Free Republic

The State of Israel on March 2, 2020 had its third parliamentary election for the Knesset in under a year. Like the two previous occasions, it failed to end with a party or party group gaining an overall majority and thus able to form a government, either on its own or in a coalition. The existing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at first claimed victory, but his coalition won only a plurality, 58 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, four short of an overall majority. Consultations have now begun to determine how a new government can be formed and who...

Some clear thinking is required to counter incessant, statist propaganda against the use of N-95 filtering facepiece respirators, to protect against the spread of the novel coronavirus. The message has been seconded at every turn by the Center for Disease Control, a cumbersome bureaucracy, which tightly controls both testing capacity and criteria. Such centralization is everywhere and always detrimental to the screening and segregating of the infected, and, ultimately, to disease containment.  The State and the agents of America’s highly centralized healthcare system categorically don’t want the citizen to purchase “face masks.” The surgeon general is already “warning Americans” to stop exercising...

Bernie Sanders presidential campaign co-chair Nina Turner and Democratic operative Hilary Rosen, a supporter of former Vice President Biden, argue over the interpretation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail" (see tweets below transcript) and his meaning of "white moderate." On Chris Cuomo's CNN show, Thursday night the Sanders surrogate and Democratic operative clashed over race and politics. Rosen told Turner, a black woman, that Martin Luther King Jr. never said to be concerned about white moderates, he said to be worried about the "silence of white moderates. "Don't tell me about Martin Luther King Jr. Are you...

Actress Winona Ryder trashed President Donald Trump while promoting her new HBO limited series The Plot Against America, saying that the past few years have been “a mind boggling like nightmare.” Ryder told Variety at the show’s red carpet premiere in New York on Wednesday that she signed on to the project because the story is “so incredibly timely.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s verbal threats against two Supreme Court justices aren’t surprising, in light of three years of “resistance” hostility to Trump judicial picks. What is remarkable is that Democratic leaders continue to take such a losing approach to an issue that will be central to the 2020 election. Mr. Schumer did hit a new low Wednesday, when he stood outside the Supreme Court and rallied a mob of abortion-rights activists by vowing that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch would “pay the price” for releasing “the whirlwind.” “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward...

My first vanity, but I'm sure many of you are thinking the same. Looks like POTUS will be facing Biden in the Fall. At some point (maybe soon), POTUS should challenge Biden to get a neurological test at best hospital/clinic (Mayo?). He could suggest they both get the test and release them simultaneously to the public. I suspect Biden will not for it, because I honestly think he has cognitive issues. At the same time, Trump could take the test (which I believe will show no issues) and basically goad Biden....as I said a vanity. Indulge me on this Friday...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The United States Postal Service (USPS) refused to cover the cost of repairs after a working mail carrier jumped on the back of an east side resident’s truck while fleeing from a neighbor’s unleashed dogs. The incident occurred Sept. 9, 2019 in the 700 block of Melvenia Street, according to Marcus French, the owner of the Dodge Ram 1500. French provided copies of repair estimates for dents and paint damage he alleged were caused by the mail carrier, totaling approximately $4,500. Footage from home security cameras obtained by News 8 shows the frenzied chase from at least...

Cases by location in US: King County WA 51 Diamond Princess (docked Japan) US Cases 45 Santa Clara CA 20 Snohomish County CA 18 Westchester County NY 18 Los Angeles CA 11 Cook County IL 5 Unassigned location, WA US 5 NYC, NY 4 Montgomery County, MD 3 Orange County, CA 3 San Diego County, CA 3 Bergen County NJ 2 Fulton County GA 2 Grafton County NH 2 Harris County TX 2 Hillsborough FL 2 Placer County CA 2 Providence RI 2 Sacramento County CA 2 San Benito County CA 2 San Francisco County CA 2 San Mateo County...

As Joe Biden climbed out of his political grave, CNN anchors were so excited they wriggled like puppies about to wet the carpet and called him "The Comeback Kid." Biden did make a spectacular comeback on Super Tuesday. But what about Bernie Sanders? With 60 percent of Democratic Party delegates still up for grabs, with the Democratic Media Complex in lockstep with Biden, what should Bernie do? If Sanders truly wants to fight for the Democratic nomination and not roll over for the establishment as he did in 2016, then he, too, should call Biden the Comeback Kid. But Bernie...

Thursday on MSNBC's "The Eleventh Hour" with Brian Williams, New York Times Editorial Board Member Mara Gay and the host accepted without question a tweet that (jokingly) said that Michael Bloomberg could have given every American one million dollars with the five hundred million dollars he spent on his short-lived presidential campaign. In reality, $500 million divided by 327 million Americans is about $1.53 per person. "When I read it tonight on social media, it kind of all became clear," Williams said. The tweet read: "Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. Population, 327 million. He could have given...

... You might have noticed California is enduring housing and homeless crises. The market solution to housing shortages is simple: Government should reduce regulations, slow-growth restrictions, rent controls and fees that limit supply and drive up prices. Let builders build. Homelessness is a more complicated problem because homeless people often have addiction and mental-health issues, but more housing would help. I can't say exactly how it will work, just as I can't say exactly how a molly bolt gets from the foundry in India to Home Depot in Sacramento. But I can tell you what won't work—namely the policies our...

CHICAGO (CBS) — Statewide legal marijuana sales in Illinois totaled nearly $35 million in the month of February, according to the state. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation announced preliminary numbers showed statewide sales totaled $34,805,072.01 for February. Dispensaries sold 831,600 items in total, with $25,615,371 worth being purchased by Illinois residents, and $9,189,701.01 being purchased by out-of-state residents. The figures do not include taxes collected. The state charges a 7% tax on the sales of cannabis by cultivators and craft growers to dispensaries. The governor’s office has estimated cannabis tax revenues will grow to $127 million in...

The Labor Department released its February jobs report at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday. Here were the main results from the report, compared to consensus expectations compiled by Bloomberg: Change in non-farm payrolls: +273,000 vs. +175,000 expected and 273,000 in January Unemployment rate: 3.5% vs. 3.6% expected and 3.6% in January Avg. hourly earnings, month on month: +0.3% vs. +0.3% expected and +0.2% in January Avg. hourly earnings, year on year: 3.0% vs. +3.0% expected and 3.1% in January

Of the total visas available, 10,000 will be reserved for people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador The Trump administration said it is making an additional 35,000 seasonal guest-worker visas available this year ahead of the busy summer season, the largest increase since President Trump took office. The additional visas announced Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security will bring the total available this year to 101,000, though the additional visas will primarily be made available to returning workers. The seasonal-worker visa program, known as H-2B, enables U.S. employers to hire as many as 66,000 foreign workers a year, with...

TGIFF! Its Fiddle Friday and we have 'The Dancin' Fiddle Man' Mac Magaha with Shufflin' Back (1978). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Ban applies to requests for FISA surveillance authority The FISA court has temporarily banned FBI agents under disciplinary review in the wiretapping of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page from requesting surveillance authority from the court. The ban was imposed in an opinion issued Wednesday by the secretive court’s chief judge, James E. Boasberg. “FBI personnel under disciplinary review in relation to their work on FISA applications accordingly should not participate in drafting, verifying, reviewing, or submitting such application to the Court while the review is pending,” Boasberg wrote. The judge also said in his 19-page opinion that the same...

God must surely be weeping for the children who have been destroyed in the most gruesome manner, with the full consent of their own mothers. How such depravity is now rationalized I will never understand but I can’t understand even more are the celebrities that are trying their best to support the abortions! Furthermore, the States that are led by the Dems push for horrifying pro-abortion bills! God-loving American patriots push back on the idea of these abortion bills but are being silenced by the liberals. The city council of Spokane, Washington, passed a noise ordinance that allows police officers...

During an interview aired on Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) stated that candidates are “responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things” and that 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) supporters are particularly guilty of engaging in this kind of behavior. Warren said, “We are responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things for other — to other candidates.”

Last month, the Trump administration rolled out its Fiscal Year 2021 federal budget request—and progressive critics howled. “Trump’s budget is a $292 billion attack on poor Americans,” Mother Jones alleged. Vox accused Trump of cutting Medicare and Medicaid and lying about it. Kentucky Democratic representative John Yarmuth claimed that Trump was proposing “deep cuts to critical programs that help American families” and “destructive changes to Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security.” The anger was mostly hot air because, as National Review’s Robert VerBruggen notes, the budget is “an irrelevant document that mainly serves to give political journalists stuff to complain about.” It’s...

“…I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts…”—Hebrews 8:10 KJV No moving parts. This is a theme that has run through me for a long time. I’ve always intuitively known that—though physical movement is crucial for human existence—internal movement wears us down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So our aim should be to “move or die,” like the shark. But move as little as possible on the inside. What do I mean by that? A Magical Childhood Discovery As a child, I discovered—as many, perhaps most children do—the magical power of internal observation. I clearly...