Free Republic

For all the accusations of anti-democratic tendencies that have been leveled at Trump, it’s the policies of his critics that would change the rules of American democracy to give their party a long-term (and perhaps permanent) electoral advantage. Were Biden to give in to the demands of his Democratic Party base, he would become in reality what Trump has only ever been in effigy: an American dictator. Publicly, he still has to campaign to win the Senate. Privately, he must be secretly hoping that his party doesn’t win.

The AVS-36 was Soviet Russia’s attempt at a fully-automatic service rifle, and it was a total flop. Though the AVS-36 had a high magazine capacity and was relatively lightweight, it was also virtually uncontrollable during fully-automatic firing.

There is a myriad of excellent tanks that have been built since the first British MkI rolled across the battlefields of Western Europe during the First World War. However, for every T-34, Leopard and M1 Abrams, there are tanks that rightfully belong on the scrap heap of history – yet instead of rusting away from memory, we should use these as examples of everything that went wrong. While I am sure many can make different choices based on a whole host of different factors, here are my picks for the five worst tanks ever.

"I can't wear a mask and I'm tired of getting crap everywhere I go. Enough." People's Rights Washington activist Kelli Stewart confronting a "Mask Nazi" at a supermarket checkout in her state..... Mandates to wear masks-muzzles took effect in two more US states over the weekend, Wisconsin and Vermont. The owners of the Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey reopening their business Saturday after it was shut down by police last Monday..... The crackdown underway in Australia's second most populous city and second most populous state..... Police and sheriff's deputies, some of them militarized, swarming protesters in Rockford, Illinois Saturday.........

For the fourth time in recent weeks we have an upwards revision of the number of Americans injured in the Iranian missile strike at the Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8th. First the number was 11, then it was 34 and then it was 50. But now the number is 64..... The United States lifting sanctions against a unit of a Chinese company COSCO..... The impeachment trial of President Trump rolling forward on Newsdump Friday with a vote to not call any witnesses.... A woman who figured prominently in the House impeachment inquiry is retiring..... The United States...

Music from South Africa fits the moment we find ourselves in this weekend and so Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba followed by Four Jacks and a Jill who all contributed to the popular music scene in the late 1960's. South Africa was the place where around the turn of the 20th Century the first institutions known as "concentration camps" were established by the once mighty British Empire. According to Wikipedia some 26-thousand white South Africans 14-thousand black South Africans died in these places. Out of that experience embittered whites eventually formed a "Reformed National Party" that came to rule in...