Free Republic

Since we're Americans, we don't just sit around in a panic. We meet crisis head on, and laugh in the face of adversity. And beside, we could use a little humor these days. I'll give a try and folks can chime in where appropriate. * From now on, folks watching the Walking Dead will take notes. * Fighting climate change is on hold, but we could sure use a little global warning right about now to hepl kill this bug. * a run on toilet paper? WEll, if you run out of food, remember that it doesn't taste like chicken....

Education has lost one its most important disruptors: Clayton Christensen, PhD and distinguished professor at Harvard Business School. After a successful career as the CEO of CPS Technologies, Christensen returned to school at age 40 to earn his PhD in business from Harvard University. He became a well-known scholar, particularly for his key contributions to our understanding of innovation and disruption. Christensen died on January 23. Possibly one of his most important predictions of disruption playing out in the marketplace is about his own industry: higher education. After accepting an offer from the University of Phoenix to teach online lectures...

... According to the IRS, the top 0.01% of earners—those with incomes above $10 million—paid a 24.8% effective federal income-tax rate in 2018. This isn’t very different from the 25.3% the group paid in 2017, and is higher than the average rate of 22.5% on the same group during the George W. Bush administration. As these rates only encompass federal income taxes, most filers can expect to add another 8% to 12% of income from other forms of taxation, placing their total burden well above the Saez-Zucman numbers. How does that affect the claims of regressivity? It’s true the remainder...

Former Tallahassee mayor and Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum was allegedly involved in a hotel drug “orgy” that resulted in an overdose. Law enforcement responded to the location following reports of an overdose where Gillum and two other men were intoxicated by methamphetamines and possibly other controlled substances. The news, broken by conservative pundit Candace Owens, included a police report that shows Gillum was inebriated in the hotel room when police arrived. Three plastic bags contained what police believed to be crystal meth.

On the day Chuck Schumer was threatening Supreme Court justices in front of pack of a cheering partisans, Representative Ayanna Pressley told the same crowd: "We have two alleged sexual predators on the bench of the highest court of the land, with the power to determine our reproductive freedoms. I still believe Anita Hill. And I still believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford!" Now, it is far more accurate to call Hill a "disgraced accuser" than Clarence Thomas an "alleged sexual predator." Not a single credible accuser -- and Thomas had scores of subordinates working for him during his years in...

The election prognosticators at the FiveThirtyEight website estimate that former Vice President Joe Biden is ahead in the Democratic delegate race by about 150 votes -- 935 to 785 for Sen. Bernie Sanders. Doesn't that suggest a close race and a long road ahead? They say no. Bernie is now behind 15% to 20% in the national polls, and "Sanders tends to lose more ground every time a new set of states votes." Democrats, who treat the prospect of President Donald Trump's reelection as a "moral 9/11," much like his first election, want to avoid any long-running Biden-bashing feud. If...

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning will be released from jail after being held for 10 months because testimony she refused to give to a secret grand jury is no longer needed, a federal judge said on Thursday. Manning's release comes because "the business of (the grand jury) had concluded," Judge Anthony Trenga of the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, wrote on Thursday. "The Court finds that Ms. Manning's appearance before the Grand Jury is no longer needed, in light of which her detention no longer serves any coercive purpose." Manning was fined $256,000 in fines for refusing to testify,...

To modify T S Eliot in "The Hollow Men" (whose theme seems not inappropriate), this is the way the world ends, not with a Bern but a whimper. As I said on Rush the morning after Super Tuesday, Senator Sanders blew the 2016 election with a single line - his crotchetty insistence to Mrs Clinton that he was "sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails". That told Hillary that he wouldn't go after her on the subject of her corruption and lawlessness. Which in turn told Hillary that Bernie wasn't serious. And so it proved. Four years later,...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Psalms Psalm 123 A song of ascents. 1 I lift up my eyes to you,     to you who sit enthroned in heaven. 2 As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,     as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God,     till he shows us his mercy. 3 Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us,     for we have endured no end of contempt. 4 We have endured no end     of ridicule from the arrogant,...

On Tuesday night, Joe Biden's campaign was celebrating his latest primary night triumph. By Wednesday morning, #NeverBiden, #WriteinBernie and #DemExit2020 hashtags began trending on Twitter. The significance of the problem became apparent in the same string of primaries that put Biden on the cusp of the nomination. In Michigan — a state critical to Democrats’ efforts to reclaim their general election footing in the Rust Belt — just 2 of 5 Sanders backers said they would vote Democratic in November, regardless of who became the nominee, according to exit polls. Four in five said they'd be dissatisfied with Biden as...

A judge has gutted the Trump administration’s minimal curbs on the many Indian-run companies that import Indian college graduates to take the jobs needed by young U.S. graduates.“A recent federal policy for employers that place H-1B skilled guestworkers at third-party worksites can’t be enforced,” according to a March 11 report in Bloomberg Law. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that a February policy memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services didn’t go through proper rulemaking procedure, and that the agency’s interpretation of the “employer-employee relationship” requirement is inconsistent with its...

“A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame” (Proverbs 13:5).

Always look for the silver lining! Wife missing in Bar Harbor, Maine. A few days after his wife disappeared in a kayaking accident, a Bar Harbor man answered his door to find two grim-faced Harbor Master officers. "We're sorry Mr. Flynn, but we have some information about your wife," "Tell me! Did you find her?!" Cedric Flynn asked. One officer said, "We have some bad news, some good news, and some really great news!" Fearing the worst, Mr. Flynn said, "Give me the bad news first." The officer said, "I'm sorry to tell you, sir, but this morning we found...

The president of the United States Soccer Federation, Carlos Cordeiro, announced Thursday night that he was resigning. The announcement comes just days after widespread outrage from a court filing from the federation that argued "the overall soccer-playing ability required to compete at the senior men's national team level is materially influenced by the level of certain physical attributes, such as speed and strength, required for the job." "My one and only mission has always been to do what is best for our Federation, and it has become clear to me that what is best right now is a new direction,"...

There is a popular legend that 19th-century Italian priest Don Bosco, the founder of the Catholic Salesian Order and a revered saint, had a prophetic dream in 1883 that predicted a flourishing, futuristic city between parallels 15 and 20 in central Brazil. Many Brazilians believe the dream of Dom Bosco, as they call him, found fulfillment in the modern capital city of Brasilia, built between 1956 and 1960. Indeed, even before Brasilia was completed, a shrine, located directly on the 15th parallel, was sculpted and dedicated to Dom Bosco. Today’s Brasilia is filled with references to him, including the Santuario...

Newly crowned WBC Heavy champion Tyson Fury is a follower of Jesus Christ. He always makes room for a pre-fight prayer to settle the nerves and make sure everything goes to plan... Tyson Fury tells the Gospel of Jesus Christ

During the House impeachment proceedings, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) released a report which included the phone records that included calls made or received by Rep. Devin Nunes(R-CA), journalist John Solomon, Rudy Giuliani, and others. The records in the report didnÂ’t contain the content of the conversations but included who called who and how long the call lasted. The belief was that the records were obtained through subpoenas to the phone companies of records related to Giuliani and Lev Parnas, with the obvious purpose meant to try to impugn the people whose records were included without reason or cause. What made...

(CNSNews.com) – U.S. forces carried out retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed Iraqi militias overnight Thursday following a rocket attack on an Iraqi base that killed two U.S. troops and one British soldier. The Pentagon said the airstrikes targeted facilities of Kata’ib Hezbollah (K.H.). The Qods Force-backed Shi’ite militia has a long history of attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. “These strikes targeted five weapon storage facilities to significantly degrade their ability to conduct future attacks against Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) coalition forces,” it said in a statement, referring to the U.S.-led coalition helping the Iraqis to defeat ISIS. “These weapons storage...

The story of this carbine goes back to 1997, when Kel-Tec introduced the Sub-9 carbine. In general, it was a conventional blow-back gun with the magazine inserted through the hand grip. Designed during the high-capacity-magazine-ban years, it used popular and available pistol magazines, but the Sub-9's claim to fame was its unusual folding form. When folding or collapsible stocks were not legal, the Sub-9 worked around that concept by creating a carbine that folded in half at the chamber, halving its overall length for storage and transport. The folding is initiated by pulling down on the back of the trigger...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Police in St. Petersburg and several other Russian cities have detained activists during and ahead of protests against sweeping constitutional amendments that open the possibility for President Vladimir Putin to remain in power for another 16 years. The March 12 demonstrations were held while local lawmakers discussed the amendments, a day after parliament's two chambers both overwhelmingly approved the changes. In St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, an RFE/RL correspondent reported that police had detained two activists of the Peaceful Resistance group. Dmitry Negodin and Yevgeny Musin rallied in front of the Legislative Assembly with posters urging...