Free Republic

Governor Ralph Northam started Tuesday's briefing by directly addressing the criticism he received after photos showed him not wearing a mask during a visit to Virginia Beach over the weekend. He said he was at Virginia Beach to thank the mayor and city leaders for their work on that effort, thank first responders in the city, and thank ambasadors in the area, all while in open air along the beach with social distancing in each meeting. According to the governor, he was not planning to interact with members of the public while he was there. His account of the situation...

The Texas Department of Public Safety shared a photo from firefighters with the Western Lakes Fire District in Wisconsin. It shows serious damage to the driver's side door of a car that was caused by "hand sanitizer igniting in a hot vehicle that reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit inside the vehicle."

It, essentially, means that Virginians can only leave home for food, supplies, work, medical care, or exercise/fresh air purposes. Only leave home if you have an essential reason to do so — Going to visit a friend for a poker game would not be essential. Going to visit a friend to help care for them because they have a broken leg would be essential. Exercise common sense about what is or isn't essential, and if it isn't, then don't go out. You're still free to leave the house to get groceries or go to the pharmacy. You're also still free...

March 23 (Reuters) - An Arizona man has died and his wife is in critical condition after they ingested chloroquine phosphate - an aquarium cleaning product similar to drugs that have been named by President Trump as potential treatments for coronavirus infection. The couple, in their 60s, experienced immediate distress after swallowing the drug, an additive used at aquariums to clean fish tanks, according to Banner Health Hospital in Phoenix. Chloroquine phosphate shares the same active ingredient as malaria drugs that President Trump has touted as possibly effective against COVID-19, the potentially life-threatening disease caused by the coronavirus.

WASHINGTON - As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to spread across the globe and countries are reporting new confirmed cases, the United States is closely monitoring and updating travel advisories. The State Department says when it comes to issuing a travel alert for Americans traveling abroad, it takes into account health risks, including current disease outbreaks or a crisis that disrupts a country’s medical infrastructure, as well as the issuance of a travel notice by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There are four travel advisory levels: Level 4—do not travel; Level 3—reconsider travel; Level 2—exercise increased caution;...

Joe Biden today in Iowa talked a black voter that attempted to ask him questions concerning his strategies to terminate United States nonrenewable fuel sources. Biden jabbed the black voter’s breast numerous times as he talked him concerning his document. “Go back to 1986. I’m the first one ever to, first one ever to put forward a climate change bill and Politifact said it was a game changer,” Biden claimed jabbing the male’s breast.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump can make his case directly to the Intelligence Committee, but she vowed to protect the whistle-blower whose complaint triggered the impeachment inquiry of the president’s actions with Ukraine. “The president could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants — if he wants to take the oath of office or he could do it in writing,” Pelosi said in a interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” broadcast on Sunday. “He has every opportunity to present his case.”

It’s not just her bills that are sparking attention. State Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, generated buzz on Tuesday by presenting them while wearing her .38-caliber revolver in a custom-made holster. The first-term senator — a fan of government transparency and opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment — said she wore the gun following an incident Monday in which Capitol Police were called after immigration-rights supporters confronted Sen. Dick Black, R-Loudoun. Chase said she always carries her gun in concealed fashion but decided Tuesday was a good day to carry openly when she presented her bills in the Senate Privileges and...

"We have to make sure that, we can not just count the ballots but verify every name and signature!"

The warrant says Wasil Farooqui told police he left his home on Pelham Drive Saturday "to clear his head" and took a butcher knife from the kitchen. He drove about a mile to The Pines apartments and parked. Farooqui said he began hearing voices telling him he was stupid and to attack people. Snip A source told CBS News that Farooqui has been on the FBI’s radar for several months and is believed to be self-radicalized. The source also told CBS News that Farooqui tried to go to Syria earlier this year, but only got as far as Europe. That...

Mitt Romney is one step closer to entering the 2016 presidential race sources say, confirming what the-newshub.com reported last October that Romney would jump into the race after the first key primaries were held and some of the delegate dust had settled. Romney told Fox News on Wednesday that “We have good reason to believe that there’s a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes,” and quickly added that Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio should also disclose their tax information. Romney’s statement was a bowshot aimed at Trump, sources say, the surprise GOP frontrunner for whom Romney has unmitigated disdain.

China warned the United States on Wednesday not to adopt punitive currency policies that could disrupt U.S.-China relations after Donald Trump’s win in the Nevada caucus. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing that “we are following with interest the U.S. presidential election.” Hua was asked about China’s response to a possible Trump presidency and his announced plan to punish China for currency manipulation with a tax on Chinese goods. “Since it belongs to the domestic affair of the U.S., I am not going to make comments on specific remarks by the relevant candidate,” she said.

RALEIGH — In the wake of the Republican National Convention, a Civitas Institute Flash Poll found that Republican candidate Mitt Romney took a 10 percentage-point lead over President Obama.The Flash Poll of 500 registered North Carolina voters was taken Sept. 4-6 and had a margin of error of plus-minus 4.5 percent. Asked if the election for President were held today who they would vote for, 53 percent chose Romney and 43 percent chose Obama.

NewsBusters reports that four members of the pro-life group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust got their hands on free tickets to the Jimmy Kimmel Show the other night and caused enough of a disruption during taping that the police escorted them out. The youth group is trying to call attention to that fact that on June 25th, while peacefully picketing outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, a film crew hired by the Kimmel Show turned a hot spotlight on one of their members, Ryan Bueler. It was an astonishing act of cruelty that’s just now starting to make the rounds online.

Desperate Democrats and their co-conspirators in the media are busy trying to whip up a race war. "The health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It's merely a handy excuse," Frank Rich wrote in a recent New York Times column. Their line is that all those opposed to the president's radical agenda are racists who resent having a black man as president. It is a moldy, old smear, but as approval ratings for Mr. Obama sink below 50 percent, it is being revisited with increasing fervor. -snip- Race plays a much stronger...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — William in Chicago wants to increase Illinois' gas tax by a dime a gallon. MK in Naperville suggests an Internet sales tax. Bill in Crete says to get rid of state government air travel and require legislators to carpool when they come to Springfield. Another Chicagoan suggests dissolving the Legislature altogether: "Let the people govern themselves. We certainly couldn't do worse." These are among the more than 2,000 responses so far to Gov. Pat Quinn's online invitation last week for public input on how to address the state's budget crisis. Illinois is facing an almost $13 billion...

U.S. President Barack Obama says the massive economic stimulus bill he signed one year ago has prevented another Great Depression and kept millions of Americans working. The president is celebrating the anniversary of the bill's signing. President Obama says the $787 billion Recovery Act is working. "It is one of the main reasons the economy has gone from shrinking by six percent to growing by about six percent. And this morning we learned that manufacturing production posted a strong gain. So far, the Recovery Act is responsible for the jobs of about two million Americans who would otherwise be unemployed,"...

TRENTON -- Calling New Jersey on "the edge of bankruptcy," Gov. Chris Christie today declared a fiscal emergency, seizing broad powers to freeze aid to more than 500 school districts and cut from higher education, hospitals and the Public Advocate. "New Jersey has been steaming toward financial disaster for years," the Republican governor said in a speech to both houses of the Legislature. "The people elected us to end the talk and to act decisively. Today is the day for the complaining to end and for statesmanship to begin." Along with eliminating programs "that sounded good in theory but failed...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday it was "unfortunate" that American Christians are suspected of smuggling children out of quake-hit Haiti even if their intentions were good. Haitian prosecutors are due to decide Thursday whether to charge the 10 Christians, who have been held by authorities there since they attempted to sneak a group of 33 children out of the country. "Trafficking of human beings, particularly of children is a problem across the world," Clinton said after holding talks in Washington on Wednesday about the problem of trafficking in persons worldwide. "The Haitian nation acted to protect children...

President Obama's response to the catastrophic political failures of his freshman year in office is to fight harder for more of the same. Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett made the point explicitly on Sunday, asserting that the White House is "not hitting a reset button at all." -snip- The White House claims it hasn't reached out enough to the American people, but the real problem is that Mr. Obama's vaunted oratorical skills have had a short shelf life. In the administration's first months, the president regularly took to the airwaves to push his agenda, attempting to mimic President Reagan's effective use...