Free Republic

... "There was a lot of pressure in pretty much all of these American cities to reopen," said Navarro, whose research was done in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "When they removed those restrictions too soon, then many cities saw a resurgence in cases." The center's research found that cities that used "early, sustained and layered" practices such as social distancing, closing public events and stay-at-home orders "fared better than those that did not." ...

Just as highly important information on antibody testing has started to come in, Governor JB Pritzker announced Friday that he will de-prioritize that testing. He is withholding results collected so far in Illinois. His full comments are reproduced below. That’s indefensible and opposite of what other states are doing. It’s another case of Pritzker’s stage managing the facts and expecting the public to trust him blindly. Why would Pritzker want to cover up the data? Maybe he thinks it’s his place to take in upon himself to protect individuals from their own misuse of the testing. On the other hand,...

CNN debate moderator Abby Phillip asked Bernie Sanders in the Tuesday debate in Des Moines: “CNN reported yesterday — and Senator Sanders, Senator Warren confirmed in a statement — that, in 2018, you told her you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?” Not “did you say that,” but “why did you say that?” Sanders denied it, then listed the many reasons the story makes no sense: He urged Warren herself to run in 2016, campaigned for a female candidate who won the popular vote by 3 million votes, and has been...

...Aftermath: Part 3 was the sermon that got the most attention -- the one where Stanley suggested that you need to "unhitch" your faith from the Old Testament as he insisted the New Testament writers did. To make his point, Stanley taught from Acts 15 and the story of the Jerusalem council. (snip) ...If Stanley said the conclusion of the Jerusalem council pertained to Mosaic dietary laws, how did he explain the command to abstain from sexual immorality? Not well. Moral Decay Stanley said, "If I were to hand everybody a 3x5 card, and I were to say, 'Tell me...

Since the topic of "comprehensive immigration reform" has begun to bubble up again in the Senate, being mentioned by Chuck Schumer and John McCain within a few days of each other, I wanted to open a few questions for discussion. First: We have a complete legal framework to govern immigration. These are the People's laws, passed by our representatives in Congress assembled and signed by Presidents from Truman to Bush. This set of laws is presumptively legitimate, under our sovereign authority. Reformers refer to this system of valid laws originating from We the People as "broken". Question: What is broken...

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee is blasting President Obama as the "most-anti-Christian" president ever over his guest list for Pope Francis's state visit later this week. Huckabee said Obama is disregarding Catholic doctrine and insulting the pope by inviting gay rights and pro-abortion activists to the White House event on Wednesday. “President Obama’s classless decision to transform Pope Francis’ visit to the White House into a politicized cattle call for gay and pro-abortion activists is an insult to millions of Catholics,” he said, according to The Iowa Statesman. “Why is it that Obama goes to extremes to accommodate Muslim terrorists but...

The further I travel down this rabbit hole, the more I feel divorced from the good conservative people that I choose to call my own. I hold some stories back from our readers. My thought is that people have a hard enough time embracing the basic fact that our government is corrupt on both sides of the aisle. If you knew how corrupt I thought these people really were, I feel like you’d rush to the phone and soon bad men would show up to haul me off in a straight jacket. Do they still do that? Regardless, today I...

Malik Obama is Barack Obama’s half-brother, but he is close enough to the president to have been the best man at Barack and Michelle’s wedding. He has also visited the White House, and is president of the Barack H. Obama Foundation. It’s at the BHO Foundation website that Malik Obama has posted this curious photo. The Barack H. Obama Foundation was fast-tracked to IRS tax-exempt status at the same time that the IRS was abusing numerous Tea Party and conservative groups. While those groups’ tax-exempt applications were taking two years and mountains of paperwork and invasive queries about their memberships...

If .. Barack Obama isn’t happy with his press coverage in the United States, he ought to take a look at how he’s being portrayed in the Arab media. As Obama steps up his push for congressional authorization for a strike on Syria, the president is coming under withering criticism by opinion leaders throughout the Middle East, according to a review by POLITICO and experts of Arabic- and English-language media in the region. The increasingly unfavorable coverage Obama’s receiving in the Arab world - even come from the press in countries that support U.S. intervention in Syria - is doing...

STRELNA, Russia — President Obama ran into an impasse on Friday in his bid to rally international backing for a military strike on Syria as world leaders wrapped up a summit meeting here remaining deeply divided over the right response to what the Americans have called the deadliest nerve gas attack in decades. After a dinner debate that lasted into the early morning hours of Friday, Mr. Obama emerged with a few supporters but no consensus, as other leaders urged him not to attack without United Nations permission, which is not forthcoming. Instead, the president had to resign himself to...

Vladimir Putin is making a sport of lashing out at President Obama, again taunting him about the Edward Snowden fiasco while accusing his administration of lying about Syria — on the eve of what will be a contentious showdown in St. Petersburg. The Russian president ridiculed the Obama administration’s claim that Syrian rebels are not dominated by al Qaeda-linked terrorists. “They lie beautifully, of course,” Putin said in a wide-ranging interview just before he and Obama meet face to face at the G-20 summit. He called Secretary of State John Kerry’s testimony about the rebels before a Senate committee on...

Until now, the loudest and most material opponent to a Syrian invasion by the "liberating" powers was Russia. Moments ago, China joined the anti-western axis. BBC reports: "Russia and China have stepped up their warnings against military intervention in Syria, with Moscow saying any such action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region." More: Earlier, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC an international military response to the suspected use of chemical weapons would be possible without the backing of the UN. The UN Security Council is divided, with Russia and China opposing military intervention and the UK and...

All of us in the conservative movement know that Obama should have been impeached long ago for his arrogance and trampling on our Constitution, but until now, we haven't had a broad enough consensus in the country to go forward. Now we do. The upcoming war on Syria is wildly unpopular, with less than 10% of Americans supporting it, and for the first time I can recall, even Democrats and Indies despise Obama as much as we do. While our neighborhood is solidly conservative, the US sites where our import-export business operates have lots of Democrats and liberals. For this...

BRUSSELS - Germany has indicated it will not take part in any military strike on Syria, as France and the UK signal readiness to join a US-led intervention. Philipp Missfelder, the foreign affairs spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party, said in the Leipziger Volkszeitung daily on Tuesday (27 August) that: "The [German] army has, through its current international operations, already reached the breaking point." He added that a Western strike could create a "spiral of escalating violence" by drawing Iran and the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, deeper into the conflict. He also said military action without a UN...

Nearly a year after the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, CNN’s Erin Burnett looks back at the night that took the lives of four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens. With special reports from CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon and chief national correspondent John King, Burnett revisits the night of the attack, the U.S. military response, the latest on the investigation, and the political firestorm in Washington D.C.

When Michele Bachmann picked on Huma Abedin a year ago — claiming she had some convoluted connection to the Muslim Brotherhood — there was a rush to defend the longtime Hillary Clinton aide. The Minnesota congresswoman quickly got a scolding from House Speaker John Boehner, Sen. John McCain, House Intelligence Committee chair Mile Rogers. But now that her husband, Anthony Weiner, is running for New York City mayor, the attacks on Abedin aren't so ridiculous, and Abedin herself is not quite so untouchable.

Money can't buy the kind of political boost Huma Abedin is receiving. Like her mentor Hillary Clinton, the stand-by-your-man strategy will be her gateway to widespread popularity and respect. Don't feel sorry for the Democrats over losing a former rising star politician like Anthony Weiner, whose future is so hopeless that even the New York Times says it's time to go. They have gained an even more promising candidate for high office. Huma Abedin is better-looking, better spoken, and more appealing than her role model. Yesterday's performance ("whole lotta therapy") was superb, establishing Ms. Abedin as dignified, strong, and starting...

Dear fri­ends, thank you for invi­ting me to Los Ange­les. I always like coming to the Uni­ted Sta­tes. There are many things that I admire Ame­ri­cans for. One of them is that they are unas­ha­medly patrio­tic. The Ame­ri­can Free­dom Associa­tion has asked me to speak to you about the future of Europe. Europe is in a ter­rible state. Bit by bit, Euro­pean countries are los­ing their natio­nal sover­eignty. The eco­nomy is in sham­b­les. Isla­mic immi­grants riot and ter­ro­rize the many locals. And when people’s throats are slit in the stre­ets, while the mur­de­rers shout “Allahu Akbar,” the aut­hori­ties appease the...

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania —Two presidents who spent much of their time in office fighting terror stood solemnly next to each other Tuesday morning as a United States marine placed a wreath to mark the memory of those killed here by a terrorist bomb 15 years ago. President Obama, in Tanzania for the last leg of his weeklong Africa trip, stood to the left of his predecessor, George W. Bush, under a tree canopy on the grounds of the American Embassy here. Mr. Bush is in Tanzania with his wife, who is holding a summit for African first ladies.

On Memorial Day weekend, 2 million people marched in protests against seed giant Monsanto for the purpose of bringing awareness to hazards from genetically modified food, which it and other companies manufacture. Organizer Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities in 52 countries. Genetically modified plants are grown from genetically modified, or engineered, seeds, which are created to resist insecticides and herbicides so that crops can be grown to withstand a weed-killing pesticide or integrate a bacterial toxin that can ward off pests. The Chicago Tribune reported that because genetically modified organisms are not listed on food or...