Free Republic

After the long weekend, farmers will be able to start applying for some much needed financial relief. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump and USDA chief Sonny Perdue released the details of a previously announced $16-billion aid program for farmers and ranchers. Starting May 26, farmers will be able to apply for up to $250,000 in direct payments through the fund called the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). To qualify for the program, farmers must have suffered a price loss of at least 5 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and must have significant additional marketing costs. Farmers can sign up...

An immediate call to action from Oregon to defend a business draws hundreds..... President Trump talks "Reopening America" the Republican political strategy for 2020 it appears but first..... Rocket fire on a military complex at Baghdad's international airport this morning..... India has killed a leading Kashmiri rebel leader..... Here in the USA Patriot Prayer Group leader Joey Gibson urging a peaceful witness at 1 pm local time, 4 pm Eastern US time in Salem, Oregon where authorities threatened the owner of "Glamour Salon" with a 70-thousand dollar fine for re-opening her shop. Police today issued a written threat to arrest...

The supporters of the Second Amendment and the Antifa expected to be in Richmond, Virginia tomorrow with the Second Amendment groups protesting new laws and Antifa ready to act violently. As the FBI moved to arrest alleged Neo-Nazis headed for the rally in recent days, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and imposed a weapons ban..... World leaders are described as "fully committed" to a peaceful resolution of the Libyan conflict.... A mass rally in Hong Kong today by pro-democracy demonstrators..... "a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president" Part...

Imagine being told to do an assignment by your boss and instead of following orders or having a conversation about why you cannot complete the job, you simply stood up and turned your back on him. You would probably be fired, right? Well, not if you work for the federal government. Yesterday, a group of federal employees literally stood up and turned their backs on Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue after being told they would be relocated to Kansas. The Hill reports that Sec. Perdue "announced Thursday that two of the Department of Agriculture’s research agencies, the Economic Research Service...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is moving two agencies and roughly 700 federal employees out of Washington, D.C., to save money and improve the department’s service to taxpayers. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Thursday that the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) will be fully moved out of the nation’s capital by 2020, according to the USDA. A location hasn’t been picked yet.“It’s been our goal to make USDA the most effective, efficient, and customer-focused department in the entire federal government,” Perdue said in a statement. “In our Administration, we have looked critically at...

A Republican lawmaker wants answers from the Department of Agriculture about taxpayer-funded research experiments at a Maryland facility that have allegedly led to the deaths of hundreds of cats and kittens. Citing documents reviewed by his office, Michigan Republican Mike Bishop described a decades-old research project at the USDA's Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, in which hundreds of kittens are bred, fed meat that is infected with Toxoplasma, and later killed and discarded by "incineration." In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue dated Monday, Bishop wrote that he was "shocked to hear that the USDA, the very...

Congressional Republicans say they reached agreement on a final tax bill that will provide a new 20-percent deduction for pass-through income from farms and small businesses. The agreement, which the House and Senate are expected to take up early next week, also calls for doubling the estate tax exemption and will include key expensing provisions that farm groups sought to preserve and expand, lawmakers said. They said the agreement also would allow deduction of state and local taxes, including income and property taxes, up to $10,000, a concession to lawmakers in high-tax states that could also benefit farmers. Senate Agriculture...

The Trump administration is discontinuing a signature girls education initiative championed by former first lady Michelle Obama, according to officials. The "Let Girls Learn" program, which she and President Barack Obama started in 2015 to facilitate educational opportunities for adolescent girls in developing countries, will cease operation immediately, according to an internal document obtained by CNN. News of the program's end came the same day President Donald Trump's agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, was visiting an elementary school in suburban Virginia to announce changes to another initiative spotlighted by the former first lady, healthy school lunches. Perdue was set to unveil...

President Donald Trump intends to intensify enforcement of food safety regulations as a cudgel in international trade negotiations, according to leaked recordings of a what appears to be a phone conversation between Trump and Wilbur Ross, his nominee for Commerce Secretary. During the conversation, which was recorded in December, the then-president-elect also advocated a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on all foreign imports, an issue on which his administration has adopted numerous different positions and which Speaker Paul Ryan has flatly rejected. The proposals came during an apparent phone conversation that was captured on video and provided to Gizmodo via SecureDrop,...

With the Georgia Senate primary for the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss roughly two months away, the crowded field of Republican contenders are tripping over each other in an effort to differentiate themselves. Most observers expect the primary to push candidates to the right on issues as they try to solidify support among the party’s conservative base. But at least one candidate has taken a different route. On the campaign trail, Georgia businessman David Perdue, who was CEO of Dollar General and whose cousin Sonny Perdue was Governor of Georgia, is talking about — of all things...

The Atlanta schools cheating case is now in the hands of three local district attorneys, who must decide whether the scandal is also criminal. District attorneys in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties said they are reviewing the voluminous report by state investigators and will decide whether to seek indictments. Douglas County DA David McDade said Friday he expects it will take prosecutors a considerable amount of time to reach decisions. He noted that the GBI’s investigative file in the case amasses 120 volumes. As prosecutors consider their options, scores of current and former APS educators and administrators, some at the...

Pawlenty Snaps Up Former Gingrich Co-Chair June 9, 2011 5:49 P.M. By Katrina Trinko While there’s plenty of buzz over what Newt Gingrich’s team resigning means for Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty’s team has already added Gingrich’s former national co-chair, former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue. “Tim Pawlenty is a great man, he was a phenomenal governor, and he is the person I now believe stands the greatest chance of defeating President Obama. He is the only candidate who has laid out a real plan to grow the American economy, and his track record in Minnesota is proof he’s the right man...

"We can love all people while loving the law and expecting the law to be fulfilled and that's a tricky balance," Perdue said.

Gov. Sonny Perdue said Thursday he will appoint a “special attorney general” to challenge federal health care legislation signed into law this week by President Obama. Perdue made the announcement a day after state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democrat running for governor, told Perdue, a Republican, he would not pursue a lawsuit. “He’s refusing to do that and I can’t force him to do that,” Perdue said of Baker. Meanwhile, Georgia Democratic Party chairwoman Jane Kidd this morning sent Perdue a lengthy Open Records Act request, demanding copies of correspondence between his office and Republican organizations around the country....

This is my title. The original document title is too long. This is an FYI (SNIP) ATLANTA – Governor Sonny Perdue today requested Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker join colleagues from around the nation in reviewing the Constitutionality of the health care bill under consideration in Congress. At least seven Attorneys General have confirmed that they are looking at several special deals made by Senate leadership to buy the votes of wavering Senators.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is the subject of much chatter around the blogosphere for leading several hundred Georgia citizens in a public prayer for rain. Georgia has been in the midst of a drought this year, which is ruining agriculture crops and causing water shortages. So Mr. Perdue asked for divine intervention on Georgians' behalf. He and colleagues came together Tuesday to "pray for a storm." Sure enough, two days later, an unpredicted cloudburst dropped an inch of rain over the southeast. But the rain wasn't everybody's idea of a happy ending. The Atlanta Freethought Society staged a public protest...

ATLANTA --Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has a message for critics of the war in Iraq: "Keep your mouth shut." The Republican governor made the remark Friday during a talk-radio session at the state Capitol with Bill Bennett, former U.S. secretary of education. On his "Morning in America" show, broadcast on Atlanta radio station WGKA, Bennett noted Perdue has been mentioned as vice-presidential material in 2008. He asked if Perdue agreed with some who say Republican candidates should distance themselves from President Bush on the topic of Iraq. Perdue said no, then added: "We have everyone that wants to talk about...

ATLANTA - Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Mark Taylor kept up a relentless assault on Gov. Sonny Perdue's ethics on Monday as a new statewide poll showed the lieutenant governor continuing to trail the Republican incumbent with just a week to go until election day. Taylor alleged that Perdue broke the law when he failed to disclose his apparent conflict of interest in 2004 as the state weighed whether to purchase a wildlife preserve in Houston County near his longtime home. The Oaky Woods preserve borders more than 100 acres of land now owned by Perdue. Perdue did not disclose that property...

I find it disgusting to think of exempting taxes (school taxes and state taxes) for old people. Just because you don’t have kids in school does not mean that you don’t benefit from having a good school system. If the school system went to pot and started turning out more dropouts than graduates, you tax free fogies would be crying about the state of affairs and how it sure was better when you were younger. The Governor has a new item on his Sonny do list. Let the retired folks off the hook for state taxes. Bad idea. Let’s look...

Tuesday, August 1, 2006 Contact: Office of Communications 404-651-7774 Governor Perdue Commends Richard Jewell Governor asks Georgians to Remember Jewell as Hero ATLANTA, Ga. – Today, during the 10-year anniversary of the 1996 Olympic Games, Governor Sonny Perdue recognized Richard Jewell for his service to Atlanta and the state of Georgia for spotting a suspicious backpack in Centennial Olympic Park and moving people out of harm’s way prior to the bomb explosion. “The bottom line is this – Richard Jewell’s actions saved lives that day. He deserves to be remembered as a hero,” said Governor Sonny Perdue. “As we look...