Free Republic

Brenton USA Premium AR Hunting Rifle Youth A rigorous study of crime and deer hunting spanning 20 years and millions of people, found long gun use in rural areas either slightly reduced violent crime or had no impact. Aside from the contributions above, this paper is meaningful for policy-makers as it provides evidence that immense changes in rural recreational long gun use have no economically significant impacts on violent crime.This is an enormous, well-done study that is being ignored by urban media. The study was published on 1 December 2018. The author,  Paul Niekamp deserves kudos for tackling a...

Look, folks, I have white parents. That’s what my mom, a liberal Democrat mind you, would say jokingly as to why I, for lack of a better term, sucked at math. I’m a bad Asian. I don’t like math or science. Well, I like science—I’m fascinated by stuff that explodes—but I never excelled at it. None of the Vespa kids did well in math.  You could never even say that joke or even kid about Asians and math nowadays because the political correctness police would cancel you faster than you can say Gulag Archipelago. But I do know simple stuff...

"Our Father who art in heaven" (Matt. 6:9). Prayer begins with the recognition that God is your Father and has the resources to meet your needs. The term Father is one of the most commonly used terms in our prayers, and rightly so because that's how Jesus taught us to pray. But as common as that term is to us, it was very uncommon to the people of Christ's day. Then, most of the people who worshiped false gods thought of them as distant, capricious, and immoral beings that were to be feared. Even the Jewish people, who should have...

Now that the number of new people infected with the coronavirus in China is slowing, the country's Communist Party is ratcheting up threats against the West, with a particularly nasty warning about access to life-saving drugs aimed at the United States. In an article in Xinhua, the state-run media agency that's largely considered the mouthpiece of the party, Beijing bragged about its handling of COVID-19, a virus that originated in Wuhan and has spread quickly around the world, killing nearly 5,000 people and infecting thousands more. The article also claimed that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge...

As the shroud of crisis began to lift at the center of the coronavirus epidemic in China, Beijing launched a campaign to project an image of global leadership while the United States and countries across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have taken on water. In a call with the Italian foreign minister last month, the Chinese foreign minister his hope that their “joint fight against the outbreak” would catalyze the creation of a “silk road” of health care, alluding to President Xi Jinping’s marquee Belt and Road economic strategy. Chinese diplomats have proselytized Beijing’s deft handling of the outbreak,...

New £20 notes with serial numbers as low as 000010 will be auctioned off next month, and could sell for as much as £10,000, This is Money can reveal. The Bank of England is hosting a charity sell-off of the new notes featuring artist JMW Turner, which will be run by London auction house Spink. The auction catalogue, provided to This is Money, reveals 140 lots of more than 200 notes, including ones with ultra-low serial numbers and an entire sheet of 45 £20 notes beginning with CC, will go under the hammer at 5pm on 8 April 2020.

House leadership has pulled legislation from the floor that would have repealed President Trump’s prior travel bans, amid efforts to focus attention on a coronavirus response bill, Fox News has learned. Democrats made the decision late Wednesday to delay a vote on the No Ban Act to make way for new legislation to help families affected by the virus, said Benjamin Suarato, spokesman for bill sponsor Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif. That bill is in limbo amid GOP opposition. The House, meanwhile, had debated the legislation on Wednesday that was the Democrats’ response to Trump's crackdown that he pledged during the...

Click on link

... From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8,868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus. Additionally, CDC estimated that 151,700-575,400 people worldwide died from (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection during the first year the virus circulated.** Globally, 80 percent of (H1N1)pdm09 virus-related deaths were estimated to have occurred in people younger than 65 years of age. This differs greatly from typical seasonal influenza epidemics, during which about 70 percent to 90 percent of deaths are estimated to occur in people...

WASHINGTON - It’s a “foreign” virus, he says — one that can be fought by closing the nation’s borders to dangerous foreigners carrying scary disease. President Donald Trump has turned to a familiar playbook as he tries to grapple with the spiraling coronavirus outbreak, blaming immigrants for the country’s problems and casting the global health pandemic as another case of the U.S. against the world. It’s an approach that public health officials say ignores the new reality of a situation that is fueling panic and confusion and fundamentally altering the American way of life. But it’s business as usual for...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggests fellow progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., lost his Super Tuesday Michigan primary because of voter suppression. In an interview on Fox News' "Special Report," Ocasio-Cortez was challenged on Sanders' apparent waning support. "Well, I think one thing that isn't being talked about is the rampant voter suppression in this country," said Ocasio-Cortez, a surrogate for Sanders, noting a pre-primary rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, drew 10,000 people.

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump faced one of the gravest threats of his political career as the coronavirus pandemic spread, leaving fellow Republicans to worry that the White House’s response and the hit to the economy would harm his re-election prospects. U.S. stock market indexes that Trump has touted throughout his term as evidence of his success plunged into bear market territory on Thursday - a day after he tried to calm Americans’ fears with an Oval Office address that promised economic stimulus and a 30-day travel ban for Europeans. Some Republicans worried that the measures were too little, too...

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has confirmed he has coronavirus. The Federal Government frontbencher said he felt fine but woke up with a temperature and sore throat. "I immediately contacted the Queensland Department of Health and was subsequently tested for COVID-19," Mr Dutton said in a statement. "I was advised by Queensland Health this afternoon that the test had returned positive. "It is the policy of Queensland Health that anyone who tests positive is to be admitted into hospital and I have complied with their advice. "I feel fine and will provide an update in due course." Mr Dutton was...

The popular humours of a great city are a never-failing source of amusement to the man whose sympathies are hospitable enough to embrace all his kind, and who, refined though he may be himself, will not sneer at the humble wit or grotesque peculiarities of the boozing mechanic, the squalid beggar, the vicious urchin, and all the motley group of the idle, the reckless, and the imitative that swarm in the alleys and broadways of a metropolis. —Charles Mackay, The Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1852)I don’t know whether we are over-reacting to COVID 19 or merely...

VANITY. Apparently our CDC -- the agency in charge of handling pandemics -- is a government do-nothing jobs program. Only 77 tests were done for the entire country in the past week. (Sources below.) Meanwhile, 36% of the hires in 2015 were African-American and African-Americans comprise 30% of the CDC workforce (compared to comprising 12% of our national population). Another entrenched governmental bureaucracy but this one is in charge of handling our nation's pandemics. What could go wrong? Sources: CDC Employee DemographicsCDC Has Only Tested 77 People in Past Week for COVID-19United States National DemographicsTrump's largest support among those 65...

BEIJING, March 9 (Reuters) - A Chinese company says it has developed the country's first facial recognition technology that can identify people when they are wearing a mask, as most are these days because of the coronavirus, and help in the fight against the disease. China employs some of the world's most sophisticated systems of electronic surveillance, including facial recognition. But the coronavirus, which emerged in Hubei province late last year, has resulted in almost everyone wearing a surgical mask outdoors in the hope of warding off the virus - posing a particular problem for surveillance. (Please see link for...

Ohio health officials announced Thursday that the state has five known cases of the coronavirus, but one expert said that the number is likely much higher and estimated 100,000 undiagnosed cases...Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, tweeted her comment to his followers, warning the state’s 11.7 million residents that about 1 % are infected...His office said the state expects cases to double every six days, News 5 Cleveland reported.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma joined "The Story" Thursday night...but refused to say whether hospitals across the country were properly equipped to handle the outbreak...After her fourth attempt, MacCallum seemed to put the issue aside. "That's not a direct answer to the question," she said, "but it sounds like a hope that there won't be enough sick people and we won't run out of ventilators because we have mitigated, and we certainly hope -- we certainly hope that is the case."

The Trump reelection campaign on Thursday mocked Joe Biden’s plan to combat coronavirus, accusing the Democratic presidential candidate of "plagiarizing" President Trump's plan. Beyond the attack essentially stating that Biden is offering nothing new, it was also a not-so-subtle-evocation of Biden’s failed 1988 presidential campaign, which was derailed in part due to allegations of plagiarism. “Joe Biden's coronavirus remarks today sounded awfully familiar,” rapid response director Andrew Clark said in a press statement. “Listening to him, we felt a sense of déjà vu. Here’s why: Biden blatantly ripped off President Trump, and bizarrely called on him to do things he...

Xi Jinping and his Communist cronies should celebrate Joe Biden’s recent turnaround at the ballot box, maybe with a (masked) ball. Joe and Hunter Biden embody the globalism that empowered a China bent on surpassing the United States. Start with Hunter’s shenanigans. In 2017, the illustrious vice-presidential son was granted what Chinese commentators described as a Xianchai, a sinecure reserved for offspring of important officials, at BHR Partners. BHR is a $20 billion fund with shareholders that include China Life, China Development Bank and other state-owned entities. China’s State Council calls on BHR to find deals abroad by hiring foreigners...