Free Republic

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's car wash headache is raging once again. The bank that loaned the Kansas City congressman and his wife $1.3 million in 2002 to buy the Grandview Auto Wash at 12204 Blue Ridge Extension is now demanding payment of more than $1.5 million, after the Cleavers repeatedly fell behind on repaying the loan. The suit, filed last week in Jackson County Circuit Court, said the demand for repayment came after three attempts to delay foreclosure. Bank of America also is seeking attorney’s fees and a receiver to protect collateral. “The Cleaver Company failed and refused, and continues...

The boy raised his hand, eager to answer the question. “What would you know about it?” exclaimed the teacher dismissively. “You’re not our race.”This was not dialogue from a Hollywood movie. According to a woman named Melissa Coon, it was what a teacher at East High School in Kansas City told her 13-year-old son, Allen, when he attempted to answer a question during Black History Month. Coon identifies that teacher as Mrs. Karla Dorsey, who is black; Allen is white.As has already been reported, Allen was a victim of a vicious racial attack last week in which two older black...

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) - The mother of a 13-year-old boy who says he was set on fire by two teens said Monday that her son is having a difficult time after he suffered first-degree burns. "It's hard for him," the boy's mother told KCTV5 Monday. "It's hard for us as a family having to deal with this." Other media outlets have identified the boy's mother. KCTV5 is not doing so because the boy is a minor and no one has been charged. Part of the police investigation has included attempting to verify the veracity of the boy's claims. This...

“This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy.” So spewed the attackers of Melissa Coon’s 13-year-old son, as they doused him with gasoline and set him alight. Police, they say, are “investigating” whether this is a hate crime. Yes, and I’m investigating whether the media is biased and if hate-crime law is applied equally. I’ll get back to you on that — in about two paragraphs. The attack on the boy took place on the east side of Kansas City, Missouri. Fox 4 Kansas City provides some (sanitized) details, writing, “The victim is a student at...

Pedro moved to the Kansas City area about 13 years ago and has held the same job for 11. Though he sometimes struggles to pay bills, he knows most people think he should receive no public aid. He’s an illegal immigrant. He doesn’t deserve handouts. He understands that. “I’ve never asked for anything for myself,” said Pedro, who didn’t want his last name used to protect his family. “Never. I just work. Work hard.” A new debate swirling around Kansas, though, isn’t about Pedro. It’s about two of his three children. They were born here, and one day they will...

If members of Occupy Kansas City want to march in the streets next week, they’ll need to pay a $4,100 fee for police protection, police commissioners announced Friday. ****snip**** Members of the movement have camped peacefully for months in a city park south of the Liberty Memorial. At a meeting earlier this month, a lawyer representing the group asked the police to waive the cost of having officers shut down traffic near Ninth and Main streets. The lawyer, Gina Chiala, said the march would be called “The death of the social safety net,” would involve about 100 people and would...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A suburban Kansas City woman was left sitting in a vinyl recliner for so long that her skin had fused to the chair and she had to be pried out to be taken to a hospital after suffering an apparent stroke, authorities said. Carol F. Brown's adult son told a state official he had left his 74-year-old mother in the chair for five days without helping her get up to use the bathroom or bathe because he was honoring her wishes to die in her Independence home, according to court documents that described the woman...

<p>A man has been arrested after witnesses reported that he became unruly while aboard a Southwest Airlines flight.</p>

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – In a presidential straw poll taken at the National Federation of Republican Women’s (NFRW) 36th Biennial Convention on Oct. 1, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain took a near-majority of the vote. Cain received 48.9 percent of the 505 total votes cast, with Rick Perry placing a distant second and Mitt Romney placing third. The poll featured nine Republican presidential candidates. ... Herman Cain – 48.9% Rick Perry – 14.1% Mitt Romney – 13.3% Newt Gingrich – 12.5% Rick Santorum – 6.9% Michele Bachmann – 1.4% Ron Paul – 0.6% Gary Johnson – 0.4% Jon Huntsman –...

<p>DEVELOPING -- Federal authorities have come across what they believe may be a credible threat to the U.S. homeland surrounding the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, several sources tell Fox News.</p>

The pilot of the biplane that pancaked into the runway at Wheeler Downtown Airport before a stunned air show crowd Saturday described himself as obsessed with flying. Bryan Jensen grew up on a farm in Iowa, took his first flying lesson when he was 13, soloed on his 16th birthday and as an adult flew jumbo jets for Delta Air Lines, according to a website promoting his passion for aerobatic flying. He’d been a stunt pilot the past 15 years, when not in the captain’s seat of a 747.

"Kansas City police said three teenagers were wounded in a shooting on the Country Club Plaza, intensifying talk about whether there should be a curfew in places like that in Kansas City. KMBC 9's Justin Robinson reports."

Kansas City police arrested more than 50 protesters this morning as they peacefully marched onto the construction site of the billion-dollar Honeywell plant that will produce parts for nuclear bombs. Police warned the protesters several times to leave, but they refused. Police said the group waited until news cameras arrived and then walked in an orderly fashion toward the plant’s gates. When company officials closed the gates, the protesters surrounded a truck that was trying to leave the property. Protesters held hands and sang hymns before going peacefully with officers. Police transported the arrestees to police headquarters using a police...

Rep. Cleaver has proposed a $48 billion earmark When absurdity gives way to hilarity, you must be talking about politics. In the midst of a colossal global concern for the economic stability of our great nation, Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri's 5th Congressional District representative, has one small earmark on his wish list that deserves some attention. Cleaver has listed a new earmark -- one of several -- and he promises to "fight for every one." But this is a whopping $48 billion package that must go down as the grandaddy of all earmarks.

The Eli Young Band has performed at countless venues across the country, including at a music Festival that can draw up to 70,000 fans per day. So singing the National Anthem before the Kansas City Chiefs game shouldn't have been too out of the ordinary for the band's singer, Mike Eli. But, oh, it was. And let's just say the Chiefs fans didn't shower Mr. Eli with that Midwestern hospitality for which they're known after he forgot what comes after "twilight's last gleaming"

Through a combination of massive, Somali-driven voter fraud, stunning Election Board incompetence, and the willful blindness of the Kansas City Star, machine Democrat J.J. Rizzo managed to beat conservative Democrat Will Royster by one vote in a Missouri State House primary on August 3. There is no Republican running in this heavily Democratic, multi-ethnic Kansas City district. The Democratic nominee will face only a seriously outgunned Libertarian in the November election, and truth be told, Royster may be to the right of the Libertarian. What the Democratic machine and the Star, which endorsed Rizzo, did not count on was for...

The NAACP is expected to approve a resolution today condemning the Tea Party for "racist elements that are a threat to democracy." The proposed resolution, which is expected to pass today at the organization's annual convention in Kansas City , Mo., cites cases of what it calls "explicitly racist behavior," including "signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically." NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell told ABC News, "We're deeply concerned about elements that are trying to move the country back, trying to reverse the progress that we've made," and asked that "law-abiding members of...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.justice.gov/usao/mow/news2010/harrison.ind.htm JULY 9, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BLACK MARKET TRAVEL AGENTS 38 DEFENDANTS INDICTED IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR FRAUD LOCAL INVESTIGATION EXPOSES NATIONWIDE NETWORK THAT USED STOLEN IDENTITIES, CREDIT CARDS TO PURCHASE AIRLINE TICKETS KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that 38 defendants from across the United States have been charged in a series of indictments that allege an extensive network of black market travel agents who used the stolen identities of thousands of victims as part of a multi-million dollar fraud scheme...

The home of the football Chiefs welcomed the Commander-in-Chief on Thursday, as Barack Obama visited the Midwest to raise some campaign money for U.S. Senate candidate, Robin Carnahan, and to tout his economic plan. What we heard and saw was more lies and foolishness from the President. After 18 months as Chief Executive of this nation, the President continued to lay the blame for our economic woes on former President George W. Bush. Obama said, "This recession was the culmination of a decade of irresponsibility-a decade that fell like a sledgehammer on middle class families." Imagine if after spending 18...

 East W L Pct GB Home Road East Cent West Streak L10 New York Yankees 50 31 .617 -- 28-13 22-18 20-11 10-7 9-6 Won 2 6-4 Boston Red Sox 49 33 .598 1.5 29-17 20-16 18-17 10-9 8-2 Lost 1 6-4 Tampa Bay Rays 48 33 .593 2.0 20-19 28-14 19-10 11-6 11-6 Won 2 6-4 Toronto Blue Jays 41 42 .494 10.0 21-19 20-23 13-14 11-9 10-8 Lost 2 2-8 Baltimore Orioles 25 57 .305 25.5 16-25 9-32 9-27 4-6 5-13 Lost 1 5-5  Central W L Pct GB Home Road East Cent West Streak L10 Detroit...