Free Republic

Do you remember the 1957-58 Asian flu? Or the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu? I do. I was a teenager during the first of these, an adult finishing law school during the second. But even though back then I followed the news much more than the average person my age, I can't dredge up more than the dimmest memory of either. I don't have any memory of schools closing, though apparently, a few did here and there. I have no memories of city or state lockdowns, of closed offices and factories and department stores, of people banned from parks and beaches....

Tired of all this WINNING yet? – The DC Circuit Court of Appeals, in an extremely rare action, ordered corrupt Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan to personally respond to the Court to explain his refusal to grant the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case against General Mike Flynn, which was filed on May 7: Image As appellate lawyer John M. Reeves (reeveslawstl) explained in a great thread on Twitter, writs of mandamus like the one Sidney Powell filed on Tuesday are most often rejected outright by a court of appeals. But, when not rejected outright, district judges are generally allowed to...

When a Wall Street Journal editorial warned this week against any precipitous U.S. withdrawal that might imperil our gains in Afghanistan, an exasperated President Trump shot back: "Could someone please explain to them that we have been there for 19 years. ... and except at the beginning, we never really fought to win." Is that true? Did we "never really" fight to win during our 19-year war in Afghanistan, except when we first ousted the Taliban in 2001? At one point in this longest American war against al-Qaida and the Taliban, Barack Obama surged 100,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan. The...

Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar mocked President Trump on Wednesday about a COVID-19 treatment she believed her husband John Bessler was treated with during his bout with the disease. “Well, I think that I listened to the science there. I believe he did briefly take that drug… or some drug like it, but I think that we have to listen to the science and you have to listen to your doctors with what is going to work in each individual situation,” Klobuchar told SiriusXM's Michael Smerconish on April 7 regarding her thoughts about the debate swirling around hydroxychloroquine since her...

On the day of the shooting, Arbery was spotted walking around an open construction site and the McMichaels pursued him in a pickup truck, according to the police report. When they passed Bryan's home, Bryan got in his own vehicle and followed, The New York Times reported. When Arbery ran around the McMichaels' car, Bryan tried to block him, Gregory McMichael told investigators. Arbery ran past Bryan's car, too, and the two vehicles reportedly turned around and continued pursuing him. At 1:14 p.m., Bryan took the video of Travis shooting Arbery, the Times said. McMichael told police he thought Arbery...

God and abortion are tied together, according to one artist who is regularly promoted by the abortion industry. Artist and activist Viva Ruiz recently accepted the position of “artist-in-residence” with Shout Your Abortion [SYA], a group that promotes women’s positive abortion stories. Ruiz, who has served as a Planned Parenthood panelist and has displayed art exhibitions throughout New York City, is best known as the founder of “Thank God for Abortion” [TGFA]. In a video for SYA that has gone largely unnoticed, she spoke about her work. Ruiz began TGFA in 2015 as a response to the closing of U.S....

Texas is lifting air travel restrictions that required travelers from several areas of the country — including New York, California and Chicago — to spend 14 days in quarantine upon arrival, with Gov. Greg Abbott signing an executive order Thursday that immediately ended the restrictions, which had been in place since March.

Doctors in Northern California say they have seen more deaths from suicide than they’ve seen from the coronavirus during the pandemic. “The numbers are unprecedented,” Dr. Mike deBoisblanc of John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, told ABC 7 News about the increase of suicide deaths adding that he’s seen a “year’s worth of suicides” in the last four weeks alone.

A passenger plane belonging to state-run airline Pakistani International Airlines has crashed near the southern port city of Karachi, according to Abdul Sattar Kokhar, spokesman for the country's civil aviation authority.

PING LIST - Please contact me as needed... COVID-19 Update # 65 As of 05/21/2020 23:15 PDST     United States CDC - Provisional NumbersAs of 00/00/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Nations InformatonAs of 00/00/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Counties InformationAs of 00/00/2020 23:46 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Process JHU DataAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Document Core NumbersAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture Nations InformationAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture States InformationAs of 00/00/2020 00:00...

A recent New York Times op-ed by Jonathan Safran Foer titled “The End of Meat is Here” chastises meat-eaters as haters of poor people, racists, and enemies of the environment. “If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals,” the novelist wrote. He added, “We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly. This is not a refutable perspective, but a banal truism.”Are Americans eager to nix meat from their diets? Fat chance. In fact, more people are consuming wild fish and game meat in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. For those...

The University of California system will no longer require SAT and ACT standardized test results for in-state freshmen applicants. The system's Board of Regents voted Thursday to suspend the tests until fall 2024. The system said in a statement that it would use the next three years to develop a new test that "better aligns with the content the university expects students to have mastered for college readiness." If the new test doesn't meet "specified criteria" by 2025 admissions, the system will eliminate standardized tests entirely, the release said.

TGIFF! Its Fiddle Friday and we have Earl Garner playing Crazy Horse (1972). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Forty years ago this week, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining was released into a handful of theaters and was met with a blizzard of chilly reviews. Most critics in 1980 agreed: Like the director's previous film, 1975's period epic Barry Lyndon, it was all flash and no substance. Pauline Kael wrote in the New Yorker that Kubrick's devotion to technique distanced the audience from the domestic horrors of his story. The Washington Post called it "elaborately ineffective." Gene Siskel said it was "boring" and occasionally "downright embarrassing." Toronto's Globe & Mail: an "overreaching, multi-levelled botch." In its first year of existence,...

A University of Minnesota Law School professor, Francesco Parisi, has won a nearly $1.2 million defamation case against a woman who had falsely accused him of rape. In his blistering ruling on Tuesday, Hennepin County Judge Daniel Moreno wrote that Parisi’s former lover, Morgan Wright, had pursued an “untruthful narrative crusade,” and her “accusations were false, and made with malice.” It is believed to be the largest defamation judgement in Minnesota. The vast majority of the judgement, $814,514 is for economic losses, as well as reputational and emotional damages. Only $100,000 was for punitive damages. Parisi walked out of jail...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw a political tantrum on Twitter, scolding Republicans in the Senate for putting “lives and livelihoods” at risk by not holding a vote on her party’s $3 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill “reads like the Speaker of the House pasted together random ideas from her most liberal members and slapped the word ‘coronavirus’ on top of it.” Democrats are trying to keep the hysteria level about the coronavirus ratcheted up in order to panic the Senate into passing trillions in new spending that may not even be necessary —...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump won at least a temporary reprieve from the Supreme Court earlier this week in keeping secret grand jury materials from the Russia investigation away from Democratic lawmakers. The president and his administration are counting on the justices for more help to stymie other investigations and lawsuits. The high court is weighing Trump’s bid to block subpoenas for his tax, banking and financial records. It will soon be asked by the administration to kill a lawsuit alleging that Trump is illegally profiting from his luxury hotel near the White House. And a dispute over Congress’ demand...

The Atlantic appeared to have the right ingredients for a successful 21st-century publication: strong journalism, a thriving digital operation and the enthusiastic backing of a multibillionaire, Laurene Powell Jobs. But on Thursday the 163-year-old publication announced that it would lay off 68 employees, or 17% of its staff, evidence that even the most robust media businesses are vulnerable to the crisis that has ravaged news organizations nationwide. The announcement followed a burst of layoffs in the news media business last week: 155 jobs lost at Vice, 100 at Condé Nast, 90 at The Economist, 80 at Quartz. The cuts at...

NEW YORK - More than 4,300 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York’s already vulnerable nursing homes under a controversial state directive that was ultimately scrapped amid criticisms it was accelerating the nation’s deadliest outbreaks, according to a count by The AP. AP compiled its own tally to find out how many COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes under the March 25 directive after New York’s Health Department declined to release its internal survey conducted two weeks ago. It says it is still verifying data that was incomplete. Whatever the full number, nursing home administrators, residents’...

WASHINGTON - “A Trump enemy statement,” he said of one study. “A political hit job,” he said of another. As President Donald Trump pushes to reopen the country despite warnings from doctors about the consequences of moving too quickly during the coronavirus crisis, he has been lashing out at scientists whose conclusions he doesn’t like. Twice this week, Trump has not only dismissed the findings of studies, but suggested - without evidence - that their authors were motivated by politics and out to undermine his efforts to roll back coronavirus restrictions. First it was a study funded in part by...