Free Republic

WASHINGTON – The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a precedential opinion on Friday, April 24, 2020, affirming a district court decision that a transaction designed to generate massive foreign tax credits (referred to as the STARS tax shelter) lacked economic substance and business purpose and was subject to the accuracy-related penalty for negligence, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Joshua Wu of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.In Wells Fargo v. United States, No. 17-3578, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of...

Genova Diagnostics Inc., a clinical laboratory services company based in Asheville, North Carolina, has agreed to pay up to approximately $43 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, including claims that it billed  for medically unnecessary lab tests, the Department of Justice announced today.“Government healthcare programs are designed to provide beneficiaries with care that is medically reasonable and necessary,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division.  “Providers of taxpayer-funded federal healthcare services will be held accountable when they knowingly cause false claims to be submitted for services that do...

Howard Stern suggested Monday that President Donald Trump’s supporters “take an injection of Clorox” and “drop dead.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Monday blasted the New York Board of Elections for canceling this year's Democratic presidential primary. Ocasio-Cortez challenged the notion that the decision was made with public health in mind, noting that the state is still holding down ballot elections the same day. “It is completely wrong for the BOE to cancel New York’s Presidential Primary,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “This decision is not informed by public health: the state is still holding elections for every other seat that day, & so far the only way your ballot will 100% be counted in NY is to vote in...

SAFELY OPENING UP AMERICA AGAIN: President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are taking steps to ensure States have the testing system required to reopen our Nation. President Trump is releasing his Administration’s blueprint for State testing plans and rapid response programs. This follows the release of President Trump’s Opening Up America Again guidelines on April 16, 2020. The blueprint describes the roles and responsibilities, as well as core objectives, for the robust State testing plans and rapid response programs needed by States to safely reopen.To meet the country’s testing needs, the blueprint describes a partnership between Federal, State,...

Nancy Pelosi was an inspiration when she showed the tens of millions of Americans forced into unemployment by the lockdown how they can console themselves amid the wreckage of the lives by eating extravagantly expensive ice cream stored in an extravagantly expensive refrigerator. Now she further showcases her leadership skills by demonstrating how not to behave during the sort of pandemic that allegedly justifies the lockdown. Specifically, she illustrates that you should not smear snot on your fingers, then wipe it off on a podium that others will be using:

California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that he will be increasing enforcement of Coronavirus restrictions after tens of thousands of people flocked to Orange County beaches amid a heatwave over the weekend. Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency because of the Coronavirus on March 4 and issued an authoritarian lockdown order on March 19. “I don’t want to be punitive,” Newsom said. “They just want to take a rest on the beach and all of a sudden they get a citation – I don’t want to see that. But if there are people thumbing their nose...

On April 10, disgraced Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed five pieces of anti-gun legislation into law. Those measures criminalize the private sale of firearms, ration handgun sales to one a month, create a "red flag" gun confiscation scheme, punish property crime victims who fail to hastily report a firearm as stolen, and restrict how Virginia parents may store and introduce their children to firearms. Northam sent two pieces of anti-gun legislation back, including legislation that erodes the Right-to-Carry and the state firearms preemption statute, to the general assembly with governor's amendments. The General Assembly enacted both items of legislation...

The liberal media have gone to bat for fellow liberal and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates against “conspiracy” theories regarding the coronavirus that started in Wuhan, China. But recent comments from Gates on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS shilling for the Chinese government may have just made that mission to insulate the billionaire a bit harder. In his questioning of Gates, Zakaria said: “You've been making this case for international cooperation very powerfully and in my mind persuasively. There is right now in Washington a very different mood, which is to say far from cooperating with the second largest economy in the...

Lindsey Horvath said she knows that life begins at conception, but she believes in abortions anyway. The West Hollywood City councilwoman also claimed she supports abortions because of her Catholic faith – even though the Catholic Church teaches that abortions are evil because they destroy innocent children’s lives. In an interview with USC Annenberg Media, Horvath tried to explain her contradictory claims through her personal experiences and beliefs. “Because of my Catholic upbringing, when I see people being mistreated, it’s impossible for me to unsee it,” Horvath said of her pro-abortion position. “‘Helping the least among us’ has been a...

Hey, Let’s All Go Hang Out in Rittenhouse Square! That seemed to be the mentality on Saturday. According to a CBS 3 report, residents flocked to Rittenhouse Square over the weekend. Video shows residents sitting around, some in close proximity to each other. Plenty of people without masks. We’ve seen similar displays in other parks over the last month. And police did kick picnickers and others out of one South Philly park a few weeks ago. So while some people have clearly received the stay-at-home message loud and clear, others have not.

Tennessee, Mississippi, and Montana allowed some businesses to reopen Monday under new health guidelines as several states begin to relax coronavirus lockdown restrictions in a bid to get America’s workers safely back to work. The moves to reopen follow in the steps of Georgia, Oklahoma, and Alaska, which on Friday began loosening lockdown restrictions on businesses despite health officials warning the gradual return to daily life might be happening too soon. Tennessee has seen the average daily infection rate remain stable for two weeks following a ramp-up in testing, and let restaurants reopen Monday at 50 percent capacity in 89...

On April 7, Bill Weir, CNN's chief climate correspondent, had a son. Weir wrote an open letter to his son telling him he was born into Hell on Earth, also known as the modern Western world. The letter perfectly encapsulates everything the left hates and wants to see destroyed. Below, in italics, are my summaries of many of Weir's pronouncements, followed by countervailing information. Climate change is making nightingales have shorter wings, so they're all going to die because they can't migrate. First, the study, after noting that some nightingales have shorter wings, makes an evidence-free leap to blaming climate...

A case in point involves the response to John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, who was thrust into the spotlight after writing a provocative article in STAT on Covid-19. He argued in mid-March that we didn’t have enough information on the prevalence of Covid-19 and the consequences of the infection on a population basis to justify the most extreme lockdown measures which, he hypothesized, could have dangerous consequences of their own. ...Now is the time to foster —not stifle — open dialogue among academic physicians and scientists about the current pandemic and the best tactical responses to...

New facts in the Michael Flynn case call into question the voluntariness of Flynn’s plea. Judge Sullivan should dismiss the charges to send a clear message: Outrageous prosecutorial coercion will not be tolerated. The criminal case against Michael Flynn imploded Friday. First, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia provided Flynn’s legal team with documents discovered by an outside review of the Flynn prosecution — documents withheld for years. Then, Sidney Powell, the attorney who took over Flynn’s defense nearly a year ago, filed new documents in the case, revealing a secret “lawyers’ understanding” not to prosecute Flynn’s son...

Under the direction of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago—gun homicide capital of the United States—has begun reclassifying incidents in which a murder victim was shot from a distance of six feet or more as COVID-19 fatalities. "Since the shooters in these cases are observing the social distancing rules—we determined that COVID-19 guidelines were the key contributing factor in these deaths," the Mayor explained. "By reclassifying these deaths, the City will receive payments from the federal government that would not be available if the deaths were allowed to be officially attributed to a non-COVID-19 cause." if you missed any of this week's...

During March, the Abortion Pill Rescue Network saw a record number of calls for abortion pill reversals. Andrea Trudden, director of communications for Heartbeat International, which runs the Abortion Pill Rescue Network, told Live Action News that 105 mothers started the process of halting their chemical abortions after calling the hotline. Trudden said, “We are now seeing over 80% of our callers start the reversal process.” The abortion pill reversal method is available to mothers who begin the abortion pill regimen and regret their decision. Because chemical abortion is a two-step procedure, it may be possible to stop the death...

Rosie O’Donnell is confident that Donald Trump will not win reelection in the 2020 presidential race. The 58-year-old former talk show host sat down for a remote interview on comedian Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast where they discussed her long and storied career in comedy and television. Eventually, the conversation turned to politics and O’Donnell’s years-long feud with Donald Trump. During the episode, Maron noted that seeing Trump not only get elected in 2016 but still have support going into 2020 after his handling of the coronavirus pandemic has made him question whether or not “people are fundamentally good.” When he...

COLUMBUS - Many Ohioans will return to work next month, but work will look different with mandatory facial coverings or masks and lots of space between employees. Gov. Mike DeWine announced a three-phase plan to reopen some businesses that have been closed because of concerns about spreading the novel coronavirus. That plan includes restarting delayed medical procedures, a return to office work, reopening manufacturing plants and eventually allowing retail shops to reopen. Some businesses, such as daycares, hair salons, gyms and dine-in restaurants, won’t reopen just yet. DeWine is trying to balance two, often competing, forces: The desire to keep...

April 27, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Catholic leaders in Michigan are speaking out forcefully against Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s declaration that the abortion industry should be exempt from the sacrifices made by legitimate medical fields because it is “life-sustaining.” “A woman’s health care, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election, it is fundamental to her life,” Whitmer claimed during an interview earlier this month. “It is life sustaining and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of. ” The exception, reflective of debates going across multiple...