Free Republic

U.S. prosecutors this week put a price tag on damage to the U.S. Capitol from the Jan. 6 breach — $1.5 million so far — and for the first time are asking defendants to cover some of the bill in plea offers, prosecutors and defense lawyers said. The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington cited the damage estimate Wednesday in court and in plea papers filed in the case of Paul Hodgkins, 38. The Tampa crane operator pleaded guilty to one felony count of obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and faces sentencing July 19 in Washington. “Your client acknowledges that...

MILWAUKEE — Gerry Winkleman points across the Milwaukee River at the former tannery where he worked for almost two decades as a union welder, repairing blow pipes and net machines that produced thousands of leather shoes and handbags every year. Follow the latest on Election 2020 Winkleman, 74, drives through a stretch of downtown Milwaukee that once served as a hub of U.S. manufacturing, pausing occasionally to note the factories that have either shuttered or moved their production to China over the past three decades: the Pabst and Schlitz breweries; the Allis-Chalmers manufacturing giant; several different tanneries; the Briggs &...

President-elect Joe Biden is planning to quickly sign a series of executive orders after being sworn into office on Jan. 20, immediately forecasting that the country's politics have shifted and that his presidency will be guided by radically different priorities. He will rejoin the Paris climate accords, according to those close to his campaign and commitments he has made in recent months, and he will reverse President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the World Health Organization. He will repeal the ban on immigration from many Muslim-majority countries, and he will reinstate the program allowing "dreamers," who were brought to the United...

Ain't memory lane a real KITA sometimes. Sixteen years ago, almost to the day, I was engaging in a running duel with the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, and one of his imbecile reporters whose name I have mercifully forgot. The ugly story is contained in my "j'accuse" letter that was hand delivered, subsequently posted on the Swift Vets site. Free Republic picked it up there. It's long but (I think) immensely relevant (spooky, almost) to current events in re: Trump v. Biden election. I hope you may agree. Meanwhile, I am gloating that my "hex" on the Post...

The Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors has unanimously voted to remove the school’s Stonewall Jackson statue from campus. The move comes after Kaleb Tucker and other black alumni started a campaign for the statue’s removal, citing racism at the institute experienced by black cadets. The board concurred on forming a diversity office and diversity and inclusion panel, The Washington Post reported.Tucker co-created a petition five months ago which urges the school to “acknowledge racism” and remove the statue. It has received over 1,000 signatures, according to Change.org. (RELATED: Virginia Military Institute Superintendent Resigns After School Faces Racism Allegations)“If something or someone is in place that does...

A Washington Post story wrongly claimed the Trump administration accused Billie Eilish of “destroying our country” — then spread like wildfire among the entertainment industry. The article on Thursday — in part about hundreds of celebrities being vetted for a Trump administration coronavirus ad campaign — included a misattributed quote from the White House about Eilish. SNIP The flub was picked up by Vice editor Jill Krajewski, who noted that “an embarrassing number of music outlets” including Complex, NME, Consequence of Sound and The Fader aggregated the misreported Washington Post story.