Free Republic

With Bernie dropping out of the race and Joe Biden as the Dem's "presumptive nominee," inquiring minds are turning to the next question: "Whom will the old man select as his VP?" Biden has promised he will choose a female running mate, not that he even remembers saying that, but the Dem establishment will insist on it. Questions arise as to who the lucky woman will be. What characteristics will qualify her? 1. Does she have to be able to "run" in the traditional sense, as in being physically capable of running, like away from a wild animal? 2. Does...

During a virtual town hall event on unemployment and issues facing working families, Joe Biden claimed that people refer to him as a “foreign policy expert.” The comment came after the former vice president gave a long-winded response to a woman who had just lost her job and asked how laid off union workers can keep the healthcare coverage they had. “As you and I have talked about this, senator, I’m always talked about as being a foreign policy expert, healthcare is more complicated than foreign policy,” he told Nevada state Sen. Yvanna Cancela, who moderated the event. “Healthcare is...

Steve Martin performs his funky musical parody "King Tut," which satirizes the popularity of the King Tut exhibit. Aired 05/22/78. Video Here.

Fox News reports a California sheriff is warning that he could arrest people for not wearing face masks. But Riverside County Sheriff Chad Biano assured residents it was "not a declaration of martial law." Nevada Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak threatened to break up large family dinners on Easter.

If THIS doesn’t get one’s attention, absolutely nothing will… (The Book of Lamentations is a collection of five poems that serve as an anguished response to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., after a long siege by the invading Babylonian army) Are we there yet ?

The $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act contains a vast array of spending provisions, including an additional $100 billion for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund. This new funding is designed to provide an influx of money to hospitals and other health care entities responding to the coronavirus pandemic. This $100 billion averages out to about $108,000 per hospital bed in the United States... The $100 billion fund was established to help hospitals ramp up quickly, in response to new demands, giving the Secretary of Health and Human Services broad discretion over how the...

According to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday, a majority of registered voters believe former President Obama would do a better job at handling the coronavirus pandemic than President Trump. According to the poll “52 percent of the survey’s 1,990 respondents said they believed that Obama would be a better leader than Trump during the ongoing pandemic, compared to the 38 percent who said they thought Trump is the better leader.” Considering the lengths that the mainstream media has gone to criticize Trump’s response to the coronavirus, even blaming him for the death of a man who drank...

Britain could suffer more than 60,000 coronavirus death by July, warns the Daily Mail. But there’s a massive tell in the first sentence of the report: “…leading scientists say.” And there’s an even bigger warning in the second paragraph: “Modelling by researchers at the University of Washington predicted 151,680 people would succumb to the virus across the continent.” Well maybe they will, maybe they won’t. No offence to the University of Washington but when I read the phrase “modelling by researchers” I know we are operating in the realms of purest fantasy. That’s because I’m a climate sceptic and I’ve...

Attention turned to missing absentee ballots Wednesday as state officials reported three tubs of them were discovered in a mail processing center and the Milwaukee Election Commission called for an investigation into a separate set of undelivered ballots. And Fox Point officials said 100 or more ballots a day were returned to the village as undelivered in the week leading up to the election. The discoveries emerged as would-be voters across the state expressed a host of frustrations about trying to obtain absentee ballots so they could avoid going to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic. Many have said ballots...

With concerns mounting over how the country can conduct elections during a pandemic and Democrats pressing for alternatives to in-person voting, President Donald Trump has begun pushing a false argument that has circulated among conservatives for years - that voting by mail is a recipe for fraud. “Mail ballots, they cheat,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. “Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters. They go collect them. They are fraudulent in many cases. They have to vote. They should have voter ID, by the way.” Studies have shown that all forms of...

As a Congressman and co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, Mark Meadows unified conservatives while rankling moderate Republicans. As the new White House Chief of Staff, he’s unifying allies of President Trump and eliminating those who aren’t fully on board with the White House agenda. Few are noticing the multitude of moves being made because nearly all media attention is being paid to the coronavirus crisis. That’s just fine for Meadows who prefers the moves to be seamless and under the radar. The only major move reported so far was removing Stephanie Grisham as Press Secretary, replacing her with the...

The mayor of Louisville, Kentucky says churches will not be allowed to hold drive-in services on Easter Sunday. Mayor Greg Fischer, a Democrat, said he made his decision with a “heavy heart.” “Our job is to deny the virus,” the mayor told television station WDRB. “If we don’t do that, more lives will be lost. I know it’s tough…I just can’t allow (drive-thru church services) to happen.” The Courier-Journal reports that the mayor wants congregants who “belong to a church that is defying Fischer’s request to contact their minister or the city’s 311 line.” The mayor actually wants Christians to...

The woman who accused her estranged, NASA astronaut wife of hacking her bank account from space has been charged with making false statements to federal authorities, officials said this week. Summer Worden, 44, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Houston in what was the latest twist in her bizarre saga with decorated NASA astronaut Anne McClain, according to the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas. Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer, and her astronaut wife have been locked since 2018 in a divorce that has involved a nasty custody battle. Last year, Worden filed...

My accountant called to tell me he was not going to file our taxes in April, as was planned. He is going to wait until the July deadline. Even if you are getting a refund you may want to do the same. If you file now, the calculation for your Corona Virus money will be based on the income on your 2020 tax filing (income for 2019). If you wait, it will be based on your 2019 filing (income for 2018). If your income went up, and over a specific threshold ( I believe it to be: $75K for singles,...

Up to 150 members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family have contracted the coronavirus, a person close to the family told the New York Times. Riyadh Governor Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulziz al Saud, a nephew of King Salman, was confirmed to have tested positive by two doctors, according to the Times. Many of the thousands of princes in the family are believed to have brought back the virus after traveling to Europe, the newspaper reported, citing doctors and people close to the family. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and many of his ministers are in isolation on the coast...

At long last, Joe Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Sen. Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign Wednesday, ending what has turned out to be one of the strangest and most unpredictable presidential primary contests in modern history—one that essentially ground to a halt in mid-March because of the coronavirus.Still, make no mistake: Sanders might have lost the battle for the Democratic nomination to Biden, but he won the war for the future of the Democratic Party. Since his insurgent challenge to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and especially over the past year of campaigning, Sanders and his allies on...

Jobless claims continue to surge as more than 6.6 million Americans filed new unemployment benefits last week, according to new data released from the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday.That brings the three-week total of new unemployment claims to 16.8 million as the economic fallout over the Wuhan coronavirus continues to take its toll on the nation’s economy. About 6.6 million Americans had filed new claims the week before and 3.3 million new claims were filed in the week ending on March 28. The previous record for number of new filings in a single week was in 1982 when 695,000...

For three years, critics of President Donald Trump have claimed that he arrogantly refuses to listen to his experts and that his exaggerated sense of self prevents him from accepting his limitations. Applying that narrative to Trump's initial failure to appreciate the gravity of the coronavirus, NBC host Chuck Todd recently asked former Vice President Joe Biden, "Do you think there is blood on the president's hands, considering the slow response? Or is that too harsh of a criticism?" Even Biden called the criticism a "little too harsh." "A little too harsh?" Trump, neither a doctor nor a scientist, merely...

Hardly an hour goes by without someone sending me the latest “must see” video or article. This is the one, I am told, that explains it all. This is the one that connects the dots. This is the one that reveals the truth. With all respect to those sending me these links, I’m going to pass for now. It’s not that none of them could be true. Or that there is not some truth in many of them. It’s simply that: 1) there are far too many theories to investigate in any depth; 2) in many cases, from our vantage...

The United States may be headed for an unprecedented housing crisis -- the result of potentially millions of evictions and foreclosures.The Wall Street Journal found that only 69 percent of apartment dwellers paid rent in the first part of April. That compares to more than 80 percent who paid rent during that time the previous month. Researchers at the City University of New York found that 44 percent of New Yorkers will have difficulty meeting their rent in April. Congress and most states have passed temporary bans on evictions and foreclosures for many, but unless something is done, the...