Free Republic

Polls appear to show that Mr Trump is losing ground to Democrat rival Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election. Amid the reports, the president is alleged to have shouted down the phone at his campaign manager Brad Parscale, three sources “close to the matter” told CNN. Mr Trump is said to have criticised Mr Parscale for the recent spate in falling poll numbers, and at one point threatened to take legal action. One Republican told CNN that: “He’s p** because he knows he messed up in those briefings.” Both the Trump campaign and the White House have not issued...

CIVIC PLAZA - A small group of protesters demanding the reopening of New Mexico’s economy gathered at Civic Plaza Friday while the death toll from the coronavirus in New Mexico continues to mount. The demonstration - organized locally on Facebook by longshot Republican congressional candidate Brett Kokinadis and a group called “NM Freedom Rally - Operation Gridlock NM” - mirrored other anti-quarantine protests held in Santa Fe and across the country in recent weeks calling for the softening of social distancing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic. While the small nationwide protests continue to make headlines and grab attention online, their...

Long but EXTREMELY informative YouTube video.

On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver unpacked another “brutal week” of coronavirus dominating the news but saw a silver lining in Dame Judi Dench’s dance abilities on TikTok. That said, Oliver dove deep into the misinformation being spread about coronavirus. This includes claims that microwaving mail can kill the virus and that breast milk and garlic can help prevent it. The wide spread of misinformation has led to the most recent protest against stay at home orders. Oliver points out that many people — including these protesters — think that coronavirus is less deadly than the flu. Specifically, 40% of...

The U.S. was given inaccurate information about the coronavirus at the beginning of the crisis Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Saturday. When Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Fauci if he believes China or the World Health Organization "misled" him or if the WHO leader himself could have been "deceived," Fauci noted that while he does not know the details behind the inaccurate information, it was disseminated from the start of the crisis. "You know I don't know where the missteps went, the only thing I know what the end...

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...

Secretly moving dead bodies from Wuhan at night (raw)… Posted by Kane on April 8, 2020 12:17 am According to reporter Jennifer Zeng, it was said some families have accepted 3000 yuan ($421) allowance from the government, on the condition that they would bury their loved ones quietly without crying or talking about it. “Somewhere in Wuhan, people moving body secretly as “zero new cases” has become a political task, and communities dare not break the “zero new cases” record, so they arrange to have the body moved at midnight.”

Link only per restrictions. However, it is MSN so a free link.

Last year we had a call from a concerned but grateful parent. Having previously been sceptical about vaccines, having read one of our fact checks, she’d decided to go ahead and have her children vaccinated. It sticks in my mind as an example of the harm that bad information can do – not just to our democracy, which as fact checkers we’re often asked about – but to our health. Misleading claims around vaccines have encouraged parents to disregard medical advice and take unnecessary risks with their children’s lives. Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus began, we have been...

Misinformation about the coronavirus is continuing to spread online, and bleed into offline spaces as well, leading to some widespread misconceptions and confusion about the coronavirus. Experts say a lack of high-quality information has allowed false claims to fill in the gaps, raising concerns that people are actually following dangerous advice as a result. You may have seen some of the information yourself, whether it's on your Facebook feed, an email forwarded from an uncle you haven't spoken to in years, or even published by some news outlets. From the evidence-free recommendation of vitamin C as a cure, to claims...

The U.S. cable networks won't be covering this one tonight (not accurately, anyway), but Trapwire is making the rounds on social media today—it reportedly became a Trending hashtag on Twitter earlier in the day. Trapwire is the name of a program revealed in the latest Wikileaks bonanza—it is the mother of all leaks, by the way. Trapwire would make something like disclosure of UFO contact or imminent failure of a major U.S. bank fairly boring news by comparison. And someone out there seems to be quite disappointed that word is getting out so swiftly; the Wikileaks web site is reportedly...

In the not too distant past, most adults realized that not everything one saw on the internet or on social media was to be taken as true. Today, however, what used to be a sarcastic phrase – “I saw it on the internet so it must be true” – is taken quite literally, regardless of the online source for such information; especially if it confirms our existing opinions and beliefs. This reflects a deep-seated cultural problem far beyond the ken of the Congress to solve; yet, of course, they try. And, as is par for the congressional course, they are...

Here is an excerpt from an email from a misinformed white millennial: Mr Marcus, as a black man, if you don't agree in part with Mr. Kaepernick, I feel bad for you. I am white, and feel that the issues facing the black community in the US from the police, legal elements, property, education are skewed, and need to be rectified. I am concerned that someone with your pulpit isn't out there helping out. I usually receive emails from progressives who call me an Uncle Tom stupid n***** for loving my country and not viewing myself as a victim....

The Quran (Koran, the book of Islam) contains scientific knowledge that could not have been known 1400 years ago. It ranges from basic arithmetics to the most advanced topics in astrophysics. You are invited to go through those miracles and judge for yourself. is it true? Good Luck.

Washington (AFP) – If you see a video of a politician speaking words he never would utter, or a Hollywood star improbably appearing in a cheap adult movie, don’t adjust your television set — you may just be witnessing the future of “fake news.” “Deepfake” videos that manipulate reality are becoming more sophisticated due to advances in artificial intelligence, creating the potential for new kinds of misinformation with devastating consequences. As the technology advances, worries are growing about how deepfakes can be used for nefarious purposes by hackers or state actors. “We’re not quite to the stage where we are...

The Pentagon said Friday that contrary to what an Associated Press report has suggested, there are no new changes to a program for immigrants to gain U.S. citizenship through military service. The Associated Press reported on Thursday evening that some “U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged.” However, the Pentagon said there have been no new policies or guideline changes to prompt any discharges from the program. Rather, any discharges are based on initial security screening of each candidate. The Army could not comment on specific persons...

The study, published in the Journal of Public Health, found that people's erroneous beliefs about an association between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism were a predictor of people's lessened intention to get a Zika vaccine. The study also found that people's perceptions of the severity of the Zika virus as well as their general belief in the power of science to solve problems increased their intention to get the vaccine. "When a new disease arises, people who lack understanding of the new threat may extrapolate from their knowledge of other diseases," said Yotam Ophir. "We found...

A simple choice between good and evil. "When society no longer recognizes an absolute, society will then become its own absolute." Just the other day an adult male (I’d rather not call him a ‘man’) went into a Muncie, Indiana Goodwill store and began preaching Islam. In the course of his sharing the glad tidings of the religion of peace, he snatched an elderly woman by her throat and began choking her while screeching, “Allahu Akbar!” The weirdo was identified as Khaliad Bilal. Sounds like a Hispanic or maybe Irish name, to me - though I want to avoid profiling....

Gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety was not happy about the National Rifle Association’s presence at a Wednesday strategy meeting at the White House, making their concerns known on social media. In a Thursday Facebook post, Everytown displayed a photograph of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre seated next to President Donald Trump and added the following critique of the pairing: A picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case, none of them are good. Just yesterday, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre sat right next to President Trump as he held his first meeting about his Supreme Court...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a message for his billion-plus users: "you're not capable of deciding for yourself what is 'news' and what is not, so we will do it for you." Facebook has been widely blamed - by the left-leaning mainstream media - for allowing the spread of online misinformation, amusingly much of it pro-Trump, but Zuckerberg has rejected the notion that Facebook influenced the outcome of the election or that fake news is a major problem on the service. "Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic," he wrote in...