Free Republic

LANCASTER - Is Lancaster County going to be in the yellow phase of the state’s coronavirus pandemic reopening plan, come Friday? Or is it going to be in red? That, dear readers, depends upon who you are listening to. The county’s two Republican county commissioners continued to assert Thursday that the county is moving to yellow based on trend lines in new coronavirus case counts, its hospital capabilities, and a concentrated focus on efforts like building up contact tracing capacity and improving infection control programs in nursing homes. To them, they have done what they can to get the outbreak...

West Shore barber Brad Shepler has rapidly become a symbol of the growing revolt against Gov. Tom Wolf’s order closing non-life-essential businesses over the coronavirus. That was unmistakable Thursday morning, two days after state officials threatened to revoke Shepler’s barbering license and fine him up to $10,000 a day for reopening his East Pennsboro Township shop in violation of the closure edict. A crowd of several dozen filled the small parking lot of his business, Shep’s Barber Shop, off Wertzville Road to cheer him on. A bevy of Republican legislators, headed by state Sen. Mike Regan, showered Shepler with promises...

President Donald Trump will visit the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday, as Gov. Tom Wolf struggles to contain mounting resistance to his COVID-19 lockdowns. With the pandemic devastating the economy, the Trump administration has sought to strike a balance between protecting lives and ensuring livelihoods, with White House messaging increasingly focused on encouraging state governors to ease restrictions. The president has accused some Democrat state governors, including Wolf, of dragging their feet in restarting economic activity. Around 2 million Pennsylvania residents have lost their jobs since mid-March. “The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now, and they are...

Thunderstorms are in the forecast for Harrisburg on Friday, but a storm of another sort will hit the state Capitol at noon. For the second time in less than a month, ReOpen PA and other groups from in and outside Pennsylvania that oppose Gov. Tom Wolf’s virtual lockdown of the state over the coronavirus pandemic will rally on and around the Capitol grounds. It is part of a nationwide phenomenon, a backlash against virus-related business shutdowns and stay-at-home orders that locally is receiving more than tacit support from elected officials, including county commissioners and law enforcement leaders, usually of a...

She claimed to know how “frustrating” the situation is, before cautioning “I expect people to follow the law. “These executive orders are not a suggestion. They’re not optional. They’re not helpful hints.” Owosso barber Karl Manke has become a like folk hero in the movement to reopen the state. The 77-year-old Manke has refused to close his shop, despite repeated orders to do so. “He just wants to work,” Manke’s attorney, David Kallman, said, according to the Lansing State Journal. “And he wants to do it in a safe and responsible way.”

According to inside information, a group of Franklin County officials, responding to an outcry of dissatisfaction from local citizens and some negative press, is preparing to join other South Central PA counties in the growing rebellion against Governor Wolf’s tyrannical COVID19 lockdown.

Eager to reopen, local officials across Pennsylvania are set to defy Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to cautiously ease coronavirus restrictions. The governor has outlined a phased reopening plan, complete with a color-coded readiness chart. Wolf announced Friday that 24 more counties have qualified as “yellow,” meaning they can partially reopen Friday, while extending stay-at-home orders for the remaining “red” counties until early June. Some local officials don’t agree with the tiered strategy, though. They plan to use their power to proceed with their own reopening plans, despite the fact that Pennsylvania confirmed 1,323 new coronavirus cases in a single day...

Gov. Tom Wolf is happy to welcome anyone to Pa., including President Donald Trump, but he does have a request for anyone visiting the commonwealth as it continues a phased reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic. Wolf said during a conference call with reporters Tuesday that the President did not inform him of Thursday’s planned stop at a Lehigh Valley medical distributor, Owens & Minor Inc., and from the sounds of it, that isn’t a surprise. That said, the Democrat has repeatedly said during this global health crisis that he can’t limit intrastate travel, which certainly applies to a trip made...

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf sternly rebuked Pennsylvania counties and businesses that plan to reopen without state approval, calling it a “cowardly act” that could cost those areas not only lives but federal stimulus money, too.

Gov. Tom Wolf pushed back forcefully - and with some apparent success - Monday on a brushfire of opposition in central and eastern Pennsylvania counties to his ongoing coronavirus pandemic lockdown. In uncharacteristically blunt language, Wolf accused local elected officials proposing to break out of the state’s phased reopening plan of “caving in” to the virus, and starkly warned any business owners temped to open ahead of his schedule that by doing so they are playing with liability issues and their customers and employees’ lives. “We Pennsylvanians are in a fight for our lives. The enemy is a deadly virus,...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday that politicians who move to open counties during the pandemic in defiance of a schedule set by his administration are “acting in a most cowardly way” and risk losing federal coronavirus aid. Wolf said counties that do no comply with the administration’s virus orders could lose some discretionary federal funding, and businesses risk licenses, certificates of occupancy and other financial ripple effects.

The revolt by a dozen or more Pennsylvania counties who are opening up their businesses against the dictatorial edicts of Democrat Governor Tom Wolf has apparently thrown him into a blind rage, which was further exacerbated by a Tweet from President Trump in support of Pennsylvania patriots and a news conference by State Senator and gubernatorial aspirant Doug Mastriano, in which he called for the resignation of the incompetent Health Secretary Rachel Levine. Wolf attacked business owners who reopen from coronavirus shutdowns before they are allowed and the politicians who have encouraged them, calling them “cowardly”, threatening serious consequences to...