Free Republic

Anti-white liberal General and Mark Milley played football with transgender Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine in high school, Greg Kelly of Newsmax revealed. In what many have described as one of the strangest connections in American government, General Mark Milley, who “wants to understand white rage,” played football in high school with the transgender Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, Newsmax host Greg Kelly revealed on his show Greg Kelly Reports. The two both went to Belmont Hill school in Massachusetts. Milley graduated in the class of 1976, where as Levine – formerly named Richard, graduated in the class of 1975....

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine as his nominee for assistant secretary of health – and she’d be the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the US Senate. “Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic – no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability – and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,” Biden said in a statement. “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead...

Department of Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine on Wednesday updated the travel order issued on Nov. 17, to clarify testing and quarantine requirements for people entering the commonwealth or returning home. “This update keeps in place the need for people visiting and returning to Pennsylvania to have a negative test or quarantine for 14 days upon arrival,” Levine said in a press release. “We still recommend that Pennsylvanians do not travel, and the stay-at-home advisory I issued earlier this week remains in effect. I know that it is hard not to travel during this holiday season, but it is the...

By | sgleiter@pennlive.com At least three central Pennsylvania grocery chains have stopped selling Gumbas sauces and salsas. Karns Foods, Giant and Stauffers of Kissel Hill pulled the products made by Michael Mangano, a family spokesman for the Taste of Sicily restaurant in Palmyra, according to LebTown, a media organization. Mangano has been an outspoken critic of Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus restrictions on restaurants and businesses and has personally attacked Health Secretary Rachael Levine, who is a transgender woman. Mangano, who writes on the Gumbas Facebook page that he is not against the LGBTQ community, refers to Levine as “Richard.” “These...

HARRISBURG — For the first months of the pandemic, as state officials took sweeping and unprecedented actions to combat COVID-19, the public was cut off from a crucial tool to understand how those life-and-death decisions were being made. The Wolf administration in mid-March stopped responding to public records requests, a way for people to obtain copies of government data, emails, and other records from state agencies. Without that, Pennsylvanians were forced to rely on elected officials to share as much — or as little — information as they chose. When the state’s open records process resumed in May, it was...

Gov. Tom Wolf said this week he’s never been tested for COVID-19. He said so in an offhand remark at a news briefing for reporters and didn’t elaborate. That’s much different than the level of testing for officials such as President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who reportedly are tested daily and sometimes multiple times per day. Their staffers are also tested daily, and people who meet with Trump and Pence are tested in advance. “The Wolf Administration is following the same guidance that we offer to Pennsylvanians on a regular basis. If you are sick, and feel...

Gov. Tom Wolf spoke out in defense of Dr. Rachel Levine Wednesday and assailed the Bloomsburg Fair fundraising event that mocked Pennsylvania’s health secretary. Levine, a transgender woman, has been a target of slurs in recent months as she’s gained increasing visibility in the Wolf Administration’s efforts to combat the coronavirus. The governor denounced the “hate and transphobia” that has emerged in recent months. The latest controversy emerged after photos were shared from at a fundraiser held at the Bloomsburg Fair. The fundraiser, which was organized to raise money for area fire companies, included a dunk tank where a man...

Having people look at you, knowing they consider you a lawbreaker and a health threat. Looking at yourself, knowing you risked passing a disease that could kill someone’s grandparent or chronically-ill spouse. Those apparently are the harshest punishments Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine hope to impose on violators of their new order to wear face masks in most indoor and outdoor public settings to help block the spread of COVID-19. They were pressed this week on exactly what penalties apply to those who violate the order, such as someone entering a store without a mask...

Pennsylvania Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine took to Pittsburgh’s KDKA NewsRadio on Thursday morning to further explain the expanded mask-wearing order she signed on Wednesday. Levine hit on a number of familiar talking points. She repeated her familiar refrain: “my mask protects you and your mask protects me.” And she said that the order, which says citizens should wear a face-covering anytime they leave their home and will be around other people unless they’re under the age of two or have a medical or work-related reason not to, is not political. Rather, it’s meant to help prevent an outburst...

Gov. Tom Wolf and health secretary Dr. Rachel Levine on Wednesday expanded on their previous order that everyone must wear masks inside businesses, saying masks are now required whenever anyone leaves home. It takes effect immediately. “This mask-wearing order is essential to stopping the recent increase in COVID-19 cases we have seen in Pennsylvania,” Wolf said. “Those hot spots can be traced to situations where Pennsylvanians were not wearing masks or practicing social distancing – two practices that must be adhered to if we want to maintain the freedoms we have in place under our reopening.” Wolf cited the Disease...

More than 4,500 COVID-19 deaths in Pennsylvania are associated with nursing homes or personal care homes. That high rate is drawing strong criticism from Republicans, both in the U.S. Congress and the state legislature. But Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is defending the state’s response. In March, Wolf’s administration told nursing homes that the state needed to preserve available beds in hospitals for an anticipated surge of COVID-19 cases. That meant nursing homes should continue to accept residents, even ones “who have had the COVID-19 virus,” the governor’s guidance said. “This decision likely contributed to the thousands of elderly deaths in...

Republican members of a U.S. House committee want to know “the science and information” the Gov. Tom Wolf administration used in requiring long term care facilities to accept people who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 or otherwise potentially exposed. Pennsylvania “forced the nursing homes to take seniors who are COVID positive from the hospital back into thed nursing home, even knowing they couldn’t properly take care of them. It was a death sentence for thousands of Pennsylvania seniors,” U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana said Tuesday. However, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, who hosted a briefing on the subject Tuesday, said...

Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday he expects COVID-19 to surge again in Pennsylvania this fall. But he said preparations and lessons learned during months when the state was shut down may enable us to weather it without a repeat of the shut down. The advantages if faced with a second wave include increased hospital preparedness and capacity, expanded testing and expanding contact tracing to find and isolate people who have been exposed. Wolf said Pennsylvania now has capacity for 16,000 tests per day -- more than the total tested in March -- and has nearly 600 contact tracers, with plans...