Free Republic

Another 99 people have tested positive for coronavirus onboard the stricken Princess Diamond cruise ship docked in Japan, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 454. Meanwhile concern is growing over possible infections among passengers from another cruise liner that docked in Cambodia last week. On Sunday a traveller from the MS Westerdam was confirmed to have the virus in Malaysia, days after disembarking along with hundreds of other passengers. SNIP Japanese public health experts advising the government defended the decision to isolate passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess. “Many people are testing positive on the ship, but...

Muslim communities in Germany have called for more police protection after the arrest of members of a rightwing extremist group that is believed to have been plotting large-scale attacks on mosques around the country. Twelve men who were arrested following police raids on Friday had been planning attacks using semi-automatic weapons on worshippers during prayers in 10 German states, said to have been inspired by those carried out in New Zealand last year, according to a government spokesman. Investigators had been following the men for months, monitoring their conversations and online activity, after suspecting them of having formed a terror...

Meet the new quarantine, same as the old quarantine. Two charter flights from Japan took hundreds of Americans from the cruise ship Diamond Princess to California and Texas, but not all of them are happy to be back in the good ol’ US. The evacuation comes from an “about face” on the US policy on coronavirus, CNN reports, and leaves all of the Americans stuck in limbo for at least two weeks longer than they first thought.“I’ve lost a month of my life,” one American woman says after finding out that the US changed its mind about relying on...

by Lynn Foster Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz made a stunning revelation in an interview that he has proof that former Democrat President Barack Obama ordered the FBI to investigate someone after far-left billionaire George Soros asked for the investigation. Dershowitz’s remarks come after critics have attacked President Donald Trump for tweeting about matters related to the Department of Justice, which led to Attorney General William Barr publicly asking the president to stop last week. “There was a lot of White House control of the Justice Department during the Kennedy administration and I don’t think we saw very many...

The presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has insisted he is a “champion for women in the workplace”, after the republication of a 30-year-old booklet purporting to contain his “Wit and Wisdom” cast an uncomfortable spotlight on the billionaire former New York mayor. The Washington Post made the 1990 booklet available online as it published an investigation of how Bloomberg has “for years battled women’s allegations of profane, sexist comments”. The booklet was presented as a gift to Bloomberg on his 48th birthday party and contains a catalogue of sexist remarks attributed to the billionaire during his time at the company he...

A week before the accident, Segundo Huerta’s wife said, her husband had complained to her that the boss at the Bronx construction site where he was working was pressuring his laborers, berating them for working too slowly. Mr. Huerta’s wife, Maria Guazhco, said her husband had told her that after 17 years with the company, he would try to find another job. Nonetheless, she said, he returned to the site the next week. “And then,” Ms. Guazhco, 39, said, “everything collapsed.” Mr. Huerta, 46, was killed on Aug. 27 after the third floor of the building where he was working...

EWTN’s ‘World Over’ show criticizes Pope’s Amazon exhortation for lack of ‘clear answers’ Robert Royal, Father Gerald Murray, and Raymond Arroyo honed in on lack of straightforward answers from the Vatican during Thursday’s show. February 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Raymond Arroyo, host of “The World Over” on EWTN, questioned on his show yesterday why Pope Francis’ post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Querida Amazonia” does not give “clear answers.” “And the other thing, we keep hearing this term. The liturgy should be incarnate. Care for the environment should be incarnate,” Arroyo said, asking, “I’m not quite sure what that means, but why...

Former President Barack Obama, touting his own economic magic wand, tried to take credit for the Trump economy. Obama sent out the self-congratulatory tweet February 17. He said that, “Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history.” Ironic that liberal outlet Axios released a report the same day, commenting that the “Average economic growth under President Trump has outpaced the growth under Barack Obama.” [Emphasis added.]

Continuation of daily Thread

Mike Bloomberg’s campaign on Monday launched a new ad ripping the so-called “Bernie Bros” for using online bullying tactics against anyone who opposes Sen. Bernie Sanders. “We need to unite to defeat Trump in November. This type of ‘energy’ is not going to get us there,” Bloomberg writes in a tweet along with the 53-second clip. The video contains numerous tweets, including one of a Photoshopped meme of Sanders pointing a handgun with the words “I am no longer asking.” “##Bernie or Bust now it’s #Bernie or Else,” the caption also read. Images of threatening text and other messages then...

[Catholic Caucus] The Pope's Men Surrounded by evil One of the marks of Pope Francis' pontificate is his predilection for surrounding himself with cardinals and archbishops who openly oppose Church teaching. Investigative journalist George Neumayr comments in "All the Pope's Men": "We have seen time and time again clerics rise under Pope Francis not in spite of their corruption but because of it." The pope has within his gang of close advisers, Cdl. Óscar Maradiaga, Cdl. Oswald Gracias and Cdl. Reinhard Marx, among others. These three men hold to and promote teachings contrary to Church doctrines. Gracias, the archbishop of Bombay, India,...

<p>YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio — An Ohio man who fatally shot his ex-wife and her husband indicated they ambushed him and his current wife in the driveway of their luxury home and a shootout erupted.</p> <p>Authorities responding to the property near Yellow Springs after the gunfire Wednesday morning found Hollywood stuntwoman Cheryl Sanders, 59, and her husband, Reed Sanders, 56, dead outside the home of her ex-husband, Lindsey Duncan.</p>

President Donald Trump’s efforts to streamline, accelerate and modernize the environmental review process could curtail abusive litigation practices that undermine economic development and jeopardize national security, according to congressional figures and energy policy analysts. The 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act, which has not been revised since 1986, has been weaponized by anti-development groups to delay vital federal infrastructure projects and exploited to serve as a tool for excessive litigation to the detriment of America’s military readiness, they argue. But Trump’s proposed overhaul of NEPA, which he officially announced during a White House press conference in January, has also been the...

Criminal justice reform has received a great deal of attention lately. There has been bipartisan applause for some aspects of this movement, but other aspects are very controversial and have come under heavy criticism in law enforcement circles.

For those who enjoy a good puzzle, K-12 education is more intellectually entertaining than most people imagine. Classrooms are full of convoluted theories and mystifying methods. Probably the teachers themselves can't explain the reasoning behind approaches that are used almost universally in American public schools. Chat with friends who are smart and successful. Try to find even one who can explain Sight-Words, Prior Knowledge, Multiculturalism, Constructivism, Reform Math, or Common Core Math. Why are Geography, History, and Science so often slighted? What justifies the hostility toward memorization and academic content? Can anyone understand the paradox of most students getting A...

A controversial bill that would have banned Virginians from selling so-called assault weapons and owning high-capacity magazines was defeated by lawmakers after a handful of Democrats rejected the proposal. State senators in the Judiciary Committee voted to shelve the bill (House Bill 961) until next year and asked the state crime commission to study the issue. Four Democratic senators—Creigh Deeds, John Edwards, Chap Petersen, and Scott Surovell—broke with their party and joined Republicans to reject the measure in a 10–5 vote. The Feb. 17 bipartisan vote sparked cheers in the committee room, which was packed with gun advocates, according to...

An open Letter to Donald Trump, President of the United States Dear Mr. President, I often think of how much my father, Melville “Bud” Hynde, who proudly served his country as a Marine on Guadalcanal, would have enjoyed your Presidency. The other day when you gave that award to Rush Limbaugh, my father would have been so delighted. He loved listening to Rush, which is why I allowed my song, 'My City Was Gone', to be used on his radio show. My father and I didn't always see eye-to-eye. We argued a lot, but isn’t that the American way? The...

<p>In 2020 we have finally hit peak progressivism. The adjective “peak”—apex or summit— is often used to describe something that has reached its maximum extent but thereafter will insidiously decline—like supposed U.S. domestic oil production in 2000 when more oil was purportedly taken out of, rather than still in the ground. While the idea of peak oil in the days before fracking and horizontal drilling proved vastly premature, we likely are witnessing something like “peak progressivism” today.</p>

RUSH: How about Avenatti? How about Michael Avenatti? This guy was on CNN more than anybody two years ago. This guy was at every CNN party. He was on every CNN show multiple times. He was feted, he was hosted by CNN, he was promoted, he was trumpeted. There were people — and I’m not making this up ’cause I commented on it at the time — there were people who were actually touting Michael Avenatti as the Democrat nominee for 2020 as the only guy who could beat Trump. And there were even Republicans, serious Never Trump Republicans who...

The Nevada caucuses are days away and officials are already worried about another tech meltdown. One Nevada Dem volunteer predicted a “complete disaster.” The Iowa caucuses were a total train wreck after the Hillary-linked app “Shadow” failed to properly count votes. The Iowa Dem party released partial, fudged numbers days after the caucuses showing Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders in the lead, It looks like Nevada is bracing for a disaster too.