Free Republic

A federal judge has sentenced former Detroit Riverfront Conservancy CFO William Smith to 19 years in federal prison for embezzling more than $44 million from the nonprofit over more than a decade. The judge also ordered him to pay more than $48 million in restitution. The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy released a statement after the sentencing. It reads: "Today, we move forward to a bright future. We are incredibly grateful to U.S. District Judge Susan DeClercq for imposing a sentence commensurate the damage Will Smith inflicted on the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy and its community of visitors, donors, and supporters. The U.S....

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is apparently going to outline in an upcoming speech a “war plan” to defeat President Donald Trump (R) who won her state during the 2024 presidential election. During an interview with Politico about the speech she will deliver in Lansing on Thursday, Slotkin claimed the president is doing “a whole bunch of things that I think are a threat to our economy and a threat to our Democracy and I have a responsibility on behalf of my state to point that out and try to do something about that,” the outlet reported on Thursday. A recent...

On Tuesday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) pushed for more gun control in her state, claiming, “Guns are the number one killer of young people in America.” Whitmer made the comments in Lansing, with members of the gun control lobby gathered behind her for Annual Advocacy Day. For years the left was called out for claiming guns were the number one cause of death for children in America. Breitbart News showed this claim to be false when President Joe Biden first made it on June 2, 2022. We noted the claim was based on reported 2020 CDC data, then dug...

Michigan dentist Kent Wildern has filed a lawsuit against Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer's administration, challenging the state's mandate requiring health care professionals to complete ideological training to keep their licenses. "It is unconstitutional for Michigan to weaponize its licensing powers to force healthcare professionals to choose between their careers and submitting to ideological indoctrination," Wildern's attorney, Wilson Freeman of the Pacific Legal Foundation, wrote in a Tuesday press release. "Moreover, Michigan's mandate for implicit bias training came from an unelected agency rather than the legislature, sidestepping any public debate on the issue," the attorney added. Wildern's lawsuit comes as President...

Get ready for a spectacular light show tonight as geomagnetic storms bring the northern lights closer to unexpected locations. The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are expected to put on a stunning display across several U.S. states tonight, thanks to geomagnetic storms that are disrupting Earth’s magnetic field. These solar-driven storms, forecasted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will bring the auroras closer to areas typically outside their usual range. This rare opportunity offers a chance for skywatchers in unexpected locations to witness one of nature’s most mesmerizing phenomena. Where Will the Northern Lights Be Visible? According to...

A Washington state man accused of making more than 20 swatting calls across the U.S. and in Canada, leading to law enforcement responses to his false reports of bombings, shootings and other crimes, pleaded guilty. Ashton Garcia, 21, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to two counts of extortion and two counts of threats and hoaxes regarding explosives, U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said in a news release. Garcia was initially charged with 10 felony counts. Garcia placed the calls to agencies in Washington state, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado,...

Representative Debbie Dingell (D-MI) claimed on Friday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that the Trump administration was attacking the freedoms of speech, religion and the press. Co-host Pamala Brown said, “You talk about due process, that brings me to the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen was able to finally get a face to face meeting with him. The administration admitted that he was wrongly deported to El Salvador. Where do you think this goes from here?” Dingell said, “You know, I don’t know where it goes. I’m glad that the senator was able to see...

Dearborn Heights Fundraiser And Poetry Night For Palestine, Organized With Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM): This American Empire Must Fall; People Here Are Willing To Fight And Put Their Lives On The Line To Bring Western Empires Down. April 16, 2025 Palestinians | Special Dispatch No. 11929 An attendee at a fundraiser for Middle East Children’s Alliance and poetry night held at the Newora Café in Dearborn Heights stated that while the people of Gaza have achieved victory, the people in the United States have not done enough. He emphasized that change must come, saying, "This American empire has been hurting...

This is an acoustic guitar version of the bluegrass song- “Dust in a baggie” by Billy Strings. He’s called Strings because he can play any stringed instrument. He’s awful talented.

Another top Democratic contender for Michigan’s open Senate seat has begun informing colleagues she will take a pass on the race, according to three people familiar with the conversations, narrowing the field for a seat that Democrats are increasingly worried about whether they can keep next November.Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, a freshman Democrat who won a key battleground seat last year, has decided to stay in the House – a decision that is making some Michigan Democrats anxious about their chances of securing a top-tier candidate to go up against a Republican who nearly won the seat last year.***The fate...

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was mocked after she was captured hiding her face behind a stack of binders to avoid being seen standing in the Oval Office when President Donald Trump spoke to the press. The 53-year-old Democrat was flanked by two White House aides as she shielded her identity behind a set of blue folders she was holding before her scheduled meeting with Trump on April 9, according to a photo taken by the New York Times. Whitmer was in Washington DC to discuss issues including tariffs and a recent ice storm which Whitmer has since asked for a...

She was so exposed that she shielded her face from cameras, per NYT. Does this make her unelectable in 2028 among TDS sufferers?

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is under fire from fellow Democrats after appearing alongside President Donald Trump during a White House signing ceremony, sparking accusations that she was used as a political “prop.” “Just a f—ing disaster,” said one Democratic operative, who usually supports Whitmer but spoke anonymously to NBC News. “It feels like it removes some of the momentum she had as a politically savvy swing-state Dem.” Whitmer was in Washington for what was supposed to be a private meeting with Trump on Wednesday. Instead, she ended up standing off to the side as the president signed executive orders calling...

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), who previously claimed that non-citizens weren’t voting in her state, found that there were "15 credible" instances of non-citizens voting in Michigan in the 2024 November general election. Meanwhile, both the Michigan state legislature and the federal government are seeking to require proof of citizenship for voter registration, which Benson opposes. Benson has repeatedly downplayed the problem of non-citizens voting in elections, even after more were found to have voted in the 2024 general election than previously assumed. Regardless of non-citizens voting, Benson claims that requiring citizenship proof to register to vote is...

Rashida Tlaib and Wisam Rafeedie to speak at PACC's 7th Annual Conference: (photo credit: PACC, screenshot) Rafeedie, who ran a clandestine publishing house for the PFLP during the 1980s, also appeared at the same conference as Tlaib in May.

Michigan union workers are hailing President Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign-made cars, telling a crowd in the Rose Garden on Wednesday evening that the president’s economic nationalist agenda will revitalize communities gutted from decades of free trade policies.During the speech, Trump brought up a man named Brian — a leader in the United Auto Workers (UAW) — who said the 25 percent tariffs on all foreign-made cars will drive an economic boom in areas like Macomb County, Michigan, and save American industry.“I grew up just north of Detroit, Michigan in Macomb County — known as the home of the Reagan...

Aren't these two lines by Amin Realty contradictory? "Belal Qureshi is not, and has not been, an employee of Amin Realty." [...] "so to see people jump the gun and attack Amin Realty without checking whether Belal even works here anymore ..." https://www.facebook.com/samamin.realestate/posts/it-has-come-to-our-attention-that-a-former-independent-contractor-belal-qureshi-/1478427023543248/Which is it?

The Hamtramck clerk alleged pervasive ballot trafficking in the city’s elections. Meanwhile, Michigan’s AG met with a fraud suspect. Voter fraud has been taking place in the Detroit-area suburb of Hamtramck “for years,” potentially affecting “hundreds of ballots,” the city clerk told The Federalist. She wrote Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel weeks ago imploring action, but heard “nothing” in response. “That’s the only thing I can do, since there’s nobody else that helps me put a stop to them breaking the law,” Hamtramck City Clerk Rana Faraj told The Federalist. “It’s been ongoing for years, and nobody does anything about...

A newly surfaced video captures Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and other prominent Democrats in an unguarded moment, discussing their plans to protest President Donald Trump. The footage, which has sparked controversy, shows Dingell and her colleagues candidly strategizing about disrupting Trump’s appearances, revealing a level of animosity that many voters might find unsettling. [snip] “We need to make sure it’s in every one of those damn conservative, wherever they’re communicating, and we have to be the voices that are smart, targeted and effective, and fighting back. And the way we do it. We litigate. We legislate,” Dingell said. “We...

In a shocking display of moral depravity and twisted logic, a convicted pedophile from Michigan attempted to use bizarre and disturbing arguments to defend himself in court. The case highlights the dangers of allowing perverse ideologies to infiltrate our legal system and underscores the urgent need for a return to traditional values and common sense. Joseph Gobrick, a 45-year-old man from Michigan, was found guilty of possessing pornographic images of children on his computer. Instead of accepting the consequences of his actions, Gobrick resorted to a series of absurd and offensive defenses in an attempt to avoid punishment. During his...