Free Republic

WASHINGTON—The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate by a half percentage point on Tuesday morning, delivering a booster shot to stem potential economic disruptions from the spreading coronavirus epidemic. Tuesday’s cut, which lowered the federal-funds rate to a range between 1% and 1.25%, is the first to occur in between a scheduled policy meeting since the 2008 financial crisis. The action was approved unanimously. In a statement, the central bank also held out the prospect for further stimulus. “The committee is closely monitoring developments and their implications for the economic outlook and will use its tools and act as appropriate...

Trying To Forget You by James O'Gwynn (1959) is our tune today. Sounds a lot like George Jones on this one. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Fox News’ Brit Hume on Tuesday made a big mistake when he shared a screenshot from his iPad without first closing all the other browser tabs he had opened. In a tweet posted early in the morning, Hume posted a screenshot of an election betting odds website that showed former Vice President Joe Biden overtaking Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. However, the screenshot revealed Hume had five other tabs open — and one of them was for “sexy vixen vinyl.” Hume’s mistakenly open tab didn’t go unnoticed by his followers, who proceeded to...

WASHINGTON - - As Democrats begin to coalesce around Joe Biden as the moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders, there appears to be a quiet hand behind the rapid movement: former President Barack Obama. Obama spoke with his former vice president after he handily won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, and with Pete Buttigieg on Sunday when he dropped out of the Democratic race, according to people familiar with the calls. People close to Obama said the former president has been keeping close tabs on the race. They said the signal has been sent in the past 36 hours that...

You might think Democrats and the media would have quickly realized that the rapid spread of coronavirus is an epidemiological event wholly indifferent to performative wokeness. But no.Last week at a campaign stop in South Carolina, erstwhile Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg quipped that Trump’s border wall would not stop the coronavirus because the disease “doesn’t respect borders.” Also last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren—who as of this writing hadn’t yet ended her bid for the nomination—introduced a bill to divert money from the president’s border wall to help fund the government’s coronavirus response.As the Trump administration scrambled to respond...

Would you trust wrench monkeys who mangle the English language? Is the IQ of the idiots in marketing an indicator of the quality of the guys they hire to fix your car or truck?

I’ve concluded that “Out of Africa” is more than a Meryl Streep movie about adultery and fornication with Robert Redford, lions, tigers and Africans as a backdrop. Considering the craziness of many blacks, “Out of Africa” is a Satanic parasitic hallucinogenic that was found in carrion, ingested by animals, which were later killed and eaten by Africans. The Satanic psychotropic once consumed by the Africans had wide ranging generational periods of incubation before destroying the mental and emotional stability of those recognized today as African-Americans. This demonic psychotropic has consumed the mind of great numbers of these so-called African-Americans leaving...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that she believes the Democratic nomination should not go to the candidate with the plurality of delegates at the end of the primary and caucus season. “Let's follow the rules, we had rules last time, we have rules this time,” she said. “Everybody knew when they got into it.” Clinton also doubled down on comments she made in a documentary filmed before the primary season, calling Sen. Bernie Sander's (I-Vt.) campaign is "just bologna." “That was my authentic opinion then, it my authentic opinion now,” she...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surged ahead of his chief political rival but looked set to fall two seats short of a governing majority in the country’s third election in under 12 months Monday, according to exit polling. Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party was predicted to win 36 seats, while its rival, the centrist Blue and White party, would capture 32. With roughly 90 percent of the votes already counted, both Netanyahu's right-wing bloc and Blue and White's centrist and left-wing bloc were set to fall short of the 61 seats needed to form a governing coalition in the 120-seat parliament,...

Every morning I wake up, holding my breath while I turn on my phone to see the latest news. I think to myself, “It can’t be worse than yesterday.” But when the news loads, I think, “Ohhhhh, yes, it is worse”… now he’s fired the director of national intelligence in an effort to suppress the truth about Russia interfering in our elections again. He’s purging the government of anyone with any expertise who doesn’t bow down before him.

“Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17).

Having brought us the global breakout of a killer coronavirus, China's Communist Party dictatorship is now fostering the insinuation that this virus originated not in China, but in America. Mind you, China's President Xi Jinping and his CCP flunkies have not so far adopted this Orwellian lie as the official line. But there's a growing blame-America stench now wafting from China's state propaganda mills. American authorities need to pay close attention, and do everything in their power to push back, as China's commissars begin bioengineering a narrative to blame this contagion on others. On Feb. 27, China's state-run China Global...

Sanders has been the front-runner on Predictit for some time, at 65% odds of getting the Democratic nomination on February 23, but he is now at 37%, presumably because Biden won South Carolina and got endorsements from Klobuchar and Buttigieg. I have been focused on posting anti-Sanders stories because I thought he was the front-runner and also the most dangerous potential President, but now anti-Biden stories are also important. I understand that betting markets will not always get things right. Predictit had Trump at about 33% just before the election. But that 33% was higher than most pundits estimated, and...

Marian Regional Medical Center welcomed the arrival of nine babies on Saturday, Feb. 29, a rare birthday that only occurs once every four years.  By Monday, nearly all of the nine "leaper" parents had gone home with their newborns. However, Denise Lopez and her husband, Angel, stayed a little longer, trying to decide on a name for their son.They settled on Justin, which Lopez said kept jumping out to them when they were researching names."Justin is an uncommon name in the Latino community, but just because he is Latino didn't mean we wanted to pick a name like Maria or...

The NBA and National Basketball Players Association sent a memo to players recommending they avoid several common forms of fan interaction during games in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. ESPN and CNN obtained the memo that the league sent to teams Sunday. "The health and safety of NBA players, coaches, staff and fans is paramount," the memo said. "Working with infectious disease experts, the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association are providing the following information for players related to the coronavirus outbreak." The NBA and NBPA memo defined the coronavirus, how it spreads, explained the symptoms, gave a...

A study finds that people today who eat and exercise the same amount as people 20 years ago are still fatter. A 2016 study published in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice found that it’s harder for adults today to maintain the same weight as those 20 to 30 years ago did, even at the same levels of food intake and exercise. The authors examined the dietary data of 36,400 Americans between 1971 and 2008 and the physical activity data of 14,419 people between 1988 and 2006. They grouped the data sets together by the amount of food and...

Since the moment coronavirus entered the media’s vocabulary, the media and the Democrat party have been working diligently to assure the American people that it’s the second coming of the Black Death and that it’s all Trump’s fault. Disgustingly, many of them have been insisting that it will destroy the American economy (which, after all, is one of Trump’s biggest selling points) and certain people who shall be named – Paul Krugman, I’m talking to you – seemed to celebrate the stock market’s big drop last week. The stock market, though, seems to be recovering already, posting huge gains...

The outbreak of direct combat between Turkey and the Syrian regime of Basher al-Assad has shown the wisdom of President Donald Trump's strategy in the area. He took considerable flak for pulling American troops out of northern Syria last October. It was argued that the withdrawal in the face of a Turkish advance would threaten the Kurds, a longtime U.S. ally, and could even revive ISIS! In response, President Trump tweeted "As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I... consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy...

Jeff Bezos’ $10 billion commitment to fight climate change, which he announced last week, brings to mind an episode of “South Park” that aired during the financial crisis. A succession of characters put their money into the market only to see it go instantly to zero before their eyes. Based on the best science, or at least the most officially condoned, Mr. Bezos would have only the vaguest idea what he was getting for his money. That’s because scientists can estimate only within a giant, squishy margin of error how much warming might be avoided from a given cut in...

VIDEO Chris Matthews resigned on the air on Monday night from his MSNBC Hardball gig due to a bit too much public drooling over women. Here we see Chris resign while drooling over a female reporter.