Free Republic

Hundreds of officials who worked for former Republican President George W. Bush are set to endorse Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden, people involved in the effort said, the latest Republican-led group coming out to oppose the re-election of Donald Trump. The officials, who include Cabinet secretaries and other senior people in the Bush administration, have formed a political action committee - 43 Alumni for Biden - to support the former vice president in his Nov. 3 race, three organizers of the group told Reuters. Bush was the country's 43rd president.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem confirmed that her state will move forward with plans for a large Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore on July 3 .. free masks will be given out to those who desire to wear them, there will be no social distancing. Thousands are expected at the festivities that will be attended by none other than President Donald Trump. The event will feature fighter jets soaring over the 79-year-old monument, along with the first fireworks display at the site since 2009. Noem, a Republican, made clear that they would not impose coronavirus restrictions on the crowd....

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a Senate hearing Tuesday that people should stop going to bars “right now” — just as states like Texas and Florida, both of which have seen a dramatic uptick in the number of cases, were recently forced to close their bars a second time to stem the spread of the virus. “Congregation at a bar, inside, is bad news,” Fauci said. “We really got to stop that right now.”

A Texas prosecutor has resigned and will be replaced by another prosecutor after reportedly sharing a post on Facebook that compares protesters demonstrating against police brutality and racial inequality to Nazis, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office told ABC13 on Monday. Kaylynn Williford, who works for District Attorney Kim Ogg, shared a Facebook post comparing protesters to Nazis, according to a screenshot shared on Facebook. The district attorney’s office confirmed the post was Williford’s, according to ABC13. “Wedding bands that were removed from Holocaust victims prior to being executed, 1945. Each ring represents a destroyed family. Never forget, Nazis tore...

In Texas, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins called on Gov. Greg Abbott to reinstitute stay-at-home orders and other strict measures to stop the spread of the deadly and infectious coronavirus as cases surge throughout the state. In a letter dated Saturday, but released to the public on Sunday, Jenkins asked Abbott to reinstitute stay-at-home orders for a month, enforce universal mask-wearing and physical distancing through fines, limit events and reduce indoor gatherings to 10 people and outdoor events to 100, among a slew of other recommendations.

222 miles completed, 333 miles under construction, 183 miles under pre-construction. (738 Total)

The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision that rejected environmental groups’ challenge to sections of wall the Trump administration is building along the U.S. border with Mexico. The high court on Monday declined to hear an appeal involving construction of 145 miles (233 kilometers) of steel-bollard walls along the border in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Southwest Environmental Center had challenged a federal law that allows the secretary of Homeland Security to waive any laws necessary to allow the quick construction of...

June 29 (UPI) -- The Chesapeake Energy Corporation, which made its name drilling shale for natural gas in the United States, announced it has filed for bankruptcy protection. The Oklahoma-based company said in a statement Sunday that it has filed for Chapter 11 protection in the southern district of Texas to "facilitate a comprehensive balance sheet restructuring." The process will be used to "strengthen" its balance sheet and to achieve a "more sustainable capital structure" by restructuring its legacy contractual obligations, it said. The company has been dealing with mounting debt due to low oil and natural gas prices but...

The woman responsible for the "F--Trump" bumper sticker has been arrested for a previous outstanding warrant, according to Fort Bend County jail records. Karen Fonseca was arrested shortly after 2 p.m. on Thursday for a fraud charge. Her bail is set at $1500. Her arrest comes after Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls on Wednesday created a social media firestorm with a Facebook post threatening to bring disorderly conduct charges against the driver of a truck displaying a profane anti-Trump message on its rear window. Nehls told the Houston Chronicle that he had received calls, texts and emails in recent...

The U.S. Postal Service is not secure. Period. One does not need to watch this video of a postal worker dumping mailers from a GOP congressional candidate into a dumpster to realize the system is corrupt and favors Democrats. But the video itself definitely helps. Sadly, we don’t know how often this happens when it’s not caught on camera. Watch as mailers from Sheriff Troy Nehls, who is running for U.S. Congress in TX-22, gets dumped. A US Postal worker was just caught on video throwing a stack of my campaign mailers in a dumpster. Some patriots nearby heard a...

As anti-Trump media seeks to widely disseminate data on the COVID-19 case increases in red states Florida, Arizona, and Texas, they are selectively ignoring data on hospitalizations and mortality rates compared to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's New York, according to Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, on Newsmax TV. "That's what they do: They lie, they misrepresent, and they've taken their lead – well, I'm not sure if they've taken their lead from the Democrats or the Democrats took their lead from the media, but either way they work together and they misrepresent the facts," Gohmert told "Saturday Report."

Health officials in Texas are logging every single COVID-19-positive hospital patient in the state as a COVID-19 hospitalization, even if the patients themselves are admitted seeking treatment for something other than the coronavirus.

PMA Texas Realtor group will no longer use the term “master” in description of their homes, according to Realtors and media reports.What were once called master bedrooms and master bathrooms are now referred to as primary bedrooms and primary bathrooms by the Houston Association of Realtors. The group made the change following a review of terminology, according to KPRC. It has been a topic of discussion for several years, the agency said.“The overarching message was that some members were concerned about how the terms might be perceived by some other agents and consumers” according to a statement HAR sent members. “The...

As the Northeast, the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S. for months, has seen steep, persistent declines in confirmed cases, other parts of the country have spiked. A month or so ago, most of the increased cases were a function of increased testing. Now, states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona have seen worrying increases in their positivity rates — the percentage of tests that are positive — in a sign of accelerating community spread. The media’s tone about this trend is, of course, apocalyptic, with many commentators portraying the Republican governors of these states as callous extremists hell-bent on...

Dr. David Callender, CEO of Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, told CNBC on Friday that its hospitals continue to have adequate capacity despite Texas’ growing coronavirus outbreak. “We actually still think we have plenty of capacity to meet the demand for Covid, as well as non-Covid patients” Callender said on “The Exchange.” Callender, in explaining his confidence about hospital capacity, said the system is “used to dealing with complex patients” and believes it will be able to adjust to increased demand. “Across our system, we have about 4,000 beds that we can bring into play” for intensive care, he...

At an anti-deportation march in Irving on Saturday, one of the leaders told the mostly Hispanic crowd, "We want to send a message that there is no division in our community. We are one." But some Hispanics were there to undermine that statement and demonstrate a sticking point in the immigration debate: Many Hispanics are among the strongest opponents of illegal immigration. "We've been here 38 years, and we deserve to be here, not some illegal immigrants," said Eva Hinojosa, whose parents were from Mexico. "They should go back to their own country; they don't belong here." She and her...

TUCSON — “My record is 30 minutes,” Magistrate Judge Bernardo P. Velasco of Federal District Court here said one afternoon, describing the speed with which he had sealed the fates of a batch of 70 migrants caught sneaking into the country. Each of the accused had 25 seconds, give or take, to hear the charges against him, enter a plea and receive a sentence. This is a part of the battle against illegal immigration that many Americans have never heard of. Known as Operation Streamline, it is the core of a federal program that operates in three border states, using...

Hillary Clinton's female surrogates attacked the GOP's record on women's issues Monday ahead of the New York primary, as the Democratic front-runner seeks to turn out women voters. "A woman voting for Ted Cruz is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders," Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said at the midtown Manhattan rally as she introduced the Democratic front-runner. In a fundraising email last week, Richards described Cruz as Planned Parenthood's "biggest threat" this election cycle, as the pro-life Texas senator wants to defund the organization. Planned Parenthood endorsed Clinton in January, marking their first-ever presidential primary endorsement. Along with...

The Trump administration doesn't have the authority to divert Pentagon funds to construct additional barriers on the US-Mexico border, a federal appeals court ruled Friday, days after President Donald Trump's visit to a section of the wall in Arizona. In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said that the transfer of $2.5 billion circumvented Congress, which holds the authority to appropriate money.

Councilman Clayton Perry said he didn't participate when protesters at a city council meeting this week asked him to show support.