Free Republic

One of the most common and beloved tropes on a reality show comes when a contestant announces, often with a melodramatic flourish, that they are “not here to make friends.” It’s an ingenious and endlessly useful phrase — one that is both recognizably true (the contestant’s only real goal is victory) and terrifying in its implications... they'll do whatever it takes to become become the bachelorette. I thought of the phrase on Wednesday while reading Mark Zuckerberg’s comments, during Facebook’s quarterly earnings call, about his new goal for the 2020s. He said (emphasis mine):“We’re also focused on communicating more clearly...

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been transferred out of solitary confinement in a British prison, where he has been waiting for his extradition trial for over nine months. That’s according to canberratimes.com.au. Assange’s contact and access to visitors was severely limited in what many saw as a punitive action, according to the story. If he is extradited to the United States, he will face charges of spying and conspiracy. Some consider it a landmark test of the protection of journalists’ sources. Assange critics claim he is not a journalist. Assange’s legal team and other inmates reportedly led the effort to...

The XQ-5A Valkyrie on a 2019 test flight AFRL ____________________________________________________________________ The jet-powered XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator drone has returned to the air three months after being damaged in a landing mishap. On January 23, the unmanned aircraft being developed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions completed its fourth flight test at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. The fourth in a planned schedule of five flights, the most recent test was designed to push the performance envelope of the Valkyrie. In particular, the flight took the drone to its highest altitude yet as engineers collected...

Last yearJoe Biden bragged about how he coerced Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor Victor Shokin by threatening that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees from them. While this type of interference in a foreign government by the then-Vice President of the United States is highly inappropriate in itself, what makes it even worse is that the prosecutor he got fired was probing a firm for which his son Hunter Biden worked. On Tuesday fired Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin filed an official complaint against Joe Biden for interference in Ukraine’s legal proceedings.  Yesterday Rudy Giuliani...

Why the heck are we delaying voting until next week. Gives commie/libs more time to make up more lies and bring forth more fake whistleblowers!

Some Senate Republicans and Trump administration officials are signaling the impeachment trial could spill over into next week. The timeline is largely dependent on two things: how long senators want to deliberate and the level of cooperation between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) — which has been in short supply during the trial so far. “It’s a possibility that this could extend on another day or so,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) when asked about the possibility of the trial continuing into next week. The trial was already expected to go until early...

As we start to head deeper into the 2020 presidential election year, there is some very good news for President Trump about how Americans rate their satisfaction; and some very bad news for Democrats who are trying to impeach this success. According to the latest data from Gallup: “Americans’ average satisfaction rating for the 27 issues Gallup has tracked consistently since 2001 is now 47%. This is up three points from a year ago and is the highest since the January 2005 poll.” In the measures of satisfaction covering the first three years of President Trump in office there are...

An Israeli start-up company is hoping to help stop the spread of deadly coronavirus by shipping meters of anti-pathogen fabric to produce face masks, hospital apparel and protective clothing to China. “We see an epidemic,” said Liat Goldhammer-Steinberg, chief technology officer of Sonovia Ltd., an Israeli company whose technology is based on a lab-scale sonochemical process that was developed at Bar-Ilan University. “We have the ability to help prevent the virus from spreading.” Specifically, Sonovia developed an almost-permanent, ultrasonic, fabric-finishing technology for mechanical impregnation of zinc oxide nanoparticles into textiles. “The technology is based upon a physical phenomenon called...

Oh my god. Indian scientists have just found HIV (AIDS) virus-like insertions in the 2019-nCov virus that are not found in any other coronavirus. They hint at the possibility that this Chinese virus was designed ["not fortuitous']. Scary if true. https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf

PBS once provided children with happy thoughts of a fatherly Mr. Roger's talking to us about our day or adorable Ernie singing about his rubber ducky on Sesame Street. But for the LGBTQXYZ movement, children's programming is just another opportunity to teach kids all the ways that it is a homosexual/transgender day in the neighborhood. In recent years, children's public television has premiered a "gay marriage" on Arthur, sang about two dads with a baby in a preschool song about families, and put Grover in a purple dress on Sesame Street. But apparently having a muppet go transvestite for a...

Two state lawmakers want to find out why people are leaving New York faster than almost any other state in the country. The latest census numbers show New York's population dropped by 77,000 between 2018 and last year. According to the Empire Center for Public Policy, 1.4 million people have left New York since 2010. The report shows the majority of people who left moved to Florida, Texas, California, and Pennsylvania. Republican Sen. Jim Tedisco and Democratic Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, who chairs the Commission on Rural Resources, say they will put a questionnaire online and hold roundtable meetings across the...

A free and independent press is, and should always be, an impenetrable bulwark of our democracy . . . Thomas Jefferson [wrote to that effect] in a 1789 letter. The media’s hallowed role, embodied in the First Amendment, assures near-total freedom to report (and even misreport) the news. Press freedom, however, implies a responsibility to place truth above narrow partisan campaigns. That’s why editorial and commentary pages must be kept separate from news reporting. That separation has often been breached, but certain prominent news organizations have branded themselves clarions of truth. The New York Times long nurtured such a reputation....

To the power brokers who determine which ads are approved for the Super Bowl, drag queens, social justice warriors and gun control advocates are not at all controversial. Organizations seeking permission to run pro-life ads on Super Sunday are unacceptable, however. During this Sunday's Super Bowl broadcast, Fox will air ads featuring former RuPaul program drag queens, NFL social justice warriors and presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg's gun control spot. The network is thumbing its nose at the Faces of Choice organization and its request to air an ad with a pro-life message. Faces of Choice officials have been trying unsuccessfully...

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney is not keen on President Trump’s attacks on impeachment witnesses, but conceded that the insults are working. “He has made a career of trashing people by tweet,” Romney, 72, told the New York Times. “It is part of his shtick and it’s working for him,” the Utah senator said of Trump’s attacks on his former national security adviser John Bolton. “I think it’s unfortunate.”

China demands apology from Danish newspaper for 'satirical' coronavirus cartoon

MIAMI - The forecast for the Super Bowl in Miami is grim. Clear skies and temperature in the 60s are expected when the game kicks off, so weather won’t be a problem. But climate change likely will be, sooner or later. The sea and temperature are rising, posing a threat to South Floridians’ way of life, including their customary spot in the NFL’s Super Bowl rotation. The game will be played Sunday in Miami for the 11th time, the most of any city. Given the changing climate, how much longer will the region be a place where the NFL wants...

The international success of Parasite, the black comedy thriller by Bong Joon-ho, has been rather spectacular. It started with a slew of early season awards, including the prestigious Palme d'Or (by unanimous vote) at Cannes. It has now won Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language at the Golden Globes, multiple nominations at the Baftas, and six Oscar nominations, including in some of the most distinguished categories (film, director and screen play). If it wins an Oscar, it would be the first Korean film to do so and a testament to the rising popularity and success of the Korean film industry...

... Sanders' most eyebrow-raising labor market plan is the call to outlaw the American norm of "at-will employment." Despite US labor-market flexibility delivering much lower unemployment than more heavily regulated countries, Sanders thinks it's time to move toward more onerous employment laws. Getting rid of at-will employment would not only make it much more difficult for inexperienced, young, and risky hires to find work, but it would also reduce wages and living standards. Doing away with at-will employment means eliminating the presumption that employers should be able to fire workers at any time or for any reason, just as workers...

Open source Social networks Facebook and Instagram will remove fake information about the Chinese coronavirus, for example, conspiracy theories regarding the spread of the virus. The company's website stated this information. “Our global network of third-party scanners continues to work by looking at the content and exposing false allegations that apply to the coronavirus. When they rate information as false, we restrict its distribution to Facebook and Instagram and show people accurate information from these partners. We also send notifications people who have already shared or are trying to share this content in order to warn them that it has...

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Friday relaxed Obama-era restrictions on the U.S. military’s use of land mines, arguing that the previous policy put American troops at a “severe disadvantage.” The move has been criticized by arms control proponents and underscores the administration’s willingness to upend policies set by Trump’s Democratic predecessor, in the face of concerns about the dangers such weaponry poses to civilians long after conflicts end. President Barack Obama’s administration said in 2014 that it would no longer produce or otherwise acquire antipersonnel land mines, including to replace existing U.S. stockpiles, which can age to the point...