Free Republic

Gun control proponent Gabby Giffords announced her endorsement of Joe Biden for president on Monday. Giffords made a name for herself pushing background checks for all gun sales after a man with a pistol, acquired via a background check, attacked her on January 8, 2011. Biden is a proponent of universal background checks, too, and he also supports a ban on “high capacity” magazines, AR-15s, and other commonly owned semiautomatic rifles. Biden is also pushing to repeal the protections that prevent frivolous lawsuits against gun makers, and he was critical of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for signing a law...

Two things are becoming increasingly clear in the race for the Democratic nomination. Former Vice President Joe Biden now looks unstoppable after another excellent primary/caucus showing, defeating Bernie Sanders in Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri and Michigan Tuesday. And should he get the nod before or during the Democratic National Convention, his running mate will almost certainly be a woman. Biden is now a massive -2500 favorite to earn the nomination on the heels of a dominant Super Tuesday performance. Biden has soared in U.S. Presidential odds as well, closing from +1700 to +120 in two weeks. 888sport's UK-facing betting site lists...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the outbreak will get worse and warned the U.S. must take serious mitigation efforts. The federal government’s top infectious disease expert told lawmakers Wednesday that the novel coronavirus spreading across the globe is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu. “I mean people always say, 'Well, the flu does this, the flu does that,'” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said Wednesday during a hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “The flu has a mortality...

Hunter Biden’s lawyers told an Arkansas judge on Tuesday that he is unable to attend a child support deposition scheduled for this week due to coronavirus and his pregnant wife’s imminent due date. “It is unsafe for the Defendant to travel, as travel restrictions have been implemented both domestically and internationally, particularly on airlines, due to the Coronavirus,” Hunter Biden’s lawyer wrote in a court filing. “Setting aside personal endangerment, Defendant reasonably believes that such travel unnecessarily exposes his wife and unborn child to this virus.”

A staffer says claim that knowing Hillary Clinton causes more deaths than coronavirus was “clearly a joke.” The legislator, Gae Magnafici, took office in January 2019 after a 35-year career as a nurse. It’s obviously nonsense to compare Clinton in any way with a global virus outbreak that has killed thousands. As America’s coronavirus death toll hit 19 and the number of cases topped 400 on March 7, 2020, one Wisconsin branch of Twitter wasn’t exactly taking the matter seriously. It started innocuously enough with a tweet from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Molly Beck. She shared a link to a...

Excerpt: This case, a man in his mid-50s, is the first example of “community spread” of COVID-19 in Ohio, said Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton. This means the man had no history of travel outside the United States, and had no known contact with someone else with the disease. The patient is currently hospitalize, and health officials in Canton and Stark County are investigating the large number of contacts the patient had, state officials said.

SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a public health emergency Wednesday as the first cases of COVID-19 surfaced in New Mexico. To slow transmission of the virus, the governor urged people to avoid public gatherings, sanitize common surfaces and minimize contact with other individuals, even if it means staying home from church or going out less often. Three New Mexico residents tested positive for COVID-19 early Wednesday and are now isolating themselves at home — the first confirmed cases in the state, the governor said. All three cases, she said, are travel-related — a good sign because it...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump administration officials. The officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), a key player in the fight against the coronavirus. Staffers without security clearances, including government experts, were excluded from the interagency...

An abortion advocate’s macabre choice of jewelry inadvertently highlighted the dark history of infanticide, a form of killing that was recorded in the earliest books of the Bible. The protester’s earrings were shared by the Daily Caller on Wednesday. The woman wearing the gruesome accessories was apparently spotted at a pro-abortion rally the same day. Appearing to be custom work, the earrings portray a crocodile with a small baby in its jaws. It’s unclear what message this protester was trying to send. The shock factor alone was enough to catch the Daily Caller’s attention, but it could have simply been...

These x-ray images show the damage that coronavirus is doing to the lungs of people who catch the potentially deadly bug. Doctors have been able to identify specific abnormalities caused by Covid-19 and the patterns are similar to those found in patients from the SARS and MERS outbreaks. The scans show patches in the lungs and the experts' findings could lead to a quicker diagnosis and help to prevent infections. The first British person to catch the flu-like illness had previously told how it hit him "like a train" and left him "suffocating" and in blinding pain for weeks.

A federal judge leveled harsh accusations against Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and the rest of the conservative majority, claiming that they are “actively participating in undermining American democracy. ”Adelman was even unhappy with Roberts’ own opinion and key vote that upheld ObamaCare because it knocked down its expansion of Medicaid. He said this “thwarted Congress’ efforts to address one of the most serious problems that the poor face, the lack of health insurance[.]” The judge did not reserve his ire for the Supreme Court alone. He took shots at Senate Republicans for their handling of President Barack Obama’s...

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared coronavirus a pandemic, reflecting concern from WHO that countries aren’t working quickly and aggressively enough to contain the virus. “We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Stock market people please weigh in All I know is that it goes from a bull to a bear market when all three of these are down 20% from the most recent high.

. The broadcast by a station of false information concerning a crime or catastrophe violates the FCC's rules if: ;The station licensee knew that the information was false; ;Broadcasting the false information directly causes substantial public harm; and ;It was foreseeable that broadcasting the false information would cause such harm. In this context, a “crime” is an act or omission that makes the offender subject to criminal punishment by law, and a “catastrophe” is a disaster or an imminent disaster involving violent or sudden events affecting the public. The broadcast must cause direct and actual damage to property or to...

SACRAMENTO — Just five weeks into the job, Gov. Gavin Newsom has crystallized his vision of what California will look like in the Trump era: It won’t just be the hub of the resistance against the president; it will be its own nation-state.But before Newsom can create a country-within-a-country, he had to defuse two multibillion-dollar grenades that his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, left in his in-box: high-speed rail and the delta tunnels project. In proposing Tuesday to scale back both of Brown’s unpopular legacy projects, Newsom hopes he can preserve enough political capital to get his own legacy projects...

Nearly 200 people in Italy have died in 24 hours as cases of coronavirus in the country continue to rise. There have been 827 deaths in Italy and the number of cases increased by more than 2,000, from 10,149 to 12,462, official figures showed. (Please see link for full details)

Sports events across the globe continue to feel the impact of the coronavirus. The disruption has extended to the local sports scene as well. NCAA Tournament games in Ohio won’t have spectators The governor of Ohio Mike DeWine said the state will issue an order that NCAA Tournament games in Ohio, including the First Four round in Dayton, will be played without fans in attendance.

If Donald Trump wins, then Michael Richard Pence, vice president of the United States, will be well positioned to serve Trump's third and fourth terms as president. Pence is only just now beginning to emerge from relative obscurity on the national stage, therefore many voters do not recognize him as the proto-Trump he is. If you like Trump but find him abrasive and overstated, you will love Pence, even if you learn his name only in the 2024 campaign. He is, if anything, to the right of Trump, but understatedly so, and a likely future POTUS. The more interesting outcome...

The founder of the nonprofit crime prevention group Guardian Angels said he plans to run for mayor of New York City in 2021 “to take back the city” from Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio. The announcement: “I am the anti-de Blasio candidate. The part time Mayor ‘Dope from Park Slope’ has single-handedly destroyed our city. Roll with Sliwa through the subways & streets & you’ll see why I’m the only one who can #SaveOurCity,” tweeted Guardian Angels founder and radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa. Sliwa, 65 has not yet filed paperwork to compete against de Blasio but has re-registered...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced Wednesday that more than 600 arrests have been made as a result of an interagency operation cracking down on Mexican cartel activity. “Project Python,” a DEA-led initiative, targeted members of Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). According to the DEA, over the last six months federal law enforcement officials have been monitoring the activities of the accused. The operation resulted in more than 600 arrests nationwide, 350 indictments and “significant seizures of money and drugs,” according to the agencies. “Project Python marks the most comprehensive action to date in...