Free Republic

Abortion facilities can stay open for business in New Mexico during the coronavirus outbreak. On Wednesday, pro-abortion Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an order temporarily prohibiting all non-essential health services in the state to preserve medical supplies for the patients who need them most, according to The NM Political Report. However, Lujan Grisham exempted abortion facilities from her order, allowing them to continue aborting unborn babies and using up scarce medical resources to do it. New Mexico is suffering from a shortage of personal protective equipment, and some medical workers are organizing public protests to highlight the problem, according...

A push by the US State Department to include the phrase "Wuhan virus" in a joint statement with other Group of Seven members following a meeting of foreign ministers on coronavirus on Wednesday was rejected, resulting in separate statements and division in the group. "What the State Department has suggested is a red line," a European diplomat said. "You cannot agree with this branding of this virus and trying to communicate this."...Although the World Health Organization officially has dubbed the illness Covid-19 or coronavirus, a 12-paragraph draft statement circulated by the US among the G7 ministers referred to it as...

The other day I noted thatRachel Maddow and others call on networks not to broadcast Trump coronavirus press conferences. I pointed out that the claim by Maddow and others is that Trump presents a false or misleading view of the health problem, but in fact it is Maddow and other liberal talking heads who present the misleading view of events... noted that the pressers were must-watch TV, and that likely was contributing to Trump’s surge in the polls. That presents a problems for the media and Democrats. But I didn’t have any information on the ratings. Now we do, and...

The coronavirus crisis has brought another first to U.S. financial markets — negative yields on government debt. Yields on both the 1-month and 3-month Treasury bills dipped below zero Wednesday, a week and a half after the Federal Reserve cuts its benchmark rate to near zero and as investors have flocked to the safety of fixed income amid general market turmoil. It was the first time that happened in 4½ years, when both bills briefly flashed red and yields fell to minus-0.002% each. The readings Wednesday were well below those. The one-month traded at minus-0.053% while the three-month was at...

March 25* is the feast date (per the Roman tradition) of the penitent thief crucified alongside Jesus Christ. The Crucifixion — Christ flanked by the “bad thief” who taunts Him and the “good thief” who capes for the Messiah — is deeply planted in the western canon. All four of the Gospels refer to two thieves although it is not until Luke — chronologically the latest, and hence the most embroidered and least reliable, of the synoptic gospels — that these nameless extras are surfaced as contrasting archetypes of the damned and the saved.

Twitter temporarily locked the account of The Federalist over a post of an op-ed that suggested people ignore self-isolation measures. A Controlled Voluntary Infection (CVI) “involves allowing people at low risk for severe complications to deliberately contract COVID-19 in a socially and medically responsible way so they become immune to the disease,” Perednia wrote. The opinion piece comes after public health officials have urged Americans to practice good hygiene and self isolation for weeks. Perednia said those measures aren't enough and that it's time to "think outside the box." “It is time to think outside the box and seriously consider...

“Look how empty their streets are and look how crowded this mosque is,” he said, in comments translated by the East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “Who is it that has given us security and terrified them? Who is it that has protected us and harmed them? It is Allah!” Less than 48 hours after al-Mutawa’s sermon, Gaza’s deputy health minister announced the first two confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Hamas-ruled territory.

Inmates told VICE that they're really just putting a mysterious vendor's existing product in 'NYS Clean' bottles. On March 9, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced a measure to fight “egregious” price-gouging: an initiative to produce 100,000 gallons of New York State-produced hand sanitizer every week, to be distributed for free to needy institutions like schools, government agencies, prisons, and the MTA. “We are problem solvers, state of New York, Empire State, progressive capital of the nation,” Cuomo said during a press conference, before opening a navy curtain and literally unveiling jugs of the “NYS Clean”-branded sanitizer, “made conveniently by...

The White Househttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08upmWPFnr0 RSBNhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC3FV5_Mnds Diamond and Silkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3A5XdtRc7o Golden State Timeshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFpKMx22uhI FOX 10 Phoenixhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qju0CozuKJQ FOX Newshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gc-ImTHyzU C-SPANhttps://www.c-span.org/video/?470675-1/white-house-coronavirus-task-force-briefing

...The relief for small businesses is not adequate. A tax credit for some small businesses for 50% of wages paid to employees during the coronavirus crisis is absurd. Most have been ordered to be closed so there were no wages and they had to fire employees so they could collect unemployment. They need business loans suspended and property taxes. That will put pressure on states to lift the absurd closures.

For the better part of President TrumpÂ’s first term in office, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has been a target of the far-left, because, of course, she does not embrace their radical agenda line-by-line. A noted moderate in the GOP Senate caucus, Sen. Collins votes with both parties, issue by issue. Sen. CollinsÂ’ nuanced approach to governance is unfathomable to the far-left. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) sent a fundraising plea, amidst a global health pandemic, for Sen. CollinsÂ’ opponent, Sara Gideon, featuring far-left author Stephen King: Friend, I'm just so fed up with watching Susan Collins acquiesce to...

The Wake County Sheriff’s Office will suspend pistol and concealed-carry permit applications until April 30 as demand surges amid the coronavirus outbreak, Sheriff Gerald Baker announced Tuesday. Applications that have already been submitted will continue to be processed, Baker said during a press briefing. Pistol permit applications last week averaged 290 per day, or more than three times the roughly 90 applications per day during the same time period a year ago, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Baker said his office needs time to manage the backlog.

's say your house is on fire. An insane arsonist put a lit match to some oily rags in your basement, and the blaze spread so slowly that you didn't even notice at first. This malevolent criminal also cut your phone lines so you couldn't call for help. (There are no cellphones in this scenario, just bear with me. It's set in the '70s, okay?) Once you finally realized you were in trouble, you shouted for help and your neighbors called the fire department. Your local fire chief might not the best one your town has ever had, so it...

A prolific Chinese government-backed cyber group has recently stepped up its attacks on health care, pharmaceutical and other sectors, according to research released Wednesday by cybersecurity group FireEye. FireEye experts discovered that the Chinese cyber threat group known as APT41 had launched what they described as “one of the broadest campaigns by a Chinese cyber espionage actor we have observed in recent years.” The group, which FireEye previously assessed with “high confidence” is state-sponsored, was found to have widely targeted companies in almost two dozen countries in a variety of sectors between January and March. Beyond health-related industries, APT41 also...

During plague periods in the Roman Empire, Christians made a name for themselves. Historians have suggested that the terrible Antonine Plague of the 2nd century, which might have killed off a quarter of the Roman Empire, led to the spread of Christianity, as Christians cared for the sick and offered an spiritual model whereby plagues were not the work of angry and capricious deities but the product of a broken Creation in revolt against a loving God. But the more famous epidemic is the Plague of Cyprian, named for a bishop who gave a colorful account of this disease in...

Gov. Tim Walz is announcing a "stay home" order for Minnesotans to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in the state. Walz made the announcement by video Wednesday, as he is self-quarantining after a member of his security detail tested positive for coronavirus. Walz said he's putting in place "significant mitigation" for two weeks, planned to reduce person-to-person contact by 80%. The "Stay at Home" order extends from March 27 at 11:59 p.m. to April 10 at 5 p.m., directing Minnesotans not to leave their homes except for essential needs. According to Walz, Minnesotans will be allowed to leave their...

Most Americans will be receiving checks from the federal government after President Donald Trump and Congress agreed to a $2 trillion coronavirus relief deal Wednesday. The stimulus is unprecedented in size, and politicians hope it will prevent the country from descending into a recession if a protracted fight against COVID-19 grinds the economy to a halt.

Way back on January 10, the official Twitter account of the World Health Organization declared that ‘WHO does not recommend any specific health measures for travelers to and from Wuhan, #China.’ The tweet went on to say that ‘It is generally considered that entry screening offers little benefit, while requiring considerable resources.’ A follow-up tweet described how ‘WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on #China based on the information currently available.’ What we’ve learned since is that China was by then already engaged in a massive cover-up of the release and spread of the virus....

Fox News made cable news history with its Tuesday virtual town hall with President Trump and the White House's task force by being the most watched ever in cable news. The virtual town hall was moderated by anchors Bill Hemmer and Harris Faulkner and also featured Vice President Mike Pence, Dr. Deborah Birx, and Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams. The town hall, which aired from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET, netted an average of 4.4 million viewers and 1 million in the 25-54 age demographic, dominating both CNN and MSNBC combined in both total viewers and the 25-54...

The number of people worldwide struggling with extreme heat and humidity by the end of the century could be more than four times as many as today if planet-warming emissions continue to rise, hiking economic losses and health costs, scientists have warned. Spending on mental health, in particular, could soar as more families have trouble sleeping and working, and heat aggravates existing mental health problems, one of two new studies found. "Heat and humidity extremes have real impacts on health and productivity," said Bob Kopp, director of the Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences at Rutgers University, and an...