Free Republic

The St. Louis County Council does not require council members to be sworn in on a Bible, and newly elected 2nd District member Kelli Dunaway chose the Dr. Seuss book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” “I’m proud and excited to get to work for the 2nd District, and to help rebuild trust in our county government,” Dunaway told a reporter after her first meeting.

When Joann Alfonzo, a pediatrician in Freehold, N.J., walked into her office recently she mentally rolled her eyes when she saw her next patient: a 26-year-old car salesman in a suit and tie. "That's no longer a kid. That's a man," she recalls thinking. Yet, Alfonzo wasn't that surprised. In the past five years, she has seen the age of her patients rise, as more young adults remain at home and, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, on their parents' health insurance until age 26. "First it was 21, then 23 and now 26," Alfonzo says. "A lot of them...

300,000 miles on horseback -Francis Asbury, Circuit Riding Preacher "one of the builders of our nation" The King of England was the head of the Anglican Church from the time of Henry VIII. Beginning in 1535, all English subjects, including those in English colonies, were required to the Oath of Supremacy: "I (state your name) do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience, that the King's Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm ... in all Spiritual or Eclesiastical things ... So help me God." For most of England's history from 1535 to 1829, not to take the...

In response to recent volatility in the stock market, rising prices (and declining yields) for U.S. Treasury bonds, and difficulties in the trade relationship between the United States and China, some pundits and politicians are forecasting a recession in the U.S., timed to coincide with the 2020 presidential election. The increasing volume of these forecasts is driven partly by partisan hopes that an economic slowdown gives Democrats the best opportunity to defeat President Trump next year. But hopes of this kind do not make for sound economic forecasts. None of the major institutional forecasters is looking ahead to a recession...

Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced he will resign after his populist government lost the support of a key coalition member. Mr Conte accused Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, of trying to ruin the ruling coalition for personal and political gain, risking financial instability for Italy.

The popular narrative goes that because President Trump launched a trade war against China, China has retaliated by tariffing agriculture products from red states that voted for Trump. False. You’ve all seen the headlines: “China is hitting the U.S. where it hurts: Soybeans,” and “China takes aim at America’s soybean farmers,” and “Soybean farmers are still paying for Trump’s trade war” (all from CNN).The popular narrative goes that because President Trump launched a trade war against China, China has retaliated by tariffing America’s chief export to China—agricultural products—which happen to mostly come from red states that voted for Trump. China...

From 1953 here is Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys with Yesterday's Girl. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com

Al Jazeera Bemoans the Celebration, in Italy, of Oriana Fallaci (Part 1) AUG 20, 2019 10:00 AM BY HUGH FITZGERALD Oriana Fallaci, the celebrated Italian journalist who has been dead for 13 years, is the woman of the hour in Italy. Italian state television has broadcast a documentary about her life and work, in recognition of what would have been her 90th birthday. All of her books are being republished in a collected-works uniform format. The leading Italian politician, Matteo Salvini, repeatedly refers to her in glowing terms. For many Italians, she is both prophetess and patron saint; the woman...

New York (CNN Business)Dick's Sporting Goods considered stopping all gun sales in early 2018. A shooting at the high school in Parkland, Florida, had killed 17 people. And the company was shocked into action. "We did have a conversation about that," CEO Ed Stack told CNN Business earlier this year. "At the time we felt it was a part of our DNA and we should stay in it. So many people in the country are law-abiding citizens who use firearms to hunt, to use from a recreation standpoint. We didn't think it was right to exit the business completely." That...

As a “peace ambassador” for a Los Angeles nonprofit funded with public money, it was Wilfredo Vides’ job to steer young people clear of gangs. For those who’d joined one, his role was to convince them to leave, as he had. Vides was one of 22 individuals arrested last month in a federal takedown of MS-13’s Fulton clique, a cell of the transnational gang that claims swaths of the San Fernando Valley as its turf and is accused of murdering and dismembering its enemies in the mountains above Los Angeles.

On Monday night, national radio host Mark Levin read from a frightening article by Tyler O'Neil at PJ Media headlined "AOC-Aligned Climate Group Demands Media Silence 'Climate Deniers'." A group called The Climate Mobilization which advocates for a dramatic "World War II-scale" takeover of the economy to fight global warming, condemned the media for pursuing "objectivity" by giving air time to "climate deniers." "Some media outlets are sacrificing the future of our planet for the sake of appearing objective," Margaret Klein Salamon, founder and executive director of The Climate Mobilization, said in a news release Saturday. "This idea of equating...

So-called “Gun Safety” advocates don’t really care about public safety, and it’s easy to prove that all they really fear is an armed populace who opposes their political agenda.  Here’s the deal: They could have the “Universal Background Checks” (UBC) they’re fighting for, if they made just one small compromise.Now, Second Amendment supporters understandably cringe at the word “compromise” because for generations the GOP dictionary has defined it as: “Giving the Democrats half of their ridiculous demands and then hoping they say nice things about us on TV for a few days.”   But that’s not real compromise, it’s capitulation.An...

If I were Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, I’d be worrying that I was batting on a bit of a sticky wicket. As a native of the greatest cricketing nation in the world, I’m sure he understands. Even if he feels offended by the racist sexist homophobic Trumpist hounds baying for Google’s blood. The Horror! And yet. Google employee after Google employee is offering himself up as Sacrificial Hero. First there was James Damore who proposed the utterly anodyne notion that, according to science, women aren’t necessarily as interested in tech as men. Off with his head! Then there was...

More than two decades before Jeffrey Epstein took his own life, a woman went into a California police station and filed one of the earliest sex-crime complaints against him: that he groped her during what she thought was a modeling interview for the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Alicia Arden said she never heard back from investigators about her complaint. No charges ever came of it. And to this day she sees it as a glaring missed opportunity to bring the financier to justice long before he was accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls and women.

In September, the local Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of a global movement for compassion, Charter for Compassion Initiative, will be holding its annual conference. Presentations will range from making baby hats for premature infants and “Contemplative Painting” to more serious topics such as human trafficking and a presentation on “restorative justice” taught by a Richardson, Texas police sergeant. The group, Compassionate DFW, is the local chapter of Charter for Compassion. The theme of the conference is “Compassion in Action: Applications in Today’s Times.” A flyer for the conference reads, “Download, Install and Run the Right Apps in Your Life.” The Charter...

India's Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft entered lunar orbit on Tuesday in a small but important step on its journey towards the moon. Chandrayaan-2, which means "moon vehicle" in Sanskrit, entered the orbit around midnight Eastern Time in a complicated insertion maneuver that took 29 minutes. "Our hearts almost stopped today till it completed its job," Kailasavadivoo Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), told reporters at a news conference. "But still the landing is the terrifying moment... because that is a phase that we are doing for the first time," he added. If the spacecraft lands successfully, India will become...

Looking to buy her way out of decades of identity fraud, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is using billions of our tax dollars and what can only be described as 1/1024th of an apology.

To date the investigation into the Fusion GPS-manufactured collusion scandal has focused largely on the firm itself, its allies in the press, as well as contacts in the Department of Justice and FBI. However, if a sitting president used the instruments of state, including the intelligence community, to disseminate and legitimize a piece of paid opposition research in order to first obtain warrants to spy on the other party’s campaign, and then to de-legitimize the results of an election once the other party’s candidate won, we’re looking at a scandal that dwarfs Watergate—a story not about a bad man in...

Joe Biden has expanded his edge over the Democratic field in a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with 29% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters saying they back the former vice president. That's up 7 points compared with a late June CNN survey. No other candidate has made meaningful gains over that time.

Antifa is a Left-wing terrorist organization. We asked leftists to denounce Antifa. Gillibrand: “I don’t know what Antifa is” Biden: "I denounce hate" Inslee: “Who is Antifa” Williamson: "No" Castro: "Thanks" Booker: "..." Sanders: "..." Harris: "..." Yang: "No hate"