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Marcus Aurelius. Photo: © DEA Picture Library/Art Resource, NY. The year was 166 C.E., and the Roman Empire was at the zenith of its power. The triumphant Roman legions, under the command of Emperor Lucius Verrus, returned to Rome victorious after having defeated their Parthian enemies on the eastern border of the Roman Empire. As they marched west toward Rome, they carried with them more than the spoils of plundered Parthian temples; they also carried an epidemic that would ravage the Roman Empire over the course of the next two decades, an event that would inexorably alter the landscape of...

Country music star Sturgill Simpson called the press briefings given by President Trump “speculation” after being diagnosed with COVID-19 after feeling ill for a month. Simpson, 41, first started showing symptoms on March 13 after spending two weeks on tour in Western Europe, according to a post he shared Saturday on Instagram. He went to his local hospital where he was not tested for COVID-19. “I spent an hour listening to a (highly condescending) Doctor refuse to test me because I ‘did not fit testing criteria’ and tell me why it was impossible that I had contracted the virus due...

OLYMPIA, WA - Gov. Jay Inslee announced Monday the appointment of Judge G. Helen Whitener to the Washington State Supreme Court. She replaces Justice Charles Wiggins, who retired from the bench last month. Originally from Trinidad, Judge Whitener was the first foreign-born judge on the Pierce Co. Superior Court and the first openly LGBTQ judge in Washington. Whitener has been a judicial officer since 2013. From 2013 to 2015, she served as a judge on the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals. Inslee then appointed her to the Pierce County Superior Court in 2015, where she has worked as a judge...

Bloomberg News shutdown an investigation into Chinese Communist Party elites, fired the reporter on the beat and then targeted that reporter’s wife to keep her mouth shut, according to a new NPR report. The Bloomberg reporters involved investigating the wealth of Chinese Communist Party elites had their efforts killed by their company six years ago, which was “fearful of repercussions by the Chinese government,” NPR reported Apr. 14. The outlet continued: “The company [Bloomberg News] successfully silenced the reporters involved. And it sought to keep the spouse of one of the reporters quiet, too.”

“US has more known cases of coronavirus than any other country” - CNNReading breathless headlines such as this, one would never know that the on a cases per million population basis, the United States  is on par with Germany, often held out as European country with a low incidence of cases, and well below the rates for Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, and Switzerland.  But wait, this must be because of the US’s low testing rate, notwithstanding that our testing rate per million is above that of Spain, France, the UK, and Switzerland.“The United States is reporting 20,000 coronavirus deaths, more than any...

Ninety-one people in South Korea believed to have been cured of COVID-19 have tested positive again, according to Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts are trying to figure how this could have happened, and a few theories seem to be sticking. Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, medical director of CityMD and a Fox News contributor, chalks many of those potential reinfections up to human error. It's possible, she explained on Monday's "Outnumbered," that the medical workers who administered the original tests did not take enough specimens in their swabs, potentially resulting in false negatives. David Kelvin, a professor of microbiology...

SNIP "Hi everybody. Let me start by saying the obvious – these aren’t normal times. As we all manage our way through a pandemic unlike anything we’ve seen in a century, Michelle and I hope that you and your families are safe and well. If you’ve lost somebody to this virus, or if someone in your life is sick, or if you’re one of the millions suffering economic hardship, please know that you’re in our prayers. Please know that you’re not alone. Because now’s the time for all of us to help where we can and to be there for...

In what order are the bank deposits being made?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) may be endorsing Joe Biden for the Democrat nomination, but the political movement that powered the Vermont septuagenarian’s campaign is unready to do the same. On Monday, shortly after Sanders threw his backing behind the former vice president, the senator’s one-time campaign spokeswoman, Briahna Joy Gray, announced that she was not following suit. Gray, who has made no effort to conceal disagreement with other high profile national Democrats, asserted she was unable to support Biden because of his unwillingness to adopt progressive stances on the economy and healthcare.

Several weeks ago, we detailed how American mainstream media outlets were intent on parroting communist propaganda talking points coming from disinformation ministers in Beijing. At first glance, it would be easy to write this disturbing surrender of journalistic integrity to advanced stages of Trump Derangement System. It would be reasonable to suspect that reporters, producers, anchors and editors held such an intense zeal to oppose, resist and damage President Trump that they'd even stoop so low as to hand their bylines over to propagandists supporting the totalitarian murderers at the top of the Red China food chain. However, something even...

While the whole world is growing increasingly aware of the fact that WHO may have intentionally delayed informing people about the coronavirus outbreak and that China did the same, WIRED now acknowledges the whole fiasco but calls the accusations against the WHO a “right-wing Stunt”. “A right-wing stunt to pin the blame for Covid-19 on the World Health Organization actually contains a useful notion. There is at least some reason to suspect that WHO knowingly and consequentially misled us,” tweeted WIRED, while attaching a link to an article penned by a WIRED “Ideas Contributor”.

Tell the Democrat Governors that “Mutiny On The Bounty” was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2020

CBS’s Paula Reid was on fire during Monday’s Presidential task force press conference about COVID-19. She started by demeaning Dr. Fauci by asking him a question that implied he’s either hostage to or a puppet of President Trump. That was just a warm-up. Later in the press conference, she started shrieking at President Trump that a video he had shown earlier in the press conference misrepresented his affirmative response to COVID-19 because it implied that he was on top of things in February. A visibly irritated Trump answered that, in fact, he had taken many steps during February to respond...

A new study from Chinese scientists on 130 recovered COVID-19 patients is raising questions about the extent to which people develop immunity to the virus. The paper — a pre-print that has not been peer-reviewed yet — found that patients produced differing levels of antibodies . Having identifiable coronavirus antibodies in your bloodstream means you've probably built up immunity. But roughly 6% of the patients studied didn't develop any detectable antibodies at all. "What this will mean to herd immunity will require more data from other parts of the world," Huang Jinghe, the leader of the research team behind the...

VIDEO Not only were liberals downplaying the threat of the outbreak in February but some of them were even spreading misinformation about it. Also note that both China and the World Health Organization slammed travel restrictions such as that put in place by President Trump in order to contain the outbreak.

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope Why Did Christ Not Stay Continually With His Disciples After the Resurrection? After Christ rose from the dead, He appeared to His disciples at certain places and times, but did not seem to stay with them continuously. On the first Easter Sunday, He appeared six times in rather rapid succession: first to Mary Magdalene, then to the women at the tomb, third as the women left the tomb, fourth to Peter, fifth to the two disciples going to Emmaus, and sixth to the ten Apostles in Jerusalem (when Thomas was...

China has been hit with a surge in new COVID-19 cases, recording its highest number for five weeks, after recently relaxing coronavirus lockdown measures.The soaring confirmed coronavirus cases are now sparking fears the communist country will be hit with a "second wave" of the deadly Chinese virus.

The FBI performed a record-breaking 3.7 million firearm-related background checks last month. According to an April news release from Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF), March 2020 estimates of firearm sales show an increase of over 85% from March 2019 – single handgun sales jumped by 91%, and single long-gun sales increased by over 73%. In an interview with Cheddar news earlier this month, David Chipman, a “senior policy advisor” for the anti-gun group Giffords, was asked about his “biggest concerns” regarding the “coronavirus gun sales spike.” (If the name rings a bell, Mr. Chipman, formerly a “senior advisor” with...

Care and feeding of Software Defined Radios by WA5VJB. We will cover the various kinds of antennas available to optimized your SDR radio for different types of spectrum monitoring. We will also explain why RF filters are necessary on most SDR's and when Low Noise Amplifiers help, and when Low Noise Amplifiers hurt reception. And they discuss which antennas work best for surveillance.

Prayers up for all the families suffering from the impact of this virus. And we're still praying that the spread starts fading with the warmer Spring weather and that an effective treatment and vaccine are developed before the next flu season starts. And we pray that our people are allowed to go back to work very soon and that our economy comes roaring back. Meanwhile, we may be hurt and slowed down somewhat, but we have faith in the long-run that "what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger." God willing, America will survive and we will survive and we...