Free Republic

Instead of being a vital technology empowering average people to learn and act for themselves, the internet now mostly succeeds in making users feel small, paranoid, and helpless. Some people might take issue with Facebook’s decision to remove posts attempting to organize protests against shelter-in-place orders, Twitter’s stance against presumed misinformation, and major news outlets acting as mouthpieces for the Chinese government. But by now, most people hardly blink at these heavy-handed moves to control public speech. They are told that dissent is either misinformation or hate speech, and, in the midst of a pandemic, such freedoms are positively dangerous.This...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Hebrew Worship Words Hilluwl Leviticus 19:24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. Judges 9:27 After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden them, they held a festival in the temple of their god. While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelek. (There are only two occurrences of this word in the OT) New International Version (NIV)(End of Scripture Passage) . "Hilluwl" is an expression of thanksgiving and joy, especially for the harvest....

Fear of the coronavirus is leading people with life-threatening emergencies, like a heart attack or stroke, to stay home when ordinarily they would have rushed to the emergency room, preliminary research suggests. Without prompt treatment, some patients, like Mr. Virachan, have suffered permanent damage or have died. Emergency rooms have about half the normal number of patients, and heart and stroke units are nearly empty, according to doctors at many urban medical centers. Some medical experts fear more people are dying from untreated emergencies than from the coronavirus.A recent paper by cardiologists at nine large medical centers estimated a 38...

Had a request for Hank Snow - The Rhumba Boogie (1951). I was surprised to see that, after over 1500 videos, this tune was not already in my library. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

MALIBU, CA—Many described the scene as breathtaking or awe-inspiring. Others were so touched they couldn't find the words to communicate how they felt. Most simply wept. No matter how they expressed their emotions, everyone agreed that the scene off the Malibu coast Monday morning was exactly what America needed to get through this pandemic. Celebrities gathered their multi-million-dollar yachts on the waters of the Pacific Ocean and spelled out "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER." "We're just like you," said Ellen DeGeneres on her Instagram as her servants sailed her yacht into position to form the apostrophe. "Yes, maybe I have...

As some states begin loosening coronavirus lockdowns, all eyes are on Texas to see if a phased reopening can be done safely. In what could be the beginning of America’s resurgence from the coronavirus pandemic, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday he will let the state’s stay-at-home order expire at the end of the month and allow some businesses to reopen Friday, with restrictions. It marks the boldest loosening of pandemic restrictions since states began issuing lockdown orders last month, and could mark a path ahead for reopening the rest of the country. Retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and malls...

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“First do no harm” is a phrase attributed to the Hippocratic Oath, taken by new physicians upon medical school graduation, but those words do not actually appear in the oath. This is much like “separation of church and state” or the “right to privacy” that are constitutional concepts yet not actually appearing in the US Constitution. It is a wise guiding concept for much in life, especially large government mandates or programs. Proposed solutions may actually be worse than the underlying problem such solutions are supposedly solving. What harms will result from stay-at-home orders, banning elective surgery, shutting down businesses,...

His stubborn refusal to take the coronavirus seriously may have caused thousands of deaths. America’s COVID-19 devastation is disproportionately a story of New York State’s devastation, and New York State’s devastation is overwhelmingly a story of New York City’s devastation. There’s a case to be made that New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is the single individual in the United States who is most to blame for the catastrophic loss of human life. I refer you to a grueling investigation by Charles Duhigg in the New Yorker that painstakingly compares the responses to the outbreak in Seattle and New...

Special Dispatch to the New-York Times. CHARLESTON, Friday, April 27. Out of the 4,000 strangers in the city probably not more than three-fifths went to bed last night at all, and probably even they can't stand the temptation to-night. At early dawn knots of people, eagerly talking and fiercely gesticulation, could be seen in the bar-rooms or on the corners of the streets. The all-aborbing question was, what will be the state of things in the Convention when the discussion on the Platform comes up. All parties conceded that a fierce and bitter discussion would be had, and that in...

Did we see a serious political stumble by President Trump in his spat with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp last week? While some may wonder, he seems over all to be handling the coronavirus crisis deftly enough. He’s been giving due deference to the medical brain trust of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx -- perhaps too much, some fear. At the same time, he’s hammering away at the need to limit the brutal economic consequences of the lockdown as soon as possible. All this while parrying relentless attacks from the press and, of course, from an opposition party desperate to...

Ex-pat in Japan . Wife and I living on SS . Read conflicting articles re: stimulus money . I never thought I deserved it mind you , since I live overseas , but read via Jerusalem Post that dual citizens living in Israel and Israeli green card holders will get money so figured so should I . Anybody out there in the same boat as I ?

Morning Joe regular Jon Meacham tends to be cast as the somewhat nerdy, pointy-headed professor, above the partisan fray. (Beats being described as the editor who flew Newsweek into the ground with Tina Brown.) Scarborough regularly teases him about the seven causes of the War of 1812, etc. In fact, under his scholarly guise, Meacham is just as much a Trump hater as the rest of them. On today's Morning Joe, Meacham literally described President Trump as dumber than a dog. He said: "He's failing to do what my Springer Spaniels know we should do, which is launch a Marshall...

Though the six-point road map he unveiled Monday to start rolling back New Jersey’s coronavirus near-lockdown did not include any timeframe, Gov. Phil Murphy offered some faint hope that some type of Memorial Day weekend could be salvaged in four weeks. “I think there’s a shot," Murphy said during his daily coronavirus press briefing in Trenton. “I’m not sure I have a crisp answer for you on Memorial Day. Memorial Day is four weeks from today. I know what it normally is and I love it, and I hope it can be some form of that.” Murphy said the strategy...

In many parts of the country, the people are living not under law, but executive edict. Mayors and governors are arbitrarily enacting rules, and then fines for violation of those rules. We created a nation where the people tell the government what it shall not do, not the other way around. Legislators! STOP HIDING IN YOUR HOMES! CONVENE OR RESIGN!

Mary and I live in a tiny town in West Virginia. Our grocery shopping options are 26 miles away in Maryland and 45 miles away in Virginia. Maryland stores refused to allow us to enter because we did not have masks. We drove to Virginia. It was refreshing seeing Virginians free to wear masks or not. I noticed that the majority of shoppers wearing masks were young people. Do they believe fake news media more that we older Americans? Stopping for gas, the gas-pump TV monitor showed the propaganda commercial we see plastered all over TV. “Stay home. Stay Alive.”...

“As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people. The prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor: but he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days” (Proverbs 28:15).

What’s next, Nancy? Speaker Nancy Pelosi is dangerous. She is becoming more deranged, and more sick, and more evil by the day. Remember this in November, America. A vote for a Democrat is a vote to keep Speaker Pelosi in power. We must not let that happen. The Democrat Party must go down hard in November. #GOP2020! Pelosi: A Minimum Guaranteed Income May Now Be ‘Worthy of Our Attention’ By Breitbart, April 27, 2020 As Congress weighs another relief package amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has many small businesses closed until stay-at-home orders are lifted, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi...

The Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League classifies the Three Percenters as an "anti-government" organization..."The first time I found out what it was linked to was Saturday," Rohrwasser, 23, said of the tattoo he got when he was 18 on his left arm, which shows Roman numerals III surrounded by stars..."It's shameful that I had it on there ignorantly..." "I'm going to take ownership of it... No matter what, that's not who I am and hopefully you all will find that out."

Under our new rules, health care systems and hospitals can establish temporary hospital treatment sites to expand their capacity As the United States wages war against COVID-19, some hospitals around the country are experiencing a tremendous strain on their capacity – and many that haven’t already soon will. Every day, hospitals and their staffs are providing life-saving care to those in the grips of this deadly disease. These heroes on the frontlines deserve every ounce of support we can muster.