Free Republic

The Republican leader of a suburb bordering New York City has Democrats up in arms over a plan to deputize private citizens for emergency situations. County Executive Bruce Blakeman has continued to irk opponents on the issues of crime and women's rights as he seeks to wrestle control of the state capital and give his constituents a greater say in local policy. I don't think you can depend on Albany or Washington, D.C., because they're more interested in giving away billions of dollars to migrants who are unvetted and bringing them to our communities than they are in protecting our...

A concerning trend emerges as 21% of Americans admit they would turn to credit cards to cover an emergency expense exceeding $1,000, planning to pay it off over time—an unsettling revelation from Bankrate. The resurgence of unpaid credit card balances surpassing 2019 levels paints a grim picture of financial strain, with 60% of Americans navigating the precarious terrain of living paycheck to paycheck. The average credit card debt hovering around $6,000 underscores the mounting financial pressure on households, raising alarms about the sustainability of current economic conditions. Recent job cuts in prominent companies such as Wayfair, Hasbro, Spotify, and Twitch...

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed a law Saturday that blocks state and local officials from closing gun stores during declared disasters, unless all other businesses are also ordered shuttered. The legislation was championed by gun rights advocates like the National Rifle Association in response to the pandemic, which caused many businesses to be shut down. “NRA applauds @GovDunleavy for his unwavering support of our Second Amendment rights and for signing this House Bill 61, championed by Speaker Cathy Tilton, into law,” the gun rights lobby tweeted late Saturday. Dunleavy, a Republican, issued several public health disaster declarations during the COVID-19...

“Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.”—Justice Neil Gorsuch We have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency. Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security. COVID-19, for example, served as the driving force behind what Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch characterized as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.” In a statement...

President Joe Biden in December began working to replenish the 180 million barrels he sold last year from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Nearly six months later, he still has zero barrels to show for it. Biden's Energy Department on Monday announced its intention to purchase up to three million reserve barrels as a "continuation" of the president's "replenishment strategy." So far, however, that "strategy" has seen the Democrat fail to purchase a single barrel of reserve oil. The administration first tried to purchase three million reserve barrels in December, when Biden kicked off his "plan to replenish the SPR." One...

Dr. Robert Malone: The real reason why the US gov’t is ending the national COVID emergenciesThe widely distributed and weaponized fear porn which has driven the gross over-reaction of governments and their citizens (all over the world) was not justified. In retrospect, the global COVIDcrisis agenda and response which has devastated global economies, enabled a massive upwards transfer of wealth, and has been exploited to justify imposition of ‘The Great Reset’ globalist agenda items cannot be justified as a credible and effective ‘public health’ response. (Robert Malone) — Finally, we may be seeing a winding down of U.S. federal government...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden informed Congress on Monday that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, as most of the world has returned closer to normalcy nearly three years after they were first declared. The move to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations would formally restructure the federal coronavirus response to treat the virus as an endemic threat to public health that can be managed through agencies’ normal authorities.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's trial run for tyranny inspired Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) to call for its replication in the United States. "Confiscating the trucks and seizing the bank accounts of the unruly opponents of the government's covid vaccine mandates was glorious," he declared. "The efficiency of simply declaring an emergency opened up an opportunity to rule by decree, designate the offenders as outlaws and mete out punishment." "When you have no access to your money and the government takes the property you depend on to earn a living it has gone a long way toward neutralizing you and...

Under the measure, houses of worship would be considered ‘essential services’ and no emergency order may ‘directly or indirectly’ cancel public worship if any businesses remain open.TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Florida lawmakers have passed a bill that would prohibit future “emergency orders” like those enacted during the COVID-19 response from closing down religious institutions if any businesses are allowed to stay open.Florida’s Republican-led Senate approved the measure (SB 254) in a 31-3 vote Thursday. A companion bill filed in the House, HB 215, was advanced Wednesday and awaits a floor vote.Under the new measure, houses of worship would be considered...

When first responder communications networks failed after 9/11, the government decided to build a nationwide wireless emergency communications network that would actually work. It took a decade of general histrionics and dysfunction by Congress, but in 2012 the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act formally created the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet). FirstNet is an entirely new federal agency tasked with coordinating the build of a 700 MHz LTE-based coast-to-coast emergency broadband network. But since its creation the effort (tell us if you've heard this one before) has been plagued with dysfunction, allegations of incumbent carrier cronyism, and...

One dark night outside a small town in Saskatchewan , a fire started inside the local sausage plant and in a blink it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments from miles around. When the volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the sausage company president rushed to the fire chief and said, 'All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved and I will give $50,000 to the fire department that brings them out intact.' But the roaring flames held the firefighters off....

The spectre of one's mortality that a global pandemic raises can be a needed and sobering opportunity to reconsider and reorder our lives, if we're granted them longer. The spectre of one’s mortality that a global health and economic crisis raises can be a needed and sobering opportunity to reconsider and reorder our lives, if we’re granted them longer.The coronavirus pandemic is a social stress test exposing many Americans’ lack of responsibility for our lives, our willingness to hold other people’s lives hostage to our own, and our national unpreparedness to manage danger. What are some long-term positive steps this...

When Amy and Brady King started experimenting with how to build durable, reusable temporary housing that would be easy to transport and assemble, they were imagining a product to assist people after natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods that usually struck far from the Northwest. But their first big customer ended up being close to home and for an ongoing, social emergency — the Northwest’s homelessness crisis. Three years ago the Kings launched Pallet, an Everett, Wash. company that sells temporary shelters made of hard, plastic panels. Brady King, a contractor and trained firefighter, was inspired to tackle the...

The more I think about it, the more I think today’s fiasco is low-key one of the stupidest, most self-defeating episodes of Trump’s presidency. He had total control of government for two years, at any point of which he could have demanded full funding for the wall, and somehow he parlayed it into:1. A bad immigration bill which his base despises and which gives him barely more than a billion dollars for “fencing,” and 2. An emergency declaration which the public hates, which probably won’t stand up in court, and, if it does, will certainly benefit the left’s agenda...

Hackers from China breached the federal weather network recently, forcing cybersecurity teams to seal off data vital to disaster planning, aviation, shipping and scores of other crucial uses, officials said. The intrusion occurred in late September but officials gave no indication that they had a problem until Oct. 20, according to three people familiar with the hack and the subsequent reaction by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, which includes the National Weather Service. Even then, NOAA did not say its systems were compromised.

If an ice storm can cause this much panic in our major cities, what will a real crisis look like? The biggest news story in the United States right now is the "historic ice storm" that is hammering the South. Travel will be a nightmare, schools and businesses will be closed, and hundreds of thousands of people will lose power. In fact, it is being projected that some people could be without power for up to a week. But at the end of the day, the truth is that this ice storm is just an inconvenience. Yes, the lives of...

Pentagon Prepping for ‘Large Scale Economic Breakdown’ Anthony Gucciardi by Anthony Gucciardi August 26th, 2013 Updated 08/26/2013 at 1:10 am High level government documents reveal that the Pentagon is preparing in full force for ‘large scale economic meltdown’ and massive revolt via the US public — exactly what we are criticized for doing. pentagon-economic-collapse-riotsYou see the Pentagon and agencies like the Department of Defense (DoD) are in full scale emergency readiness in their own words for ‘cataclysmic’ events that are believed to ultimately ignite riots in the face of chaos and economic collapse, and it’s all out in the open....

In an emergency evacuation, there will always be people who stay behind to protect their personal belongings. People who ignored evacuation warnings had to be rescued and some lost their lives in one of the worst storms in the history of natural disasters in the United States.The biggest challenges were hunger and cold because of electrical outages. More than 8.1 million homes and businesses lost power.In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, city leaders across the country are asking how their city would respond to a similar disaster and examining their preparedness and self-reliance needs. Sandy would have resulted in much...

ARRL Field Day Overview ARRL Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada.  Each year over 35,000 amateurs gather with their clubs, friends or simply by themselves to operate. ARRL Field Day is not a fully adjudicated contest, which explains much of its popularity.  It is a time where many aspects of Amateur Radio come together to highlight our many roles. While some will treat it as a contest, most groups use the opportunity to practice their emergency response capabilities.  It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Amateur Radio to local elected community...

Canada and the U.S. signed an agreement that paves the way for either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency. Some question why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal. Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, signed Feb. 14 in Texas. The U.S. Northern Command publicized the agreement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency....