Free Republic

One of the great grifter movies, aside from the Clinton and Obama presidencies, is The Sting. Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) and Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford} team up, “to pull off a complicated scheme known simple as the Big Con,” a racket to crush Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) and his empire. We have had several iterations of the Big Con over the past four years, with Gondorff and Hooker played by a rotating cast including James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. All schemed and conspired to destroy Donald Trump and his family...

As we hunker down under social distancing and stay-at-home orders, the Chinese coronavirus continues to extract a human toll in actual illness, as well as under-reported socio-economic costs. Many businesses are closed, people are not working, not earning an income, unable to socialize with friends and family. The human tragedy that follows the virus will be horrific. Drug addiction, alcoholism, mental health issues, domestic violence, homelessness, and suicides may extract a toll far worse than the virus. Yet these costs are given scant attention, leaving the focus on ICU beds, hydroxychloroquine, and death counts. When will the restrictions be lifted?...

The Chinese coronavirus has put a huge damper on business activity, consumer spending and transportation, especially recreational/discretionary spending and activity. With the lockdown and stay-at-home orders widespread in the U.S. and many other major countries, personal driving and regular passenger car/bus/train/air travel have all declined precipitously. This has dropped the demand for crude oil by millions of barrels per day. The upside is that retail gasoline pricing has fallen and the average driver is quite happy about the new lower prices. He shouldn’t be. He's getting a raw deal. As world oil demand dropped, Saudi Arabia and Russia -- two...

The late Sage of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken, once wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Polling suggests that America’s governors and mayors have done the terrified, beaten-down people’s bidding after saturation media coverage of panic-inducing epidemiological modeling made Americans strangely docile. If a poll released by Zogby Analytics on April 10 is to be believed, a supermajority of likely voters are fine with the lockdowns -- and perhaps the harsh un-American tactics -- used by states and localities to secure compliance with their emergency fiats...

If you watch cable news, something I have assiduously avoided these past few weeks, you will be told that Barney Fife is in charge of the country, that the President lies, mismanages, exaggerates, and has totally botched America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Yet an honest observer sees much the opposite, rather than the fake news peddled by agents of doom in the media. Some say character is created in the crucible of adversity, yet the reality is that such adversity reveals character. Leaders are facing unprecedented challenges today, with lives and entire economies riding on every decision. Such battles...

How much does the general public really know about the Chinese Coronavirus? What is the death rate solely attributable to the virus? Of those that have died, how many had serious underlying conditions? Do the reported deaths include those who died of other ailments but had also contracted the virus? What is the actual age breakdown of fatalities? The CDC claims that this virus is extraordinarily contagious; how much of a threat to spread the virus to others are those who are asymptomatic (have the virus but report no symptoms) yet are still contagious? Since the Chinese Communist Party has...

Amid the confusion, fear, and uncertainty surrounding the outbreak of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic in the United States, one thing is obvious: this country is astonishingly fortunate to have Donald Trump as our president. In predictably trite, small-minded fashion, the liberal media and clueless Democratic politicians have treated the pandemic as nothing more than an opportunity to score shallow political points against President Trump. All manner of "Trump has blood on his hands" and "His Pollyanna-ish downplaying of the scope of the crisis at the beginning cost us valuable time" comments and criticism have been forthcoming on an almost daily...

The United States and much of the western world, by utilizing the most draconian of tactics, is plunging many nations into potential economic and societal chaos as they attempt to stem the tide of the Chinese Coronavirus. Relying on dubious and error-prone projections, politicians and bureaucrats constitutionally or statutorily limited in their power, are now exercising near-dictatorial authority in their edicts, which are effectively suspending or terminating numerous freedoms under the guise of protecting their respective nations. All Americans, not be just those with first-hand experience dealing with World War II and its aftermath or living in Eastern Europe under...

The unprecedented global pandemic that knows no borders should be a clear lesson for all of us of how interconnected and interdependent we all are, as a human community, and how small our already frail planet has become in the era of globalization. Diversity & Inclusion would like to salute all of you—administrators, faculty, staff, and of course, our students—for your resilience and strength, whether at the frontlines, physically or virtually, in services and in the classroom. We also want to remind ourselves that as in all human experiences, the pandemic has not impacted all communities equally. Many communities are...

Iran's supreme leader is refusing U.S. assistance to fight the new coronavirus, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be man-made by America. . . . “Possibly your (offered) medicine is a way to spread the virus more,” Khamenei said. His comments come as Iran has over 20,600 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus amid 1,556 reported deaths.

Chinese medical experts helping Italy deal with the crisis have said restrictions imposed in the Lombardy region are "not strict enough" to contain the spread Italy called in the military to enforce the lockdown on Friday as officials announced 627 new deaths in 24 hours, the largest single-day toll in any country since the coronavirus outbreak began. Desperate scenes have unfolded in the north of the country, particularly the hardhit Lombardy region where infections first exploded last month, as hospitals struggle to treat thousands of cases, CNN reported.

The coronavirus is not as bad as the seasonal flu. President Donald Trump is not worried about having had a direct exposure to the virus. The United States is in far better shape than other countries. Those are some of the messages from Trump to the American public in recent days. They are textbook examples of disastrous communication during disease outbreaks, according to some researchers into the psychology of pandemics and how leaders can most effectively communicate to keep the public safe during them. Trump is known for his informal style in attempts to, for instance, calm markets amid trade...