Free Republic

The foundation that runs — and accepts donations for — the online encyclopedia Wikipedia neglected to do a basic background check before hiring a chief operating officer who had been convicted of theft, drunken driving and fleeing a car accident. Before she left in July, Carolyn Bothwell Doran, 45, had moved up from a part-time bookkeeper for the Wikimedia Foundation and spent six months as chief operating officer, responsible for personnel and financial management. In March, she signed the small nonprofit's tax return, which listed more than $1.3 million in donations. At the time, she was on probation for a...

PHOENIX -- Police have arrested a man who they say sexually assaulted a 4 year old girl at a playground at University Park. Suspect booked into 4th Avenue Jail Police say the girl was at the playground with her family near by. Several witnesses say they saw suspect William Speed grab the girl while she played on the jungle gym and begin sexually assaulting her. The girl screamed and her family had to fight Speed to get him off of the girl. The family and nearby witnesses restrained Speed until police arrived. Suspect William Speed is a Level 3 sex...

The man behind the wheel of a vehicle that rolled four times and killed 10 illegal immigrants has been found guilty for his role in the accident that occurred a year ago near Yuma Proving Ground. Adan Pineda-Doval, 21, of Michoacán, Mexico, was found guilty late Thursday afternoon by a federal jury in Phoenix of 10 counts of transportation of illegal aliens resulting in death, one count of transportation of illegal aliens placing lives in jeopardy and one count of re-entry after deportation. Pineda-Doval was transporting 20 illegal aliens in a vehicle to Los Angeles and caused a rollover collision...

If Sen. Hillary Clinton is to chart her own course independent of her husband, why did she choose Sandy Berger to give her advice on foreign policy? This suggests reunion time for cronies. In 2003, Mr. Berger took several highly classified documents about the Clinton-era Millennium terror plot from the National Archives while "aiding" the September 11 commission. Mr. Berger successfully negotiated a plea bargain and received only two years probation, along with a security-clearance suspension and a $50,000 fine. Were he anything less than a member of the permanent Clinton establishment, he would be in sitting in a prison...

WASHINGTON - Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Berger, who was fired from John Kerry’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clinton’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clinton’s admirers. “It shows poor judgment and a lack of regard for Berger’s serious misdeeds,” said law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University, who nonetheless called Clinton “by...

Will Sandy Burgler advise the Hillery campaign how to lie, cheat & steal...or did the Clintons teach him how to steal classified documents from the National Archive and lie about it so as to cheat the 911 Commission out of the truth about Bill Clinton's failure to take terrorism seriously? Or do the Clintons fear what Sandy Burgler might say during the campaign, so they are keeping him on a short leash?

You would have thought the United States committed some unforgivable crime against humanity if you listened to the howls of rage of liberals whining over the fate of an illegal alien who played them for suckers. Her name is Elvira Arellano and she knows just how to unleash a flood of liberal do-gooder tears... For the past year Arellano has been playing the role of victim. She wailed that deportation would separate her from her 8-year-old son, the by-product of some sexual encounter with a man she either refuses to identify or whose identity has somehow slipped her mind. Obviously,...

SEE VIDEO CLIPS HERE Hillary Is A Felon: Just Released Tape Proves Crime In preparation for submitting the just released video of Hillary Clinton engaged in various felonies, to the California Appellate Court reviewing Hillary’s protection by California’s Anti-SLAPP law in Paul v Clinton et al., election law expert and US Supreme Court/Constitutional Lawyer John Armor determined on June 14, 2007, after analyzing the video of Hillary Clinton on a conference call with Peter Paul, Stan Lee, et al, that the video captures Hillary engaged in a series of felony violations of the law. The videotape, with clear audio...

Group Annouces Support for JeffersonWednesday June 13, 7:02 pm ET By Cain Burdeau, Associated Press Writer Jefferson Backers Claim Justice Department Using Indicted Congressman As a Scapegoat NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Supporters of a Democratic congressman charged with bribery and money laundering harkened to their civil rights days on Wednesday as they denounced the allegations against U.S. Rep. William Jefferson. The group, including ministers and the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, alleged the 16-count corruption indictment was the work of a Republican White House and Justice Department scheming to target black Democratic leaders and shift attention from...

It backfired as hit man humor and now Herald columnist Howie Carr wants Tom Finneran behind bars for a tongue-in-cheek threat to have him whacked and stuffed in the trunk of Gov. Deval Patrick’s Cadillac. “Real men don’t talk about putting people in trunks, they just do it,” Carr sniffed yesterday of the former Democratic House speaker, who traded up a felony conviction for a plum gig hosting WRKO-AM’s morning talk show. Last week, Finneran told Patrick on the air that the two of them should take “Howie Carr for a ride,” and “only two will come back.” Calling the...

WASHINGTON -- Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John McCain are set to introduce a revised version of their sweeping plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, in a bill that's likely to restart a tense debate in Congress. The measure, which is being drafted in consultation with the White House, will largely mirror the immigration bill that stalled last year, according to lawmakers and aides involved in the process. That measure was blocked primarily because House Republican leaders were adamantly opposed to provisions that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to become US citizens.

Release from Prison Equivalent to Death Sentence for Some By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco January 10, 2007 SEATTLE, Jan. 10 -- Persons newly released from prison, within their first two weeks of freedom, have a nearly 13-fold higher risk of death than those in the general population. And even two years after release, former inmates have a 3.5-fold greater risk of dying than others in the community, found Ingrid A. Binswanger, M.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues in...

Bill seeks to restore felons' voting rights TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A bill that would automatically return voting rights to felons after they complete their sentences has been introduced by a Florida legislator who is still in office even though he is a felon. The bill introduced Thursday by state Sen. Gary Siplin would change the state's long-standing constitutional ban on felons voting. Now, a felon's rights can be restored only by the state's clemency board, which must hear each case in a process that can take months or years. Florida is one of just three states – all in the...

TALLAHASSEE · Democrats in the Florida Senate are raising money to help re-elect fellow Democratic Sen. Gary Siplin, the Orlando legislator convicted earlier this year of felony grand theft. Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller of Hallandale Beach and seven other Democratic senators are named as hosts on invitations that have been sent out to lobbyists and others for an evening fundraiser on Siplin's behalf. The event will be at a bar a block from the Capitol when legislators return to Tallahassee next month for committee meetings. The invitations ask contributors to give Siplin $500 each, the maximum allowed by law....

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday. The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents. Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash. The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger _ who had been President Clinton's national security adviser _...

TALLAHASSEE - Orlando Democratic State Sen. Gary Siplin has earned a distinction unique in the history of Florida: He's the only legislator to remain in office even though he is a convicted felon. And Siplin -- who still owes Miami-Dade taxpayers nearly $200,000 for a business loan he once received ---- is probably going to stay in office for a while. Unlike local elected officials, who can be suspended by the governor after a felony conviction, Siplin's fate rests only in the hands of his fellow senators. And so far, neither Republican leaders in the Senate nor Democratic colleagues support...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - A California court issued arrest warrants Wednesday for former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, former senior counsel Kevin Hunsaker and three private investigators tied to the technology giant's pretexting scandal after they were charged with felonies in connection with the H-P boardroom leak scandal. The five are charged with fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft and conspiracy. ~ snip ~

CBS) LAKE FOREST, Calif. A man was arrested after spitting at an anti-illegal immigration protester in Lake Forest then running away from pursuing deputies. At about 8:30 a.m., a man allegedly drove past a rally at Jeronimo Lane and Orange Street and spat at one of about 40 protesters gathered at the corner, according to Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino. When sheriff's deputies caught up with the man and stopped his vehicle, the man exited his car and ran as officers pursued him. The suspect, 24-year-old Hugo Maldonado, was discovered to have an outstanding warrant for his arrest....

A man is suing an auto-parts store for assault and battery after he attempted to hold up the business and employees responded by beating him with a metal pipe. Dana Buckman, 46, walked into an auto shop brandishing a semiautomatic pistol July 5, 2005, only to have it turned on him by employees Eli Crespo and Jerry Vega, police said. The men beat Buckman with a metal pipe and held him with his own gun. Buckman escaped, only to be arrested a week later. He pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and was sentenced to 18 years in prison as a...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros says the United States has the right to secure and seal its borders, but he warned it should be done with "a sense of humanity and human rights." Cisneros, the former U.S. housing secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton, made an impassioned speech on the subject Friday during the Bilateral Immigration Forum. "I believe in immigration," he said. "I have used religious words in this regard. It is the salvation of the American future." Cisneros cited personal reasons behind his stance. His grandfather came to Texas from Mexico to escape...