Free Republic

Sharing threats made by someone else could soon become a punishable offense in Germany, after the government approved a bill Wednesday designed to crack down on hate speech and online extremism. Following a regional politician’s slaying and an attack on a synagogue last year, German government ministers announced plans to require companies like Facebook and YouTube to report certain forms of hate speech to the police and to provide the users’ IP addresses. Firms already have to delete such posts. Under the bill that won Cabinet backing, internet companies would have to report a wide range of hate speech to...

TOKYO—A Kobe University doctor touched off a furor with a firsthand account of a virus-stricken cruise ship in which he accused Japan of doing a worse job protecting people than African nations and China. Kentaro Iwata, who made the allegations in widely circulated YouTube videos after spending Tuesday aboard the Diamond Princess, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the crew should be removed as soon as possible because of the danger of catching the novel coronavirus on the ship. The charges by Dr. Iwata, an infectious disease specialist who has worked to tackle the Ebola disease and...

A Pennsylvania Democrat endorsed by a local committee to run for the state's seat in the House of Representatives is facing backlash after the contender she defeated dredged up old posts made on social media indicating she bashed Hillary Clinton and expressed her support for President Trump instead. Heather Kass, of Pittsburgh's Carrick neighborhood, apologized for the resurfaced Facebook posts, in which she slammed recipients of ObamaCare, saying "THESE LAZY NO GOOD IDIOTS SUCKING THE SYSTEM DRY AND I STILL HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM." She also wrote in the post from 2015, "GO TRUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!" with 12 exclamation points, according...

Bernie Sanders had to pause his speech for a moment as a boat drives by with a massive Trump sign and a super loud horn. Just listen to that horn go!! Very clever! (video on source, the horn is LOUD)

"Services are valued at prevailing commercial rate" Sanders packs venues because he has major corporate entertainers play for free. See for example: "Move Over Coachella, Bernie Sanders' Caucus Rally Is The Hottest Line Up This Season" https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/01/9261165/bernie-sanders-concert-bon-iver-vampire-weekend-iowa-rally

Mike Bloomberg's presidential campaign is reportedly hiring hundreds of people in California to post on their personal social media accounts and send text messages to contacts in support of the Democratic presidential candidate. More than 500 deputy field organizers will get paid $2,500 a month to promote Bloomberg in weekly text messages and daily social media posts. The effort, which could cost the campaign millions of dollars, is focused on California's primary on March 3, but could expand nationwide. The Bloomberg campaign says deputy field organizers are sharing their own content, not ads, and that there are no requirements around...

LAS VEGAS — The crowds remain small. The message is the same. The schedule is still light. Joe Biden is campaigning in Nevada in much the same way he did in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he suffered back-to-back losses that transformed him from frontrunner to underdog. It’s a testament to the campaign’s sense of confidence — or its state of denial — that it continues to operate as if Nevada, the first diverse state to vote this year, will be different for Biden than the two heavily white states where he was crushed. One advantage here is that African...

A national poll released Wednesday shows Sen. Bernie Sanders is currently leading the Democrat presidential primary field by 15 points. Sanders is now at 32 percent support while former Vice President Joe Biden is only at 17 percent, down 11 points from a month ago, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll. In January, Biden was leading Sanders by four points, 28 percent to 24 percent. Sanders is easily leading Biden among whites, and non-whites but falls short among black support, where the former vice president is clinging to a five-point lead. The sense that Biden would be the strongest...

WASHINGTON - Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s decision to back a tax on trades marks a blow for Wall Street lobbyists which had seen the moderate Democrat as a potential ally, said analysts and lobbyists. On Tuesday, the former New York mayor and Wall Street investment banker, who made his $60 billion fortune in finance, proposed imposing a 0.1% tax on trading stocks, bonds and derivatives as part of a broader financial services agenda. Bloomberg’s decision to back the tax is likely to bring him into conflict with Wall Street firms that are fighting the policy, many of which are the...

US scientists announced Wednesday they had created the first 3D atomic scale map of the part of the novel coronavirus that attaches to and infects human cells, a critical step toward developing vaccine and treatments. It came as the death toll from the COVID-19 virus jumped past 2,000, almost all of them in mainland China where 74,185 cases of infection have been confirmed since it first emerged in late December. The team from the University of Texas at Austin and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) first studied the genetic code of the virus made publicly available by Chinese researchers,...

Two more New Zealanders on the Diamond Princess cruise have tested positive for the covid-19 coronavirus, as one Japanese infectious disease specialist who visited the quarantined ship describes the scene there as "chaotic" and "scary". ... "Bureaucrats were in charge of everything" without a single professional infection control specialist on board, he said. ...

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, whose campaign was sidelined last fall when he suffered a heart attack, says he won't release his full medical records -- going back on a promise he made four months ago. At a town hall event in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night, Sanders said he doesn't intend to publicize any more of his health records -- adding that he has so far released more than any other Democratic candidate. "I think we have released a detailed medical report and I'm comfortable on what we have done," he said. When asked if he will release more, he...

Comments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I1ZU5g1QNo

Debut episode, in which we meet our heroine, Mary Hartman, and her assorted friends and family members. While Mary worries whether her kitchen floor has developed a waxy yellow buildup, her best friend and next-door neighbor Loretta arrives with some shocking news. But that's not the only shocking news Mary will receive before the episode is over. . . "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", debut episode, January 5, 1976

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is looking ahead to the critical Super Tuesday primary slate with a new endorsement from a Texas congresswoman who served as an impeachment manager in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat from Houston, is the sixth Congressional Hispanic Caucus member and 43rd member ofthe House to back Biden publicly. Both marks lead the Democratic presidential field, yet the former vice president still stands at a perilous point in his candidacy: He finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary, and now he’s depending on...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leads the Democratic primary field in California by 18 points, according to a survey released Wednesday. In the poll from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) first reported by the Los Angeles Times, Sanders has the support of 32 percent of likely voters. Joe Biden registered support from 14 percent of poll respondents, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) trailed the former vice president by 1 percentage point in the survey. Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (D) were tied at 12 percent each.

The European Union unveiled proposals Wednesday to regulate artificial intelligence that call for strict rules and safeguards on risky applications of the rapidly developing technology. […] The EU’s executive Commission said it wants to develop a “framework for trustworthy artificial intelligence.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had ordered her top deputies to come up with a coordinated European approach to artificial intelligence and data strategy 100 days after she took office in December. “We will be particularly careful where essential human rights and interests are at stake,” von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels. “Artificial intelligence must serve...

BEIJING -- Inspectors in protective suits went door-to-door Wednesday in the epicenter of China’s viral outbreak to try to find every infected person in an epidemic that is showing signs of waning as new cases fell for a second straight day. The city of Wuhan, where the new form of coronavirus emerged, was in the final day of a campaign to root out anyone with symptoms whom authorities may have missed so far. “This must be taken seriously,” said Wang Zhonglin, the city’s newly minted Communist Party secretary, adding that “if a single new case is found” after Wednesday “the...

YAKIMA, Wash. — A Yakima fast food employee wasn’t having it when someone tried to rob him last Saturday, according to a police report. Officers were called to the Jack In The Box on North First Street around 1 p.m. for a report of an attempted robbery that went awry for the suspect. The suspect, 37-year-old Damian McCorkle, allegedly walked to the restaurant and ordered some food. A witness said he was wearing a coat with his hands in his pockets, as if he was going to pull something out of it, and told the cashier he needed money, police...

A new law in Cambridge encourages police officers not to arrest unlicensed drivers in an effort to protect undocumented immigrants from having their information shared with federal immigration officials. The City Council voted Monday to pass the Welcoming Community ordinance, which directs officers to summons unlicensed drivers instead of arresting them whenever possible. The ordinance also prohibits the Cambridge police from: inquiring about a person’s immigration status; initiating an investigation or take law enforcement action based on a person’s immigration status; arresting or detaining a person due to an ICE detainer or administrative warrant; initiating investigations or taking law enforcement...