Free Republic

Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock is under fire after sending out a homophobic tweet about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. In the tweet, Maddock calls Buttigieg, who is gay, a "weak little girl," and references his move to Michigan. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, moved to Traverse City with his husband, Chasten, who grew up in Traverse City. He also served in the U.S. Navy Reserve for eight years and was deployed to Afghanistan for seven months in 2014.

On Monday, November 2nd, President Donald J. Trump will deliver remarks at Make America Great Again Victory Rallies in Fayetteville, North Carolina at 11:30 AM EST, Scranton, Pennsylvania at 2:00 PM EST, Traverse City, Michigan at 5:00 PM EST, Kenosha, Wisconsin at 7:00 PM CST, and Grand Rapids, Michigan at 10:30 PM EST. The Make America Great Again Victory Rallies will feature remarks from President Donald J. Trump and Republican candidates.

KENT COUNTY, Mich. — President Donald Trump was scheduled to spend the final hours of the 2020 presidential election in Grand Rapids Monday night in a final push to win the battleground state of Michigan. Trump was expected to make two stops in Michigan on Monday: One in Traverse City, and one in Kent County at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. The president also held a rally in Grand Rapids on the night before the 2016 election. Trump has fondly spoken of the final swing of campaign events in 2016 as a reason why he won the state of...

Jill Biden is making two stops in Michigan Tuesday to campaign on behalf of her husband, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Biden is scheduled to tour a farm in Central Lake, a village in Antrim County, then attend a voter mobilization event in Traverse City. Biden will be joined by Chasten Buttigieg, a Traverse City native and husband of Democratic primary candidate Pete Buttigieg. The visits are meant to highlight the impact of climate change on farmers and encourage Michigan voters to their ballot early. Last week, bsentee ballots began being sent to the nearly 2.4 million Michigan voters who...

Though the past winter was the hottest on record, it was chilly enough on the East Coast to send seasonal sheets of ice creeping across the Great Lakes. Now that that ice has cleared with spring, Lake Michigan is clear enough that shipwrecks lying on the lake bottom can be seen from the air. The U.S. Coast Guard Air Station in Traverse City noted the crystal clear water conditions and the lost ships during a routine patrol. Last week, they posted a handful of pictures to their Facebook page. The images come from the area near Sleeping Bear Point known...

Each spring on Lake Michigan, if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to see shipwrecks due to the incredibly clear springtime waters. Every winter, ice forms on the Great Lakes. That ice is often thick enough that the people who live on their shores can not only go ice fishing, but even ride snow mobiles across their surfaces. At the coming of spring, the ice melts, leaving the waters of some of the lakes especially clear for a while until warmer weather creates algae blooms and other events that reduce the water’s clarity. In the early spring, the waters of Lake...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — What if alternative energy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? That’s the provocative question explored in the documentary Planet of the Humans, which is backed and promoted by filmmaker Michael Moore and directed by one of his longtime collaborators. It premiered last week at his Traverse City Film Festival.

68 years after disappearing during the Korean War, this soldier is finally home Jordan Travis, The Record-Eagle July 27, 2019 at 10:56 AM U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Leah Ferrante TRAVERSE CITY — At long last, U.S. Army Cpl. Charles Stanley Lawler is home. The former Traverse City resident's remains arrived at Cherry Capital Airport Thursday afternoon, 68 years after he disappeared in a Korean War battle. A parade of police vehicles and veterans on motorcycles rolled with the hearse, taking Lawler on his second-to-last trip to Covell Funeral Home where a military honor guard awaited. People came out to pay...

The 1969 GTX Convertible was found on an abandoned property near Traverse City, reportedly after the death of its owner, and it appears to have been sitting there for years. The red two-door is one of 362 like it that were built that year with a 440 V8 and automatic transmission, and it has just 20,269 miles on its odometer. No one has tried to start it, but the owner of Bingham Body and Towing, where it is currently located, told Fox News Autos that he knows a mechanic that worked on it about a decade ago and said it was...

Cecelia DeWitt, a member of the Coldwater High School track team in Michigan, has a few running goals she wants to complete before college: After her junior year, she had planned on running her first half marathon, which would prepare her to go the full 26.2 after her senior year. So she signed up for the Bayshore Half Marathon in Traverse City on May 25 to achieve the first part of it. Her dad, Joe, did the same, and helped her train in preparation for their big day. Everything seemed to go accordingly to plan on race day until the...

Law enforcement is investigating after someone threatened to blow up the Grand Traverse County Republican Headquarters. Deputies say it happened around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday at the GOP headquarters in Cherryland Mall. Employees say the suspect had a sign that said "Trump is Satan" and started going off on a rant about Republicans. When he was asked to leave, employees say he made a statement about blowing the place up and took off. Investigators brought in a bomb sniffing dog as a precautionary measure and deemed the place safe just before 5:00 p.m.

Sec'y of State GOVERNOR Republicans Patrick Colbeck, Canton Brian Calley, Portland Jim Hines, Saginaw Township Bill Schuette, Midland Democrats Gretchen Whitmer, East Lansing Abdul El-Sayed, Shelby Township Shri Thanedar, Ann Arbor Libertarian Bill Gelineau, Grand Rapids John Tatar, Livonia U.S. SENATOR John James, R- Farmington Hills Sandy Pensler, R-Grosse Pointe *Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing U.S. House of Representatives 1ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT *Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet Matthew Morgan, D-Traverse City 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT *Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland Rob Davidson, D-Spring Lake Nick Schiller, D-Grand Rapids 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT *Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township Joe Farrington, R-Lyons Cathy Albro, D-Middleville Fred Wooden, D-Grand Rapids, 4TH...

A homemade Donald Trump campaign sign, 36 feet in the air in Traverse City. Michael Witte put the sign up in his backyard about a month ago. This week, he received a letter from the city zoning administrator about it. 9&10’s Caroline Powers and photojournalist Harrison Light have more details on the purpose of the sign and how the city is responding. As we get closer to this year's presidential election many people are putting camp gain signs in their front yard, bumper stickers on their car, but one man is showing his support on whole new level. “Into January...

Research Casts New Light on History of North America Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students lends support to evidence the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, rather than crossing a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso’s research shows the Kankakee Sand Islands – a series of hundreds of small dunes in the Kankakee River area of Northwest Indiana and northeastern Illinois – were created 14,500 to 15,000 years ago and that the region could not have been covered by ice as previously thought. Newswise — Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his...

Underwater Archaeologists Find Possible Mastodon Carving On Lake Michigan Rock September 4, 2007 11:51 p.m. EST Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer Traverse City, MI (AHN) - Underwater archaeologists in Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay are speculating a boulder they found in a June ship wreck to be engraved with a prehistoric carvings. Mark Holley, a scientist with the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve Council, believes that the granite rock, which was found hidden at a depth of about 12 metres, has markings that resemble a mastodon. A mastodon is an elephant-like creature that once inhabited parts of North America....

In a surprisingly under-reported story from 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University College, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan. [Image: Standing stones beneath Lake Michigan? View larger]. If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post-Ice Age presence of both humans and mastodons in the upper midwest. [Image: The stones beneath Lake Michigan; view larger]. In a PDF assembled by...

The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan. According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years...

Land-ice Bridge, New Research Suggests -- Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research. Dr. Ron Janke began studying the origins of the Kankakee Sand Islands – a series of hundreds of small, moon-shaped dunes that stretch from the southern tips of Lake...

"I myself am going to defy your ban and will offer MY home in Traverse City, Michigan, to those very Syrian refugees you've decided to keep out." Filmmaker Michael Moore is speaking out about the Syrian refugee crisis. Moore, a Michigan resident, penned a letter that he posted on Facebook to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, opposing his announcement in regards to a ban on Syrian refugees in the state. In the letter Moore writes, "I myself am going to defy your ban and will offer MY home in Traverse City, Michigan, to those very Syrian refugees you've decided to keep...

Bernice Steadman was a member of the so-called "Mercury 13." NASA dropped the program, and it was 22 more years before a U.S. woman went to space. Robert Steadman says his wife died Wednesday in Traverse City.