Free Republic

Hours after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced sweeping executive orders Monday to restrict public gatherings and business operations due to the new coronavirus, state police and local law enforcement agencies said they were prepared to arrest those who deliberately flout the directives.... ...Officers, who are being instructed to record gatherings via their body-worn cameras, will be empowered to break up large gatherings of more than 50 people at all venues in the county, and officials also have the authority to further reduce the number.... The enforcement of the order prohibiting gatherings or events of 50 or more people at all...

Police surrounded a man’s house after one of his “friends” warned the cops that he might be suicidal. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) the guy was down the street at a bar watching the whole thing on TV. The mayor is calling it a very expensive ($75,000) hoax, but the cops are still investigating: Cops are referring to this operation as a “well-being check”. They apparently take these well-being checks pretty seriously:

Chairman Issa Chastises ATF for Refusal to Comply with Subpoena "If you do not comply with the subpoena, the Committee will be forced to commence contempt proceedings."   WASHINGTON. D.C. – Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today, in a letter to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson, criticized the Director for failing to produce any documents in response to a subpoena issued March 31. The subpoena was issued after ATF and Department of Justice officials failed to cooperate in good faith with...

An NYPD cop whose wife called 911 for help against a gang of thugs says he was brutally beaten by baton-wielding fellow officers who stormed his Queens home. Larry Jackson suffered a broken right hand and multiple bruises from kicks and billy-club blows he said he got from the men in blue called to his home when a gunman menaced guests at his daughter's birthday party. "To get my butt beat like that was unnecessary," said the six-year veteran assigned to the 110th Precinct. "We called the police, and this is what happened to me." "I'm shocked, angry and disappointed,"...

The British executive at the centre of the Gulf Coast oil disaster hit back yesterday against accusations that BP had reacted too slowly, telling The Times that the company would have a giant steel hood in place over the worst leak by tomorrow. For the first time since the fatal explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig two weeks ago, Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, claimed that the company was winning the race to contain the spill and indicated that it was ready to fight some of the lawsuits heading its way. Even as the first pictures emerged of oil breaking...

A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him “inconvenient questions” during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Professor Stephen Schneider’s assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book.

Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later 92-year-old woman's death has done little to curb the use of paramilitary police tactics around the country. It was one year ago this week that narcotics officers in Atlanta, Georgia broke into the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. They had earlier arrested a man with a long rap sheet on drug charges. That man told the police officers that they'd find a large stash of cocaine in Johnston's home. When police forced their way into Johnston's home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she was about to be robbed. The police opened...

June 10, 2003, 9:30 a.m.The Devil & the Gray LadyAll about vogue. By Mark Goldblatt SEE NOTE    Truman Capote, who had a stake in saying so, once famously declared, "All literature is gossip." He was wrong, of course, but it's the kind of declaration that bamboozles literary types by its very implausibility; something so obviously false must be profound, so it gets repeated at cocktail parties and invoked in book reviews (like this one) until it becomes an inside-out cliché, a false truism, a knowing nod towards nothing whatsoever. Still, an interesting question emerges if you reverse Capote's...

CARVILLE'S 'Clinton is electable! Clear the way!' BATTLE CRY SPELLS TROUBLE FOR HILLARY by Mia T, 7.02.06 he embarrassing need to dispatch longtime clinton operatives, James Carville and Mark J. Penn, to the Washington Post in order to prop up hillary clinton yet one more time,1 confirms what is plainly in the field... and what is doubtless in missus clinton's internal polls: Big problems ahead for the quondam shoo-in. "Faugh a Ballaugh!" The Post Carville-Penn apologia, full of poses, poll-tested phrases and prevarication is, clearly, missus clinton's response-by-proxy (how else?) to the growing 'dump hillary' movement within the Democratic...

(AP) ROSEVILLE A federal grand jury has indicted a former Roseville medical marijuana distributor on drug and money laundering charges. A 19-count indictment says Richard James Marino grossed two-point-seven-five (m) million dollars in the eight months in 2004 when he operated his medical marijuana store, Capitol Compassionate Care.

POTTSVILLE, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Child welfare authorities seized a newborn from a hospital Friday and placed the baby in a foster home because his father is a convicted sex offender. A judge granted the mother supervised visitation rights but prohibited visits from the father. "There's no happy ending in these things. It's what we think is the best interest of the children," said Gerard Campbell, executive director of Schuylkill County Children and Youth Services. The agency took custody of the baby over the mother's objections....

FCC Boss to Cable TV: Deal with Indecency By Bob Keefe The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 04/06/05 8:07 AM PT Acknowledging that he's new to the job as the nation's top communications industry regulator, Kevin Martin trod lightly on the topic of indecency, saying it was Congress' job to make new laws, not his. But he also made it clear he expects the cable business to do something on its own soon. The FCC's new chairman warned cable companies yesterday they need to do a better job of addressing growing concerns over television indecency if they want to avoid regulation from Congress....

<p>A Salinas man beaten unconscious during a traffic arrest in January and cleared of charges in May has filed a claim against that city and its police force that names controversial former officer Robert Reichert and Salinas Chief Daniel Ortega as among those ``causing the damages.''</p>

<p>May 23, 2003 -- Residents of a Bronx building are outraged after getting an unexpected morning "greeting" yesterday from a police drug squad, which burst into their homes, waved guns at children and then left after finding nothing. "At 7:50 a.m., they burst down the door to the building," said Joe Celcis, a teacher whose mother and sister live in the home.</p>