Free Republic

It's almost as if he likes it like this. California's Gov. Gavin Newsom vows to make the coronavirus emergency measures in California its "new normal" unless --- and it's a big if --- a vaccine for the virus is ready. According to Breitbart: Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday warned that, while California will move into the next phase of reopening its economy this week, it is “not going back to normal” until there is a vaccine. Newsom this week announced that the state will move into the next phase of its recovery plan by Friday, May 8, allowing certain businesses — like bookstores, flower...

Many governments and academics around the world are calling for widespread or even universal testing for SARS-CoV-2, "the coronavirus."   Before endorsing, it's worthwhile becoming familiar with the clever stratagem of eighteenth-century Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes.   It wouldn't be the first time his calculations will have come in handy: Alan Turing used Bayesian probabilities to help crack the Nazi Enigma Code. Reverend Bayes died without knowing the value his statistical speculation would bring to the world — but people, examining posthumous notebooks, realized he'd discovered a fascinating trick of statistics.   Simply put, he calculated that the likelihood of an outcome's...

On any list of medical triumphs of the 20th century, polio vaccination is sure to rate a mention. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the shot and sugar-cube vaccines offered people the first opportunities to protect themselves from a scourge as feared in its day as AIDS is in our own. Few back then grasped that these vaccines might also be a huge, inadvertent, uncontrolled experiment in interspecies viral transmission. But from 1955 to 1963, according to a 1976 US National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study, 98 million Americans alone probably were exposed to polio vaccines contaminated with SV40—a monkey...

Former President Barack Obama will deliver a televised prime-time commencement address for the high school Class of 2020 during an hour-long event that will also feature LeBron James, Malala Yousafzai and Ben Platt, among others. ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC will simultaneously air the special May 16 at 8 p.m. EDT along with more than 20 other broadcast and digital streaming partners, according to the announcement Tuesday from organizers. Several high school students from Chicago public schools and the Obama Youth Jobs Corps will join, as will the Jonas Brothers, Yara Shahidi, Bad Bunny, Lena Waithe, Pharrell Williams, Megan Rapinoe...

The Deep State is the “administrative state,” the federal bureaucracy; it’s the permanent government, a.k.a. “the Swamp.” And when it comes to those who make up the Deep State, the “wheels of justice turn slowly”… exceedingly slowly, if indeed they turn at all. SNIP So one waits for a little justice to be dealt to the Deep State malefactors who have abused the public trust and who have prima facie broken the law. Regularly we’ve been told that this or that new bit of evidence is “huge” and we’ve been assured that some swamp creature is soon going to be...

Loyola Marymount student said she will not back down Left-leaning students at a private Los Angeles based university are calling for the impeachment of a newly elected student government senator after discovering she supports strict policies on immigration. Stephanie Martinez was elected to the Loyola Marymount University student government as a “senator for diversity and inclusion” in early April after running an unopposed campaign, according to an independent student publication The Agency. Martinez told YAF that she had no plans to resign and “to resign would only mean that I am giving up my identity and my ideals or that...

An endangered whale shark was spotted in the Gulf of Mexico during a boating trip near Siesta Key, southeast Florida, earlier this week. Alexa Groat and her family chartered a fishing boat on Tuesday to celebrate her sister's birthday, when an unexpected guest gatecrashed the party. The group had taken the boat out to the Gulf of Mexico where they spotted the shark (Rhincodon typus) cruising near the surface of the water.

First-term Democrat Rep. Harley Rouda of California was spotted on a private beach in Orange County — even as he supported Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) criticism of communities that kept their beaches open to the public.

Morning "Great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all." Matthew 12:15 What a mass of hideous sickness must have thrust itself under the eye of Jesus! Yet we read not that he was disgusted, but patiently waited on every case. What a singular variety of evils must have met at his feet! What sickening ulcers and putrefying sores! Yet he was ready for every new shape of the monster evil, and was victor over it in every form. Let the arrow fly from what quarter it might, he quenched its fiery power. The heat of fever, or the cold...

Dean Weingarten in Front of Supreme Court of the United States When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the New York Rifle & Pistol case in 2019, it was big news. The lower courts in the circuits hostile to the Second Amendment have been busy rendering the Second Amendment a second tier Constitutional right. Some members of the Court, notably Justice Clarence Thomas, had written about it. A few days ago, the Court ruled the New York Rifle & Pistol case was moot. Four justices indicated they should grant a writ of certiorari (hear the case) of another Second...

Residents of a southern Washington state county who attended so-called “coronavirus parties" could be behind an increase of cases in the community, local health officials said this week when urging residents to continue to adhere to social distancing measures. The Walla Walla County of Community Health in a statement Tuesday said it had received reports of “COVID-19 parties” occurring within the community. “Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of COVID-19 parties occurring in our community, where non-infected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,” officials said in a news release. “As COVID-19...

Under the order, Californians diagnosed within two weeks of reporting to work between March 19 and July 5 will be presumed to have contracted the virus on the job. It will fall on employers to refute any claims for medical coverage and benefits.

The World Health Organization has suggested that deliberately infecting healthy volunteers with coronavirus may help speed up the search for a potential vaccine. In a report released Wednesday, the WHO, who have been under pressure for their initial response to the outbreak in China and subsequent global pandemic, suggested that so-called “challenge studies” can “be substantially faster to conduct than vaccine field trials.” “Well designed challenge studies might thus not only accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development, but also make it more likely that the vaccines ultimately deployed are more effective,” the report’s preamble suggests.

I have been taking some heat from friends and colleagues for my steadfast defense of personal liberties and my arguments that the Constitution -- when interpreted in accordance with the plain meaning of its words, and informed by history -- does not permit the government to infringe upon personal freedoms, no matter the emergency or pandemic. For those who agree with me, worry not. We will persevere. For those who trust the government, worry a lot. You are not in good hands. The purpose of the Constitution is to establish the government and to limit it. Some of the limitations...

Unemployment rolls continued to swell in the U.S. last week, though jobless claims hit their lowest level since the economy went into lockdown made to battle the coronavirus pandemic. First-time filings for unemployment insurance hit 3.17 million last week, bringing the total to 33.5 million over the past seven weeks, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The total was slightly higher than the 3.05 million expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones and below the previous week’s 3.846 million, which was revised up by 7,000. Though the numbers remain stark, that was the lowest total since the week ended March 14,...

EXCERPT: President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump participated Thursday, May 2, 2020 in a National Day of Prayer service. Watch live in the video player above. The National Day of Prayer began in 1952, when Congress approved a joint resolution that then-President Harry Truman signed into law. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a law that designated the first Thursday in May the annual National Day of Prayer.

Nearly 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, deepening the economic pain inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic on the U.S. workforce. The new report, which covers the week ending May 2, pushes the seven-week total of losses since states adopted strict stay-at-home measures to more than 33 million, erasing the entirety of all jobs created during the past decade. Unemployment at this scale hasn’t been recorded since the Great Depression. Although the number is still grim, it's the lowest amount of jobless claims since the week ended March 15.

Dr Grant Colfax, San Francisco's public health director, said the harm-reduction approach is widespread and based on decades of sound public health policy. 'Our focus needs to be on supporting them,' he said of the people who are isolating or under quarantine. For people experiencing alcohol withdrawal, the Department of Public Health calculates the minimum amount needed and delivers them with meals.

People who attended religious services at least once a week were significantly less likely to die from “deaths of despair,” including deaths related to suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol poisoning, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study showed that the association between service attendance and lower risk of deaths from despair was somewhat stronger for women than for men. “Despair is something that can confront anyone dealing with severe difficulties or loss. While the term ‘deaths of despair’ was originally coined in the context of working class Americans struggling with unemployment, it...

That work, Harris said, has led to the current clinical trial, leveraging insights from research done at high altitude to design a treatment that, should it work, would kill coronavirus directly in the lungs and allow patients to be discharged from the emergency department to home. The key insight, he said, is that the lack of oxygen at high altitude mirrors the effects of COVID-19’s lung dysfunction on the cell’s mitochondria powerhouse. It is also well-known that nitric oxide, which improves blood flow in the lungs, is central to adapting to life at high altitudes and has antiviral benefits. “If...