Free Republic

The celebrity campaign #PasstheMic is enlisting Julia Roberts, Hugh Jackman, and other A-list Hollywood stars to hand over their social media accounts to the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci and other experts to promote a “global response” to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Who’s behind the push? The roster of donors and leaders reads like a who’s-who of left-wing globalists — U2 frontman Bono, George Soros, and Bill Gates. At the head of the organization is Gayle Smith, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama. The guest line-up features another physician who has publicly denounced President Donald Trump’s immigration policies...

President Donald Trump once again tore into Fox News on Thursday, accusing the network that has featured a bevy of commentators praising his leadership and backing some of his statements on hydroxychloroquine of 'doing nothing' to help Republicans. Trump made the claim in a pair of defiant tweets he made as he was traveling in Michigan, where he toured a Ford plant in Ypsilanti in a critical battleground state that he carried in 2016 where he has sparred with the state's governor over the coronavirus. Fox has provided intense coverage of anti-lockdown protests in Michigan that Trump stoked with his...

FBI investigators said the shooting incident at a Texas naval air station Thursday morning was a 'terror' attack and revealed that a second person of interest may be at-large. The gunman was first reported near the base around 6.15am when he tried to speed through a gate at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. Authorities said vehicle barriers stopped the car, but the man proceeded to open fire.

Donald Trump Jr. on Thursday blasted the media for its lack of response to the announcement that Robert Mueller's former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann will headline a virtual fundraiser for the Biden campaign. The campaign said publicly Wednesday that Weissmann will headline a “virtual fireside chat” moderated by Anne Milgram -- the former New Jersey attorney general -- on June 2. The chat will take place on Zoom, and “guests who RSVP by making a contribution... will be sent instructions for how to join via Zoom,” according to the invitation from the Biden “Victory Fund.”

United States Attorney William McSwain announced on Thursday that Domenick DeMuro, a former Judge of Elections in Philadelphia, has been charged with multiple counts of election-related fraud:  “(1) conspiracy to deprive Philadelphia voters of their civil rights by fraudulently stuffing the ballot boxes for specific Democratic candidates in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections, and (2) a violation of the Travel Act, which forbids the use of any facility in interstate commerce (here, a cell phone) with the intent to promote certain illegal activity (here, bribery),” per a DOJ release. U.S. Attorney @USAttyMcSwain says, “Demuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot...

One of the candidates seeking to unseat Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in Ohio's 4th Congressional District election had to suspend his campaign after the Lorain County Board of Elections rejected his petitions to appear on the ballot after thousands of signatures were found to be illegible. The Chronicle-Telegram reported the board voted unanimously to not certify Christopher Gibbs' petitions, who was running as an independent. He was required to submit 2,458 signatures to appear on the ballot. Circulators filed 3,065 signatures on 140 petitions Gibbs' his behalf. The board found a majority of the signatures, 1,790, were invalid, with only...

I was just listening to Lou Dobbs on Fox Business News with my wife, and apparently the US has been allowing international air travel from *non-citizens* for quite some time. Including from China. I didn't stick around for the rest of the details, figuring I would toss something at the TV.

Admissions tests, allegedly biased against minority students, will be phased out over five years The University of California board of regents voted Thursday to stop using the SAT and ACT college admissions exams, reshaping college admissions in one of the largest and most prestigious university systems in the country and dealing a significant blow to the multibillion-dollar college admission testing industry. The unanimous 23-to-0 vote ratified a proposal put forward last month by UC President Janet Napolitano to phase out the exams over the next five years until the sprawling UC system can develop its own test. The battle against...

SHOCK VIDEO — Nursing home aide brutally beats patients with blows to the headYoutube has scrubbed the site clean of this video. There were ten copies an hour ago, and now all have been deleted. Jadon Hayden of Detroit, employed at Saints Incorporated Disability Group Home, Wayne, MI beats up an elderly man and woman and films it. An arrest has reportedly been made…

When Joe Biden announced he was opening a foreign policy center at the University of Pennsylvania, the goals for the project were ambitious. At its founding in 2018, Biden described the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement as "a place where policymakers here and abroad will know they can be in touch with some of the best minds." The center is one of several organizations Biden founded since leaving the White House in 2017, including the domestic policy-focused Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and the Biden Cancer Initiative, all launched in 2017. All three entities have...

Mr. Gates, 64, the Microsoft co-founder, has now become the star of an explosion of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus outbreak. In posts on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, he is being portrayed as the creator of Covid-19, as a profiteer from a virus vaccine, and as part of a dastardly plot to use the illness to cull or surveil the global population. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged millions of dollars to companies developing potential novel coronavirus vaccines. In an interview on April 9 on CNBC, Gates spoke theoretically about how many people might experience side effects from...

A former Democratic elections judge has pleaded guilty for his role in accepting bribes to cast fraudulent ballots and certifying false voting results in primary elections in Philadelphia, prosecutors announced Thursday. Domenick J. Demuro, 73, admitted that while serving as an elected municipal Judge of Elections, he accepted bribes in exchange for adding ballots for certain candidates on the voting machines in his jurisdiction and for including the fraudulent ballots in official tallies during the 2014, 2015 and 2016 primary elections in Philadelphia.

Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf could announce which counties will be the state’s first to move into the green phase of his coronavirus reopening plan on Friday. At the same time, some areas still stuck in the red phase, otherwise known as a complete stay at home order, could be allowed to soon move into the yellow phase. “We’re making decisions based on the best information we have, and making the best decisions we can, based on the best models that are always changing and moving," Wolf said Thursday. “I’ll be announcing a whole range of counties tomorrow moving from red...

Minnesota Catholics and Lutherans tell @GovTimWalz they are reopening churches on May 26—after the Governor announced malls, salons, tattoo parlors, & casinos can open, but churches can’t. The leadership of over 700 Catholic and Lutheran churches, represented by @BECKETlaw & @SidleyLaw, told @GovTimWalz and AG @keithellison that the First Amendment doesn’t let the government put churches at the back of the line during reopening. Minnesota’s re-opening plan lets people seek retail therapy at the mall, but not spiritual solace at church. Today’s press conference underscored @GovTimWalz’s failure to appreciate the integral role of faith in the well-being of the community....

The state’s embattled unemployment department will hire 1,800 people — including 600 phone agents — over the next two weeks as the state frantically scrambles to help respond to frustrated out-of-work California residents who continue to get jammed phone lines and lengthy waits for answers. Sharon Hilliard, director of the Employment Development Department, heard a barrage of complaints from California Assembly and Senate members Thursday at budget hearings. One by one, Assembly members described constituents’ frustration getting through to the agency, which manages the state’s unemployment insurance program. Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article242906141.html#storylink=cpy

A three panel DC Appeals Court Panel, Judge Henderson, Judge Wilkins and Judge Rao have ordered Michael Flynn’s Judge, Emett Sullivan, to respond to the defense petition for a writ of mandamus within ten days: Quoting the U.S. vs Fokker ruling the panel is not responding directly to the Flynn petition with an immediate decision; instead they are requiring Judge Sullivan to explain his decision to engage with extra-party amicus actions despite the DOJ and Flynn defense agreement on the motion to dismiss. The order can be viewed as a smart move by the appeals panel because Judge Sullivan has...

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has arrested the man who recorded cellphone video of Ahmaud Arbery being shot and killed. William “Roddie” Bryan, 50, shot the video that showed what appears to be Gregory and Travis McMichael shooting and killing Ahmaud Arbery while he was out jogging in February. In a news release, the GBI said it charged Bryan with felony murder and criminal contempt to commit false imprisonment.

A gay swinger’s club with “glory holes” is being allowed to operate in Lansing while Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer aims her business-killing death ray on 77-year-old barber Karl Manke for giving haircuts. If Gretchen Whitmer can send six officers to serve Karl Manke orders to shut down his business for violating her orders, but she can’t rouse herself to sent the SWAT team into a place that only exists for group sex, I think it’s clear that none of these orders are about public health or the transfer of disease.

When Joe Biden announced he was opening a foreign policy center at the University of Pennsylvania, the goals for the project were ambitious. At its founding in 2018, Biden described the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement as "a place where policymakers here and abroad will know they can be in touch with some of the best minds." The center is one of several organizations Biden founded since leaving the White House in 2017, including the domestic policy-focused Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and the Biden Cancer Initiative, all launched in 2017. All three entities have...

Apple in iOS 13.5 is introducing an exposure notification API designed to allow apps created by public health authorities worldwide to notify people who come into contact with someone who has COVID-19 about their exposure to the virus. Apple's Exposure Notification feature is privacy focused and shares no personally identifiable information or location data with the public health authorities creating the apps, but some users may want to opt out of the feature, which is enabled by default when upgrading to iOS 13.5. Apple in the iOS 13.5 update added a toggle to disable COVID-19 Exposure Notifications for those who...