Free Republic

CHICAGO (CBS) — Statewide legal marijuana sales in Illinois totaled nearly $35 million in the month of February, according to the state. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation announced preliminary numbers showed statewide sales totaled $34,805,072.01 for February. Dispensaries sold 831,600 items in total, with $25,615,371 worth being purchased by Illinois residents, and $9,189,701.01 being purchased by out-of-state residents. The figures do not include taxes collected. The state charges a 7% tax on the sales of cannabis by cultivators and craft growers to dispensaries. The governor’s office has estimated cannabis tax revenues will grow to $127 million in...

The Labor Department released its February jobs report at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday. Here were the main results from the report, compared to consensus expectations compiled by Bloomberg: Change in non-farm payrolls: +273,000 vs. +175,000 expected and 273,000 in January Unemployment rate: 3.5% vs. 3.6% expected and 3.6% in January Avg. hourly earnings, month on month: +0.3% vs. +0.3% expected and +0.2% in January Avg. hourly earnings, year on year: 3.0% vs. +3.0% expected and 3.1% in January

Of the total visas available, 10,000 will be reserved for people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador The Trump administration said it is making an additional 35,000 seasonal guest-worker visas available this year ahead of the busy summer season, the largest increase since President Trump took office. The additional visas announced Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security will bring the total available this year to 101,000, though the additional visas will primarily be made available to returning workers. The seasonal-worker visa program, known as H-2B, enables U.S. employers to hire as many as 66,000 foreign workers a year, with...

TGIFF! Its Fiddle Friday and we have 'The Dancin' Fiddle Man' Mac Magaha with Shufflin' Back (1978). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Ban applies to requests for FISA surveillance authority The FISA court has temporarily banned FBI agents under disciplinary review in the wiretapping of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page from requesting surveillance authority from the court. The ban was imposed in an opinion issued Wednesday by the secretive court’s chief judge, James E. Boasberg. “FBI personnel under disciplinary review in relation to their work on FISA applications accordingly should not participate in drafting, verifying, reviewing, or submitting such application to the Court while the review is pending,” Boasberg wrote. The judge also said in his 19-page opinion that the same...

God must surely be weeping for the children who have been destroyed in the most gruesome manner, with the full consent of their own mothers. How such depravity is now rationalized I will never understand but I can’t understand even more are the celebrities that are trying their best to support the abortions! Furthermore, the States that are led by the Dems push for horrifying pro-abortion bills! God-loving American patriots push back on the idea of these abortion bills but are being silenced by the liberals. The city council of Spokane, Washington, passed a noise ordinance that allows police officers...

During an interview aired on Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) stated that candidates are “responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things” and that 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) supporters are particularly guilty of engaging in this kind of behavior. Warren said, “We are responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things for other — to other candidates.”

Last month, the Trump administration rolled out its Fiscal Year 2021 federal budget request—and progressive critics howled. “Trump’s budget is a $292 billion attack on poor Americans,” Mother Jones alleged. Vox accused Trump of cutting Medicare and Medicaid and lying about it. Kentucky Democratic representative John Yarmuth claimed that Trump was proposing “deep cuts to critical programs that help American families” and “destructive changes to Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security.” The anger was mostly hot air because, as National Review’s Robert VerBruggen notes, the budget is “an irrelevant document that mainly serves to give political journalists stuff to complain about.” It’s...

“…I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts…”—Hebrews 8:10 KJV No moving parts. This is a theme that has run through me for a long time. I’ve always intuitively known that—though physical movement is crucial for human existence—internal movement wears us down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So our aim should be to “move or die,” like the shark. But move as little as possible on the inside. What do I mean by that? A Magical Childhood Discovery As a child, I discovered—as many, perhaps most children do—the magical power of internal observation. I clearly...

The American economy added 273,000 jobs in February, the feds said Friday, indicating strong hiring growth before the coronavirus outbreak slammed the US. The Department of Labor’s monthly jobs report far outpaced economists’ expectations that non-farm payrolls would grow by 175,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked back down to 3.5 percent, matching a 50-year low. While the latest numbers show the deadly coronavirus epidemic has not yet hammered the labor market, the worst may be yet to come as the outbreak reduces travel, disrupts supply chains and roils the stock market. The virus started to spread in the US late...

He received an Oscar nomination for his work in the acclaimed 1998 film Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks now returns to the war drama genre playing a naval commander Capt. Ernest Krause in Greyhound, a World War II drama from filmmaker Aaron Schneider starring the two-time Academy Award winner, 63. Hanks wrote the screenplay based on the 1955 book The Good Shepherd from author C.M. Forester.

They are states that Donald Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton in back in 2016. SACRAMENTO, California — Former presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg appears to be keeping his word: Even though he won't be the Democratic nominee, he's not finished trying to defeat President Donald Trump. The billionaire and former New York City mayor is funding an anti-Trump operation in six battleground states in an effort to oust the Republican president in November. Bloomberg will tap his vast fortune to pay for field offices in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In the 2016 election, Trump won those states...

The winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election will not be a woman. (Well, unless Tulsi Gabbard has a heck of a surge, I suppose.) I was offline most of the day in a meeting, but once I got to the airport I had time to review what had happened in the news today. Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Presidential race. She joins Kamala Harris, Marianne Williamson, and Amy Klobuchar (as well as all the men who also dropped out of the race.) I’ve never run for office – at least I haven’t, yet – but it takes a...

Police are investigating a possible hate crime after an alarming video surfaced showing a subway rider yelling at an Asian man and spraying him with Febreze. The incident occurred on an N train in Sunset Park, Brooklyn on Wednesday morning, according to the New York Post, and video of it was first posted to Facebook by another person on the train. 'Tell him to move,' the aggressor shouts at the Asian man. A woman off camera replies asking why the man should move. 'Because he's standing right f***ing next to me! … Tell him to move. Tell him to move,'...

I remember hearing after the Russian hoax failed the D.C. Establishment would try to wreck the Trump economy, and I think that is what we are witnessing.Yes Coronovirus is real and deadly in China.  Although the hysteria in the media is causing the mass sell off.https://www.cnbc.com/pre-markets/ 

Just days after Joe Biden’s commanding wins in most of the Super Tuesday primaries, Democrats across the country are again rallying around the former vice president as their best hope for defeating Republican President Donald Trump in November, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll. In the March 4-5 poll, released on Thursday, 55% of registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they would support Biden for the Democratic nomination if the only other choice was U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Another 45% said they would vote for Sanders.

Marilyn Hartman, the woman known as the “serial stowaway,” was beaten up inside the Cook County Jail this week, sources said. Sources told CBS 2’s Brad Edwards that Hartman was assaulted on Tuesday. The offending inmate had some kind of episode – possibly a mental health issue, sources said. The inmate repeatedly struck Hartman and another inmate’s head against a number of hard surfaces. The Cook County Sheriff’s office Hartman and the other detainee were evaluated by Cermak Hospital medical staff and no injuries were found. Hartman was arrested for the eighth time this past fall for violating her probation.

Several prominent political leaders escaped the ceremony unhurt, including Abdullah Abdullah, the country's chief executive and a top contender in last year's presidential election. The Taliban have denied they were behind the attack, and while no one has claimed responsibility for carrying it out, Afghanistan's upstart Islamic State affiliate has declared war on the country's minority Shiites. Most of the people attending the memorial service were Shiite. The attack came just days after the United States and the Taliban signed an ambitious peace deal that lays out a conditions-based path to the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. Friday's ceremony...

“My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (Proverbs 6:20-23 KJV).

"...The Democrats and the Deep State have spent the last four years constructing the greatest wag-the-dog spectacle America's ever seen in an attempt to cover up the malfeasance and criminality of the last administration, while preventing the current one from achieving too many victories. Considering that Brennan and Comey are still free and Obama and Hillary are still smiling, they've been remarkably successful...."