Free Republic

Coronavirus tests ordered by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in April from South Korea turn out to have been flawed, and were never used. The media celebrated Maryland’s Republican governor as a hero in April — and a contrast to President Donald Trump — after he directed his state to buy 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea, greeting the delivery in person at the airport. The New York Times reported that Hogan had decided to act after being “frustrated” by the Trump administration’s alleged lack of progress on testing. Hogan also enjoyed glowing coverage from NPR. The Associated Press hailed his...

Well, that didn’t take long. A non-White American citizen born right here in the United States has gotten a spot on the Democratic presidential ticket, and the birthers have come scurrying out from whatever rock they have been living under since Barack Obama left office. Within hours of former vice president Joe Biden’s announcement Wednesday of his history-making running mate, once-reputable Newsweek posted a story posing “Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility.” The author, John Eastman, a conservative law professor, wrote that “some” are “questioning” whether Harris might be “constitutionally ineligible” to be vice president because, should she have...

Like exorbitant speaking fees, book publishing contracts are one of those ways bribes can be paid to politicians undetected. Just ask Russia's former first deputy prime minister, Anatoli Chubais, whose political career ended with that one. So when President Obama and his wife Michelle Obama got a $65-million his-'n'-hers book publishing contract, eyebrows were raised. It wasn't a normal number. Oh, sure, it might have been justified by the likely volume of sales, some said. But Michelle turned her book in on time. And eighteen months past his deadline, Obama has not. Squirreled away in retirement with multiple luxury mansions...

Administration officials moved to treat the nation’s top infectious disease expert as if he were a warring political rival, releasing a list of what they said were questionable statements he had made. By Maggie Haberman President Trump’s advisers undercut the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, over the weekend, anonymously providing details to various news outlets about statements he had made early in the coronavirus outbreak that they said were inaccurate. The move to treat Dr. Fauci, who has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for decades, as if he were a warring political...

The Secretary of State’s office says county officials are to blame for voting issues that have caused massive lines and hours-long wait times at polling locations across metro Atlanta. “The voting situation today in certain precincts in Fulton and Dekalb counties is unacceptable. My office has opened an investigation to determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November’s election. Obviously, the first time a new voting system is used there is going to be a learning curve, and voting in a pandemic only increased these difficulties. But every other county faced these same issues and...

Dozens of media outlets, both in Florida and nationally, published the sensational story of Dr. Rebekah Jones, a state Department of Health employee who was fired by the administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, after – she says – she refused to manipulate data to support the governor’s plan to reopen the state. But a deeper look at the underlying facts expose a less sensational, yet all-too-common narrative: a media feeding frenzy caused by a deep-seated desire to report on scandal and cover-ups, which Rebekah Jones’ claims delivered – if only they were true. They are not....

Former Vice President Joe Biden faced a number of distracting interruptions Monday during a virtual speech: honking geese, chirping birds, a ringing iPhone and what was assumed to be a Secret Service agent standing in the background of his shot. Nevertheless, Biden virtually addressed the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Victory Fund to knock President Trump’s virus response and accuse him of fanning flames of “hate, fear and xenophobia” against Asian-Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic. “The pandemic has unleashed familiar forces of hate, fear and xenophobia that he always flames and fans. The flames have always existed in our...

YouTube Video of press conference

... After discussions with each country’s trade ministers, the leaders were under the impression that all that was left was to shake hands and smile for the cameras. For Vietnam, which was hosting the conference, the new deal was set to be a major diplomatic coup. The leaders noticed that Abe and Trudeau were late for the meeting and some murmuring broke out. Abe soon came striding into the meeting looking “very flustered,” according to Turnbull. When Turnbull asked him what was going on, Abe said, “Justin won’t sign. He’s pulling out.” Asked if Trudeau was trying to scuttle the...

Fox News' Tucker Carlson sounded off on Democrat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Thursday night and accused her of engaging in a "weird arbitrary fascism." "When the coronavirus hit Michigan in force last month, Whitmer had no clue what to do. So, she responded with a mixture of comical ineptitude and a weird kind of arbitrary fascism," Carlson said. "She banned the sale of carpets and paint and potted plants. She told people they couldn't fish or go to church or drive alone to their own homes. But at the same time Whitmer kept liquor stores, weed shops lotto kiosks open...

During an interview on SiriusXM’s “The Dean Obeidallah Show” on Thursday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) said the protest at the state capitol in Lansing, MI, on Wednesday was “a political protest. ... Whitmer said, “Sadly, it was really a political protest–it was not necessarily about the policy. People said they would drive by and not get out of their cars and would practice the CDC safe— you know the guidelines. They congregated at the Capitol without masks standing close together. I saw an adult passing candy out to kids — bare hands to bare hands. These are people who came...

The World Health Organisation has refused to release the names of doctors who blocked an early bid to declare coronavirus a global health emergency. A Sky News Australia investigation has revealed a group of WHO doctors debated whether to declare the deadly coronavirus global emergency in late January but those who wanted to implement strict travel restrictions were outvoted and instead, the body released a glowing statement praising China, followed by a recommendation for countries not to ban travel to China. “The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available,” the WHO wrote...

For its role in helping Beijing cover up coronavirus.The deputy prime minister of Japan says that the WHO should be renamed the ‘Chinese Health Organization’ for its role in helping Beijing cover-up the severity of the coronavirus outbreak.Referring to a petition which now has almost 700,000 signatures calling on WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom to resign, Taro Aso tore into the organization for conspiring with China and failing to stop a global pandemic that could have been prevented.“People think the World Health Organization should change its name. It shouldn’t be called the WHO, it should be renamed the Chinese Health Organization (CHO). This...

The World Health Organization says China 'set the standard' for outbreak response. Apparently, that standard includes disappearing doctors who tell the truth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1a4Pq5GQBc&feature=emb_title  

CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Billionaire left-wing donor Tom Steyer told reporters in the spin room after the Democrat debate Tuesday evening that the coronavirus proved President Donald Trump was “incompetent.” “He’s incompetent … He’s unprepared in terms of the coronavirus to deal with the real world when things go wrong,” Steyer said. “He’s incompetent and bad for the American people.”

Subtitle: These were her first public remarks since testifying before Congress. Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch said the State Department is "in trouble," with senior leaders who lack "moral clarity" and "policy vision," in her first public remarks since testifying before Congress. Accepting an award for excellence in diplomacy at Georgetown University, Yovanovitch also took an apparent shot at President Donald Trump's foreign policy: "An amoral, keep 'em guessing foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear and confusion for trust, cannot work over the long haul." During her remarks and a question-and-answer session, Yovanovitch never said Trump's name and...

Democratic Party officials said they plan to release a majority of Iowa's delayed presidential caucus results by late Tuesday, according to details shared with campaigns on a private conference call. The news did little to stem rising confusion and concern hours after voting ended without the release of a single result in the opening contest of the Democrats 2020 primary season. State party chairman Troy Price informed campaigns that he would release at least 50% of all caucus results at 4pm CST / 5 pm EST, but he declined to answer pointed questions from frustrated campaign representatives about when the...

FBI and two of its former directors — Robert Mueller and James Comey — look increasingly incompetent ... It is now widely known that bureau officials who were directly tied to the “collusion” investigation against Donald Trump and the email security inquiry against Hillary Clinton had strong political bias against the current president. ... that anti-Trump bias is just the tip of the iceberg. Evidence such as the discredited Russian dossier and the bombshell wiretapping memo make it clear that Comey and the entire agency began with an agenda and then worked backwards, doing whatever was necessary to make their...

When they were finished, it looked as though the Greenwood Village, Colo., police had blasted rockets through the house. Projectiles were still lodged in the walls. Glass and wooden paneling crumbled on the ground below the gaping holes, and inside, the family’s belongings and furniture appeared thrashed in a heap of insulation and drywall. Leo Lech, who rented the home to his son, thought it looked like al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s compound after the raid that killed him. But now it was just a neighborhood crime scene, the suburban home where an armed Walmart shoplifting suspect randomly barricaded himself...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., decried on Saturday what she described as a “racist” attack by President Trump on Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., -- after the president called the chairman of the House Oversight Committee a “brutal bully” and said his Baltimore district was “more dangerous” than the southern border.