Free Republic

The uneven results of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy since the financial crisis should cause new thinking about how to conduct interest rate policy, said St. Louis Fed President James Bullard on Thursday in advocating for a new, controversial target. Standard economic theory predicted that the Fed’s decision to leave rates at zero and buy trillions of dollars of bonds would result in a consumption boom and above-average inflation, but that has not happened, sending economists back to the drawing board. Under Bullard’s proposal, the Fed would set an overall inflation target. In good times, the central bank would keep...

<p>An investigation is underway after two police dogs were found dead inside an unmarked SUV parked outside a Hialeah police officer's home.</p> <p>Hialeah police say K-9 Officer Nelson Enriquez arrived at his home in Davie early Wednesday after completing his midnight shift and apparently left the dogs inside his vehicle. Investigators say the officer found the dogs around 7 p.m.</p>

The power vacuum created by the Obama administration’s withdrawal from world leadership and resistance to tyranny is not only being filled by the Islamic State and its terrorist affiliates like Boko Haram and state sponsors of terror like soon-to-be nuclear Iran but also by an increasingly belligerent and resurgent China. China’s State Council, the Communist giant’s version of our cabinet, has issued a policy paper declaring that Beijing is facing “a grave and complex array of security threats” that forces it to switch its strategy from defense to offense and that as a result China will increase its “open seas...

Dozens of congressional Democrats are joining Republicans to back legislation blocking the Obama administration’s new rule to redefine its jurisdiction over the nation’s waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers made the regulation final Wednesday in an attempt to clarify that small streams, wetlands, headwaters and tributaries are covered by the Clean Water Act and the rules that go along with it. Opponents labeled the rule as a massive “power grab” by the Obama administration that could give federal officials authority over every creek and puddle. Three moderate Democrats in the Senate and 24 in...

Citing higher-than-expected costs, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico wants to raise premiums by an average of 51.6 percent on individual Affordable Care Act plans in 2016. The company made the request in a preliminary rate proposal filed with New Mexico Insurance Superintendent John Franchini. Blue Cross and Blue Shield – which insures an estimated 600,000 people statewide – said the proposal affects an estimated 35,000 customers who signed up for qualified individual health plans through the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange, but also those who bought the same plans off the exchange. Franchini has the final authority...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law allowing Ukraine to impose a moratorium on repayment of its foreign debt until at least July 2016, a press release on Poroshenko's official website said Thursday. The Ukrainian parliament approved the bill, which could affect repayment of the country's $3-billion debt to Russia on May 19. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier the bill de facto was an announcement of a default, casting a negative light on the professionalism of Ukraine's leadership. Moreover, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Moscow would turn to an international court if the Ukrainian president signed...

Marco Rubio skidded. Jeb Bush slid. Ben Carson zoomed. Mike Huckabee bounced. Scott Walker stayed steady. And that’s how you end up with a five-way tie for first place in the latest Quinnipiac University national poll on the GOP Sixteeners. Put another way: With five candidates evenly dividing half of the vote, there is no first place. While Rubio lost a third of his support and Bush continued to droop, losing three points for the second month in a row, all five can say with confidence that they will meet the polling criterion for the first GOP debate, hosted by...

Amalia Mendez, a housekeeper and mother of four from Guatemala, has been hanging many hopes on President Obama’s executive action in November that would defer deportation for up to 5 million people like herself. Now, with a federal court ruling Tuesday putting that program in limbo for the foreseeable future, she is putting those hopes on hold. “I would be able to earn more if I had papers, and so would my husband. We could get insurance and a nicer home for our children. Most important is that we would not have to be afraid every time we leave the...

The Fox Business Network (FBN) should be congratulated for launching a six-month investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration’s hiring practices, an investigation revealing complicity between the FAA and diversity groups such as the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE). The findings were revealed on “The Willis Report” last week on FBN. The investigation resulted in an article by Adam Shapiro, exposing a story of corruption and attempts to stoke favoritism, where an FAA employee and head of an NBCFAE chapter worked to increase the likelihood that minority candidates would succeed under the FAA’s new hiring practices. Ironically, one...

When asked about her interactions with Sidney Blumenthal during her tenure as Secretary of State, especially on Libya, Hillary Clinton told reporters that she always valued input from trusted friends: “I have many, many old friends, and I always think that it’s important when you get into politics to have friends that you had before you were in politics and to understand what’s on their minds. He’s been a friend of mine for a long time—he sent me unsolicited emails, which I passed on in some instances, and I see that that’s just part of the give-and-take,” she said.“When...

Guns classified by the DOJ as “assault weapons” cannot be bought, sold or transferred in the state unless it is to a licensed dealer. Indeed, even those on the lists will eventually disappear as state law only allows for their dismantling, transfer to law enforcement, or out of state sale by their current owners, forbidding even inheritance to family members.

CARSON CITY — Two longstanding pillars of organized labor — union membership and employee seniority — would face changes under a Nevada collective bargaining bill that addresses how local governments and unions do business together. The Assembly Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday heard Assembly Bill 182, which would allow government employees to quit their union membership whenever they wish. AB182, sponsored by Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno, also would allow local governments to look at employees beyond simply their seniority level when making layoffs. Kirner said the bill’s purpose falls in line with Nevada’s standing as a right-to-work state in...

Washington (CNN)The heavy flooding that's overwhelmed Texas and killed more than 30 people has put Sen. Ted Cruz in a bind on climate change.The Republican presidential contender has held two press conferences over the past two days to address the flooding and the government's response. At each one, he was asked about the impact of climate change on natural disasters like the Texas flooding, and at each one, he dodged the question."In a time of tragedy, I think it's wrong to try to politicize a natural disaster -- and so there's plenty of time to talk about other issues," he...

1) “Embrace a big, positive jobs, growth and opportunity agenda.” He said that needs to include not just approval of the Keystone pipeline, but other jobs bills, including easing federal regulations.2) “We need to do everything humanly possible to repeal Obamacare.”Cruz said Republicans should send Obama a full repeal bill, but then also send small repeal bills to test Obama’s willingness on health care and draw a distinction between the two parties.3) “We need to finally secure the border and stop the president’s unconstitutional amnesty.”4) “We need to hold government accountable, and rein in judicial activism.” Cruz warned that federal...

ATHENS — There were chicken and fish on their plates, and Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz added some red meat as he roused a Georgia Republican Party convention crowd at The Classic Center in downtown Athens on Friday night.Cruz, a first-term U.S. senator from Texas who announced his run for the GOP presidential nomination in late March, touted himself as a true conservative, someone outside the Republican mainstream who can raise money and draw crowds, and who is part of “a new generation that is stepping forward” in the Republican Party.Alternately serious and playing for laughs — which he received...

A video has recently surfaced of Marilyn Mosby, the district attorney responsible for charging six Baltimore police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, making an appearance on the popular arbitration court series “Judge Judy” more than a decade ago. The video dates back to the early 2000s, in the show’s fifth season, when Mosby was in college and still going by her maiden name, Marilyn James. Mosby was on the program with a rather bizarre case: She was suing business owner Ryan Johnson for damages to the apartment she lived in while at college.

Those who think the minimum wage doesn't cost jobs might want to have a chat with unions in Los Angeles.

As the World Trade Organization delivers another blow against U.S. sovereignty, President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is poised to add more international judicial attacks against American liberty and independence. The May 18 ruling by a WTO appellate tribunal declaring a U.S. federal law illegal should have caused giant shock waves across America and should have sunk any hopes of congressional passage of the TPP, which, twinned with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), forms the centerpiece of the ObamaTrade globalist agenda. Both the TPP and the TTIP would create international courts that could (and would) override American federal, state,...

Health Reform: Looks like ObamaCare premiums will skyrocket for many next year. So what do Democrats propose? New insurance mandates that will drive premiums up even higher. Which one is the stupid party again?

If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.Friedrich Hayek, The...