Free Republic

In internal memo, Thomas DiNanno, then acting ass't secretary of @StateDept Arms Control, Verification, Compliance bureau documented his team was "warned...“not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a challenge against Maryland’s ban on bump stocks and similar devices that can make guns fire faster. The high court on Monday turned away a challenge (pdf) to the ban, which took effect in October 2018. A lower court had dismissed the challenge at an early stage and that decision had been upheld by an appeals court. As is typical, the Supreme Court did not issue a reason for declining to take up the case. [snip] Several weeks ago, however, the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit recognized that...

The U.S. Air Force is assessing what damage more than a dozen F-22 Raptor fighters suffered when Tyndall Air Force Base sustained a direct hit from Hurricane Michael. Up to $2 billion in fighter jets were trapped on the ground because of maintenance issues and forced to ride out the Category 4 hurricane. Photographs show the hangars where F-22s were parked suffered severe damage. First, the good news: Although Tyndall Air Force Base took a hard hit from the hurricane, all 3,600 military personnel and their families living on the base were successfully evacuated beforehand. The 93 Air Force personnel...

Puerto Rico officials say it will likely be four to six months before power is fully restored across the U.S. territory of 3.5 million people. The island’s faltering electrical grid, now crippled by the twin blows of Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma, already was struggling to keep the lights on after a history of poor maintenance, poorly trained staff, allegations of corruption and crushing debt. As recently as 2016, the island suffered a three-day, island-wide blackout as a result of a fire. A private energy consultant noted then that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority “appears to be running on...

An officer from Los Angeles County took to Twitter on Friday when Facebook users called for help to report that the social media website was down. Sgt. Burton Brink, the public information officer in La Crescenta, CA, posted a Tweet reminding people about the reasons for calling them for help. "#Facebook is not a Law Enforcement issue, please don't call us about it being down, we don't know when FB will be back up!" he wrote. Users who tried to get on Facebook around noon EST were greeted with an apology. "Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on getting this...

A Florida homeowner who called 911 during a violent home invasion Wednesday morning was transferred to voicemail at the height of the incident when the dispatcher tried to pass the call from the fire department line to police, MyFoxTampaBay.com reported. Women could be heard screaming during the wait as the recording advised, "If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911." He [the homeowner] told the operator there were four of them who beat his wife and stepmother. He shot one. One suspect was found shot in the back hiding under a car, the report said.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said Thursday that his comments to a local newspaper that it is “not my job” to bring employment to a struggling Kentucky county were taken out of context. For a story in the Beattyville Enterprise, McConnell was asked what he would do to bring jobs to Lee County, where the unemployment rate is 12.8 percent. “That is not my job. It is the primary responsibility of the state Commerce Cabinet,” the paper quoted McConnell in its story Thursday, which ran on the paper’s front page. McConnell said in a statement Thursday that his comments were taken...

The US Supreme Court is chickening out and taking a step back from the entire NSA scandal. Rather than making a final decision on whether the bulk telephone metadata surveillance program is constitutional, the Supreme Court has decided to decline the case. Instead, the Court has now left lower courts to contradict each other over the legality of this particular NSA surveillance program. One court, for instance, has described the metadata program as an “almost-Orwellian” effort. In fact, this particular petition brought to the Supreme Court concerns precisely a decision given out by US District Judge Richard Leon, who also...

Dallas Store Manager Fends Off 5 Armed Robbers with .38 Revolver, Wounding One; Police Arrive 74 Minutes LaterA Dallas store manager using his handgun to fend off an attempted robbery by five armed robbers. There's also audio of the 911 call from the Dallas store manager asking for police help because of the robbery. Reports indicate he asked for police to come because the armed men had tried to rob his store. The store manager shot at the men with a .38 Caliber revolver, sending the robbers scurrying away, and wounding one of them twice. But his call was misclassified...

ROCK HILL — A heavily tattooed man is accused of killing a father who had been missing for a month and then hiding his body under a pile of brush in Lancaster woods, deputies said on Friday.David Adam Pate, 24, has been charged with murder and remains at the Lancaster County Detention Center without bond, according to a Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office news release. He had been in jail on a public disorderly conduct charge since Nov. 11.Last Saturday, a group of children playing in the woods near Mullis Circle found the decomposing body of Rickey Wesley James, a 33-year-old...

Authorities in Pennsylvania are to file criminal charges against three students involved in a brutal beating on a school bus on Wednesday - and the bus driver who did nothing to stop the attack and didn't allow the two victims to flee from the vehicle. Police in Chester acted after they viewed video posted onto Facebook that shows one student on the Delaware County Alternative High School bus allegedly hitting 17-year-old Dylan Fonner in the face repeatedly. The grainy video which shows Fonner's face being bloodied, lasts seven minutes and was posted on the Facebook page belonging to one of...

According to the White House calendar, there is no public record of President Barack Obama attending his daily intelligence briefing–known as the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB)–in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff...

The White House is denying that they refused to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of a U.N. conference later this month. "The President arrives in New York for the U.N. on Monday, September 24th and departs on Tuesday, September 25th," National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "The Prime Minister doesn't arrive in New York until later in the week. They're simply not in the city at the same time. But the President and PM are in frequent contact and the PM will meet with other senior officials, including Secretary Clinton, during his visit," Vietor...

Witnesses say 13-year-old Austin Anglin was trapped underneath his family's boat for about 40 agonizing minutes before Coast Guard crews pulled him out of the water. For at least some of that time boats from several agencies could do little more than sit and watch, frustrating his helpless loved ones. "I looked over at the game warden's boat and there were four people standing there in life jackets on the edge of the boat as I was telling them there's a boy under the boat," said Tony Edwards. "They did absolutely nothing." The two other agencies on the water, Tulalip...

AP: Three security guards watched a group of teens punch, kick and rob a 15-year-old girl in the downtown Seattle Metro bus tunnel without intervening. Security video shows the guards call for help on their radios, but they don't go to the aid of the girl even as she is being kicked in the head. A dispute involving a group of 10 teens apparently started inside a department store the evening of Jan. 28 and moved to the bus tunnel at Westlake Station, where the girl was attacked Caught on Tape: Seattle Security Guards Stand By as Girl Brutally Attacked...

State police have refused to release information that might shed light on the response of its Pocono barracks to a February crash off Interstate 476, the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that led to the death of a Taylor man. The agency has failed to provide even basic information on the incident since The Times-Tribune began making inquiries in August. State police have classified the crash a "nontraffic incident," which directly conflicts with a Lackawanna County coroner's report that found 47-year-old Sam Turoni died from injuries suffered in a vehicle crash. A call reporting the crash was only briefly...

On February 15th 2008, the leftist terrorist group called The Student Democrat Society(SDS) took it upon themselves to attack the Armed Forces Recruiting Station at 13th and L Streets N.W. at 18:00(6 p.m.). The violent leftists terrorists entered the recruiting station and proceed to trash the place of their own free accord as DC Police simply stoodby and did nothing about it. The terrorists took joy in reporting and recording their terrorist actions(http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142455/index.php). This is the second time that DC Police have stoodby as the terrorists who call themselves the SDS have runamuck in the city, this past summer they...

The captain of the USS Cole, who saved his ship from sinking after an al-Qa'eda suicide attack by speedboat, has lashed out at senior Pentagon staff blocking his promotion because of allegations that he could have done more to protect the ship. Commander Kirk Lippold, who now serves behind a desk at the Pentagon, accused the head of the navy, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the navy secretary of "over-riding the judgment" of officers who had recommended his promotion. He complained he was the only officer being held to account for the attack in Aden harbour six years ago. The Cole...

BATON ROUGE -- Facing mounting pressure to strike pork-barrel projects from the state budget bill, Gov. Kathleen Blanco suggested this week that the responsibility for policing wasteful spending falls instead to the state treasurer's office and other state agencies. Blanco's comments have intensified the annual debate over legislative earmarks, which this year total more than $30 million in the $26.7 billion spending bill that awaits the governor's signature. State Treasurer John Kennedy, a frequent critic of the governor, accused Blanco of abdicating her leadership responsibility and said that if it were up to him, the pet projects requested by legislators...

How does this present administration view dead beat dads? I have received no child support for 26 months, my ex husbnd is a Greek Orthodox Priest who holds a valid Marriage Counselor Licence and Mental Health Therapist.