University Votes Down TPUSA Chapter on 'Comfort' Grounds

In a move championed by President Donald Trump, the Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by 0.25% to a range of 3.5% to 3.75% on Wednesday, the third cut this year, lowering borrowing costs and giving some lift to a flagging job market.Only three members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors voted against the cut: Stephen Miran, who wanted to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 0.5%, and Austan Goolsbee and Jeffrey Schmid, who both figured it was presently best not to have any cuts at all.'Available indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace.'Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist for the financial services firm RSM US, noted in a Tuesday analysis that the Fed was faced with the "difficult choice of either aggressively fighting inflation or hoping to revive a sluggish labor market and slowing economic activity when it meets on Tuesday and Wednesday."Rate cuts can help boost the stock market — encouraging spending, investing, and business activity by lowering savings rate and borrowing costs. However, by increasing the supply of money, they can also exacerbate inflation.The annual inflation rate was around 3% for the 12 months ending September, according to U.S. Labor Department data. The Fed's inflation target is 2% over the longer run — hence the resistance to another cut by some policymakers."The [Federal Open Market Committee] seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated," the Fed said in a statement on Wednesday. "The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that downside risks to employment rose in recent months."In light of its goals and "the shift in the balance of risks," the FOMC determined that a drop in the rate by 0.25% was worthwhile."Available indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Job gains have slowed this year, and the unemployment rate has edged up through September," the Fed noted further. "Inflation has moved up since earlier in the year and remains somewhat elevated."The rate-cut decision on Wednesday comes months after the Fed similarly lowered its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points in September to a range of 4% to 4.25%, and after weeks of disagreement on the central bank's 12-member policy committee regarding the prudent way forward.Chris Brigati, chief investment officer at the financial services company SWBC, told the Financial Post ahead of the announcement that the Federal Reserve was divided on how to proceed with rate cuts in 2026 "given the delicate balance between job market weakness and still-elevated inflation.""There is also uncertainty about the new Fed chair, and that may also add to the central bank's reluctance to make any major rate moves in the months leading up to Chair Powell's term ending," Brigati added.RELATED: Can presidents fire all federal bureaucrats at will? Supreme Court to hear case with major implications. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImageIn search of someone suitable to replace Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May, the president has been interviewing various candidates, including Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, both members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; former Fed governor Kevin Warsh; and BlackRock fixed-income chief Rick Rieder. Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett is, however, reportedly regarded as the frontrunner.The president told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday, "We're going to be looking at a couple of different people, but I have a pretty good idea who I want."When asked in his interview with Politico the previous day whether it is "a litmus test that the new chair lower interest rates immediately," Trump said yes and noted, "We're fighting through interest rates."The Federal Reserve also released on Wednesday its regional bank presidents and governors' quarterly set of economic projections. They anticipate a rise in the unemployment rate from 4.4% in September to 4.5% by year's end; the GDP to grow by 2.3% in 2026; and inflation to sink, but nowhere below their 2% target.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Australia will put the onus on social media platforms to limit access to children under 16 years old.The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 amended Australia's reigning online safety measures and gave social media companies time to age‐restrict their platforms and "take reasonable steps to prevent Australian under 16s from having account[s]."'No Australian will be compelled to use government identification.'Officially taking effect on December 10, the ban includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, X, and YouTube's general platform; YouTube Kids and WhatsApp do not meet the criteria for the ban.Australia introduced its social media minimum-age framework that included a list of criteria that would result in a platform being banned for those under 16. This included if a platform's sole purpose, or "significant purpose," is to "enable online social interaction between two or more end‐users."Or if the service "allows end‐users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end‐users" and "allows end‐users to post material on the service" and "meets such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules," it will not be available for younger Australians.The legislation can also specify certain platforms, or classes, to not include in the ban.Social media platforms will be responsible for enforcement, and neither children nor their parents will face punishment should they gain access. Companies face fines of up to $32 million USD or just under $50 million in Australian dollars.RELATED: How Texas slammed the gate on Big Tech’s censorship stampede Photo by DAVID GRAY/AFP via Getty Images The government further defined the requirements placed upon the platforms, adding that they must "take reasonable steps to prevent" those under 16 from having accounts.The legislation also specified that "no Australian will be compelled to use government identification (including Digital ID) to prove their age online" and that platforms must offer reasonable alternatives to its users.According to the BBC, other countries are hot on Australia's tail in terms of implementing their own similar bans. This includes the French government, which has begun a parliamentary inquiry into banning children under 15 years old from social media, while also implementing a "digital curfew" for those between 15 and 18.The Spanish government has also drafted a law that would require parental consent for children under 16 to access social media.RELATED: Conservative influencers promote Qatar as a desert paradise — but are they lying? Photo by DAVID GRAY/AFP via Getty Images Ruling left-wing Labour Party official Anika Wells, who serves as Australia's communications minister (and minister of sport), said that the ban is not "perfect" and is going to "look a bit untidy on the way through.""Big reforms always do," she added.Australians under 16 will still be able to access content that is available on a website without being logged in or being a member, as there is virtually no way to prevent that without restricting access to the internet entirely.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Traditionally, immigrants adopt the customs and culture of the natives whose country they have moved into. But as we know, progressives have flipped the script. In their warped worldview, the natives must devolve for the sake of the newcomers in the name of “tolerance and inclusivity.”Minnesota is the perfect exhibit. After Christopher Rufo’s reporting exposed massive Somali-led fraud rings draining hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds, you would expect the mayor of Minneapolis to condemn the grift. Instead, Jacob Frey went full solidarity mode.In a December 2 press conference, Frey vowed that city police and staff would refuse to cooperate with ICE and then switched to speaking in Somali to pledge his support to the community.On the latest “Rufo & Lomez,” Christopher Rufo and co-host Jonathan Keeperman tear into Frey’s performance, dissecting what it really reveals about Minnesota. “Our police, many of whom are Somali themselves, are trusted partners in keeping people safe. They will not collaborate with any federal agency around doing immigration enforcement work. Our city staff and our law enforcement will not ask the question as to whether an individual is documented or not,” said Frey.“That’s not American. That's not what we are about. And we're going to do right by every single person in our cities,” he continued, before fumbling through several lines delivered in Somali.“We love you, we stand with you, and we aren't backing down,” he concluded.Keeperman points out the darkly comic “synchronicity” of Frey’s stance: “The Nordic populations of the upper Midwest are engaged in the exact same sort of altruistic migration experiment … that their kinfolk are engaged in still in their Scandinavian countries.”It’s living proof of what he’s been saying all along: “You can’t just strip people of the habits and norms of the groups that they come from.”In other words, ethnic character travels. It’s true of the Somali-Americans who brought with them the exact same clan-based fraud and grift that is rampant back in Somalia. And it’s true of Minnesotans, who, centuries after their ancestors left Scandinavia, are still running the identical open-borders generosity script — right down to importing a Somali community now accused of massive fraud — because that self-sacrificial impulse never actually left the bloodline.But Keeperman sees zero chance that Frey or Governor Tim Walz (D) will ever recognize the self-destructive insanity of their immigration stance. “A guy like Jacob Frey or Tim Walz simply just has to lose an election. The people of Minnesota are at some point going to just have to say, ‘We're not going to do this any more.”’Rufo isn’t hopeful that Minnesotans are anywhere near their breaking point, however.Not only was Jacob Frey re-elected as mayor despite stories of Somali fraud circulating in the media for years, but the candidate who narrowly lost to him was Omar Fateh — a radicalized Somali Democrat socialist.Fateh, Keeperman reminds us, “was committing fraud during the election to rig the Democratic primary in his favor.”But because Minnesotans are ideologues when it comes to immigration — and can't bear to fully confront the mess they have invited — the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party took "the gloves off" by revoking Fateh's rigged endorsement, only to pull its punches and refuse to hammer him on the fraud because it makes people “feel too uncomfortable as white liberals in good standing,” adds Rufo.To make matters worse, Fateh had “long-standing relationships with a number of the people who were arrested and then convicted of these fraud schemes,” he continues. “And so the fraudsters were not the downtrodden, the exiled, the marginalized. … No, these people were tightly knit with Ilhan Omar, with Omar Fateh, with Attorney General Keith Ellison.”In sum, when Jacob Frey is “the least bad option,” it’s obvious Minnesota is nowhere near ready to address its immigration problem.Want more from Rufo & Lomez?To enjoy more of the news through the anthropological lens of Christopher Rufo and Lomez, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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The House GOP healthcare package set to be unveiled on the floor next week doesn't include Affordable Care Act tax credits. "We have some low-hanging fruit that every Republican agrees to. Democrats won't, remember."