Free Republic

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced his selection of Douglas Guthrie to become the new general manager of the city’s Housing Department. Guthrie, a former top official at the Chicago Housing Authority, most recently worked with private ventures focused on affordable urban development and the redevelopment of old public housing into mixed-use city centers. Guthrie served for six years as president of Kimball Hill Urban Centers in Chicago, which built mixed-income affordable housing in many depressed city centers that most traditional developers would avoid, including a project with former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, one of...

A woman accused of holding down a child while her husband sexually assaulted the girl — an act captured on video — pleaded guilty in a Travis County courtroom Friday and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Mariana Garcia's punishmentfor two counts of aggravated sexual assault was part of a plea bargain with prosecutors. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. Charges are pending against Garcia's husband, Adrian Navarro, 30. Garcia, 24, showed little emotion during the proceedings before state District Judge Bob Perkins. At one point, prosecutor Joe Frederick asked her whether Navarro is her...

GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) – Central American nations will demand 105 billion dollars from industrialized countries for damages caused by global warming, the region's representatives said on Friday. Central American environment ministers gathered in Guatemala to discuss the so-called "ecological debt" owed to them and to set out a common position ahead of climate talks in Copenhagen next month.

Nidal Hasan was an advisor to Homeland Security team.  Look on page 29 of the Homeland Security Institute link below. Go to page number 29, scroll down toward the bottom on the Left Column He is listed under "THINKING ANEW- SECURITY PRIORITIES FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION", as Nidal Hasan, Uniformed Services University School of Medicine (8TH DOWN ON LEFT COLUMN PAGE 29).  http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/PTTF_ProceedingsReport_05.19.09.pdf  

A GANG of killers who murdered to steal their victims' body fat have been arrested in Peru. Police said the three people held in the jungle province of Huanuco confessed to five killings and said they could sell one litre of fat for £10,000 to the cosmetic industry. The men said the fat was sold to intermediaries in Lima, who police suspect sold it to companies in Europe. Police have found the head of one victim and several bottles of fat, which they displayed at a news conference. Suspect Elmer Segundo Castillejos, 29, led police to the head last month,...

What will be the results of Election 2010

Racial tensions are rising within the Rochester School District. The most recent incident took place this morning when a group of students erupted into a fight. School District Officials wouldn't talk to us on camera, but did issue a statement. They say they are continuing to gather information about the fight, and that “student safety is their utmost concern.” We tried calling the diversity council today, but our calls were not returned. This latest fight comes less than a week after a racially inspired altercation broke out at Owatonna High School. Students say it was between 20 Somali students and...

SHALIMAR, Fla. (AP) -- A Panhandle man has fatally shot a black bear known to roam a neighborhood, leaving behind two cubs. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Stan Kirkland says the man who shot the bear told officers he was afraid the animal would charge him in his yard Thursday night. An investigation into the shooting began Friday. The shooter has not been charged. The female bear had two cubs. Kirkland says the cubs are old enough and can live on their own. He says with acorns in the area now for fall, this is the best time...

Dems snare 60 votes to move ahead on health careBy ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer – 4 mins ago WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders secured the last two votes to move ahead on historic health care legislation, clearing the way for a Saturday night showdown on President Barack Obama's top domestic initiative. In long-awaited speeches, centrist Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said they would stand with their party and vote "yes" on the crucial test vote despite deep reservations with elements of the 2,074-page bill to remake the nation's health care system. "The truth is this...

Rangel Plans to Renew Expiring Tax BreaksBy Michael Cohn November 20, 2009 House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., intends to introduce legislation next month that would keep a variety of tax breaks from expiring before the end of the year. Instead of sending the bill through his committee, Rangel plans to dispatch the bill directly to the floor of the House, according to Bloomberg.com. There are about 73 tax provisions scheduled to expire by Dec. 31, including the credit for research and experimentation expenses, deductions for tuition and state and local taxes, film and TV production expensing...

Activists Gather To Read Mayflower Compact, Sing Songs. About 100 people are expected at the Colorado Capitol Saturday afternoon to sing traditional Thanksgiving songs and to read historic documents from the nation's founding. The sing-along and reading are sponsored by Tea Party activists, who decry federal spending and call for a return to more limited government.

The Garland County Sheriff's Department has wrapped up a short news conference this afternoon to brief the media on details about a shootout Thursday night and to release information about the three suspects in five murders.Also at today's news conference, the Sheriff's Office revealed that a gag order was in place over the case and that no further details would be released.In the Pearcy killings, the remains of four of the victims were found inside their burned home on Old Airport Road just down the street from the Lake Hamilton school. The fifth victim was found inside his home located...

In an embarrassing blow to the movement to combat global warming, hackers have posted hundreds of e-mails from a world-renowned British institute that show researchers colluding to exaggerate warming and undermine skeptics. University of East Anglia officials confirmed the Climate Research Unit’s e-mails were hacked, but were unable to confirm the veracity of posted content... “This is not a smoking gun, this is a mushroom cloud,” climatologist Patrick J. Michaels told the New York Times [NYT] The Times contacted researchers who confirmed they had sent or received some of the most damning e-mails, including a discussion of how to use...

Dems’ health plan would limit immigrant aidLatinos shaken by Senate gambit to win conservative and moderate votes By LYNSI BURTON HOUSTON CHRONICLE Nov. 21, 2009, 9:16AM WASHINGTON — The latest loser in the political pandemonium over health care reform may be immigrants living in America, an estimated 24 million people likely to be bartered in order to win support in Congress from fence-sitting Democratic moderates and conservatives. Just as House Democratic leaders sacrificed the wishes of abortion-rights activists in a successful gambit to win the votes of anti-abortion Democrats last week, the Senate leadership has included provisions in its health...

Bill Moyers to Leave Weekly TelevisionBy ELIZABETH JENSEN; Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF Published: November 20, 2009 The PBS mainstay Bill Moyers, left, said he was retiring from weekly television and would end his Friday night public affairs show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” on April 30, 2010. That date will also be the last for “Now on PBS,” which has been canceled. Mr. Moyers said he had been planning for some time to retire the program on Dec. 25 but was asked by PBS to raise the funds to continue through April, which he did. “I am 75 years old,” he said...

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change. The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics,... --snip-- In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent...

Al Gore's award-winning global warming film "An Inconvenient Truth," socked two years ago by a British court ruling that found several errors, is facing additional scrutiny with the release of a new documentary that seeks to rebut many of Gore's claims. In Gore's film, directed by Davis Guggenheim and released in 2006, the former vice president argues that humans are causing climate change, a problem he says is the biggest moral challenge facing the globe. If humans don't act to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, Gore contends, the deaths caused by climate change will double in 25 years to...

FEDS: “WE NEED MORE MAJOR NIDAL HASANS” thelastcrusade.org With new evidence linking Major Nidal Hasan (Ft. Hood Massacre) to U.S. Based Muslim radicals, Al Qaeda and Pakistani terror networks, American Intelligence agencies are reacting with mind-boggling foolishness. While military families are grieving the murder of their loved ones, the CIA is recruiting radical Muslims from Dearborn Michigan, ground zero for America's Islamic jihad movement. America has squandered billions of taxpayer's dollars kissing up to the Islamic world, only to be rewarded by terrorism and bloodshed against U.S. Citizens. And now this: Your nation, your world," a male voice says...

On Wednesday, a Charlotte, NC man and woman -- illegally residing in the U.S. -- were charged in federal court with conspiracy to kidnap two children in Mecklenburg County, NC in 2009, according to reports obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. According to the indictment, Ruben Garcia-Rosario, 25, and Linda Gonzalez, 21, aided and abetted one another in the attempted kidnapping through the use of cellular telephones and a motor vehicle. Garcia-Rosario is also charged in three additional counts alleging possession of a firearm by...

: Sceptics claim that leaked emails reveal research centre massaged temperature dataOne of the world’s leading climate change research centres has been accused of manipulating data on global warming after thousands of private emails and documents were leaked. Hackers targeted the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and published the files, including some personal messages, on the internet. Among the most damaging is one which appears to suggest using a ‘trick’ to massage years of temperature data to ‘hide the decline’.

The Yemeni-American imam who's been under renewed scrutiny after the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, preaches against alcohol, birthday parties, black magic and extramarital sex. He also supports armed struggle — jihad — against the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has encouraged extremist insurgents in Pakistan and Somalia. None of that sets Anwar al Awlaki, 38, apart from other militant Sunni Muslim clerics — and even many mainstream ones — in the Middle East. Awlaki uses digital means to spread his views, however, through a blog, lectures on YouTube and Facebook pages with more than 1,000 fans....

Tennessee's new law allowing people with handgun permits to be armed in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol is unconstitutionally vague, a judge ruled on Friday. Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman said the law, enacted earlier this year over the veto of Gov. Phil Bredesen, is "fraught with ambiguity." She ruled after an hour of arguments in a lawsuit brought by a group of plaintiffs, many of them restaurant owners. More than 257,000 people have handgun carry permits in Tennessee. Tennessee previously banned handguns in all locations where alcohol was served. The new law made an exception for establishments that serve at...

We guess immigration is never not an issue, even in putting terrorists on trial. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee today are demanding to know the immigration status of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters, should they be brought to the United States to stand trial. Their fear is that KSM and his henchmen might seek asylum under immigration laws, setting all kinds of worrisome precedents. “As you can imagine, even if they are not ultimately eligible for relief, terrorist detainees may seek legal rights under our immigration laws or assert such rights in federal court, thereby setting a...

Report: ACORN mismanaged grant money S.A. Miller A report Friday by the Justice Department's independent inspector general revealed that ACORN won approval for nearly $200,000 in Justice grants since 2002 and mismanaged some of the money. The grant tally, though only from a single department, provides a glimpse of the taxpayer dollars the embattled liberal activist group is fighting to reclaim after Congress canceled its federal funding. The report showed the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or affiliated groups were authorized to collect five grant awards from the Justice Department since 2002, including two in New York...

An Illinois woman is charged with a hate crime for berating a Muslim woman about the Fort Hood shooting and then pulling at her headscarf. The charge could lead to three years in prison: justice or prosecutorial overkill? In the days after the Ft. Hood shooting, mosques around the country bolstered their security in anticipation of a backlash from Americans angry about a Muslim man alleged to have killed American soldiers on their own turf. Since then, only one alleged hate crime against Muslims has been directly tied to the Fort Hood rampage. Two days after the rampage by an...

Gordon Brown was told last night that he must seek the immediate return of the Lockerbie bomber to Britain. A senior senator in the United States has written to the Prime Minister to protest that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's early release on compassionate grounds on August 20 was granted on the assumption he had only three months to live. Charles Schumer said that period had now elapsed and there was speculation that the severity of the Libyan's condition had been exaggerated. There is growing pressure for all of Megrahi's medical papers to be published, as well as monthly updates...

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living HOPE through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3 It seems the Olympic suicide flu is spreading through Chicago. Michael Scott another dirty political partner of Valerie Jarrett decides to blow his brains out. We all know the Daley motto, dead men tell no tales and Scott won’t be talking. Of course we also know that suicide in Chi-town is like going for a swim w/lead sneakers in NJ. This is...

Vietnam veteran robbed, killed on his way to deposit VFW money William Burtner had helped raise money for WWII vets' trip to Washington Army veteran William Burtner survived Vietnam and dedicated his life to helping other veterans. On Monday, Burtner was about to enter a bank in Midlothian to deposit money that the south suburb's Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2580 had raised during a benefit. He never made it inside. Burtner, 65, was assaulted and robbed outside the bank. He died Wednesday night in Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. An autopsy Thursday concluded Burtner died of hypertensive...

The parents of an 8-year-old Liberian girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by four boys in July were arrested Friday on child abuse charges, according to Arizona police. The father, 59, and mother, 47, were arrested Friday in Phoenix on seven counts of child abuse, said police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill. Police were waiting for them at their home after the Maricopa County Attorney's Office issued the warrants. The names of the parents have been withheld by CNN to avoid identifying the daughter, who is an alleged rape victim. The child abuse investigation was based on documented incidents from the...

In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan intensified his communications with a radical Yemeni American cleric and began to discuss surreptitious financial transfers and other steps that could translate his thoughts into action, according to two sources briefed on a collection of secret e-mails between the two. "He [Hasan] clearly became more radicalized toward the end, and was having discussions related to the transfer of money and finances . . .," said the source, who spoke at length in part because he was concerned the public accounting of the events has been...

...the [NY police] department was accepting proposals from companies that would link acoustic sensors to cameras that swivel toward spots where shots are fired, ideally capturing the culprit’s image. Such a system was recently deployed in Mount Vernon, in Westchester County; its police department bought audio sensors from ShotSpotter and swiveling cameras from another vendor.

Vancouver is one hour from the United States, “the largest illegal drug-consuming nation in the world,” said Peter German, district commander for the Lower Mainland with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It has one of the largest ports for trade with Asia in the world, a large airport and excellent banks with branches around the world including offshore locations, he told the forum. B.C. also has a liberal criminal justice system and a fairly liberal approach to illegal drugs. “On top of that we have a lot of diasporas, strong ethnic communities which make this a place we want to...

Many people will sympathize with an Arlington, WA man who fired a couple of shots at a burglary suspect who later turned up dead with jewelry belonging homeowner’s wife in his pocket, because the homeowner has now been arrested for investigation of second-degree murder. Keira S. Earhart was booked into the Snohomish County Jail and is being held there on $1 million bail. The man he shot, Ryan A. Rzechula, 25, of Stanwood, has a criminal record, according to the Everett Herald. What allegedly occurred in this case will need some sorting out, but the basic facts are that Earhart...

A US man has been charged with murder for allegedly shooting his teenage son dead on suspicion he had inappropriate contact with a three-year-old girl. Jamar Pinkney is accused of killing his 15-year-old son, Jamar Jr, in Highland Park, near Detroit, on Monday. The boy was shot once in the head despite begging his father to spare his life, the boy's mother said. A judge ordered Mr Pinkney to be sent to jail without bail until a preliminary examination on 1 December. On Wednesday, Judge Brigette Officer also entered a not guilty plea for Mr Pinkney - a 37-year-old mail...

Sarah Palin asks: 'Rationed care' already?By ANDY BARR | 11/20/09 8:44 AM EST Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin early Friday morning greeted news that renewed guidelines scale back screenings for cervical cancer by asking if bureaucratic panels were already rationing care. “The recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes on the heels of another recommendation to limit breast cancer screenings with mammograms. There are many questions unanswered for me, but one which immediately comes to mind is whether costs have anything to do with these recommendations,” Palin wrote in a post on her Facebook page. “The current...

Like the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal, this is the gift that goes on giving. It won’t, unfortunately, derail Copenhagen (too many vested interests involved) or cause any of our many political parties to start talking sense on “Climate change”. But what it does demonstrate is the growing level of public scepticism towards Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. That’s why, for example, this story is the single most read item on today’s Telegraph website. [...] But in the case of “Climate Change”, the MSM has been caught with its trousers down. The reason it has been so ill-equipped to report...

A hardware store clerk in Nacogdoches, Texas used his handgun to fend off a knife wielding criminal. Police say that a man in the Cason-Monk Hardware store on the 300 block of Commerce St became upset and was asked to leave. The man reportedly left, only to return armed with a knife, which he used to threaten the life of a store clerk. The clerk is said to have grabbed a handgun, causing man to flee. The clerk, who didn't have to fire a shot, was unharmed. Police are seeking the suspect, who was described only as a Caucasian male...

EAST ST. LOUIS — A store clerk in East St. Louis killed robber Larando King, but it was holdup accomplice Michael T. Hunter Jr., who was charged Friday with first-degree murder, officials said. CRIME STATS bullet Get the breaking news from our St. Louis Crime Beat blog bullet See stats around St. Louis and the nation in our searchable database. A person committing a felony can be charged with murder under Illinois law for the death of anyone during the crime. St. Clair County State's Attorney Robert Haida, whose office filed the charge, said in a prepared statement: "I commend...

Reality Check: The "Rationing" Smear... Again?Posted by Dan Pfeiffer November 20, 2009 at 03:03 PM EST When people use arguments they know are bogus, it's probably because they know they don't have any valid arguments at their disposal. So it would seem with opponents of reform in the Senate spending today obsessed with arguments about "rationing" that were debunked months ago. Their attacks are focused on the fact that the legislation supports research into what treatments work best for patients. Before we go any further, let's just say this as plainly as possible: Under health insurance reform, this research cannot...

Worried about trying the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists and four of his close associates in a civilian courtroom? Don't be, says our president. He knows just how the trial will turn out -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed will be convicted and executed. We have his word on it. He makes the trial sound like just a formality. And here some of us thought trials didn't have a predetermined outcome, not in America. Naive us.

Racially motivated downtown attacks Denver Police announced today that they had made 32 arrests related to racially motivated robberies and assaults. From left, Allen Ford and Torrence McCall. Denver Police say they have arrested 32 people, part of a sweep to end a four-month spree of racially motivated assaults and robberies in downtown Denver. (Denver Police Department) The Denver Police Department arrested 32 men and juvenile boys after a months-long undercover investigation into what police said were racially motivated assaults and robberies in downtown Denver, including the LoDo entertainment district. A task force composed of Denver police, the FBI and...

Forced health insurance on shaky legal groundPosted on Fri, Nov. 20, 2009 10:15 PM PHOENIX | In 2006, long before there was an Obama administration determined to impose a command-and-control federal health care system, a young orthopedic surgeon walked into the Goldwater Institute with an idea. The institute, America’s most potent advocate of limited government, embraced Eric Novack’s idea for protecting Arizonans from health care coercion. In 2008, Arizonans voted on Novack’s proposed amendment to the state’s Constitution: “No law shall be passed that restricts a person’s freedom of choice of private health care systems or private plans of any...

At Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Oct. 29th press conference, a CNS News reporter asked, “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Speaker Pelosi responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” The reporter said, “Yes, yes, I am.” Not responding further, Ms. Pelosi shook her head and took a question from another reporter. Later on, Ms. Pelosi’s press spokesman Nadeam Elshami told CNSNews.com about its question regarding constitutional authority mandating that individual Americans buy health insurance. “You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question. That is...

President Obama has said it was Attorney General Eric Holder who decided to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind, and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian federal court in New York City. Yet, as a matter of law, that can't be true. "You know, I said to the attorney general, 'make a decision based on the law,' " the president told CNN. In Holder's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he confirmed that Obama had left it up to him: "This was a tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion that these individuals should...

Each had crossed the border years before, smuggled across the desert by a coyote, never imagining the journey would lead to a drab and dusty clinic on the ninth floor of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Some knew before the crossing that they had diabetes or lupus or high blood pressure, but it was only after they arrived that their kidneys began to fail. To survive, they needed dialysis at a cost of about $50,000 a year, which their sporadic work as housekeepers, painters and laborers could not begin to cover. Rosa Palma de Gamez, Rosa Lira and Fidelia G....

Sherry Johnston was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for dealing the prescription painkiller OxyContin. [...] Johnston made a deal with prosecutors to plead to a single felony count in exchange for dropping five other felony drug dealing charges against her. The deal called for the 42-year-old Wasilla woman to be sentenced to three years of prison time plus three years of probation, which is what the judge gave her. Johnston received less time than the normal five to eight years for a second-degree felony drug charge because the amount she was dealing was so small. Johnston is slated...

The new attorney handling Georgia's appeal in the long-running legal battle with Alabama and Florida over water rights will be paid $855 an hour. Governor Sonny Perdue's office said Friday that Seth Waxman's hourly rate is a 10 percent discount off his normal rate of $950 an hour. Waxman is a former U.S. solicitor general who was tapped this week to replace Paul Clement after he had to withdraw because of a possible conflict of interest. Waxman is leading the state's appeal of a federal judge's ruling in July that concluded it was illegal for Atlanta to draw drinking water...

Notice Filed Hollister v Soetoro I. JURISDICTIONAL STATEMENT A. The Basis for the District Court’s Subject Matter Jurisdiction The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to the Federal Interpleader Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1335. Alternatively Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 22 and diversity under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 existed. In addition, in a proposed amended complaint the plaintiff Hollister asserted jurisdiction also for a direct violation of the constitutional requirement in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 concerning the eligibility of an individual to be President of the United States if he is not, as is there stated, a “natural born...

I am a fan of horror movies. I have basically seen it all. But this video from Barack Hussein's site makes me physically ill, and I'm not exaggerating. This is nothing short of calling Republicans baby killers.