Free Republic

Dear Fellow FReepers, Can you please say a quick prayer for me? I'm one of those people that COVID wrecked early in 2020. It damaged my lungs, causing me to develop COPD. My second round of COVID shut down my digestive system for three weeks. A few months later, I developed novel seizures that interrupted the communication between my parasympathetic nervous system and the rest of my nervous system. I would collapse, go blind, become paralyzed, and my automatic breathing would cease. My husband described it as watching me die over and over. I would be vaguely aware that I...

The recent decision in NY concerning the alleged "fraud case" against President Trump is highly flawed on its face. Here are some important talking points to use when you encounter the uninformed. When it comes to property, there are multiple levels of valuation. I'm going to use an actual property and current records to show how they vary substantially depending on the situation. *Market Value The market value is what a property will sell for on the open market. Your listing agent will determine the value of your home based on comparable sales in the area. Upgrades, renovations, enhancements, location,...

Without question, the politicization of America's response to COVID-19 has stiffled scientic discussion, medical research, contrary voices, and multiple liberties. Tragically, research into why certain people die from COVID, or the various experimental shots purportedly designed to fight it, and why others remain untouched has also been suppressed. Because I am more concerned with stopping unnecessary deaths than politics, I looked for common denominators. First, we were told the elderly were at risk. Then it was people with co-morbidities. Then only children seemed to have a natural immunity. Then even children started dying. But what do the dying all have...

There is a lot of misinformation floating around FR on the Miami condominium collapse. As a high-rise condominium manager, this story hit home. So here is a quick primer to help people combat fake news.First, this is not an apartment complex. In an apartment complex, an investor or group of investors owns the building and everyone is a transient tenant. It is a for-profit business. If there are major repairs needed, landlords can raise the rents to cover repairs.This is a condominium. Each unit has a separate owner, they purchase it with a mortgage or cash. Every month, unit pay...

Several weeks ago, I started work on a Monday with a sore throat and headache. I was doing a final review of my high rise building in anticipation of the Fire Marshall's visit that week. Tuesday, I was sick as a dog. Raging fever, aches and chills, migraine, and a persistent, dry cough. Used Dayquil and Nyquil to dampen the effects and clear my system. By Wednesday, I was at my doctor's office. I tested negative for the flu. Blood pressure and temperature were way up. They gave me a cocktail booster shots, ciprofloxacin, and prednisone. Doctor ordered chest x-rays....

Contrary to the narrative proposed by the administration and the media, what happened in 2008 was not the "great recession." It was, indeed, a depression, a long-wave deleveraging cycle. Customarily, a long-wave cycle will play out over a decade. As individuals find their wealth contracting and shed their debt, the amount of money moving through the system ebbs and flows, with sharp peaks and deep valleys. In an unmanaged collapse, whole sectors of the economy evaporate and the depression becomes evident, rather quickly, to everyone. In a managed collapse, the government (through deficit spending) and the FED (through quantitative easing)...

Some women are truly born to be mothers. Their compassion knows no limits, their charity is unceasing, their thoughtfulness without hesitation. I am sincerely blessed to be able to call such a woman, “Mom.” I learned a lot, watching her. I learned compassion by watching her tend to others at the Cerebral Palsy Center, by watching her give a loving home to many a wounded or abandoned animal, by watching her patiently listen to my young friends as they shared their problems and her giving them excellent advice. I learned responsibility because both my parents were responsible: to each other,...

According to a recent NY Times article, gasoline refineries will pay a $6.8 million penalty for failing to meet the fuel blending requirements under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. There is only one problem: the quantity of commercial biofuel needed to meet the blending requirements does not exist. In a press release issued by the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association on this issue, Association President Charles T. Drevna stated: “Once again, [the Environmental Protection Agency] has acted unwisely to make a bad law worse with regulations not based on reality and science. Once again, refiners are being ordered...

My sister, Sharon, is going in for surgery (as I type) to correct a "flipped stomach." It's blocking her intestines. She is in considerable pain and has been for a while, but soldiered on because it was crunch time at her job. In 2010, we almost lost my mother from the same thing. Sharon has two young children and an extremely worried husband. Please pray for them all.

Who are these submissive women? By Linda Prussen-Razzano web posted August 15, 2011 During the recent Republican Presidential debates in Ames, Iowa, a question of faith arose that has frequently been misused, misrepresented, and continually misinterpreted by the main stream media: that of women who willingly submit to the authority of their husbands. Women who advocate a strong Christian faith are often portrayed as weak, timid, or somehow suffering under the heel of an oppressive husband while simultaneously being chained to hot stove with wailing children hanging off their hips. The general resentment over this perpetual gross mischaracterization of a...

TRENTON, N.J. — It started with a party invitation to a 15-year-old girl from some young men she knew. She took her 7-year-old stepsister to an apartment down the street from their home near the New Jersey Statehouse, where the girls had been hanging around outside on a Sunday afternoon.

Netherland’s Groningen Protocol Gains Acceptance In America By Linda Prussen-Razzano Former Governor Sarah Palin set off a firestorm when she expressed concern over how her son, Trig (born with Down Syndrome) would be treated in a universal-healthcare system. Posting on Facebook, Palin fretted that children like Trig could potentially face a “death panel” of bureaucrats determining whether he was fit to live. While the Administration and the majority of the media dismissed her remarks as “false,” closer examination reveals that Palin’s alarm was justified. Everyday, in hospitals across America, panels of doctors and bioethicists deal with the complicated issue of...

Dear FReeper FRiends, During a routine call to a business associate, I was saddened to learn that her family had just received word that her grandson, Tony Lutz, was killed in action in Iraq. She was rushing to catch the plane to be with her family, so I didn't get any details other than his name and the fact that he served in the Army (not a Marine). Sorry folks, I wish I had more info on him, but God will know who we're praying about. Please keep her family in your prayers. She and her husband are lovely, gracious,...

My children and a neighbor's son were energetically playing on my front lawn. With the garage door raised, I sat, phone, cigarettes, and drinks nearby, watching them tromp on my grass and race up and down the sidewalk. The weather was customarily warm, the air sanguine, the quiet of the street punctured by occasional loud barks of laughter from my son, daughter, and their friend. The little ones asked if they could call on my next door neighbor's children. With a nod and a wave, I watched them go to the door. It had been quiet at Bonnie's house all...

The last emotion I expected to feel was fear. Yet, there it was, a niggling sensation cinching the pit of my stomach, so dramatically different from my other pregnancies. I have a good reason to be afraid. During the several long, and often painful, years that my husband and I attempted to conceive a child, I became accustomed to hiding my grief. When pregnancy tests came back negative, I would slap on a brave face for the world and muffle my sobs into towels behind a locked bathroom door. I can still recall, with bitter clarity, the conflicting tests results...

In November of 2001, back before my new computer and lost password, I was simply "The Writer." I posted a vanity prayer request for my second child, my daughter Sky, who was born during an emergency c-section at just 32 weeks. Prayers came in from all over Free Republic, and my family was humbled by the support. During the entire 40 minute ambulance ride to the hospital, we were not able to detect her heartbeat. Still, I pleaded with God to sustain her. I experienced a 30% abruption and floated in and out of consciousness on the delivery table, my...