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Going viral is good for social media accounts. Just ask Bill Belichick’s dog, Nike, who took the 2020 NFL Draft by storm and now has thousands of followers on Instagram. During the draft, right after the New England Patriots made their first selection — a shocker all by itself — the broadcast went to Belichick’s home where he was doing the draft from what appeared to be his kitchen table. Instead of Belichick sitting there, it was Nike in the chair staring at the computers — setting the NFL world into a frenzy on social media.

Dr. Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a military historian and a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He has written two articles relevant to today's society. Last October he published, "Members of Previous Generations Now Seem Like Giants," and he recently wrote, "Is America a Roaring Giant or Crying Baby?" In the first article, Hanson starts with some observations and questions regarding the greatness of previous generations compared with today's Americans. He asks: "Does anyone believe that contemporary Americans could build another transcontinental railroad in six years? ......

This week, new evidence emerged in the sexual assault allegation by former Joe Biden staffer Tara Reade against the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. According to Business Insider, four people have stated that Reade told them contemporaneously about her accusation that Biden forcibly penetrated her with his fingers in 1993. Meanwhile, the Media Research Center uncovered a clip, purportedly of Reade's mother, calling into "Larry King Live" back in 1993 to obliquely refer to the allegation. While such evidence does not speak to the actual event at issue, it does demonstrate that Reade has been talking about the alleged incident...

BEIJING - A senior Chinese government official challenged President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., accusing him of wasting weeks after the threat posed by the virus first became apparent. In a wide-ranging interview with NBC News conducted in Mandarin on Tuesday, the official, Executive Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng, also hit back at the politicization of the virus. Le, a rising star within the country's political establishment, rejected claims that China had covered up the initial outbreak or that it should be held financially liable for COVID-19. Instead, he termed the virus a "natural disaster"...

Sean Hannity has been the king of Fox News for two and a half years, the highest-rated host on the highest-rated cable news channel. His dominance has withstood network management changes and the vicissitudes of a news cycle driven by President Trump, the anchor’s close political ally. In April, however, Mr. Hannity slipped back. For the first time since moving to the 9 p.m. time slot in October 2017, “Hannity” ranked second in Fox News’s prime-time lineup. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” ranked ahead, with an average nightly audience of 4.56 million viewers, outpacing the 4.39 million who tuned in for Mr....

WASHINGTON - The White House has ordered intelligence agencies to comb through communications intercepts, human source reporting, satellite imagery and other data to establish whether China and the World Health Organization initially hid what they knew about the emerging coronavirus pandemic, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter told NBC News. A specific "tasking" seeking information about the outbreak's early days was sent last week to the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which includes the National Center for Medical Intelligence, an official directly familiar with the matter said. The CIA has received similar instructions, according...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly recast his board of directors to cast aside dissenters and consolidate decision-making power at the social media giant. The campaign culminated in the recent departures of two directors from the board and the appointment of a longtime friend of Zuckerberg, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Kenneth Chenault, who was appointed Facebook's first black board member in 2018, left the board in March, reportedly over disagreements with Zuckerberg over the company's governance and political policies. Two weeks later, Facebook announced that Jeffrey Zients, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama who also joined...

You could never make this stuff up, folks. Never in a billion gazillion years. – During what had to have been the most ironic “Town Hall for Women” event in world history yesterday, given the two participants’ history of serially abusing women, the Pantsuit Princess spent about a minute and a half bestowing her formal endorsement upon Quid Pro China Joe Biden. Hilariously, the elderly, clearly impaired and rapidly declining presumptive nominee of the Democrat Party actually appeared to nod off on camera for about 15 seconds while the Fainting Felon was droning on: JT Lewis ✔ @thejtlewis Joe Biden...

Slooh will broadcast live telescope views of the near-Earth asteroid, called 1998 OR2, tonight (April 28) beginning at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT). You can watch it live here on Space.com, courtesy of Slooh, or directly from Slooh.com and its YouTube page. This webcast will be free for anyone to watch, but paid members of Slooh can also tune in at Slooh.com and join a so-called "star party" on Zoom, where viewers will be able to join the discussion. Slooh astronomers will also be answering members' questions during this "star party." The one-hour public event will commence just 11 hours...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden was cleared in federal court today of charges that some claimed were based upon credible allegations of sexual assault when the judge quickly realized that Joe Biden was not a Republican. “Well, this looks pretty serious… let’s see who is on—wait a minute. He’s a Democrat! I can find no fault with him,” declared a fourth circuit federal judge hearing preliminary claims. “It is well established in this court that Republicans are the ones who want to silence women and control their bodies. Haven’t you seen The Handmaid’s Tale?” the judge further added...

Our selection today is Way Down In Georgia by the Shelton Brothers (1937). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

“From a public health standpoint, any isolated, contained outbreak should not be taken into consideration when you’re formulating a broad-based plan,” John Wagner, Monroe County Public Health Department administrator, said of the county’s outbreak at Garden Place assisted living. “We do have to survive after this thing is done. Obviously life is more important than the economy, yes, except when we come out of this and we have all these people dying from no jobs, poverty, and homelessness.” For Wagner, Gov. Pritzker’s statewide stay-at-home order, which he extended last week through the end of May, means “going blanketly across the...

In a few days, many of our great states will begin to re-open local businesses again in an attempt to restart the economic engine of our wonderful nation. I felt a few words from a great patriot would help all of us prepare for the task ahead. Click on link for John Wayne's inspirational message:

BEIRUT — Violence escalated Tuesday in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli as protesters angered by the collapse of the country's currency and spreading economic upheaval burned down a series of banks and countered volleys of tear gas by pelting security forces with stones. These latest arson attacks came at the end of a large funeral for 26-year-old Fawwaz al-Samman, who died Monday from gunshot wounds, which his sister said on Facebook he had suffered during clashes with the army. The army released a statement Tuesday expressing regret for his death, without claiming responsibility, and announced it is opening an...

(WBTW) – South Carolina’s Social Distancing score has dropped to an “F,” according to Unacast. South Carolina reportedly has a “D” in reducing mobility, an “F” in there being less than 55 percent in non-essential visits, and an “F” in having less than a 40% decrease in encounters compared to the nationwide rate. Anderson, Cherokee, Greenwood, Pickens and Spartanburg counties all received “F” grades. Greenville, Laurens, Oconee and Union counties received “D” grades. Click here to see the grad for each county. Unacast uses geospatial human mobility insights to show the change in non-essential visits made and average mobility (based...

Khan, was previously diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour in 2018 and underwent extensive treatment in London. He recovered well enough to shoot what would turn out to be his last film “Angrezi Medium..." After a brief stint in television, Khan made his film debut with a cameo in 1988 with Mira Nair’s Oscar-nominated “Salaam Bombay.” He returned to Indian television for the next decade. He shot to global prominence playing the lead in Asif Kapadia’s BAFTA winner “The Warrior” in 2001. His major breakthrough in Indian cinema was in 2004 where he played Macbeth in Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Maqbool” and the...

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Dozens of hippies who got stuck at a festival in Panama due to coronavirus realized that the collectivist utopia they sought after is actually “hell” as they bicker over food and territory.

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BRUSSELS - The European Union should impose policies to underpin fossil fuel prices to protect the bloc’s climate ambitions during its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the French government said. EU ministers met on Tuesday to discuss the role of energy markets when the health crisis ends. Most EU countries believe the bloc’s recovery plan must uphold its Green Deal policy to decarbonise by 2050. In a document sent to ministers ahead of the virtual meeting and seen by Reuters, France called for the EU to use taxes or its carbon market to prevent “extremely low prices” seen during the...