Free Republic

Submitted by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management by Eric Peters. -- Anecdote "What really matters?" he wondered, the Pacific Ocean far below, magnificent, the flawless symmetry of its swell. "Brexit doesn't really matter," he thought, which is not to say it won't create waves if it ever happens. "Italy matters more," he thought, delicate ice crystals creeping in from the edges of his oval widow, nature's order, grace. Europe's political project has been fraught from the start and will remain so till the end. But it remains superior to what came before. An Italian exit would spark...

The United States became a net oil exporter last week for the first time in almost 75 years, a significant step toward achieving “energy independence and dominance,” as promoted by President Donald Trump. The United States had been a net oil importer since 1949. In the last week of November, however, weekly U.S. net imports of crude oil and petroleum products fell to minus 211,000 barrels per day (bpd), meaning the country became a net exporter of that amount, according to data from U.S. Energy Information and Administration. The news came on the back of a surge in crude exports...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S.-China trade negotiations need to reach a successful end by March 1 or new tariffs will be imposed, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Sunday, clarifying there is a "hard deadline" after a week of seeming confusion among President Donald Trump and his advisers. Global markets are jittery about a collision between the world's two largest economic powers over China's huge trade surplus with the United States and U.S. claims that China is stealing intellectual property and technology. "As far as I am concerned it is a hard deadline. When I talk to the president of...

The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures. Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions...

President Trump was not aware of the unusual arrest of a major Chinese technology executive when he sat down to dinner recently with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow. Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 on a U.S. extradition warrant. Huawei is suspected of evading American sanctions on Iran, a possibility that U.S. prosecutors have been investigating since 2016. The arrest was made on the same day that Trump and Xi met for dinner amid high-level trade and national security talks in Buenos Aires. An unnamed...

Proud conservative country music singer John Rich posed a challenge this week to those of his peers in the industry who believe gun bans are the only solution to gun violence: He asked them to think outside of the box and come up with a real solution that’d satisfy everybody. In a video for Fox News, he explained that the problem with simply banning certain guns is that it’d leave families — including his own — less prepared to protect themselves from actual criminals.

There’s a 12-part series of images circulating on the internet titled “Ink Blot Test For People with Trump Derangement Syndrome” which shows pictures of a dozen nondescript ink blots all of which those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome call “Russian Collusion”. That’s about as close as they’ll get to it, because as the Mueller investigation winds down, still with no evidence of collusion, Hillary and her friends seem to be not so lucky. The lawbreaking she (and they) evaded penalty for seems finally closer to a reckoning.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz has just upped the ante on the contentious battle with the newly-emboldened Democrats over President Trump’s proposed border wall.The Texan who is fresh off of his defeat of liberal rock star Beto O’Rourke just introduced a bill to fully fund the wall at $25 billion which will infuriate Democrats who are already engaged in a game of guts poker with Republicans over shutting down the government. Trump has been firm in his request for the funding of a key election promise and as recently as Friday blasted Democrats for “playing games” over what given the recent...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Northern Indiana lawmakers are calling into question Gov. Eric Holcomb’s decision against imposing new tolls on the state’s interstate highways, while allowing the Indiana Toll Road’s private operator to significantly boost rates for large trucks using that highway. Democratic Sen. Karen Tallian of Portage tells the South Bend Tribune that the situation is unfair because only the communities in northern Indiana along the Toll Road will have the burden of higher tolls, while all parts of the state will benefit from the toll money. The Republican governor announced in September that the operator of the Toll...

Internet billionaire Marc Benioff is urging the GOP Congress and President Donald Trump to fast-track 400,000 foreign visa-workers — plus 400,000 family members — to green cards, the U.S. job market, and the ballot box. “This is good for our economy,” Benioff said in a Tuesday tweet that was applauded by Silicon Valley lobbyists. “We need to grow our workers to grow our economy.” Benioff’s comment is a tautology: Expanding the population by importing more than 800,000 people would obviously grow the nation’s economy, retail sales, government taxes, company profits, and Wall Street stock options. But Benioff’s cheap-labor importation plan...

This is how ice ages begin. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam today declared a state of emergency ahead of the upcoming storm, which has brought snow and freezing rain across the southern United States. Heavy and accumulating snow is expected in southern Virginia through Monday, the National Weather Service warned. Downed trees and limbs may create significant power outages or cause additional travel hazards. On Friday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency for all 100 of the state’s counties. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin also declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm for all 77 of...

WASHINGTON—U.S. manufacturers increased their capacity for the 16th straight month in September, fresh evidence that a strengthening economy is helping to propel a U.S. industrial rebound. The Trump Administration has prioritized increasing manufacturing investment in the U.S. with tax cuts and tariffs on a range of imported goods.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's trade surplus with the United States widened to $35.55 billion in November, compared with $31.78 billion in October, Chinese customs data showed on Saturday. For January-November, China's trade surplus with the United States was $293.52 billion (230.6 billion pounds), compared with about $251.26 billion in the same period last year. (please see link for full article, though in this case the article is quite short)

Dallas — Since the Army & Air Force Exchange Service welcomed home all honorably discharged Veterans to ShopMyExchange.com one year ago, more than 62,000 Veterans have used their new benefit to save on low-cost, name-brand merchandise while also saving nearly $3.4 million in sales tax. “In its first year, the Veterans online shopping benefit has brought significant savings to all whoraised their right hand and vowed to defend our Nation,” said Exchange Director/CEO Tom Shull, a Vietnam-era Army Veteran who worked to secure the change in Department of Defense policy to give all honorably discharged Veterans shopping privileges at military...

We now have the first acknowledgment from their side that the Clintons vastly overestimated their personal popularity and the public’s interest in hearing them talk about themselves. The Clintons and their stadium tour promoter are officially responding to the public’s refusal to show up in sufficient numbers for them to avoid embarrassment (and financial loss) at the level of ticket prices that seemed realistic when the tour was announced only two months ago. The UK Daily Mail noticed this offer on Groupon:

A test flight in Alaska of a small launch vehicle by a stealthy startup company ended in failure in late November, the Federal Aviation Administration has revealed. In a speech Dec. 6 at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce space conference here discussing the agency's approach to commercial spaceflight safety, FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell mentioned a recent, but previously unreported, accident involving a launch taking place from Alaska one week ago. A launch license the FAA issued to Astra Space Inc. on Oct. 15, also available on the FAA website, authorized the company to perform a suborbital flight of its...

The 2018 November of National Instant background Check System (NICS) numbers have been reported by the FBI. The NICS checks for November of 2018 were 2,393,043. That makes 2018 the second highest November on record. The record was set in 2016, with 2,561,281. The number of NICS done this year is already the third highest since NICS checks were started in 1998. The total at the end of November, 2018, is  23,638,551. Only 2016 and 2017 had higher totals for the whole year.December is usually the highest month for NICS checks. There are only three years where this was...

<p>BEIJING (AP) — China launched a ground-breaking mission Saturday to land a spacecraft on the largely unexplored far side of the moon, demonstrating its growing ambitions as a space power to rival Russia, the European Union and the U.S.</p> <p>A Long March 3B rocket carrying a lunar probe blasted off at 2:23 a.m. from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province in southwestern China, the official Xinhua News Agency said.</p>

London (CNSNews.com) – It sounds like the stuff of eschatological literature, but the idea of companies forcibly implanting their employees with microchips is making waves in Britain – although the government says it doubts the practice would be legal. In recent years, companies marketing microchip implants have touted them as a convenient shortcut to many routine tasks. Employing the same technology used in contactless credit cards, the tiny device is generally implanted in a worker’s hand and can be used for such things as opening doors or turning on devices. But groups in Britain ranging from the Confederation of Business...

Full Title: Could Elon Musk save the jobs of GM workers? Tesla founder 'would be interested' in taking over General Motors' idled factories Elon Musk is eyeing General Motors' once-occupied plants. The billionaire tech mogul said it's 'possible that [Tesla] would be open' to taking over automakers' old plants, such as the five factories closed by GM last month. The comments came during Musk's wide-ranging interview with CBS' '60 Minutes.' GM CEO Mary Barra announced in November that the car manufacturer would close five factories in North America and lay off some 14,700 workers as a result. Musk indicated that...