Free Republic

The battle lines on the issue of ending the economic shutdown are drawn more sharply each week. The terror campaign conducted by the media when the coronavirus outbreak began effectively compelled President Trump and most governors to follow the advice of the audible scientists and “flatten the curve” with a comprehensive shutdown requiring huge numbers of people to stay at home. As the unemployment figures that resulted mounted swiftly toward 40 million, the American Left, now including almost all the official Democrats and almost all the national political media, became instantly addicted to the prospect of holding the president responsible...

Actress Rose McGowan has come out as one of the rare prominent members of the #MeToo movement who is backing Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations against presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Reade’s claims Reade is a former Senate legislative aide to Biden who claims that in 1993, the then-Delaware senator sexually assaulted her by pushing her “up against the wall,” and going “down my skirt and then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers.” Though several family members, former colleagues, and neighbors have corroborated key details in Reade’s story, her credibility has been questioned by the...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) falsely suggested late last week that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden did not really make his “you ain’t black” remark that was widely condemned as racist and arrogant. During an interview on “The Breakfast Club” with co-host Charlamagne Tha God, Biden said, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” Lee made the false claim during an appearance on Fox News when asked about the remark during an interview with anchor Bret Baier.

GQ magazine was severely mocked for publishing an opinion piece that incorrectly said former Alabama segregationist governor George Wallace was a Republican. The op-ed, penned by Laura Bassett, described Wallace, a former presidential candidate, as a Republican who backed abortion so there would be fewer children for the government to support. Just one catch: Wallace was a Democrat.

On his top-rated talk radio program Thursday, Rush Limbaugh kicked off a segment by announcing a rare honor bestowed by the “EIB Limbaugh Institute”: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now officially “the closest that we’ve ever had to a graduate” of his prestigious institute, Limbaugh said. The reason the Republican governor has been awarded the honor, the host explained, is his thorough throttling of the media for their partisan coverage of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I want to start with a graduate or the closest that we’ve ever had to a graduate, of the EIB Limbaugh Institute, and...

Facebook has taken action against PragerU’s page on the platform for what it described as “repeated sharing of false news.” In detail: Facebook has reduced the page’s reach and banned it from running ads on the platform or using its monetizing features. PragerU, the conservative non-profit, announced the move on Twitter earlier this week, accusing Facebook of censorship.

A Mississippi church in the midst of a legal battle to stay open despite local shutdown orders was burned to the ground early Wednesday morning. According to first responders, the First Pentecostal Church of Holly Springs was vandalized and suffered a large explosion to the back of the church. The incident is being investigated as a criminal act of arson. “I Bet you stay home now you hypokrits,” read one message spray painted on the church parking lot, Thomas More Society senior counsel and lawyer for the church Stephen Crampton told Fox News on Thursday.

A mum is 'fuming' over her 11-year-old daughter's school work which asked children to define hardcore pornography - among other 'inappropriate' topics. Children in Years 7, 8 and 9 at Archbishop Sentamu Academy in Hull were set the work in their Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) class as part of their home learning. Teachers have asked the 11 to 14-year-olds to 'define' pornography, soft pornography, hardcore pornography and transsexual pornography, as well as female genital mutilation, wet dreams, trafficking, male circumcision, breast ironing and more.

Democrats appear to be having a media moment. In the last several weeks, several mainstream outlets have churned out at least three glowing profiles and one other flattering piece on prominent Democrats. The latest comes from the New York Times with the headline: “Immigrant Twin Brothers Battle Trump Machine on Facebook.” Reporter Nick Corasaniti, profiles Rafael and Omar Rivero, immigrants from Mexico who founded the Facebook page Occupy Democrats, calling them “social media mavens of the left who are quickly emerging as a counterweight to the dominance of right-wing online sites.”

EXCLUSIVE: Thirty-seven Planned Parenthood affiliates applied for and received a total of $80 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" has learned -- and now the federal government wants the money back, saying the affiliates should have known they weren't eligible for the coronavirus stimulus payouts. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is reaching out to each involved Planned Parenthood affiliate explaining that affiliates of larger organizations with more than 500 employees aren't eligible for PPP distributions, Fox News is told. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PFFA) alone has had more than 600...

The FBI was “heavily” dependant on media leaks and so-called “news hooks” to further its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the eventually-disproved claims of collusion between President Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, according to a new analysis of public records by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The analysis by investigative reporter Chuck Ross highlights five significant news reports the FBI used to justify its advancement of the investigation into the Trump campaign, many of which reports revolved around the incriminating information contained in the discredited dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

President Donald Trump was asked Monday about Los Angeles county leaders’ plans to extend the shelter in place order until the end of August and he called it a “death wish.” “I mean I heard that they’re going to keep Los Angeles closed till end of August,” the president explained during his appearance at a roundtable discussion with restaurant owners at the White House, per a White House pool report. “That’s what the mayor [Eric Garcetti] wants to do.”

The FBI has established a firm link between Al-Qaeda and Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the Saudi aviation student who killed three U.S. service members and injured eight other Americans during a terrorist attack at the Pensacola naval airbase in Florida in December 2019. The FBI found that Alshamrani, who was killed in the attack, had “significant ties” to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and frequently contacted operatives in the terrorist organization, even on the night before the attack, the leaders of the Justice Department (DOJ) and the FBI announced Monday.

U.S. authorities are not yet seeing spikes in coronavirus cases in places that are reopening but it was still too early to determine such trends, health secretary Alex Azar said on Sunday. “We are seeing that in places that are opening, we’re not seeing this spike in cases,” Azar said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “We still see spikes in some areas that are, in fact, closed.”

No matter how you slice it, what happened in last week’s special election for California’s 25th Congressional District was not good for Democrats. In resounding fashion, Democratic hopeful Christy Smith, a state assemblywoman from Santa Clarita, was beaten by Republican defense industry executive Mike Garcia. While ballots are still being counted in what was an almost all-mail-in election, recent tallies had Garcia, a Trump endorsee, trouncing Smith by a double-digit margin .... Smith conceded quickly. There are the coronavirus caveats. Stay-at-home orders meant low turnout, which favored Garcia: older, whiter, and more-affluent voters tend to vote by mail already and...

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said that the reporting and commentary around the coronavirus outbreak is becoming strikingly similar to the alarmism surrounding climate change. Limbaugh made the comparison on his radio show on Thursday. The pundit started off by noting that climate change has been at the center of dire predictions for decades.

A California County Sherrif said the police department is not cracking down on residents who break social distancing rules, saying officers are too busy re-arresting those who were released under the state’s zero-dollar bail policy. The story: Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims made the comments in an interview with Trevor Carey on the “Trevor Carey Show.” “I’ve heard multiple sheriffs around the nation state they will not enforce their governors’ shelter-in-place orders. Is that your position?” Carey asked. “That is my position. We do not stop the public to find out what they’re doing when they’re not sheltering in place....

Flattening the curve is a new term for most of us not steeped in the world of public health or epidemiology. Prior to the Chinese Coronavirus making a mess of lives and economies, this term might have featured in a Saturday morning infomercial on the latest weight loss fad. Now it has become the holy grail of fighting this viral pandemic. The New York Times, in a rare moment not bashing President Trump, explains flattening the curve. There are two curves, a steep one and a flat one, as we have seen endlessly on the news.

Restaurants in Washington state will be required to keep a log of each dine-in customer to facilitate contact tracing during phase two of the state's coronavirus reopening plans. As part of the requirements, the log must be maintained for 30 days and must include each customer's telephone number and email address, and what time they came in to eat, according to officials.

Los Angeles County officials will likely extend the stay-at-home orders for three months, according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. The story: Speaking at a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Ferrer said that “with all certainty” the stay-at-home orders will remain in place for the next three months, several days after they were expected to expire on Friday.