Free Republic

It’s Bernie Sanders versus the Democratic National Committee again, and as in 2016, many congressional Democrats aren’t taking his side. Sanders has argued that whoever gets the most delegates — even if they fall short of the DNC’s threshold — should be crowned the nominee for president. But House and Senate Democrats, for the most part, insist that the party stick with the rules that were rewritten specifically to address complaints of bias against Sanders in 2016.

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signaled a potential reshuffle of his government on Wednesday that local media said could include axing Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk in favor of businessman and veteran politician Serhiy Tihipko. Confidence in Zelenskiy's government has slid since the actor and comedian scored a surprise landslide election victory last year promising to root out corruption and end the war with Russian-backed rebels in the eastern Donbass region. But progress on either front has been patchy, and while the 42-year-old Zelenskiy remains Ukraine's most electable politician, his public trust score has fallen from a high watermark...

Earlier today House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered President Trump and his administration harsh and false criticism for their handling of the coronavirus. "Hopefully we can make up for the loss of time...and not be using scare tactics about people coming back to our country." Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the Trump administration's response against coronavirus is "late—too late—anemic." https://t.co/GfPH6SyIMF pic.twitter.com/H6QZATNyeD— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 26, 2020 Speaking to reporters from the White House briefing room Wednesday evening, President Trump slammed Pelosi for trying to score political points during a public health emergency. "I think Speaker Pelosi is incompetent. She lost the...

Elections are the cornerstone of our republic. The accuracy of the tabulation of votes is critical to the maintenance of a government, “by the people and for the people.” Two recent events – the Iowa Caucus and the accidental exposure Israel's entire voter registry, including personal details such as addresses, ID numbers another other information that could be used for identity theft, spying and even voter intimidation – have forced a rethinking of the pace at which technology is implemented into one of the most basic societal institutions. A big story in the early portion of the Democratic Presidential Primary were the...

How many times have you heard an unbeliever say “God does not answer prayer?” I would be willing to bet that a very high percentage of people in America do not believe that if they prayed that God would answer. When I hear people expressing doubts about answered prayer I usually like to respond with something that I feel that they will understand. I usually say, “ Well, do you know that there is a science to prayer? Do you know the formula?” Invariably they will answer “No”, to which I respond by saying, “Let me explain.” Just as almost...

Pope Francis has come down with a “slight indisposition,” forcing him to cancel a planned Mass in Rome, just a day after he expressed his solidarity with coronavirus sufferers around the world — and as the disease continues to spread across Italy.

Iranian Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar has tested positive for coronavirus, the state-run daily IRAN reported. Ebtekar is the first member of President Hassan Rouahni’s cabinet to be infected with the novel coronavirus. Earlier today, the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign affairs committee Mojtaba Zolnour announced in a video that he had also been infected with the disease. Two other Iranian officials – Member of Parliament Mahmoud Sadeghi and Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi – have also previously confirmed that they have been infected with the disease. State media also reported on...

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/