Free Republic

As an early New Year’s present, New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued a renewed face mask mandate for all public schools. Numerous upstate counties with more conservative officials immediately announced that they would not be complying with the order, while New York City quickly embraced the idea. But not all of the Big Apple is quite as blue as it was prior to the last set of local elections. This week, Nassau County on Long Island also bucked the trend. Newly elected county executive Bruce Blakeman announced that schools in his county would not be subject to the mandate and...

Megadeth‘s Dave Mustaine launched into an anti-mask rant during a concert in New Jersey last night (September 15) The frontman decried the enforcement of masks in the US ahead of the band’s last song ‘Holy Wars… The Punishment Due’ at the Metal Tour Of The Year in Camden. He said: “I just wanna tell you how great it is. Look around you, guys. Look to your right, look to your left, and look how wonderful this is. We’re all here together. We’re not freaking out, and we’re not yelling at people, ‘Wear your f***** mask.’ “Listen, it starts with this...

(CNN)Florida's 1st District Court on Friday reinstated a stay on mask mandates in schools, blocking face mask requirements in schools for now, court documents show. Lawyers for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis filed the emergency appeal after a judge ruled on Wednesday that the state of Florida must stop their enforcement of a mask ban.

The Indian Delta variant of the coronavirus has been detected in the U.S. Capitol building, officials revealed on Tuesday, while the White House admitted there have been more COVID breakthrough cases among staff than publicly announced.

Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said Thursday that schools in the fall should be open “full blast” five days a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 resume life without masks or other restrictions. When asked by host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” if he agreed with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and the president of the American Federation of Teachers that schools in the fall should be 100 percent open and in-person five days a week, Fauci said he did. “Yeah. I...

Stanford study quietly published at NIH.gov proves face masks are absolutely worthless against CovidThe diapers most of us are wearing on our face most of the time apparently have no effect at stopping Covid-19. This explains a lot.Did you hear about the peer-reviewed study done by Stanford University that demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that face masks have absolutely zero chance of preventing the spread of Covid-19? No? It was posted on the the National Center for Biological Information government website. The NCBI is a branch of the National Institute for Health, so one would think such a study would...

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would be open to meeting with President Trump next week when they’re both in Pennsylvania. “I didn't know he was going until after I announced I was going. Of course, I'd be happy to meet with the president,” Biden told reporters in Delaware Friday, according to a pool report of his remarks. “Look, the answer is yes. He's still the president of the United States.” Biden and Trump are both slated to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in Shanksville, where one of the hijacked planes crashed nearly 19...

If you don't need to be behind bars right now, you probably shouldn't be. Jails and prisons are breeding grounds for COVID-19 -- and while, under normal circumstances, punitive measures would be perfectly reasonable for someone who doesn't represent any danger to the community, in this case they're not the ones who need to stay behind bars. The problem is that the whole "danger to the community" line is a very blurry one. It's the kind of situation where federal, state and local officials need to pore over records -- including inmates' criminal history, whom they victimized and what their...

U.S. coronavirus deaths are projected to reach 180,000 by the beginning of October unless the majority of people start wearing masks, according to a report on Wednesday. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington estimates 179,106 fatalities from COVID-19 by Oct 1, although researchers said that number can be reduced by roughly 33,000 if at least 95 percent of the population wears a mask in public.

You’re going to find this very strange, but I’m more of an anti-mask person,” Laura Howard told me last week, recounting the success of her business selling “Trump 2020” masks on an Etsy store called “isewformygrandkids.” The 63-year-old grandmother of eight, a retired Walmart assistant manager from Stanton, Michigan, grumbles about Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s strict stay-at-home guidelines. She invited her kids and grandkids over on Mother's Day, telling them masks and social distancing were optional. But most retail stores around her require customers to wear masks. And so, since the start of the crisis, Howard had been sewing masks...

A protest against President Donald Trump Friday night (Jan. 20) left two New Orleans police officers injured and resulted in 15 people arrested on charges ranging from inciting a riot to felony battery in the French Quarter and Central Business District, according to authorities. The New Orleans Police Department later issued a stern warning: anyone wearing a mask during upcoming protests Saturday night will be immediately arrested. In a day fraught with protest across the country due to Trump's inauguration, two protests in New Orleans appeared to go off without a hitch Friday until dusk descended. Then, a group of...