Free Republic

Post #8. With so many rats running for president in 2020 it's hard to keep up with who's in and who's out. Hopefully, this post will help. Below is a list of declared candidates, their occupation, the date they dropped from the race (if they did) and misc. notes. This thread will be reposted each week, likely on Monday, with the dropouts from the previous week and newly declared candidates noted. This post is virtually identical to the one from last week. The dust biter(s) from last week: disappointingly, none. Newly declared candidates from last week: none, thankfully, but ya...

<p>The Drudge Report, once a go-to site for Trumpism, now seems unapologetically anti-Trump, in its often trademark snarky style.</p> <p>Are Trump supporters then weary?</p> <p>The August jobs report “unexpectedly” reminds us that never have so many Americans been at work. The 3.7 percent unemployment rate continues to be the lowest peacetime unemployment figure in 50 years. Black and Hispanic unemployment remain at record lows. Workers’ wages continue to rise. Talk of recession is belied by low interest, low inflation, low unemployment, and a strong stock market. The result is that millions of Americans enjoy far better lives than they had in 2016.</p>

Bering Strait was a bluegrass/country music band from Russia. In 2003, the band was nominated for a Grammy Award and appeared on the TV show 60 Minutes. The group disbanded in 2006. The lineup on their first album was Alexander Arzamastsev (drums), Natasha Borzilova (lead vocals), Sergey "Spooky" Olkhovsky (bass guitar), Sergei Passov (mandolin, fiddle), Lydia Salnikova (keyboards, background vocals), Sasha Ostrovsky (steel guitar, Dobro) and Ilya Toshinsky (electric guitar, banjo).[ Bering Strait (Russian bluegrass band) covers Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun"

I’m convinced we all have a little pocket dragon.Not a demon exactly, more like a wizard who’s sometimes quiet and subdued but always there watching, smoldering – capable of igniting at any provocation. Mine’s name is Tempus Fugit and lately he’s been quite active. I feel him breathing down my neck even when at rest.As a temporary appeasement Raj and I are going an a vacation “up north” this week so posts will be short. But when we return he will require some form of ongoing accommodation so expect something along the lines of more “open threads” and fewer post-posts....

Election security is more than Russian hackers trying to change votes. We must secure the chain of custody of ballots, validate the identity of the voter, and maintain updated voter lists. Thus far, Democrats have shown no interest in any of that. Take, for example, the race between former Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democrat T. J. Cox in California’s rural 21st district. When polls closed, Valadao led Cox by 6,000 votes — or 8 percent. That margin was wide enough for media outlets to call the race for Valadao. However, late ballots delivered by third-party groups broke so heavily...

“By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil” (Proverbs 16:6).

The Democratic Unionist party has for the first time signalled it is prepared to accept some post-Brexit EU rules for Northern Ireland as long as the Stormont assembly has a say. The party’s chief whip said it was looking at regulatory alignment with the EU in the agri-food sector as a way of avoiding a hard border with Ireland. “Where there is political will, there is certainly a way,” Jeffrey Donaldson told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland. “I think it is still possible to get that agreement.” He said the party still had great difficulty with the proposed backstop solution because it...

Its Swingin' Monday and we have Johnnie Lee Wills & His Boys with She Took (1952). Johnnie Lee Wills was Bob Wills younger brother. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Because we have done so well with Energy over the last few years (thank you, Mr. President!), we are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World. We don’t need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas, & in fact have very few tankers there, but will help our Allies!

Cannot copy text, this article discusses the bill introduced to Congress seeking to uncover the link between the spreading Lyme Complex plague in the US and Plum Island Bio Weapons research. Yes, we shot ourselves, then pretended it did not happen

“On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding” (John 2:1–2). A wedding was a major social event in first-century Palestine, and the ensuing celebration could last as long as a week. It marked the culmination of the betrothal period, which often lasted for several months. The couple was considered legally man and wife during their betrothal period. They did not, however, live together or consummate the marriage during that time (cf. Matt. 1:18). On the night of the...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Give him credit, the dude knows how to get attention. – Irish Bob O’Rourke has always been an attention-seeker, and he’s always been good at it. From his college career as a furry drunk-driving punk rocker and inept burglar, to his do-nothing terms in congress, to his failed challenge of Ted Cruz in 2018 to his rumblin’ stumblin’ bumblin’ three-time-re-booted presidential campaign, Irish Bob has always been able to gain the attention of an eager fake news media, the public and his opponents. The problem for him, his long-suffering parents and now...

TULSA, Oklahoma – A Tulsa Police officer who just graduated from the academy a month ago is out of a job because of questionable posts on Facebook. The department received a complaint about Officer Wayne Brown’s Facebook posts Wednesday morning. The decision to release him didn’t take long. He was fired an hour later, News 9 reported. According to police, he goes by Duke Brown on his Facebook page. A community action group found the posts dating back to 2013 and took screen shots of them. Tulsa Police called most of the memes posted as questionable

The moon is all the rage these days. China wants to send people there. So too does the United States and NASA. In fact, just about every country with a space program has some sort of lunar ambition that they hope will play out over the next few years. Now, there’s a new entrant in this new space race, a nonprofit organization called the Open Lunar Foundation. Based in San Francisco, it’s a group made up of tech executives and engineers—many of them with former ties to NASA—who have serious ambitions to create a lunar settlement. The driving ethos behind...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday it is “not fair” to either Turkey or the United States that Washington cannot sell Ankara billions of dollars worth of F-35 fighter jets after it bought a Russian air defense system. Turkey started taking delivery of Russia’s S-400 air defense system last week in defiance of U.S. warnings that the Pentagon would kick it out of the F-35 stealth fighter program Washington’s concern is that deploying the S-400 with the F-35 would allow Russia to gain too much inside information of the stealth system. Thomas Karako, an analyst at...

Iran launched nearly a dozen cruise missiles and over 20 drones from its territory in the attack on a key Saudi oil facility Saturday, a senior Trump administration official told ABC News Sunday.It is an extraordinary charge to make, that Iran used missiles and drones to attack its neighbor and rival Saudi Arabia, as the region teeters on the edge of high tensions.President Donald Trump warned the U.S. was "locked and loaded" to respond to the attack on Sunday, waiting for verification of who was responsible and for word from Saudi Arabia on how to proceed.https://abcnews.go.com/International/iran-fired-cruise-missiles-attack-saudi-oil-facility/story?id=65632653  

The Houthi rebels of Yemen have launched numerous attacks using drones and even missiles on Saudi Arabia in the months leading up to Saturday morning's attack on two Saudi oil installations. The attacks coming from a southerly direction where the Iranian backed rebels have been fighting a Saudi military coalition backed by the United States and United Kingdom in a brutal war widely condemned with the United Nations recently saying that all sides in the conflict and those nations behind them may be guilty of war crimes. Now the United States says that based on: "data" and "satellite images" Iran...

After weighing options in Pittsburgh, Detroit and several cities in Florida, Egnyte, a cloud storage company from Silicon Valley, opened a Raleigh office on Thursday with plans to eventually hire 120 people. The office, on the 18th floor of the PNC Plaza building, will serve as the lead sales office for the company’s East Coast operations, a geographic area that includes everything east of the Rocky Mountains. However, despite the sales focus, the office is hiring across all positions, including engineering, product and customer success teams. “I don’t think there will be any position that we will shy away from”...

My Wife, Judy, had been after me for several weeks to varnish the wooden seat on our toilet. Finally, I got around to doing it while Judy was out. After finishing, I left to take care of another matter before she returned. She came in and undressed to take a shower. Before getting in the shower, she sat on the toilet. As she tried to stand up, she realized that the not-quite-dry epoxy paint had glued her to the toilet seat. About that time, I got home and realized her predicament. We both pushed and pulled without any success whatsoever....

… For 44 years, Robert Moses ruled over New York. Unelected, his power drawn from up to 12 concurrent city, state and federal appointments, he used his unparalleled control of public authorities with impunity. Deftly utilizing loopholes and creating new law, Moses had his own shadow government, with his own police force, flag, and an island under the Triborough (now Robert F. Kennedy) Bridge. There is no debate over the sheer magnitude of what he built. His accomplishments bestride New York: 416 miles of highways, 13 bridges, 658 playgrounds and housing for 150,000 people. He constructed parkways, tunnels, beaches, zoos,...