Free Republic

Seattle area public-health officials are “at the ready” to start ordering involuntary isolation and quarantines and are considering cancellation of major public events, with information coming soon, a top official said Monday. Patty Hayes, director of Public Health — Seattle & King County, outlined potential next steps in the area’s effort to slow the spread of the virus at a Seattle City Council meeting and said officials are talking about what to do. Hayes shared a Washington State Department of Health chart that listed five levels of actions that officials could take. Gov. Jay Inslee hinted at the ongoing discussions...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Up to 64,000 people could be infected with coronavirus in Washington state within two months if actions aren't taken now to stop its spread, Gov. Inslee said Tuesday. Although the number of confirmed cases is now 162, Inslee said experts believe the actual number could be 1,000 or more at the present time. "What the experts are telling us is ... the number of people who are infected will double in anywhere from 5 to 8 days ... unless we take some real action," the governor said at a morning news conference. "And if you do the...

First, it was former Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris who flipped in her opposition to Joe Biden, despite her hinting at his racist past for opposing forced busing. Now, it's former candidate Senator Cory Booker who has seen the light and is endorsing Joe Biden for president, despite his past friendship with segregationists. Is it just a coincidence that both former candidates are now being mentioned prominently as potential vice presidential picks of Biden's? Perhaps, yes, although Biden's camp has apparently passed the word to Harris that she's in the running for attorney general in a Biden administration. Harris's...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is deploying the National Guard to enforce a mile-radius coronavirus “containment area” in a Westchester County community dubbed perhaps the “largest cluster” of cases in America. “New Rochelle, at this point, is probably the largest cluster of these cases in the United States,” Cuomo said in a Tuesday afternoon press conference. “And it’s a significant issue for us.”

With six states headed to the ballot box today,1 it’s once again time for FiveThirtyEight to freeze its forecast to see where things stand. Today’s contests are divided between those that former Vice President Joe Biden will almost certainly win (99 percent chance) and those where Sen. Bernie Sanders has a clearer chance. As the table below shows, Biden is a strong favorite to win four of the seven contests, including three of the four biggest delegate hauls: Michigan, Missouri and Mississippi, as well as North Dakota. But Biden is also a more modest favorite over Sanders in the other...

-SNIPHR 1, the For the People Act recently passed through the House of Representatives, is an attempt to address some of these structural issues. The bill’s original sponsor is Rep. John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat ), whom I met several times before and during my campaign, and whose enthusiasm for campaign finance reform is contagious. Unfortunately, the bill is on the proverbial “express train to nowhere.”SNIP.HR 1 also includes some ill-advised policies, however, and omits other needed reforms. The bill’s biggest problem is a new campaign finance system that, rather than requiring absolute transparency for all donations, would funnel large...

South Korea had 7,513 Covid-19 cases as of Monday, with daily infections falling for a fourth consecutive day Officials attribute the decrease to mass testing, improved public communication and the use of advanced technology ===================================================================== South Korea has seen a steady decrease in new coronavirus cases for four consecutive days, despite being one of the worst-affected countries outside China , although global attention has shifted towards outbreaks in Italy and Iran . As of end-Monday, it had 7,513 cases and 54 deaths. The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said there was an increase of 131 cases from...

DUBAI/MOSCOW - Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would boost its oil supplies to a record high in April, raising the stakes in a standoff with Russia and effectively rebuffing Moscow’s suggestion for new talks. The clash of oil titans Saudi Arabia and Russia sparked a 25% slump in crude prices on Monday, triggering panic selling on Wall Street and other equity markets that have already been badly hit by the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Oil prices LCOc1 recovered some ground on Tuesday, but were still 40% down on the start of the year. U.S. President Donald Trump spoke...

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a ruling that allows House Democrats to view secret grand jury information from Robert Mueller’s Russia probe that had been redacted from his report. The court’s 2-1 decision agreed with a lower court that the House Judiciary Committee can obtain the information for impeachment investigations of President Trump under an exception for “judicial proceedings,” per the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. ~snip~ The DOJ, opposing the House Democrats, argued that because Trump had already been impeached and acquitted by the time the court was to rule, there was no longer a...

WASHINGTON—A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Congress can have access to grand-jury materials from Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, sided with the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee, which sought access to material that was redacted from the 448-page special counsel report. as well as some of the exhibits and transcripts referenced in the report. ... TO READ THE FULL STORY

Whether you’re just a little hungry or starving, McDonald’s will soon offer a Big Mac to match. The fast-food chain will release two new versions of the iconic burger Wednesday: the Little Mac and the Double Big Mac. The Little Mac has just one beef patty, while the Double Big Mac has four. They’ll both still be topped with cheese, lettuce, pickles, onions and Special Sauce. The Double Big Mac comes in at 720 calories; the Little Mac is 320 calories — the same as a medium fry. Though the burgers’ prices will vary regionally, McDonald’s is recommending a price...

77-year-old Joe Biden got confused again while speaking to a crowd in Michigan on Monday. “Together, I think we can win back the House,” Biden said before quickly correcting himself — “We’re gonna keep the House, increase it, and flip the Senate.” Nice catch, Joe. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1237108571919265792

The big problem is that HR 1 appears to omit any reform that would adversely effect the Democrat Party.

Biden is emblematic of the Democrat party’s crack-up. They are self-destructing. Former Vice President Joe Biden got into a heated and profanity-laced argument with an autoworker Tuesday while touring a factory in Detroit, after the individual accused the Democratic presidential candidate of trying to take away his Second Amendment rights. “You’re full of sh– … I support the Second Amendment,” Biden shot back, stressing he’s not going to take guns away. Natasha Korecki ✔@natashakorecki The worker then told Biden, “You’re working for me, man,” and told Biden that he saw an online video supporting his claim that Biden is hostile...

In the past, confidence was not my strong suit. Somewhere along the line I lost my mojo. But everyone wants their mojo, so we look for ways to at least feel that we’ve retrieved it. That’s what I did. In my late twenties I read a book you may have heard of called The Art of the Deal, written by a guy you may have heard of 😉 Note: This is not about politics, I’m simply recounting a story that can help anyone—whatever your beliefs. I have never before or since felt such a surge of confidence from reading a...

Boris Johnson narrowly avoided his first Commons defeat over Huawei this afternoon, as senior Conservatives said they had put the Government "on warning". Despite dodging defeat by 306 votes to 282, rebel MPs made it clear that they would not back down over the Chinese company's role in the UK's 5G network. Chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood said: "I think the Government should be on warning... that this House believes that we need to wean ourselves off Huawei."

ALBANY, N.Y. – What do you do when fear over the new coronavirus leads to a shortage of hand sanitizer? If you're the state of New York, you make it yourself. Or you have prisoners do it. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday the state had begun producing its own line of hand sanitizer, known as NYS Clean. The state will distribute the products to schools, local governments, prisons and other public entities free of charge. The low price of making the sanitizer in house – $6.10 a gallon – will allow the state and local governments to save big, particularly...

The bad news: His favorable rating among Republicans today is a point lower than it was among Democrats on the eve of the 2012 election. Think of that. Righties are entirely correct when they point how fickle the left has been in its esteem for Romney but even the left never disliked him as much as his own party currently does because of his impeachment vote. And the overall shift in opinion of him among Republicans since 2012 is about twice as large as it is among Democrats. The good news: If he can’t get reelected in Utah, he could...

Covid-19 death toll jumps 36% in Italy The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has jumped by 168 to 631, an increase of 36%, the Civil Protection Agency said on Tuesday, the largest rise in absolute numbers since the contagion came to light on 21 February, Reuters reports. The total number of cases in Italy, the European country hardest hit by the virus in Europe, rose to 10,149 from a previous 9,172, an increase of 10.7%. The head of the agency said that, of those originally infected, 1,004 had fully recovered compared to 724 the day before....

WUHAN, March 10 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Tuesday inspected the COVID-19 outbreak epicenter in central China, pledging a continuous fight toward victory as prevention and control efforts have "turned the tide." The inspection to Wuhan, Hubei Province, took the president to a hospital treating severely ill COVID-19 patients and a residential community. He visited patients, medics, community residents and workers, police officers, military personnel, officials and volunteers who have been fighting the novel coronavirus. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, called for firm, solid...