Free Republic

When California public health officials announced guidelines for reopening theme parks that essentially guarantee that parks in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties won’t be able to open until perhaps mid-2021, heads of the respective theme parks rightfully blasted Gavin Newsom, citing their successes in reopening in other states and countries and alleging that his guidelines have no scientific basis. The next day, the Executive Director of the California Attractions and Parks Association, of which Disney is a member, said “that a lawsuit was under consideration and ‘all options are open at this point.'”By Thursday, sources within the industry...

For all their talk of “neutral platforms,” the Big Shots at Big Tech — Twitter, Facebook and Google — are running a protection racket. They figure they can dictate what Americans get to see and read, and what other media companies must do to reach the public via those platforms. It’s a clear threat to a healthy democracy — and Congress has noticed. On Wednesday, the Senate launched a hearing to investigate “Big Tech’s bad behavior.” Center-stage: Twitter’s strong-arm tactics to censor The Post ever since we began reporting on Hunter Biden’s e-mails. First, it froze our account and banned...

Connecticut added Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California to its COVID-19 travel advisory Tuesday, making 40 states and two territories now on the list — plus two others that would qualify if not for agreements in place with governors there. There are now only seven states whose recent COVID-19 numbers fall below Connecticut travel advisory thresholds: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. Visitors from states listed on the advisory must fill out a travel form upon arriving in Connecticut, then either present proof of a negative coronavirus test or quarantine for 14 days. States are automatically added when...

The rally was the first of several planned campaign stops Noem is making Thursday in Maine and neighboring New Hampshire. South Dakota state troopers who travel with the governor immediately sprung into action to ensure the governor’s safety. “Two South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers, who were serving as the governor’s security detail Wednesday in Maine, encountered a person brandishing a weapon in an area where the governor and others were located,” Tony Mangan, spokesman for the Highway Patrol, said in a statement. Neither Noem nor the troopers protecting her were harmed in the incident.

So much for the market’s best day of the year. Oct. 28, on average the S&P 500’s best-performing day over the past 70 years, was instead one of 2020’s worst as COVID-19 concerns continued to flare up in the U.S. and Europe. Cities such as Chicago and Newark are renewing restrictions on businesses and public gatherings amid not just record-high new caseloads in America, but rising hospitalizations and deaths as well. In Germany, restaurants and theaters will be shut down for four weeks, and other European countries are stepping up their own measures to fend off a second wave.

On Oct. 16, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping presided over a Politburo study session on the development of quantum science and technology, according to state media reports. State media Xinhua reported on Xi’s remarks during the study session. “Xue Qikun, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice president of Tsinghua University, lectured on quantum science and technology at the session and put forward opinions and suggestions on the issue,” Xinhua reported. Xue’s opinions or suggestions were not explained in the report, but Xinhua made sure to include Xi’s comments. He said the Chinese regime should “make...

Mask mandates may be coming if Biden wins the election. Could this be far behind? BLOOMFIELD: “As part of our overall national response to this new outbreak, I am now directing medical officers of health that all cases, confirmed cases, are to be managed in a quarantine facility. Now, this is different to how positive cases were managed remember last at levels 4 and indeed 3, and shows how serious we are about limiting any risk of ongoing transmission even in self-isolation including two others in the household. This will apply to any cases and also close family members who...

An Air Force jet was scrambled above Donald Trump's rally in Arizona on Wednesday after an unannounced plane flew overhead. 'Oh, look at that! Look, look, look!' the president yelled, pointing to the sky. The F-16 attempted to make contact, and the aircraft initially ignored the jets. The fighter plane then released flares, and the intruding aircraft then established radio communications and was escorted out the area.

They took off in a hurry — but these New Yorkers are on the express line back to the city. [cut] Turns out, not all New Yorkers are cut out for country living. “I was definitely not in farm-shape when I got there,” said Thacher, who briefly volunteered at a friend’s organic homestead. [cut] And so after testing out life in Massachusetts, Vermont and Beacon in upstate New York, Thacher settled on, well, Brooklyn. “It’s just so easy to walk places without having to plan things out. You can stumble upon bars or restaurants and not be on a script...

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New Charges Include Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Conspiracy, Assault and Kidnapping in Aid of Racketeering, and Accessory to Murder The Justice Department announced today that additional charges have been brought in a superseding indictment against members and associates of a white supremacist gang known as the 1488s. The 1488s have been charged as a criminal organization that was involved in narcotics distribution, arson, obstruction of justice, and acts of violence including murder, assault, and kidnapping.Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder of the District of Alaska, Special...

A group of seven Republican senators are demanding that the College Board explain its role in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda campaign aimed at the United States’ primary education system.In an Oct. 26 letter (pdf) to College Board CEO David Coleman, the senators asked the New York-based education company to explain the nature of its partnership with Hanban, the Chinese government agency that oversees the Confucius Institutes (CI) around the world, including 75 in the United States. In August, State Secretary Mike Pompeo designated the Confucius Institute’s U.S. headquarters as a foreign mission, describing the program as “an...

The European Space Agency (ESA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday (Oct. 27) formalizing its collaboration on Gateway, a planned outpost in lunar orbit that NASA sees as key to its Artemis program of crewed moon exploration. Under this new agreement, ESA will provide Gateway with a habitation module and a refueling module, both of which the European agency will operate once the hardware is up and running. ESA contributions will also include two additional service modules for NASA's Orion capsule, the spacecraft that will launch Artemis astronauts from Earth atop the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) rockets....

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, during a Senate hearing, said they received no reports or evidence suggesting that reports about Hunter Biden’s alleged emails and overseas business dealings were part of a Russian disinformation plot, as claimed by Democrat Joe Biden and his allies in recent weeks. When questioned by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) on the censorship of the New York Post’s reporting on the matter, “Do either one of you have any evidence that the New York Post story is part of ‘Russian disinformation,’ or that those emails aren’t authentic? Do any of you have...

All National Public Radio hosts talk as if they are standing in a nursery, afraid to wake the baby up, or trying to pacify a distempered hound. Their soft tones, slow utterance and hushed breathlessness are meant to convey that NPR is a sanctum, a cathedral of reason and restraint, and that what comes via such delicately modulated, church-whisper voices must be true. Nowhere was that voice so needed than in the extraordinary statement it put out about the Hunter Biden story, which has already been banned by Facebook and Twitter: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories...

A new survey conducted by Whitman Insight Strategies and MRC Data in partnership with DISQO measured the intersection of entertainment, influence and politics among 1,103 likely voters. The votes are in, and Tom Hanks, Dwayne Johnson, Oprah Winfrey and LeBron James have the most trusted opinions on political and social issues, according to a new survey of American voters. NBA star James was also cited for doing the most to raise awareness and motivation around voting in the general population and among Gen Z voters, and for having the most trusted opinions among Black voters. Conducted by Whitman Insight Strategies...

The Biden tax plan is a horrible idea. As with all schemes that would raise taxes on the American populace, it would severely limit economic growth because it would divert resources from investments to wasteful and failing government programs.

A new ECU Poll of South Carolina, conducted October 24-25, shows Senator Lindsey Graham ahead of challenger Jaime Harrison among likely voters, 49% to 46%, with 5% undecided.

about a whole lot more than Donald Trump, or Joe Biden. The election has been classed as a contest between old decency and raw, rumbustious America First rhetoric. The characters of both men have been instilled in their campaigns. One, contradictory, argumentative and bristling with brash confidence. The other, plodding pragmatic and relentlessly reliable. Trump, the maverick outsider last time out, now has to stand on a record which can be scrutinised no matter how many rinses it gets in the spin-cycle. Biden too has a long shadow going back over decades. He has been in the environs of Democratic...

The chaotic crash-landing of a robotic spacecraft called Philae has yielded serendipitous insights into the softness of comets. In 2014, the European Space Agency’s pioneering lander touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, after a ten-year journey aboard its mothership, Rosetta. But rather than fix itself to the surface, Philae bounced twice and ended up on its side under a shady overhang, cutting its mission short. After a meticulous search, an ESA team has now discovered the previously unknown site of Philae’s second touchdown — and with it an imprint that the craft left in comet ice that is billions of years...