Free Republic

Dear MoveOn member, The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 is here. After weeks of watching the global pandemic unfold, we're now seeing the virus affect many of our communities, our families, our politics, our elections, our jobs, and more. And while the full extent of the virus's impact is still unclear, it's already exposing underlying problems in our country including these three major ways: Donald Tump and the GOP have put the profits and the needs of corporations before caring for our communities. Their corruption, ineptitude, and secrecy are putting millions at risk. Americans are at risk not just from...

Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are working to kill a House deal to reauthorize expiring intelligence programs and reform the surveillance court, throwing up an eleventh hour roadblock to the agreement. The two libertarian-minded Republicans, who are close allies of President Trump's, are urging Trump to veto the House agreement, which pairs a reauthorization of expiring intelligence programs with broader changes to the court associated with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). "The president I think really would like to see real reform, and I think the open question is whether or not he'll take what [Attorney...

Coronavirus is a significant public health issue, but the response to it, in many quarters, has been hysterical. Events of various kinds are being canceled or modified: schools are closing or going online, the NCAA basketball tournaments will be played without fans in the stands, New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade has been canceled, countless businesses (like my old law firm) are closing their offices and telling employees to work from home. I think there are several reasons for this, beyond legitimate concerns about spreading the disease. First, a fear of liability that is probably misplaced. If other schools send...

The normally well-fed primates had no food after coronavirus fears left the normally busy streets in Thailand completely empty of tourists.... ==================================================================== Hundreds of starving monkeys fought over a single banana that was left in the street, as tourists who regularly feed them shun Thailand. The normally well-fed primates swarmed across a street in Lopubri, central Thailand, after they spotted a fellow monkey holding a banana. A clip showed the primates giving chase to the unlucky monkey, who was doing his best to stay ahead of the pack. But, it took a sinister turn as they started to shriek and...

I have always been fascinated by numbers, so looking at data on the virus spread and its lethality is revealing, and also raises lots of questions I cannot answer, since I am not a virologist, nor am I on top of what each country is doing to contain the spread of the virus. There are several very good sources of information on the numbers if this interests you. A 17-year-old prodigy from Seattle has created an excellent database, which updates every minute.  Here is an article on the young software designer.  Johns Hopkins University, recipient of the largest gift...

This economic downturn can become a windfall for wise investors. Are any freepers thinking about, or have already bought stocks that they believe are great investments? Let's take advantage of this downturn while we can. I knew a lady that sold her house to buy stocks during the great depression and became very rich doing so. Let's help each other out with wise investment advice. While others panic we Conservatives can prosper. Even if things get worse and stocks fall, they are likely to rebound greatly. If everything ultimately tanks, which is unlikely, its all a mute point anyway.

Members of the Republican caucus seem not to have learned the lessons of the 2018 election cycle: Climate change is a loser for Republicans trying to play the “me too” game by offering policies intended to demonstrate liberals aren’t the only ones fighting it. Unless one already buys into the delusion that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant—it’s not, and Republicans should be smarter than to believe it is—then there is no reason the federal government should be intervening in energy markets more than it wrongheadedly already does to fight climate change. To be fair, the climate bills offered by...

U.S. stocks fell sharply once again on Thursday after an address from President Donald Trump failed to quell concerns over the possible economic slowdown from the coronavirus.The S&P 500 dropped 7% shortly after the open, triggering a 15-minute “circuit breaker,” which temporarily halts trading at the New York Stock Exchange. The broad index also joined the  Dow Jones Industrial Average in bear market territory. The 30-stock Dow slid more than 1,600 points, or 7.%. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 7%.  Before the open, futures contracts tied to the major indexes fell to their so-called limit down thresholds, sliding 5%. These limit down levels act as a as...

I know it’s Throwback Thursday but first this breaking news of Love In the Time of COVID-19: Ilhan Omar announces that she married her campaign dude with whom she reportedly had an affair.The tweet stream comments are hysterical, e.g. “Oh brother, where art thou?” Were I given to responding to random tweets, which I’m not, I probably would have tweeted this:“Hi, I’m Larry,  this is my brother Daryll and this is my other brother Daryll.”Which of course is a throwback to the old 1980s Newhart show – and what a great show it was. So there you have it, I’ve...

Former Vice President Joe Biden this week told a construction worker in Detroit, Michigan, that he was “full of shit” and threatened to slap him. Incredibly, the interaction has won the Democratic candidate high praise from the same people who have screamed practically nonstop since 2015 about President Trump’s lack of honor, dignity, and character. “Kind of amazing that anybody thinks this ... makes Biden look anything other than terrific,” said the Atlantic’s David Frum of the former vice president’s outburst. “He shushes the aide who wants to lead him away — and then engages a hostile critic face to...

Saudi Arabia expanded its flight and travel bans to 12 countries and the European Union on Thursday, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a similar measure for most of Europe. In a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency, the country said it was temporarily suspending "the travel of citizens and expatriates and suspended flights" to European Union member states, Switzerland, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti and Somalia. Saudi Arabia said it was extending its ban to countries "where the threat of the spread of the novel coronavirus appeared" as part...

In 2016, I was in the greenroom for a Fox News segment, where I met a charismatic actor named Antonio Sabato Jr. I had never heard of him. Born in Italy, he became, he told me, a "proud American citizen." He called himself a "Christian conservative" and said that he recently came out in favor of presidential candidate Donald Trump and planned to speak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Given Hollywood's hostility toward Republicans, let alone pro-Trump Republicans, I assumed Sabato's career was likely in decline, if, in fact, he ever really had one. Why else would...

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning tried to “take her own life” in a Virginia jail on Wednesday ahead of a looming court date, her legal team said in a statement. She has been recovering and is still expected to appear in court for a hearing Friday after refusing to testify before a grand jury in a WikiLeaks probe, the attorneys said. Manning was re-arrested last May for failing to comply with the subpoena to testify after serving two months for the same issue. A judge is set to rule Friday on a motion to terminate the civil contempt sanctions...

A doctor who has been diagnosed with coronavirus has given an insight into the disease's daily symptoms on social media. Dr. Yale Tung Chen, 35, from Spain, who caught the infection while he was treating patients at Hospital Universitario La Paz in Madrid, has been sharing his experiences battling the illness with the pubic. The emergency physician has been sharing ultrasound scans of his lungs and listing his daily symptoms in an attempt to give the world a glimpse of how the illness takes over the body. Taking to Twitter the doctor wrote: 'Day 1 after #COVID diagnosis. Sore throat,...

Just hours before San Francisco Mayor London Breed issued a citywide ban on all events with 1,000 attendees or more, Hunky Jesus hopefuls were sadly setting aside their loin cloths and crowns of thorns. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are postponing their 41st annual Easter celebration in Dolores Park as a result of the current threat of coronavirus.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday accused Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D-CA) of sending a “bigoted” message on the coronavirus for noting its place of origin and demanded him to delete his message and “apologize immediately.” McCarthy took to social media on Monday, posting a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website to assist Americans in staying informed on the novel coronavirus.

We reported on the confrontation that Joe Biden had with an autoworker at a Michigan plant after the man asked a question about guns. Biden flipped out after the man said that he’d seen a video of Biden saying he wanted to take people’s guns. Biden responded that that was a lie, that he didn’t want to take people’s guns. Here was that confrontation where he threatened to slap the man in the face or take him outside. The eye level view of Joe Biden telling a Michigan auto worker "You're full of sh.t" and then shhhing a female staffer...

The level of media opposition and snark against President Trump is simply so ridiculous at this point there’s a desperation to it.  So let us consider… From the outset of Donald Trump’s entry into the world of politics he espoused a series of key tenets around what he called his “America-First” objectives: The U.S. needed to have control over our borders, and a greater ability to control who was migrating to the United States.  A shift toward stopping ‘illegal’ migration.The U.S. needed to stop the manufacture of goods overseas and return critical manufacturing back to the United States.  A return...

If you listened to Chinese state-run media, you'd think President Trump went to China and released vials of COVID-19 on groups of unsuspecting men, women and children. Beijing has been bending over backward trying to convince the world that the United States is the real culprit behind the quickly spreading virus that's already claimed more than 4,600 lives across the globe. It's a high-stakes strategy for the Asian nation fighting to keep its superpower status amid a national lockdown and palpable anger over claims that Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus, at first covered it up, triggering a worldwide...

... San Francisco was the first locality to require paid sick leave, starting in 2007. The law brought modest benefits and significant costs. A 2011 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found nearly 30% of the lowest-wage earners reported layoffs or reduced hours, with employers unable to offset the cost through price hikes alone. Connecticut’s sick-leave policy was the focus of a 2016 study (of which Mr. Yelowitz was a co-author), which found a “sizeable decrease in labor demand” as a consequence of the mandate. Today 12 states, the District of Columbia and several dozen other localities require...