Free Republic

A big development in the fight over 53 secret interviews the House Intelligence Committee(under Nunes) conducted during its Russia-Trump investigation.

Morning "We dwell in him." 1 John 4:13 Do you want a house for your soul? Do you ask, "What is the purchase?" It is something less than proud human nature will like to give. It is without money and without price. Ah! you would like to pay a respectable rent! You would love to do something to win Christ? Then you cannot have the house, for it is "without price." Will you take my Master's house on a lease for all eternity, with nothing to pay for it, nothing but the ground-rent of loving and serving him forever? Will...

On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski drooled over, and quoted at great length, S.E. Cupp's New York Daily News column, "The President Is Not Well." The gist of Cupp's column is that President Trump is mentally "very sick," and should be removed from office via the 25th Amendment if only that were politically possible. Calling Trump variations on crazy is, of course, a stock-in-trade for Morning Joe. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

A medical researcher said to be on the “verge of making very significant” coronavirus findings was found shot to death over the weekend in Pennsylvania, officials said. Bing Liu, 37, a researcher for the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was found dead Saturday inside a home in Ross Township, north of Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner said. He had been shot in the head and neck, the agency said. An hour after Liu's body was discovered, a second person, Hao Gu, 46, was found dead inside a car less than a mile away, the agency said. Ross Township...

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that the principle of stare decisis has never required the court to uphold 'erroneous precedents.' In a case that might appear to have no bearing on the right to abortion, a U.S. Supreme Court justice may have signaled a willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade.In Ramos v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that criminal defendants must be convicted by unanimous state juries, overturning a Louisiana murder conviction based on a 10-2 jury verdict. This decision overturns the court’s 1972 ruling in Apodaca v. Oregon, which held there is no right to a...

By the time the People’s Republic of China (PRC) acted to stop its latest viral outbreak on January 23, 2020, millions of potentially infected Chinese were already traveling beyond the outbreak’s epicenter in Wuhan—some to the United States. As the virus spread and became a global pandemic costing at least 200,000 lives, more than $4 trillion in direct costs, and potentially tens of trillions of dollars in long term economic losses, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began a global information operations (IO) campaign to deflect criticism from the CCP which was clearly deficient in its handling of the virus. China's...

[Mamaroneck, N.Y.—May 6, 2020] A CBS News crew pulled medical professionals off the floor at the Cherry Medical Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to line up in their vehicles so a CBS film crew would have a long line for their COVID-19 coverage. 'We Could Have Done Other Stuff,” Registered Nurse complains. ‘Apparently, the news crew wanted more people in the line,’ said a Cherry Health Supervisor. “We pretended. There were a couple of real patients, which made it worse,” Said Another Registered Nurse. [Mamaroneck, N.Y.—May 6, 2020] A CBS News crew pulled medical professionals off the floor at the...

Video: This nurse from Nevada went to New York to treat COVID-19 patients. She said they are dying due to the incompetence, negligence, and indifference of health care workers. She even says that some of these deaths were murder. When she told management, they didn’t care. I watched this entire 24 minute video. The speaker is a nurse from Nevada named Nicole Sirotek, who went to New York to treat COVID-19 patients. She describes multiple examples of patients who died due to the incompetence, negligence, and indifference of health care workers. She even says that some of these deaths were murder....

It’s hump day. Olympic National Park, Washington (Currently closed due to Wuhan Cooties)Of course it’s just one hump after another these days. Do your best to enjoy the gloriously humpy ride. If life were simply a long, straight ribbon of highway we would no doubt have very boring lives.Purportedly a blessing, the Chinese saying “may you live in interesting times” is actually intended as a curse, as anyone who has lived those “interesting” times can attest. Make no mistake, the Chinese intent is to curse us. The Left just hasn’t figured that out yet; when and if they ever do...

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. In media, NeverTrumpism is writing the same column over and over and expecting the Orange Bad Man to disappear. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: President Donald Trump is unraveling. Oh, you’ve heard it eleventy billion times from the same half dozen “NeverTrump” pundits? Yeah, so has everyone. It’s the same column from the same people published with alarming frequency. It’s not the pundits’ fault, necessarily. They are who they are, and clearly Trump has broken the part...

Pritzker rolled out a five-phase regional plan for reopening the state. The Democratic governor said his “Restore Illinois” blueprint considered advice from members of both parties across Illinois. Some Downstate elected officials have bristled at the governor’s restrictions, arguing that while they may be necessary in the metro areas they may not be in rural areas. The governor also said he conferred with lawmakers representing African American and Latino communities disproportionately affected by the virus. Prtizker said the plan is based on a scientific approach, and cautioned, “Here’s the truth, and I don’t like it any more than you do,...

It doesn’t come as a shock but it is ridiculous in the extreme. A Dallas County Texas salon owner has been sentenced to a week in jail for defying the order to keep her business closed. “I couldn’t feed my family and my stylists couldn’t feed their families” Ms. Shelly Luther testified. The court didn’t care. The stakes are escalating daily as economic desperation takes over and the oppressive hand of the authoritarian government officials refuse to loosen their grip on their new found power over the population. Confrontation is likely to get much worse quickly. TEXAS – A Dallas...

Giant murder hornets? As Joe Biden might say, c’mon man! Meanwhile, this, from The Week cheers my heart: “California highway police say that while overall traffic levels are down 35 percent this year because of a stay-at-home order, the number of speeding tickets for driving more than 100 mph has increased by 87 percent, with one motorist caught doing 165 mph. Commissioner Warren Stanley warned that higher speeds can ‘significantly increase the chance of death should a crash occur.” Rest easy Power Line readers: They haven’t caught me yet. Also, let us give a nod to the astrological signs aligning...

“Where in the Constitution did the people of Wisconsin confer authority on a single, un-elected cabinet secretary to compel almost 6 mil people to stay at home, close their businesses & face imprisonment if they don’t comply… Isn’t it the very definition of tyranny?” -- Justice Rebecca Bradley

The Rockefeller Foundation laid out its COVID-19 Testing Action Plan as a fundamental step to reopen the country. The plan will call for a significant ramp-up in testing, an expansion of contact tracing, a public-private testing technology accelerator, a national initiative to rapidly expand and optimize the use of lab capacity, and a testing data commons and digital platform to track COVID-19 statuses, among other things. They want to test up to 30 million people each week which will cost up to $100 billion. The plan also calls for up to 300,000 testers and contact tracers, and a data-sharing platform....

A Dallas hair salon owner in a contempt hearing for re-opening her business under lockdown told the judge that “feeding my kids is not selfish.” Her comments came after the judge offered her the opportunity to avoid jail time by apologizing and admitting her actions were wrong. “I have to disagree with you sir when you that I’m selfish [for re-opening the salon].” “because feeding my kids is not selfish.” Judge Eric Moyé presides over the 14th Civil District Court located in Dallas County. Dallas County issued an order to Luther requiring her to close her business after she opened...

Two Whoops And A Holler by Jean Shepard (1954) is our selection today. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Blessing In Disguise. It’s Evil Social distancing is not something to celebrate. It is, according to the experts, what we must do right now. But it’s a necessary evil, not a societal good. As the U.S. government’s “30 days to slow the spread” order expires, with no indication that President Trump plans to extend it, it’s time to start asking whether it was worth it. Have the extreme social distancing and economic measures to which we have subjected ourselves accomplished the desired result? Was any of it even necessary to begin with? It’s a question we’ll be debating for years....

Failed Trump challenger Hillary Clinton (D) on Tuesday warned that “Americans will suffer” as the Trump administration signaled it is engaging in “preliminary talks” to shut down the coronavirus task force. It appears the plan is, shamefully, to have no plan. Americans will suffer. We must replace this administration in November. https://t.co/WWuRRK253t— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 5, 2020 (snip) Despite Clinton’s assertion of there being “no plan,” the vice president said the White House is “discussing a transition with FEMA and other agencies for a task force turnover in late May or early June, suggesting that Memorial Day weekend would...

Jamaican singer Millie Small has died at the age of 73 after suffering a stroke. The star was most famous for her hit single My Boy Lollipop, which reached number two in both the US and the UK in 1964. It remains one of the biggest-selling ska songs of all time, with more than seven million sales. Island Records founder Chris Blackwell announced her death and remembered her as "a sweet person... really special". It was Blackwell who brought Small to London in 1963 and produced her version of My Boy Lollipop, showcasing her childlike, high-pitched vocals. "I would say...