Free Republic

One of the many significant but underappreciated effects of U.S. politicians’ response to coronavirus is their pre-emptive mass school shutdowns. It is likely these shutdowns will harm the next generation far beyond the trillions in government spending these children will someday be forced to pay off for previous generations.For one thing, the school shutdowns will cripple children’s economic future by depriving them of up to an entire year of learning. That’s because losing two to three months of learning this spring combined with summer break could mean “millions of students could lose most or all of what was learned...

Suit: East Bay teacher caught with child porn, then molested students after she was allowed to keep her job Chance encounter A chance encounter at a Lafayette cemetery in 2016 is what led to felony charges being filed against a teacher who allegedly molested two students in the 1990s, according to a lawsuit that alleges Acalanes High officials missed serious warning signs that could have prevented the abuse. The suit was filed Friday by a woman who reported that former Acalanes teacher Kyle Ann Wood molested her in the 1990s, when she was a photography teacher. According to the lawsuit,...

Hydroxychloroquine, which is usually used to treat malaria, has been championed by President Trump for the treatment of COVID-19. But doctors say it's too early to be sure, and small studies have had mixed results. Dr. Wesley Self at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is leading a clinical trial to see if it really works. "Hydroxychloroquine may help prevent the virus from entering cells in the body and therefore prevent it from replicating more or growing within the body," Self explained. Tisha Holt, 42, is one of the first people who enrolled. She's been in the Vanderbilt ICU for four days....

Academy Sports is open. Todd and Moore in downtown Columbia is not. Both are sporting goods stores, which are categorized as nonessential under Gov. Henry McMaster’s orders dictating which businesses must close to curb the spread of COVID-19 in South Carolina. But the one that sells guns can stay open. That’s just one example of seeming discrepancies in what stores can keep their doors open amid the pandemic.  The state Department of Commerce, tasked with providing guidance on business designations, has fielded nearly 4,650 questions, many of them duplicates, since April 4, just a couple days before the governors “home...

Western democracies, especially the United States, just heaved a huge sigh of relief after getting word that United Kingdom PM Boris Johnson is dropping the controversial Chinese tech company, Huawei, as the nation's provider of 5G infrastructure. Although Johnson was in support of the Chinese tech giant laying the non-sensitive portions of 5G infrastructure, he said China's lack of transparency about coronavirus made the communist-run country untrustworthy. President Trump, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and members of the so-called "Five-Eyes" countries that share intelligence information, brought huge pressure on the Brits to dump Huawei. The U.S....

Can I not have one g-ddamned day of hope?Just one day. In the middle of an endless waking nightmare. Jeremy Faust is the doctor in Boston who wrote a couple of pieces early in the epidemic for Slate, arguing (presciently) that the true fatality rate for COVID-19 was probably far below the three-percent figure gleaned from China’s Wuhan data. If it were really that high, he reasoned, we would have seen more dead on the Diamond Princess cruise after a huge number of passengers became infected. He’s been commenting sporadically on Twitter since then and noticed the enthusiasm over...

What a difference two weeks makes. Way back in in those bad old days two weeks ago when President Donald J. Trump (R) was the Prince of Evil because Wuhan, China Coronovirus-19 existed due to something he did or did not do, Democratic party presidential savior and female wet dream, New York State Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo demanded 40,000 ventilators, because scientists told him they were necessary to save lives. But evil Trump scoffed, declaring that many weren't necessary. Cuomo defended the state’s request for 30,000 more ventilators to save coronavirus patients, a day after President Trump downplayed the need....

Democrats Dedicated To Proving America’s Best Years Are Behind Us: Case File #548,391:In case you’re wondering why the Senate adjourned yesterday without approving additional funds for small business loans: Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer say they favor more money for small businesses but also want more coronavirus response funds for state and local governments and hospitals, as well as food assistance for the poor. [etc. etc. etc.] As the saying goes, “it ain’t rocket science.”In other news: Is it just me or does it seem like everyone needs a haircut these days? And some of us could really,...

Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, has warned that baseless “conspiracy theories” are swirling around the coronavirus crisis following claims that America’s official death toll from Covid-19 has been overstated. Fauci, who has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said he had seen unfounded conjecture attach itself to previous crises and dismissed the emerging idea, largely promoted by high-profile figures in rightwing media, that the US’s Covid-19 death toll is being inflated by unrelated medical conditions. “There is absolutely no evidence that that’s the case at all,” Fauci told NBC on...

The Biden campaign has committed one of the biggest blunders since Michael Dukakis rode in that tank. No, I don’t mean running with dementia in the first place: rather it is the “Team Joe” avatar where you can upload your own photo and slogan for the campaign. People are having lots of fun with this. We’re only including a few here. I am sure someone—maybe even Joe in his few lucid moments—is wondering whose dumb idea this was. Either that or it is genius, as it provides an alternative to the coronavirus for diverting amusement under martial law. And there...

Like many people of faith, Virginia governor Ralph Northam spent last weekend bearing witness to his convictions. On Good Friday, he signed the Reproductive Health Protection Act (RHPA) into law, which, among other things, waived the 24-hour waiting period, pro-adoption counseling, and mandatory ultrasound that had been previously required for women seeking abortions. On Holy Saturday, Northam signed the Virginia Values Act, a bill recognizing sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories under Virginia’s anti-discrimination law. As has happened in other states with similar laws, the bill imperils the conscience rights of people of faith, as well as those...

VIDEO It was like a MIRACLE! Last month Senator Amy Klobuchar's husband caught a severe illness that seems to be in the news. He went into the hospital and despite being severely sick, he walked out five days later perfectly healthy. So what treatment did he use? Many people are asking that question but for some mysterious reason, Senator Klobuchar won't reveal the answer. An oatmeal cookie for the first REAL reporter brave enough to ask her that question directly whose truthful answer could halt her political advancement.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top expert on infectious disease, on Friday, rejected a conspiracy theory that the novel coronavirus escaped a Chinese lab. "A group of highly-qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences in bats as they evolve. The mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human," Fauci said at the daily White House press briefing in response to a question from a reporter on the theory, which has been pushed by President Donald Trump's allies in recent days....

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Nobody said the job was easy. Former North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows, just weeks on the job as President Trump’s chief of staff, has already been brought to tears at work on several occasions, according to a report in the New York Times. The waterworks took place at least twice during meetings with White House staff and in at least one case was witnessed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The burst of emotions resulted from meetings discussing internal staffing changes. Though he was long known for an emotional style in Congress, reps for...

Unfounded speculation, mystery and online rumour making, this isn’t a true crime series -- it’s people’s attempts to figure out the origins of COVID-19. Theories circulating online is that the virus keeping most of the world in isolation was created in a lab in Wuhan, China, where the first cases of COVID-19 was recorded. Debate has increased in recent days: the Washington Post reported leaked intelligence cables in 2018 raised safety concerns of the lab in question; and US President Donald Trump was asked about the rumour following a Fox News story containing unverified claims the virus was created in...

Pelosi showed off her kitchen during an appearance on a late-night comedy show, while Americans form food lines across the country. Pelosi appeared on Monday’s episode of “The Late Late Show” with James Corden, where she slammed President Donald Trump’s handling of COVID-19 and then showed off her ice cream collection. During her interview with host James Corden, Pelosi attempts to show the rest of country that she’s getting through quarantine the way we all are: with a giant freezer full of expensive ice cream. In fact, as Trump campaign rapid response director Steve Guest noted, the speaker is “eating...

President Trump asked if he plans to resume rallies in states that open up from the Coronavirus Crisis. He hopes to, but it will depend on how things progress. I would say Trump will go to some of the wide-open states, like West Virginia to start with. Also Montana, Wyoming etc. Of course, get ready for the Democrats and their minions in the Media to howl if Trump has any rallies between now and November. . . .

COVID-19 has us all thinking about public health, but looking back, there have been many pandemics before, and we persist in spite of them. As of April 15, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported 605,390 cases of COVID-19 in the United States. These have occurred across all 50 states and have resulted in 24,582 deaths. We are all feeling the effects of the pandemic. Schools are closed, businesses have shut their doors, and nobody knows what’s coming next. While COVID-19 is one of the largest pandemics of the 21st century, you might be wondering how it stacks up...

For months now, it has been clear that Biden family corruption will be a campaign issue. The impeachment focused attention on ties between the vice president’s son, Hunter, and the corrupt Ukrainian oil and gas giant Burisma. But Hunter had equally close, equally profitable ties to Chinese state-owned banks. Those connections were formed when Joe Biden was leading the Obama administration’s policies toward both China and Ukraine. Cozy, profitable, and possibly corrupt connections with the Chinese government are the last thing Americans want to hear about their politicians right now. Those voters are closeted at home, worried about their future,...

Bill Gates may have legally separated himself from Microsoft, but since both entities are engaged in exactly the same mission, a separation of purpose certainly has not taken place. While Bill Gates has been pounding the pavement, telling people that a global vaccine for everyone on earth will take place within 18 months, his old company Microsoft has created a device that interacts with the pulse, temperature and brain waves of the human body in order to engage in the buying and selling of cryptocurrency. Now let’s see, where else have I seen that talked about before? Oh, right, here...