Free Republic

The State Department’s temporary suspension of visa processing has stopped the inflow of H-1B foreign visa workers into American white-collar jobs while the Chinese coronavirus crisis drives up United States jobless claims to more than ten million. In a given year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News....

The South Korean solution to the COVID-19 virus (widespread testing and the hydroxychloroquine-zinc cure) is beginning to work in the United States. Americans, like South Koreans, will soon be back at work and school. But at Monday's Coronavirus Task Force press briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci ignored the success. Instead, he pretended that the only way the U.S. could get back to normal was through vaccines and new therapies. He was responding to a question directed to him, and him only, by reporter Jonathan Karl at the 37:37 mark of this video: YouTube screen grab (croppped) Karl: Will we truly get back to normal before there’s a vaccine...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Cuomo Primetime,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden argued that Wisconsin should not have had in-person voting in their primary and the election should have been conducted entirely with voting by mail. Biden reiterated that the 2020 election shouldn’t be postponed.

The details are out of Treasury now, and it looks like it isn't going to work for a large number of small business owners after all. Remember the deal the president signed to save America’s small businesses from ruin during the government’s coronavirus shutdown? The one hammered out by the Senate and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin over weeks of tense negotiation while Americans worriedly watched, hoping good news might come before a depression does? The details are out of Treasury now, and it looks like it isn’t going to work for a large number of small business owners...

Controversy swirls around whether hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin ("H&A") should be used to treat people who have the Wuhan virus. Setting aside for now all the qualifications that for good reason are used whenever discussing the question (qualifications like "after consultation between the patient and the doctor" and "administered according to a well established protocol"), the core issue is whether or not to use a treatment that has shown positive results for some and has not shown obviously negative results for any. Given the standard medical diktat that the first obligation of a health care worker is to do no harm,...

Critics worry about a Patriot Act for health care, raising concerns about patient privacy and civil liberties. White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system to give the government a near real-time view of where patients are seeking treatment and for what, and whether hospitals can accommodate them, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions. The proposed national network could help determine which areas of the country can safely relax social-distancing rules and which should remain vigilant. But it would also...

"Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5). Gentleness is power under control. The Greek word translated "gentle" in Matthew 5:5 speaks of humility, meekness, and non-retaliation—traits that in our proud society are often equated with weakness or cowardice. But in reality they are virtues that identify kingdom citizens. The same word was used by the Greeks to describe a gentle breeze, a soothing medicine, or a domesticated colt. Those are examples of power under control: a gentle breeze brings pleasure, but a hurricane brings destruction; a soothing medicine brings healing, but an overdose can kill;...

Seven people were killed and 14 more were wounded Tuesday in shootings across Chicago, making it the most violent day of 2020 so far as temperatures reached summer-like levels for the first time this year. A man was killed Tuesday evening in a shooting that left a 5-year-old girl and two other people wounded in Gresham. About 7:35 p.m., a group of people were sitting on the front porch of a home in the 8600 block of South Damen Avenue when someone in a black sedan fired shots, Chicago police said.

It was not unusual in ancient times for individuals to sell themselves into servitude -- as “bondservants” -- which was often described as a form of slavery. Usually this was due to excessive debt, but sometimes it was done simply to have a roof over one’s head and food in one’s belly. In other words, for millennia, in order to satisfy their most basic needs, human beings have often been willing to suffer under many a heavy yoke. As C.S. Lewis put it, “A hungry man thinks about food, not freedom.” In today’s Wuhan virus-driven hysteria, a corollary to Lewis’s...

Responding to President Donald Trump’s comment that she’s privately happy with the federal government, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday acknowledged telling Vice President Michael Pence that the Army Corps of Engineers did good work turning McCormick Place into an alternative care facility but denied being “one way publicly and another way privately with the administration.” At a press briefing on Monday, Trump said, "The mayor of Chicago, at least on the phone, is extremely happy with what we’re doing — thanking us. I just wish the politicians would say to you what they say to us.”

Today we feature Ernest Tubb and his 1957 tune Mississippi Gal. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Chicago’s mayor Lori Lightfoot is on the defensive Tuesday after a Chicago hair stylist revealed on social media that she’d given the mayor a haircut in violation of Lightfoot’s own stay-at-home orders. Illinois was one of the first states to institute a full shelter-in-place program to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, and has been warning its residents to stay home at all costs unless they need necessary items like food or prescrition medication. The state had some of the first cases of coronavirus in the nation and, so far, around 11,000 Illinois residents are infected with the...

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates appeared on Fox News Sunday in which he reiterated his 2018 statement that the world should be “preparing for a pandemic in the same serious way it prepares for war.” Gates, whose foundation -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- has invested heavily in global health, suggested staging simulations, war games, and preparedness exercises to simulate how diseases could spread and to identify the best response. The concluding analysis, as per the mainstream media (and certain social/online communications), is that the Trump administration has done exactly the opposite. Among the evidence to prove...

Boris Johnson is "responding to treatment" for coronavirus as he spends his third day in hospital. The prime minister was being kept in St Thomas' Hospital in London "for close monitoring" and remained clinically stable, Downing Street said. Downing Street said he was not working but could contact those he needed to. Downing Street said Mr Johnson was in "good spirits" as he continued to receive standard oxygen treatment. He was breathing without any assistance, such as mechanical ventilation or non-invasive respiratory support. The prime minister was admitted to St Thomas' on Sunday, on the advice of his doctor, after...

A militia leader is rallying people to attend a mass gathering in Idaho on Easter Sunday in defiance of the governor's orders to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic. According to a report in The New York Times Tuesday, Aamon Bundy says he and his allies are willing to 'physically defend' the event, which is scheduled to take place in the city of Boise and could attract upwards of 1,000 people. 'I will be there, and I will bring as many people as I can,' Bundy reportedly told a group of supporters on March 26, a day after the state's...

He's on-the-air. One of America's very best Talk Radio Show Hosts, IMO: Chris Plante from WMAL in DC. His show is the "prep work" for many other shows. And, unlike the others, he pulls no punches, tells it like it is and doesn't take any guff from liberal, leftist or commie/socialist/fascist callers. He's the guy we'd all like to sit down with and have a cheeseburger and a cold one, while talking about the state of America, and the crazies who are pulling the strings, behind-the-scenes. Get a fresh refill of your favorite coffee, a warm croissant, the Hoppe's Cleaning...

A key forecasting model used by the White House has revised its prediction of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., now estimating a peak of 60,415 by early August. The model created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IMHE) at the University of Washington had predicted a peak of 81,766 deaths in an update on Sunday. Public health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have previously estimated that as many as 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die from the novel coronavirus. Across the U.S., nearly 400,000 COVID-19 cases have...

It’s often said that most of what the academic elites call “philosophy” is nothing but some underutilized minds worrying themselves about questions that common-sense folk find obvious. The saying came to mind as I listened recently to some of these folks straining to fit their various theories to the Age of Trump. More precisely, they were double-helixing themselves trying to explain why the amoral, relativist, truth-denying theories they’ve championed for so long are actually good reasons for hating the supposedly amoral, relativist, truth-defying current President. Listening to this theorizing crystallized (at least for this initially reluctant Trump supporter) why President...

This evening at sundown marks the start of Passover, commemorating the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, and their transition from slavery to freedom. The main ritual of Passover is the Seder, which occurs on the first two nights (in Israel just the first night) of the holiday — a meal that involves the re-telling of the Exodus through stories and song and the consumption of ritual foods.The Seder's rituals and other readings are outlined in the Haggadah. Zeroah, a lamb's shankbone symbolizing the ancient Passover sacrificeBeitzah, a roasted egg symbolizing the temple sacrifice and the continuing cycle of lifeHaroset, a paste...

I have this stupid question. I was looking at the data on this site, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ and I was wondering who supplies this data? How are the people supplying this data vetted? On the website is a tab, "Report coronavirus cases". It appears that anyone could report cases. The only criteria is to supply a link to where you got the data. The where appears to be any website to include twitter, etc. It also appears that this data is being used by some mainstream media folks. Am I reading this right?