Free Republic

Much as it pains me to say it, President Trump is dead wrong about the issue of mental illness in the wake of mass shootings, stating that long-stay psychiatric hospitals, which are necessary for those with intents to harm themselves or others, were emptied out and closed in the 1960s for budgetary reasons. It did happen, but it was called "deinstitutionalisation," at the time. It occurred not primarily for cost-saving reasons, but largely because of "a series of socio-political movements that campaigned for patient freedom." I first heard Mr. Trump say what he did about the costs of those closings...

The Cleveland Indians are in an intense divisional race with our Minnesota Twins. The Indians seem to have helped themselves by adding right fielder Yasiel Puig to their roster. Puig is a recently acquired power hitter who solidifies the middle of the Indians’ lineup. Having come over to the Reds after six years with the Dodgers, Puig was traded again to the Indians in a three-team deal just before the trade deadline last month (more on Puig here). Waiting to play the Mets in New York after a series with the Yankees, Puig and his teammates had their first day...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSxMAbEnMRU

While the moniker “fake news” is typically reserved for cable news and some of the more prominent newspapers in America, the term could also be applied to presidential polls. How many pollsters predicted Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election by a landslide up to and including the day of the actual election? The “paper of record,” the New York Times, told readers on election day, Nov. 8, 2016, that Hillary Clinton had an 85 percent chance of winning the election. Their prediction was updated on 10:20 PM ET, oblivious to the evening smiles on cable news shows that were...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Five days after two firefighters left Port Canaveral on a fishing trip, the search for them has intensified and moved north. Brian McCluney, a member of the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, and Justin Walker, a Fairfax, Virginia, firefighter, were last seen leaving the Christopher Columbus Boat Ramp in Port Canaveral in a 24-foot fishing boat, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Advertisement Officials said the pair were believed to have gone offshore around 30 miles and were expected to return around 6 p.m. They were heading toward a fishing spot known as 8A reef. McCluney's wife,...

Today’s Cryptogram ZJD VDTNFTLF CTNAITLL YMTL MI VMSMIV JE. FBT GZLF UTDFNMI CNP FZ LJUUTTX ML NYCNPL FZ FDP QJLF ZIT GZDT FMGT. FBZGNL TXMLZI You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and any...

“The soul of the wicked desireth evil: his neighbour findeth no favour in his eyes” (Proverbs 21:10).

A Top-flight Shooter And Hunter Details How To Get Great Groups - KaBOOM…“$*@@!%&, $^&*@@!*^%#” came the expletive from the bench two down from mine. As the sound of his shot reverberated from the steel roof at the rifle range, I looked over at the shooter and saw him turn away from the spotting scope and jump up to start turning the adjustment turrets on his 3×9 Leupold scope. He had taken on what seems to be a daunting task to many shooters: zeroing, or “sighting in,” their hunting rifle. It had started some 45 minutes prior when the gentleman arrived...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Ok, so he was a clueless nitwit 31 years ago, too. Good to know. – In what can only be described as an act of pure desperation in the wake of their candidate’s neverending string of inexplicable gaffes, Joe Biden’s campaign on Tuesday rolled out the neurosurgeon who performed two surgical procedures to correct brain aneurysms on the former Vice President back in 1988. Unfortunately for Biden, the surgeon, Dr. Neal Kassell, was able to only offer faint praise for his elderly patient, telling Politico that “He is every bit as sharp...

Here it is, the end of August already.Labor Day is looming on the horizon, its hot breath bearing down on our necks. That means that some school districts have already restarted their indoctrination programs, and the others will do so within the next 2 weeks.Feeling the intractable advance of time bearing down on my “jobs to complete this summer” list convinced me to sub out today’s post, without permission but with attribution, to Mr. Van der Leun. In his post, Back to School, Gerard turns a sympathetic eye to the plight of a 10 year as he views his life...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - They were bound to get noticed, and that was likely the point. Around two-dozen members of the Proud Boys, along with Bikers for Trump, walked along Sawmill Road on Saturday, carrying various flags. Pictures and video of that event quickly spread on social media. Advertisement - Story continues below One of the people who posted about it was State Rep. Beth Liston, a Democrat who represents Ohio's District 21, which covers Dublin and Worthington. "I’m concerned," Liston said. "I don’t think this represents us as a community, so I wanted to make sure that people understood what...

Biden’s brain is functioning properly. Just ask Biden’s brain surgeon. Biden on Tuesday evening said that RFK and MLK were assassinated in the “late 70’s” while speaking to a crowd in Iowa. “In my generation, when I got out of school, when Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King had been assassinated in the 70s, the late 70s, I got engaged,” Biden said. Kennedy was actually shot in June of 1968 and Martin Luther King was shot in late March of 1968 and died a few weeks later in April. Biden stumbled and corrected himself. “Up to that time, you remember—none of...

Riots! Dark forces! Terrorism! American gangsters! The allegations are propaganda smears threatened dictators routinely employ to tar opponents and shift blame. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and communist China frequently slandered the U.S. as a gangster state. The Nazis and communists used 1930s Hollywood gangster flicks as visual evidence. In 2019, communist China's propagandists are using these bogus accusations as narrative warfare tropes to discredit Hong Kong's relentless pro-democracy demonstrations and -- potentially -- as reasons to suppress them militarily. Even gangsters. A pro-Beijing newspaper has claimed an American "black hand" is behind the protests, a term with terrorist and...

A US MQ-9 drone was shot down over Yemen on Tuesday by a surface-to-air missile, a US official tells CNN. The US believes the missile was provided to Houthi rebels by Iran, said the official, who added that it was not immediately clear if the drone was being operated by the US military or the intelligence community. The official said the Trump administration will publicly call out Iran for the incident, which was first reported by Reuters.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A Missouri farmer blamed for running the largest organic food fraud scheme in U.S. history has died by suicide, weeks before he was to report to federal prison to begin serving a 10-year term, a coroner said Tuesday. Police officers found Randy Constant dead in a vehicle in his garage at his home in Chillicothe, Missouri on Monday evening, hours after federal investigators held a news conference in Iowa to highlight the prison sentence he had received. Livingston County Coroner Scott Lindley said he concluded that Constant died from carbon monoxide poisoning, and that finding...

Morning "He that watereth shall be watered also himself." Proverbs 11:25 We are here taught the great lesson, that to get, we must give; that to accumulate, we must scatter; that to make ourselves happy, we must make others happy; and that in order to become spiritually vigorous, we must seek the spiritual good of others. In watering others, we are ourselves watered. How? Our efforts to be useful, bring out our powers for usefulness. We have latent talents and dormant faculties, which are brought to light by exercise. Our strength for labour is hidden even from ourselves, until we...

The primary matchup between Senator Edward J. Markey and Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III is still hypothetical, but it’s already getting messy. An apparent social media blunder by Markey’s top campaign hand has angered Kennedy, his team, and supporters — just as the 38-year-old Newton Democrat is weighing a challenge to the 73-year-old Markey. The controversy started late Monday night when a senior adviser to Markey’s campaign retweeted a nasty post: “@EdMarkey, co-author of the green new deal, is a great Senator. @joekennedy should focus on his family’s considerable mental health issues.” Drama on Twitter ensued: A Kennedy supporter called...

Iran's president sent a bill to parliament Wednesday that would cut four zeroes from the value of the Islamic Republic's sanctions-battered currency, the rial, as tensions remain high between Tehran and Washington. By sending the bill to lawmakers, President Hassan Rouhani's government shows it is serious about an idea discussed for some time in Iran, where people discuss monetary transactions in both rials and informally, but more commonly, in tomans. A toman is worth 10 rials. If passed by parliament and approved by lawmakers, Iran's Central Bank would in effect devalue the rial and rename it as toman. The bank...

Here is another hit by Webb Pierce: I Don't Care (1955). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Japan surpassed China in June as the top holder of U.S. Treasuries as the trade war between the world's two largest economies intensified. Japan increased its holdings of U.S. bonds, bills and notes by $21.9 billion to $1.12 trillion, the highest level in more than 2 1/2 years, according to data released by the Treasury Department on Thursday... The last time Japan held the position as America's largest foreign creditor was May 2017... China's U.S. debt hoard has come under increased scrutiny in the trade dispute amid speculation that the Asian nation could sell Treasuries in response.