Free Republic

Hundreds of absentee ballots mailed back to the City of Madison for Tuesday's election may not be counted, thanks to a missing postmark. The problem is one that is emerging in communities across Wisconsin as election officials prepare to tally the results of an election conducted during the coronavirus pandemic. During a Friday meeting of the bipartisan state Elections Commission, Democrats tried to have more absentee ballots counted, but Republicans said they had little ability to do that because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision. The commissioners unanimously agreed to count absentee ballots that arrived after election day that were...

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted life for billions of people, forcing the world to deal with a sudden loss of jobs, security, and regular health care. But for those who identify as transgender, these barriers have existed for years, and advocates fear the pandemic may only make them worse. One transgender woman, who will be referred to as Jane out of fear for her safety, left her home in a right-leaning town along Florida's Gulf Coast for a homeless shelter in New York City so she can get better access to medical care. She's waited years to get gender affirming...

At some point, and hopes it is soon, we’ll need to make the transition from mega-hunkering to MAGA-hunkering. In the memetime, the only two segments of the economy that are clearly thriving are alcohol sales, and meme-making. I suspect the two are related. Just a hunch. I could be wrong.

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr launched a vicious Twitter thread response against Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying Thursday night, listing off several Chinese whistleblowers who were reportedly silenced by the communist government after speaking out about the coronavirus. “Could you un-disappear them so we could speak?” Carr blasted as he listed off the various whistleblowers in the thread, which included doctors Ai Fen and Li Wenliang and journalists Li Zehua and Ren Zhiqiang.

Nearly 2,500 long-term care facilities in 36 states are battling coronavirus cases, according to data gathered by NBC News from state agencies, an explosive increase of 522 percent compared to a federal tally just 10 days ago. The total dwarfs the last federal estimate on March 30 - based on “informal outreach” to state health departments - that more than 400 nursing homes had at least one case of the virus. The full scale of the virus’ impact is even greater than NBC News’ tally, as key states including Florida did not provide data, and nursing homes across the United...

If our goal is to maximize collective lifespan -- which it should be -- then our models need to account for all lives, not just the ones we save today, but the ones our policies may cause to die tomorrow. First, some cold facts and context. The CDC estimates that more than 60,000 Americans died of the flu two years ago. The vast majority -- 83% -- were seniors, but more than 1% -- 643 -- were kids. It also estimates there were more than 800,000 flu-related hospitalizations. Let's be honest: none of these numbers ever concerned you. You likely...

The Illinois stay-at-home order, mandating that residents shelter in place amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, has virtually shut down the city of Chicago, but according to the city's police department, gun violence is still on the rise -- some 24% compared to the same time last year. The scourge of the pandemic and violence on top of that is dealing a double blow to the city and in particular its black population, which has been hard-hit by the outbreak of the coronavirus, officials said. And the gun violence appears to be exacerbated in part by people gathering in public despite...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Hebrew Worship Words Guwl Psalm 32:11Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;     sing, all you who are upright in heart! Psalm 35:9 Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord     and delight in his salvation.     let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; Psalm 118:24 The Lord has done it this very day;     let us rejoice today and be glad.     and delight in his salvation.     let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; New International Version (NIV)(End of Scripture Passage) . "Guwl" or "Gil" means to "spin...

Prominent Australian gunshop in Brisbane, Queensland image courtesy Dean Weingarten In Australia, the various governments are using the coronavirus emergency to stop sales of firearms. One of the stated purposes of those who plotted to disarm Australians was to reduce the number of Australians who had guns. That was unsuccessful. More people have guns in Australia today than before the extreme gun laws were put in place in 1997.  The thinking that one purpose of gun laws is to reduce the number of people with guns continues.During the current emergency, on 31 March, the Daily Mail quoted the national police...

WASHINGTON - In his daily briefings on the coronavirus, President Donald Trump has brandished all the familiar tools in his rhetorical arsenal: belittling Democratic governors, demonizing the media, trading in innuendo and bulldozing over the guidance of experts. It’s the kind of performance the president relishes but one that has his advisers and Republican allies worried. As unemployment soars and the death toll skyrockets, and new polls show support for the president’s handling of the crisis sagging, White House allies and Republican lawmakers increasingly believe the briefings are hurting the president more than helping him. Many view the sessions as...

Traveling to another home within Michigan, even to visit friends or relatives, or to go to a vacation home, is now banned under Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s coronavirus stay-at-home order, which has been extended until May 1. “Michigan has the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country, and we’re still on the upswing. We must continue to do everything we can to slow the spread and protect our families,” Whitmer said in a statement, according to Detroit's WXYZ-TV. Some exceptions to the order -- which takes effect Saturday -- are caring for a relative or their pet, a child,...

It is not realistic to think that American society will get back to normal, the experts said, until a coronavirus vaccine has been developed, tested and administered to billions of people across the globe.

Grace Rhodes was getting worried last month as she watched the coronavirus tear through New York and Chicago. But her 8,000-person hometown in southern Illinois still had no reported cases, and her boss at her pharmacy job assured her: “It’ll never get here.” Now it has. A new wave of coronavirus cases is spreading deep into rural corners of the country where people once hoped their communities might be shielded because of their isolation from hard-hit urban centers and the natural social distancing of life in the countryside. The coronavirus has officially reached nearly three-quarters of the country’s rural counties,...

There's only one patient we've seen so far who I feel wasn't Covid-19 and that's because it was a suicide. Imagine: I was there and my brain felt relief. This person's dead and it's a suicide. I felt relief that it was a regular job. It is now around 11:00 and I've done about six cardiac arrests. In normal times, a medic gets two or three in a week, maybe. You can have a busy day sometimes, but never this. Never this. The seventh call gets to me. We walk in and there's a woman on the floor. I see...

First, white (and especially 'very') liberals are far more likely than all other ideological-racial subgroups to report being diagnosed with a mental health condition.

America-Firsters were both perplexed and furious for most of last week as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appeared to be going ahead with its early March announcement to expand the H-2B unskilled guest-worker program to over 100,000 slots a year. With unemployment-benefit applications for March coming in at over 10 million, the last time the job market looked this bad—the Great Depression of the 1930s—immigration authorities sought to help, not hinder, the American worker by creating the nation’s first-ever illegal-alien-removal program. Late last week, however, due in part to activist pressures, DHS’s interim secretary, Chad Wolf, announced the increase...

"Real Time" host Bill Maher slammed the "PC police" Friday night for overreacting to the "Chinese virus" labeling controversy. As the coronavirus outbreak continued spreading across the U.S., President Trump and others sparked a national debate by referring to the disease as the "Chinese coronavirus" or the "Wuhan virus" because it began infecting people in Wuhan, China. But critics of the labels called them "racist" and "xenophobic," insisting such terms would incite hate crimes against Asian-Amercans. Maher mocked the complainers, listing several other illnesses that are named after their locations of origin -- such as the West Nile virus, Spanish...

Within three hours of me arriving at work, the Director of Housekeeping was already in tears, with all sorts of obscenities spewing from her mouth. The morning nursing supervisor had just demanded that she “find some place” for all of the bodies. She did not want the dead to be left in the rooms. “Where the f*** does she want me to put all these people? That’s Margret in one of those rooms. She was my friend. I’m not going to dump her body in the stinking basement — I’m not doing it. They can fire me. I don’t care.”...

In a November 2005 speech at the National Institutes of Health, former US president George W. Bush Warned the Americans and the world about a flu Pandemic (Similar to COVID-19) which could take the lives of Millions. “It is vital that our nation discuss and address the threat of a Pandemic flue now, Bush has urged the Americans to prepare for a Pandemic flu.” Watch his speech in the video, below.

LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — A Larimer County business owner was arrested Friday for allegedly violating public health orders issued due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jonah Ricke, 32, owns a smoke shop called “One Love” that has two locations: one in Fort Collins and one in Loveland. According to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, Ricke repeatedly failed to comply with orders demanding the temporary closure of nonessential businesses. “Because of repeated noncompliance, the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment petitioned the Court through the Larimer County Attorney’s Office asking an order be issued to direct law enforcement to immediately...