Free Republic

On Monday, MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill said on “Deadline,” that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) would not last long if he’s voted into the House Speaker’s position this week. Discussing Jordan, McCaskill said, “If he gets these votes, and I am now closer to saying that he will than I certainly was 24 hours ago. You know what he’s done? He has cut a deal with Rogers on Defense and he’s cut a deal with Defense Appropriations. Those two members were absolutely anti-Jordan until he made them promises. Now, how are those promises going to play out with this crazy caucus?...

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan said on Friday that he expects the cleanup in East Palestine, Ohio, to take three months. “We are absolutely laser focused on ensuring that Norfolk Southern cleans up this mess as quickly as possible. We are optimistic that the cleanup will be complete in three months,” Regan said during a conference call on Friday. “We will continue to be transparent. We will continue to ensure that the people of East Palestine get the protection that they deserve and that Norfolk Southern will be held accountable,” the EPA administrator added.

During an interview with NPR aired on Friday’s “Morning Edition,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argued that inflation has been “quite low for the last six months or so,” but she wants to see “inflation come down to much lower levels” over the next year. Yellen said, “Inflation has really been quite moderate, quite low for the last six months or so, importantly, because of lower energy prices. We continue to see improvement in supply chains. Goods prices have actually been falling. And some of the supply chain issues that pushed up the prices of goods and commodities, those have really...

Stephen Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison Friday for his defiance of a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The onetime Trump White House strategist was subpoenaed by the panel in September of last year after he failed to provide either the required documents or testimony as he railed against the committee. Bannon claimed that he was unable to comply with the committee’s subpoena due to executive privilege. However, the panel sought to speak to Bannon about events that occurred well after his short stint in the White House....

... Russia supplied around 40% of all the gas consumed in the EU in 2021. Germany is especially reliant on this supply of cheap gas. Gas only generates about 15% of the country’s electricity but many rely on it for heating and it is vital to heavy industries such as petrochemicals that use a lot of energy. Drastic measures are now necessary to secure alternative supplies, reduce gas demand and prepare for the possibility of shortages this winter. The EU’s Save Gas for a Safe Winter program aims to reduce overall gas demand by 15% across the bloc this winter...

German Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck expressed concern over the looming energy crisis this winter, telling German media that the situation was extremely tense and there is a possibility that Germany may run out of gas. Habeck spoke on Friday, appealing to Germans to reduce their consumption of natural gas ahead of this winter a day after the German government launched a new price break programme to help Germans with the rising costs of energy.

Economist Ezra Solomon once observed that the “only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” Historically, economists have had a terrible track record when it comes to making growth forecasts. The Federal Reserve (Fed) during the 2007-2016 period had a tendency to persistently overestimate future GDP growth. After correcting for this tendency in the recent past, Fed officials found themselves making a new set of costly forecasting errors during the past year. They persistently underestimated inflation.

President Biden agreed to visit Israel in the coming months during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday. In a readout of the call, the White House said Biden and Bennett also spoke about shared regional and global security issues, including the threat Iran and its proxies present.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has shown no signs of lifting its indoor mask requirements, despite several blue states and areas lifting their restrictions in recent days. Philadelphia currently requires businesses, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and doctors’ offices, to require masks, regardless of vaccination status. Originally, the city’s indoor mask mandate only applied to Philadelphia businesses that did not have a vaccine passport system in place. That changed in August after the Philadelphia Board of Health approved a regulation requiring such businesses to require masks, regardless. According to the update, the change was “intended to support parents of children too young to...

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday advised that inflation could hit the United States for a while before eventually letting up. Yellen told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that inflationary pressures are “transitory” at this time but cautioned “that doesn’t mean they’ll go away over the next several months.” She added that she trusts the fed “to make the right decisions.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK into lockdown six months ago today. Yet despite assurances that the draconian measure was to “flatten the curve” and give the government breathing room to react, freedoms in the UK remain severely restricted and may yet be further impinged upon. The national lockdown — in which large swathes of the population were told they must stay in their homes and some businesses were required to close completely — began on March 23rd, six months ago. While the exact nature of the lockdown had changed in time — it is now legal to sleep...

WASHINGTON - As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment. A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers. Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of...

"I want to leave this country," nuclear whistleblower says. Mordechai Vanunu, the man who spent 18 years in jail after being convicted of treason and espionage was released from Ayalon Prison in Ramle Sunday after serving a further three months. Upon his release, Vanunu stated that he held no nuclear secrets and maintained that the Israeli government should leave him alone. "I am not a scientist...my knowledge is not of nuclear weapons," said Vanunu. "I want to be free and leave this country," he added. Vanunu was returned to jail in May after being found guilty of violating restrictions imposed...

WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is predicting that it'll be clear by year's end whether a NATO-led counterinsurgency effort in the Afghan Taliban stronghold of Kandahar is successful. Adm. Mike Mullen says the Kandahar campaign, which is planned to go forward next month, is vital to turning around the war. He says the southern Afghanistan city is as important to the overall war effort as Baghdad was to the U.S. troop increase in Iraq in 2007.

Residents eager to get their state tax refunds may have a long wait this year: The recession has tied up cash and caused officials in half a dozen states to consider freezing refunds, in one case for as long as five months. States from New York to Hawaii that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn say they have either delayed refunds or are considering doing so because of budget shortfalls.

Two-thirds of Americans expect an Islamic suicide bomb attack on American soil within six months, according to a new poll that also shows Republicans are significantly more concerned than Democrats. Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies said one of the most shocking findings of his recent polling on the subject was that 65 percent are expecting an attack within six months. "Some of the communication between Fort Hood shooter Hasan and al-Qaida figures included discussion of such attacks inside the United States, and it has been a common form of violence in the Middle East for years," he said. "Now, Americans...

H1N1 swine flu killed an estimated 3,900 Americans from April to October, U.S. health officials said Thursday. Better estimates show that the pandemic of flu has infected an estimated 22 million Americans and put 98,000 in the hospital, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Of these totals, children account for 8 million of the infected, 36,000 of those in hospital and 540 deaths.

Obama said in an op-ed posted early Sunday on The Washington Post's Web site that his $787 billion stimulus program was not expected to return the economy to full health, but to provide a boost that would stop the free fall. "So far, it has done that," the president wrote. "It was, from the start, a two-year program, and it will steadily save and create jobs as it ramps up over this summer and fall." He said his stimulus plan must be given time to work and appealed to Americans, who are increasingly uneasy with rising unemployment and ballooning budget...

More than two months into his presidency, Barack Obama has yet to name a replacement for former NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, leaving the 18,000-man space agency flying without a navigator.