Free Republic

A Florida State graduate in the Florida state senate has declared his alma mater the 2020 NCAA basketball champions in a resolution that passed the Florida senate by a 37-2 vote Friday. Joe Gruters, a republican from Sarasota, introduced the resolution, which included the following wording: "Be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida: That the Florida State University Seminoles basketball team, by virtue of tremendous skill on the court and the heart and spirit shown by the players and coaches this basketball season, is declared the 2020 National College Athletic Association basketball champions by default upon...

A distracted driver plunged his car into a river just 10 minutes after passing his driving test. The dramatic moment the young motorist drove his car into the water was caught on video. The incident took place on Laoping Bridge in the Chinese province of Guizhou. Mr Zhang was distracted reading messages on his mobile phone congratulating him for passing his driving test when he swerved into the canal. Footage shows the new driver turning left onto the bridge, which three people were walking along. He then veers off the side of the road with his vehicle dropping into the...

Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~ Patrick Henry Brady All info and photos from this website.             Brady attended O'Dea High School in Seattle, Washington, a strict, all boys school run by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, where he was active in sports. While in college at Seattle University, he initially hated the compulsory ROTC...

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The order for Ohio’s restaurants and bars to shut down at 9 p.m. Sunday has far-reaching tentacles affecting a multitude of businesses. Eateries big and small, locally owned and corporate-run, breweries, wineries and tertiary businesses will all feel the impact of the order issued Sunday by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Zack Bruell - who owns half a dozen restaurants all in Cleveland, including L'Albatros Brasserie in University Circle and Alley Cat Oyster Bar in the Flats East Bank - said just hours before the announcement of the mandatory shutdown he would have preferred his businesses to stay...

The Los Angeles Times reports that gun stores are one aspect of the economy seeing a surge in business as Californians react to coronavirus news. According to the LA Times, the line of customers at the Martin B. Retting Gun Shop in Culver City stretched out the front door and around the block on Saturday. Many of those in line waited five hours for their opportunity to buy a gun. A doctor who wanted to buy a gun at the store said, “I want to buy a handgun, I think they call it a Glock, but I’m not sure. I...

The internet infrastructure provider says there have been big traffic spikes, but nothing like the Superbowl.The “social distancing” measures governments and companies have been taking in their attempts to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus have increased the amount of traffic on networks around the world, but not to the extent where there’s a risk of systems being overwhelmed, according to Cloudflare, which provides infrastructure for many online properties globally. Outside of China (where Cloudflare operates but doesn’t have much visibility into internet traffic patterns), the biggest increase in traffic this week has been in Italy, Matthew Prince, Cloudflare...

FYI only....  Looks like the DJIA may tank again tomorrow. Let us hope it recovers before the opening bell.  Prayers are needed for our President, our Republic and the world to quickly recover. I am not so worried about the Coronvirus itself here in the USA, but the economic impact will easily be billions of lost revenue. https://www.cnbc.com/pre-markets/  

On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) stated that the coronavirus outbreak is a case for “a nationalization of crucial factories and industries that could produce the medical supplies to prepare this country for what we need.”

WASHINGTON — A clinical trial evaluating a vaccine designed to protect against the new coronavirus will begin Monday, according to a government official. The first participant in the trial will receive the experimental vaccine on Monday, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the trial has not been publicly announced yet. The National Institutes of Health is funding the trial, which is taking place at a Kaiser Permanente research facility in Washington state, the official said. Public health officials say it will take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine.

Attempts to rein in the government’s ability to spy on Americans fell flat after Rep. Adam B. Schiff intervened to protect the types of powers that the FBI used to go after the Trump campaign in 2016. Mr. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, ran roughshod over House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat, whose panel had control over the battle to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, said advocates on both sides of the aisle. The power struggle created an awkward moment in which Mr. Nadler canceled the markup of...

Debate Thread

New York City officials on Sunday said its public school system will close for over a month in an effort to halt the spread of the coronavirus, a decision affecting over 1.1 million children. The decision came amid a growing number of school closures in communities and entire states across the U.S. as well as mounting pressure from New York residents, City Council members and others. The mayor called it a "very troubling moment, a moment when I'm just distraught at having to take this action, but I became convinced over the course of today that there is no other...

In the face of facts, even the nay-sayers are beginning to see what the true believers have known all along – George Pell is innocent, and this is why, writes Andrew Bolt Their hopes soared last Thursday, after Kerri Judd QC tried to tell the High Court why Pell really did rape two boys right after Mass. Judd tried her best, but the headlines for Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions after the court’s seven judges had finished with her were terrible. ..... No one should accuse Judd of incompetence. I suspect she’s a conscientious lawyer who had to wrestle with...

Measure still requires Knesset subcommittee approval before going forward; ministers say they’ve worked to limit the harm to privacy, but critics warn of civil liberty violations

okay

As August 1918 wound to a close in Boston and summer’s dog days gave way to fall, the city was awash in optimism...So when, in late August, a handful of sailors stationed at Commonwealth Pier in what is now the South Boston Seaport fell terribly ill, no one in the city paid much mind..The new flu arrived quickly at Camp Devens in Ayer...a bustling barracks of some 45,000 soldiers...with as many as 1,543 soldiers reporting ill with influenza in a single day... It wasn’t until Sept. 15, roughly three weeks after the first soldiers reported ill, that the influenza epidemic...

Things That Won't Cure COVID-19 If Put In The Body

The number of Chinese people in Italy has grown rapidly in the last decade. Official statistics indicate there are at least 320,794 Chinese citizens in Italy. With an estimated 300,000 Chinese nationals, Italy hosts the largest diaspora community in the European Union. Via Aljazeera — Today, thousands work in small companies across Padua and other areas. The coronavirus was detected near Padua back on February 21. Around 50,000 Chinese are employed in Prato alone, Italy’s textile capital near Florence. The Italian government suspended flights to and from China on January 31 after two Chinese tourists tested positive. The coronavirus numbers...

A woman filmed driving without a seat belt says it wasn’t her fault because the belts are ‘racist to fat people’. The anonymous woman from New Zealand said she finds it difficult to strap herself in because she is overweight. If they’re going to give me a fine for not fitting my seatbelt, that’s just being racist, to the fat people.’ ‘They’re just being racist, like what do they think the whole world is skinny or something? What about the big people?’ One of the passengers points out seat belt sizing is not racist as ‘fat people’ are not a...

Earlier this week Iranian backed militia killed two US soldiers and a female UK soldier at Taji military base in Iraq. Last night the US responded killing at least 18 militia members in Iraq including Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander General Siamand Mashhadani.