Free Republic

Former United Auto Workers President Gary Jones was charged on Thursday with embezzling more than $1 million as part of a US corruption probe that has raised the specter of the federal government taking over the labor union. Jones, who spearheaded the UAW’s contract negotiations late last year with Detroit auto giants as well as a 40-day strike at General Motors, is accused of being part of a group of UAW bigwigs who embezzled more than $1 million to pay for private villas, liquor, golf and other luxuries, according to documents filed with a Michigan federal court and made public...

DENVER – Two people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Colorado, Governor Jared Polis announced Thursday, confirming the rapidly spreading virus had made it to Colorado. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) said Thursday a man in his 30s visiting Summit County tested “presumptive” positive for COVID-19. Polis in a news conference later Thursday said there was a second positive case of coronavirus reported in Colorado. The two cases were not connected, Polis said. More information about the second case was not yet available.

SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) — Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose is prepping “surge tents” to handle a possible influx of coronavirus cases. The tan-colored tents are currently erected on the southern border of the hospital’s property, facing Samartian Drive, directly adjacent to the emergency room’s paramedic entrance and the public sidewalk. The footprint of the two identical structures measures 15 feet by 30 feet and stands about 10 feet tall in the center. Each one is large enough to handle up to six patients at a time while still allowing the minimum “six foot exclusion zone,” the distance health...

Today, President Donald J. Trump declared that a major disaster exists in the State of Tennessee and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe storms, tornadoes, straight-line winds, and flooding on March 3, 2020.The President’s action makes Federal funding available to affected individuals in Davidson, Putnam, and Wilson Counties.Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.Federal funding also is available to State and eligible local...

With Super Tuesday setting the inescapable delegate math into motion, the Democrats will almost certainly have a septuagenarian white man leading the ticket in November to take on President Donald Trump. But the other half of that ticket is pretty wide open. Political scientists and Democratic operatives told Insider that both former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont would be smart to look for a younger running mate, preferably a woman or a person of color — or both. Both candidates have already suggested their future running mates would be women and younger than they are....

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is recovering from emergency heart surgery the company disclosed Thursday evening. Co-Presidents and Chief Operating Officers Daniel Pinto and Gordon Smith released a statement to employees and shareholders: "We want to let you know that Jamie experienced an acute aortic dissection this morning. He underwent successful emergency heart surgery to repair the dissection. The good news is that it was caught early and the surgery was successful. He is awake, alert and recovering well. Our Lead Director, Lee Raymond, said today, “Our Board has been fully briefed on these developments and has asked Daniel and Gordon...

A federal judge on Thursday sharply criticized Attorney General William Barr’s handling of the report by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, saying that Barr put forward a “distorted” and “misleading” account of its findings and lacked credibility on the topic. Judge Reggie Walton said Barr could not be trusted and cited “inconsistencies” between his statements about the report when it was secret and its actual contents that turned out to be more damaging to President Donald Trump. Walton said Barr’s “lack of candor” called “into question Attorney General Barr’s credibility and, in turn, the department’s” assurances to the court.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has lost more than half of its Washington-based employees who were slated to move out West as the agency pushes ahead with a controversial plan to relocate staff. New internal numbers from the Interior Department obtained by The Hill show 69 employees have left the agency rather than accept the new assignment. Another 18 left after the plans were announced but before they could be reassigned. Those 87 employees outnumber the 80 who have agreed to the move. The figures are at odds with the ones referenced in December by acting BLM Director William...

Former North Carolina State Political Party Chairman Previously Pleaded Guilty to Lying to the FBI in Connection with the Bribery Scheme A federal jury sitting in Charlotte, North Carolina, has convicted the founder and chairman of a multinational investment company and a company consultant of public corruption and bribery charges, for orchestrating a bribery scheme involving independent expenditure accounts and improper campaign contributions. Greg E. Lindberg, 49, of Durham, North Carolina, the founder and chairman of Eli Global LLC (Eli Global) and the owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group (GBIG), and Lindberg’s consultant, John D. Gray, 69, of Chapel Hill,...

The emergence of the coronavirus as a world health epidemic and fears of it spreading have halted air and ground travel in some regions of the world and stalled it elsewhere, significantly reducing the amount of carbon emissions being released into the atmosphere. Pollution monitoring satellites from NASA and the European Space Agency have detected significant decreases of nitrogen dioxide over China since Jan. 1, following the outbreak of the virus -- evidence that the noxious gas being emitted by motor vehicles, power plants and industrial facilities has nearly come to a complete stop. And China isn't the only part...

The Justice Department and Homeland Security, along with government counterparts from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, announced today the publication of Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.  Developed in consultation with several leading technology companies, the 11 voluntary principles outline measures that companies in the technology industry Washington, DC ~ Thursday, March 5, 2020 Remarks as Prepared for DeliveryGood afternoon.  I am pleased to be joined here today by Acting Secretary Wolf of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, distinguished colleagues from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and representatives...

Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the 2020 presidential race March 5, and in that instant one could feel a great disturbance in the feminist force, as if a million voices cried out in terror that once again a woman was unfairly blocked out of her shot. Medium’s Jessica Valenti, a radical feminist with a history of blaming the world’s problems on the patriarchy, let out a loud lamentation about the Senator from Massachusetts’s untimely fate, arguing that her lack of success in the race was the fault of “America’s sexism.” Oh this should be good. Valenti had apparently staked her...

Suddenly, “sanctuary cities” are a problem worthy of front-page coverage in The New York Times — but only if they are pro-life places opposed to abortion clinics. Reporter Dionne Searcey made Wednesday’s front page with her report keyed to a city council meeting in Texas: "‘Sanctuary Cities’ for Unborn Reflect a Nation’s Rising Walls”: No one was trying to build an abortion clinic in the Texas community of Lindale, population 6,000. But they wanted to keep it that way. Persuaded by a shaggy-haired pastor in a backward baseball cap, a dozen other Texas communities already had passed measures prohibiting abortion...

The Justice Department and Homeland Security, along with government counterparts from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, announced today the publication of Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.  Developed in consultation with several leading technology companies, the 11 voluntary principles outline measures that companies in the technology industry can choose to implement to protect the children who use their platforms from sexual abuse online and to make their platforms more difficult for child sex offenders to exploit.“Today marks a historic event,” said U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr. “For the first time, the...

A Columbia, Missouri, man was sentenced to 236 months in prison in federal court today for his role in making preparations to launch a terrorist attack with persons he believed were members of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), but who were actually undercover law enforcement employees, announced Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers and U.S. Attorney Timothy A. Garrison for the Western District of Missouri.   Robert Lorenzo Hester Jr., 28, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Greg Kays to 236 months in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Hester to a...

Hollywood knows how to come up with ticket-selling doomsday scenarios and their imagined outcome of the coronavirus is no less devastating than the events of Independence Day. Well, actually, they’re worse, because this time our own president is supposedly helping along the end of the world. Hollywood’s most unhinged denizens channeled their fears about the potential global plague onto the Trump administration, deciding to forego thinking up some solutions and instead taking to Twitter to say that, with Trump and Pence involved, we’re all going to die. Of course, who better than the incomparable Rosie O’Donnell to provide some choice...

A Las Vegas resident was sentenced to 65 months in prison today for his role in a stolen identity tax fraud, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Nicholas A. Trutanich for the District of Nevada.According to court documents and statements made in court, Josiah Ntekume engaged in a scheme to file false tax returns using stolen identities in order to obtain tax refunds. Coconspirators provided Ntekume with names, addresses, dates of birth, and social security numbers, and Ntekume used these stolen identities to establish prepaid debit card...

The always trendy social engineers over at TeenVogue are raising awareness for the pro-choice cause this week, urging young people to get more hysterical about abortion than they currently are. The hard-left kids fashion mag ran a poll on young voters to find out what issues concern them most about the upcoming election. The good news for TeenVogue is that the poll found that most young folks are pro choice, while the bad news is that abortion isn’t a priority issue for them. Say it ain’t so, guys, especially when abortion is so under threat right now. The publication reported,...

A U.S. Immigration Judge in Memphis, Tennessee, has issued a removal order against a German citizen and Tennessee resident, on the basis of his service in Nazi Germany in 1945 as an armed guard of concentration camp prisoners in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp system (Neuengamme).After a two-day trial, U.S. Immigration Judge Rebecca L. Holt issued an opinion finding Friedrich Karl Berger removable under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act because his “willing service as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where persecution took place” constituted assistance in Nazi-sponsored persecution.  The court found...

Like a number of states, concealed pistol license holders in Michigan are exempted from the requirement to undergo a NICS background check every time they purchase a new firearm. That’s because permit holders have already undergone an extensive background check and fingerprinting in order to be issued a permit in the first place. Michigan has had that exemption from the ATF since 2006, but yesterday the ATF rescinded it. Why? Because recreational marijuana is now legal in the state. Voters approved legalization in 2018 and retail sales started December 1, 2019. While buying and using weed may not be a...