Free Republic

As voters head to the polls to select the next president, citizens of five states will decide whether to legalize medical or recreational marijuana. Right now, 33 states have legalized medical cannabis, according to CNN. Eleven of those states have legalized marijuana for recreational use. In 2016, pot measures passed in eight out of nine states where it was on the ballot. Here’s a look at the states where voters will decide the future of pot: Arizona A proposition on the ballot would legalize the possession and use of marijuana for adults who are 21 or older. People would be...

A staggering 46 percent of coronavirus tests are coming back positive in South Dakota at the moment—but Gov. Kristi Noem has “no opinion” on masks and her team thinks everything is going just fine, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Chris Hayes said South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is "making bad decisions," CNN's Don Lemon reminded his viewers about that supposed "super spreader" motorcycle rally in Sturgis, Rachel Maddow fumed that the governor "refused to order any statewide COVID restrictions." And we could go on. Gov. Noem has plenty of cable news critics. It's true. In terms of COVID restrictions, Gov. Noem has been pretty laissez faire. Instead, she thought it might be wise to let citizens live their lives and keep their jobs. And so South Dakota has an unemployment rate that is the second lowest in the country...

A contract employee for the U.S. Marshals Service has been suspended from work after posting a burning Black Lives Matter flag on his personal Facebook page. Jeff Carlson, a retired Aberdeen Police Department and school resource officer, was suspended from his contracted position as a security officer at the District of the South Dakota Federal Courthouse. Carlson is employed by Walden Security, a company that provides security services for commercial and government properties. He was suspended after the U.S. Marshals Service was made aware of the “racially-charged social media post,” according to the public affairs office for the federal law...

With cases surging to new highs and hospital capacity running low, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum teared up describing a state “caught in the middle of a covid storm.”... many Republican governors are resisting new measures to stop the spread. Some are even loosening rules already on the books. Instead, they preach the mantra of “personal responsibility,” insisting that government interventions such as mask mandates or business restrictions are either unnecessary or harmful, and that people should be trusted to make their own decisions about how to keep themselves — and each other — healthy.... Republican governors have mimicked aspects...

It had been a long ride back from Sturgis, S.D., so when he first felt an ache at the back of his throat, Kenny Cervantes figured he was just tired. He’d traveled the 400-some miles on his Harley, rumbling through wide-open farm and prairie land on his way home to Riverdale, Neb., where his girlfriend was waiting.... Back home, Cervantes took Tylenol for his throat and went to bed early. But he woke up the next morning coughing so hard he struggled to catch his breath. Over the next few days, the pain in his chest made him fear that...

Instead of rebuking Sweden and states such as South Dakota who exposed the failure of lockdowns, we should be thanking them. ... Sweden’s decision to take a “lighter touch” to the coronavirus pandemic—foregoing strict lockdowns and relying primarily on social responsibility to encourage social distancing—has made it a lighting rod for criticism. Many commentators claimed Sweden was behaving recklessly and selfishly by refusing to enforce an economic lockdown ... Though its per capita death rate remained well below European neighbors such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Spain—each of which enforced strict lockdowns—Sweden became, as one CBS report claimed, “an...

the impact of mandated shutdowns ... In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, widespread lockdown restrictions were imposed, ostensibly to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed and medical resources from being consumed to exhaustion. Whether policymakers purposely or out of ignorance disregarded them, the tradeoffs of stay-at-home orders were immediate and severe: a massive spike in unemployment, rivaling the Great Depression ... Among Mideast states, New York’s GDP declined the most: 39.3%. .. long-lasting nature of lockdowns on New York City. Yet compared against all other U.S. states, Hawaii and Nevada’s GDP plummeted the most: both by 42.2%. ... artificial economic slowdown...

the U.S. is still far from a full reopening. Many states have put a temporary pause on moving to the next stage of reopening, or have even reversed course and closed certain businesses again due to surges in the disease. In order to determine the states with the fewest coronavirus restrictions, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 17 key metrics. Our data set ranges from whether restaurants are opened to whether the state has required face masks in public and workplace temperature screenings. Read on for the state ranking, additional insight from a panel of...

We hear all the time about how COVID shut down the economy. That is incorrect; COVID did not shut down the economy, the political response to COVID shut down the economy. There were a series of policy choices at all levels of state and local government across the land. The economic damage from those choices is immense. This is not a natural disaster, it is a man-made disaster. National data show that U.S. real GDP fell at an annual rate of 5% in the first quarter, and was followed by 32% decline in the second quarter. This is the worst...

Supreme Court fight pushes Senate toward brink BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 09/26/20 01:02 PM EDT The burgeoning fight to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat is pouring fuel onto already simmering tensions in the Senate and threatening to fundamentally reshape the institution. Senators in both parties acknowledge the level of dysfunction in a chamber where the bulk of their time is spent processing nominations amid failures to break stalemates on pressing national issues such as coronavirus relief and police reform. “I’m praying to God that the better angels start flying with my colleagues. That’s all I can tell...

If you've watched Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show lately, you probably think the coronavirus outbreak is worse than ever and is never going away. Her message night after night has been: Everything must stay shut down. We are in grave danger. So you can get why she doesn't like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. For months Noem has taken a much different approach, one that is a bit sunnier and doesn't require massive shutdowns that have put way too many people out of business. She recently posted a lighthearted clip about how hunting is the perfect social distancing activity, which Maddow...

cops were forced to remove Reed Bender from a Mitchell school board meeting in South Dakota because he refused to wear a mask.. A district mandate from July says people must wear masks on school property .. But Bender refused to put one on or leave the building in Mitchell, South Dakota.. He told cops: 'Force me out. You're going to have to drag me out'.. When he refused cops threatened him with a stun gun and dragged him out.. His wife Teri Jayne Bender is supporting him on Facebook saying 'we got this'.. She says she supports 'maskers and...

South Dakota’s attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, was involved in a car crash that left one person dead on Saturday night, Gov. Kristi Noem said on Sunday evening, adding that the authorities were investigating the crash. “Last night at about 10:30 p.m. in Hyde County, the attorney general was involved in a crash while driving on U.S. Highway 14 just west of Highmore,” Ms. Noem said in a brief news conference. “There was a fatality, and law enforcement is working on identifying the deceased and notifying the family.”

The 10-day Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota in August, which drew more than 400,000 people, has now been linked to more than 250,000 coronavirus cases, according to a study by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. Inside a bar in Sturgis, S.D., during the rally, which Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, supported holding without significant public health protocols. Using anonymized cellphone data from the rally, researchers from the University of Colorado Denver, Bentley University, University of California San Diego and San Diego State University found the bikers, who were filmed and photographed in crowded bars, restaurants and outdoor venues...

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has dismissed a report suggesting the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was a "superspreading event" for COVID-19 that cost billions of dollars in health costs. Researchers from the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University in California claimed event, which attracted nearly 500,000 visitors, may have resulted in 266,796 new coronavirus cases—nearly 20 percent of the 1.4 million new cases of COVID-19 recorded in the U.S. between August 2 and September 2.

Nineteen percent of the 1.4 million new coronavirus cases in the U.S. between Aug. 2 and Sept. 2 can be traced back to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally held in South Dakota, according to researchers from San Diego State University's Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies. That's more than 266,000 coronavirus cases attributed to the 10-day event, which more than 460,000 people attended despite fears it could become a so-called super-spreader event...... Researchers from the Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies also studied the spread of COVID-19 tied to Black Lives Matter protests throughout the U.S. and concluded the...

Dr. Anthony Fauci is strongly urging everyone to follow the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended guidance during Labor Day Weekend. While the entire country is at risk of repeating the surge of cases following previous holiday weekends such as Memorial Day and July 4th, residents of seven states in particular, which are currently experiencing upticks in cases, need to be extremely vigilant. “There are several states that are at risk for surging, namely North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in...

Angry San Francisco salon customers protested outside Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home Thursday by hanging blow driers and curlers from nearby trees. ... Pelosi was busted this week violating state and local coronavirus lockdown restrictions in San Francisco.. to get her hair done – and she wasn’t wearing a mask. She forced a local salon to open up just for her, and then when caught, claimed she was “set-up” by the salon owner. The salon owner steadfastly denies it was a set-up. ... San Francisco requires residents to stay 6 feet apart and wear a mask to cover the mouth and...

In her interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week, Erica Kious was adamant that she did not "set up" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when the Democrat was caught on camera getting a hair blowout in her salon, ESalonSF, which has been shut down for months due to the coronavirus. Speaker Pelosi claimed innocence in a recent statement, insisting that the salon fooled her. She demanded an apology, but Kious said it's not coming. Pelosi's aide, Kious explained, had called a stylist and made the appointment and the appointment was already booked, so there is "no way" she could...