Free Republic

A federal court ruling against a border control policy ordered by President Trump, 3 cases of the coronavirus in the United States and a peace deal with Afghanistan's Taliban is just hours away but first..... President Trump spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today and the Turkish government says the two agreed on: "additional steps without delay in order to avert a big humanitarian tragedy unfoling in the Idlib region" The White House spokesman said that Syria, Russia and Iran must halt their 'offensive' in the region an said that President Trump "condemned yesterday's attack that killed Turkish personnel"...

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — While admitting we need more information about the COVID-19 coronavirus from China that's spreading worldwide, a local emergency-room doctor believes it eventually will be determined that it is 10 times less deadly than this year's flu strains. "The influenza virus is actually about 10 times more serious than the coronavirus that we have around here," said Physicians Premier Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lonnie Schwirtlich. That's right. The Coastal Bend has seen coronaviruses before. Questions remain, however, over how severe this new COVID-19 strain is. That could change soon. "What the coronavirus that's coming out of China...

Several House Republicans left a closed-door coronavirus briefing on Friday after Rep. Rosa DeLauro spoke critically of the Trump administration’s efforts to protect the American public from the global epidemic. According to a transcript, DeLauro, D-3rd District, said she supported the administration’s declaration of a public health emergency that allows states like Connecticut more flexibility in spending federal public health money. “That said, I have grave concerns about the lack of transparency and unwillingness to allow public health experts to speak freely about what is happening,” DeLauro said. There are reports that Vice President Mike Pence, appointed by President Donald...

GREELEY, Colo. (KDVR) — A judge denied an extreme risk protection order that was filed against Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams. The petition was filed by Leo Crespin, who is currently being held in the Weld County Jail for a number of drug-related felony charges. Under Colorado’s new “red flag” law, any citizen can file to have someone’s firearms removed if they are believed to be a danger to anyone, including themselves. A judge will decide if someone initially meets the criteria to have his or her guns taken away. This first hearing will be conducted ex parte, without the...

81-year old cleric Hadi Khosroshahi, has died of coronavirus in Iran, local media reported. A prominent figure in IranÂ’s hole city of Qom, Khosroshahi was a black-turbaned cleric carrying the title of "Sayyid," meaning a descendent of Prophet Muhammad. Khosroshahi was transferred to a hospital in Tehran on Wednesday and tested positive for Covid-19, publicly known as coronavirus. A day later, he died of respiratory complications. After two years serving as the representative of the founder of the nascent Islamic regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Khosroshahi was appointed as Tehran's ambassador to the...

Influenza (“the flu”) and COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, are both infectious respiratory illnesses. Although the symptoms of COVID-19 and the flu can look similar, the two illnesses are caused by different viruses. As of Feb. 28, 2020, the flu is showing much more of an impact on Americans than COVID-19. You can find up-to-date information on COVID-19 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins, explains how the flu and COVID-19 are similar and how they are different. Similarities: COVID-19 and the Flu...

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...