Free Republic

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did just that during his town hall with CNN on Wednesday night. He instantly jumped to assumptions about the shooting at Molson Coors in Milwaukee, even though authorities have yet to release detailed information about the gunman. What we know so far is that the gunman was a former Molson Coors employee that was fired earlier in the day. He left, retrieved a firearm, came back and opened fire on his former coworkers. According to the former New York City mayor, universal background checks should be passed in all 50 states, but "it'd...

Proximity is all. If they can't get to you, they can't get you. Most of us locate our fears on the far horizon – like the old maps where the known world dribbles away and the cartographer scrawls "Here be dragons". Sometimes, as Lincoln learned, the problem's right there standing next to you. In a globalized economy, the anti-glob mob and the eco-warriors want us to worry about rapacious First World capitalism imposing its ways on bucolic, pastoral, primitive Third World backwaters. But globalization cuts both ways, and the peculiarities of the backwaters can leap instantly to the metropolis -...

A resident of Solano County, California, who has novel coronavirus might be the first example in the country of "community spread," a situation in which the patient did not have "relevant travel history or exposure to another known patient," the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The person's "exposure is unknown," the CDC said in a news release. "It's possible this could be an instance of community spread of Covid-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States," the agency said, using the name the World Health Organization gave this coronavirus. Community...

“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” - Albert Einstein My problem: I can’t decide whether to go back in time and be considered a genius, or forward in the hope that mankind has improved and life on earth is truly better. “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” - Albert Einstein Who am I kidding, I have seen the future and it is as Einstein feared: a video game. Perhaps time...

Dozens of Long Island residents are being monitored for potential exposure to the deadly coronavirus, health officials announced Wednesday. Eighty-three Nassau County residents have been asked to undergo a two-week voluntary quarantine from the date that they traveled to China or had contact with someone infected with the virus, news station WPVI reported. “We’re monitoring this situation in Nassau very, very closely and have been right from the beginning to respond to any cases should they emerge in our county,” Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said at a press conference. The group is required to report their temperature and any...

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are a $25 billion operation. They’re the subject of dreams, of entire lives of training, of a decade of intensive planning. It makes sense, then, that organizers would go to considerable lengths to quell fears that a mysterious coronavirus could impact the Games. “Preparations,” the IOC has said in a blanket statement, “continue as planned.” And Tokyo organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto: “Our basic thoughts are that we will go ahead with the Olympic and Paralympic Games as scheduled.” Yet as COVID-19’s global case toll reached 80,000 this week, and as the disease spread throughout Asia...

Congress is taking aim at short-term loans. The Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act (H.R. 5050) would set a federal cap on loan interest rates. The intention is to protect consumers, but capping interest rates would have the opposite effect, doing the most harm to those with the least financial means. Proponents cite high annual percentage rates (APR) on small-dollar loans to argue that lenders are taking advantage of desperate borrowers. One problem with this argument is that an annual rate is a poor metric by which to judge a loan with a two-week term. For example, the 36 percent...

Presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg takes credit for leading New York “through” the 9/11 attacks in a campaign ad. But there’s one problem: He didn’t become mayor until four months later. Touting his leadership chops, the billionaire released a 30-second video including the claim. “I led a complex, diverse city through 9/11 and I have common-sense plans to move America away from the chaos to progress,” Bloomberg, 78, is seen saying at a campaign rally. But Rudy Giuliani was mayor during the attacks, and he didn’t hand Bloomberg the keys to Gracie Mansion until Jan. 1, 2002.

String theory is perhaps the most controversial big idea in all of science today. On the one hand, it's a mathematically compelling framework that offers the potential to unify the Standard Model with General Relativity, providing a quantum description of gravity and providing deep insights into how we conceive of the entire Universe. On the other hand, its predictions are all over the map, untestable in practice, and require an enormous set of assumptions that are unsupported by an iota of scientific evidence. For perhaps the last 35 years, string theory has been the dominant idea in theoretical particle physics,...

It's hard to tell if the superheated response by the Left (the media) to the coronavirus outbreak from China is due to there being a slow news cycle (which is hard to believe), a legitimate news story with U.S. ramifications, or as something to tattoo Donald Trump with a 'Hurricane Katrina' moment. As the media have amply shown, their zeal to tag President Trump with the most cockamamie accusations knows no bounds. Remember, some of these people still cling to the fiction that Trump is a Russian agent. They won't take "no" and multiple exhaustive investigations for an answer. As...

President Trump holds a news conference on COVID-19 at the White House. (Photo by Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images) (CNSNews.com) – Of the 16 countries reporting the highest number of confirmed cases of the China-originated coronavirus COVID-19, the United States has the smallest number in proportion to its population. President Trump on Wednesday attributed the relative success thus far in containing the outbreak at home to a decision early on to impose travel restrictions from China, a move which he said had prompted accusations of racism from his critics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports a cumulative total...

In April 2005, a virulent strain of influenza hit a maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital for men that’s midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. John J. Cannell, a psychiatrist there, observed with increasing curiosity as one infected ward after another was quarantined to limit the outbreak. Although 10 percent of the facility’s 1,200 patients ultimately developed the flu’s fever and debilitating muscle aches, none did in the ward that he supervised. WINTER WOES. Cold-weather wear and the sun’s angle in the winter sky limit how much ultraviolet light reaches the skin. This can add up to a deficiency in production...

The bills include a prohibition on “ghost guns” by requiring self-manufactured firearms to have engraved serial numbers, establishing a statewide ammunition database, requiring manufacturers to include GPS technology on guns and establishing funding to develop personalized handgun technology for all firearms. Also, a ammunition "database" see below link: http://www.gunpoliticsny.com/

Interviews with dozens of Democratic Party officials, including 93 superdelegates, found overwhelming opposition to handing Mr. Sanders the nomination if he fell short of a majority of delegates.

Over the last few years, my own children have reached the age where they would be quite welcome in the Sanders camp. They could support Bernie Sanders, attend Sanders rallies, cheer and pump their fists as they condemn "The Man" and delight over all of the free stuff they think they're going to get. What, you say? Fat chance that my offspring would wind up hardcore lefties after being raised by a black-belt right-wing nationalist such as myself? Well, that may not be quite fair, although I'll gladly accept the compliment. In truth, exposure to reality is never a guarantee...

In 2017, as part of efforts to crack down on uncontrolled illegal immigration, Trump’s Justice Department announced that it would withhold federal monies from so-called sanctuary cities and states that prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from having access to illegal aliens within those “sanctuary” jurisdictions. Within the ambit of the Second Circuit appellate court, New York City, Connecticut, New York State, Washington, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island raced to a Manhattan federal court claiming that it was unconstitutional. Although an activist lower court agreed, the Second Circuit has now reversed that ruling. When seven states and NYC...

... Mr. Sanders condemns Mr. Netanyahu, who was democratically elected, but he says nothing about Hamas’s dictatorial control of Gaza and missile assaults on Israeli civilians. A U.S. President who is this hostile to Israel would have no chance of persuading Mr. Netanyahu, or any Israeli Prime Minister, to make sacrifices in return for supporting a Palestinian state. These sympathies are part of Mr. Sanders’s long-time worldview, and he has collected advisers of similar mind. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) is a Bernie backer known for her anti-Israel broadsides that caused House Democrats to rebuke her. Matt Duss, a Sanders...

When word first broke that Meghan Markle had convinced Prince Harry to divorce the royal family, it struck many as a bizarre and sad conclusion to what could have been a great chapter in the family’s long history. Then, when Meghan turned out to be greedy and entitled, while Harry was apparently a milquetoast, people turned against the duo. Now, though, with the latest report on Meghan’s extraordinarily self-centered world view, she’s becoming a comic figure who must be enjoyed. It started with Prince Harry, who had grown from being a bit of an ass to being an active-duty soldier...

The rise of the scourge that is youth e-cigarette use in America is certainly something that cannot go unnoticed or unaddressed. However, instead of approaching the problem rationally and carefully -- as we should approach all areas of national policy -- it seems that all too many in Washington are more than willing to rush the deliberative process for the sake of moral panic and, in so doing, will end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  One such example comes from Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) who introduced a piece of legislation back in April aimed at tackling this...

As if San Francisco were not disgusting enough with its corruption, poop patrols, and unpunished street crime, there's now this sort of brutality going on: (tweet video of an Asian man been harassed and beaten by thugs) According to the Daily Mail: The video begins with one onlooker walking towards the man, wielding a pole and using it to hit him on the head. Others laugh and jeer as the victim runs away.