Free Republic

In a clear sign that they’re not truly worried about the COVID-19 threat, many Democrats are using it as another club to hit President Trump — facts be damned. At Tuesday’s debate, Mike Bloomberg smugly asserted, “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing.” Trump, he claimed, has “defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need.” Joe Biden chimed in: “He cut the funding for the entire effort.” It’s a lie that can only sow fear: The CDC budget is higher than when Trump took office. Same for the...

MSNBC host Chris Matthews “inappropriately flirted” with a much younger female guest on at least two occasions while she was getting made up to appear on his “Hardball” show, the woman wrote Friday. Freelance journalist Laura Bassett, who previously wrote about the incidents in 2017 without naming Matthews, identified him in a column published by GQ. “I was afraid to name him at the time for fear of retaliation from the network; I’m not anymore,” she wrote. During one incident in 2016, Matthews — who’s married to Kathleen Matthews, a former Maryland Democratic Party chairwoman — allegedly “looked over at...

[Catholic Caucus] Op-Ed - Bishop Schneider: The Rite of Holy Communion in times of a pandemic 'The ban on Communion in the mouth is unfounded compared to the great health risks of Communion in the hand in the time of a pandemic. Such a ban constitutes an abuse of authority.' By Bishop Athanasius Schneider Nobody can force us to receive the Body of Christ in a way that constitutes a risk of the loss of the fragments, and a decrease in reverence, as is the way of receiving Communion in the hand. Although it is true that one could receive...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential contenders are describing the federal infectious-disease bureaucracy as rudderless and ill-prepared for the coronavirus threat because of budget cuts and ham-handed leadership by President Donald Trump. That’s a distorted picture. For starters, Trump hasn’t succeeded in cutting the budget. He’s proposed cuts but Congress ignored him and increased financing instead. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren’t suffering from budget cuts that never took effect. MIKE BLOOMBERG: “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded — he’s defunded Centers for...

WASHINGTON—Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Friday that socialism rather than coronavirus poses a greater risk to the U.S. economy amid ongoing concerns surrounding the COVID-19 virus. At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the largest gathering of conservatives, Kudlow touted the current state of the economy but noted that the uncertainty arising from the outbreak spread fears throughout financial markets, sending stocks lower. The U.S. stock market lost nearly 15 percent from the record highs reached just nine days ago at the time of writing. And the VIX, the volatility index, has jumped to the highest...

February 29 2020 Saturday after Ash Wednesday Reading 1 Is 58:9b-14 Thus says the LORD: If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; Then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt...

Washington state announces presumptive coronavirus case in a school-age adolescent at Jackson High. No travel history. Unknown origin of infection. ALSO in Washington state: new presumptive coronavirus case, woman in her 50s who was recently in South Korea

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...