Free Republic

​A whole bunch of data about the economy was released Wednesday — a day early because of Thanksgiving — and a lot of it was positive. ​We learned that the Federal Reserve is bullish on the economy’s prospects through the end of next year. In the minutes of the Open Market Committee meeting earlier this month, the central bank’s staff predicts gross domestic product will post “sizable” gains this year and next. ​Some of Wednesday’s news was a downer — consumer confidence fell to its lowest point in a decade, according to the University of Michigan. And the personal consumption...

It’s easy to amend the Constitution. It’s been done dozens of times since WWII. Send the right case with the right litigants at the right time to an adequately Leftist-leaning Scotus and voila’, amend the Constitution. Pretty slick, eh? Through their silence, this is the end-run around the Constitution that Article V Opponents defend. When did We The People, through Article V, ensconce abortion and homosexual marriage as rights? We The People never empowered the early Administrative State and later the Deep State which threaten our republican existence. Since the 1950s we’ve witnessed the detrimental effects of Christianity’s absence from...

An Oakland security guard has died from a bullet wound he suffered after the retired cop was shot while he protected reporters at the scene of an armed robbery in the crime-ravaged Bay Area Kevin Nishita, a father of two and grandfather of three, was on assignment to guard the KRON4 team as it was reporting on the latest smash-and-grab raid in California on Wednesday when a robber targeted the TV crew for their cameras. Nishita, a former police officer, confronted one of 12 masked robbers to protect the reporters, and the thief shot him in the lower abdomen. He...

… As New Zealand shifts to a policy of “living with the virus,” residents accustomed to living virtually Covid-free for most of the pandemic are being confronted by rising case numbers and widening vaccine mandates. Opposition to vaccination as well as frustration with ongoing pandemic restrictions is fueling a small but vocal protest movement inspired in part by American politics. In a working paper published in November, a team of researchers in New Zealand said there had been a “sharp increase in the popularity and intensity” of disinformation around Covid-19 since August. The researchers said the disinformation was “being used...

I have written numerous times about nothing has been the same since the housing bubble burst and ensuing financial crisis of 2008. The crisis led to bank bailouts (TARP) and banking legislation (Dodd-Frank) giving The Federal Reserve even more power. And then the COVID lockdowns led to even MORE power for The Fed. And a horrid decline in money velocity (the ability of printing money to increase economic growth … or GDP). But let’s take one step backwards. One the causes of the housing bubble that burst was President Clinton’s infamous National Homeownership Strategy that encouraged “partners” with the Federal...

GB News is quietly turning into a ratings winner – which will dismay the Guardianistas who predicted and hoped otherwise. Last night’s viewing figures show the upstart news channel outflanking Sky News and the BBC with its evening programming: both Farage and Brazier smashed Sky News Tonight and BBC News at 8pm, with Dewbs & Co beating News Hour with Mark Austin – and even performing respectably against BBC News at Six. BBC News at Six is still a blockbuster as news channels go. The situation changes immediately Farage is on screen at 7pm:

[H/T Melian]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp4ncch9b1M

J.K. Rowling's controversial posts about trans women continue to divide her fans, with the furor against her reaching a new level over the weekend, when activists shared the author's home address on Twitter. The incident has since prompted outrage from her supporters and a lengthy Twitter statement from Rowling on Monday. "I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven’t stopped speaking out," she wrote in part. "Perhaps — and I’m just throwing this out there – the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women, is to stop...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is soaring, businesses are struggling to hire and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have been in free-fall. The White House sees a common culprit for it all: COVID-19. Biden’s team views the pandemic as the root cause of both the nation’s malaise and his own political woes. Finally controlling COVID-19, the White House believes, is the skeleton key to rejuvenating the country and reviving Biden’s own standing. But the coronavirus challenge has proved to be vexing for the White House, with last summer’s premature claims of victory swamped by the more transmissible delta variant, stubborn millions...

A team of experts has found a mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old on Peru's central coast, one of the archaeologists who participated in the excavation said on Friday. The mummified remains were of a person from the culture that developed between the coast and mountains of the South American country. The mummy, whose gender was not identified, was discovered in the Lima region, said archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen Luna. "The main characteristic of the mummy is that the whole body was tied up by ropes and with the hands covering the face, which would be part...

Prior research has shown that other galaxies have features called feathers—long gas filaments with barbs that look from Earth like feathers. But because it is very difficult to study the Milky Way galaxy from an Earth perspective, no such features have been seen, until now. In their work, the researchers were studying concentrations of carbon monoxide gas in data from the APEX telescope in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. They noticed concentrations that had not been seen before, and after taking a closer look, discovered that it was part of a large gas formation that extended from near the center...

"It has long been assumed that if there are a lot of deceased babies in a burial sample, then infant mortality must have been high," lead author Dr. Clare McFadden, from the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, said."Many have assumed that infant mortality was very high in the past in the absence of modern healthcare."When we look at these burial samples, it actually tells us more about the number of babies that were born and tells us very little about the number of babies that were dying, which is counterintuitive to past perceptions."The researchers examined United Nations (UN) data...

ransomnote: I believe these are anti-mandate protests which are occurring all over world. In some areas, the police show support for protesters. This is the first time I've seen them march in support.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aZb_BtnP1Y

CAMPBELL (CBS SF) — Two men suffered non-life-threatening injuries and a high school playoff crowd was forced to flee to safety while the teams drove to the ground for cover on the field Friday night after gunshots rang out at the CCS Division 1 championship game between St. Francis and Serra high schools.

“After doing the research and connecting the dots, I have reached the conclusion that the Stop the Steal organization is a Deep State organization to raise money for purposes other than to FIX 2020,” Wood posted on his Telegram. Right-wing darling Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen acquitted of murder for killing two people at a racial justice protest, sent the QAnon world into a tailspin when he said in interviews that Lin Wood, a leading QAnon believer and Trump attorney who briefly represented Rittenhouse, was “insane” and had “taken advantage” of him. That prompted right-wing Trump allies — including Rep. Marjorie...

Both Italy and Germany reported on Saturday that they had detected cases of the omicron COVID-19 variant, adding to a handful of countries that have found the new variant within their borders. Two cases of omicron were found in the southeastern German state of Bavaria, the country's health ministry confirmed, according to Reuters. The ministry said that the two people infected with the variant, who the government appeared to imply had traveled from South Africa, were isolating after they came into the country on Nov. 24.

It is clear that travel was a major factor in the rapid dissemination of COVID-19 disease. It has been proposed that Wuhan, China, was the epicentre of the pandemic. The World Military Games took place from the 18th to 27th of October 2019 in Wuhan, China. Over 140 nations with 9308 athletes participated with over 300,000 attendees, volunteers and staff [1–4]. This study examined the hypothesis that the large gathering in a pandemic epicentre was a factor in the spread of COVID-19 disease. -snip- There is a correlation between the number of individuals who travelled to the event and the...

Despite fewer juicy deals, Black Friday shoppers dutifully opened their wallets, and for the first time ever, online sales fell as crowds returned to stores. Holiday-hungry consumers spent $8.9 billion online Friday, according to Adobe Analytics. That was a slight drop from $9 billion last year.

On Thursday, Czech President Miloš Zeman left the Central Military Hospital but came back just a few hours later after testing positive for coronavirus. The president had reportedly met with an infected employee of the Office of the President of the Czech Republic. Presidential spokesman Jiří Ovčáček said that Zeman was tested for COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon and got back a positive result. “Therefore, in cooperation with the attending physician, Dr. Miroslav Zavoral, it was decided to transport the patient back to the Central Military Hospital in Prague,” added Ovčáček. According to Zavoral, the president received monoclonal antibodies as treatment....

**SNIP** Angelique Coetzee, a doctor with a private practice in Pretoria and chair of the South African Medical Association (SAMA), told The Telegraph that so far Omicron cases seem to present with strange but mild symptoms. "Their symptoms were so different and so mild from those I had treated before," she said. Most of the Omicron patients Coetzee has treated arrived "feeling so tired," making intense fatigue the most consistent symptom that's been reported. On the other hand, none of these patients suffered from loss of taste or smell, which has been one of the tell-tale COVID symptoms up to...