Free Republic

As predictions of the coronavirus’ impact have grown more dire, the media have sought to portray the administration as out of touch with early warnings from medical experts. A closer look at the public statements of those very same experts during the early weeks of the outbreak reveals that the administration’s initial reassurances were largely aligned with the assessments of the medical community. Today Anthony Fauci is held up by the media as a national hero and the only reason to listen to a White House coronavirus briefing. Yet, rewind the clock back to January and his public statements essentially...

President Trump continues his record-breaking transformation of the federal judiciary with the selection of Judge Justin Walker -- a young, brilliant conservative legal mind and everyday American -- for the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Walker, a new federal trial judge in Louisville, Kentucky, is a first-generation college graduate, an outside-the-beltway legal powerhouse, and a committed constitutionalist who understands a judge’s modest, but critical, role is to interpret the law as written -- not how that judge wishes it were written if he were a senator. Very few Trump could pick for this sought-after seat would...

The CEO of 3M said Friday his company is maximizing its efforts to get respirator masks to U.S. health workers fighting the coronavirus, pushing back on what he called President Donald Trump’s “absurd” suggestion that the manufacturer was not doing all it could. “Nothing is further from the truth,” CEO Mike Roman said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” after being read Trump’s tweet slamming 3M “after seeing what they were doing with their Masks.”

On Thursday’s broadcast of CBS’ “Late Show,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated that Democrats hope to get more funding for voting by mail into the coronavirus funding bill, and that Democrats want at least $2 billion “to protect the integrity of our election-critical infrastructure as well as to promote voting by mail.” Pelosi said, “We had $400 million to promote voting by mail, direct, all of that. However, it was not nearly enough. We need at least five times that much in order to really meet the needs, to protect the integrity of our election-critical infrastructure as well as...

Playing the role of life preserver, the liberal media are desperately trying to buoy Joe Biden’s sinking candidacy — but the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee keeps clinging grimly to the anchor that is dragging him down to the depths of political irrelevance. The New York Times recently published an article arguing that “Joe Biden’s campaign and top donors are racing to reimagine the ways they raise money as worries grow that the coronavirus could choke off contributions from donors big and small.” The article sought to put a positive spin on Biden’s predicament, analyzing how the Democrat front-runner might be...

The urgent search for a COVID-19 cure means that the usual scientific approach to testing medicines – big studies with careful control groups – is not an option. We can’t wait that long. Instead, trial and error, along with an accretion of anecdotal data, is the best we’ve got. This method has yielded one significant possibility for treating COVID-19: Chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine (which are similar malaria drugs), along with azithromycin and zinc. (For ease, I’ll refer here to the whole treatment as “chloroquine.”) Funnily enough, though, the Democrats are incredibly hostile to the chloroquine. One has to wonder if they’re...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was “appalled” by President Trump’s scathing letter, which accused him of being a “bad” senator and open to challenge from the progressive wing of his party. The letter was sent after the New York Democrat wrote the White House earlier Thursday over the federal government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. “I’m just appalled,” Schumer said on MSNBC. “I say to the president, ‘Just stop the pettiness. People are dying. And so, President Trump, we need leadership, we need to get the job done. Stop the pettiness. Let’s get it done. Let’s roll up...

State lawmakers voted early Monday to hike Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s salary to $250,000 by 2021. The Senate approved the pay raise for Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul at 2:45 a.m. and the Assembly followed at 7 a.m. Under the measure, Cuomo’s $200,000 salary this year will increase to $225,000 in 2020 and $250,000 in 2021, which would make him the highest-paid governor in the nation. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $202,000 salary makes him the highest-paid for now. -snip The committee voted in December to increase lawmakers’ salaries from $79,500 to $130,000 over three years.

Can Israel survive and prosper in the world now taking shape? In the face of the steeply rising number of coronavirus patients and the breakneck speed of political changes in Israel, few people have stopped to notice that the world we have grown accustomed to living in for the past generation is falling apart. The global village is collapsing under the weight of the pandemic. How Israel deals with this dramatic turn of events today, and in the coming weeks, months and years will determine both how we emerge from the present crisis and how we manage in the new...

Topline: While scientists have warned that COVID-19 can be spread by fecal-oral transmission (hence the importance of post-bathroom hand washing) the disease can also be spread through what is known as "aerosolized feces" which means that it's more important than ever to close the lid of the toilet while flushing, according to experts. Because of a phenomenon known as toilet plume, stool or urine can escape from the toilet into the air and spread disease, according to the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. Qingyan Chen, Purdue’s James. G. Dwyer Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, told...

Reacting to criticism of his leadership of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump delivered a sharp letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., advising him to go and do his job. "I’ve known you for many years, but I never knew how bad a senator you are for the state of New York, until I became president," Trump wrote. He thanked Schumer for his "Democrat public relations letter and incorrect sound bites, which are wrong in every way." Trump was responding to Schumer's charge of an "existing federal leadership void" that "has left America with an ugly spectacle in which states and...

Brought to you by the mass murderers who spawned the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square. The Coronavirus: Brought to you by those wonderful folks who gave China the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square. Wuhan is nothing new for a regime that’s been sacrificing innocents to its demented ideology for over 70 years.Politically, nothing has changed since the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed on October 1, 1949. The PRC is still a totalitarian state where dissent is brutally crushed, the Party is all powerful and human life is cheap. Less than a...

Joel Gehrke at the Washington Examiner dusts off his crystal ball, and tells us that: Iran’s theocratic regime could crumble under the pressure of the coronavirus outbreak that has spread through elite ranks and the broader population alike, according to the European Union’s top diplomat. “…countries like Venezuela or Iran may well collapse without our support,” EU High Representative Josep Borrell wrote in a recent bulletin to European colleagues. “This means we should ensure they have access to IMF assistance. And with Iran, we need to make sure that legitimate humanitarian trade can proceed despite US sanctions." It's hard to...

What effect might this plague have on the Left’s pampered soy boys and pussy-hat feminists? Last week, in the New York Post, Kyle Smith made a thoughtful argument that, in the COVID-19 era, “the woke virus,” too, “is spreading faster than ever.” He quoted a statement on Twitter by actress Fran Drescher that the Chinese virus is a product of capitalism; he noted the “vomitatious ‘Imagine’ video praising open borders, socialism and atheism” that was posted online by Gal Gadot and other C-list celebrities in response to the pandemic; and he cited inane claims by various activists that the coronavirus...

Prayers up for all the families suffering from the impact of this virus. And we're still praying that the spread starts fading with the warmer Spring weather and that an effective treatment and vaccine are developed before the next flu season starts. And we pray that our people are allowed to go back to work very soon and that our economy comes roaring back. Meanwhile, we may be hurt and slowed down somewhat, but we have faith in the long-run that "what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger." God willing, America will survive and we will survive and we...

Stay inside, don't meet with friends, don't go to work — these are the messages coming from public health officials at every level of government. But increasingly, experts say they believe those stark warnings must be augmented with another message: If you think you might be sick, even a little sick, get tested for coronavirus. "Everyone staying home is just a very blunt measure. That's what you say when you've got really nothing else," says Emily Gurley, an associate scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Being able to test folks is really the linchpin in getting...

Amid what it’s calling an “urgent need for blood,” the Food and Drug Administration revised its blood donor guidelines on Thursday, significantly easing the restrictions on men who have sex with men. The new guidelines reduce the donation deferral period for sexually active gay and bisexual men from 12 months to three, meaning these otherwise healthy men will now have to abstain from same-sex sexual activity for 90 days before they are eligible to donate blood. Other 12-month deferral periods have also been shortened under the new guidelines, including those for people who have traveled to areas with certain endemic...

Today the Star Tribune finally gets around to taking a look — an extremely clouded look — at Walz’s in Jeremy Olson’s story “Disease data modeling, in Minnesota and elsewhere, varies greatly.” Subhead: “Modeling by the Minnesota Department of Health and the University of Minnesota directly informed Gov. Tim Walz and guided his stay-at-home order.” What is Walz’s model? How many lives will the current, extremely destructive shutdown save, if any? Let us extract the references to Walz’s model: Modeling by the Minnesota Department of Health and the University of Minnesota persuaded Gov. Tim Walz to announce the current stay-at-home...

After the tragedy of war The Marshall Plan rebuilt economies. American wealth, generosity and hard work made it possible. Now before tragedy strikes and before we know what the damage will be, around the world we are stopping work and spending money. And we call it war. Against whom? Ourselves? https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/04/03/the-marshall-plan/

A: It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers. Q: Where will the government get this money? A: From taxpayers. Q: So the government is giving me back my own money? A: Only a smidgen of it. Q: What is the purpose of this payment? A: The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high definition television set, a new iPad, or a new SUV, thus stimulating the economy. Q: IsnÂ’t that stimulating the economy of China ? A: Shut up. Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U....