Free Republic

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) warned Thursday nobody should relax in the face of future coronavirus threats, cautioning the strong likelihood that further, possibly more dangerous variants still lie ahead. During a press briefing, Prof. Didier Houssin, who heads the W.H.O. emergency coronavirus committee, said the current disposition of the pandemic is “not good,” despite it being 18 months since it was officially declared a public health emergency.

Wednesday, MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough sounded off on the growing number of members of the GOP distancing themselves from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Scarborough noted that GOP leadership like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have yet to distance themselves from Greene. He suggested that GOP leadership is “scared” of her.

Does it feel like you’re walking on eggshells lately when talking about politics? You’re not alone. A new national survey of 2,000 Americans I conducted at the Cato Institute finds that 62 percent of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying what they believe because others might find it offensive. This share is up from 58 percent in 2017. Notably, self-censorship is not a partisan issue. Majorities of Democrats (52 percent), Independents (59 percent), and Republicans (77 percent) all agree they have political views they are afraid to share.

“I’m terrified, I’m terrified that she’s not going to be treated fairly,” the mother of accused leaker Reality Sara Winner told CBS News after her daughter’s arrest under the Espionage Act for stealing Top Secret documents and passing them along to a media outlet. Billie-Jean Davis says her daughter is afraid that law enforcement will “make her disappear,” but then at the same time claims that the US government wants to make an example of Winner. “That’s not fair,” she tells CBS:(VIDEO-AT-LINK) The mother and stepfather of 25-year-old Reality Leigh Winner, the NSA contractor accused of leaking government secrets, are...

The woman accused of leaking classified information once wrote she wanted "to burn the White House Down...find somewhere in Kurdistan to live," prompting prosecutors on Thursday to argue she would flee the country if she was released on bond. Reality Winner appeared before a judge in Augusta, Ga., on Thursday who ordered her to remain jailed until her trial. Prosecutors argued that the 25-year-old might try to flee the U.S. if she was released on bond. They added that Winner wrote in her notebook alleged plans to set the White House on fire, travel to Afghanistan and pledge her allegiance...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that President Donald Trump has “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox" with the targeted killing of Iran's top general in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport. The former vice president joined other Democratic White House hopefuls in criticizing Trump's order, saying it could leave the U.S. “on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East." The Pentagon said the U.S. military killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in Baghdad Friday at the direction of Trump. The attack is expected to draw...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said he will not support calling any witnesses in the upcoming impeachment trial against President Trump, including witnesses Trump wants to summon. “I’m going to tell the president, ‘no,’ to his witnesses request because I think what is best for the country is to get this behind us as soon as possible,” Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Wednesday. The House is set to impeach Trump Wednesday night on two articles charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate will hold a trial in January, and Democrats and Republicans are...

We need to give advice to our beleaguered President. I would suggest that he demand that the DOJ/FBI comply by the weekend with the data requests that enables their constitutional required oversight. ALL documents should be in a fully unredacted form. There are many smart people on this forum and your insights could be invaluable at this moment. Please submit constructive thoughts on how to weed the swamp.

A conservative group filed suit on Monday seeking to remove special counsel Robert Mueller from the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian meddling. Conservative lawyer Larry Klayman, the founder of the watchdog group FreedomWatch, filed a complaint in U.S. district court that seeks to force the Justice Department to investigate leaks from the special counsel, as well as “the obvious conflicts of interest among staff.” The complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI director Christopher Wray states that “it is a criminal offense to leak grand jury information” and seeks Mueller’s removal.

Two days after an attacker opened fire on concert goers in Las Vegas, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) announced he was shelving legislation to deregulate suppressors. -snip- Ryan has now shelved the Hearing Protection Act, which was introduced into Congress on January 9; it is the legislation containing suppressor deregulation. The Act does not legalize suppressors–as they are already legal–rather, it removes the burdensome process for acquiring them and erases the federal tax that must be paid in order to receive permission to posses one. House Speaker Paul Ryan says NRA-backed bill to ease regulations on gun silencers is shelved...

Obama aide talks about gathering intelligence on trump aides starting after 5 minutes. She says "That's why you have leaking...People are WORRIED."

It was the first black bloc for Neil Lawrence, a third-year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. He had demonstrated with Black Lives Matter and seen people in bandannas show up at events and smash things. But after the Berkeley College Republicans announced controversial Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos would be speaking on campus, Lawrence decided it was time for a more aggressive form of protest. “It became clear to me and my close friends that the tone of living in America is changing, and in order to stop being scared, we started organizing,” he says. “I, a...

Apparently, it's not enough that UND's administration is attacking the quality of education by cutting programs and experienced faculty and jacking class sizes. Now, we must also feel under physical attack as well. I look up from my office computer to see two figures in camo with guns outside my window. My first thought is for my students' and my safety: I grab my phone, crawl under my desk and call 911. The dispatcher keeps me on the line until someone can see if ROTC is doing maneuvers. I can barely talk—first, with fear, and then with rage when the...

Scared man who sued over 'haunted house' loses in court People who go to "haunted house" attractions to be scared shouldn't be surprised when they're scared, a state court of appeals has ruled. A state appeals court has given precedent-setting status to a ruling that gave the scary mansions the same legal status as ski lodges, bumper cars and other commercial recreational facilities: They're not responsible for injuries caused by an "inherent risk" of the activity. In this case, the court said, that risk was the terror Scott Griffin experienced after leaving what he thought was the exit gate of...

President Barack Obama is taking an even harsher tone against governors and lawmakers who want to stop the U.S. resettlement of Syrian refugees, blasting them for being "scared of widows and orphans" while playing into the hands of the Islamic State terrorist group. "We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic. We don't make good decisions if it's based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks," Obama said while visiting the Philippines for an economic summit. "I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of...

Meanwhile in South Africa... a self respecting burglar soils himself when he encounters the most brutal dog he has ever seen. Update: This awesome dog is called Scamp and you will happy to know that the perp was caught a short while later and justice has been served.

"She had the party shaking in our boots" -Van Jones

A man in south Oklahoma City thought someone was breaking into his house on Thursday, only to find the intruder had four legs and horns. "I heard some rumbling, and I freaked out. I thought that somebody was trying to break into the house, and then I come out here and check it. With news video. albasun.com //

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The sisters of a Connecticut woman fatally shot by police in Washington after she tried to ram her car through a White House barrier said Monday she wasn't delusional and suggest she may have been fleeing danger. The two sisters of Miriam Carey, who was killed Thursday with her 13-month-old child in her car, disputed the accounts of officials and their sister's one-time boyfriend that she was under the delusion that President Barack Obama was communicating with her.

Yeah, Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll, crushing Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. And OK, a CBS poll recently found him tied with Romney among likely Republican primary voters. Sure, he also scored a resounding victory in another straw poll this weekend. And Rasmussen just today released the finding that 56% of GOP voters like Cain's 9-9-9 plan. So is that enough to make the Associated Press consider Cain a first-tier candidate? Nah. On MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" this morning, AP's political editor, Liz Sidoti, sniffed "we still consider him a second-tier candidate." View the video here.