Free Republic

In virtually every realm of public policy, Americans embrace policies which they know will kill people, sometimes large numbers of people. They do so not because they are psychopaths but because they are rational: they assess that those deaths that will inevitably result from the policies they support are worth it in exchange for the benefits those policies provide. This rational cost-benefit analysis, even when not expressed in such explicit or crude terms, is foundational to public policy debates — except when it comes to COVID, where it has been bizarrely declared off-limits. The quickest and most guaranteed way to...

“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?” Anthony Fauci penned these words in a 2012 paper, long before the COVID-19 outbreak, about gain of function research. “Scientists working in this field might say — as indeed I have said — that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.”The benefits outweigh the risks. For research involving scientists extracting viruses from the wild and engineering them to infect humans in order to study potential therapeutics, Fauci determined...

The 43-page document, titled, “Repeal of Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stations Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units” details how the EPA plans to repeal CPP through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). This version of the document obtained by Breitbart News remains subject to change through inter-agency review. The agency contends that the EPA, under former Administrator Gina McCarthy, exceeded its authority to regulate carbon emissions as stipulated by the Clean Air Act. The document proposes to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, and then suggested that they might release an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that will reflect...

In the wake of the Aurora mass shooting, the usual pattern is playing out with respect to gun control. People such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Piers Morgan and Bill Moyers are beating the drum to restrict firearm ownership, as others try to beat them back. One side says we'd be safer if guns were rarer; the other says that more guns equal less crime. One side says guns kill people, the other that people kill people. Facts and feelings are bandied back and forth (although one side specializes in the facts and the other in the feelings), but in all...

The Obama Administration is touting that their stimulus program has saved or created 640,329 jobs since it was enacted back in February through the end of October. This number is updated and posted on the Administration’s recovery.gov web site. That amounts to $246,436 per job based on the $157.8bn that has been awarded so far!

Technological advancements have elevated mankind to its healthiest and wealthiest level in history. Our lives are longer, our health is greater, our food is more plentiful, and modern conveniences are now so affordable that even the poor among us own what only the rich could afford 50 years ago. It is against this backdrop that we now find ourselves debating the merits of many of these conveniences and advancements. From the chemical scares of the 1960's and 1970's (e.g., DDT, dioxin, food preservatives), to the fear of runaway population growth and rapidly dwindling petroleum supplies, the very people that have...

Terror: As Indonesians clean up after another terror strike, there's plenty of hand-wringing about why it doesn't stop. For terrorists, though, there's little mystery: Indonesia's courts are making terrorism cheap. Saturday's bombings at three crowded tourist restaurants on Bali were the fourth major strike against Indonesia in as many years. With 22 dead and 101 injured, there's no doubt this was an effort to drive out visitors. Tourism amounts to a quarter of Indonesia's hard-currency earnings. Scaring tourists away is an act of economic warfare. But Indonesia's legal system doesn't seem to take terrorism seriously as a national threat. Through...

...The British Prime Minister wants President Bush to commit the U.S. to billions in debt relief to the world's poorest countries through a mechanism called the International Finance Facility, which the Administration rightfully considers a nonstarter. Mr. Blair also wants the U.S. to sign on to his views on global warming.... Instead, what Mr. Blair mainly got was a commitment from the Administration to release another $674 million in humanitarian relief -- most of it food aid -- for Africa, above the $3.2 billion per year it already provides.... [T]he brainchild of Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, the [Copenhagen] Consensus is...