Free Republic

Despite the demonstrable fact that dying from COVID is about as likely as you getting a birthday card from a one-armed Himalayan banjo player you've never met, pinhead state governors, city mayors, and local officials all the way down to dogcatchers still insist on maintaining the fiction that merely catching the beerbug is a death sentence and that squashing the things until none of them are left is some sort of life-or-death priority. These "officials," self-liberated from the burden of actually consulting with others in the give-and-take inherent in representative government, are on power trips that no doubt give them...

With the last effects of Chicago’s looting sprees, it’s a tense time near the Loop and the Magnificent Mile, not only for the businesses that were hit but also for everyone who lives and works in the city. Now more problems could leave people to leave these neighborhoods. The city’s second ward alderman said he knows many people are on the edge and poised to leave, but it wouldn’t mean just empty units or storefronts. A mass exodus could gut Chicago’s tax base, causing a citywide ripple effect. Drive onto the Mag Mile and at first all seems normal. Keep...

Why 3 weeks? That's how long it takes to reserve a one-way U-Haul outbound. a U-Haul agent told us a few weeks ago. Illinoisans Leave State in Record Numbers, and So Are We On January 2, 2020 I announced Illinoisans Leave State in Record Numbers, and So Are We I am pleased to report we loaded our U-Haul rental yesterday and I am on the road driving to our new home in Utah. Right now we are just a few hours into the trip, but we have crossed the state line and are now in Iowa. Goodbye Illinois On...

Coronavirus cases may be on the rise in some parts of the country, but that hasn’t stopped Americans from looking for homes to buy. And increasingly, those homes are in the suburbs. A new study from Realtor.com found that Americans are showing a more pronounced interest suburban and rural areas as the housing market recovers from pandemic-induced shutdowns. Views of online home listings in May 2020 on Realtor.com grew by 13% compared to May 2019 for suburban ZIP codes, roughly double the rate of urban areas, researchers found.

The world’s wealthiest people are also the most mobile.High net worth individuals (HNWIs) – persons with wealth over US$1 million – may decide to pick up and move for a number of reasons. In some cases they are attracted by jurisdictions with more favorable tax laws, or less pollution and crime. Sometimes, they’re simply looking for a change of scenery.Today’s graphic, using data from the annual Global Wealth Migration Review, maps the migration of the world’s millionaires, and clearly shows which countries are magnets for the world’s rich, and which countries are seeing a wealth exodus.The Flight of the...

Decatur, in central Illinois about 40 miles east of Springfield, has lost 7.1% of its population since the 2010 census, according to the recently released 2019 population estimates. That drop is the third-largest percentage loss in the U.S. among cities with a population of 50,000 or more. Rockford comes in at No. 15 on that list. The northern Illinois city, the fifth-largest in the state with an estimated 145,609 residents, has lost 5% of its population during that nine-year period. Rockford’s total population loss of 7,676 people over the last decade places it ninth nationwide among large cities, according to...

After the recent riots which saw multiple large stores looted, some retailers are having second thoughts about remaining in certain cities. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been talking to these retailers and asking them not to leave the city.Not only do these companies make it possible for residents to get the things they need, they pay tons of taxes which the city relies on.WBBM News reports:TRENDING: Chicago Mayor Now Pleading With Walmart And Other Companies Not To Leave The City Mayor Lightfoot Pleads With Walmart, Other Retailers To Not Abandon ChicagoMayor Lightfoot said sheÂ’s hopeful major retailers will...

After 33 years in Minneapolis, Kris Wyrobek thought he could rely on the city to protect his manufacturing business. In the wake of the city’s paralysis in the rioting — which the Star Tribune helpfully notes “sometimes overshadowed peaceful protests” — Wyrobek has had enough. He’s packing up his 7-Sigma plant to rebuild elsewhere after the city let it burn down, and he’s taking 50 jobs with him: A Minneapolis manufacturing company has decided to leave the city, with the company’s owner saying he can’t trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn during the recent riots. The...

WASHINGTON—The CCP virus pandemic has put global supply risks into the limelight, and recent data compiled by a Hong Kong-based supply chain inspection company shows that U.S. firms have already started moving their sourcing away from China. A manufacturing exodus was already underway due to the uncertainties created by the U.S.–China trade war in 2019. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus, has accelerated that trend and encouraged more companies to reduce their excessive dependence on China as a single supplier. Much of the manufacturing is moving to Southeast Asia and South Asia, according to...

This is just the beginning. The owner of a Minneapolis-based manufacturing plant decided to move his company after rioters burned his business down.Kris Wyrobek, president and owner of 7-Sigma said he can’t trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn during the George Floyd riots.“They don’t care about my business. They didn’t protect our people. We were all on our own,” Wyrobek told the Star Tribune. “The fire engine was just sitting there, but they wouldn’t do anything. That’s the frustrating thing to us.”TRENDING: Wow! Minneapolis City Council President Says Calling the Police on Burglars "Comes from a...

n January 8, London Breed, San Francisco’s mayor, was sworn in for her first full term. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi congratulated her in a tweet, saying, “I look forward to working with you to continue San Francisco’s proud tradition of standing as a guiding light for progress across America.” I don’t know what definition of “progress” Pelosi is using, but any candid observer would rate the city a catastrophe. Mayor Breed was inaugurated on the same day that I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, after ten years working at the cutting edge of science and technology. Even before...

Around the time Jews celebrate Passover and Christians celebrate Easter, the ABC television network airs the timeless 1956 classic film “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston, which is still the most popular rendition of the Exodus account to date. And yet, beginning in 1994, Steven Spielberg, former chairman of the Walt Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg, and music recording mogul David Geffen decided to make a uniquely distinct version as their new studio’s first full length animated feature film. In 1998, DreamWorks Pictures released one of the most memorable and moving adaptations of the biblical account of Moses ever, and in...

That the Bible refers to these structures as "cities" instead of merely "buildings" is likely a consequence of the magnitude of these projects. The area that these depots covered sometimes exceeded the area taken up by the temple itself. Examples of storage depots can be found surrounding several mortuary temples, for example, the Ramesseum. The reason why the temples needed such storage depots was because Egypt had a barter economy that did not use money. Any temple cult only lasted as long as there was food to make offerings and feed priests. Storing food for offerings was essential for a...

Yes, those lumps of clothes really are people sleeping on the streets. Cable car rides are often ruined by the unmistakable whiff of sun-soaked urine. Small business owners – which employ 40% of the workforce – are held down by masochistic regulators. And people are getting the hell out of California.They're fleeing. A new Prager University video called "Fleeing California"  – which will probably be censored by one of the tech giants in 3...2...1 –  highlights the lowlights of California and explains why so many are heading for Texas. Besides pointing out that California's Leftist 'progressive' politics have created...

American troops have begun leaving Afghanistan for the initial troop withdrawal required in the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement, the U.S. military confirmed Monday, amid political chaos in Kabul that threatens the deal.

This is a trend that’s been building for quite a few years and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. A new study reveals that the two states losing the most residents in 2017 and 2018 were once again New York and New Jersey. And who were the big winners in population gains? You might think it would be Texas and Florida, but you’d be wrong. Both of them did see impressive increases, but the biggest winners in the population wars were Arizona, Idaho and Utah. (CBS New York) A new study finds that New York...

A seminary president has warned The Episcopal Church's leadership that with the current rate of decline, they will cease to have any Sunday worship attendance in 30 years.Kristine Stache, interim president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America-affiliated Wartburg Theological Seminary, gave a presentation Friday before the denomination's Executive Council.Stache drew from the most recent parochial report data which found that, from 2008 to 2018, the denomination experienced a 24.9 percent decline in average Sunday attendance and a 17.5 percent decline in baptized members.“It depicts a church that appears to be dying,” said Stache, as reported by Egan Millard...

San Francisco is getting to be a hellhole and not just because crooks are having a field day, or a vast homeless army has prompted new tech 'innovations' in poop-map apps. It's actually becoming a city with a hollowed out look, redolent of some place like Steubenville, Ohio or maybe Utica, New York, during the bad years, empty storefronts and missing young people. So much for the trope that leftwing cities, with their walkable boulevards full of food trucks, handmade crafts, knitting shops, bookstores, artisan cheese shops, gourmet restaurants, and cafes are more lively and liveable than rightwing places. For awhile, that did seem to...

New Yorkers are fleeing the state in drove due to high taxes. The result is an overabundance of home few can afford. Bloomberg reports Manhattan’s Flood of New Condos Could Take Six Years to Sell. “ Manhattan is glutted with even more luxury condos than most apartment-shoppers realize. The borough has 7,050 unsold, newly built units, according to a report by Halstead Development Marketing. The bulk of those -- almost 6,000 -- haven’t been formally listed for sale, creating an under-the-radar “shadow inventory.” The secret supply is a heavy weight on a market in which sales, especially of higher-end...

The tip came from a lawyer, a faithful reader from Brooklyn named Harvey Herbert- An Egyptian hieroglyphic papyrus now in the Brooklyn Museum mentions an Asiatic slave named Shiphrah. Shiphrah, of course, is the name of one of the Hebrew midwives (the other is Puah) whom Pharaoh summoned to carry out his order that all boys born to the enslaved Israelites be killed (Exodus 1-15)... And here was an Asiatic slave with this same name mentioned in an Egyptian papyrus written in hieroglyphics... All I can do is report what to some (surely, to me) are previously unknown facts that...