Free Republic

June 7th

Mortgage applications decreased 1.2 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 20, 2022. The Refinance Index decreased 4 percent from the previous week and was 75 percent lower than the same week one year ago. And under Biden, the refinance index is down -83.2%. The good news? The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent compared with the previous week and was 16 percent lower than the same week one year ago. And...

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) responded to his colleagues in the Senate and others accusing him of “politicizing” the tragic mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, TX, which has reportedly left 19 children dead. Murphy, who in an interview the night before pushed for gun control in the wake of the shooting, pushed back against the notion that he was “supposed to shut up and not talk about changing laws” following shootings. He argued that not politicizing the shootings was “a fiction created by the gun industry.”

In the days after Russia attacked Ukraine, there was a lot of talk among Republicans that Vladimir Putin would not have invaded had Donald Trump still been president. Trump was so difficult to predict, so impulsive, so impetuous, the thinking went, that Putin would not have risked a massive U.S. response under Trump. "The sheer unpredictability of Trump, his anger at being defied or disrespected, his willingness to take the occasional big risk (the Soleimani strike), all had to make Putin frightened or wary of him in a way that he simply isn't of Joe Biden," National Review editor Rich...

The shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, was another in a long line of senseless tragedies involving guns and schools. That it involves little children is almost beyond our capacity to bear. What is the government’s responsibility in dealing with this horrific incident? Everyone wants to do something. Everyone demands action. But far and away the most popular “solution” that comes out of any tragedy like this is tasking the government with finding a way to control gun ownership. Calls for gun registration in the wake of an 18-year-old kid murdering 21 people is ludicrous and a transparently useless...

In this administration, it's always someone else's fault. Inflation is now the No. 1 concern of voters, so the White House first blamed COVID. Then Donald Trump's tax cuts. Then Vladimir Putin. Then meatpackers and the poultry industry, Big Oil and pharmaceutical companies. Now, Democrats have identified a new inflation scapegoat: plastic. Visa, Mastercard, American Express and other credit cards hidden away in your wallet. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) has had it out for credit cards for almost two decades, even though over that period, credit cards, which were once reserved for the rich, are now nearly ubiquitous in our...

Nine counties in eastern Oregon have voted yes to join Idaho since 2020, and two more counties in northeast Oregon, Morrow and Wallowa, are also set to vote on the proposal soon. The addition of eastern Oregon to the Gem State is just the first phase of the proposal. The second phase would see Greater Idaho spread into northeast California, where the movement claims that residents identify closer to Idaho ideologies based on voter trends.

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How does one pity a group that itself regularly exhibits no pity or even mere tolerance for others? This is the conundrum one faces when considering Muslim victim groups. Take the Rohingya, for instance, a Muslim people that primarily lived in Myanmar, while, like most invading and conquering Muslims, not being indigenous to Myanmar. There they have been severely persecuted by the indigenous Buddhists of that nation. While the Rohingya are regularly presented as victims—aspects of which is no doubt true—historically and precipitating their current status, whenever they had the chance, they were the ones quick to victimize others....

Among the providential results of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been the reawakening of the West to the value of its mutual defense pact, NATO, whose 30 members are all pledged to come to the defense of any member threatened with aggression. And the Ukraine war has led to a spectacular development: the desire expressed by both Finland and Sweden to become members of NATO. Before the invasion of Ukraine, most Finns and Swedes were lukewarm about joining NATO. All that has changed: 76% of Finns now want Finland in NATO, and so do more than 60% of Swedes....

Planning to fly this summer? Good luck. Delays are up. Cancellations, too. Why? Because of the pilot shortage. A pilot shortage? How can this be? Flying is a popular job. Some people fly small planes just for fun. Why aren't there enough commercial pilots? Because the government passed another dumb law. In 2009, after a Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people, Congress decided that airlines could only hire aspiring commercial pilots who already had lots of flight time. Instead of 250 hours, now they have to have 1,500 hours! "That never made any sense," says current...

The 12-year-old was sleeping under the stars with his buddies when the bear jolted everyone awake "Be Prepared" may be the motto for the Boy Scouts, but a 12-year-old from New York was anything but prepared for the encounter he had while on a recent camping trip -- one that saw his leg end up in the jaws of a black bear. The uninvited guest was peaking around a campsite late at night at Harriman State Park in Rockland and Orange counties, in search of some human food, when it stumbled on a group of Boy Scouts from Cooperstown. "It...

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A San Antonio woman caught a special gift after her wedding in Port Aransas over the weekend. Eliot Waggoner Granville, 34, got married at the Chapel on the Dunes on Sunday. She and her husband, John Earnest Granville, enjoy fishing and vacationing near the beach. "It was our wedding night and we were sitting on the bed and my husband was like, 'well, what do you want to do?," Granville said. "I'm more of a fisher than he is so I said let's go fishing." Wearing a wedding dress and veil, Eliot Waggoner Granville of San Antonio caught a massive...

President Biden is a walking "gaffe machine." You can't put him behind a microphone because God only knows what he is going to say. We understand now why they hid him in his basement in 2020 with infrequent trips to the ice cream shop. It's tough to make a gaffe when you buy ice cream unless you order a pizza. This is from the current overseas trip: "When it comes to the gas prices, we're going through an INCREDIBLE transition". Yes, that gasoline pump that goes from $20 to $30 to $40 to $50 and $60.... it's just a transition...

All that is left of Joe Biden’s never very bright mind is his viciousness. Biden’s speech after the Buffalo mass shooting was as obscene as his speech in the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas was last night. He was barely there; frail and blank, reading the teleprompter with no emotion until he got to blaming guns. Then he yelled with thoroughly phony anger at all Americans who revere the Second Amendment. It never occurs to leftists like Biden that had one or two or three of the staff at the market in Buffalo or the school in...

I’m sorry but I just can’t stay away from the story of Archbishop Salvatore Cordelione announcing that, because she’s an aggressive advocate for unlimited abortion, Nancy Pelosi no longer qualifies for communion in his diocese. With the weekend having passed since the Friday announcement, noted religious scholars Nancy Pelosi and Whoopi Goldberg (that was sarcasm for those who thought I was serious) have weighed in and their takes are, well, extraordinary. To go back a little to set the stage, on Monday, San Francisco Examiner (one of two hometown newspapers for Pelosi) issued an aggressive editorial announcing that, as between...

Scientists Create Tomatoes Genetically Engineered To Boost Vitamin D. They used gene editing to enhance the production of vitamin D3 in tomatoes.

U.S. stocks fell Wednesday as traders awaited the Federal Reserve’s release of its policy meeting from earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 125 points, or 0.4%. The S&P 500 fell for a second day and was down 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite lost 4%, after posting a steep loss in the previous session.

The 18-year-old gunman who allegedly shot and killed 19 school children and two adults at a Texas elementary school cryptically messaged a stranger “I’m about to” just hours before he opened fire on the children. Salvador Ramos was identified as the suspect in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. He was killed by police after the shooting. He was using an account with the username “salv8dor_”, which was taken down shortly after that shooter was identified as Salvador Ramos. The Instagram account which is believed to be of the shooter...