Free Republic

Two-thirds of Americans are concerned that they or someone they know will be infected with the novel coronavirus, but in a country with a growing partisan divide, political tribalism is having a large impact when it comes to anxiety over the disease, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday. Although unease over the coronavirus is high, it also strongly breaks along partisan lines. Among Democrats, 83% are concerned about getting coronavirus, including 47% who are very concerned, and among Republicans, 56% are concerned, including only 15% who are very concerned. Only 17% of Democrats are not concerned while...

People’s sheeple mentality is so predictable. And nobody knows how to weaponize this built in glitch better than Democrats, as Roger Kimball reminds us: The Wuhan Panic is a textbook case of the Rahm Emanuel principle that you never want a good crisis to go to waste. Emanuel helped Barack Obama weaponize the government against freedom in the aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2008. The Dems and their megaphones in the media are trying to do the same thing now in the face of the spread of the Wuhan Virus. In about three weeks, maybe four, it will all...

“I usually don’t go on FOX on principle, but misinformation about coronavirus has made me concerned about risk,” the lawmaker tweeted ahead of her appearance on “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

On Tuesday night, Joe Biden's campaign was celebrating his latest primary night triumph. By Wednesday morning, #NeverBiden, #WriteinBernie and #DemExit2020 hashtags began trending on Twitter. The significance of the problem became apparent in the same string of primaries that put Biden on the cusp of the nomination. In Michigan — a state critical to Democrats’ efforts to reclaim their general election footing in the Rust Belt — just 2 of 5 Sanders backers said they would vote Democratic in November, regardless of who became the nominee, according to exit polls. Four in five said they'd be dissatisfied with Biden as...

Fear of the coronavirus is causing shutdowns on a global scale like we have never seen before. Just about every major sporting event that you can think of has been either canceled or postponed, schools and universities are keeping students away, global tourism is absolutely collapsing, churches are being shuttered, conferences and festivals are being taken off the calendar, businesses are asking workers to work from home, and even Disneyland is being closed down. Over the past several days the wave of closings and cancellations has become an avalanche, and all of our lifestyles are going to be dramatically...

To modify T S Eliot in "The Hollow Men" (whose theme seems not inappropriate), this is the way the world ends, not with a Bern but a whimper. As I said on Rush the morning after Super Tuesday, Senator Sanders blew the 2016 election with a single line - his crotchetty insistence to Mrs Clinton that he was "sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails". That told Hillary that he wouldn't go after her on the subject of her corruption and lawlessness. Which in turn told Hillary that Bernie wasn't serious. And so it proved. Four years later,...

A Chinese official questioned whether the U.S. Army "brought the epidemic to Wuhan" and demanded "an explanation" on Thursday. A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, Lijian Zhao, made the post on his official Twitter account and included video of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield testifying before Congress. "CDC was caught on the spot," Lijian wrote. "When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us...

VIDEO Jon Meacham went on yet another of his incredibly pompous rants against President Trump which he typically dressed in faux historical authority. Meacham's shtick is to present himself as a "thoughtful" historian while engaging in pathetic partisan ranting. In fact, in this video, he laughably states that he is not making a partisan point but an historical point. Yeah, riiiiiight! In case you are not aware of this, Meacham was the "genius" who, as editor of Newsweek Magazine, took what he called the "counterintuitive" step of purposely reducing the number of subscriptions by raising the price. The end...

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Friday criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for being ill-prepared to test for the coronavirus and he blamed President Barack Obama for the situation. "For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further.....," Trump wrote. In a follow-up tweet, Trump continued his broadside, ".... Their response to H1N1 Swine flu was a full scale disaster, with...

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning will be released from jail after being held for 10 months because testimony she refused to give to a secret grand jury is no longer needed, a federal judge said on Thursday. Manning's release comes because "the business of (the grand jury) had concluded," Judge Anthony Trenga of the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, wrote on Thursday. "The Court finds that Ms. Manning's appearance before the Grand Jury is no longer needed, in light of which her detention no longer serves any coercive purpose." Manning was fined $256,000 in fines for refusing to testify,...

Coronavirus is nothing to sneeze at. But so far, widespread panic may not be justified. You should know: Almost all of the reported coronavirus deaths in the U.S. happened in long-term care facilities in Washington State. And almost all of those occurred at the same facility. Most people who get coronavirus have mild or no symptoms. No young or middle-age people have died of coronavirus in the U.S. Most around the world diagnosed from January-March 1 have already recovered. Obviously, this is a fast-moving news target. For the latest information from the government, you can visit the Centers for Disease...

Millions of Britons will need to contract coronavirus in order to control the impact of the disease which is likely to return "year on year", the government's chief scientific adviser has told Sky News. Around 60% of the UK population will need to become infected with coronavirus in order for society to have "herd immunity" from future outbreaks, Sir Patrick Vallance said. Herd immunity is the resistance to a contagious disease within a population because enough people have become immune, and so it is harder for it to spread. There is currently no vaccine available for coronavirus. So far, 10...

The left's reaction to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's rude exchange with a union worker in Michigan is a case study on liberal hypocrisy and propaganda. You'd have to be living in a cave not to recognize that something is way off with Biden. He's always been strange, but he's getting noticeably worse. His rhetorical recklessness is a feature, not a bug. He has a history of gaffes, especially for someone so prominent. Casual ethnic slurs roll off his tongue like water off a donkey's back. Pandering to an Indian American supporter, he said: "You cannot go to a 7-11...

Morning "Why sit we here until we die?" 2 Kings 7:3 Dear reader, this little book was mainly intended for the edification of believers, but if you are yet unsaved, our heart yearns over you: and we would fain say a word which may be blessed to you. Open your Bible, and read the story of the lepers, and mark their position, which was much the same as yours. If you remain where you are you must perish; if you go to Jesus you can but die. "Nothing venture, nothing win," is the old proverb, and in your case the...

It gets very hard to ask questions when nearly all of the media and government and many of those you live near and work with are all wringing their hands in unison. COVID-19 or coronavirus has many scared and scrambling. But who’s asking questions beyond, “What do we do now!?” The psychology around this virus and the way it's being covered is very strange. We know President Trump began taking action in January to mitigate travel between China and the United States. Media and health officials knew about coronavirus then. Maybe you heard a passing blip about a cruise ship, but...

Every time you think the Democrats on Capitol Hill could not become more despicable, depraved and demented than they already are, they go and surprise you again. – Honestly, at this point, I really don’t think there’s any way for San Fran Nan to surprise anymore. At least, not after this one. But I’ll probably be surprised again soon. The liberal hacks who run The Hill have a report out this morning detailing House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s objections to the Democrats’ version of a coronavirus-related “temporary” assistance bill now worming its way through the House. Here we have what...

Millions of New Yorkers may soon need to separate scraps of fruit, vegetables and meat into separate garbage receptacles every time they cook and do dishes — learning another new habit just as they did with plastics recycling in the 1980s and are now doing under a recent ban on plastic shopping bags. The City Council speaker is calling for organic waste recycling, also known as composting, to be available — and eventually mandatory — for all New York City residents, in an effort to reduce exports to landfills and emissions of planet-warming gases. The proposal, announced on Thursday by...

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw fired back overnight after Joe Biden criticized President Trump’s actions on the coronavirus outbreak. “A wall will not stop the coronavirus,” Biden wrote on Twitter on Thursday night, attempting to link the outbreak to Trump’s signature immigration goal of a strong barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Please see link, for full article)

What the hell? No store here in Columbus has toilet paper. I'm not looking to hoard the stuff, I just need to be able to wipe my a**. Why toilet paper???? People must have the stuff packed to the rafters in their basements and garages. Best I can figure the news about no toilet paper during the Venezuela economic meltdown must have scarred our psyche pretty bad. It's to the point where it might be prudent for the secretary of commerce to hold a news conference and re-assure folks that there is no toilet paper shortage.

President Donald Trump’s suggestion to postpone the Tokyo Olympics for a year because of the spreading coronavirus was immediately shot down by Japan’s Olympic minister. “The IOC and the organizing committee are not considering cancellation or a postponement — absolutely not at all,” Seiko Hashimoto, an Olympic bronze medalist, told a news conference on Friday in Tokyo. The International Olympic Committee and Tokyo organizers have stayed on message since the viral outbreak in China three months ago spread across Asia and then the globe: The games will open as schedule on July 24.