Free Republic

Thursday on ABC’s “The View,” co-host Meghan McCain suggested President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response “could be the silver bullet that takes out this administration.” McCain said, “The problem is when I watched it live like we all did, is he’s a politician that inspires anger really well. If you want to get riled up and angry, he’s a politician who does it well. The I feel your pain and fear, incapable of it. He could have been reading the phonebook last night. He should have been saying, I understand Americans are scared. Have a Ronald Reagan-esque moment. His inability to...

Broadway will shut down for four to six weeks beginning tonight, due to the coronavirus outbreak, several sources told The Post. In what is the worst crisis the industry has faced since the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, several shows will not be able to recover. “The Minutes,” a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts that was to open Sunday night, is likely to close and never return. Martin McDonagh’s acclaimed “Hangmen” is also unlikely to open this season, though it could come back in the fall. “Sing Street,” a new musical currently in rehearsals,...

Former Vice President Joe Biden rolled out his plan to combat the coronavirus, also know as COVID-19, on Thursday as the virus rapidly spreads throughout the United States. Biden's plan calls for a number of measures, including the establishment of an effective national response to the virus through making testing free and widely available, as well as the establishment of ten mobile sites and drive-through facilities per state. The former vice president also called on greater transparency from the White House in terms of how many individuals have been tested. The plan also called for an economic response to the...

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday said the Trump administration’s coronavirus response has been a “colossal” failure. “The administration’s failure on testing is colossal. And it’s a failure of planning, leadership and execution,” Biden said at a press conference addressing the deadly outbreak. “By next week, the number of tests should be in the millions, not the thousands.”

President Donald Trump said he did not support the proposed emergency funding bill by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released on Wednesday night to fight the coronavirus. When asked by reporters if he supported the bill, Trump replied, “No, because there are things that are in there that have nothing to do with what we are talking about.” Pelosi and House Democrats rushed to release a bill on Wednesday night at 11:00 p.m. that was about 124 pages long. The bill did not address issues that the president asked for, including a payroll tax cut. But Trump indicated that Democrats were...

Scientists around the world have worked overtime to get a handle on Covid-19, yet one great unknown remains. We still don’t know for sure whether this is only a medical crisis, or also a medical system crisis. The distinction matters for the novel coronavirus for the same reason it matters for other “natural disasters” that aren’t entirely natural. It is now widely understood that famines arise from local political failures in the trade and distribution of abundant global food supplies, not from local crop failures. Floods devastate communities not because the local rivers are unusually watery but because poor zoning...

The modern media trend is to make fun of President Trump for his alleged and actual misstatements of fact. You have to go a long way -- in this case Sky News in Australia -- to find a media outlet willing to make fun of a U.S. liberal Democrat. The host of a program called "Outsiders," Rita Panahi, assembled a montage of gaffes and gibberish from former vice president and current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden. The Biden montage makes you ask: Is this guy mentally fit to be president? Biden supporters might argue the clips are...

An Onondaga County judge Thursday said he had no choice but to release a LaFayette man with mental issues who has been linked to at least 16 separate theft investigations. That’s because Christopher Brown, 20, hasn’t been charged with a crime eligible for bail under the state’s recent reform law. His worst charge? Stealing a Mercedes Benz last July from a James Street apartment garage, according to the indictment. He’s also accused of stealing a Honda SUV from the same garage, as well as ATVs, a purse and credit cards in separate incidents. His charges include burglary and grand larceny....

The words “white pride” were carved on the ground outside of a black-owned gym in Johnson, City Tennessee last week. The local community was outraged and rallied around in support of the business, denouncing the alleged act of hate. However, following a police investigation, a black woman by the name of Mahagany Teague was arrested and charged with vandalism after she used a rock to carve “white pride” into the sidewalk.

....................... Now, of course, an authoritarian country has tools at its disposal democracies do not. In any case, China has a total caseload of 80,000 that has been quite steady for a few weeks. China has a population of 1.4 billion. In other words, 1 in every 17,000 Chinese have come down with the disease. Obviously, the incidence rate in the Wuhan area is higher than the national incidence rate in China -- maybe more than 25 times higher. This is also the area where the disease spread rapidly since almost nobody early on knew what they were dealing with....

Lyudmila Ivanova and her fiance came to the Arctic from a village in southern Russia in 1978 in search of a better life. Their destination was Vorkuta, a coal-mining city 90 miles north of the Arctic circle. Vorkuta, which means “place of bears”... Now, a better nickname may be “the fastest dying city in Russia.” The lure of higher wages and better housing is long gone, and the population has plummeted... When darkness falls, often just a handful of lights can be seen in apartment buildings of 100 units or more. Ivanova, now 62, feels trapped. Like tens of thousands...

The coronavirus has had the bad judgment to arrive in an election year, so Congress will inevitably respond with what it does best—spend money. As the ideas spill out, it’s worth laying out some principles to sort the good from the bad and the ugly. • Target the real hardship. Americans who need the most help will be those who lose their jobs because they or their family members are sick, especially low-income workers who are paid hourly rather than by salary. Federal grants could help make up for lost wages, sick leave, or special health-care costs. The precedents here...

President Trump holds strong leads over both former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in potential head-to-head matchups in Iowa, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll released Thursday. Trump leads Biden among likely voters by a 51 percent to 41 percent margin, with 8 percent of voters saying they are undecided in the hypothetical matchup. Trump gets the support of 53 percent of likely voters in a matchup with Sanders, who gets 41 percent support. Six percent of voters are undecided in a Trump-Sanders head-to-head. The president is buoyed by a net-positive approval rating —...

When President Trump sees a political threat, his instinct is to deny, double down and hit back. That has often been politically effective, but in the case of the novel coronavirus it has undermined his ability to lead. It’s not accurate, as the press reported last week, that the President called the virus a “hoax.” He said the criticisms of his Administration were a hoax. Yet his public remarks too often continue to give the impression that he views the virus more as another chance for political combat than as a serious public-health problem. White House advisers last week said...

As if participating in the failed deep state coup against President Trump weren’t enough, the FBI has covered itself in glory once again. A new report released Wednesday documents how the feds missed opportunities to stop at least six lethal terror attacks on American soil. The report focuses on failures of “oversight” and “procedure,” but itself becomes part of the problem, in failing to note that the Bureau’s troubles go much deeper. According to the Washington Times, those six attacks killed 70 people, and each of their perpetrators “had been on the FBI’s radar.” Nonetheless, “agents quickly closed the cases...

Two days after Iran declared its first cases of the novel coronavirus - in what would become one of the largest outbreaks of the illness outside of China - evidence of unusual activity appeared at a cemetery near where the infections emerged. At the Behesht-e Masoumeh complex in Qom, about 80 miles south of Tehran, the excavation of a new section of the graveyard began as early as Feb. 21, satellite images show, and then rapidly expanded as the virus spread. By the end of the month, two large trenches - their lengths totaling 100 yards - were visible at...

Duke University has suspended all athletic competition for the foreseeable future, effective immediately, in response to COVID-19. The announcement was made Thursday by President Vincent E. Price, in conjunction with guidance from public health experts and Duke Athletics leadership. The suspension applies to all athletic competitions and practices for the health and safety of all who are essential to these activities. This suspension also applies to any camps and clinics sponsored by Duke's intercollegiate athletic programs. Duke University and Duke Athletics will convey additional information, when available, via its social media channels and GoDuke.com.

President Trump faces the biggest challenge yet to his prospects of being re-elected, with his advisers’ two major assumptions for the campaign — a booming economy and an opponent easily vilified as too far left — quickly evaporating. After a year in which Mr. Trump has told voters that they must support his re-election or risk watching the economy decline, the stock market is reeling and economists are warning that a recession could be on the horizon because of the worsening spread of the coronavirus... “If it was Warren or Bernie and you don’t have coronavirus, I think Trump might...

On March 15, 1995, by Executive Order 12957, the President declared a national emergency with respect to Iran to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the actions and policies of the Government of Iran.  On May 6, 1995, the President issued Executive Order 12959, imposing more comprehensive sanctions on Iran to further respond to this threat.  On August 19, 1997, the President issued Executive Order 13059, consolidating and clarifying those previous orders.  The President took additional steps pursuant to this national emergency in Executive Order 13553...

In the judiciary, polite language such as "I disagree" and "my point has been misrepresented" are the common protocol. (WND so I'll post the piece below)