Free Republic

Video at link

If you own stocks, hope for a come-from-behind win for sitting president Donald J. Trump on Election Day.Or so says the number crunchers at LPL Financial.Since 1950, the S&P 500 has added an average of 9.6% in the year after a president wins re-election. For instance, LPL Financial points to the re-elections of presidents Ronald Regan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as being particularly bullish for equities — stocks after each re-election rose close to 30%.The opposite has tended to happen when someone new enters the Oval Office.LPL Financial data shows the S&P 500 added only 4.8% the following year...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday on a key concern surrounding an avalanche of mail-in ballots in the presidential battleground state, prohibiting counties from rejecting ballots because the voter’s signature on it may not resemble their signature on their registration form. Two Republican justices joined five Democratic justices in the decision. The verdict was a victory for the state’s top election official, Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who had asked the court to back her up in a legal dispute with President Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican lawmakers.

Before the debate, President Donald Trump said his advisers urged him to interrupt less and let Joe Biden talk more, the better to let the Democratic nominee slip up. Toward the end of the debate, Trump may have gotten what he wanted - a Biden comment about closing down the oil industry that probably won't play well in states up for grabs this November such as Texas and Pennsylvania. But there's also evidence that Trump is the candidate on the defensive when it comes to public opinion and climate change. The statement might still be used as an attack by...

In September 2015, the Obama-Biden administration approved the sale of a strategically sensitive Michigan manufacturer, Henniges Automotive, to a firm connected to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and a Chinese military contractor that was on an American watch list because of its close ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Hunter Biden’s equity fund, backed by the Communist Chinese government, and the Chinese contractor, Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC), needed special approval for the deal from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CIFIUS) because Henniges produced technology with potential military use. AVIC entities have been sanctioned by the United States on...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump seems poised to win his Senate impeachment trial Friday, with Republicans rallying around the Commander in Chief in his bid to prevent Democrat House managers from calling witnesses in the case. President Trump stands accused by House Democrats of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for allegedly pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s role in withholding Obama administration loan money to coerce the country to fire its prosecutor-general, who was looking into Biden’s son Hunter’s lucrative board position at the gas company Burisma Holdings. Republican senators Mitt Romney and Susan Collins have expressed interest...

Although my polling is anything but scientific, representing a very specific sampling of the general voting public, the results have been the same for months now: Trump is gaining more voters than he is losing. Does this reflect a national trend? My last poll was conducted on Twitter on October 16, with this wording: “As the elections are upon us, I'll ask my standard question once more. Did you vote for Trump in 2016, and do you plan to vote for him in 2020? (Note carefully the four choices.)”The choices were: Yes in 2016, yes in 2020. Yes in 2016, no...

Thousands of Americans see their tax returns audited every year — but it’s safe to say none have seen an audit go on as long as President Donald Trump’s. Since he first launched a run for the White House in 2016, Trump has declined to release his tax returns. One reason he commonly cites as to why he can’t — including during last week’s town hall event on NBC and Thursday night’s presidential debate — is that he is undergoing audit. During the debate, Trump again said that he will release his returns when the audit is finalized. “We made...

Voters in battleground state Wisconsin have cast more than 1 million absentee ballots well over a week before Election Day. Just a day after the Tuesday start of early voting, almost 80,000 Wisconsinites had cast their ballots in person, though they won't be opened until Election Day, as they are still considered absentee. An influx of mail-in absentee ballots, particularly in Milwaukee and Madison -- which historically lean blue -- arrived even before the 11-day early voting period began and are considered largely responsible for the high voter tally two weeks before Election Day.

Arizona's first week of early voting has set records, with the number of ballots returned almost doubling from 2018 in the Copper State's three largest counties. In Maricopa County -- home to the state capital of Phoenix -- the Recorder's Office reported that ballots processed increased 116% compared with two years ago and 96% in comparison with the 2016 presidential election. The Maricopa County elections department told The Arizona Republic Thursday that the second week of processing shows further increases.

An accountability group connected to the World Health Organization pushed to praise China’s COVID response, emails obtained through a Daily Caller News Foundation lawsuit show. The lawsuit was filed after HHS failed to respond to an April 1, 2020, FOIA request from the DCNF asking for communications about the coronavirus between Dr. Anthony Fauci, Deputy Director Clifford Lane, and WHO officials. “There was consensus for the GPMB to issue a statement supportive of countries’ (especially China) and WHO response efforts, and to call for urgent actions to further strengthen global preparedness and response to this outbreak,” an email from a...

WWJD? Should we always do what Jesus would do? I think the answer is obvious: No. Don’t get me wrong. I love Jesus. He’s God. There’s no person who is a greater arbiter of what’s right and wrong. There’s no person who could do better than he would do. Generally speaking, we should take our cues from his life and public ministry. But if we are honest, we shouldn’t—and can’t—always do what Jesus would do. Here are three examples where Jesus did something we should not do. Jesus made certain claims. In John 10:30, Jesus said, “I and the Father...

The story that the media haven’t told is that states that have maintained longer and stricter business restrictions have been slower to recover. The unemployment rate in September was 12.6% in Nevada, 11% in California, 10.5% in Rhode Island, 10.2% in Illinois, and 9.7% in New York compared to 6.7% in Arizona, 6.4% in Georgia, 5.4% in Wisconsin and 5% in Utah. New York added 100,000 jobs last month as Gov. Andrew Cuomo finally let dine-in restaurants and gyms in New York City reopen at limited capacity. But 363,000 workers also dropped out of the labor force, which was the...

“The View” co-host Joy Behar said on Friday that President Trump and members of his administration should be charged with “crimes against humanity” because of its immigration policy and vowed to not “be a part of a country” that separates children from their parents. A contentious moment in Thursday’s presidential debate came as Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden sparred over immigration policy. Trump attacked Biden for the Obama-Biden administration's "catch-and-release" policy, in which illegal immigrants were allowed to walk free ahead of their court dates after being arrested for being in the country illegally. Conservatives have said that allowed...

President Trump's re-election campaign is showcasing a fundraising record they set around Thursday’s second debate between the president and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and their joint fundraising arms hauled in a combined $26 million around the final presidential debate, the campaign said Friday. Campaign manager Bill Stepien announced the news on a conference call with reporters, describing the haul as “our biggest online fundraising day ever.” The campaign, in a separate email, spotlighted that “October is already Trump Victory’s largest online fundraising month ever.”

Protection of the surgeon An increasingly prevalent belief, in favour of mask usage, is the idea that they also confer some degree of protection to the operating staff from patient-derived infectious material.18 Most obviously, they can act as a physical barrier against blood and bodily fluid splashes during surgery. One prospective study revealed that facemasks prevented blood/bodily fluid splashes that would have otherwise contaminated the surgeon’s face in 24% of procedures.19 The incidence of blood/bodily fluid splashes varies substantially between settings and between individuals. T

Katahdin, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, is the end goal for many thru-hikers. COVID-19 restrictions caused many to postpone their hike in 2020. Fewer than 1,000 thru-hikers each year successfully complete the 2,190 miles stretching from Georgia to Maine that make up the Appalachian Trail (AT). In early March of 2020, scores of hikers descended on Georgia’s Amicalola Falls State Park—the southern terminus of the AT—eager to join those ranks and attempt the popular Northbound journey that they had spent months or even years planning. But as news of the COVID-19 outbreak spread in the spring, The Appalachian...

Georgette Gomez, president of the San Diego City Council, was born and raised in the city she now serves, just 15 miles from the Mexican border that her parents, Eusebia and Miguel Ángel Gomez, crossed without documents in 1973. Her parents worked multiple jobs to make ends meet and instilled in their daughter a dual sense of industriousness and hope. “I don't take that for granted that they left their own country, their own language, their culture, their family, just to create a better path for us, and when they came here it wasn't easy,” said Gomez, 43, the youngest...

VeggieTales creator, Phil Vischer, has done some wonderful videos over the years. See what you think about this new 14-minute video he just put out on abortion. Now, before we analyze the content, what do you think is the main goal of this video? Is it to urge Christians to not merely focus on overturning Roe to reduce abortions? Or, do you think the main goal of the video is to give Christians supposed intellectual and moral justification to vote against Trump and for Biden in 2020?Since “vote” is in its title, it appears to be a thinly veiled attempt...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday on a key concern surrounding an avalanche of mail-in ballots in the presidential battleground state, prohibiting counties from rejecting ballots because the voter’s signature on it may not resemble their signature on their registration form. Two Republican justices joined five Democratic justices in the decision. The verdict was a victory for the state’s top election official, Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who had asked the court to back her up in a legal dispute with President Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican lawmakers. “County boards of elections are prohibited from rejecting absentee or...