Free Republic

Elderly Chicago crime victims fighting back with guns, 2 cases this week * September 30th, 2010 11:10 am CT * By Deborah O'Malley, Chicago Crime Examiner There's another report of a senior citizen using a gun to fight back agains thugs. This time, one of the alleged thugs was killed. Authorities say Frank T. Obrochta, 45, of Melrose Park and Franko Martinelli, 32, of the 2200 block of West Erie, Chicago, broke into a Ukrainian Village home on the 2100 block of West Huron at about 11 p.m. Monday. The 79-year-old man who lived in the house confronted the pair....

Even as Righthaven LLC made headlines for suing Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle last week, attorneys in another Righthaven case accused the firm of misusing the legal system to carry out its copyright infringement lawsuit campaign. Righthaven, controlled by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson and the family of Arkansas investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens, has contracted with the Stephens Media LLC-owned Las Vegas Review-Journal to file copyright infringement lawsuits against 117 website owners and bloggers since March.

A group of pensioners are so fed up with yobs and drug dealers on their estate, they have set up a hi-tech surveillance operation to catch them. The members have spent £15,000 on the latest equipment such as high-range scopes and night-vision lenses to film the criminals. They claim to have pictured more than 100 offenders dealing drugs, carrying weapons and assaulting other people, and post the footage on their website and YouTube. ‘All of the group apart from myself is made up of retired elderly people, who are scared out of their wits about what is happening,’ said Albert...

I'm 63 and Im Tired" by Robert A. Hall I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired. I'm tired of being...

Freedom lovers the world over have an opportunity to shine a cleansing light on one of the Global Warming Movement’s biggest hypocritical events: Earth Hour. Earth Hour, which began back in 2007, calls for people to plunge the world into darkness and spread the lie of man made Global Warming. This year Global warming activists, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are once again calling for the dark for for a March 27 “Earth Hour”. Desperate now that polls show people see man made global warming as a scam, Earth Hour promoters are telling people “lights off” “to demand...

A Metro Transit bus driver was punched in the forehead during a stop on the Nicollet Mall during afternoon rush hour in Minneapolis by an angry and drunken man who was forcibly removed by several riders, a bus official and witness said Wednesday. The assault happened about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday on Nicollet between 10th and 11th Streets downtown, said transit spokesman Bob Gibbons. The man swung at the driver several times, according to video surveillance on the bus and struck her once, Gibbons said. She did not require medical attention. The suspect was arrested on the street by transit police...

LEEDS, United Kingdom - Protestors converged on the town of Leeds in northern England in a face off over Islamic extremism over the weekend. Radical Islam is on the rise in Great Britain, but so are demonstrations by those who say enough is enough. Leeds has a large Muslim community and a new group known as the English Defence League wants their government to do more against the growing influence of radical Islam. Protestors were angry with the government, and took it out on police. The night before the protest, leaders of the English Defence League took CBN News to...

FOREST GROVE, Ore. - Police have arrested a man after a woman was sexually assaulted in her own home in Forest Grove, just west of the Portland suburb of Hillsboro. Floyd Dale Elliott faces rape and burglary charges after being accused of entering the victim’s home in the middle of the night last month. Police said he then tried to rape her. The woman reportedly grabbed a gun, hidden near her bed, and started firing. No one was hurt. The victim’s friends identified Elliott in the investigation. Elliott was arrested without incident. UPDATE: KATU’s investigation has uncovered that Elliott is...

In the annals of rightwing hubris, we haven't seen much to equal this: one of the conservatives enraged that Rush Limbaugh's ex-partners have excluded him from their plans to buy the Rams (which Limbaugh and his followers blame on liberals) has proposed that patriots counter-attack by... boycotting the NFL. "I have cancelled my DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package (including the Supercast)," declares "Teflon" of Moltenthought.com. "I will not watch ONE MINUTE of NFL games or coverage this season -- including the Super Bowl." ....... Raise hands, citizens, and take the pledge! Major conservative blogs endorse Teflon's plan. So, Limbaugh loyalists,...

A brewer criticised for making what it claimed is Britain's strongest beer has unveiled an ale with a 1.1 per cent alcohol content, which it has called Nanny State. BrewDog said it launched Nanny State in response to the outcry caused after launching Tokyo* with an 18.2 per cent alcohol content. In July health experts said a high-alcohol percentage can cause as much damage as drinking to excess. A 330ml bottle of Tokyo* contains six units of alcohol - twice the recommended daily limit. BrewDog, based in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, said the stronger beer will help change the country's binge-drinking culture...

The insurgents went to the house looking for Ms Kauser but her father, Noor Hussain, resisted their demands, Rajouri district senior police superintendent Shafqat Watali told the BBC. I had never touched a rifle before this, let alone fired one - but I had seen heroes firing in films Rukhsana Kauser Three gunmen then entered the house and attacked Ms Kauser's parents, while four other militants remained outside. "My parents told me to hide under the bed and then opened the door," Ms Kauser told the BBC. "Without saying anything they [the militants] started beating my parents and my uncle....

More than 30 pupils were absent without leave last week at the George Tomlinson Primary School, in Leytonstone, East London, one of the country's most deprived areas. Waltham Forest is treating this as mass truancy and says parents could be dragged into court, fined and forced to sign parenting contracts. But these aren't the usual feckless mothers and absentee fathers content to let their children bunk off school. They are deeply moral and religious people who object to their children being force-fed homosexual propaganda in the classroom. As such, they exercised their right to withdraw their sons and daughters from...

With the permission of JimRob, I am reposting this thread from 1997 for discussion. Substitute "Clinton" with "obama". We all remember the angst during the Clinton administration, well, now it is worse and will continue to worsen until something is done. A military assesment of the problem in the US anon. "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security . . . . July...

I am so grieved by the travesty that occurred this evening in Washington. I am saddenned and extremely concerned for the future of our country and am looking for a way to express it. Whatever happened to the activism of the 80s?! I remember seeing news coverage of groups of people picketing with "throw the bums out" signs, sending tea bags to Washington, the term limits and divided government concepts being debated on talking-heads shows. Are any organizations leading the charge here? I know there are Freeps in Washington, but there has to be something we here in fly-over country...

After blasting Republicans for an endless string of missteps last week, I concede the GOP finally got one right. Electing the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, Michael Steele, to chair the Republican National Committee is a smart move for the GOP and a warning for Democrats. I have spent hours with Steele at the Fox News studios, and in dozens of TV encounters, and at dinners. Steele is a friendly, formidable, and very partisan man who should not be underestimated. He has a disarming and gifted television personality and an uncanny ability to make the most unreasonable arguments sound rational....

One of the things that has really bothered me of late is how conservatives/Republicans think people will jump at the word liberal. Perhaps there was a time when this was true but that time is not now. When dealing with with voters and adults who would rather spend their time watching the Cartoon Network, would rather watch fake news than the real news, and who think slogans like change and hope will somehow pay the bills, put gas into their car or give them the quality of life they believe they deserve, you need to stop sidestepping the matter and...

An organization in Florida plans to educate what it perceives as an increasingly culture-tolerant public about the horrific dictates of Islamic law by purchasing billboard space with a simple, but confrontational message: "Sharia law is hate." The Central Florida chapter of the United American Committee, a nonprofit group that seeks to educate Americans on the threat of Islamic extremism, is raising money to purchase a six-month contract to display the billboard, which the group hopes will awaken the public to discussing the full extent of Islamic law. "The UAC's goal in this project is to raise awareness because most people...

A Frenchman suspected of involvement in a wave of attacks against speed cameras near Paris had both hands blown off this morning when his home-made bomb exploded in his flat. Police said his condition was critical. Interior minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said “multiple clues” pointed to the 41-year old postal worker being linked to the Nationalist Revolutionary Army Faction (Fnar), a shadowy “guerrilla” group which has claimed responsibility for destroying dozens of speed traps. Investigators say the man exclaimed: “I am from the Fnar” when firemen arrived at his flat in Clichy-La-Garenne, west of Paris.

Since the Democrats took control of Congress in November of last year, the Bush administration has taken a beating on Iraq. But while the Democrats have been talking of failure and defeat, the facts on the ground have, over the course of the past twelve months, taken a decisive turn for the better. It is now time for the Bush administration, as well as Republicans in the House and Senate, to go on the offensive. There is no doubt anymore that the surge has been a success. Civilian deaths are down throughout Iraq and Baghdad, in particular, has seen a...

As the title implies, it appears more and more that our Constitutional Republic is becoming more corrupt by the day through back-room bribes and under-handed dealings regarding the Senate "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" package. Currently, the Senate and the Executive Branch is efforting to force this legislation that will completely negate our system of justice by undermining our legal immigrations system and giving "special treatment" (amnesty) to those who have wait their turn. I have long fought against "illegal immigration" in many ways and for many years. But I never believed that our Fedgov would so actively work to undermine what...