Free Republic

TOLEDO -- ...But for a group of World War II vets visiting the national memorial in Washington D.C., an all expense paid trip which is called an "Honor Flight," the shutdown was not stopping them from seeing the tribute that was inspired by them. "It just goes to show you why we won World War II," says Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio President Lee Armstrong. Many elderly veterans, some in wheelchairs, broke through the barriers set up around the memorial, as police, park service employees, and tourists looked on. "The Germans and the Japanese couldn't contain us. They weren't going...

Keith Kiyoshi Kakugawa is a 54 year old accused rapist, arrested last Sunday and booked into the Humboldt County Jail in California on suspicion of false imprisonment, sexual penetration by force, oral copulation by force and battery. He allegedly beat and raped a woman. Kakugawa live in Eureka, California, but he went to high school in Hawaii. Kakugawa was also class mate with another infamous former Hawaii resident, Barack Hussein Obama. The two were best friends in high school, where they both attended Panahou High School. Obama describes Kakugawa as being “like a brother” to him. The 54-year-old Kakugawa has...

Video Linky Here Purse snatcher got more than she bargained for....Happened in Grand Rapids...

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent was arrested Friday for conspiring to smuggle illegal aliens into the country.Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers arrested David Alexander Díaz-Torres in Orlando, Fla., according to the Justice Department.Díaz-Torres and five others were charged in a 13-count indictment for bringing, transporting, harboring, and shielding illegal aliens within the United States.According to a Justice Department press release, a group of Brazilian nationals were smuggled through the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.Díaz-Torres allegedly allowed the Brazilians through a TSA security checkpoint without questioning them.The group then flew to New York, Boston, and...

Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) is consulting with former prosecutors in the House and having statutes examined for ways for the House to indict administration officials in the IRS, Benghazi, reporter spying, NSA spying and other scandals in the Obama admnistration, because it's obvious that Eric Holder is not willing to punish offenders. Speaking during a radio interview on Wednesday, Marino said that he is investigating ways in which the House can file criminal and civil charges against members of the administration, "up to and including the president."

CNN) -- On Thursday, we will link arms with more than 100 women and claim the street outside the House of Representatives. We will not move until the House recognizes that women and children are at the heart of the immigration debate, and reform must treat them fairly. Women and children constitute three-quarters of all immigrants to the United States, but the debate about immigration reform -- which has stalled in the House -- has largely ignored the disproportionate burden they bear in a system that is failing. Immigrant women make outsize contributions to our families, communities and country. But...

African-American youth in Oakland, Calif. are arrested — but then not charged — at “vastly disproportionate” rates compared to others, which raises troubling questions about police interactions with some of the city’s most vulnerable young people, according to a report released this week by civil rights advocates. During a five-year period between 2008 and 2012, black children represented 29% of Oakland’s school-age population but 78% of the more than 13,680 juveniles arrested — mostly by city police — and referred to the Alameda County Probation Department, according to the study, “From Report Card to Criminal Record.” “Shockingly,” the report also...

ST. CHARLES • The arrest Saturday afternoon of two anti-Barack Obama protesters on an Interstate 70 overpass is stirring controversy - fueled by a video of the incident circulating on the internet. The two — Marc S. Messmer, 41, of St. Charles, and Jimmy D. "Duane" Weed, 57, of Bridgeton — say that their constitutional rights were violated. "Citizens have a right to peaceably assemble," said Messmer, who was part of a series of overpass demonstrations around the country seeking the president's impeachment. "We were simply doing that. There were no laws broken." Sgt. Al Nothum, a spokesman for the...

A few of you sent me this video, published to Youtube today, of the weekend overpass protests, this one in St. Charles, Missouri. I’m still trying to figure out what laws these protesters broke. While I wasn’t there, it seems to me the protesters were standing on public ground, not in traffic, therefor not impeding traffic. Having organized and attended many protests myself — and having worked with local law enforcement to make sure regulations (even mindlessly unnecessary ones) are met, so long as a protester isn’t standing in traffic, there isn’t an issue. Am I missing something here? Don’t...

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and the private company that provides medical care to county prisoners paid $1 million in a wrongful-death settlement this year to the children of a Tampa man who spent approximately 36 hours in jail without treatment while suffering a fatal stroke. Allen Daniel Hicks Sr., 51, was found stopped in his car on the side of Interstate 275 by a sheriff's deputy and a Florida Highway Patrol trooper the morning of May 11, 2012. Passers-by had called 911 after they saw Hicks' Chevy Cavalier swerving west into a guardrail, records of the incident show. Speaking...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The head of the SC NAACP, Lonnie Randolph, was arrested Friday night at a Five Points dry cleaners after a disagreement with employees. According to the incident report, Columbia police were called to Tripp’s Fine Cleaner at 830 Harden Street around 7:15 p.m. Friday. An employee told officers that Randolph, 63, refused to pay his bill, refused to leave the premises after being asked to do so several times and then began to act erratically. Once Randolph was escorted out of the business by police officers, the employee told officers the manager wanted Randolph banned from the...

Twitter has put a Zion teen between a rock and a hard place after he said he was going to shoot everyone in Zion if George Zimmerman was set free. Zimmerman is on trial for the shooting death of Travon Martin after the Neighborhood Watch captain approached the young Martin, who was in the neighborhood visiting his father. “If Zimmmerman free imma shoot everybody in Zion causing a mass homicide, and ill get away wit it just like Zimmerman,” read his tweet from the account @Mark12394995, which he then took down, but that started a conversation and reportedly the group....

And lo, it is written: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, nor thy neighbor’s seat… Unless that seat is being saved, apparently. Wayne Dodge, 51, was arrested Sunday following a violent row at a Mormon church that reportedly started over seat-saving. According to Deseret News, Dodge, a regular at the Meadows Ward LDS Church in Plain City, Utah, sat in a section of pews being reserved by a family who does not usually attend the ward. “There [were] some seats that were allegedly saved, and there was a disagreement over whether they were saved or not… This continued to...

In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court ruled today that a potential defendant’s silence can be used against him if he is being interviewed by police but is not arrested (and read his Miranda rights) and has not verbally invoked the protection of the Fifth Amendment.Tim Lynch at the Cato Institute explains that the Salinas v. Texas case was intended to be about whether prosecutors during a trial could cast aspersions on a defendant’s silence during questioning that took place prior to arrest — prior to the defendent being told he had the right to remain silent. Instead, the Supreme...

20-year-old Elizabeth Daly was driving out of the convenience store parking lot when one man jumped on the hood of her car while another PULLED A GUN ON HER. Turns out, they were agents with Virginia's Alcoholic Beverage Control, but because they were in plain clothes, Elizabeth and her roommates were completely confused and terrified.

Ben Yosef Livnat, nephew of Culture Minister Limor Livnat was murdered in 2011 near Joseph's Tomb in Shchem by 3 PA security officers, who were held in PA custody for two years after firing shots in the air, and were recently released, in April. They have been since arrested in May by the Shin Bet and IDF....

Jean Makihotch made customers of a Wellington Best Buy store "uncomfortable," according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office arrest report. The 24-year-old man sat on the floor and took pictures of store employees at about 2:45 p.m. on Friday, according to the report. After his foray into photography, Makihotch then tried to wheel a cart loaded with $685 worth of items out of the store, at 1040 South State Road 7 without paying, deputies said.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich-Ellis, the subject of the eponymous movie, has apologized after she was arrested Friday at Lake Mead on a count of operating a boat while intoxicated. In a statement, Brockovich-Ellis said she was not operating the boat in open waters and didn’t pose a public safety risk but considered her actions to be a mistake. “I know better and I am very sorry,” she said. “After a day in the sun and with nothing to eat it appears that a couple of drinks had a greater impact than I realized.”

NORTH STRABANE, Pa. — A North Strabane Township man was arrested Friday after police said he got mad that a good Samaritan parked her car in his driveway while helping the victim of a car crash. The good Samaritan witnessed an accident on Route 519 about 4 p.m. Friday and pulled into William Moody's driveway before rushing to help the 85-year-old woman involved in the crash. According to police, Moody, 71, was angry that the woman parked in his driveway and caused a scene while demanding the vehicle be removed. When officers arrived, they said Moody fought with them before...

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision Monday that police may take a DNA swab from people arrested for crimes without first getting a warrant to do so. In an unusual twist, the court's conservative firebrand, Antonin Scalia, joined three of his liberal colleagues in a scathing dissent that warns the court's decision paves the way for the creation of an invasive police state. Scalia called the decision's scope "vast" and "scary," and said the DNA collection is an unequivocal violation of Americans' Fourth Amendment right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures" of their bodies and homes....