Free Republic

On Oct. 18, 2020, Twitter banned the account of Dr. Scott Atlas for defending President Donald Trump’s position on mask mandates. In his tweet, he cited scientific studies, and the tweet contained absolutely no false information. Also in October, Twitter banned the account of The New York Post for accurately reporting on a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Today we know these were just the first salvos in this evil company’s assault on American liberty. For all its talk about safety, community, and the health of discourse, we see today that Twitter acts in favor of one interest and one...

At any anti-lockdown protest, you will see signs that say “Stop the Great Reset.” The New York Times calls this phrase “a baseless conspiracy theory.” Here is the problem. None of this is secret. There are books you can read about it and detailed websites describing it. Time Magazine even did a cover story. It’s the title of World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab’s book on the lockdowns and the future. It was published July 9, 2020, and now has nearly 900 reviews on Amazon. Proponents of “The Great Reset” argue that the pandemic proves our former society “doesn’t work,”...

A shocking COVID-19 Crackdown story has emerged from New Mexico to remind us that injustice is an immortal human-created monster that always should be exposed and fought. According to New Mexico based WISNews10 and KOAT, 78-year-old Gary Hein had to sue his state-run nursing home system and its overlord, the New Mexico Department of Health, just so he and his own wife could embrace. Hein and his spouse, 80-year-old Ann Severine, have been together for over three decades. Gary resides in the “Independent Living” portion of his Santa Fe nursing facility while Ann, who suffers from dementia, lives in the...

As a naturally optimistic person, it vexes me that the word catastrophe has echoed in my mind since early March 2020. It’s the word the great smallpox eradicator Donald Henderson used in his 2006 prediction of the consequences of lockdown, a word that wasn’t around then. His masterful article addressed the idea of travel restrictions, forced human separation, business and school closings, mask mandates, limits on public gatherings, quarantines, and the entire litany of brutality to which we’ve been subjected for nearly a year, all summed up in the word lockdown. Dr. Henderson warned against it all. This is not...

The entire pretext for shutting down our liberties is built upon misinformation.. We are being told that our liberties must be suspended in order to keep hospitals from reaching apocalyptic levels. But what if those levels are just above normal and not anywhere near apocalyptic levels? And what if these lockdown measures do nothing to keep the levels down anyway? Well, if there is anywhere we can cross-check this hypothesis, it would be in Florida, where there is no lockdown or mask mandate. In fact, people are flocking there from out of state to enjoy vacations and host conferences and...

MINNEAPOLIS—Overseeing sober living homes for newly recovering drug addicts is difficult in the best of times. But the endless shutdowns have created conditions that are challenging for healthy people, let alone those who are fresh out of rehab, vulnerable, and still reeling. Matt Royce, 35, oversees seven sober-living homes in Minneapolis. All of his houses, each holding between 9 and 13 people, have been “pretty full the whole time.” No overdose deaths had occurred in his homes in almost three years, but last summer he lost two people, while another three were revived from overdoses with opioid-blocker Narcan. Depression has...

Lockdowns are merely forced gatherings.. Author and statistician William M. Briggs argues that lockdowns don’t work because they force people to gather in fewer places like supermarkets and therefore spread viruses faster than if people were allowed to spread out. Writing for LockdownSkeptics.org, Briggs states, “A lockdown will spread this bug faster than allowing people to remain at liberty.” The author notes that a lockdown is not the same as a quarantine. Under lockdown, people only have a limited selection of venues at which they are allowed to gather, meaning those locations are busier and therefore make a virus more...

If you’ve read my work, I often compare the manner in which skeptics of the prevailing narratives surrounding Covid-19 are treated to something akin to the Salem Witch Trials or the Spanish Inquisition. Those who try to make a good faith and well-reasoned argument questioning the efficacy of lockdowns or the overall manner in which Covid has been handled are immediately condemned. It’s as if they spoke out against the church, not made a contribution to an important discussion. Oxford Professor Sunetra Gupta shares her experience with such attacks in her article here. You can also find some of my...

Fauci later said that a partial lockdown like what is being done in California was "not out of the question." "We hope we don't have to di it countrywide, because we feel that if you adhere to the public health measures, you can turn things around short of a uniform lockdown," Fauci said.

Congressional leaders passed a new stimulus package meant to alleviate the financial pain of the coronavirus, but it won’t cure all that ails PennDOT’s pocketbook. PennDOT press secretary Alexis Campbell said Monday afternoon it wasn’t clear if the relief plan will cover the $600 million funding gap plaguing PennDOT. Early media reports indicate that $10 billion of financial relief could be distributed to the 50 states’ highway systems, though it’s unclear how much would come Pennsylvania’s way. State Sen. Pat Browne, a Lehigh County Republican and longtime chairperson of the Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that transportation-specific wording included in the...

The crystal orb that normally draws millions of visitors to Midtown will still make its famous descent down the flagpole — but don’t bother trying to sneak a peek in person, says the NYPD. “Next year we will all gather and fill Times Square,” Chief of Department Terence Monahan told reporters Wednesday. “This year, don’t even attempt to come and watch it.”... [BUT] ...First responders and other essential workers will be allowed to watch the ball drop from a private spot...

COVID is over on Feb. 8 The end of social distancing, and the secondary knock-on effect of exposing masking as an unenforceable charade, is approximately 40 days away. How apropos that we must wander in the desert of dystopia 40 more days, but here it is. What is the most precise way of determining when social distancing will end? The return of full-sale concert arena events. Note that this also portends the end of masking, as there is zero chance concert security is going to bust a fully-sold arena for mask violations. And the first one is a shocker. Michael...

When the lockdown began in the United States in the Spring of 2020 it was billed as a two-week effort to “flatten the curve” and get ahead of the spread of the virus. With little or no explanation, the authorities that told us this would be sufficient then extended and expanded lockdown measures across the country. It is now nine months later. There is no end in sight. In fact, very much to the contrary; a whole host of new excuses for continuing the lockdown have appeared. We must all be vaccinated. We must all produce proof of vaccination. The...

As an adult who teaches, I got to choose an open school. Union politics have now barred millions of families from a similar privilege.I don’t blame schools for closing in March. Very little was known about COVID-19 then, so closures seemed the safest decision amid the uncertainty. Neither do I blame schools for a meager showing that semester. My own district threw together online curricula and instructional materials practically overnight. The results were dismal, but it’s the best many could have done given the situation. However, we’ve now had nine months to understand this virus, and all the evidence favors...

Commie China Inspired Global LockdownsPope Francis backed Prof. Pantsdown's totalitarian quarantine LONDON (ChurchMilitant.com) - A U.K. scientist notorious for pushing global lockdowns as a response to the Wuhan virus has confessed to receiving his inspiration for the imposition of totalitarian quarantines from communist China.Anti-lockdown protests in Trafalgar Square, London In a revealing interview, disgraced professor of mathematical biology Neil Ferguson admits that the draconian lockdown policies adopted by Western countries and endorsed by Pope Francis and top prelates would have been unthinkable even a year ago."No European country's pandemic plans seriously entertained the prospect of putting a country on pause"...

A poll out last week found that 75% of Americans say they support a nationwide mask mandate to fight COVID-19. Why shouldn’t they, since the public has been told repeatedly by politicians and public health officials that these steps will slow the spread of the disease and save lives. Yet new research provides clear evidence that – whatever the lab results of mask-wearing and disease spread might suggest – real-world mask mandates do little, if anything, to slow COVID-19. The survey, conducted by STAT and the Harris Poll, found there is a partisan split on a mask mandate: 60% of...

Measure is virtually unenforceable.. Authorities in Victoria, Australia have banned kissing and hugging on New Year’s Eve despite the fact that there have been no new cases of COVID-19 in two months. State Premier Dan Andrews said hugging and kissing should not take place during celebrations between anyone but immediate family members. “Just as Christmas was a little different this year, New Year’s Eve will be too,” the Victorian Government said. “Take some hand sanitiser with you, don’t share drinks with others and [new year] kisses and hugs should [only] be shared with those in your immediate family.” Quite how...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the governments of the United States have mistreated the citizens of the country by destroying their means of making a living and limiting their freedom of movement. Government powers have been used to shut down enterprises, knowing full well that people's livelihoods depend on their operation. Government edicts have prohibited people from moving freely in small localities and even between states. Individual citizens have the right to move about and do work for the purpose of maintaining themselves and their families as long as their work is not harming others. The government's judicial system...

Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist who played a key role in convincing the British government to adopt lockdowns, revealed that the country’s lockdowns were meant to emulate those carried out by the Chinese Communist Party – modeled to strip civil liberties and exert authoritarian control over citizens. In Ferguson’s recent interview with The Times, he revealed that lockdowns he championed as part of Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) Board, were rooted in those carried out by the Chinese Communist Party. Dubbed “Professor Lockdown” by many for his contributions to swaying the British government to adopt stringent lockdown measures,...

By their reckoning, white evangelicals have become reckless plague-bearers with no regard for the poor and oppressed, and their cruelty rightly earns them the world’s opprobrium.So much for peace on earth and goodwill to men. America’s legacy media elites used the Sunday before Christmas for extra Christian-bashing, with white evangelicals the preferred targets. Writing in The New Yorker, Michael Luo complained that “white evangelical Protestants, once again, overwhelmingly supported President Trump in the election,” and that “churches, particularly conservative ones, fought lockdown orders and rebuffed public-health warnings.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof interviewed leftist pastor Jim Wallis, with the...