Free Republic

With mentors lacking, duck- and goose-hunting newbies are turning to video-posting educator-entertainers, but are there limitations to what you can learn? My introduction into the waterfowling arts was, for the time, typical. We had fathers and uncles, grandfathers and that grumpy old guy next door who loved to hunt but generally hated everyone; still, and for whatever reason, he took a shine to us and would take us with him every now and again. From these men, we learned the finer points of waterfowling. How to do this. How to do that. Decoys. Guns. Dogs. Wind. Range estimation. Sometimes the...

ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE?! In the world of political news, a presidential impeachment is like the Super Bowl. For the major media, this is what the last three years of buildup is coming down to — President Trump’s presidency hangs in the balance, and the TV talking heads who helped bring about this dramatic crescendo are doing everything they can to hype the moment. As the hearings themselves — which largely cover internal conversations among career diplomats and foreign service officers — have been called boring and dull, these media personalities are perhaps overcompensating, using words like “explosive!” and...

The recent merger between Gatehouse Media and Gannett Corporation is another milestone in the rapid decline financially and journalistically of newspapers. Don’t expect either to change anytime soon. But what is more enlightening is that they are not the only mainstream media outlets struggling. Turns out that in addition to TV news networks, a lot of major online digital outfits are also in contraction mode. The Gatehouse/Gannett merger creates the largest U.S. media company measured by print circulation along with, in total, perhaps the biggest online news and information outlet, albeit it is diffused. The purchase price, using a combination...

A couple of weeks ago the Democrats gained control of both houses of the Virginia legislation. A Democratic is already governor so the Democrats have complete control of VA for the first time in generations. There is a lot the Left wants to do so many bills are being filed in preparation of the Democratic controlled legislative session. The link has the bills that have been filed.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the history field has seen a precipitous decline in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in American colleges. As Benjamin Schmidt, a historian at Northeastern University, reported in the American Historical Association’s Perspectives, the number of history degrees awarded fell by 30 percent—from 34,642 to 24,266 in just nine years from 2008 to 2017. History’s steep decline is not an anomaly, but part and parcel of a broader “crisis” in the humanities. STEM has steamrolled these disciplines on college campuses: Computer science has more than doubled its students between 2013 and 2017. Moreover, critics have...

AWKWARD!!

"""So much for the #Resistance! While all eyes were on impeachment hearing, House re-authorized PATRIOT Act""" House Democrats have slipped an unqualified renewal of the draconian PATRIOT Act into an emergency funding bill – voting near-unanimously for sweeping surveillance carte blanche that was the basis for the notorious NSA program. A three-month reauthorization of the notorious PATRIOT Act was shoehorned into a last-minute continuing resolution (CR) funding the US government, bundling measures needed to avert yet another government shutdown with a continuation of the wildly-intrusive surveillance powers passed after the 9/11 terror attacks. Democrats voted almost unanimously for it, granting...

In a lengthy interview with Fox & Friends Friday morning, the first since impeachment inquiry hearings appear to have wrapped up, President Donald Trump proclaimed “I want a trial,” in the matter of Trump’s alleged plot to seek domestic political help from a foreign entity.

Here’s why it might now be advantageous for the Republicans to hold a long, full Senate trail if the Democrats, as expected, send over articles of impeachment: In a Senate trial, the Republicans will control the process. They will control which witnesses get called, how the hearings are conducted, what will be considered relevant to the proceedings. They will be able to compel the fake whistleblower to testify, Hunter Biden to testify, and myriad others who Adam Schiff refused to allow into his circus process. If they chose to, Republicans would even be able to call Schiff himself, along with...

When it comes to crime, economists focus on deterrence. Deterrence works but it’s not the only thing that works. Simple things like better street lighting can reduce crime as can high-quality early education or psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy. The sociological literature has emphasized that crime is about preferences as well as constraints and life-events or turning points such as marriage and childbirth can greatly change crime preferences. The sociological literature is mostly from case studies but in a new paper, Family Formation and Crime, Maxim Massenkoff and Evan Rose (both on the job market from Berkeley) demonstrate...

Where Christians have the Beatitudes, progressives have platitudes. As the scheduled House “Impeachment Inquiries” wrap up I wonder which will serve their constituents better; we begin with the platitudes… ‘What it is is’ turns out to be, as the President has noted several times, a witch hunt. But it’s not quite ‘the end of the day’ yet; now it’s our turn. And remember: we’re the armed onesFor our side’s rebuttal I’d like to expand the Dem’s list of vapid platitudes to include one of their own favorites: ‘nobody is above the law,’ as well as one that seems pertinent but may...

Details of the Horowitz FISA report are leaking, and it all smacks of a whitewash. – Not that that outcome wasn’t completely predictable, since I warned you to fully expect that in yesterday’s Campaign Update. Last night, CNN ran with a story – based on leaks no doubt obtained from one of the many ex-FBI snakes now employed by the fakest news channel on earth – proclaiming that Horowitz’s report will make claims of criminal activity by a single FBI lawyer, whose identity is not revealed in the story. Might it be James Baker, the former FBI general counsel now...

Julian Castro attempts to revive his moribund presidential campaign by blaming whitey.

Almost everyone so far has provided worthless hearsay as did Fiona Hill who left by July 19th before the phone call, but Morrison was listening in on the phone call and said he heard nothing illegal and declated in testimony along with Volker there was Quid Pro Quo, bribery or extortion. She though appears to have lied through her teeth as even left-wing publications like Politico and others have confirmed Ukraine's role in 2016 election interference despite her attempts today to downplay their role. At the very least she would have blatantly and shamelessly provided a False Choice if both...

I am asking for prayers for Alex a friend whose cancer has returned a third time and Phil a friend who is having surgery Dec 11th to remove a blood clot from a major artery in his leg.Thank you.

As the public impeachment circus hearings come to a close, America asks, what in the hell was that all about? – Having worked in the communications field for a long, long time, one of the first things I learned was that if you cannot make your case to the average American in 25 words or less – 50 at the outside – you don’t have a case. The average American has the attention span of the average house cat. If you aren’t giving them some food or scratching them at just the right spot behind the ears, they’re going to...

Noel Ignatiev, a former steelworker who became a historian known for his work on race and class and his call to abolish “whiteness,” died at Banner-University Medical Center Tucson on Saturday. He was 78. The cause was an intestinal infarction, according to Kingsley Clarke, a longtime friend. Ignatiev’s best-known book, “How the Irish Became White,” was immediately influential and controversial upon its publication in 1995. It touched off a firestorm of debate at the time at academic conferences and in the pages of newspapers. In time his view that whiteness is a social and political construction — and not a...

"""REVEALED: Adam Schiff Connected to Both Companies Named in $7.4 Billion Burisma-US-Ukraine Corruption Case""" As reported on Wednesday the head of Burisma Holdings was indicted this week in Ukraine! Ukrainian Prosecutor General indicted Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky The claim alleges that Hunter Biden and his partners received $16.5 million over several years for their ‘services’ in Ukraine. Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden took a lucrative post on the Burisma Board in 2014. Hunter Biden was making millions from the corrupt Ukrainian oil and gas company.

While searching for some older threads for a friend I ran across some of my favorite threads ever - Thanksgiving recipe threads! My wife and I continue to insist that all of our kids and grandchildren join us for at least one holiday feast each year, either Thanksgiving or Christmas. As part of the celebration we home cook all that we can, and way more than we will ever need. Everyone must participate in making part of the meal, even if minor. Everyone joins in on the cleanup, and everyone gets to choose their leftovers to take with them. I...

In an stunning development, Ranking Member Devin Nunes invokes an obscure House rule that appears to allow Republicans to schedule a special hearing and call any witness. The “Minority Witness Rule” states: When a House committee or subcommittee holds a hearing, the minority party members of the panel have the right to call witnesses of their choosing to testify on at least one day of that hearing. Read Nunes’ letter HERE