Free Republic

The Maryland couple accused of trying to sell secrets about US nuclear submarines — using a peanut butter sandwich to hide an SD memory card — were worried about their finances and were furious when Donald Trump was elected, friends and co-workers said. Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and his teacher wife, Diana, 45, were indicted in West Virginia on Tuesday on espionage charges. The couple is due back in federal court Wednesday for a detention hearing.

A judge wants to know why two men convicted of secondary roles in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have been transferred to federal prisons out of state. Paul Bellar and Joe Morrison are entitled to appeal their convictions following a trial on state charges in Jackson County in 2022. But their lawyers said it’s extremely hard to work with them hundreds of miles away. They said the distance interferes with a right to have access to Michigan courts. The transfer is "mind-boggling" and "appalling," said Michael Faraone, who represents Morrison. "Whatever we may say about this case,...

Joe Biden gave a special shoutout to his KKK buddy and Kleagle Robert Byrd during his CNN town hall tonight. Senator Robert Byrd was a top Democrat in the US Senate for decades. Joe Biden: “When I got to the United States Senate at a time when we had guys like Jim Eastland, and Strom Thurmond, and Robert F. Byrd and a whole range of people who were very, very, very, very, very, very conservative on race, to say the least.”

“The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy, and I’m not saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU…” Biden said. ... But who is the white supremacist? Unfortunately, for Joe Biden there is video of Old Joe delivering the eulogy and KKK Kleagle Senator Robert Byrd’s funeral. They were very close.

Last week, we covered how Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), a lesser known member of the Squad, is facing a primary challenger for her response to Hamas' attack on Israel earlier this month. As has been the case with other Squad members, her response to the terrorist attack certainly leaves something to be desired. Her response to the situation hasn't gotten much better, especially since she partook in a Squad press conference last Friday to demand a "ceasefire." Lee's response may not just affect her own race, but next year's Pennsylvania Senate race where vulnerable Democratic incumbent Bob Casey, Jr. is...

Former President Trump, who is wildly popular in West Virginia, on Wednesday endorsed Gov. Jim Justice in the state’s Senate Republican primary. Trump’s endorsement of Justice over Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), whom the former president endorsed in a House race last year, is a major political development in a key Senate battleground. The winner would challenge Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in the 2024 general election if Manchin decides to run for a fourth Senate term.

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) stated that in order to convince people to support Ukraine funding “Democrats have to come to grips that we have to close that border down.” And urged President Joe Biden to declare a national emergency the way former President Trump did “and shut it down tight.” Manchin also stated that “asylum basically should be put on hiatus for six months or so until we can get an immigration policy that works for our country and also gives people the chance to come here the right way to take care...

The great sartorial scandal over John Fetterman's signature hoodie-and-shorts has now come to a close after the Senate unanimously passed a resolution enacting a formal dress code. The resolution, brought forth by fellow Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, W. Va., passed without a formal vote by unanimous consent and clarified that the Senate floor would have a formal dress code. Hours earlier, Fetterman had already announced he would wear a suit and tie while speaking or presiding over the Senate floor. Fetterman, like others, could still wear his trademark garb and vote from the cloak room on the edge of the...

The shorts were short-lived. The Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a bill that requires members to follow a dress code that will include a coat, tie, and slacks for men, ending controversy triggered over Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman displaying his casual style on the floor. “Though we’ve never had an official dress code, the events over the past week have made us all feel as though formalizing one is the right path forward,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “I deeply appreciate Senator Fetterman working with me to come to an agreement that we all find acceptable,...

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) took another swing at embattled New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez (D) on Thursday, saying he’s not interested in Menendez’s explanation. “Unless Senator Menendez is coming today to resign, I am not interested in hearing his ‘explanation’ for gold bars stashed in a mattress,” Fetterman’s statement read. “We’re past the point of his tough talk and defiance, given the scope and scale of his alleged corruption.

A judge has issued a ruling confirming that the state of West Virginia can ban the dangerous abortion pill to protect women and save babies from abortions. The abortion drug manufacturer GenBioPro filed a lawsuit that challenges a ban on abortion drugs in West Virginia. GenBioPro, which manufactures the generic chemical abortion drug mifepristone, asked the court to render the state’s pro-life laws unconstitutional, claiming that Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to mandate nationwide access to dangerous chemical abortions—preempting West Virginia’s duly-enacted pro-life laws that protect the lives of the unborn and mothers. But a federal...

West Virginia University leaders have recommended discontinuing 32 of its majors at its Morgantown campus as the school is feverishly working to make up for a multi-million budget shortfall. The preliminary recommendations, released Friday afternoon, said 12 of those programs are undergraduate majors and 20 are graduate-level majors. Other programs were told to reduce their faculty size — 169 faculty jobs are on the line for cuts. Programs marked for discontinuation included: master’s and doctorate in Mathematics; master’s and doctorate in Higher Education Administration; master’s of Public Administration; master’s of fine arts in Creative Writing; and a bachelor’s in Recreation,...

(RNS) — Aaron Sligar, the former pastor of Living River Chapel, a Baptist church in tiny Sutton, West Virginia, believes in the mission of the Southern Baptist Convention and encouraged his congregation for years to give generously to the denomination, the United States’ largest Protestant body. “The whole thing about Southern Baptists is we are better together,” he said. “We can get more done working together.” But Sligar has had a harder time in recent weeks making his case. In June, the board of trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the SBC’s flagship schools, announced that its leaders...

Alderson Broaddus University (ABU), a Baptist school in West Virginia, finds itself in the middle of a significant financial crisis and is on the brink of shutting down. This week, during an emergency meeting of West Virginia’s Higher Education Policy Commission and other state officials, the decision was made to pull its authorization while also preparing an order that calls for the school to wind down operations. Having ABU’s authorization pulled means it will no longer be able to confer degrees after December 31 of this year. The order to wind down the operation of the school is a wide...

Conservatives were handed another win by the Supreme Court on Thursday when they reversed a ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing the Mountain Valley Pipeline to move forward with construction. At a time when energy independence is slipping from America’s fingers under the Biden-Harris regime, at least one Democrat is pleased by the decision. Senator Joe Manchin has fought to keep the pipeline going, including his spearheading of legislative efforts to improve it in the first place. The story isn’t just good news for Republicans fighting for improved domestic energy production. It also marks another point for...

The Supreme Court may soon weigh in on Mountain Valley Pipeline developers’ request to vacate a federal court’s order to halt construction on the project, which developers argue conflicts with a law Congress passed guaranteeing its completion. Developers of the natural gas pipeline filed an emergency application Friday with Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles petitions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the Supreme Court to allow the project to continue. The Fourth Circuit sided with environmental groups challenging the pipeline and temporarily halted the project last week, an order the developers argue “flew in the face” of...

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Virginia this week delivered a message to Congress, the White House and developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline: not so fast. Pennsylvania-based Equitrans Midstream’s roughly 300-mile pipeline, envisioned to bring shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica in Appalachia to markets in the Southeast, was fast-tracked as part of the Biden administration’s deal with Congress to suspend the debt limit in June. It’s also supported by Pennsylvania congressmen, including U.S. Reps. John Joyce, R-Blair, and Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, who joined U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., to introduce the legislation in May that helped...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will oppose Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su's nomination to the top job, he announced Thursday afternoon, striking a major blow to her confirmation chances. President Joe Biden nominated Su in February to replace former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, who left his post to lead the National Hockey League Players Association. Her nomination was met with heavy criticism from Senate Republicans and centrist Democrats alike, largely based on her time leading California's Labor and Workforce Development Agency during the pandemic. On Su's watch, the state fulfilled between $20 billion and $32 billion in fraudulent unemployment claims, and...

Motion for Court to suspend the injunction it issued: “By the State’s count, B.P.J. [male identifying as a girl] displaced over 100 different girls in competitive rankings this spring track-and-field season. Worse, B.P.J. denied two girls the chance to compete in conference championships. The displaced girls will never be able to recover those opportunities.” In early April 2023, wrote about efforts in West Virginia to keep high school boys who self-identified as girls out of female sports, A District Court Judge had denied an injunction against the law in a suit brought by “B.J.P.” (a male athlete who wanted to...

The 2024 battle for the Senate started with a bang earlier this year and has not let up, as candidates in top races continue to roll out their campaigns and incumbents scratch and claw to win reelection. Their efforts will determine who will control the upper chamber for the next two years. Democrats are trying to play defense in a number of red-leaning states to hold on to their one-seat majority, while Republicans fight recruiting battles in several states to give them the best shot at winning a majority.