Free Republic

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on." – Carl Sandburg As you may have surmised over the years Paul Simon is one of my favorite minstrels. Despite his all-in progressive proclivities some of his tunes are among the most poetic, lyrical, beguiling  – insightful even - songs of the later 20th century. This soul-searching selection struck me as somehow appropriate for commemorating Justice Barret’s confirmation last night. Of course poetry is always open to interpretation but this song’s point seems pretty clear. It’s a sort of classic liberal lament: on the one hand we have the...

If Joe Biden loses on Nov. 3, public interest in whether his son Hunter exploited the family name to rake in millions of dollars from foreign donors will likely fade away. It will not matter, and no one will care. But if Joe Biden wins the presidency, a prediction: By the Ides of March 2021, there will be an independent counsel or special prosecutor named to investigate the Biden family fortunes and how they were amassed. Why is such an investigation a near certainty in a Biden era? First, there is a 50-year tradition in America of an antagonistic media...

A recent uptick in violent crime in South Los Angeles and in other parts of the city could be related to the pandemic and the increased stress placed on community members, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said Friday. “I have a 14-year-old aspiring football player who was gunned down and lost his life,” said Deputy Chief Regina Scott. “Just this week, I had a 19-year-old kid that had graduated from high school who has done everything we had asked him to do, and he lost his life…I reach out to the community that the Police Department can’t do this alone..." Some...

On this date in 1441, a Westminster folk magician went to the stake. The “Witch of Eye” had meddled with powers beyond her control — not the Satanic for which her sentence condemned her, but those of the royal court. This local wise woman had been arrested as a sorceress once a number of years before. But medieval Europe, before the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and the attendant gloom of existential danger from within, was usually not eager to pursue a local shaman for serving a community’s demand for everyday magick — just so long as the charms and incantations purveyed...

In a typical election, the early vote – by mail or in-person at a polling location – provides clues as to the state of the election. In 2016, from the early vote alone, I correctly predicted that Donald Trump would need to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to win the Electoral College. I made my 2016 prediction using a technique known as difference-in-difference analysis. It is important to understand how this approach works to know what the 2020 early vote can and cannot tells us. The difference-in-difference approach starts with the early vote statistics for the current election. In a...

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday warned that "there seems to be a COVID storm coming" and urged residents to be prepared as the state's metrics continue rising. "No matter where in Illinois you call home: as you go about your daily life, remember that this is not over," Pritzker said as he delivered his daily coronavirus press briefing. The governor warned that six of the state's 11 healthcare regions will be under stricter mitigations this week, but more could soon follow.

A power company in southern California says its equipment may have sparked a fast-moving wildfire that has forced evacuation orders for around 100,000 people and seriously injured two firefighters. In a report to the state Public Utilities Commission, Southern California Edison said it was investigating whether its electrical equipment caused the blaze. The brief report said it appeared that a “lashing wire” that tied a telecommunications line to a support cable may have struck a 12,000-volt conducting line above it, and an investigation was under way. More than 90,000 people in the fire area were under evacuation orders. A fire...

McConnell Speaks Before Senate Confirms Judge Barrett ‘The Senate will render one of the most consequential judgements it can ever deliver. We will approve a lifetime appointment to our nation’s highest court. Since the ink dried on the Constitution, only 114 men and women have been entrusted to uphold the separation of powers, protect people’s rights, and dispense impartial justice on the Supreme Court. In a few minutes, Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana will join their ranks. WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Judge Amy...

* Breaking * With 2,147,288 ballots cast, the GOP leads the early vote in Michigan. 41% GOP to 39% DEM. About 50% of the estimated total votes for 2020 have been cast. Analysts shocked by how fast the GOP is closed the early vote gap in Michigan. In 2020, as a percentage of the electorate, 18-29 year-olds cast only 11% of the total vote. In 2016, they were 21% of the electorate. This data suggests that young people are not showing up at the same rate during this election cycle. SEE THE DATA....

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). Scripture is a manual of divine truth. This month we've considered many benefits of Scripture. Second Timothy 3:16 lists four more that will be the focus of our studies as we draw this month to a close: teaching truth, reproving sin and error, correcting behavior, and training in righteousness. We've touched on each of those to some extent in our past studies, but they warrant additional discussion from this verse, which is Scripture's most concise statement on its own...

At JPMorgan Chase, the firm's digital currency JPM Coin is being used commercially for the first time this week by a large technology client to send payments around the world...JPMorgan’s move could provide a boost to the broader blockchain and cryptocurrency industries, whose proponents believe that mainstream adoption is nearing. Digital currencies popped last week after PayPal announced that users could soon buy, hold and sell crypto directly from their accounts.

In summary, Hunter Biden, spent some time in 2018 with some Russians at a property in West Hollywood and engaged in sexual activities. These activities were likely videotaped because the whole place was under surveillance. As a result the Bidens are at risk from this event alone for blackmail. We don’t know if any of the girls wet on the bed, but we do know that this event took place, unlike the pee pee tapes which were made up in the Trump – Russia collusion farce.

The economic situation in Africa has improved a lot since the 1990s.  Yet rampant poverty and food insecurity still impact millions of lives there. Currently, there is a huge demand-supply gap in the agricultural sector.  At least three hundred million are malnourished. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization defines food security as "a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." Africa's agricultural sector needs to be strengthened to meet the demand for quality food.  In...

T he word unrelenting means “undiminished, not letting up or weakening in vigor or pace; incapable to being changed, sticking to a determined course.” This is a marvelous description of the love of God. Nothing can hinder or diminish his loving pursuit of both sinners and saints. The psalmist David expressed it this way: “You have hedged me behind and before … Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:5, 7-8). David...

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Why is the stock market so high? I get asked this riddle every day. The standard answers we hear these days are that the market is anticipating another $2 trillion Donald Trump-Nancy Pelosi stimulus bill (either before or right after the election) and investors are craving another drink from the federal firehose. Deficit spending has apparently become the crack cocaine for investors. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank, UBS, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs also tell us that a President Joe Biden would be bullish for the markets because he will deluge the economy with even more deficit spending...

Biden is the least inspiring candidate in at last a century, while President Trump has an extraordinarily enthusiastic base that is, if possible, much larger than it was in 2016. Still, the polls have been practically unanimous: Biden will win in a landslide. The polls predicted the same for Hillary in 2016, so we’re suspicious, but the confluence of awful things that’s been 2020 still makes Trump supporters just a little nervous. However, two election analysts are predicting that Trump will beat the pants and double masks off Joe Biden. Matthew Tyrmand is a numbers guy. He got his...

With the presidential election just days away, record voter turnout is being met with the specter of voter intimidation, leaving some Americans with fears of confrontation at the polls from now until Nov. 3. Civil rights advocates, election experts, and government officials have expressed heightened concerns following President Donald Trump's recent call for his supporters to "go into the polls and watch" for possible voting fraud, as well as his reelection campaign's recruitment and training what it has called an "army" of supporters to become poll watchers. And they are working hard to make sure Americans know their rights when...

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s role as the face of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is challenged daily by criticisms from the White House — as well as what nearly all experts describe as misinformation on the virus being put out daily by President Trump. Just the latest example was during a recent campaign call in which Trump said, “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” before going on to say, “He’s been here for 500 years.” When asked about pushback he receives from Trump and his administration, Fauci said it’s not something he worries about. “It's...

Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) said Monday on ABC’s “The View” that President Donald Trump did not have the “courage to speak the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter.'”