Free Republic

What do you do when you are down in the RCP average of polls? He is at 43, a good number if you are competing for the home run lead but terrible approval number. Can he turn this around? Not in the short run. He is a victim of a couple of executive orders penned early on. He lost the presidency within hours of inauguration, sort of like the starting pitcher who gives up six runs in the first inning and hopes that his team can get back in the game. First, he declared war on oil, a stupid decision...

I am ANGRY!!!! I just got up to the local news and hearing about a young police officer (off duty) car jacked and shot twice in the back. He's DOA at the hospital in Lorain Oh. The shooter is in custody and there's NO news either about HIM or the dead officer!!! Every local chanel has blacked it out and instead are telling me when to take down Christmas ornamets and wall to wall eulogy for Betty White.... The media makes me SICK!

So, no balls in the pool

Arabica coffee futures are about to register their largest annual gain in a quarter-century due to a global deficit. Arabica coffee futures jumped 78% to about $2.30 per pound in New York this year, putting it on track for the best year since 1994.“Severe weather in Brazil, the world’s largest arabica supplier, decimated coffee plantations, contributing to a global shortage just as demand for the high-end variety of beans expanded. That coincided with supply chain bottlenecks including container shortages and longer shipping times,” Bloomberg explained. We first documented the tightening of global supplies on Mar. 25 in a commodity note...

It’s almost time for the ball to drop in Times Square, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s remaining time in office is reduced to minutes. Let me wish all Manhattan Contrarian readers a Happy New Year! But before de Blasio finally goes, we ought to take a quick look at how his progressive policies have succeeded in solving another one of his signature issues, namely homelessness. In my post on December 26, I described de Blasio’s legacy on all his major issues as “more and more spending and no positive results of any kind.” In the area of homelessness,...

BRUSSELS (AP) — A total of 45 reporters and media workers were killed doing their jobs over the last year, the highest number among them in strife-torn Afghanistan, the world’s largest organization of journalists said Friday. The figure represents one of the lowest death tolls in 30 years, since the International Federation of Journalists first began publishing annual reports in 1991 on journalists killed in incidents related to their work. Sixty-five deaths were recorded in 2020.

Antwerp, now the No. 1 port in Europe for cocaine busts, has seen a rise in gang violence and corruptionANTWERP, Belgium—For centuries, goods flowing through the giant port here have enriched this elegant city, known for its diamonds, art and fashion. Now a different import from across the Atlantic—cocaine—has unleashed a gusher of cash that officials say is swamping Antwerp with corruption, violence and economic distortion. Authorities have seized 88 metric tons of cocaine stashed in containers from Latin America this year, nearly 10 times the figure in 2014. .... To sneak their drugs through the port, traffickers are paying...

We can't stop them from cheating, but we must not let them get away with it. According to the polls, Biden's popularity is sinking faster than the Titanic. This is causing great joy among the people who don't want to live under communism or even extreme totalitarian socialism. Sadly, we won't win elections by winning in the polls. We won't win elections by winning the hearts and minds of the voters. In places where bad people cheat big time, we won't win the elections no matter what we do. We can't stop them from cheating, but we must not let...

PRISTINA, Dec 28 (Reuters) - As Kosovo endures its worst energy crisis in a decade, Xhelal Gashi is considering closing down his bakery in Pristina because he is struggling to cover fuel costs for a generator since authorities introduced power cuts.... Many businesses and households in Kosovo have brought out portable power generators since the country's power distribution company, Kosovo Energy Distribution Systems (KEDS), announced last week that it would introduce two-hour-long power cuts until further notice.... ..."As a consequence, Kosovo is importing energy that was not scheduled in the markets," The European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E), which...

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – After the game clock had finally ticked down to double zeroes Friday night at Hard Rock Stadium and Georgia’s 34-11 win over Michigan was official, Kirby Smart’s players sought to give him a Gatorade bath. The Bulldogs’ coach was having none of it. He avoided the dunk and scolded those that tried to give it to him. “I was wanting a real shower and not a Gatorade bath,” Smart explained after the College Football Playoff semifinal victory. “Because I want to get focused on Alabama. They have a five- or six-hour head start. To be honest,...

It turns out they’ve been playing us all along when it comes to COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. If you still doubt that our COVID nightmare is being fully orchestrated by the evilest cabal of miscreants ever assembled in America, look no further than the latest stories that have just come over the wire featuring the almighty Fauci and some of his minions. How convenient for the perps to let the cat out of the bag on a Friday New Year’s Eve when most people are trying to forget the never-ending horror show that was the year of Our Lord...

Happy New Year, everyone!! Great news: Our bandwidth and other costs with our new provider are substantially lower than before so we have now reduced our total budget to $82k per quarter! FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who love and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. No 501c or other IRS non-profit status. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No third-parties --...

The New York State Department of Health has chosen a very peculiar and unconstitutional way to allocate scarce resources. Martin Luther King, Jr., dreamed of a world in which his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. New York State’s Department of Health has effectively said that the color of a person’s skin is the only thing that matters. It has explicitly announced that, because of a shortage of monoclonal antibody treatments, the state will be rationing what supplies it has...and White people need not apply. Normally, when there’s...

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I have a few friends that are attorneys that don’t suffer fools gladly. I have been speaking independently to two of them. They don’t know each other and likely will never meet each other. They pursued different facets of the law, and each was successful in their career. Each of them used the same noun to describe the intellect of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamela Harris. They said, “moron”. I hadn’t heard the term in a long long time. I think the last time was in Animal House. I have met several prominent politicians from both sides of...

William Golding (of Lord of the Flies fame) wrote an essay titled “Thinking as a Hobby” in which he outlined what he saw as the three stages of human thought. The first stage, he pointed out, wasn’t really thinking at all, but rather emoting about whatever information (or disinformation) parades through a brain’s synapses. This level of “thought” takes no actual knowledge, uses logic sparingly, if at all, and produces nothing but anger, bitterness, and only an occasional tickle of amusement. The second stage of thinking is actual, rational thinking, but only goes so far as to list the problems,...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Friday shot back at criticism from right-wing figures after a photo of her on vacation with her boyfriend in Florida was shared online, suggesting that her critics stop "projecting their sexual frustrations" on her. Steve Cortes, a former Trump campaign adviser, shared a photo on Twitter on Friday of Ocasio-Cortez in public with her boyfriend, Riley Roberts, vacationing in Florida. Cortes attacked Ocasio-Cortez for not wearing a mask in public and also took aim at Roberts's "gross pale male feet in public." Ocasio-Cortez responded by retweeting the photo and writing, "If Republicans are mad they...

HOUSTON — Thousands of people moved to Texas again this year, and if you’re one of them, you may not be aware of some of the unusual laws we have, especially those that deal with buying alcohol. All liquor stores are closed in Texas on New Year’s Day and lots of folks had no idea. (Snip) “ The state law reads that every liquor store in the state of Texas has to be closed on Sundays, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day." The law is among what are known as the state’s “blue laws” regulating when hard alcohol can be...

At the start of 2021 there were 16 members of the Constitutional Carry club in the United States of America. They were:AlaskaArizonaArkansasIdahoKansasKentuckyMaineMississippiMissouriNew HampshireNorth DakotaOklahomaSouth DakotaVermontWest VirginiaWyoming2021 was a record year for Constitutional Carry. In 2021, five states joined the Constitutional Carry club, increasing membership from 16 to 21. The last and largest state to join the club was Texas. The four other states to join the club in 2021 were Tennessee, Iowa, Montana, and Utah.Several other states are working to pass Constitutional Carry bills. Here are states and possibilities for Constitutional Carry in 2022.The first in line, with bills that...

Out with the old, in with the new. The eternal slogan of the optimist on this day. I’m going to lose weight . . . after I finish that muffin over there. Edna St. Vincent-Millay is supposed to have said that history isn’t one damn thing after another—it’s the same damn thing over and over again. I’m thinking this is now the motto of the CDC and our public health service, so come February 2, expect the groundhog to see six more months of COVID at least. I’m pretty sure Brandon is up for it, though.