Free Republic

SNIP The 29-year-old mother of two appears in a new PSA in which she details getting an abortion while in college in 2007. “I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be attached to this person for the rest of my life,” she revealed. “My life was not conducive to raising a healthy, happy child. I just didn’t feel it was fair.” Kirke says she ultimately decided to terminate her pregnancy. She recalls not wanting to tell her mother — forcing her to clean out her bank account as well as get money from her boyfriend for the procedure. SNIP

Some great news for the taxpayers of California. A man convicted of murder and currently serving time in state prison has managed to convince a judge that the state will pay costs of at least $100k for gender reassignment surgery since he’s suffering from gender dysphoria. A federal judge on Thursday ordered California’s corrections department to provide a transgender inmate with sex change surgery, the first time such an operation has been ordered in the state.U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco ruled that denying sex reassignment surgery to 51-year-old Michelle-Lael Norsworthy violates his/her constitutional rights. Her/His birth...

Rachel M. MacNair wrote a book on the stress individuals deal with when they regularly commit violent acts. Her book discusses the experience of soldiers during wartime, and it also has a chapter on abortion. She recounts hearing about one abortionist’s bizarre behavior, which she attributes to work-related stress. In a telephone conversation, a woman who worked for a doctor in Louisiana for a few months recounted an incident: “The one thing that sticks out in my mind the most, that really upset me the most, was that he had done an abortion, he had a fetus wrapped inside of...

The U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday halted the execution of a Missouri man who killed a woman and her two children, citing concerns that his legal counsel was ineffective. Mark Christeson, 35, was scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre before the late stay of execution was issued.

A jury has reached a verdict in the retrial of accused cop killer Andrew Rolle. Rolle, 28, was charged with murder for the 2008 shooting death of 30-year old Miami Detective James Walker.... ...the jury came back with a verdict of guilty for both counts of first degree murder and attempted murder. Rolle faces a life in prison when he’s sentenced.

The widow of Nelson Mandela punctured the self-congratulatory mood of the UN summit on Tuesday, saying world leaders had failed to rise to the challenge of climate change. :snip: The Green Climate Fund was founded in 2010 to help poor countries cope with climate change. UN officials and developing country diplomats have said repeatedly it will not be possible to reach a climate deal in Paris, without a significant fund for those countries which did the least to cause climate change but will bear the brunt. South Korea and Switzerland went on to pledge $100m each, Denmark pledged $70m, Norway...

A Blair County man to be executed for three first-degree murder convictions asked a federal judge on Monday to stay his execution by Pennsylvania while he appeals his sentences. Miguel Padilla, 34, of Gallitzin plans a federal challenge of the constitutionality of his convictions and sentence, said the brief filed by Marshall Dayan, an assistant federal public defender who specializes in death penalty appeals. He's also asking for the court to appoint an attorney to handle his final appeal and waive his filing fees. Gov. Tom Corbett on Monday signed the death certificate for Padilla. Padilla's state appeals ran out...

Every once in a while people let their guard down and say what they really think. For Richard Dawkins, Wednesday was one of those days. In an extraordinary moment of public honesty, Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist and militant atheist, wrote on Twitter that “it would be immoral to bring [a child with Down syndrome] into the world if you have the choice.” It was a statement that no doubt delighted the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, his friend and fellow traveler, who has advocated the killing of disabled infants on the grounds that they are not rational and self-conscious...

Mr. Dawkins, I'd let you meet my son if you promised to open your mind, your eyes, and your heart to a unique kind of absolute beauty. But, in my request for you to be tolerant, I’d have to warn Trig he must be tolerant, too, because he may superficially look at you as kind of awkward. I'll make sure he's polite, though! Love, Sarah Palin & family

A U.S. District judge ruled on Wednesday that the Department of Justice must turn over a privilege log of documents withheld by the agency on Operation Fast and Furious. Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Justice Department must provide the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with a list of documents — but not the documents themselves — withheld on the gunrunning operation.

TUCSON, Ariz. – Arizona executioners injected Joseph Rudolph Wood with a lethal combination of drugs 15 times during the nearly two hours it took for him to die, according to documents released Friday. Records released to Wood's attorneys show he was administered the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone in 50-milligram increments 15 times between 1:53 p.m. and 3:45 p.m., for a total of 750 milligrams of each drug. He was pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m. after gasping more than 600 times while he lay on the table.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ordered a review of the state's execution process after a convicted double murderer gasped and snorted for more than an hour and a half before his death Wednesday. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's office said Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m. local time, one hour and 57 minutes after the execution started. Wood's lawyers had filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court while the execution was underway, demanding that it be stopped. The appeal said Wood was "gasping and snorting for more than an hour." In ordering the review, Brewer said...

An execution taking place in Arizona tonight appears to have gone horribly awry. According to a report from the Associated Press, inmate Joseph Rudolph Wood "gasped and snorted" and was still alive more than an hour after the execution began. Wood was not pronounced dead until 3:49PM MT, one hour and 57 minutes after the beginning of the procedure. Wood's lawyers filed an emergency appeal during the execution, noting that he was "gasping and snorting for more than an hour" but was still alive some 70 minutes after the execution began. The whole process should have taken 10 minutes, Wood's...

THE CHASE ON YOUTUBE

Here is one of those shameful only in America stories: A convicted terrorist serving 20 years in a high-security Indiana facility is suing the Federal Bureau of Prisons because the mandatory jail uniform violates Muslim wardrobe rules. Can anyone imagine this occurring in any other country? The unbelievable story comes out of the Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary in western Indiana. The facility houses 1,514 male offenders, including a convict dubbed the American Taliban. His name is John Walker Lindh and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks he was captured in Afghanistan for aiding the Taliban against United States troops. Lindh subsequently...

DOTSERO, Colo. - A state trooper was rushed to the hospital after he was shot while helping a driver who was stopped on the side of Interstate 70 near Dotsero. The Colorado State Patrol identified the trooper as Eugene Hofacker, a 6-year veteran, who is listed in critical but stable condition at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs. Hofacker is assigned to the Vail Troop Office. Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said the trooper was shot as he approached the driver-side window of the suspect's car. A second trooper returned fire and killed the suspect. ... the dead man is...

Suddenly, the investigation into the 9/11/2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi has taken an astonishing turn toward exposing the Obama administration’s cynical fraud and dereliction of duty in the weeks just before the last presidential election. Yesterday, in a rare occurrence of mainstream journalistic integrity, ABC’s Jon Karl discovered his inner reporter and opened up a can of bitch-slap on Obama’s press prostitute, Jay Carney, over the damning revelations contained in emails which have finally been released. Carney’s lies got no traction as Karl delivered withering fire without letting up. Watch the glorious smackdown here: Suddenly, the investigation...

(Reuters) - A woman threw a shoe at Hillary Clinton on Thursday as the former secretary of state was delivering a speech at a Las Vegas hotel, but Clinton dodged it and continued with her remarks, a U.S. Secret Service spokesman said.

The family of Tony Day, the boy accused of killing his adoptive mother and adult sister, doesn’t understand why he’s allowed to take “field trips” while in custody. “There’s no sense in it. I mean—absolutely none,” Mike Day, the boy’s adoptive father said. In November 2012, police said Tony, then 14-years-old, shot Sue Day and stabbed Sherry Folts in the family’s Tucumcari-area home. The case has not yet gone to trial. “If the gun hadn't jammed, he'd have killed me and the little girl we were taking care of,” Mike Day said. Mike and his wife Sue were foster parents...

Architect of Palestinian intifada, Pollard in peace-talks deal TEL AVIV – The U.S. consideration to free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard is tied to the release from Israeli jail of Marwan Barghouti, the accused architect of the Palestinian intifada, the terror campaign that began in September 2000, according to informed diplomatic sources here. The deal is being discussed between Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Besides the freedom of Barghouti, the U.S. is also demanding that Israel agree to a final-status framework deal on all core issues in exchange for releasing Pollard. Core issues include the...