Free Republic

* The Senate on Thursday passed a multibillion-dollar spending package to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus. * Only one senator, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against the supplemental aid bill. It now heads to the White House, where President Donald Trump is expected to sign it. * The $8.3 billion emergency funding plan sailed through the House a day earlier in a 415-2 vote, just hours after it was unveiled by Senate and House appropriations leaders. The Senate on Thursday passed a multibillion-dollar spending package to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The bill will now...

Exxon Mobil plans to reduce the number of oil rigs operating in an oil-rich region in the Southwest and may cut planned capital expenditures as the spreading coronavirus saps energy demand. The price of a barrel of oil has fallen more than 20% since the start of the year, and 8% in the last month, with energy demand expected to shrink as the outbreak drags on the global economy. Exxon will reduce the number of rigs in the Permian basin, a region that stretches across the border of New Mexico and Texas. Capital expenditures include expenses such as drilling and...

Coronaviruses are a type of virus. There are many different kinds, and some cause disease. A newly identified type has caused a recent outbreak of respiratory illness now called COVID-19 that started in China. Lauren Sauer, M.S., the director of operations with the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response and director of research with the Johns Hopkins Biocontainment Unit, shares information about COVID-19 and what you need to know. How is COVID-19 spread? Recent information indicates COVID-19 may be passed from person to person. There are still a lot of unknowns, including how contagious it might be....

Sanders’s policies aren’t a better version of socialism; they are the same as those of socialism past and present. Remember Venezuela when you head to the polls this November. He told his supporters during one presidential campaign that this nation’s wealth “was stolen from its citizens by the evil capitalists and the evil corporations.” He assured them that once he was elected, he would end corruption in the current political system, eradicate poverty, strengthen democracy, and return the power back to the people.His name was Hugo Chavez, and those were his campaign promises in 1998. He became president of Venezuela...

Judge Thomas Griffith on Thursday announced plans to retire from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, handing President Trump his third vacancy on the influential bench. Griffith is set to retire in September, just two months ahead of the 2020 election, as politics intensify the focus on Trump's conservative makeover of the federal courts. The judge, a George W. Bush appointee and 15-year veteran of the D.C. Circuit, made headlines last week when he ruled against House Democratic lawmakers who sought to enforce a subpoena against a former Trump aide. In a 2-1 opinion, Griffith ruled that...

Every morning, when 25-year-old Megan Barney drives to work, she passes Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s house. Barney sometimes feels a little bit like a stalker, often poking her head outside of the window during her drive to see if her senator is around. But on Tuesday morning she didn’t have to peer. There was a big crowd outside, snaking all the way down the block toward the nearest polling place, cheering on Warren, who was on her way to vote. Barney felt heartened by that morning’s energy when she cast her own vote for Warren that evening, wearing the Nasty...

Pro-abortion leftists are obsessed with saying that men are obsessed with their bodies. As [sic] much as they are obsessed with abortion. Rep. Rashida Tlaib took a break from her anti-semitism to share her measured and well-reasoned defense over the right to abort your choices. If you’re a pro-life man maybe you should stop trying to sex her up. This past year, I realized, my, my, my are they obsessed with our bodies, how we talk, how we look, what we stand for. I mean, this type of policing of our bodies is so interconnected to all the social justice...

NASHVILLE, Tenn (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Governor Bill Lee announced on Thursday, March 4, that a case of Coronavirus has been confirmed in Williamson County, the first confirmed case in Tennessee. According to Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey, the individual in question is a 44-year old resident of Williamson County who recently traveled out of state, though not internationally. The patient in question has been back in Tennessee for four to five days. Though the patient’s symptoms are considered mild, he is currently quarantined at home, along with his family. “We have been anticipating identification of COVID-19 cases in Tennessee,” Piercey said...

Now that the Democratic Party has all but consolidated behind decrepit Joe Biden to keep unelectable socialist Bernie Sanders off the top of its ticket, it's worth a snicker to consider President Obama, behind the scenes, suddenly realizing he's going to have to endorse idiot Joe Biden for president, a man he considers unfit for the office. Obama had withheld his endorsement for his faithful former vice president, which was pretty humiliating for Joe, a man Joe had touted as his "best friend" to the NAACP. Biden claimed he asked for no endorsement, which no one believed. Obama claimed he...

In an act of war, TurkeyÂ’s ErdoÄŸan is releasing prisoners on the condition they invade Greece Police are driving prisoners to the border & setting them free! ErdoÄŸan has also been caught arming migrants with tear gas & drones to deploy it https://rairfoundation.com/exposed-turkey https://twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1235497093365559296************** He's (Erdogan) packing thousands of migrants from all over #Turkey on buses & trains, sending them to the Greek borde He can flood EU with migrants because as long as they come by boat, there is no way of stopping them https://twitter.com/BasedPoland/status/1233755052776579072********** Turkish regime deploys 1,000 special forces to Greek border to stop migrants from going...

General Motors (GM) recently announced it was investing billions into a new eco-friendly “electric car” initiative to compete with the tech giant Tesla in an effort to go green, and tech media outlets are touting the change. Both Axios and The Verge ran stories March 4 on GM’s $20 billion bet over the next five years on its new green initiative. And while Axios questioned the stability of GM’s commitment, and The Verge tried to play gotcha by criticizing how the company’s past positions have aligned with the policies of President Donald Trump, the outlets appeared to like the shift...

The Washington State Senate passed a bill to lower the penalty for intentionally exposing a sexual partner to HIV, making the crime a misdemeanor instead of a felony, reports The New York Times. The state House of Representatives passed the bill 57–40 last month. It now goes to Governor Jay Inslee, who is expected to sign it into law. Currently, a person charged with the felony of intentional HIV exposure or transmission could face life in prison and a $50,000 fine. The new bill would reduce the charge to a misdemeanor carrying a penalty of up to a possible 90...

The Great Canon of St Andrew, Bishop of Crete, is the longest canon in all of our services, and is associated with Great Lent, since the only times it is appointed to be read in church are the first four nights of Great Lent (Clean Monday through Clean Thursday, at Great Compline, when it is serialized) and at Matins for Thursday of the fifth week of Great Lent, when it is read in its entirety (in this latter service, the entire life of St Mary of Egypt is also read). There is no other sacred hymn which compares with this...

A health official from Santa Clara County, Calif., has gone viral online after footage surfaced of her licking her finger shortly after advising the public not to touch their faces to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). In footage of the moment at a recent press conference, Sara Cody, who serves as the public health officer and director for Santa Clara County, could be seen telling the public at one point, “Start working on not touching your face, because one main way viruses spread is when you touch your own mouth, nose, or eyes.” Then, at a later point...

When the Democratic primary began in earnest, the party chairman, Tom Perez, called the field “an embarrassment of riches.” The party appeared particularly proud of its diverse array of candidates, spanning from a former businessman-turned-congressman, to the first LGBT presidential candidate, to minority candidates (both black and Hispanic and 1/1,024 Native American), to governors, to former members of the military, to energy healers, Andrew Yang, and even ordinary white guys. As the primary process unfolded, Democratic voters whittled down their choices, and along the way, the field became notably older and more monochromatic. Today, Democrats’ last “diverse” candidate, Elizabeth Warren,...

Mortgage rates in the United States have fallen to the lowest level ever on the heels of concerns stemming from the coronavirus outbreak. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 3.29% during the week ending March 5, a major decrease of 16 basis points from the previous week, Freddie Mac FMCC, -2.40% reported Thursday. Previously, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit an all-time low back in November 2012 in the wake of the recession, when the average rate fell to 3.31%.

The surprisingly true story of Ayds, a diet suppressant candy that was incredibly successful until its name became forever associated with something else.Today in Tedium: A few years ago, the wireless industry thought it could win a potentially lucrative game—that of the mobile wallet, which was just starting to get off the ground thanks to the smartphone. They had all the elements in place to pull it off, including support of most of the major wireless providers. But there was a problem—the name. Back in 2010, naming a technology product ISIS Wallet might have seemed like a novel idea, but...

Delegate tallies after Tuesday showed Biden leading Sanders 566-501. A candidate needs 1,991 delegates to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at the July convention. In Tuesday’s biggest upset, Biden took Texas, the largest prize after California. Sanders, meanwhile, was declared the winner in Colorado, Utah and his home state of Vermont. He also was the projected winner in California, where votes and the breakdown on the Golden State’s 415 delegates were still being tallied. By Wednesday afternoon, Sanders was ahead by 8.7 points with 87 percent of precincts reporting. Biden, with overwhelming support from black, moderate and...

A TikTok video designed to raise awareness of sexual abuse in Finland has gone viral and received a lot of attention – but not necessarily for the reasons that they may have anticipated. A video from the account @sannanopsa, representing the Finnish city of Oulu, was created to raise awareness of child sexual abuse and empowering people to be aware of rape. The video, in which five representatives do a brief dance to the lyrics, “Stop, don't touch me there. This is my no-no square,” has been ridiculed online for being a weak attempt to deal with a serious issue....

Editor's Note: This post was co-authored by Zilvenas Silenas. In December 2019, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, stepped up to a podium in a room at European Commission headquarters in Brussels to unveil a €1 trillion initiative designed to create the world's first “carbon-neutral continent” by 2050—a European Green Deal. "The Green Deal is Europe's 'man on the moon' moment," said von der Leyen, a long-time member of Angela Merkel’s cabinet. "Our goal is to reconcile the economy with our planet.”Despite the cosmic language and the inclusion of one hundred billion euros to member states to...