Free Republic

Lachrymose tales of battered women abound when representatives of abuse shelters come calling, hat in hand, for taxpayer money. But what is the truth of the matter — are abuse shelters really brimming with hapless victims trying to break free of the cycle of violence? The answer to that question is a surprising "No." In the great majority of cases, women at abuse shelters have suffered no physical injury or harm. A former worker at the YWCA Emergency Shelter in Enid, Okla. reveals, "In all the time that I volunteered there, I saw one woman who showed signs of physical...

Rosie's Place is a worthwhile shelter for abused women in Boston Mass.Each year they have a a fund raiser featuring a female comic. This year they selected Sandra Bernhard who as you probably know wished that Sarah Palin would be gang raped by black men.After Reese Hopkins who is the only Republican Black man in Massachusetts exposed this on his radio show (www.wrko.com and then listen live from 10 til noon)He was called by Emily Rooney (Daughter of Andy Rooney) and also by the Woman in charge of the fund raiser.Neither of these self-confessed super geniuses had been aware of...

Look at the group of teachers and adults smiling in the background. No wonder homeschooling is so prevalent. There's no chance those kids have any idea of what they are singing about! My first response was Hitler youth.

LUSBY, Md. — Police say they have found the bodies of two children in a home freezer. Calvert County authorities say they discovered the bodies Saturday while they were investigating a report of an injured child in Lusby, about 50 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. Police say a 43-year-old woman who says the girls were her adopted daughters has been arrested. Renee Bowman told deputies that the remains had been frozen since at least February....

Dominance — Abusive individuals need to feel in charge of the relationship. They will make decisions for you and the family, tell you what to do, and expect you to obey without question. Your abuser may treat you like a servant, child, or even as his possession. Humiliation — An abuser will do everything he can to make you feel bad about yourself, or defective in some way. After all, if you believe you're worthless and that no one else will want you, you're less likely to leave. Insults, name-calling, shaming, and public put-downs are all weapons of abuse designed...

Sacramento, CA -- Details have emerged from documents in a California appeals court case that a Planned Parenthood abortion business referred for an abortion on a sexually-abused teenager without telling authorities about the abuse. The case prompts pro-life advocates to say parental notification is needed. According to court documents, a Santa Clara County sexual predator impregnated his 13-year-old stepdaughter and forced her to have a late-term abortion.

Sen. Joe Biden's son, Delaware Attorney General Joe Biden, III, made a big splash last June from afar when his office interrupted a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. in order to execute an arrest warrant against Larry Sinclair issued months earlier through a grand jury sealed indictment. As Sinclair was wrapping up his press conference where he laid out sex and drug allegations against Sen. Barack Obama, D.C. police, acting on an extradition order obtained by AG Biden, handcuffed Sinclair and took him into custody. He was held in a D.C. jail for days before...

DAYTON, Ohio - A mother intentionally put her month-old daughter in a microwave oven and cooked the child to death after a fight with her boyfriend, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT Defendant China Arnold and her boyfriend had argued over whether he was the biological father, Assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Daniel Brandt said during closing arguments in the woman's retrial. The argument got so heated that Arnold bit her boyfriend's lip and he slapped her, Brandt said. Arnold, 28, of Dayton, is accused of killing her infant daughter Paris Talley in 2005. She could face the death penalty if...

DENVER -- Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel. Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he was attempting to take pictures of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel. Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

PARKERSBURG, W. Va. (Aug. 24, 2008) - One thousand dogs saved from a Parkersburg, W. Va. puppy mill are now on their way to better lives thanks to the diligent efforts of local authorities and local and national humane organizations. "It is extremely gratifying to know that our efforts will bring comfort and hope to 1,000 animals that spent their whole lives in darkness and despair," said Maryann Hollis, executive director of the Humane Society of Parkersburg. "But we would not have been able to save all of these dogs without the help of United Animal Nations, Best Friends Animal...

Sen. Biden’s VAWA Cover-Up 2008-08-25 at 2:30 pm · Amidst the hoopla surrounding Sen. Joseph Biden’s ascendancy to the right hand of Barack Obama, something was curiously missing. Over the last 15 years, Biden has repeatedly bragged to his friends and colleagues, “What I’m most proud of in my entire career is the Violence Against Women Act.” So why no mention of his legislative pride-and-joy amidst the flurry of text messages, press releases, and staged public appearances? The answer is, VAWA has become something of an embarrassment to the good senator. The Violence Against Women Act and related laws extract...

OMAHA, Neb. - Nebraska's new "safe-haven" law allowing parents to abandon unwanted children at hospitals with no questions asked is unique in a significant way: It goes beyond babies and potentially permits the abandonment of anyone under 19. While lawmakers may not have intended it, the month-old law raises the possibility that frustrated parents could drop off misbehaving teens or even severely disabled older children with impunity. "Whether the kid is disabled or unruly or just being a hormonal teenager, the state is saying: 'Hey, we have a really easy option for you,'" said Adam Pertman, executive director of a...

Two McCain offices evacuated after letter threat Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:45pm EDT By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - Two offices of John McCain's U.S. presidential campaign, in Colorado and New Hampshire, were evacuated on Thursday, and several staffers were hospitalized, after threatening or suspicious envelopes arrived in the mail, one with an unidentified white powder. The first parcel, described as containing an unspecified threat and a powdery white substance, was opened by a staff member at the campaign's Centennial, Colorado, office, near Denver, at about 3 p.m. local time, U.S. Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley said.

New video feature will zero in on the issues and events - an online video series to keep you up to date on the election. Host Stuart Shepard gets insights on the presidential race from Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus Action. Family advocates from across the nation will appear in upcoming episodes. "This is a challenging year for Christian conservatives to sort through where the leading candidates stand on pro-family issues," Shepard said. "We'll cut through the hype and the campaign ads and shine a light on how they view the sanctity of...

Two off-duty female cops yelled, "We are the police!" - and then pistol-whipped a Bronx man in what authorities call a case of road rage. NYPD Officers Michelle Anglin, 37, and Koleen Robinson, 24, were charged with assault, gang assault and criminal possession of a weapon for the Williamsbridge beatdown. It took 25 staples to close the gash in Marlon Smith's head, authorities said. Smith, 35, had pulled up alongside Robinson's black Suburban with his driver's side car door wide open as the two cars sat near E. 218th St. and White Plains Road at 5p.m. Friday. "Close the door,...

Hey girls, want to get skanky? Well, sashay down to your local abuse shelter and get buzzed! No, you don't have to be a real victim of domestic violence. All you need is a convincing story. Last year Hollie Cephas of Monticello, Ark. arrived on the doorstep of the Options shelter to recount her tale of woe: Her husband had beaten her to the point of having two miscarriages, he hid her insulin, and once he even called her a "fat pig." The intake worker at Options had been taught to "always believe the victim," so of course she was...

Joe Francis, the founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series and CEO of Mantra Films, filed a fraud lawsuit late Thursday against Michael Barrett, the former Mantra Films corporate accountant, in the Santa Monica division of Los Angeles Superior Court. The lawsuit alleges that Barrett, also a certified public accountant, failed his fundamental duties and tasks to Francis as the corporate accountant for Francis. According to the suit, Barrett knew there were mistakes in tax returns, returns he knew were based on his accounting ledgers he prepared, created and vouched for. Barrett never disclosed these mistakes to his client...

Marriage and Domestic Violence by: Audra Taylor, July 28, 2008 The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center and the Center on Children and Families gathered last Friday, July 18, to hold a discussion addressing how domestic violence and marriage programs are working together in a common direction and toward common goals. The audience was also given the opportunity to view a segment from Something My Father Would Do, a documentary of interviews with men who experienced and witnessed abusive behavior from their fathers during childhood. Juan Carlos Areán, a Senior Program director for children’s programs at the Family Violence Prevention Fund,...

Customers shopping for clothes at the Charli boutique watched in amazement when two uniformed men marched in and threatened staff with criminal prosecution. Their crime? Putting out rubbish in the wrong-coloured bin bags. Council officers announced that the shop in Muswell Hill, North London, would be fined £300 after using black bags because they had run out of the grey version issued by the local authority. The designer store had been waiting since July 1 for a delivery of new bags, but by the 17th staff decided they would have to put their rotting rubbish out in four standard black...

With scant weeks to go before the curtain rises on the $41 million Democratic National Convention in Denver, planners find themselves millions in the hole. It's not difficult to see why. Renovating the convention hall at the Pepsi Center already has cost $6 million more than they budgeted, and the work is far from done. In renting offices, the party took top-shelf space in downtown Denver at $100,000 a month, only to discover it needed only half the space, and then filled the offices with rented furniture costing $50,000 a month. A small fortune was spent to make this a...

HARRISBURG -- As the pivotal 2006 legislative election season began, top Democratic House aides, using state resources, undertook a wide-ranging opposition research campaign into both Democratic and Republican office seekers, e-mails show. The project was spearheaded by Eric Webb, director of the Democratic Office of Member Services, who, on Jan. 31, sent e-mails to state employees advising them to begin digging up information on 35 declared and potential candidates for the state House. "We are mainly looking for bad things: liens, bankruptcies, homicides ... you get the picture," Mr. Webb advised a dozen House colleagues via their state e-mail accounts....

This is brutalization by American interrogators? Please.

OF THE POWER AND PRIMACY OF THE POPE. Treatise Compiled by the Theologians Assembled at Smalcald, in the Year 1537. The Roman Pontiff claims for himself [in the first place] that by divine right he is [supreme] above all bishops and pastors [in all Christendom]. Secondly, he adds also that by divine right he has both swords, i.e., the authority also of bestowing kingdoms [enthroning and deposing kings, regulating secular dominions etc.]. And thirdly, he says that to believe this is necessary for salvation. And for these reasons the Roman bishop calls himself [and boasts that he is] the vicar...

A New York woman has filed a $10 million lawsuit stemming from her arrest at Washington's Reagan International Airport last year, an arrest she says was unwarranted and abusive. Police say 31-year-old Robin Kassner was obstructing justice. Security cameras captured the incident and the video has now been made public. Surveillance video from inside Reagan National Airport shows Robin Kassner standing with a TSA agent who sorts through her bag. Moments later, a Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority police officer steps in and pulls Kassner to the ground. Robin Kassner says "I was thrown across the room, into a metal chair...

Sniffer dogs were yesterday sent into a Second World War Nazi bunker as the Jersey sex abuse probe was widened. Six former children's home residents have told police they were taken to the underground complex then sexually assaulted by staff. One witness, Pamela, said children were taken there as a treat but returned silent and withdrawn. She said: "One child or a group would be told they were going out for the day as a reward for doing something. It always seemed strange. Staff would say it was a very exciting place. People I knew would be taken off there...

Michael was such a handsome fellow. I think he had the broadest, most sincere smile I have ever seen. I remember my teen friend working out at the “Y”. He was lifting weights. His T shirt was off. He looked down at his slender teen arms and complained, “They’re so skinny. I’ve got to get some muscle.” What he did not realize is that the arms were not skinny; they were trim, perfect. I thought, “Beauty is wasted on the young, for sure.” At school I helped him with his English — how to construct a paragraph that made sense....

Durham, North Carolina - Police filed more charges Tuesday against a Durham accused of beating and raping people as part of a satanic cult. Joseph Craig, 25, was charged with two counts of second-degree kidnapping and one count of second-degree forcible sexual offense. His wife, Joy Johnson, 30, was charged with felony aiding and abetting. The couple was arrested last week after a man and a woman told police they were beaten, shackled to beds, kept in dog cages and starved inside a home on Albany Street. Assistant Durham County District Attorney Mark McCullough said during a Monday bond hearing...

Democrat State Rep. Mark DeSimone was arrested outside his home after police found evidence that his wife had been assaulted.

WICHITA FALLS, Texas — An Air Force colonel was sentenced to nine years in prison yesterday and kicked out of the military for assaulting a woman, misusing his government travel card, and other crimes at Sheppard Air Force Base. Colonel Samuel Lofton III faced 140 years in prison after being convicted of 34 counts, including indecent assault, larceny, being absent without leave, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The 49-year-old former training commander "systematically abused his power, position, and authority to the detriment of the Air Force and to the detriment of those around him," a prosecutor, Captain...

Americans hate child molesters. Right? We mock them when they’re ensnared by Chris Hanson on To Catch a Predator. We watch Bill O’Reilly and Nancy Grace scream with outrage when they’re let out of jail and we howl with (understandable) anger about pedophile priests. In a culture in which just about any crime, short of murder, can be forgiven if enough time passes, child molestation appears to be one of the few crimes that most people just plain can’t let slide. So why is R. Kelly still a huge star? And why do so many in America clamor for the...

The domestic violence industry is reeling from a recent series of high-profile scandals, leaving abuse workers to wonder how things could have possibly gone so wrong. First the Sex. Recently a woman described her stay at an abuse shelter. In shocking detail, she recounts how threats and bullying had become commonplace among the shelter residents. Once a resident punched her forearm, screaming at her, "bitch!" One night another woman assaulted her, injuring her back and forcing her to seek medical attention. The woman also recounted lesbian advances by a shelter employee. "If you become her girlfriend, you will be treated...

Saturday, June 07, 2008 Who in the hell is behind $5 gas? John Hinderaker explains: For several decades, the Democratic Party has pursued policies designed to drive up the cost of petroleum, and therefore gas at the pump. Remarkably, the Democrats don't seem to have taken much of a political hit from the current spike in gas prices. Probably that's because most people don't realize how different the two parties' energy policies have been.

...Detailed in the report were incidents of UN representatives denying food aid unless children granted sexual favors; exchanging food, money, cell phones, and even soap for sex; reports of children being physically forced to have sex (in the US we call that rape); and reports of children forced to participate in acts of child pornography...

Imagine that your government forced you to have only one child – under penalty of sterilization, beatings, and/or stiff fines. Imagine further that your one child is crushed to death during an earthquake because that same government allowed your child’s school to be built with shoddy building materials and in violation of numerous building codes.

A homosexual foster couple were left free to sexually abuse vulnerable boys in their care because social workers feared being accused of discrimination if they investigated complaints, an inquiry concluded yesterday.Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey were one of the first homosexual couples in the country to be officially approved as foster parents.They looked after 18 children in only 15 months.Ian Wathey (left) and Craig Faunch were jailed last year for sexually abusing young boys

In recent years, our society has begun to better understand the widespread problem of child sexual abuse. Conservative studies indicate that one out of three girls and one out of seven boys will be sexually abused before reaching 18 years of age, regardless of religious or socio-economic demographic. Law enforcement sources estimate nearly 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse are living in America today. Sexual abuse is not limited to any racial, ethnic, or socio-economic class. It is no respecter of any religious denomination or creed. Sexual abuse can happen anywhere. Parents allow their children to participate in ministry...

Schools Superintendent David L. Brewer's is coming under criticism from prosecutors for sending two high school administrators back to work after they were criminally charged with failing to report a student's sexual abuse claims. David Demerjian, head of the Los Angeles district attorney's Public Integrity Division, told the Los Angeles Times that it's "very unusual" for public officials accused of a crime to be allowed to return to their jobs -- particularly when they deal with children. "We prosecute a lot of public employees, and they are usually placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the trial," he said....

Cesar Mojica Carmona could be eligible for parole in about 30 years. Friday, May 09, 2008 SAN MARCOS — Cesar Mojica Carmona took a deep breath and swallowed hard Thursday morning as he heard the sentence a Hays County jury had given him: fourteen concurrent life sentences and a $140,000 fine for what officials say was the worst case of child abuse in county history. Mojica Carmona, 24, was convicted last week on 14 counts of injury to a child for starving, biting and otherwise abusing his three children. Hewill be eligible for parole after about 30 years. Mojica Carmona...

About POGO's Contractor Misconduct Database The government awards contracts to companies with histories of misconduct such as contract fraud and environmental, ethics, and labor violations. In the absence of a centralized federal database listing instances of misconduct, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is providing such data. We believe that it will lead to improved contracting decisions and public access to information about how the government spends hundreds of billions of taxpayer money each year on goods and services. Top 50 Contractors Contractor Federal Contract $ (FY2005) Instances of Misconduct (Since 1995) Misconduct $ (Since 1995) 1. Lockheed Martin $24944.6m...

We all know of people who make strange choices, but what about those who make self-defeating choices over and over and over again, so magnetized are they by spouses (and others) who are bad for them? The woman who marries a drunk, then a gambler, then a philanderer – the man who marries a gold digger, then a nag, then an iceberg. Time after time, this type ends up with a variation on an off-note theme, while friends and colleagues shake their heads and remark, “But he’s so smart…she’s so experienced.” That seems to be the universal reaction to last...

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) — A former Dartmouth College teacher and medical school researcher sent e-mails to some of her former students saying she plans to sue them because they "harassed, compromised, abused or discriminated against" her. Priya Venkatesan, 39, who received her bachelor's degree from Dartmouth in 1990, last week e-mailed the former students in her Science, Technology and Society course with the news that she is pursuing a federal civil-rights lawsuit against some of them. Venkatesan, now at Northwestern University, said in an interview with the Valley News that she is still searching for a lawyer to take her...

May I ask a question? What the heck is going on in Texas with the kids caught up in the polygamy ranch disaster? Look, I am not a fan of polygamy. For one thing, it's all any man can do keeping up with one wife. For another, it's against the law in this country. But the polygamists that have been in the news have been operating for decades. The authorities knew about it, and them. They didn't do a thing about it for all those years! Then, on a totally unsubstantiated telephone call about sex abuse - which apparently did...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — As children from the Fundamentalist LDS Church settled into new foster homes this weekend, the whereabouts of two young boys remains uncertain. Child welfare workers in Texas say they're not worried. But the mother of the boys and attorneys representing the mothers are not sure whether they should be or not. "We just don't know where they are," Cynthia Martinez told the Deseret News Saturday. Martinez, the communications director for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents 48 FLDS mothers, said they had information on where the boys were supposed to be taken but can't confirm anything...

Ed Firmage's bold assertion ("Raid upon FLDS compound is an atrocity," Tribune, Opinion, April 21) that Texas officials are violating the FLDS adults' human rights demands a response. In 2002 while I was assisting New York University's international law professor, Donna Sullivan, she and I identified the following human rights violations related to polygamy: the right to an education, the right to mobility, the right to not be molested, the right to equal protection and the right to choose a spouse. The perpetrators of these violations are the adult male FLDS members and leadership, not Texas officials protecting children! Polygamy...

Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad was regularly whipped with hose pipes and electrical cords and beaten with hammers and sticks by family members during a brutal childhood, according to lawyers trying to save Muhammad from the death penalty. The lawyers argued in a federal court petition filed this week that the jurors who sent Muhammad to death row for the 2002 sniper spree were improperly barred from hearing most of the evidence of the harsh life Muhammad faced as a child. Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo , were convicted in 2003 of a random killing spree that...

Bill would banish teachers who abuseBy Steven K. Paulson, Associated Press Friday, April 18, 2008 With no debate and no dissent, the Colorado House gave initial approval Friday to a bill that would require teachers convicted of child abuse or unlawful sexual behavior to agree never to teach again anywhere in this country. One lawmaker read a long list of accusations against teachers in Colorado for assaulting children, then noted those cases occurred in just one month. **SNIP** She said school districts do background checks when teachers are hired, but the state currently has no way to determine whether teachers...

Washington DC, Apr 17, 2008 / 07:36 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI has now raised the topic of the sex abuse scandal three times in the last two days, and on Thursday afternoon, he held a private meetings with a group of sex abuse victims. The director of the Vatican’s Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, told the Associated Press that Pope Benedict and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, “met with a group of five or six victims for about 25 minutes in the chapel of the papal embassy, offering them encouragement and hope.” According to Lombardi, the Holy Father told the...

Pope Benedict XVI chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fueled the church's child sex abuse scandal, ahead of an open-air mass before tens of thousands here Thursday. Gates opened at Washington's new sports stadium before dawn so that an expected 48,000 people could trickle through stringent security measures to attend the mass at 10:00 am (1400 GMT). Benedict received a rapturous White House welcome Wednesday and met privately with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, before addressing the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church in a speech to US Catholic bishops. Thousands...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Three victims of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the RC Church described an emotional, frank and ultimately hope-filled meeting with Pope Benedict on Thursday. They were part of a small group of people abused by clergy who were asked to share their stories with the pope in a Washington chapel. "They prayed with the Holy Father, who afterwards listened to their personal accounts and offered them words of encouragement and hope," said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a papal spokesman. The exchanges were frank and unscripted, according to some of the victims. "I told him that he...

"The children reported that if the prophet heard from the Heavenly Father that they were to marry at any age, they were to do that,” Voss stated.