Free Republic

While leaders on Capitol Hill thrash about on replenishing their own program to protect small-business workers, a bipartisan group in the Senate have begun work on Phase 4 of COVID-19 pandemic relief. The new focus for federal cash will fall on state and local governments that have seen revenue streams dry up as businesses shut down. Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) have crafted a $500 billion bailout package that attempts to provide baseline cash while adjusting for both population and outbreak size. Perhaps we should be surprised that the price tag is as low as it is....

For over a month now, the White House has been holding its daily coronavirus briefings, and most networks, cable news channels and major news websites have been carrying all or parts of them live, as millions of people, trapped inside and anxious, have tuned in. The briefings are marked by Trump’s own misinformation, deceptions, rage, blaming and boasting. He takes no responsibility at all for his abysmal handling of the crisis, while each day he seems to find another person to blame, like a child frantically flinging spaghetti at a wall to see which one sticks. He delivers his disinformation...

Commenting on the mass shooting in Nova Scotia on Saturday, in which at least 18 people were killed along with the alleged shooter, Rev. Franklin Graham said Canada "has some of the strictest gun laws in the world" but "criminals don't obey" gun control laws. Graham also noted that London's gun laws apparently do not deter criminals because in recent years there has been an increase in knife attacks. Now, policy-makers want to impose tougher "knife control" laws, he said.

Hundreds of people openly defied a ban on mass gatherings and federal safety guidelines during a demonstration Monday against Pennsylvania’s coronavirus lockdown order. Protesters rallied in front of the state Capitol in Harrisburg, where they crowded together on the steps and sidewalk in defiance of social distancing guidelines, recklessly dismissing their own health risk and the risk to others — many without even face masks, according to video posted on social media. Some waved American and Revolutionary-era Gadsden, or “Don’t Tread on Me,” flags, wore Trump campaign gear and held hand-lettered signs that said “SOME PEOPLE WANT TO WORK” and...

A number of elite American universities are finding themselves in hot water for their miserly behavior in response to the coronavirus. Harvard University is taking well-deserved heat for laying off its food service workers while sitting on a $40 billion endowment. Yale University, too, has been twisting in the wind; when New Haven mayor Justin Elicker asked the university to provide temporary housing to the city’s firefighters and police officers, the university initially refused. Then, after taking a public relations and social media beating, Yale relented, grudgingly agreeing to allow city officials to stay in the university’s vacant dormitory housing....

New York City is extending its cancellation of permitted nonessential events through June as officials work to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced Monday. De Blasio said in a news conference that the move will apply to parades, concerts, rallies and other large gatherings. He noted that the LGBT Pride, Puerto Rican Day and Salute to Israel parades would be affected by the decision. "The bottom line is to think about safety, to think about saving lives, protecting people’s health, speeding us to that day when we get more normal," de Blasio said....

Good Evening And WELCOME To The Mark Levin Show!

On Friday, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, Professor Johan Giesecke, sat down with UnHeard and discussed lockdown policies across the globe, and what he perceives as the policies’ weaknesses in tackling the China-originated novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Professor Giesecke currently serves as an advisor to the Swedish Government, was the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), and a former advisor to the director general of the WHO (he’s now retired and serves as an advisor to the WHO only in an honorary capacity). “The measures we should take against the pandemic should...

New York’s health commissioner on Monday defended a directive that requires nursing homes to readmit residents who’ve tested positive for the coronavirus — as Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed he didn’t know the policy was in place. Cuomo was asked about the state’s policy on admitting or re-admitting to nursing homes people who’d tested positive for COVID-19. “That’s a good question, I don’t know,” the governor said. Cuomo’s startling admission came days after the state revealed last week that at least 3,316 people in nursing homes and adult care facilities had died of coronavirus at their residences or in hospitals across...

Hundreds of New Yorkers were caught flaunting coronavirus social distancing restrictions in Brooklyn’s Domino Park on Sunday — and cops did little about it, according to witnesses. The scene, captured on a video posted on Twitter, shows rows of people soaking in the sun at the riverfront park in Williamsburg despite City Hall’s professed crackdown on large gatherings — and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s initiative to have residents snitch when they see lockdown violations. It’s an indication of how New York’s Finest continue to grapple with how aggressively to enforce the restrictions. The video, shot from a moving car, shows...

—Sargent Shriver, brother in law of JFK and the “architect” of the “War on Poverty,” to socialist Michael Harrington (who wanted much, much more of the American taxpayers’ dollars), 1964. Amity Shlaes’ newest book, Great Society: A New History is a sequel to her two studies of 1930s and 1920s, 2007’s The Forgotten Man, and 2013’s Coolidge. The eponymous Forgotten Man was the taxpayer, the man footing the bill to fund FDR’s New Deal. As a UCLA press release explained in 2004, “FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.” Even socialist Roosevelt worshiper Paul Krugman has been...

The Republican Party hasn’t changed plans to hold a full-scale presidential convention in August but will reassess the decision later this summer in light of the coronavirus pandemic. As states across the country prepare plans to reopen their economies, GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told reporters Monday that party officials don’t yet believe they will have to come up with a different plan. “We are full steam ahead planning a traditional convention,” she said. “We do not think at this time we have to switch to an alternative plan, but of course, we will monitor circumstances and adjust accordingly.” While the...

Governments across Europe and in the U.S. say they have driven down a key variable to levels that suggest that the lockdowns that plunged their economies into the deep freeze are succeeding in containing the spread of the deadly new coronavirus. The variable measures the average number of other people each carrier of the new coronavirus infects. This infection ratio will be avidly watched as policy makers calibrate the task of rolling back measures that have kept hundreds of millions of people at home. If the reproduction ratio is below one, the epidemic peters out. The closer to one, the...

Governors are beginning to announce timelines for relaxing strict measures taken to mitigate the coronavirus. Many states are dropping stay-at-home orders beginning May 1, while several states have not yet announced an end to restrictions. At the federal level, President Trump last week issued guidelines “that will allow governors to take a phased and deliberate approach to reopening their individual states.” “Governors will be empowered to tailor an approach that meets the diverse circumstances of their own states,” Trump said. “And some states will be able to open up sooner than others.” Health officials are warning states not to reopen...

WARNING! This thread contains spoilers for: Better Call SaulBreaking Badand El CaminoProceed at your own risk. . For Better ...... Or Worse

Q is the result of the sacrifices and commitment of countless patriots to win back our captured country from the Deep State and achieve the transformation President Trump promised in this campaign video. President Trump has said the awakening of the public is key to this transformation.Q describes this awakening as follows: "The Great Awakening ('Freedom of Thought’), was designed and created not only as a backchannel to the public (away from the longstanding ‘mind’ control of the corrupt & heavily biased media) to endure future events through transparency and regeneration of individual thought (breaking the chains of ‘group-think’), but,...

The Covid-19 outbreak in Los Angeles County is far more widespread than previously thought, up to 55 times bigger than the number of confirmed cases, according to new research from the University of Southern California and the L.A. Department of Public Health.

In January, former vice president Joe Biden was right there on the frontlines to call President Trump a racist and a xenophobe for closing off travel to and from China once he learned of the novel coronavirus's origins in Wuhan. A couple months later, and we clearly see how much worse the outbreak in the U.S. could have been had he not given that order. Biden sees it too. That's why he did an about-face and came out in support of Trump's China travel ban a few weeks ago. Then Biden suggested Trump hasn't done enough in holding China accountable....

The governor’s order will allow gyms, bowling alleys, salons and some other indoor facilities closed under his shelter in place order to resume operations by Friday if they comply with social distancing requirements and meet other safety standards. And restaurants, which were banned from in-person dining, will be allowed to reopen on April 27 if they meet guidelines his office will release later this week. Theaters will also be covered by those new standards. Bars and nightclubs will stay shuttered.