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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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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