S. consumers jumped in June by the most in 13 years, evidence that a swift rebound in spending has run up against widespread supply shortages that have escalated the costs of many goods and services. Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices in June rose 0.9% from May and 5.4% over the past year — the sharpest 12-month inflation spike since August 2008. Excluding volatile oil and gas prices, so-called core inflation rose 4.5% in the past year, the largest increase since November 1991. The pickup in inflation, which has coincided with the economy’s rapid...

President Joe Biden has nominated former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, a prominent “Never Trump” Republican, as his choice for U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. Flake is being described in the establishment media as a “Republican” nominee, as if his nomination were a bipartisan gesture. However, Flake has distanced himself from most Republicans, saying “there is no future” for the GOP with Trump. Flake is almost certain to be confirmed by the Senate, where he served for a term before retiring.

“...stand up for God’s sake and help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote.” “Have you no shame?!” Video...

Plotted to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory: Check. Discussed bringing weapons into Washington to aid in the plan: Check. Succeeded with co-insurrectionists, if only temporarily, in stopping Congress from carrying out a vital constitutional duty: Check. Accusations against Jan. 6 rioter Thomas Caldwell certainly seem to fit the charge of sedition as it’s generally understood — inciting revolt against the government. And the possibility of charging him and others was widely discussed after thousands of pro-Trump supporters assaulted scores of police officers, defaced the U.S. Capitol and hunted for lawmakers to stop the certification. Some called their...

(CNN)Poll of the week: A new Gallup poll finds that 59.2% of Americans say they're thriving. Additionally, 73% of Americans said they experienced enjoyment for a lot of the previous day.The former is the highest rating Gallup has ever recorded on the measure dating back to when it was first taken more than 13 years ago. The latter is the highest since the coronavirus pandemic began early last year. What's the point: The last year has been tough for a lot of Americans. Among other issues, the coronavirus dominated our lives, and there was a very contentious presidential election. But...

Trouble is brewing on the European gas market. In the wake of a long, cold winter, natural gas reservoirs are unusually low and should, in principle, be refilled very quickly. Russia’s state-owned corporation Gazprom could increase supplies. The market leader, however, has not done that, despite prices recently reaching a 13-year high. In turn, there is growing concern across Europe that there may be insufficient gas supplies for the upcoming winter. Gazprom has not booked any additional gas transit through Ukraine in July, although deliveries of Russian natural gas to the EU will drop by more than 2 billion cubic...

The highly transmissible delta variant is now the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. As of July 3, the latest date for which data was available, the delta variant accounted for 51.7 percent of new Covid-19 cases that had been genetically sequenced in the country. Two weeks earlier, on June 19, the variant accounted for just over 30 percent of new cases. During a news briefing Tuesday, President Joe Biden cited the delta variant's rapid spread to urge people to get vaccinated, "especially young people who may have...

Former Secretary of State and twice-failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claimed Wednesday that Republican-led voter integrity bills in several states represent a “clear attempt to move away from a pluralistic, multi-racial democracy and toward white supremacist authoritarianism. “Each of these proposals disproportionately prevents people of color from casting their ballots, and each is egregious in its own right,” Clinton wrote in an op-ed for Democracy Docket. “Much of the blame for this backsliding rests with the Supreme Court, which, thanks to the election of President Trump, is even more hostile to voting rights today than it was when it...

The 2020 presidential election was historic in many ways. Amid a global pandemic, with unprecedented changes in how Americans voted, voter turnout rose 7 percentage points over 2016, resulting in a total of 66% of U.S. adult citizens casting a ballot in the 2020 election. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College and had a 4-point margin in the popular vote. While Biden’s popular vote differential was an improvement over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 2-point advantage, it was not as resounding as congressional Democrats’ 9-point advantage over Republicans in votes cast in the 2018 elections for the U.S....