Free Republic

LOCKHART — Michael Cargill’s commands cut through the air sharply as his license-to-carry students train to shoot at Lone Star Gun Range in Lockhart.“One shot. One shot.”The students load one bullet into their handguns, some brought from home, others rented from Cargill’s gun shop, Central Texas Gun Works. He reminds them to make sure their right thumb is atop their left on the gun, to keep their stances wide and to lean forward.“Fire! Fire! Fire!”If their stances are uneven, if their thumbs are not aligned, Cargill pauses to adjust each student’s positioning. This is the purpose of Cargill’s license-to-carry class:...

PayPal has started allowing U.S. users to spend their cryptocurrency holdings at millions of online merchants globally. The development means PayPal users who hold bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH), and litecoin (LTC) in PayPal digital wallets can now convert their crypto holdings into fiat to make purchases. Reuters first reported the news. "This is the first time you can seamlessly use cryptocurrencies in the same way as a credit card or a debit card inside your PayPal wallet," PayPal CEO and president Dan Schulman told Reuters. "We think it is a transitional point where cryptocurrencies move from being...

The father of the 20-year-old man who allegedly beat an elderly man in a Michigan nursing home last week, which went viral this week after video of the alleged incident was viewed millions of times on social media, says that his son was not supposed to be at the nursing home, but was taken there because he tested positive for the coronavirus. Police are now also reportedly investigating whether the suspect beat an elderly woman. The father told FOX 2 Detroit that his son has “mental issues” and that he was at a group home last week where he was...

We’re finally getting a clear picture of exactly how the beating of a 75-year-old nursing home patient by a man nearly one-quarter his age came about. And boy, it is a shocker. It turns out that victim and perp were sent to the Westwood Nursing Center in Detroit due to the fact that both were suffering from COVID. The older man, an Army vet, was snatched from his apartment and dumped in the nursing home without any notification of his relatives, who then spent a considerable amount of time looking for him, to no avail. As for the younger man,...

SB 16 Reforms the fee structure of the license to carry in Texas. Texas has one of the highest shall issue license to carry fees in the United States. The current cost is $140 for the original license and renewal is $70.  The reform law reduces the original license to $40, and the renewal to the same $40.  People who are indigent have the initial fee reduced by half, to $20.  The renewal fee for the indigent will be $5. For people 60 years or older, the same $20 for an original and $5 for renewal, applies. SB 16...

I've just been notified by my long-term health care insurance program that they're increasing my monthly premium from $198 to $441 beginning in November due to "the severity of certain medical conditions, expected lifespans, returns on investment, and overall program expenses." The insurer is John Hancock Life & Health Insurance Company. I'll have to pay the full premium increase in order to keep my annual 5% benefit increase. Or I can pay "only" $318 per month and drop to a 3.9% annual benefit increase. Or I can retain the current premium and drop to a 2% annual benefit increase.

Well that escalated quickly. Having broken above $900 yesterday to new record highs (and a 100% gain in a week), the crypto currency is not looking back now. On what is higher than average volume this morning, Bitcoin just broke above the magic $1000 level for the first time (at $1025). Meanwhile, the BTC China "arb'd" rate is around $950 for those playing at home; and Litecoin has just topped $26 (from $4 a week ago!).

My wife and I are meeting with NW Mutual sales guy in a few hours. I'm 42 good health, no issues. Wife 37, great health. 2 small creepers under 2. Our parents are old. I want to buy LTC sine I don't want to burden my kids or my parents assets in case something happens. My wife is reluctant because of the chaos of Obamacare and the uncertainty of the healthcare industry.

Hidden in ObamaCare, Section 8002, is a new payroll tax that will hit paychecks of American employees beginning 01/01/2011. It was placed in ObamaCare to make the legislation appear to cost almost $100 billion less than the true cost. That’s according to Ron Greiner of StopObamaCare101.com,a national medical insurance expert. The program is called the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Program (ironically dubbed: “CLASS Act”). Even the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee (Senator Kent Conrad D-ND) called it, “A Ponzi Scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.” (Charles...

Nancy Pelosi’s and Barack Obama’s words are ringing true: We will learn what is in the bill once it is passed. New long term care deduction on everyone's paycheck-$150-250 a month, unless you opt out. This would be in addition to your health insurance premiums, and taxes you already pay. See the video for details.

I have looked through the incomprehensible HR 3200 and can find no discernable reference to private long term care health insurance. However, my read suggests that ObamaCare will also end all private LTC insurance policies and replace them with ... nothing. Since LTC premiums are adjusted severy several years tro reflect a person's age, the bill suggests that once that occurs your LTC insurance is automatically canceled and you get ... nothing. You get to die at home. Quickly. Anyone out there who has deciphered ObamaCare enough to clarify this?

December 28, 2008 Economic View Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent? By TYLER COWEN THE financial crisis is a result of many bad decisions, but one of them hasn’t received enough attention: the 1998 bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund. If regulators had been less concerned with protecting the fund’s creditors, our current problems might not be quite so bad. Long-Term Capital was advised by finance quants, or quantitative analysts, who made a number of unsound, esoteric bets, including investments in interest rate derivatives. When Russia’s inability to pay its debts roiled global markets, the fund, saddled...

I believe the 40 or so Bush supporters at the Democrat's "Unity Day" Shawn Macomber saw were organized by the D.C. chapter of Free Republic of the FreeRepublic.com website. The head of the chapter wrote a thread on the site of their efforts and the harassment they received from the Democrat supporters. At one point they were told they had to move by someone they weren't sure was a Police officer or just hired security. The reason? He told them that they were inciting violence. When asked how, the man with the gun said because they were agitating the Democrat...

In seeking to find the equitableness in the case against Lt. Col Allen B. West, one struggles as the news poured out of Iraq, in regard to the action of the troops of the 4th ID--which Col West was a part of up until he was removed from his battalion command-- with in the span of one week, included the following: November 17 Reuters reported: Angered by bomb attacks ... the commander of a US battalion in Iraq sent his tanks and armored vehicles through the streets on Monday in a demonstration of firepower to insurgents. Weapons of choice: Abrams...

WASHINGTON -- An investigation that is expected to result in criminal charges against a decorated Army battalion commander in Iraq has raised serious new questions about whether there is such a thing as ethical behavior in war and if there is, to what degree one should be held accountable for violating it. On the surface, the case involving Lt. Col. Allen West seems trivial. He fired his pistol near the head of a detainee in an effort to elicit information about opposing forces. Before that, it is alleged, he did nothing to stop an interrogation that included beating the prisoner,...

MISSOURI LTC UPDATE 9-10-2003 BREAKING NEWS HOUSE VOTES TO OVERRIDE! The history making legislative session of 2003 continues! The Missouri House voted today to override Governor Bob Holden's veto of HB349, Missouri's License-to-Carry proposal by a vote of 115 for override to 39 opposed. A successful override required 109 votes. The Missouri House made a clear statement that they do trust the citizens of Missouri. The override in the House was a successful bi-partisan effort led by the bill's sponsor Rep. Larry Crawford and several others including Rep. Frank Barnitz. The people of Missouri should be proud of the 115...