Free Republic

Atilis Gym co-owner Ian Smith has made a name for himself for standing up to New Jersey’s COVID-19 restrictions on businesses, despite Governor Phil Murphy’s repeated attempts to shut him down through citations, fines, arrests, having their business license stripped, and their doors locked and barricaded. This week, Murphy escalated the fight. “As of this morning, without warning, and without permission, and in the middle of litigation, Governor Murphy took it upon himself to empty our bank account entirely, to the tune of $165,000,” explained Smith on a video posted to social media. He said it still wouldn’t stop him....

A New Jersey congresswoman accused some lawmakers of leading groups around the Capitol for “reconnaissance” a day before the riot carried out by a pro-Trump mob. New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill said in a Tuesday night Facebook live address to her constituents that she witnessed the alleged exploratory tours. The unidentified members of Congress “had groups coming through the Capitol” in “a reconnaissance for the next day,” Sherrill said. In the over 13-minute video, Sherrill said she intends to see those lawmakers “are held accountable, and if necessary, ensure that they don’t serve in Congress.”

The Trump administration will place Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism on Monday, according to two senior State Department officials, reversing an Obama-era decision and making it harder for President-elect Joe Biden to quickly revive diplomatic ties with Havana.Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is expected to indicate he’s designating Cuba because the country continues to harbor American fugitives including Joanne Chesimard, convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973, and refuses a Colombian extradition request for National Liberation Army members linked to a 2019 bombing that killed 22.Cuba joins only Syria, Iran and North...

KAPALUA, Hawaii (AP) — The PGA of America cut ties to President Donald Trump when it voted Sunday to take the PGA Championship event away from his New Jersey golf course next year. The vote comes four days after the Trump-fueled riot at the nation’s Capitol as Congress was certifying the election victory of President-elect Joe Biden. This is the second time in just over five years the PGA of America removed one of its events from a Trump course. PGA President Jim Richerson says the board voted to exercise its right to “terminate the agreement” with Trump National in...

The Professional Golfers’ Association has decided to move forward with a plan to strip the Trump National Golf Course at Bedminster of its 2022 PGA Championship. “The odds that ’22’s PGA Championship will happen as scheduled in New Jersey are about as good as the chances of you or I winning it,” Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch wrote on Saturday. “Moving its major from Trump National has been debated internally at the PGA for more than two years, but executives have been reluctant to antagonize a famously vindictive man who controls the Internal Revenue Service. Such concerns melt away in 10 days,...

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie denounced President Donald Trump on Thursday, accusing him of inciting his supporters to storm Capitol Hill. “That is something that no president of the United States should ever do, and I am just absolutely sickened by what I saw today,” Christie said.

A New Jersey man who works as vice president of facilities for Columbia University has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a girl under the age of 13 in Bergen County, officials said. Marcelo Velez, 56, of Woodcliff Lake, was arrested Monday and faces charges of aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said in a statement Tuesday. Woodcliff Lake police were notified Sunday that Velez allegedly engaged in sexual acts with a girl less than 13 years old at a home on Saturday morning, the prosecutor’s office said. The girl...

Morgan Freeman picked up his bullhorn and baseball bat to star in the 1989 Warner Bros. movie. Joe Clark, the uncompromising New Jersey high school principal who employed a bullhorn and baseball bat to round his students into shape en route to becoming the subject of the inspirational Morgan Freeman film Lean on Me, has died. He was 82. Clark died Tuesday after a long illness at his home in Gainesville, Florida, his family announced. Soon after taking over as head of Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey, Clark expelled 300 students for fighting, vandalism, abusing teachers and drug...

Two women were arrested for hosting more than 200 people at an illegal “makeshift bar” in New Jersey over the weekend, Newark authorities said. The state’s department of public safety said police officers responded to calls at 6 Libella Court in Newark at approximately 12 a.m. on Sunday. Hundreds of patrons were seen drinking, eating, and illegally gambling at the warehouse party, according to police.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) urged residents on Monday to refrain from ringing in the new year with individuals outside of their household, pressing New Jerseyans to reduce celebrations and strictly adhere to coronavirus protocols, including masking up and practicing social distancing. “IMPORTANT: This New Year’s Eve, we urge you to keep to a small gathering of only your immediate household,” Murphy began, stating that the new year should begin with residents “staying vigilant” regarding the Chinese coronavirus by practicing social distancing, masking up, and handwashing:

How do we prevent child abuse? First, we have to stop racism. That message has lately invaded the child-welfare system. The triumph of today’s fashionable ideological nonsense in this particular field carries exceptionally high costs — and abused kids will pay them. Witness a recent educational offering from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, whose members can now earn a certificate in “Systemic Racism in Child Welfare.” Classes are offered as part of “APSAC’s commitment to work ­toward ending racism and implicit bias in the field of child maltreatment.” A class on “Hip Hop as Prevention and...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., lambasted governors for locking down their states during the coronavirus pandemic. "You know, nobody ever intended that governors would be sort of czars or dictators in charge of the economy ... Governors around the country have imposed restrictions to varying degrees during the pandemic. In Paul's home state, Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear has implemented a mask mandate, limited private gathering sizes, and set minimal capacity for indoor small businesses such as gyms . .. New York Democrat Gov. Mario Cuomo ordered restaurants to again stop indoor dining in mid-December. California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday...

New Jersey's tyrannical Attorney General, Gurbir Grewal, is adding to his dubious list of anti-Second Amendment activism. On 15 December 2020, Smith & Wesson sued Grewal, asking for relief, for using his office to violate the First Amendment, Second Amendment, as well as the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment protections of the U.S. Constitution. Defense Distributed won a significant victory in September of 2020, with the Fifth Circuit agreeing Defense Distributed could sue AG Grewal in Texas. The case is ongoing and alleges Grewal violated Defense Distributed's First Amendment rights.The Smith & Wesson lawsuit is about a subpoena issued on...

Democrat leaders like Governors Gavin Newsom, Andrew CVuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, and J.B. Pritzker, Mayors Lauri Lightfoot and London Breed, and now Mecklenburg (Charlotte), North Carolina County Executive Dena Diorio, have all exposed themselves as outright hypocrites and elitists by telling ordinary people to obey restrictions on their personal freedoms while flaunting those same limitations themselves. It is as if some madness has gripped Democrat elected officials, compelling them to flaunt their contempt for those they are supposed to lead and their belief that they alone are capable of making rational decisions about which risks to take, while the ignorant sheep...

Here, life has felt incredibly normal. It's also revealed how abnormal the lifestyle I followed in Virginia really was.OCALA, Fla. — Last Sunday I plopped a steaming hashbrown casserole and a bowl of freshly sliced oranges down on one of a row of endless folding tables covered in those flimsy plastic tablecloths you get at the dollar store. The casseroles were outnumbered only by the pans of homemade cinnamon rolls, and the fruit section was meager: it was a good Southern Baptist potluck. Church ladies buzzed around, removing tin foil from tin pans and putting serving spoons in each dish,...

Former Gov. Chris Christie isn’t ready to put his presidential hopes to rest. He declined to rule out another run for the highest office in the country on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Monday. “I would not rule it out,” Christie said when asked if he would rule out running for the presidency in 2024 if outgoing President Donald Trump chose to seek another term in 2024. Christie’s 2016 presidential bid helped erode his already faltering approval ratings in New Jersey towards the end of his second term as the head of the Garden State. He considered a bid in 2012...

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) blocked a bill that would prevent data brokers from selling or otherwise trading in the personal identifying information of federal judges spurred by the attempted assassination of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas. Rand sought to amend the bill — dubbed Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act after Salas’s son, who was slain during the attack — to include similar protections for members of Congress. Mark Anderl, Salas’s husband, was wounded in the attack but has since recovered. “I really think that this is important that we protect addresses for our judges, but it’s...

Both cases contested attendance limits placed on religious institutions that were not equally applied to secular ones, with the latter case also arguing that New Jersey’s mask mandate was applied more strictly to religious gatherings than secular establishments. December 15, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The United States Supreme Court reversed a pair of lower court rulings that sided with COVID-19 restrictions over the religious liberty claims of churches on Tuesday, ordering the courts to reconsider the cases in light of its decision last month against similar health measures New York attempted to impose on religious institutions. SCOTUSblog reports that the orders...

The mass exodus from New York City amid the COVID-19 crisis has cost $34 billion in lost income, according to a new study released Tuesday. About 3.57 million people fled New York City between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7 this year — and they were replaced by some 3.5 million people earning lower average incomes, the findings from Unacast said. That means the Big Apple lost a net 70,000 people during the pandemic. ... Tribeca, population 20,000, took the biggest hit out of the three — with a net loss of 3,500 residents — equaling a net income loss of...

The governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey joined forces Monday, calling for the federal government to pass a COVID-19 relief package that contains state and local aid to give millions of Americans the help they need during this second surge of the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf made the case in a virtual press conference Monday morning that state and local aid is a necessary component of any potential relief package and say it is Sen Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s obstruction of meaningful relief that is jeopardizing essential jobs and services and...