Free Republic

Of all the declared Republican presidential candidates, none has taken a tougher stance on the Federal Reserve than Governor Ron DeSantis. He’s criticized monetary policymakers for permitting rampant inflation. He’s defended the rights of crypto enthusiasts to own and transact digital assets free from heavy-handed regulators at the Fed and elsewhere. And he’s come down hard against a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which poses great threats to financial privacy and freedom. Except for inflation, these might seem like esoteric policy concerns of little interest to average voters. But the issue profiles are waxing. Americans are increasingly aware just how...

Dylan Mulvaney, the transgender activist who's endorsement of Bud Light Beer knocked it off its position as America's best-selling beer, has a plan the thwart the type of boycott he inspired. "As I see it, the simplest way out of the clutches of the anti-woke counteroffensive is for me and people like me to be signed as spokespersons for every product." "Look, it's easier for the haters when they can switch to another beer," Mulvaney reasoned. "But what if every beer is endorsed by a transgender? Can all the beer lovers go cold turkey and boycott all the beer brands?...

One of the joys of writing about business is that rare moment when you realise conventions are shifting in front of you. It brings a shiver down the spine. Vaingloriously, you start scribbling down every detail of your surroundings, as if you are drafting the opening lines of a bestseller. It happened to your columnist recently in San Francisco, sitting in the pristine offices of Anthropic, a darling of the artificial-intelligence (ai) scene. When Jack Clark, one of Anthropic’s co-founders, drew an analogy between the Baruch Plan, a (failed) effort in 1946 to put the world’s atomic weapons under un...

When candidates run for public office — local, state, or federal — they campaign on some careful blend of their résumés, their personalities, and their political issues. Thus it has always been, and thus it will always be, in a republic. "Vote for me because I have the experience to do it well," or "Vote for me because I'm so much like you, I'll represent your interests," or "Vote for me because we agree on these twenty or thirty specific issues." But there is something going on that we don't usually expect, and while it's been in process for a...

Joe Biden’s “climate czar” John Kerry is calling for farmers to stop growing food in order to meet the administration’s radical “net zero” goals for lowering “emissions.” Kerry, Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, issued the warning during a green agenda conference in Washington D.C. During the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) AIM for Climate Summit, Kerry told the audience that “we can’t get to net zero, we won’t get this job done, unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution.” Kerry warned attendees that his and other world leaders’ “lives depend” on farmers ceasing their operations. Stopping...

Joe Biden has made much use of executive orders, sometimes to make changes that would not be adopted by Congress. For instance, among his many agenda points that he's pursued simply by writing down what he wants, he's worked to redefine the word "sex" in the nation's legacy nondiscrimination laws to include "gender identity" and such. Essentially, his agenda has argued that members of Congress, when they adopted a ban on sex discrimination decades ago, to protect women, they were proclaiming that transgenders must be treated as the sex they choose to represent themselves as being. Now Biden is working...

Special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry recently warned that the world can't tackle climate change without first addressing emissions from agriculture. Kerry noted that agricultural production is responsible for roughly one third of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions and argued that reducing those emissions must be "front and center" in the quest to defeat global warming. Kerry made the remarks at the Department of Agriculture's AIM (Agriculture Innovation Mission) for Climate Summit in Washington, D.C. The attack on farming by Western leaders is beyond shocking. It is criminal, treasonous. For his part, Kerry neglected to mention that, though...

Should the Food and Drug Administration be allowed to approve whatever drugs it wants however it wants because the FDA is the expert on drug safety and efficacy? Should Congress defer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and let stand a rule that is nonsensical and harmful? And here’s the general question: should executive branch agencies have broad authority to make whatever rules they want to accomplish their aims, as long as Congress hasn’t explicitly prohibited it? For too many politicians, regulators, and commentators, the answer is “yes.” “Believe in Science” or “Trust the Experts” has come to...

The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear a case that could significantly scale back federal agencies’ authority, with major implications for the future of environmental and other regulations. The justices next term will consider whether to overturn a decades-old precedent that grants agencies deference when Congress left ambiguity in a statute. Named for the court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chevron deference has become one of the most frequently cited precedents in administrative law since the decision was first handed down in 1984. It involves a two-step test: First, judges decide if Congress...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether the government can require commercial fishermen to help fund a program monitoring herring catches off New England's coast in a case that could undercut the regulatory power of federal agencies.

One of the very first things President Joe Biden did after taking the oath of office was to order federal agencies to revamp the way they evaluate the costs and benefits of regulations.It went largely unnoticed amid the flurry of executive orders in Biden's first days, but that January 20, 2021, memo to the heads of departments and executive agencies signaled the administration's intention to rev up the regulatory state by counting "non-quantifiable" benefits of new regulations. As Reason reported at the time, the memo made clear that the new regulatory framework would serve "as a tool to affirmatively promote...

Americans can’t afford to buy food, so Biden decided that they also shouldn’t be able to heat their homes during the winter. After an “environmental” measure that would prevent a majority of the country from being able to afford new cars, Biden is now going after their power bills. The latest EPA proposal would mandate ‘carbon capture’ at power plants. A study by MIT showed that carbon capture raises the cost of electricity from 30% to 50% depending on the type of plant. Another study by Australia’s Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis however showed that prices could actually...

The federal government does not know the extent that regulations are reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, despite committing $200 billion towards the issue.Jerry DeMarco, commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, holds a press conference in Ottawa on April 20, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)An April 20 report released by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Jerry DeMarco, indicates that Environment and Climate Change Canada does not attribute emission results to specific regulations.The federal department does not measure, or report on, the contributions of each regulation toward meeting the set target for 2030. An audit by the commissioner...

According to CNBC:Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said “every product of every company” will be impacted by the quick development of AI, warning that society needs to prepare for technologies like the ones it’s already launched.In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Sunday that struck a concerned tone, interviewer Scott Pelley tried several of Google’s AI projects and said he was “speechless” and felt it was “unsettling,” referring to the human-like capabilities of products like Google’s chatbot Bard.“We need to adapt as a society for it,” Pichai told Pelley, adding that jobs that would be disrupted by...

The Supreme Court on Friday dealt the administrative state another blow with a 9-0 decision holding that individuals and businesses harpooned by an independent agency don’t have to suffer a torturous government adjudication to challenge its constitutionality in federal court (Axon Enterprise v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran).

President Joe Biden on Thursday issued his second veto since taking office, halting a bipartisan resolution that would have reversed waterway regulations enacted by his administration last month. The Biden Amdinistration’s regulations issue protections for “hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands, and other waterways,” walking back deregulations implemented during the Trump Administration, as the Associated Press noted. Republicans and some Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), have argued the new regulations are an executive branch overreach. After vetoing the resolution, Biden said his administration’s regulation “provides clear rules of the road that will help advance infrastructure projects, economic investments,...

Democrats, including President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), are blaming Donald Trump for the sudden collapse of two banks, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. But Barney Frank, a leading sponsor of the Dodd-Frank Act, sharply disagrees. The law, signed by then-President Barack Obama in 2010, made significant changes to Wall Street regulations and federal financial regulatory agencies in the aftermath of the financial meltdown in 2008. The bill, though controversial, was theoretically designed to protect Americans. Democrats say Trump is responsible because he signed a law rolling back some of the regulations enacted by the Dodd-Frank Act....

The House of Representatives voted 227-198 Thursday to overturn the Biden administration’s “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, which has been heavily criticized for broadening the definition of what are considered “navigable waters” subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act. Republicans say the rule places a costly burden on landowners, ranchers, and farmers by claiming regulatory control over lands containing small streams and wetlands. All but one Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted to overturn the rule, with nine Democrats joining. The resolution was introduced early February and co-sponsored by 170 members of Congress. “President Biden’s new...

The White House this week reversed a Trump-era rule stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of some regulatory oversight over power plants, hailing the reversal as a win for “public health.” The EPA said on a press release on Friday that the “Biden-Harris administration” had “reverse[d] a rule issued by the previous administration in May 2020” which “undermined the legal basis” for the EPA’s rulemaking authority regarding “​​mercury, acid gases, and other harmful pollutants.” “For years, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards have protected the health of American communities nationwide, especially children, low-income communities, and communities of color who often and unjustly...

Following yet another failure of government control of transportation -- the FAA system debacle -- Pete Buttigieg has been soundly thrashed again for his incompetence. The FAA failure is only one of many fiascos over the past year laid at the feet of the erstwhile secretary of Transportation. Recall when he and his “husband” were on paternity leave for nearly two months while the maritime shipping supply chain crisis was going on last fall. Next, he was AWOL during the railroad strike negotiations and really played no role in brokering a deal. As a matter of fact, he was on...