Free Republic

When the New York legislature passed major changes to the state's rent regulations in June 2019, critics warned the new law would reduce investment in, and renovations of, rental properties in New York City. Six months later, those predictions are bearing out. Bloomberg reported this morning that sales of apartment buildings in the Big Apple fell by 36 percent in 2019, and that the money spent on those sales fell by 40 percent. The prices investors were paying for rent-stabilized units—where allowable rent increases are set by the government and usually capped at around 1 or 2 percent per year—fell...

The big news on Sunday was a leak claiming that John Bolton, Trump's former National Security Adviser, has a book coming out that says Trump told Bolton that he wanted to force Ukraine to investigate Biden before releasing security assistance money. Democrats went wild with delight; Republicans opted to ask questions rather than to come up with instant, wrong answers. They were wise to do so. Many people noticed that, despite the Democrats’ immediate insistence that it’s absolutely pivotal to their impeachment case that they question Bolton before the Senate, that wasn’t what they were saying last year. Last...

Here's a tricked out AK47, inspired by the Russian Counter-Terrorist team Alpha. Its not the real deal because its not available in the U.S. This AK is a clone imitation put together by Youtuber Larry Vicker. Vicker used an Arsenal Semiautomatic Bulgarian-made AK. In five-five six. The only reason the five-five six was used is that its what he had on hand. The Russians AK were using five-four-five and Seven-six-two by thirty-nine. Not that they are opposed to five-five six, matter of fact Vicker saw at least one guy was using an M4 in five-five six. Their AKs were five-four-five...

BERLIN (AP) — A man confirmed as Germany’s first case of the new virus that has emerged in central China is believed to have been infected by a Chinese colleague who visited his workplace, authorities said Tuesday. The 33-year-old from the Starnberg area south of Munich is in isolation at a Munich hospital as a precaution, officials in Bavaria said. However, they stressed that his condition is good. The man took part last Tuesday in a training session at his workplace that also included an employee of the same company visiting from China, said Andreas Zapf, the head of Bavaria’s...

In the form of Don Lemon, Rick Wilson, and Wajahat Ali, the unholy trinity of CNN, the New York Times, and Never Trump got together Saturday to mock Trump supporters as illiterate rubes. At first, the only thing notable about the segment was how so much failure was able to fit on a single TV screen. Don Lemon is one of the lowest rated anchors in all of cable news. Never Trumper Rick Wilson is the far-left media’s trained pet. The New York Times Wajahat Ali is — okay, I don’t know who that is.

Thanks to a 4-hour documentary about herself, which premiered to great Progressive buzz at the Sundance Film Festival, Hillary’s in the news again. More than that, she’s doing so at a time when Democrats are panicking about Bernie’s increasing lead in New Hampshire and the general pressure he’s putting on “mainstream” candidate Joe Biden. Sane Democrats strongly suspect that, while Bernie’s manna for the base, most Americans are not going to vote for candidates who still adore socialism despite the Gulags, the reeducation camps, and those nasty National Socialist gas chambers. Because of the buzz, a scrubbed, buffed, injected,...

Is the era of Big Judicial Activism over? It might just be. Supreme Court Justic Neil Gorsuch, in a ruling about denying green cards to migrants who come here to be "public charges," something that's plainly laid out in U.S. law as illegal, threw in a special warning to activist judges, all leftists, who have been beavering away to rule from the bench, warning them that he's tired of their shenanigans. It's a specter to behold - a big lion on the Supreme Court who not only cares about rule of law, but is now warning the leftists out there...

About 4,515 cases of the illness have been recorded across the country, including almost 1,000 people in critical condition, according to state media. Though the number of cases appears to have risen quickly, from 2,887 on Monday, this was likely to be due to better reporting, and the numbers remain small compared with the population.

The last time Republicans held a majority on this state's Supreme Court was in the 1920s.  Its Court of Appeals has never had a Republican majority. The last time Republicans held a majority in both houses of the state Legislature at the same time was 1930.  In the 89 years from 1931 to the present, Democrats have held a majority of both houses of the state Legislature for 79 of the 89 years. Since 1931, Democrats have held the governor's office for 69 of the 89 years.  Even when a Republican has been governor, his powers have been greatly limited because he...

Contrary to the expectations of many environmental scientists, a new model has predicted a likely boom in tropical phytoplankton abundance as the century progresses. Phytoplankton anchor the aquatic food web. Most scientists assumed this community of photosynthesizing bacteria and plant-like diatoms would struggle in the tropics as the oceans become increasingly stratified, with heavier cold water situated deep beneath the surface and lighter warm water isolated on top. "All the climate models have this mechanism built into them, and it has led to these well-established predictions that phytoplankton productivity, biomass and export into the deep ocean will all decline with...

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, President Donald Trump again talked positively about negative interest rates. That's not a very good idea considering negative interest rates are a warning signal of deflation, which can be as bad for an economy as runaway inflation. But Trump was right to herald this era of low nominal interest rates and inflation. If you want to understand how the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen from a low of 800 to a high of 29,000 in four decades, look at the Federal Reserve's graph of the 10-year treasury rate showing...

The masked woman nervously approaches her target, shuffles into position and then unleashes a flurry of lashes -- proving herself as the newest member of the first female flogging squad in Indonesia's Aceh province. The new recruit initially needed some coaxing to punish the offender -- an unmarried woman caught in a hotel room with a man. Such behaviour constitutes a morality crime in Aceh, the only region in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation that imposes Islamic law -- known as Sharia.

In recent years, the "Not The Onion" moments from leftists have been coming at us so fast it seems like they're being fired from a Gatling gun. Today's example is a politician from Quebec named Luc Ferrandez, who seems to have found the silver lining to the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. From The Post Millennial: Quebec politician and radio talk show host Luc Ferrandez has suggested that the coronavirus has had one “positive” outcome for the city of Wuhan, China—it’s reduced the carbon footprint. On Saturday, he tweeted: “Wuhan. No automobile traffic. No air flights. The only city on...

From 1934 we have Hold Him Down by the Sons of the Pioneers. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Senate Impeachment Trial LIVE - day 7

Everett, WA – A convicted rapist and kidnapper who murdered a Monroe Prison correctional officer as an inmate will no longer face execution for his brutal crime.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has announced a plan to prevent, contain and treat infectious diseases as a new viral illness spreads in China. The Massachusetts senator on Tuesday unveiled a plan that includes fully funding the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic prevention and response programs. The agency has faced stiff budget cuts under President Donald Trump, including to emergency funds and global health programs that were established following West Africa’s Ebola epidemic in 2014. “Like so much else, Trump’s approach to keeping us safe from disease outbreaks is a mess,” Warren wrote...

I’ve been hearing the word ‘debunked’ a lot lately on Capitol Hill. To Debunk is roughly the opposite of ‘bunk,’ which according to an old dictionary I own (Webster's New Peerless Dictionary & Atlas, circa 1941) is slang for ‘misleading speech’ or 'humbug'. While covering the U.S. Senate one obviously hears his fair share of bunk on a daily basis – but only now does it's photo-negative counterpart arise to assume center stage in the dreary yet at times slapstick, the impeachment of President Trump. ‘Debunked’ is supposed to mean an idea is disproved, but I’ve noticed it’s lost much...

The way Mike Bloomberg tells it, after Donald Trump was elected president and before he assumed office, the fellow New York City businessman "let it be known that he wanted a call from me." Bloomberg obliged. The two "had a pleasant conversation," the Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City mayor said, adding that Mr. Trump gave Bloomberg his personal cellphone number. But, Bloomberg said, he didn't bother to write it down. "I said, 'Look, you've got to get people that have knowledge of each of these areas: defense and finance and commerce and all of these things that...

Happy New Year, everyone!! Here's hoping 2020 is the best year yet!! President Trump should take the win in the Senate trial without dragging it out, then concentrate on winning the 2020 election with wide coattails, then bide his time as the cases against the various coup plotters wind their way through the justice system. Win the election, hold the senate, take back the house!! And then continue the work of making America great again: Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all!! End DACA!! End sanctuary cities!! End anchor babies!! Continue cutting regulations, cutting government, cutting spending and...