Free Republic

A 20-year-old New York man was recently diagnosed with polio, which paralyzed his legs. Polio once crippled or killed many young people in the United States, but was essentially wiped out during the 1960s following development of a vaccine. Because the New York man, who wasn’t vaccinated against polio, hadn’t recently traveled outside the country, it’s believed he became infected locally. Moreover, poliovirus has been found in wastewater in Rockland County, N.Y., where the stricken man lives and in a nearby county. It also has been found in sewage in New York City, according to an opinion article in The...

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a group forms a quick opinion that matches the group consensus, rather than critically evaluating the information. Mass hysteria can be seen as an extreme example of groupthink.The term "groupthink" was coined in the early 1970s by psychologist Irving L. Janis.1 In 1972, Janis published his book Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.Janis defines "groupthink" as "a psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternatives in cohesive decision-making groups."The group members feed off each other's emotional reactions, causing the panic to...

The House Ethics Committee confirmed Friday that it would require a handful of GOP lawmakers to pay the $500 fine issued to them in mid-May when they refused to comply with the House requirements of wearing a mask. Reps. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), and Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) were among the House Republicans who refused to wear a mask appealing to the Ethics committee to waive the fines, citing that they were complying with the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) guidance that said people can go without a mask if they are fully vaccinated. Mast sent a...

“This is not politics,” President Joe Biden said last week. “Reinstate the [mask] mandate.” This follows his dismissal of Gov. Greg Abbott’s decisions in Texas as “Neanderthal thinking.” But maybe the Neanderthals got it right. COVID-19 deaths in Texas plunged in March, and as National Review’s Philip Klein points out, there’s no relationship between mask mandates and coronavirus levels. Biden is clearly wrong on another point. This is not “not politics.” America’s constitutional federal system, and the latitude that both former President Donald Trump’s administration and the Biden administration have given state governments, have produced distinctly different Democratic and Republican...

The percentage of positive coronavirus tests dropped in Pennsylvania over the past week, but Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration said 10 counties bear watching due to COVID-19 cases. The Wolf administration said 3.8% of those tested for COVID-19 in Pennsylvania were positive over the past week, down from 4.2% the previous week. Wolf’s administration said a number of counties, including some in central Pennsylvania, are being monitored because at least 5% of those tested are positive for the virus. Each week, the state updates the list of counties being tracked for higher rates of positive results. The Wolf administration identified these...

Monday is the deadline by which Gov. Tom Wolf must make a decision about whether to deny or grant local officials the exclusive authority to make decisions about holding school sports and activities and who can attend them. Although the governor has publicly said he would veto the measure identified as House Bill 2787, a bipartisan band of House members gathered in the Ryan Office Building next to the state Capitol on Wednesday for a news conference to urge him to change his mind. “It is truly time to give people their voice back and ensure children have their best...