Free Republic

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders just introduced legislation that’s raising alarms in Silicon Valley. But this time, it’s start-up workers, not Big Tech executives, who may be concerned. Sanders and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., introduced a new tax bill Thursday that would tax nonqualified stock options of more than $100,000 at vesting for private company employees making at least $130,000 a year. This means that instead of being taxed once they exercise their options, employees would be taxed on shares when they vest, even though they still wouldn’t be liquid assets. Employees who meet the tax threshold would be taxed...

Coronavirus is an “info-demic,” a panic caused by the spread of partial and often misleading information about a health risk, sometimes deliberately. The virus is real, and a small number of people have been infected. But it is going to pass. It is an unpleasant respiratory illness, but it is not an organ-destroying horror like Ebola. Precautions are being taken, a vaccine will emerge, and life will continue as usual. Here are five specific reasons to chill out. 1. Coronavirus is a familiar illness, and not as bad as others. It is from the SARS family — and less deadly....

Four years ago, Molly Seidel wasn’t just the next big thing. She was the top female distance runner in the NCAA with four national titles and the Olympic Trials on the horizon. But instead of signing a splashy contract with a shoe company, Seidel was sidelined with a sacral stress fracture and watched the U.S. Olympic Track Trials from the stands at Hayward Field, where her Notre Dame teammate Dani Aragon gave her a reality check. “You look like you’re dying,” Seidel remembers her friend saying. “You need to get help.” The truth was, the fastest woman in the NCAA...

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to the attendees of CPAC Friday afternoon. He reported that he had just come from the Oval Office with President Trump. “Can anyone in this room remember a better time to be an American conservative?” he asked the crowd. “We’re safer than ever, our economy is more prosperous than ever, and President Trump will not stop winning.” In talking about his job, Pompeo expressed how he really enjoys the work that makes an impact, and not the perks of the job. “I’m not in it for the fancy dinners [in...

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz sparred with New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over several unanswered science questions. The spat began Thursday when Ocasio-Cortez criticized President Donald Trump for putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the task force responding to Coronavirus. Cruz responded by asking Ocasio-Cortez, “As you are speaking as the oracle of science, tell us, what exactly is a Y chromosome?”

Actress Debra Messing is the latest prominent liberal to blame President Donald Trump for the coronavirus by repeating false allegations that the president enacted drastic budgetary cuts on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Debra Messing launched into an unhinged tirade Friday claiming that President Trump “puts Americans in mortal danger,” citing a two-year-old Washington Post article about proposed budget cuts to the CDC. The Will & Grace star failed to mention that those cuts never went into effect and that Congress has actually increased funding to the CDC and National Institutes of Health. “THIS is why Trump MUST GO!...

While on air during a Trump rally in South Carolina, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews confused S.C. Democratic senate candidate Jamie Harrison with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), both of whom are black. “I see you standing there next the guy you’re going to beat maybe,” Matthews said to Harrison, while the camera was on a frame of Scott and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Matthews, the host of “Hardball,” was immediately corrected by other anchors before realizing he had mixed up the two S.C. politicians. “Big mistake, mistaken identity, sorry,” Matthews said. Matthews has stirred controversy in recent weeks leading to several calls...

A Bloomington, Illinois man was sentenced today to 30 years in prison followed by lifetime supervised release for production and possession of child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney John C. Milhiser of the Central District of Illinois. U.S. District Court Judge James E. Shadid pronounced the sentence.Tyler Watson, 21, pleaded guilty to two counts of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan E. Hawley on Aug. 19, 2019.According to admissions made as part of his guilty plea,...

Anming Hu, a  an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) was arrested today on a federal indictment and charged with three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements.“Hu allegedly committed fraud by hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving funding from NASA,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers.   “This is just the latest case involving professors or researchers concealing their affiliations with China from their American employers and the U.S. government.   We will not tolerate it.”“The United...

So, our Coronavirus Czar is going to be … Mike Pence. Feeling more secure? “I know full well the importance of presidential leadership,” the vice president said as soon as he was introduced in his new role. Totally qualified. First criterion for every job in this administration is capacity for praising the gloriousness of our commander in chief. Yeah, when you think of Mike Pence you maybe don’t think about Pandemic Fighter Supreme. But as President Trump pointed out repeatedly, he has already run Indiana. Well, it probably could have been worse. Having a czar does make you feel there’s...

Defendant Alleged to Have Prohibited Financial Transactions Related to Drug Cartel A dual U.S.-Mexican citizen had her initial appearance in federal court in the District of Columbia Wednesday on charges related to her alleged involvement in five business entities designated by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) as providing material support to the international narcotics trafficking activities of the Mexican narcotics trafficking organization known as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge William Bodner of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Los Angeles Field Division made the announcement.Jessica Johanna Oseguera Gonzalez,...

The Wisconsin Appeals Court has overturned a ruling that sought to purge more than 200,000 people from state voter rolls, according to court documents. “In interpreting the Wisconsin Statutes, courts may not rewrite the plain language of the statutes the legislature has enacted,” the appeals court said. “Acceptance of the arguments of Plaintiffs would cause us to rewrite statutes enacted by the legislature, and that we cannot do.” It added that the ruling has been “reversed, and this matter is remanded to the circuit court for dismissal of plaintiffs’ complaint.” The conservative group that filed the lawsuit, Wisconsin Institute for...

A former associate scientist was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison in federal court today for stealing proprietary information worth more than $1 billion from his employer, a U.S. petroleum company.In November 2019, Tan pleaded guilty to theft of a trade secret, unauthorized transmission of a trade secret, and unauthorized possession of a trade secret. From June 2017 until December 2018, Tan was employed as an associate scientist at the petroleum company and was assigned to work in a group with the goal of developing next generation battery technologies for stationary energy storage, specifically flow batteries. In his...

Ankara’s official death toll stood at 33 on the morning of Feb. 28, with 60 other troops wounded, among them 16 with serious injuries. It was still unclear whether any soldiers could be still trapped under the rubble. According to unconfirmed information obtained by Al-Monitor, the actual death toll is somewhere between 50 and 55. What caused Russia to react so violently and provocatively while a Russian delegation was holding talks in Ankara in a bid to ease the tensions in Idlib? The battlefield had grown highly explosive since Feb. 20, when two Turkish tank crewmen were killed in an...

South Korea confirmed 594 more coronavirus cases on Saturday, the biggest increase to date for the country and taking the national total to 2,931 infections with three additional deaths. (Please see link, for full article)

Five sanctuary bills are currently under consideration by the Maryland state legislature. HB 677 and its Senate companion, SB 850, would prohibit state and local detention facilities from entering into agreements to house ICE detainees. These bills will force ICE to send many immigration detainees far away from their families and lawyers, potentially to remote areas where ICE is able to secure detention space. SB 649 would prevent any of the state's MVA custodians of records from providing ICE access to any such "public record that contains personal information unless the custodian is provided with a valid warrant or valid...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon has its first presumed case of novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. State officials will hold a news conference at 6 p.m. Friday to provide more details on the case. You can stream it live on KGW.com or watch live on The Story with Dan Haggerty on KGW.

Fresh off years of drug addiction, a presidential impeachment saga that involved his work in Ukraine, and agreeing to pay child support to an Arkansas stripper he impregnated, Hunter Biden is pursuing a career in painting. In a pool house-turned-art studio behind his 2,000-square-foot Hollywood Hills home, Biden, dressed in work boots and a pearl snap button-down shirt, is painting psychedelic florals in ink. The New York Times featured the son of former Vice President Joe Biden in a lengthy profile in which Hunter Biden said painting is "literally keeping me sane." “For years, I wouldn’t call myself an artist....

The Left has long lost this debate, but they keep trying to relitigate it on the campaign stump. The Second Amendment grants the individual right to keep and bear arms. That was the landmark D.C. vs. Heller decision, though it applied only to federal enclaves. The McDonald v. Chicago decision extended this right to the states proper. But the Left is obsessed with the militia portion of the amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” The Atlantic has a good...

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR ECONOMIC POLICY THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY SUBJECT: The Effect of Titanium Sponge Imports on the National Security By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended (19 U.S.C. 1862) (the “Act”), it is hereby ordered as follows:...