Free Republic

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said she expects COVID-19 to become seasonal like influenza. “I do anticipate that this is probably going to be a seasonal virus,” she told NBC News on Monday. Her comment appears to be her first public acknowledgment that CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus cases increase or drop depending on the season. COVID-19 is caused by the CCP virus. Walensky further said that she believes that U.S. officials will likely recommend or mandate masks, coming more than a week after the CDC moved to loosen its mask recommendation requirements for most...

American security and Iraqi stability depend on a prompt handover. From childhood, we Americans are deluged with slogans. We often select our breakfast food, our soap, and our toothpaste by jingles and catchphrases rather than by reading the labels. So we fall easily into accepting evocative expressions in place of analysis even when it comes to national security. Our parents were sold on the slogan that the First World War was the "war to end all wars," although the 20th century had more of them than any other in history. We went into Vietnam fearing the "domino effect," although the...

Feature Death in Texas By Sister Helen Prejean 1. In the twenty-first century, a state governor represents the last vestige of the "divine right of kings," because he has absolute power over life and death— especially when such power is entrusted to politicians motivated more by expediency than by conscience. Faced with a pending execution, no governor wants to appear callous about human life. So governors appoint pardons boards and meet with legal counselors, who take the political heat for controversial cases. All governors claim to agonize over death penalty decisions. All claim to scrutinize every possible angle of the...

2004 Year-Ender By Gwynne Dyer The world has been on hold this year. Interesting and important things have happened in many countries, and most people have scarcely noticed that international politics is becalmed - but it is. The normal business of the planet has pretty much slowed to a halt and we are all gently drifting downstream together while we wait to see what becomes of the United States - and, as a result, of the rest of the world, for the US is still a key player in almost every game. We may be waiting some time. The war...