Biggest Bank in U.S. Records Most Profitable Year Ever Despite Sector Crisis

Top U.S. bank JP Morgan Chase on Friday reported $49.6 billion in profits for 2023, a record for the bank, despite a sector crisis that shut down multiple smaller institutions.

Profits for the year were up for the bank despite net income bringing in only $9.3 billion in the fourth quarter, falling 15%, while the company brought in $39.9 billion in net revenue, up 12% for the quarter, according to JP Morgan’s fourth quarter earnings report. JP Morgan’s record profits come after a year of crisis for the sector, starting with a bank run in March at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which then spread to First Republic Bank and Signature Bank, prompting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to step in and seize the banks, ultimately selling First Republic’s assets to JP Morgan.

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Lawmakers, Veterans Say ‘Woke Diversity Initiatives’ Cost Taxpayers, Hurt Military

A growing concern about progressive ideology on race and gender at all levels of the U.S. military has sparked outrage and became the center of a Congressional hearing. Critics have launched a barrage of attacks on the progressive ideology they say is infiltrating the ranks, calling it a waste of taxpayer dollars and arguing it hurts morale, breeds division among troops, and hurts recruitment.

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Energy Group: Biden Policies Sow Seeds for ‘New Energy Crisis’

Off Shore Oil Drilling

Federal policies must focus on strengthening American energy independence, the American Petroleum Institute emphasized  Wednesday at its annual State of the American Energy conference.

API CEO Mike Sommers and Senior Vice President of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Dustin Meyer blasted the Biden administration over what they called its “short-sighted” energy policies.

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Commentary: After Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Fuhgeddaboudit!

Since the advent of the Iowa caucuses in 1972 and the South Carolina primary in 1980, the “first in the nation” political contests, including the New Hampshire primary which dates back to 1916, have been able to consistently end up selecting who the nominee for President will eventually be particularly for Republicans.

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Energy Group: Biden Policies Sow Seeds for ‘New Energy Crisis’

Off Shore Oil Drilling

Federal policies must focus on strengthening American energy independence, the American Petroleum Institute emphasized  Wednesday at its annual State of the American Energy conference.

API CEO Mike Sommers and Senior Vice President of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Dustin Meyer blasted the Biden administration over what they called its “short-sighted” energy policies.

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Federal Reserve Employees Went Through DEI Training as Inflation Rose

New documents reveal that, as the nation suffered from the strain of historically high inflation, employees at the Federal Reserve spent more time going through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training than addressing the financial crisis.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the newly-obtained documents reveal that there were four DEI training sessions held in the spring and summer of 2021. These lessons featured such teachings as “correct pronoun usage is a civil right” and acknowledging “White privilege,” as well as demanding the use of “inclusive language” such as “Latinx,” a word that is meant to erase the historically gendered language used in Hispanic languages.

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Commentary: Martin Luther King Jr. Is More Relevant Than Ever

Why do we celebrate a holiday honoring a man who was arrested and jailed twenty-nine times, and was ultimately assassinated? What lessons can we learn from this man, Martin Luther King, Jr. and from American institutions that seem to have forgotten the contributions that made him worthy of a national holiday?

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Texas Transports over 100,000 Foreign Nationals to ‘Sanctuary Cities’

Since April 2022, more than 100,000 foreign nationals who have illegally crossed the border have been bused or flown from Texas to six sanctuary cities. This equates to roughly 5 percent of those who illegally entered Texas in fiscal 2023 alone, the highest number on record, The Center Square exclusively reported.

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Professor Who Belittled Christopher Rufo’s Harvard Degree ‘Apologizes’

The Harvard professor who made fun of conservative journalist Christopher Rufo’s Harvard Extension School degree as “not the same” as those earned by “normal” Harvard students has offered an apology of sorts.

Jennifer Hochschild (pictured above), a professor of government and African/African American Studies whose work was plagiarized by former Harvard President Claudine Gay, had accused Rufo of “try[ing] to attach himself to Ivy status and prestige” by noting he has a master’s degree from Harvard.

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Commentary: Do Not Let Hamas Escape into Exile

“NYC Public School Wipes Israel from the Map” reads the headline of Francesca Block’s article in The Free Press today (January 11). The map was supplied to the school, PS 261, as part of a program that is sponsored by the rulers of Qatar. The idea is, of course, to normalize to these children the idea of a Middle East from which Israel has been erased.

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Nearly Half of Iowa Trump Supporters Are ‘Extremely’ Enthusiastic – Plurality of DeSantis and Haley Backers Only ‘Mildly’ So

Former President Donald Trump still maintains a strong lead in Iowa ahead of the GOP presidential caucus on Monday with strong enthusiasm from supporters, unlike former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, whose backers lack the same enthusiasm, according to a new poll released by The Des Moines Register/NBC News/MediaCom.

Out of all voters who expect to caucus for Trump, around 42 percent said that they were “extremely enthusiastic,” while 39 percent said that they were “very enthusiastic,” compared to Haley, who came in at 9 percent and 30 percent in those same metrics, respectively, according to a poll conducted by Selzer & Co. Overall, those surveyed heavily favored the former president, with 48 percent of voters saying they would support Trump, followed by Haley at 20 percent and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 16 percent.

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As Media and Environmental Groups Dismiss Offshore Wind Concerns, Whale Advocates Continue Fight

Dead Whale

In 2022, 100 marine scientists launched a campaign to stop oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, over concerns that the activity could impact a rare species of whale. EarthJustice, an environmentalist nonprofit that litigates environmental issues, joined in the fight.

While oil spills can directly kill whales, the main threat to marine life from oil and gas development is vessel strikes and underwater noise.

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Commentary: Gun Owners End 2023 Proving Gun Control Advocates Wrong

Hunting

As 2023 drew to a close, millions of peaceable Americans geared up for a new year that will bring with it many new limitations on their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

In California, for example, Jan. 1 was the date to ring in the state’s plethora of new restrictions on carrying concealed firearms in public, courtesy of SB 2, a law passed in the wake of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen to punish concealed carry permit holders for having their rights vindicated by the Supreme Court.

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Sen. Rand Paul Proposes Fed Audit as Regional Bank Bailout Hits $141 Billion

Legislation offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the “Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2024,” would conduct an audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the first time since the Dodd-Frank legislation of 2010 required an audit of the central bank’s purchases of mortgage-backed securities.

This time around, the GAO would look at the Fed’s entire balance sheet, including the recently enacted Bank Term Funding Program — now $141 billion according to the central bank’s latest H.4.1. release — that has been lending banks money in exchange for U.S. Treasuries after the spike in interest rates caused there to be a reported $620 billion of unreported losses including regional banks that experienced failures in the interest rate crunch.

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