Free Republic

ALBANY -- A middle-school teacher who had been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a former student was found dead of an apparent suicide Monday morning, authorities said. James Izumizaki, 28, an Albany resident, was found between 10 and 10:30 a.m. in his car on Via Alamitos in San Lorenzo, according to Sgt. J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. A family member who lives nearby found Izumizaki, he said. The death is being treated as a suicide, Nelson said. He would not disclose the manner of Izumizaki's death, but said that a gun was not involved. Izumizaki,...

WASHINGTON -- With the recession hit in 2008, Congress put the idea of a "skills shortage" and a need for more H-1B visas in a closet. That didn't mean, though, that interest in raising the H-1B cap went away for everyone. New York City Mayor Bloomberg, for instance, last year called the limits on both temporary and permanent employment-based immigration a "form of national suicide." Microsoft has long advocated for more work visas. But the company's advocacy was quieted during the recession as well, as it announced in 2009 a layoff of 5,000 workers. Circumstances at Microsoft have since changed...

I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not. You know, when I first started in politics – and for a long time before that – everyone on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, despised the press commonly, because they were SOBs to everybody. Which is exactly what they should be. They were unrelenting. Whatever the biases were, they were essentially equal-opportunity people. That changed in 1980. There are a lot of reasons...

ITHACA — Journalists covering dictatorial regimes overseas often have ‘minders’ assigned ensuring the state controls access. In a move more familiar to China than a college campus, Ithaca College officials announced Friday future press contact with administrators must be cleared by the college. The change in policy was quickly denounced by IC faculty as a “potential public relations disaster.” Starting Oct. 1, members of Ithaca College student newspapers, radio and television must first clear any administrative contact with the college’s media relations department. The new policy affects student media “who are reporting on topics of college policies and developments must...

More cheating scandals inevitable, as states can’t ensure test integrityNational education policy built on test scores is undermined By Michael Pell The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Updated: 7:56 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, 2012 The stain of cheating spread unchecked across 44 Atlanta schools before the state finally stepped in and cleaned it up. But across the country, oversight remains so haphazard that most states cannot guarantee the integrity of their standardized tests, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found. Poor oversight means that cheating scandals in other states are inevitable. It also undermines a national education policy built on test scores, which the states...

The US military and State Department aren't the only branches of the US government to "go gay." The FBI and CIA, the two main federal law enforcement and surveillance organizations, have fully embraced the homosexual and transgender movements, and appear to be poised to crack down on pro-family groups and citizens who are critical. For example, the FBI is actively recruiting homosexual and "transgender" employees and agents. The FBI's "careers" website now boasts a page advising potential (and current) job applicants. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has actually been involved with the homosexual movement for over 15 years, according to...

San Francisco’s New Archbishop Worries Gay Catholics By NORIMITSU ONISHI September 29, 2012 SAN FRANCISCO — At Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in the Castro, this city’s largest gay district, about 20 of the faithful gathered for 8 a.m. Mass recently, clustering in the middle pews. Led by a visiting priest from nearby Oakland, the parishioners joined in celebrating the 30th anniversary of a gay couple. St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, where Bishop Salvatore Cordileone is to be installed as the new archbishop. His work against gay marriage worries some parishioners. Bishop Salvatore Cordileone is a rising conservative who...

At 7 p.m. on Sunday, Univision says it’ll air a blockbuster investigation detailing the impact of the deeply flawed gunrunning investigation, which operated between Oct. 2009 and January 2011. The Spanish-language channel says the “Aqui y Ahora” program will expose the true deadly toll of a covert program where US officials allowed over 2,000 high-powered rifles to “walk” into the hands of violent Mexican cartels. Expecting American interest, Univision will caption the program in English.

Senate Democrats joined Republicans Thursday in questioning the Obama administration's handling of the fatal Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and why the administration refused for days to acknowledge that it was a terrorist attack linked to al Qaeda. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., circulated a bipartisan letter addressed to Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, asking for an "accounting of the attacks against U.S. missions in Egypt, Libya and Yemen," according to a copy obtained by The Washington Examiner. The lawmakers are also demanding to know whether the administration had...

Don’t be fooled by the supposedly bipartisan effort to investigate the Obama administration’s actions after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. Democrats are no more serious about challenging their leader in the White House than they have ever been. But here’s the salient point, and how the Democrats are duping the public into thinking that they truly want an investigation: Kerry and his pals’ letter to Thomas Nides, deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, is asking for more information and a full briefing after the Senate returns in November. That’s right. After the election.

"Lawsuit follows Michigan Muslim mob attack on believers"Hundreds of angry Muslims threw chunks of concrete and eggs at a team of Christians, spraying them with urine and cursing at them – all while police stood by and then threatened the victims with “disorderly conduct.” Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Somalia? No. Dearborn, Michigan. So now a team of attorneys from the American Freedom Law Center is going to court on behalf of the victims of the violent Muslim mob at the Arab International Festival last June, an attack that was captured on video. The federal civil rights complaint in the U.S. District...

Catholics are a key demographic in the upcoming election. In fact, they may be the key demographic. In most every presidential contest since the end of World War II, the candidate who carried the Catholic vote won the election. Over time they have, as a bloc, become more conservative and more Republican in their voting patterns (they were once a major component of the Democrats' presidential coalition) as concerns over settled issues like the morality of abortion overtook in importance concerns about unsettled issues like the best way to secure social justice for the poor and the downtrodden.Much has...

Forget zero tolerance. Bay City Public School teachers for years could be caught repeatedly under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol without being fired. Teachers in possession or under the influence of illegal drugs could be caught three times before they lost their job, and they got five strikes if they were drunk on school grounds before being fired. A school district official said the language in the union contract that protects teachers for those instances "was incorporated into the teacher Master Agreement in 1997." Those protections also were included in the Bay City Education Association teacher’s contract that...

SEIU Paid Protesters at Romney Cleveland Ohio Rally.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, told a West Palm Beach, Fla., television station over the weekend that he is now okay with homosexuals in the military and does not want to reverse the repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. “I talked to a lot of good friends of mine who are combat leaders in the theater, and they just didn’t think the timing of this was right to do this when our troops were in the middle of harm’s way in combat,” Ryan told WPTV Saturday, when asked about the one-year anniversary...

CREWS: Homosexuals in the military demand special privileges Toleration doesn’t cut both waysThe American armed forces exist to defend our nation, not to conduct social science lab experiments in which our troops serve as human subjects. Try telling that to this administration. The first anniversary of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Sept. 20, has come and gone. Now, there is mounting evidence that proves our warnings were not idle chatter. The threat to freedom posed by this radical sexual experiment on our military is real: It is grave and it is growing. Activists inside and outside our...

Former first brother Roger Clinton is in hot water – again! The 56-year-old brother of Bill Clinton is being accused in a shocking lawsuit of paying women to fight while he watched! In the bizarre case, The Enquirer is exclusively reporting that a woman claims Clinton didn’t lift a finger to help her while another gal smacked her with a frying pan – because he likes to see girls beat each other up! The wacky story began on April 1, 2011, when Nadeze Connelly, 36, says in court documents that Clinton offered her $150 to cook rice for him at...

COMPLETE TITLE Muslim Influence in Pentagon Prevails; Material on Radical Islam "Purged,” Outstanding Army Officer "Disciplined," TMLC Enters Case ### ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center announced today that it is representing U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley, a 1994 Graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. In April 2012, LTC Dooley, a highly decorated combat veteran, was publicly condemned by General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and relieved of his teaching assignment because of the negative way Islam was portrayed in an elective course entitled, Perspectives on Islam and...

Did Biden really play college football? I think Ohio would be mad if they found out Biden never played college football after bragging his team beat them in 1963. The year Biden said he was almost arrested in Ohio. Biden was never there in 1963. Truth is Biden never played for University of Deleware football. All them Biden college football stories were just Biden folklore made up by Biden. There is only one mention of Biden at the University web site and it's a quote by Biden coming in and playing for Scotty Duncan his freshman year in 1961. Link...

This election year, so much of the broadcast networks, their cable counterparts, and the major establishment print media are out of control with a deliberate and unmistakable leftist agenda.  To put it bluntly: you are rigging this election and taking sides in order to pre-determine the outcome.  In the quarter century since the Media Research Center was established to document liberal media bias, there has never been a more brazen and complete attempt by the liberal so-called “news” media to decide the outcome of an election. A free and balanced media are crucial to the health of this country. It...