Free Republic

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A man who says he was sexually abused by an instructor at St. John's Preparatory School in Collegeville has filed a lawsuit against the school, the religious order of monks that runs it, and his alleged abuser. The plaintiff is represented by St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson, who has pursued hundreds of lawsuits against alleged abusers and officials of the Catholic Church. The lawsuit accuses the monk of abusing the boy and his brother in the mid-1980s and accuses St. John's Abbey and the Order of St. Benedict of concealing a pattern of abuse by the...

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Vatican has failed in its attempt to maintain its immunity from liability lawsuits. Further court rulings next week will demonstrate how the Vatican will defend itself. Despite this unprecedented situation, Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's U.S. lawyer remains confident that he will prove that the Vatican was not responsible for the sex-abuse of its American Bishops. This is not only a victory from Jeffry Anderson who intends on holding the Vatican accountable for the abuses that took place. It should be easy to provide examples of how Bishops and Priests have often refused...

The last month has seen a blizzard of new sex abuse accusations against the Catholic Church from across the United States. Almost all of them--and the intense media attention they've garnered--can be traced to one man: a Minnesota lawyer named Jeff Anderson. Last week, an alleged victim of priest abuse in Wisconsin announced a lawsuit against the Vatican itself. Anderson is representing the alleged victim. A couple of days earlier, a Mexican man who alleged abuse by a priest years ago filed suit against Mexico's top Catholic cleric in a U.S. court. The plaintiff is another Anderson client. And throughout...

No, it's not a storyline on "Guiding Light" (RIP) -- but rather the latest chapter in the John Edwards mistress scandal. The guy who once claimed he was the father of the child born to Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, is now claiming Edwards is the real daddy (duh!) and that Edwards once promised Hunter he would marry her after his wife died (she's sick with cancer) -- this according to a book proposal obtained by the NY Times. Andrew Young, Edwards' former aide, claims Edwards told Hunter it would be a rooftop wedding and the Dave Matthews Band would make...

INDIANAPOLIS -- A popular, relatively new birth control pill is the subject of several television ads from attorneys that ask people to come forward if they have suffered side effects. The controversy involves Yaz, a contraceptive taken by mouth that has been on the market since 2006, 6News' Sarah Cornell reported. When it came out, the label listed very few side effects, and that's partially the reason law firms, including Ken Nunn, are pursuing legal action. Attorneys are actively gathering clients to sue Bayer, the manufacturer of Yaz, claiming that the company neglected to list side effects, such as blood...

Nationally known environmental law consultant Erin Brockovich says she plans to visit Roane County next week to talk with residents worried about the fallout from TVA’s Dec. 22 ash spill. “A lot of people don’t feel confident about what they’re being told,” she said Wednesday from her California home. “We’re going to share what we do know and what to anticipate. We’ll bring along experts and answer some of their questions.” Brockovich, a 48-year-old mother of three, has worked as a television host and describes herself as a self-taught authority on environmental issues. She worked as a law clerk in...

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

Ashland, Ky. (AP) -- Anti-tobacco lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs has reported to a federal prison in eastern Kentucky. . . .for conspiring to bribe a judge with $50,000.

Prominent attorney Brian Loncar was injured Thursday night when a fire engine collided with his Bentley in the Oak Lawn area, Dallas police said. Mr. Loncar, 47, was transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital. His condition was not immediately available. The accident happened shortly before 7 p.m. as a fire truck responding to an alarm headed northbound on Lemmon Avenue, police said. snip Dallas police Lt. Scott Bratcher said that the accident remains under investigation. But he said the accident will likely be ruled as Mr. Loncar's fault because he "failed to yield right of way to an emergency vehicle."

Oops! To cap off his four-year campaign to win Iowa's Democratic caucus Thursday night, John Edwards planned a 36-hour marathon bus tour through 15 of the crucial state's 99 counties with a whole series of policy announcements to garner publicity and caucus votes. But 12 hours into the political odyssey -- billed as Edwards' "Marathon for the Middle Class" -- his Main Street Express bus began making very disturbing noises in western Iowa. In darkness, the bus with the entire Edwards entourage pulled over at a service station and was abandoned. Oh, the awful symbolism for a political campaign struggling...

Bow, NH—No longer satisfied with having an upbeat tone, John Edwards is ready to draw blood on the campaign trail, flogging any opponent that gets in his way. During his campaign, he plans to punch harder, especially when addressing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, talk show radio host Rush Limbaugh, and big oil. "Hillary continues to defend a system that does not work, that is broken, that is rigged, and is corrupt," Edwards said. “And if you think I’m going to let an emasculating woman become President of the United States, then you’re out of your mind." Critics say that he...

BOW, N.H. (AP) -- Democrat John Edwards says his experience as a trial lawyer makes him the presidential contender best able to give voters hope — and to give the establishment grief. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, has focused his campaign on pledges to change a government system he says is rigged against most voters. "While you shop (for candidates), I hope you will think about two key things: Who can you trust to tell you the truth about what's wrong in Washington, and who can you trust to fight like hell to make it right?" Edwards said...

TITLE: "Health Care." LENGTH: 30 seconds. AIRING: Iowa. SCRIPT: John Edwards: "When I'm president I'm going to say to members of Congress and members of my administration, including my Cabinet: I'm glad that you have health care coverage and your family has health care coverage. But if you don't pass universal health care by July of 2009 — in six months — I'm going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you. There's no excuse for politicians in Washington having health care when you don't have health care. I'm John Edwards and I approve...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is getting the endorsement of two unions, the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America, on Labor Day. Edwards is scheduled to be in Pittsburgh, home of the Steelworkers' international headquarters, for a Monday rally and will accept the endorsements there. "The members of the Steelworkers Union and the Mine Workers union are some of the country's hardest-working, bravest, most courageous workers," Edwards said. "It is their tireless hard work which has helped build a stronger America that benefits all of us. I honor what they do every day." The former senator from...

Embarrassed presidential hopeful John Edwards promised yesterday to take millions of dollars of his own fortune out of a hedge fund tied to subprime lenders who foreclosed on victims of Hurricane Katrina. The populist candidate - who has denounced such lenders - invested $16 million of his $30 million in assets in Fortress Investment Group. The Wall Street Journal reported that 34 New Orleans homeowners struggling to overcome Katrina's aftermath faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress. Yesterday, the red-faced Democratic candidate vowed to remove from his portfolio any Fortress funds that have a stake in those lender units....

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is moving staff out of Nevada to focus on other early voting states, a reflection of the uncertainty about the prominence of the first Western contest. Two Edwards campaign officials said Wednesday that the Nevada staffers were being relocated to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. They would not disclose how many staffers were being moved, but characterized it as a handful. The Democratic National Committee gave Nevada a new early role in the presidential nominating process for next year, allowing it to schedule its caucus on Jan. 19, between Iowa and...

Aiming to capitalize on a sluggish response from his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, John Edwards is hammering home his opposition to a proposed $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia... the former senator of North Carolina attacked the Saudi arms deal at the outset of his speech to a $15-a-head lunchtime fundraiser at a San Francisco nightclub. A short time later, Mr. Edwards again skewered the proposed arms sale, though no journalist asked about it. "This is a bad idea for a lot of reasons, including creating an arms race in one of the most volatile regions in...

MyDD flags an intense minute and a half from John Edwards in Creston, Iowa, yesterday in which he heatedly tells an audience that the attention to trivia (I assume the reference here is to his haircuts) is "not an accident" and that "they want to shut me up" to silence his message about ending the war and universalizing health care. He warns, in the video segment posted by his campaign, that if we don't beat back these unnamed oligarchs, "They're going to control the media. They're going to control what's being said." He doesn't go into detail about who "they"...

Why does the elegant senator from North Carolina continue his run for the presidency? Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott reports: POOR John Edwards. He follows Barack Obama on the podium at a conference of mostly anti-war Democrats and it's like watching air whistle out of a balloon. Obama, a charismatic candidate for change in the mould of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, has just worked the crowd brilliantly. Then Edwards walks in, a little later than scheduled at the Take Back America conference, thanks to an impromptu grab-and-grip show from Obama. Cameras are being pocketed again and seats resumed for...

Edwards to announce poverty tour Can JRE pull off a JFK, or an RFK (asks Politico chief political writer Mike Allen, who is sharing guestblogging duties while Ben is on vacation)? John Edwards plans to announce Monday that he’ll take a break from fund-raising and campaigning in early-voting states next week for a three-day, eight-state, 12-city “Road to One America” tour aimed at calling attention to poverty in the deep South, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and the Rust Belt. The campaign points out that none of the states he’ll visit has an early 2008 primary, and says Edwards won’t be...