Free Republic

... The rapid decline will have a profound impact on China’s economy. China’s working-age population peaked in 2014 and is projected to shrink to less than one-third of that peak by 2100. China’s elderly population (aged 65 and above) is expected to continue to climb for most of that time, passing China’s working-age population near 2080. This means that while there are currently 100 working-age people available to support every 20 elderly people, by 2100, 100 working-age Chinese will have to support as many as 120 elderly Chinese. The annual average decline of 1.73% in China’s working-age population sets the...

State Farm learns the wokey lesson. A hundred years ago George Mecherle perceived his neighbors in rural Illinois were paying too much for insurance, so he started a company to sell car insurance to farmers. An early innovation of his was offering better rates for those who didn’t drink and drive. Today his company, State Farm Mutual Insurance Company, is the largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S with 57,000 employees. But I expect George, were he still alive, might be frowning at State Farm’s woke management team shooting themselves in the corporate foot last week. Today State Farm...

Soaring commodity prices have been financially devastating for households, devoting larger and larger shares of disposable income to pay for energy. For instance, at nine California filling stations, the price of regular gas is higher than the federal minimum wage. Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy said several gas stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco metro areas had recorded pump prices over the federal minimum wage ($7.25). One station in Los Angeles is now $7.83. Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research told CBS News that record-high fuel costs are denting workers’ paychecks. He estimated that the typical US household would spend...

Have conservatives ever been hated harder than they are now? Roger Scruton was a British philosopher who spent his life defending conservative values. Sir Roger, as he was after his knighthood in 2016, saw the antagonist culture as a rejection of inherited values, including gender distinctions, capitalism, patriotism, religious faith, and everyday morality such as honesty and prohibitions against theft, adultery, and other evils. No one understood antagonism better, on a theoretical level, than Scruton, and he wrote with passion and clarity. For anyone wishing to understand the culture of antagonism, Scruton's books, including The Meaning of Conservatism, The Aesthetics...

Click on link

This is a video report on the Ukraine/Russia conflict as it was yesterday, Sunday May, 29th 2022

I wish we had leaders who unflinchingly defended the Bill of Rights. I wish we had a Congress that respected the constitutional limits of its enumerated powers. I wish we weren't saddled with a century of errant Supreme Court jurisprudence that has habitually refashioned the plain meaning of the Constitution's words in service to the partisan bents of its members. I wish the 16th Amendment hadn't made it permissible for the federal government to tax the fruits of Americans' labor. I wish the 17th Amendment hadn't transformed the Senate from a legislative body representing the individual states' interests into a...

... It is easy to forget that part of the reason behind Biden’s almost irrational commitment to fight in Ukraine has been to cover up his massive failure in Afghanistan, marked by the hasty and chaotic retreat of American troops last August that allowed the Taliban to declare a clear victory. The Ukraine gambit appears to have been a shrewd, if not cynical policy: NATO seems together as never before, the US and its allies are shipping in weapons at an unprecedented pace and Ukraine seems to be shoving the Russians back. It looked as if Biden could walk away...

The Supreme Court will soon issue its first major Second Amendment opinion in more than a decade, coming after a pair of recent mass shootings sent the nation reeling and reignited a tense debate over gun rights and public safety. The conservative majority court is expected to rule in the coming days or weeks in a pending dispute over New York state’s tight limits on the concealed carry of handguns. Experts said that while it’s unclear just how broadly the Supreme Court would rule, the restrictive New York law is likely to be invalidated in a decision that could have...

NEW YORK – The custom-built Oculus headset delivered to my door by a hooded monk seemed to malfunction. The palace on the Place de Vosges appeared once again in the Metaverse but in black and white rather than bright cartoon colors, with less furniture and fewer objects d’art, with drab walls unadorned by the paintings I had admired at our last meeting. A bit uncertain on my feet I wandered about the virtual-reality residence until I nearly stumbled on, or rather walked through, the translucent ghost of Cardinal Richelieu, the evil genius of 17th century France and master strategist of...

Oil and gasoline prices increased after each of President Joe Biden’s three Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases which were designed to curb consumer costs. Biden ordered a 50-million-barrel SPR release in November, a 30-million-barrel release on March 1 and a 180-million-barrel release on March 31, saying the “historic” actions would ease pressure felt by Americans at the pump. But marketplace and govern

A picture for today’s holiday, Memorial Day.

“Brazil will not get into this [pandemic treaty]. Brazil is autonomous and will not get into this, you can forget that. I’ve already [spoken] to our foreign relations cabinet and if that proposal goes forward, it won’t be with Brazil,” said Bolsonaro. “Moreover, I was the only statesman that didn’t adhere to the lockdown policies. I said we had to take care of the elderly and people with comorbidities, and today’s studies outside of Brazil especially show that I was right.” He cited the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo as an example of the utter failure of lockdowns to curb...

NDKDYFZJ FYD F JHSREW EB LQFK SFVDJ EXY ZFKTEZ AYDFK, FZP LD SXJK ZDNDY BEYADK FWW KQDH QFND PEZD KE DZJXYD EXY BYDDPES. — YEPZDH BYDWTZAQXHJDZ

A 10-year-old in Florida was arrested Saturday after allegedly sending a text message threatening to shoot up his school. The arrest of Daniel Issac Marquez comes just five days after 19 children and two teachers were slain at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, by deranged gunman Salvador Ramos, 18. According to the Lee County Sheriff's Office, Marquez is a 5th grade student at Patriot Elementary School in Cape Coral, Florida. After being interviewed by authorities, Marquez was charged with making a written threat to conduct a mass shooting. Sheriff Carmine Marceno said in the statement: 'This student’s behavior is...

A North Carolina preschool teacher has been caught using unapproved LGBTQ flash cards - which include images of a pregnant man - to teach 3- and 4-year-old children colors. The teacher, who has not been identified, was found out to have used them on the preschoolers after a constituent of State Representative Erin Pare contacted the Republican about the cards at Ballantine Elementary School in Wake County. Paré contacted the principal of the school to see if she was aware of the use of the cards, which showcase LGBTQ relationships and also go through what each of the colors in...

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Sunday expressed fears that the European Union's unity was "starting to crumble" ahead of a summit to discuss an oil embargo against Russia and plans to cut dependence on Russian energy. EU leaders will meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss a new sanctions package against Russia, which could also include an oil embargo, and a programme aiming to speed up ending dependence on fossil fuels, including Russian gas. "After Russia's attack on Ukraine, we saw what can happen when Europe stands united. With a view to the summit tomorrow, let's hope it continues...

To Dakota’s surprise, it wasn’t the shelling that terrified him most. What wasn’t normal, he said, was the feeling of dread while he hid and listened as Russian attack helicopters strafed the position his team of tank hunters had just fled. Foreign fighters from the United States and elsewhere described glaring disparities between what they expected the war to be like and what they experienced. (...) By the end of the second night, eight of the 20 volunteers in Dakota’s unit had abandoned their posts, including a fellow Marine veteran who appeared to break his machine gun with a rock...

Join together with Fellow FREEPERS to Pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media.'I Urge, then, First of All, that Requests, Prayers, Intercession and Thanksgiving be Made for Everyone: for Kings and All those in Authority that we May Live Peaceful and Quiet Lives in All Godliness and Holiness.' 1 Timothy 2:1-2Religion Forum Threads Labeled [Prayer] are Closed to Debate of Any Kind.Psalm 59:17O my Strength, I Sing Praise to You; You, O God, are my Fortress, my God of Mercy.

“I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy” (Proverbs 30:3).