Free Republic

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — When residents of this city’s impoverished West Side reflect on Pete Buttigieg’s two terms as mayor, a few things come to mind: A spike in violent crime, development that largely ignored the African American community and how their only well-lit street is the one that leads to Notre Dame University. So how, they wonder, can Buttigieg possibly be trusted to run the country? “If he’s the next president, I fear for our country. He couldn’t run our city. How can he run the United States?” said Michelle Burger, 42, a stay-at-home mom who lives in South...

NEW YORK - As Republican President Donald Trump seeks a second term in November, Americans’ interest in voting is growing faster in large cities dominated by Democrats than in conservative rural areas, according to an analysis of Reuters/Ipsos national opinion polls. If the trend lasts until Election Day on Nov. 3, it would be a reversal from the 2016 election when rural turnout outpaced voting in urban areas, helping Trump narrowly win the White House. The finding, based on responses from more than 88,000 U.S. adults who took the online poll from August to December 2015 or from August to...

China's coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) continues to take human lives. The Chinese people have suffered the most in terms of total cases and lives lost. The epidemic began in Wuhan, capital of the Hubei province. As I write this column, Hubei has had 60,000 confirmed cases and almost 1,800 deaths. Covid-19, however, has escaped China's political borders. The World Health Organization's Feb. 18 Covid-19 "Situation Report 29" declared that 25 countries have clinically diagnosed Covid-19 cases, and many are laboratory-confirmed. As of Feb. 17, WHO had sent virus laboratory testing kits to 34 countries. Eventually, 56 countries will receive them....

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Wednesday that the Fessenheim nuclear reactor, on the border with Germany, will be shut down at the end of June, with one of its reactors to be closed this weekend. A statement on Wednesday called the decision “the first phase” of France's energy strategy set out in 2018 by President Emmanuel Macron. The plan calls for a re-balancing of nuclear-produced energy and electricity derived from renewable sources. Coal plants are to be closed by 2022 to reduce greenhouse gases, the statement said. Reactor No. 1 will be halted on Saturday and the entire...

As soon as President Trump was acquitted, the tables turned quickly on the Deep State. In less than 48hrs, all the linchpins were pulled from the restraints keeping the Trump administration from fulling operating. Now the situation has flipped and the President is making his moves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzFL5y4yLQ  

Sen. Bernie Sanders manifestly fears that if he succeeds in becoming president and enacting his economic plan, some Americans may seek to flee the country. How do we know this? His plan imposes a severe penalty on anybody who tries to leave to avoid paying his "wealth tax." "The wealth tax includes a 40 percent exit tax on the net value of all assets under $1 billion and 60 percent over $1 billion for all wealthy individual(s) seeking to expatriate to avoid the tax," it says. Under the current tax system, the United States does impose an "expatriation tax" on...

A Japanese disease expert has branded the Diamond Princess quarantine a 'major failure', 'completely inadequate' and a 'mistake'. Kentaro Iwata said he had placed himself in a 14-day quarantine for fear of infecting his family after a brief visit on board the ship yesterday. The Kobe University infectious diseases expert said conditions on the ship were 'completely chaotic' and violated quarantine rules. His video has racked up more than a million views amid a barrage of criticism of Japanese authorities after 542 people were infected during the lockdown.

Boeing recently discovered some of its stored 737 MAXes have foreign objects in the fuel tanks. The entire fleet of 400+ newly produced but undelivered MAXes is being inspected. Foreign objects, called foreign object debris (FOD) in aviation parlance, consist of tools or rags. FOD has been found in the fuel tanks of some MAXes. MAXes are stored at four locations in Washington State and in San Antonio (TX). It’s unlikely that the FOD inspections will delay recertification or testing of the MAX. The FAA was informed by Boeing. It takes up to three days to inspect each airplane, LNA...

(For those of you who don't know who Carol Rosenberg is, she is the Miami-Herald's beat reporter on Club Gitmo and knows everything about what is happening related to the facility. These are her Tweets today about the ongoing trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh) Good morning from Guantanamo Bay. Here at Camp Justice, the 9/11 trial lawyers return to court at 9 a.m. to hear what the judge is going to do about the capital defense lawyer whose "trial days are over" -- and the Yemeni man he represents, shown here. (snip) The 9/11 hearing is...

Some college students are going hungry nowadays, as some collegians have gone hungry since medieval times when students rioted in the streets of Oxford, Cambridge, and Heidelberg. Some college students are not eating meals that nutritionists would approve, as was commonplace with the 25 cent Kraft macaroni and cheese boxes students ate in the 1970s or the ramen noodles students relied on in the 1980s and 1990s. But where did presidential candidate Bernie Sanders get the notion that “nearly half our college students are going hungry?” From Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab and her team at the Hope Center for College, Community...

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes,” Mark Twain is reputed to have said. My first job after law school was as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. I reported for work September 1974, just weeks after Richard Nixon resigned. In the years leading up to his resignation, Nixon turned the Justice Department and FBI into his personal fiefdom, enlisting his political appointees to reward his friends and penalize his enemies. Reports about how compromised the Justice Department had become generated enough public outrage to force the appointment of the first Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox.

Home/Daniel Larison/Bloomberg’s Admiration For One-Party Authoritarianism Bloomberg’s Admiration For One-Party Authoritarianism Center for American Progress/Flickr FEBRUARY 18, 2020|11:14 PM DANIEL LARISON Matt Purple does a fine job summarizing what’s wrong with Mike Bloomberg in a new article on the main page. This one line captures the essence of who Bloomberg is: It’s that callous indifference that makes him truly unique. It is this same callous indifference that informs so many of his views, including his views on foreign policy. When asked about the Iraq war, he expresses no regret for supporting it. He claims that the invasion was an “honest...

On Nov. 18, 2019, The Hill announced it was reviewing John Solomon's opinion columns on Ukraine after State Department diplomats criticized several of those columns during House impeachment hearings. This review was conducted independently by The Hill’s news staff under the direction of Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. The Hill established working panels for each of 14 relevant pieces that appeared on TheHill.com. These working groups analyzed and discussed the columns at length, looking at possible corrections and/or context that could have been added at the time of the writings. In addition, The Hill reviewed congressional testimony and other public documentation related...

Today’s CG is from The Arkansas Gazette and a doozsy. Any score under 8 minutes is good. Under 4 minutes excellent. Under 3 you get Cuban Cigar. J RQAJY’L CTUIVAT DTWWL AQUT JGQVD MTU DMJY MTU MJYNRUKDKYF. —EMUKLDKJY NKQU You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO...

Liberal billionaire 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is willing to spend $2 billion to defeat President Donald Trump, and he continues to put his money where his mouth is. Advertising Analytics, which provides information on advertising spending, said in a tweet that “@MikeBloomberg is the highest spending presidential candidate of all time.” Bloomberg has apparently spent a jaw-dropping “$338.7M on traditional media, surpassing @BarackObama's 2012 record of $338.3M,” Advertising Analytics said Feb. 18.

UPDATE We spoke with Mary Baughman and her ex-husband, Dr. Ronald Baughman. They both say that the tongues found were nothing more than a research project many years ago. Dr. Ronald Baughman was a world-renowned pathologist, researcher and University of Florida Professor Emeritus. He had obtained the specimens during his research when he was early in his career back in the ’60s and ’70s and brought the specimens with him when he came to Florida to work at the University of Florida with the intention of using it in additional research. Baughman says he stored the tongues in the crawl...

A woman who severed nearly a decade behind bars for her role in a health care and money laundering scheme returned to Miami-Dade County early Wednesday morning. President Donald Trump on Tuesday commuted the prison sentence of Judith Negron, who was serving time for her role in a $205 million Medicare fraud scheme back in 2011. Negron, now 48, was found guilty of numerous felony counts....

Quick: What’s the first thing you will be looking for at tonight’s Democrat debate? – Be honest: Won’t you be trying to see whether or not Mini-Mike Bloomberg will be standing on a box? Thank you, President Trump, who hilariously issued this pair of tweets on Tuesday after it was announced that Bloomberg had miraculously “qualified” for the debate, thanks to a very convenient fake poll dummied up by NBC/Wall Street Journal: Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump · 17h What Mini Mike is doing is nothing less than a large scale illegal campaign contribution. He is “spreading” money all over...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Tuesday went after presidential hopeful and quickly rising rival Michael Bloomberg (D), referring to him as an “egomaniac billionaire” just one day ahead of the Las Vegas Democrat debate, which the former New York City mayor will participate in. The Massachusetts senator, who has struggled to regain her footing and once-held top tier status, set her sights on her billionaire rival after it was revealed that he had successfully qualified for Wednesday’s Democrat primary debate and will, in fact, participate, despite his absence on the Nevada caucus ballot.

The purpose of this article is to present the facts as we best know them, in spite of the media hype. Yesterday, there were about 200 fewer new cases than the sum of recoveries and deaths. There were only about 1,750 new cases, and more than 1,800 official recoveries. It's been a few days now since there were any cases outside of Asia; the last was an Egyptian case on February 14. (No, this does not count the cruiseliner, the Princess Diamond.) I don't trust China. But if their purpose is to control panic, it seems like the last thing...