Free Republic

India — Anthony Fauci, the US’ top epidemiologist and one of the leading global voices on the coronavirus pandemic, suggested India must impose a complete lockdown for a few weeks as an immediate step to contain the surging infections which have brought the country’s healthcare system to its knees. “Well, one of the things you really need to do, to the extent that you can, is shut down temporarily the country, I think it is important. India is in a very difficult and desperate situation. So when you have a situation like that you’ve got to look at the absolute...

We’ve locked down the economy instead of the virus. Jobs are recovering slower in New York and other states holding on to stringent COVID-19 restrictions than in states that fully reopened their economies, even though continued lockdown measures don’t appear to be saving lives, ... Measures like limiting travel, keeping restaurants operating below capacity and leaving non-essential businesses closed have kept unemployment in New York State among the highest in the nation, while states with fewer restrictions are seeing jobs bounce back faster from the pandemic-induced recession, the study shows. Tragically, the data also suggests lockdowns didn’t do much to...

In his opening monologue on "Hannity" Friday, Fox News host Sean Hannity blasted the Biden administration for it's apparent mixed messaging on masks, asking why the President and First Lady continue wearing masks outside even though they both have received the COVID-19 vaccine. HANNITY: Why is Mr. "Follow the Science" still wearing a mask? And what kind of message is he sending here? Does he want Americans to think the vaccines maybe have suspicious--they’re not as effective as they’ve been telling us? Does he want mask mandates, social distancing in perpetuity? Forever? How is any of this getting us back...

Sir David Attenborough’s upcoming documentary, “The Year Earth Changed,” romanticizes the global lockdowns in 2020 for proving how “the natural world” would “do much better if we weren’t there at all.” Similar attitudes have circulated on social media since last March: from the “nature is healing” meme to Extinction Rebellion stickers calling humanity a “disease” and COVID the “cure” plastered across the East Midlands. An increasing number of liberal democratic governments are flirting with utilitarian approaches to policymaking, and removing any limiting principles on the scope of their overreach. With herd immunity on the horizon, COVID is expiring as a...

It's The banned that started the questions. 4 weeks into the '2 weeks to stop the spread', Drs Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi gave a 48 minute interview that started the ball rolling about the Wuhan virus, and questions we've never gotten answers to.

Early last month, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced he would end the state’s mask mandate and allow most businesses to function at 100 percent capacity. The response from the corporate media and the Left was predictable. California governor Gavin Newsom declared the move “absolutely reckless.” Beto O’Rourke called the GOP a “cult of death.” Joe Biden called the move “Neanderthal thinking.” Keith Olbermann insisted, “Texas has decided to join the side of the virus” and suggested Texans shouldn’t be allowed to take the covid vaccine. Vanity Fair ran an article with the title “Republican Governors Celebrate COVID Anniversary with Bold...

Actor turned London Mayoral candidate Laurence Fox has come up with yet another snappy campaign slogan… Don’t tell me what to do. F*** off. The Reclaim Party leader was being interviewed by Breitbart News, appropriately enough over a pint and cigarettes in a pub, while on the campaign trail in Sutton, South London. Woke has effectively cancelled his career as an actor. [He’s best known DS James Hathaway in Lewis]. So now he’s on a political mission to cancel woke. We’ve let the genie out of the bottle and the genie is that people will steadfastly bully people that don’t...

While corporations are leading our government by the nose, small business is more often an unwilling victim, pleading for any path they can to survive their rulers.WASHINGTON, D.C. — In big cities across America, we have seen some laugh-out-loud-ridiculous “COVID-prevention” measures in bars and restaurants. No menus allowed. Masks off when you’re at a table. Masks on when you go to the bathroom. Disposable cups only. “Hold a minute while we wipe down the chairs.” Leave your name and your phone number (even though no mythical “contract tracer” would call were you to turn into a literal COVID cyclone). To...

It’s taken much longer than it should have but at last it seems to be happening: the lockdown paradigm is collapsing. The signs are all around us. The one-time hero of the lockdown, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, has seen his support tank from 71% to 38%, along with ever more demands that he resign. Meanwhile, polls have started to favor Florida governor and lockdown opponent Ron DeSantis for influence over the GOP in the future. This remarkable flip in fortunes is due to the dawning realization that the lockdowns were a disastrous policy. DeSantis and fellow anti-lockdown governor Kristi...

Data not dates? Despite new figures showing the daily number of COVID-19 deaths in the UK dropping below those from road accidents, the government is still refusing to accelerate the lifting of lockdown restrictions. The average number of daily deaths now stands at 25 a day with COVID cases dropping 94 per cent from the peak. On Monday, the UK recorded just four total deaths. “By comparison, the UK records an average of around five deaths from road accidents daily,” reports the Telegraph. The government has continually insisted it will prioritize “data not dates” in deciding when the measures should...

"Exile" conjures images of banished figures like Napoleon, who languished on the island of Elba, rendered powerless by isolation. Groups of people considered troublemakers also have been exiled from their lands. Diasporas of "undesirables" like the Jews have been a constant in the history of nations whose rulers wanted to be rid of what they considered indigestible elements. Exile within one's own country by a totalitarian regime has been less noted. For such an enterprise, we may look at Vichy France, which was under the thrall and control of a fascist political system imported by Germany but facilitated by French...

A new police state has been established just north of the states of Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. The Province of Ontario is home to over 38% of the population of Canada and is 55% bigger in area than the State of Texas, and it is now acting like a nightmarish police state.. ... The Ontario government is giving police temporary powers to enforce its stay-at-home order and allowing them to stop individuals and vehicles and ask their reasons for leaving their homes. Solicitor General Sylvia Jones made the announcement Friday afternoon as part of the new measures...

Yay Michigan – We’re #1! Again.Data from state health officials shows Michigan has surpassed 100,000 active COVID-19 cases in the last week, the highest number since mid-November. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks the Wolverine State's COVID-19 infection rate as No. 1 in the country with 492.1 positive infections per 100,000 people. – ABC NewsBut don’t worry, the Governor isn’t planning to shut us down…any more than we already are. Despite the startling stats, Whitmer… says she is not planning to roll back already loosened regulations for reopening the state, which now allows for 50% in-door dining at...

Pastors who bully parishioners over masks appear to have forgotten the soul-saving mission of the church, and are instead tyrannizing those they should serve.Despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbot’s repeal of the state mask mandate, a pregnant Catholic mother was kicked out of Mass in the Diocese of Dallas for failing to wear a mask.Father Milton Ryan, pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Parish, is alleged to have called the police while the service was underway and have the young mother threatened with arrest for trespass. Deidre Hairston returned to her pew after receiving communion, with her one-year-old baby in her arms,...

The court’s unsigned order in Tandon v. Newsom signifies the reemergence of religious liberty as a valued jurisprudential principle to the Supreme Court.On Friday, for the fifth time the U.S. Supreme Court slapped down a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding anti-religious COVID restrictions established by California’s embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom. The court’s unsigned order in Tandon v. Newsom represents much more than a victory for the plaintiffs who sought to host Bible studies in their homes on equal footing with analogous commercial activities: It signifies the reemergence of religious liberty as a valued jurisprudential principle to the Supreme...

The demonstrations have continued for several days, and crowds of dozens of demonstrators have strained police resources, especially during busy weekend nights, Green said.. The city of Burbank put up a chain-link fence Saturday around a restaurant which has repeatedly defied COVID-19 mandates, while people continued to demonstrate on both sides of the issue. The fence was erected around the business at 2623 W. Magnolia Blvd. to prevent the owners of Tinhorn Flats Saloon & Grill from reopening with unsafe conditions due to a court-approved shutoff of electricity and a preliminary injunction granted Friday to prevent the restaurant from operating...

Vaccinations or not, Dr. Fauci wants everyone to continue with lock down behavior and, most especially, to keep wearing masks. It’s safer that way. Meanwhile, a San Francisco publication says we must keep wearing masks because race- based vaccine inequities make it rude to cast them off. Underneath this specious reasoning is the leftists’ desperate desire to erase our individuality with masks. As we’ve noted at American Thinker, there’s increasing evidence that masks not only aren’t helpful, they’re counterproductive, as well as being dangerous and dirty. Nevertheless, leftists will not let go of their mask obsession. Fauci, of course, is...

50 heavily armed police just raided the hotel where our Rebel News reporters were staying in Montreal. I told them they couldn’t come in without a search warrant. So instead they manhandled me. They handcuffed Keean Bexte. And They just put David Menzies in the back of a police car.. Police have sealed off the AirBnb we were staying in with police tape — they say it’s a “crime scene”. Of course it’s not. In fact, when we asked them what the “crime” was, all they could come up with was that our staying in the hotel was an illegal...

Self-proclaimed Vietnam War hero Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ demand that the CDC lift its ban on cruise ships “a craven political stunt. His contention that economic freedom is some sort of basic human right is ludicrous. It is up to the government to decide what economic privileges may be exercised and when.” DeSantis called the year-long lockdown of the cruise ship industry “unreasonable and irrational. There may have been an excuse for such action a year ago when governments around the world were taking a shotgun approach to avert a feared decimation of the population...

California restaurants are continuing to resist efforts from the county and state government from shutting down outdoor dining, one of the last remaining ways they can stay in business during the COVID-19 pandemic, pointing to how the science does not support such bans. Daily Caller reporter Jorge Ventura was interviewing Anton Van Happen, who owns Nick The Greek, when public health inspectors stopped by to issue Van Happen a citation from remaining open after receiving a closure order on Friday. To protest the outdoor dining ban, Van Happen had his tables set up outside but did not seat anyone and...