Free Republic

Shawn Johnson would never put her daughter’s life in the hands of USA Gymnastics, despite her admiration for the sport, the former Olympian seethed in a five-minute video posted on her YouTube channel Monday. “USA Gymnastics has failed their athletes so terribly,” Johnson said. “I think the fact that any of this ever happened shows that USA Gymnastics has failed as a governing body to protect the athletes it supports and claims to care about.” Johnson, 26, who won the gold medal in the balance beam competition during the 2008 Beijing games, in addition to silver medals in floor exercises,...

Larissa Boyce stood in a Michigan courtroom, the 89th accuser to tell her story of having been sexually assaulted by gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. All the accounts are chillingly similar, but Boyce's stands out — because she says she tried to get someone to stop Nassar two decades ago. "I told somebody," she said during her testimony Friday. "I told Michigan State University back in 1997." Although Nassar is best known as the former team physician for USA Gymnastics — a role in which he allegedly molested Olympic gold medalists like Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber — his busy sports...

Though federal employees won’t get a paycheck during the governmment shutdown, members of Congress will — unless they specify otherwise. Ten Democratic senators on Friday introduced a bill that would withhold pay for members of Congress during the government shutdown. The legislation comes from Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), along with Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “It’s wrong that members of Congress would still get paid in...

The first fragments were located Thursday by professional hunters Larry Atkins and Robert Ward of Arizona, according to the American Meteor Society. Atkins owns Cosmic Connection Meteorites, while Ward operates Robert Ward Meteorites. a New York City resident and meteorite consultant to Christie's auction house, is offering $20,000 for a recovered fragment weighing at least 1 kilogram.

While fireballs are relatively common, ones that drop meteorites are rare, and it's rarer still for someone to find those black treasures. But by using Doppler weather radar data and seismic traces (more on that in a moment), meteorite hunters were able to pinpoint the strewn field, the name for the ground footprint where the space rocks might have fallen. Lately of the asteroid belt, these interplanetary fragments now call the Township of Hamburg, Michigan, home. The strewn field extends about 5 miles, oriented east-southeast to west-northwest, from about Highway 23 up to Bass Lake, some 20 miles northwest of...

Residents of southeast Michigan were left a bit shaken Tuesday night after a big bright flash lit up the sky and the ground beneath them shook. A flying saucer? No. A shooting star? Not quite. The National Weather Service eventually solved the mystery, tweeting "USGS confirms meteor occurred around 810 pm, causing a magnitude 2.0 earthquake."

Trump said, “I tell my people, I say right now it’s going to be very hard. And in my opinion, in order to make a fair deal with NAFTA, you have to terminate the deal and you have see where you’re going to come, and we’ll come out. But I think you have to give them — to make a fair deal and a great deal — and you see what’s going on, we’re being very tough and we’re being very fair. But we have to get back a lot. What’s happened to this country with NAFTA is unbelievable, the...

At about 8:20 pm Tuesday January 16, 2018 Did any of you Detroit freepers see that flash of light followed about two minutes later with a window rattling shockwave?

The search for meteorites continues all over metro Detroit.  NASA experts point toward Livingston County to find them. Bill Cooke is the Meteoroid Environment Program Manager with NASA and he said the Doppler radar images show the meteorites from the meteor spotted on January 16 in Livingston County. “The meteorites should be just south of M-36 between Hamburg and Lakeland,” said Cooke. Cooke said Doppler is best way to track where they might be found. "Doppler weather radar is a very good indicator because, when it picks up meteorites, the meteorites are fairly close to the ground, they're only a couple...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos gave a far-ranging speech today in Washington at an American Enterprise Institute conference, “Bush-Obama School Reform: Lessons Learned.” She announced the death of Common Core, at least in her federal agency. DeVos also decried the federal government’s initiatives to improve education. “We saw two presidents from different political parties and philosophies take two different approaches. Federally mandated assessments. Federal money. Federal standards. All originated in Washington, and none solved the problem. Too many of America’s students are still unprepared,” she said. And she touched on a favorite topic, school choice. “Choice in...

Simone Biles, the golden girl of the 2016 Olympics, added her name Monday to the list of gymnasts who say they were molested by team doctor Larry Nassar. The revelation came in a long statement on her social media accounts — one day before a weeklong sentencing hearing where Nassar will hear from nearly 100 victims. "Most of you know me as a happy, giggly and energetic girl. But lately...I've felt a bit broken and the more I try to shut off the voice in my head the louder it screams," Biles wrote in a #metoo post. "I am not...

I have not seen anything pertinent that Betsy DeVos has done for the education system (how about getting rid of the dept of education), so I thought I'd post and ask those in the know. What is the latest about ridding ourselves of common core, or implementing the Bible back into schools? Or incorporating vocational training back into high schools which is exactly what this nation needs. The messaging that every kid needs to go to college or they're a loser makes me sick. The school system is awful, truly. Our kids (foster, who have since left home) quit school...

Ford Motor Co. will more than double spending on electrified vehicles, amplifying its investment in a segment that the auto industry sees growing from what’s now just a fraction of the market. The carmaker will shell out $11 billion bringing 40 electrified vehicles to market by 2022, Jim Farley, president of global markets, said during a presentation at the Detroit auto show. That’s up from the $4.5 billion that Ford said in late 2015 it would invest through the end of the decade. “This $11 billion you’re seeing, that means we’re all in now,” Executive Chairman Bill Ford told reporters...

Fiat Chrysler will make Ram trucks in Michigan instead of Mexico beginning in 2020, and the company says this will mean 2,500 extra jobs at the plant in Warren, Detroit’s largest suburb. While this isn’t the first bit of good economic news in the wake of big corporate tax cuts Republicans just passed, it’s the one that cheers us the most, because it best reflects the way lower corporate taxes work. The key is not bigger profits but increased competitiveness. *snip* More companies will set up more business in the U.S., because it’s now easier to compete by doing so....

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is feeling good about tax reform. So good that it says it's moving some of its truck production from Mexico to Michigan. The automaker announced Thursday that it will spend more than $1 billion to revamp its Warren Truck Assembly Plant, which will start making the Ram heavy-duty truck in 2020. The truck is currently made in Saltillo, Mexico. Fiat Chrysler said it will add 2,500 jobs in Michigan to support the move. The company also said it's giving one-time $2,000 bonuses to 60,000 U.S. workers. "It is only proper that our employees share in the savings...

(Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV FCH.MI (FCAU.N) said on Thursday it would invest more than $1 billion in its Michigan plant and add 2,500 jobs as it benefits from the overhaul of the U.S. tax code. The company said it would spend the money to modernize the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Michigan to produce its Ram Heavy Duty trucks. The company will relocate the truck’s production from its current location in Saltillo, Mexico, to the Michigan plant in 202O. The car maker also said it would make a special bonus payment of $2,000 to about 60,000 FCA hourly...

Michigan dairy farmer gets prison time for hiring undocumented immigrants A Michigan dairy farmer is to spend a couple of years in federal prison and owes a six-figure fine for hiring undocumented immigrants. U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington on Thursday, Jan. 4, sentenced Denis Burke to two years in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Ludington did not order Burke taken into custody on Thursday, but gave him time to self-report to the U.S. Marshals Services. The judge also ordered Burke to pay a fine of $187,500 and an assessment fee of $100. Burke in September pleaded...

FERNDALE, Michigan, December 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Satanists along with anti-Christian radicals disrupted a group of Christians singing Christmas carols in front of a nativity display at a city hall in Michigan. One of the most obscene disrupters was a 19-year-old man who has run for a seat on a Board of Education and has worked on the campaign for a democrat politician. The organization Church Militant (CM) had received a permit from the City of Ferndale, Michigan, to set up their own Nativity display at City Hall on Wednesday evening and sing carols while offering free hot chocolate and...

A Detroit utility worker responding to a reported power outage early Friday at a city lighting substation found a door to the building had been pried open. Then he found something much worse – the bodies of two men electrocuted by 24,000 volts after touching a transformer, reported WDIV. The bodies had been fused together.

Yesterday we went to an exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Art. It was a Claude Monet show exhibiting work from his time in Argenteuil where he developed his impressionistic style (Monet: Framing Life) in combination with a Frederic Church show of his paintings from his time spent traveling the Middle East (Church: A Painter’s Pilgrimage). The Monet show was small, but lovely.Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs), 1876, Claude MonetIt was blessedly free of social commentary, which cannot be said of the Church exhibit which contained subject matter and imagery that curators and art historians found to reek of...