Free Republic

An 82nd Airborne Division’s Immediate Response Force battalion arrived to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland Monday evening for a civil unrest mission in the nation’s capitol, according to sources. The IRF battalion — which deployed to Iraq earlier this year to quell Iran-backed violence — brought approximately 750 soldiers, ten Black Hawk helicopters, and four Chinooks, according to sources. The helicopters are utility, not attack, and are used to transport troops short distances. The aircraft are just one of the ways troops could be transported, but would give the IRF the ability to rapidly deploy to a number of...

On May 13, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that 31,000 state employees will be laid off for two days per pay period [one day a week], starting May 27 and running through July 25. This arrangement takes advantage of a federal program known as Work Share to reduce costs in the face of huge revenue shortfalls caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and lockdown.

The ACLU and its Texas chapter have withdrawn their lawsuit against seven Texas towns that had declared themselves sanctuaries for the unborn and adopted ordinances outlawing abortion within their city limits. In February, the ACLU filed suit in East Texas against the cities of Waskom, Naples, Joaquin, Tenaha, Rusk, Gary, and Wells on behalf of two pro-abortion plaintiffs: the Texas Equal Access Fund and the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity. Now, three months later, the groups are dropping their suit, and pro-life groups across Texas are claiming it as a victory for the unborn. In a post on their website,...

President Trump walks across Lafayette Park to St. John's Church. Holding a Bible he says, "We have a great country. That's my thoughts."

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The first person to be charged for rioting Saturday night into Sunday morning in downtown Grand Rapids has been charged but he certainly will not be the last. On Monday morning, 18-year-old Adrian Baker of Gobles was charged with the 10-year felony in Grand Rapids District Court. Judge Michael Distel explained the charge to the teen. “You did while in concert with five or more other persons wrongfully engage in violent conduct and thereby recklessly cause or create a serious risk of causing public terror or alarm,” Distel told Baker, who was appearing via video...

PING LIST - Please contact me as needed... COVID-19 Update # 76 As of 06/01/2020 23:15 PDST     United States CDC - Provisional NumbersAs of 00/00/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Nations InformatonAs of 00/00/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Counties InformationAs of 00/00/2020 23:46 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Process JHU DataAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Document Core NumbersAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture Nations InformationAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture States InformationAs of 00/00/2020 00:00...

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, CaliforniaNaval Weapons Station Seal Beach is a United States Navy weapons and munitions loading, storage and maintenance facility located in Seal Beach, California with detachments in Fallbrook, and Norco, both also in California. It also encloses the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.The command exists to provide base operating support to the Navy's ordnance mission. Command and tenant personnel provide munitions receipt, segregation, inspection, maintenance, storage, issue, and assessment services to Navy operating forces and other Department of Defense and homeland security entities.Unique among most naval weapons...

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department’s conduct in abruptly deciding to end the case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn was so unusual that it raised a “plausible question” about the legitimacy of the move, a lawyer for the trial judge overseeing that case told a federal appeals court on Monday. In a 36-page filing, the lawyer for Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia asked a three-judge panel not to cut short his review of the factual and legal issues surrounding the case. A defense lawyer for Mr....

The armies of the world's two most populous nations are locked in a tense face-off high in the Himalayas, which has the potential to escalate as they seek to further their strategic goals. Officials quoted by the Indian media say thousands of Chinese troops have forced their way into the Galwan valley in Ladakh, in the disputed Kashmir region. Indian leaders and military strategists have clearly been left stunned. The reports say that in early May, Chinese forces put up tents, dug trenches and moved heavy equipment several kilometres inside what had been regarded by India as its territory. The...

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan should not be required to act as a “mere rubber stamp” for the government’s unusual move to undo the guilty plea of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the judge’s lawyers told a federal appeals court in Washington on Monday. Sullivan’s attorneys asked the appeals court to stay on the sidelines to give the judge an opportunity to ensure the “integrity of the judicial process” and to rule on the Justice Department’s request to dismiss Flynn’s case. The judge must evaluate Flynn’s dramatically different claims, Sullivan’s lawyer Beth Wilkinson told the court: “What, if...

Protesters are gathering Downtown in Atlanta for a fourth day in a row. 11Alive is monitoring the situation and you can get updates here.

PING LIST - Please contact me as needed... COVID-19 Update # 75 As of 05/31/2020 23:15 PDST     United States CDC - Provisional NumbersAs of 00/00/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Nations InformatonAs of 00/00/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Counties InformationAs of 00/00/2020 23:46 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Process JHU DataAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Document Core NumbersAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture Nations InformationAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture States InformationAs of 00/00/2020 00:00...

A conservative activist says the mask has become a leftist symbol on how to belittle and punish people who choose to not submit to the demands of autocratic authority. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) recently issued an executive order authorizing business owners the right to deny entry to people not wearing masks or face coverings. The new edict comes as restrictions on shops are beginning to loosen around the state, though not yet in New York City. Face coverings are already required in New York when people are out in public and near others, and other states and municipalities...

China has reportedly told state-owned firms to stop buying U.S. soybeans and pork, a move that would break a key provision of the Phase One trade deal between the world's two largest economies. Reuters reported on Monday, citing two unnamed sources, that the order from Beijing also applies to corn and cotton. According to the newswire, China is retaliating against President Trump for announcing he would strip Hong Kong of its special status.

snip..."But health care workers deserve much more than balloons and standing ovations. They deserve respect; respect for their status as free moral agents, not cogs in a giant health care machine. Such respect must include acknowledging and defending their right to not participate in certain “health care” procedures that many nurses and doctors hold to be beyond the pale of human decency, participation in which would violate their fundamental moral, religious, and ethical principles. Chief among such procedures is, of course, abortion." snip..."And in still another case, this time from a nurse who was deceived into participating in a horrific...

flashback 4/3/2020 There’s lots of talk about being too tough on crime. As Michael Bloomberg ran for president earlier this year he faced criticism for his “stop- and-frisk” policy when he was the mayor of New York City. Gov. Larry Hogan was at odds with the Maryland General Assembly during this year’s legislative session over his support of mandatory sentencing for gun violations. When Hillary Clinton ran for president nearly four years ago she was forced to apologize for once saying there were predators in the black community. Likewise there are well meaning progressives who are concerned about discriminatory policing,...

They own it. It’s theirs. After leftist riots killed an African-American Federal Protective Service officer, caused severe injuries, destroyed businesses and vandalized churches and synagogues across Democrat cities, some difficult questions are being asked about what Democrat elected officials could have done to prevent this. Mayor Bill de Blasio blamed President Trump for the violent riots that consumed New York City as well as many other cities across the country. "The President of the United States help create this atmosphere," he falsely claimed. "It doesn't matter what your party affiliation is. It doesn't matter what you think of President Trump,...

Chief Jami Resch (2nd from left) and Capt. Chuck Lovell met late Sunday with three protest representatives but their meeting was cut short when violence flared outside the Justice Center, Resch said. The chief said she was proud of the moment earlier Sunday when officers outside the Justice Center agreed to some protesters’ requests to drop to their knees in the street, calling it a moment of “solidarity’’ and “understanding.’’ But she said the late-evening vandalism to the federal courthouse and the Multnomah County courthouse was disturbing.

In downtown Chicago, people crawled through the partially shattered exterior window of a Nike store and ran out carrying brightly colored athletic gear and sneakers. On Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, they ignited garbage cans and broke locks on luxury stores, sweeping up armfuls of designer handbags and jeans. And as night fell on Minneapolis, the heart of widening protests set off by the death of an African-American man in police custody there, business owners stood outside their doors and pleaded with agitators to spare the enterprises that many said they had spent their life savings to build. “I was...

(@brithume The author of this nonsense is a professor at the highly regarded Northwestern University.) In the early days of the pandemic, did you ever fantasize what we’d do when people could go outside again and gather together? Did you dream of a better, “post-pandemic” America? One with more hugs, more mutual care and concern for our fellow humans, having all gone through (in differing and unequal ways, but still having shared) a harrowing common experience? People are going out again, all over the United States. But it’s not to celebrate a vaccine or a debt jubilee. The first national...