Free Republic

Lebanon County commissioners have passed a protest resolution declaring the county in the yellow phase of the state’s pandemic reopening plan, effective immediately. The 2-1 vote came hours before Gov. Tom Wolf named 12 more counties to start a limited reopening next week; Lebanon was not among them. The board may be the first to have taken a formal action to break out from the governor’s plan, though legal experts say that given the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision affirming Wolf’s public health emergency disaster declaration, it’s likely has no legal relevance. The court, in that case, noted longtime Perry County...

LANCASTER - Is Lancaster County going to be in the yellow phase of the state’s coronavirus pandemic reopening plan, come Friday? Or is it going to be in red? That, dear readers, depends upon who you are listening to. The county’s two Republican county commissioners continued to assert Thursday that the county is moving to yellow based on trend lines in new coronavirus case counts, its hospital capabilities, and a concentrated focus on efforts like building up contact tracing capacity and improving infection control programs in nursing homes. To them, they have done what they can to get the outbreak...

West Shore barber Brad Shepler has rapidly become a symbol of the growing revolt against Gov. Tom Wolf’s order closing non-life-essential businesses over the coronavirus. That was unmistakable Thursday morning, two days after state officials threatened to revoke Shepler’s barbering license and fine him up to $10,000 a day for reopening his East Pennsboro Township shop in violation of the closure edict. A crowd of several dozen filled the small parking lot of his business, Shep’s Barber Shop, off Wertzville Road to cheer him on. A bevy of Republican legislators, headed by state Sen. Mike Regan, showered Shepler with promises...

Thunderstorms are in the forecast for Harrisburg on Friday, but a storm of another sort will hit the state Capitol at noon. For the second time in less than a month, ReOpen PA and other groups from in and outside Pennsylvania that oppose Gov. Tom Wolf’s virtual lockdown of the state over the coronavirus pandemic will rally on and around the Capitol grounds. It is part of a nationwide phenomenon, a backlash against virus-related business shutdowns and stay-at-home orders that locally is receiving more than tacit support from elected officials, including county commissioners and law enforcement leaders, usually of a...

According to inside information, a group of Franklin County officials, responding to an outcry of dissatisfaction from local citizens and some negative press, is preparing to join other South Central PA counties in the growing rebellion against Governor Wolf’s tyrannical COVID19 lockdown.

Eager to reopen, local officials across Pennsylvania are set to defy Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to cautiously ease coronavirus restrictions. The governor has outlined a phased reopening plan, complete with a color-coded readiness chart. Wolf announced Friday that 24 more counties have qualified as “yellow,” meaning they can partially reopen Friday, while extending stay-at-home orders for the remaining “red” counties until early June. Some local officials don’t agree with the tiered strategy, though. They plan to use their power to proceed with their own reopening plans, despite the fact that Pennsylvania confirmed 1,323 new coronavirus cases in a single day...

Gov. Tom Wolf is happy to welcome anyone to Pa., including President Donald Trump, but he does have a request for anyone visiting the commonwealth as it continues a phased reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic. Wolf said during a conference call with reporters Tuesday that the President did not inform him of Thursday’s planned stop at a Lehigh Valley medical distributor, Owens & Minor Inc., and from the sounds of it, that isn’t a surprise. That said, the Democrat has repeatedly said during this global health crisis that he can’t limit intrastate travel, which certainly applies to a trip made...

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf sternly rebuked Pennsylvania counties and businesses that plan to reopen without state approval, calling it a “cowardly act” that could cost those areas not only lives but federal stimulus money, too.

Responding to a statewide uprising that has led many counties to refuse to continue to abide by his orders, Pennsylvania Governor Wolf had this to say Monday. “These folks are choosing to desert in the face of the enemy. In the middle of a war that we Pennsylvanians are winning, and that we must win. They need to understand the consequences of their cowardly act.” PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR TOM WOLF, 11 MAY 2020

A growing number of Pennsylvania counties are stating that their district attorneys will not be prosecuting those who defy lockdown measures put in place by Gov. Tom Wolf. It comes as Wolf on Monday 'threatened to block federal aid 'to Pennsylvania counties that violate state measures and allow non-life-sustaining businesses to reopen, warning that 'businesses could face citations.'...... he said on Twitter. “Today I am announcing consequences for counties that do not abide by the law to remain closed....Non-compliant counties won’t be eligible for federal stimulus discretionary funds. Instead, those funds will be allocated to counties working to stop the...

Gov. Tom Wolf pushed back forcefully - and with some apparent success - Monday on a brushfire of opposition in central and eastern Pennsylvania counties to his ongoing coronavirus pandemic lockdown. In uncharacteristically blunt language, Wolf accused local elected officials proposing to break out of the state’s phased reopening plan of “caving in” to the virus, and starkly warned any business owners temped to open ahead of his schedule that by doing so they are playing with liability issues and their customers and employees’ lives. “We Pennsylvanians are in a fight for our lives. The enemy is a deadly virus,...

The revolt by a dozen or more Pennsylvania counties who are opening up their businesses against the dictatorial edicts of Democrat Governor Tom Wolf has apparently thrown him into a blind rage, which was further exacerbated by a Tweet from President Trump in support of Pennsylvania patriots and a news conference by State Senator and gubernatorial aspirant Doug Mastriano, in which he called for the resignation of the incompetent Health Secretary Rachel Levine. Wolf attacked business owners who reopen from coronavirus shutdowns before they are allowed and the politicians who have encouraged them, calling them “cowardly”, threatening serious consequences to...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday that politicians who move to open counties during the pandemic in defiance of a schedule set by his administration are “acting in a most cowardly way” and risk losing federal coronavirus aid. Wolf said counties that do no comply with the administration’s virus orders could lose some discretionary federal funding, and businesses risk licenses, certificates of occupancy and other financial ripple effects.