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President Donald Trump said Thursday he would hold a news conference “on China” on Friday, but he offered no details as to what he would say. Even without any details, Trump’s announcement Thursday at the White House was enough to send markets tumbling. For weeks, the Trump administration has been ratcheting up pressure on Beijing over its alleged cover-up of early coronavirus cases. Trump has publicly blamed China for the virus itself and for its outsized severity in the United States.

Most Americans, including half of independents and Republicans, support a ban on checking handguns into aircraft baggage In recent years, America has, unfortunately, become used to mass shootings, but the recent mass shooting by an Iraq War veteran in Fort Lauderdale has sparked some concern. In the shooting at the Florida city's airport, the man, Estaban Santiago, had checked a handgun into his baggage. After retrieving it from the carousel he loaded it in a bathroom and then allegedly murdered five people, exposing a weakness in airport security. The latest research from YouGov finds that most Americans (57%) support a...

Let's hear it from people who can't take the Clinton/Trump debate any more. I turned it off after 26 minutes.

Live Video Link: http://video.foxnews.com/v/2555052454001/president-obama-delivers-address-to-nation-on-immigration/#sp=watch-live

Happy Patriots' Day. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. ...   As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to...

This post is of interest to ham radio operators, and also anyone who wishes to monitor NOAA weather radio, police, fire, EMS, aircraft, marine, and other radio traffic using a $15 receiver plugged into your laptop. The Chinese USB "dongles", originally intended to receive the Far East mobile television service, are being re-purposed as VHF/UHF receivers for many different modulation schemes and protocols.  The software to re-purpose them runs either on a PC (Win/Mac/Linux), or on a single-board computer like a Raspberry PI (Raspian Linux). At about US$15, Ol' Backwoods just had to have one. The RTL-SDR receives on...

We awaited zero  hour.  All was prepared; it was go time.  Furtively, we glanced at the clock. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... GO! Two of my co-workers, T. and S., and I went to the outdoor shooting range today, taking off as close to the exact tick of the end of our shift as my WWV-synchronized watch could determine. Our three pickup trucks raced along the interstate, exited, then caravanned over a few miles of dirt roads to our local public outdoor range. The  spring weather in Alabama was shirtsleeve-warm with a stunningly beautiful sky as we pulled up to...

Ol' Backwoods just finished a book that I have been avoiding since my teen years, a book, I supposed, so utterly despondent in its outlook, so stolid in its prediction of failure of civilization, that it would cast its pall of darkness over me, without recovery. But I was wrong. Earth Abides (Amazon) Earth Abides by George R. Stewart is one of the most important, one of the more comforting, and one of the more hopeful books I have ever read. Surprised?  Yeah, so am I.  What could an atheist Berkeley professor write that should impress a backwoods Christian engineer...

Duck Commander Phil Robertson has gone and offended PajamaBoy's America, in an interview in GQ magazine that no doubt all my readers have heard about by now.    But there is more to this furor than meets the eye; it speaks more about the divide in America than about Robertson and the gays who are attacking him. You see, Christians like Phil Robertson (and Ol' Backwoods) take the Bible, Old and New Testaments, to be God's Word and absolute truth. So, when the Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that if you practice one or more of a particular list of...

Man, this kind of stuff gets my hillbilly back up. It burns me up to see these city folk acting like sheep, when armed policemen pull them over, under color of law, and — Lord have mercy! — 'ask' them for BLOOD and TISSUE SAMPLES! The Supreme Court, may the Lord judge them ever so harshly, has said that police checkpoints looking for drunk drivers are Constitutional (Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz), but this is something new: these are Fed contractors, asking for BLOOD AND DNA after armed deputies stop citizens under color of law. And then say,...

An essay comparing the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 73 years ago today, to the near future collapse of the American civil society, from a blogger with the FR Seal of Approval. -- I. TACOMA NARROWS 73 years ago today, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State collapsed. The way in which it collapsed was brought on by a positive-feedback situation, where the destructive force was only bounded by the structural integrity of the bridge itself. There are some serious lessons in this collapse for the future of American society. First, let's get a basic understanding of why the...

I really wanted to go shooting this morning, at the very nice Uchee Shooting Range at the Tuskeegee National Forest near Auburn, Alabama. I have some new .223 loads I am just dying to try out. But no. King Barry has decreed that there will be no recreating, and has erected his Barrycades, along with His Royal Decree. The roads in the Tuskeegee National Forest were open, as reported in the MSM, so I assumed the shooting range would be. I stopped by the Torch85 Truck Stop, as was my custom, to pay my $3 Federal User Fee and get...

Once, I allowed another man to violate my lower gastrointestinal tract. It was my doctor. I didn't like it. I doubt he did, either, because he wore gloves during the procedure. Now, can I be a star like NFL athlete Jason Collins, who announced that he, too, has had his lower gastrointestinal tract violated? Can President Obama say that I was courageous? Will millions of people Tweet and post on Facebook about me, too?

Biden made a huge admission this morning on MSNBC, network of gun banners: "It used to be we were dealing almost exclusively with hunters," Biden said on MSNBC. "There's a whole new sort of group of individuals now who, I don’t know what the numbers are, that never hunt at all but they own guns for one of two reasons: self protection or they just like the feel of that AR-15 at the range.” “They like the way it feels. You know, it’s like driving a Ferrari," [Biden] said, raising his arms as if shooting a gun. Biden's comments illustrate...

Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the majority in the decision of West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, US Supreme Court (319 US 624, 1943): The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on...

Look, y'all already know how bad these federal gun ban bills are. That ain't the point of this post. Today, I want to look at how the media and politicians are using the Sandy Hook Massascre to to shame the US Senate into passing S.649, S.374 and other gun banning / registering / confiscating / ickifying bills. Shhh! Shhhh! This story doesn't fit the narrative! The media and Congressdrones say we must ban, ickify, register, and confiscate all guns in America, BECAUSE SANDY HOOK!!!!!!!11eleventy!!!! But one Sandy Hook parent ain't buying it: Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Monday hosted Newtown...

Connecticut will fall to the onrushing darkness of firearms prohibition, and the rest of America will too, in time. The prohibition package up for a vote in the Connecticut State Senate April 3 is a doozie: serialization and registration of commonly-available magazines, bans on magazines exceeding a paltry 10-round capacity, and prohibition by name and model of over 100 different guns. Worst of all, full registration of all firearms transfers will be required in CT; this is the Orwellian-named "universal background checks." If you want to know more about this mess, there's better reporting than mine. There are firearms owners...

Imagine this scenario: for whatever reason, you are bugging out, and have to travel through an urban or suburban area, or even along an interstate highway. It's hot. Dang hot. And you need water. There's no streams or lakes or ponds nearby. Nothing is open, and there's no power to operate a soda machine, even if there was one around. You've got a container in your bug-out bag, but you need a source of clean water. If there are buildings, there is water available everywhere, but without a special tool, you can't get it! What are you talking about, Backwoods?...

Colorado has fallen, and NYC Mayor Bloomberg's "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" is rejoicing. And, they are pressing on to destroy gun rights in other states they see as vulnerable. Below is an image from Bloomberg's $12 million ad campaign that will be running in North Carolina, and 12 other states: Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania. I am sad to see this targeted at my state, because many people will go along with it, right up until the whole state is disarmed. WHEN WILL GUN OWNERS FIGHT BACK? (IMAGE: Doomberg's Fudd...

I respect 'Ol Remus down yonder at the Woodpile Report. He is somethin' of an inspiration to me and mine here in the Backwoods. And this week, he has given us a lot to think about. His basic premises are: 1) We don't have to show "need" to exercise a protected right, and 2) every infringement of the 2nd Amendment is already un-Constitutional, and should be rolled back. I agree. Let's take a look at his arguments.