Free Republic

COVID shutdowns championed by U.S. governors and D.C. bureaucrats are responsible for destroying nearly 40% of small businesses since the virus was unleashed on the world—and we know now that it was for little to no damned good reason. A study by the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences revealed recently that shutdown orders made little to no difference in COVID’s impact. ... While bureaucrats gave Walmart, Costco, Lowe’s, and other big-box stores “essential” status, allowing them to stay open during the COVID pandemic, 38.9% of America’s small businesses, the providers of most of the country’s jobs, were forced...

Small businesses shut down during the pandemic while "essential" big-box stores remained open... It’s been over a year since “two weeks to slow the spread,” and the pandemic is finally dragging to a finish. Cases are down, herd immunity has more or less arrived, and even in deep-blue Boston, Stop & Shop has announced it will end mask requirements before the month’s out. The pandemic saw a huge amount of power and money transferred to what Michael Lind calls the “overclass” of politicians, corporate managers and bureaucrats. Small businesses shut down while big-box stores deemed “essential” remained open. The laptop...

Representative-elect Lauren Boebert is trolling her home state of Colorado’s local shutdown orders by finding a way to bypass them this Thanksgiving.In an interview published Wednesday with Fox News, Boebert (R-Colo.) slammed local orders limiting personal gatherings to 10 people in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus, arguing that it was absurd to curtail the number of people who could gather for Thanksgiving when the state permitted gatherings of up to 30 for funerals.