Free Republic

The New York Times sees YouTube purges as a start, but still not good enough. “YouTube’s efforts to curb conspiracy theories pose a major test of Silicon Valley’s ability to combat misinformation,” The Times wrote in its March 2 coverage. It cited the findings from a University of California Berkeley study which concluded YouTube spreads fewer conspiracy theories than before, but still has a long way to go. The Times’ coverage observed that “other falsehoods continued to flourish in YouTube’s recommendations, like claims that aliens created the pyramids, that the government is hiding secret technologies and that climate change is...

A brute force method to fight misinformation. Google is hiding Play Store search results for both “coronavirus” and “COVID-19,” as first spotted by 9to5Google. Searches for these terms with other keywords like “map” or “tracker” no longer yield any results, either. Google has not made any formal announcement about these search terms being disabled, so we can’t count out the possibility that this is a bug of some sort. Misinformation about the spread of the novel coronavirus can crop up in even the most unlikely of places — so making it harder to access fake information is pivotal in the...

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room 5:57 P.M. EST THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. We just completed today’s meeting of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. As you know, the President spoke this morning to county officials. And I want to remind everyone, as the President did today, that when it comes to health issues, state and local health authorities are in the lead, and the President reflected on that today. The President also traveled with Dr. Fauci and the Secretary to the National Institute of Health and had a briefing there. For our part, I was on Capitol...

With the conclusion of another amazing AIPAC Policy Conference, and as an evangelical Christian advocating for a stronger American-Israeli relationship, the question has occasionally been asked “What is the real reason Christians support Israel? Aren’t you just secretly trying to Trojan Horse and convert the Jews?” Often following that comes the question “Aren’t Christians just trying to speed up the end times by supporting Israel?” Both statements are not based in reality but rather on rumors. Frankly speaking, there is no secret Christian agenda. The Bible clearly states the agenda of every Christian and it is a public agenda, never...

The small church of Hagios Georgios (Saint George) near the village of Moria on Lesvos was vandalized by unknown assailants on Monday.Some local people are blaming a group of migrants who live at the nearby camp for the act. They claim that when police prevented a march by hundreds of migrants demanding to be transferred to Athens, a group of around twenty of them went to the church and took their revenge by destroying the nave and the altar.Images also show that the assailants destroyed icons and furniture. Hagios Georgios has been vandalized several times in the recent past, local...

The Book Ilhan Omar Doesn’t Want You to Read A review of 'American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party.' Wed Mar 4, 2020 Daniel Greenfield 24 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. "A right-wing extremist just dedicated a racist, Islamophobic book to bashing Ilhan," the Ilhan for Congress fundraising email read. And then asked donors for $5 or $100 because the book might "turn more people away from bold progressive ideas, and incite violence against her." The...

Posts Posted on March 3, 2020 The Role of Trials in Bringing Us to Spiritual Maturity We live in a world of unprecedented comfort: electricity, indoor plumbing, heating and air-conditioning, medicine, healthcare, abundant food, myriad consumer products, and entertainment available with the click of a button. Despite this we do not seem more grateful or at ease than our forebears. If anything, we aremoreanxious. For example, though people have never lived so long nor been so healthy, we have never been more worried about our health.One would think that such abundance and comfort would lead us to be exceedingly...

Facing intense heat, poisonous gasses and molten lava, daredevil Nik Wallenda says there's "little bit more angst" for his highwire walk across one of the most active volcanos in the world. The stuntman, who's traversed Times Square, the Grand Canyon gorge and Niagara Falls on tightrope, will attempt a 1,800-foot walk over the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua. The stunt will mark Wallenda's "longest and highest highwire walk ever attempted," according to ABC, which will air "Volcano Live with Nik Wallenda" as a live two-hour special.

President Donald Trump retweeted a post from Fox News’ Brit Hume, Wednesday, which predicted the president will unify Democrats against him. In response to a Washington Examiner article titled, “Calls for unity cannot hide stark cultural differences inside the Democratic Party,” Hume commented, “Good insight here. But there is one unifying factor that will be there in the fall: Donald J. Trump.”

Chief Justice John Roberts left open the possibility that he could side with the Supreme Court’s liberal wing during intensive, fact-based arguments on Wednesday in a high-profile abortion case. A vote with the court’s four liberal justices to strike down a Louisiana law regulating abortion providers would be a dramatic turnaround for the chief justice, who joined a dissenting opinion from the court’s decision upholding a similar law in Texas just four years ago. But Roberts suggested that he saw that decision as binding, which found that the Texas law had no medical benefits and placed an unconstitutional burden on...

“Crazy Bernie,” President Trump calls the 78-year-old junior senator from tiny Vermont, and the nickname does not describe a harmless oddball.  Senator Sanders’ success has frightened the financial kingmakers in the Democratic party. When Bernie refused to apologize for praising the communist dictators of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, Democratic insiders got alarmed at the prospect of losing Florida, home to thousands of refugees from those countries.  Since Bernie won by a landslide in Nevada, full panic has set in.Two high-profile Democrat contenders pulled out within hours of each other after the South Carolina primary, to endorse Bernie’s rival, Joe Biden....

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by David Limbaugh. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. David Limbaugh is a conservative author and political commentator. He is the younger brother of conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the bottom...

A week ago, Tucker Carlson warned that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China in 2019, COVID-19, could put Bernie Sanders in the White House. Carlson is right. President Trump’s response to COVID-19, rhetorical and actual, will make or break his presidency.As the markets were panicking over the virus, Trump claimed the media and Democrats were overblowing the virus to hurt him politically: “Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus (sic) look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible,” wrote the president on Twitter.With...

What was Obama’s top aide Valerie Jarrett thinking when she got dressed this morning? Was she feeling randy? Apparent so – that’s the only reason we can figure as to why Valerie Jarrett would dress exactly like Austin Powers for her appearance on CBS This Morning.

... NYPD officers responded to the Flushing neighborhood at 1.28pm yesterday after the man passed out on Main Street and hit his head on the sidewalk, a police source told DailyMail.com. He was rushed to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospital and was expected to survive, although his current condition and symptoms are not known. ...

The recent coronavirus outbreak, which sprouted within China in December, has now stagnated the world’s second-largest economy for more than a month. Since then, the virus has spread to more than 50 countries across six continents, all except Antarctica. The World Health Organization declared the virus a “global threat” and urged countries to prepare.The medical journal JAMA published a paper last week, titled “Characteristics of and Important Lessons From the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak in China.” Its data was based on the 72,314 cases reported by Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Since China has the largest...

Law raises concerns about extent feds can spy on AmericansPresident Trump has told congressional Republican leaders that he will not support a clean reauthorization of surveillance laws without significant reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court system that was abused during the Russia collusion probe, a senior White House official says.The surveillance provisions are set to expire on March 15, and the White House indicated to Republican leaders Tuesday that it would support only a temporary, 30-day extension to allow Congress to iron out the reforms. House Democratic leaders have indicated publicly they are open to bipartisan compromise.“Just got back from the...

... "I've never seen downtown so empty," she said, referring to the streets, not just the shelves. ... Francisco's store has been in the same small corner for 43 years, she said. Before that, her mother owned a novelty shop in another spot of the usually bustling shopping area. Millions of people visit Pike Place Market annually. But the stalls are empty this week. Vendors aren't flinging fish to one another; instead, they're checking their phones or reading a book. "It's like a ghost town," Francisco said. ...

Most Americans don’t believe people are rich because they work harder than other people or poor because they don’t work hard enough, according to a new study published by the Pew Research Center.In the results of a poll released Monday, some 65% of U.S. adults said people are rich because they had more advantages in life than others, while only 33% said it’s because they work harder than others.When it comes to the question of why people are poor, some 71% of respondents attributed it to having to face more obstacles in life. Only 26 percent of respondents in the...