Free Republic

Most of the world found itself confined to their homes in March 2020 as Covid-19 spread at a blistering pace. Some countries didn't impose any lockdown restrictions – so was their decision the right one? In March 2020, billions of people stared out through their windows at a world they no longer recognised. Suddenly confined to their homes, their lives had shrunk abruptly to four walls and computer screens. Around the world, national leaders appeared on television, telling them to stay put – only leave the house to buy essential supplies or for once-daily exercise, maybe. It was a last-ditch...

Per the document released by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, the proposed national budget for fiscal year 2024 explicitly “prohibits funds for other controversial organizations and programs, such as UNFPA, the World Health Organization, and the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund.” The specific impetus for this proposal appears to be the WHO’s recent declaration of censorship war on “misinformation” due to what it has termed an “infodemic.” “The infodemic can directly impact health, hamper the implementation of public health countermeasures and undermine trust and social cohesiveness. Infodemic cannot be eliminated it can only be managed. This...

Donald Trump’s recent announcement of Sheriff Chad Chronister as his nominee for Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator has sparked a fierce backlash among conservatives, who are raising serious concerns about Chronister’s record, particularly his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and his perceived alignment with leftist policies. ... many conservative voices have condemned the pick, pointing to his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and his alignment with liberal policies. Among the most controversial moments of Chronister’s career was the arrest of Tampa Bay Pastor Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne in March 2020. The pastor was charged with violating public health orders after keeping...

Minnesota business owner Greg Urban on Fox News Wednesday criticized Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz for his allegedly tyrannical record during the COVID-19 pandemic as governor of Minnesota. Walz implemented harsh lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, establishing a hotline for Minnesotans to report people who violated stay-at-home policies and pushed residents of his state not to gather for Thanksgiving. Urban, on “America Reports,” characterized Walz as an “evil” tyrant for his policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, asserting the vice presidential candidate is farther left than Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom. “Walz was a complete dictator through that whole...

Donald Trump barely survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13—a fatal headshot was missed by millimeters. The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was perched on an unprotected rooftop less than 200 yards from the rally stage. Secret Service snipers killed him during the attack. What was his motive? We don’t know the official narrative from federal authorities, which is becoming a recurring conclusion of such investigations by the FBI. Yet, a social media clue might point us in the right direction. It's a platform that has a disreputable reputation for being a haven for neo-Nazis and...

Dr. Phil McGraw has urged people to plan their resistance against the next time the government attempts to lock down the civilian population. Addressing the audience on his eponymous show, McGraw explained how he had been demonized for his stance against the tyrannical COVID lockdowns but has since been proven right. Now, McGraw is urging people to prepare for the next time governments attempt to shut the schools and place an entire population under house arrest: When I stepped up in the beginning and said this lockdown is going to create more problems with quality of life than COVID is...

We just passed the fourth anniversary of “15 Days To Slow the Spread,” the start of the COVID lockdowns that did damage from which we still haven’t recovered. ... Anthony Fauci, Nancy Pelosi and Bill de Blasio were telling us not to worry, to take cruises and go visit Chinatown ... They reversed course like a week later. ... Neither the lockdowns nor the masking requirements did any good, though they caused a lot of trauma, inconvenience and colossal economic destruction. ... Then there were the deaths caused by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s program of moving still-contagious COVID patients into old-folks’...

A restaurant that refused to shut down during COVID-19 restrictions and didn't require documentation of vaccination had its charges dropped after finally getting its day in court. The crown dropped charges against Jesse Johnson, owner of Without Papers Pizza, after just 10 minutes of action in the courtroom, Media Bezirgan reported. The Calgary, Canada, business faced shutdowns and charges from the Alberta provincial government after it refused to close while also declining to participate in Canada's vaccine passport program, which required two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to eat indoors at restaurants. "These bastards, they literally tried to break me...

A federal appeals court has agreed with a lower court that the Biden administration likely can be proven to have pressured Big Tech to censor Americans whose views did not align with the Democrat talking points. And the result is that leftists en masse are trying to deny it, a sentiment expressed by the White House, which stated, “This administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections. Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account...

As the UK Covid inquiry continues, we must not forget lockdowns failed and destroyed the lives of millions.. America stands for freedom, yet we had one of the most acquiescent populations in the world during the pandemic. There were protests about the lockdowns, if you remember, in the UK, in Spain, in Italy, in France, in Germany and in the Netherlands. Generally speaking in America there was a shocking lack of pushback. America is the beacon of freedom in the world and if America does not push for freedom, it’s over; Not just in the US, it’s over everywhere. The...

'What has happened to me has only furthered the cause of Christ, and for that I rejoice,' said Pastor Tim Stephens ... Canadian pastor who was arrested twice in 2021 for continuing to congregate with his church in Calgary, Alberta ... The Provincial Court of Alberta tossed out charges against Pastor Tim Stephens alleging he violated provincial public health orders regarding physical distancing .... Stephens was imprisoned twice last year for keeping his Fairview Baptist Church open. .... Stephens' acquittal comes weeks after Danielle Smith, Alberta's new premier, promised a plan to pardon COVID offenders in the province. Her administration...

A Ballarat woman who was charged with inciting others to breach a lockdown has had her case thrown out of court. Zoe Buhler was arrested in her Ballarat home in September 2020 while pregnant. The mother of three livestreamed her arrest showing police handcuffing her in a video that later went viral and sparked concerns from the Australian Human Rights Commission... In a statement Victoria Police said they withdrew the single charge following an assessment of the case, determining it was "not in the public interest to continue with the prosecution". Ms Buhler, now 30 years old, said she was...

All he had to do was end the COVID-19 lockdowns and let the economy recover on its own. Instead, President Joe Biden spent trillions trying to “transform” the country, and now, everyone, especially the nation's poorest, is paying the price for his hubris. The Labor Department reported Friday that inflation rose to 8.6% in the 12 months ending in May, its highest level in more than 40 years. Virtually no sector of the economy was left untouched. Gas is up 48.7% from a year ago, electricity 12%, groceries 11.9%, and rent 5.9%. These price increases are not, as White House...

"I am thankful that I met Jason as a result of our church's stand during COVID lockdowns" Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church has preached at the funeral of one of Calgary's police officers a year after he was arrested for conducting worship services in violation of Alberta's health orders. Police arrested Pastor Stephens at his home last June and offered him bail on the condition that he abide by all public health orders. Pastor Stephens refused to agree to the stipulated conditions, as doing so would prevent him from caring for the church that has been entrusted to...

Rates of tickets issued per 100,000 residents show that the city's Hasidic Jewish community faced severe curfew enforcement by Montreal police. For five months during Quebec's COVID curfew, Rebel News was out sounding the alarm about the targeted harassment from Montreal police towards the city's Hasidic Jewish population. Organizations that claim to stick up for Jews were silent. The only time the public heard from these so-called Jewish groups was when they decided to condemn Jews for calling a police officer a Nazi as he was harassing Hasidic Jews at a synagogue, targeting them for observing their religious obligations. Well...

Shanghai, China has become a dystopian hellscape under the latest Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-imposed Covid-19 lockdown. Reports and videos testify to people starving to death because they are not allowed to leave home, Covid-positive children (even infants) separated from their parents, pets murdered by government officials, and people jumping to their deaths in despair. Yet the CCP continues to lie—and not be called on it in any major way by American government and media. Even a line from China’s own national anthem is reportedly being blocked on Chinese social media platform Weibo (Reclaim The Net: "China’s Weibo blocks lines of...

The financial hub of 26 million people has become a testing ground for Chinas 'zero-COVID' policy China's financial hub of Shanghai says it will lock down the city in two stages to carry out COVID-19 testing over a nine-day period, after it reported a new daily record for asymptomatic infections. Authorities said on Sunday they would divide Shanghai into two for the exercise, using the Huangpu River that passes through the city as a guide. Districts to the east of the river, and some to its west, will be locked down and tested between March 28 and April 1. The...

As Covid-19 reaches endemic status in much of the world, it almost seems absurd to even discuss the preposterous, unworkable, unsustainable “zero-Covid” strategies employed by countries like Australia, New Zealand, China, and others. After all, anyone with half a brain knew full well that a highly contagious respiratory virus like Covid-19 wasn’t going to be stopped and that efforts to stop it at all costs would lead to more human suffering than the virus could have ever inflicted, and yet highly intelligent people went full throttle with this strategy, wrecking their people and their economies in pursuit of a Quixotic...

I'm not really a protester, but I support the right to protest. I just tend not to show up at those events. I'm glad others do. I don't like crowds. I supported the protests of small business owners during COVID-19. I supported the George Floyd protests. I do not support the violence, looting and rioting within protests. I condemned the violence at former President Donald Trump's inauguration. I condemned the violence during the George Floyd protests. Too many people deploy situational ethics. When rioters stormed the Wisconsin State Capitol to stop the legislature in 2011, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended...

In Canada, first the doxing, then the struggle session. This week, one of the most popular small-donor fundraising sites for the Canadian truckers protesting the COVID vaccine mandates, GiveSendGo, was hacked. The names of donors were shared with the public. We know about this mostly because erstwhile news organizations, such as Reuters, have showered attention on the breach as if they were providing a public service. Indeed, many of the same outlets that refused to report specifics about the Hunter Biden email scoop in 2020 (though the story was obtained in a completely ethical journalistic manner) or share specifics from...