Free Republic

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The mayor of West Hollywood has condemned a Halloween display resembling Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose. The life-size doll with a white noose around its neck is outfitted to look like Palin -- with a beehive wig, glasses and a red business suit. It hangs in front of the North Orange Grove Avenue house of the display's creator, Chad Michael Morrisette, who also put up a depiction of Republican presidential candidate John McCain engulfed in flames.

Laurel police were trying Monday to determine who hung a doll from a noose in front of an African American church on Laurel Park Drive late Saturday or early Sunday, authorities said. A maintenance man found the doll, which was hanging from a tree in front of the City of Zion Church, about 7:30 a.m. Sunday, said Gregory Strong, the pastor. Someone had written racial slurs on the doll, along with references to President Obama, he said. "This was meant to rattle our congregation," Strong said. "Very disturbing, very disturbing." Strong said he called police, and the doll was removed...

DODGE CITY — A visitor to Boot Hill Museum thought he'd stumbled on a photo opportunity Wednesday, but he wound up in the hospital instead. The tourist, a 69-year-old man from Parks, Ark., put his head into a noose at the museum's "Boot Hill Hanging Tree" and was having his photo taken, Dodge City Police Chief Robin James said in a news release. He apparently lost consciousness and slumped into the noose, and two women who were with him were unable to remove him. "Fortunately, they were able to summon help from people at the museum who removed the man...

The Guardian, UCSD’s student newspaper, has printed a statement that it says was written by the student who hung a noose in the campus library last week. The student — who remains anonymous — claims that last Tuesday, two days before the noose was found, a friend of hers fashioned it from a piece of rope she had found on the ground, “without thinking of any of its connotations or the current racial climate at UCSD.” She herself then carried the noose with her to the library “and ended up hanging it at my desk.” It was, she says, “a...

(CNN) -- The University of California San Diego has suspended a student who admitted to hanging a noose in a campus library, school officials announced Friday. "We are feeling real pain, and we will take real action," said UCSD chancellor Marye Anne Fox told reporters. "The safety of our students, faculty, and staff is my primary concern."

Sacramento, CA- The shocking sight of a noose hanging at a house on a busy street drew media attention and protestors last week, but now the NAACP is calling for a criminal investigation against the homeowner. The Watt Avenue home drew criticism almost immediately after displaying a noose in the same display as a Confederate flag, and members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are looking into legal action that will force the display to the ground and put the home's owner behind bars. "Immediately I thought this could not be happening in 2009," said Betty...

California bans threatening noose displays Thursday, August 6, 2009 California law already bans threatening displays of swastikas or burning crosses. Now add nooses to the list. On Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation making such displays punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $5,000. The bill by Democratic Assemblywoman Wilma Carter of Rialto would make it a misdemeanor to hang a noose on someone else's property or at a school or workplace. She introduced the bill after noose hangings were displayed in several Halloween decorations last year. Two such displays were effigies of...

FRESNO – A federal magistrate judge who dispenses justice in Yosemite National Park's tiny, picturesque courthouse has received an unusual rebuff from one of his big-city bosses. U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger in Fresno tossed out a guilty verdict handed down in fall 2007 by William M. Wunderlich. The reason: a hangman's noose that was on display in Wunderlich's chambers. "A prominently displayed hangman's noose has no place in a federal magistrate judge's judicial chambers," Wanger wrote. "It is a judge's obligation to be a guardian of liberty and to always strive to assure the appearance of impartiality." Profiles...

Down here in the Deep South, calls to bring back the hanging noose are coming from an unlikely source: a 62-year-old, black Republican mayoral candidate in Mississippi's largest city.Long-shot George Lambus acknowledges his inflammatory platform has made some residents of Jackson slam doors in his face. Others walked out of a church where he spoke. Yet he insists his tough stand is welcome in some quarters of a state capital racked by crime, much of it black-on-black.

ROCKFORD, Illinois, March 16, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Grotesque "decorations" in the windows of a notorious Rockford abortion facility, featuring rubber chickens hanging from nooses, led to a life saved, after two young men, disgusted by the display, convinced their pregnant companion to leave the building.The incident took place last Friday at the Northern Illinois Women's Center in Rockford IL, where two men had brought a 17-year-old female friend for an abortion.  Kevin Rilott, a pro-life veteran at the notorious Rockford mill, reports that the young men came out of the building and began conversing with pro-life participants in the...

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (Jan. 25) - The maker of a Sarah Palin mannequin says a would-be buyer backed out when he discovered its past — as a effigy hung by a noose in a West Hollywood home's Halloween display.

Yes, the noose is still included. For those who already have the Obama hope poster, the McCain maverick button and the Joe the Plumber T-shirt, there is one more kitsch -– though more controversial -– item for the comprehensive 2008 presidential campaign collection: the Sarah Palin effigy that caused a bit of an uproar outside one West Hollywood home and prompted Keith Olbermann to name the homeowner “Worst Person in the World.” Chad Michael Morrisette, a professional window-display designer, and his partner, Mito Aviles, put the Palin mannequin up for auction on eBay last week, complete with red coat, beehive...

Just two weeks before the nation moved closer to the possibility of election the first Black U.S. president, a series of racial incidents have suggested that skin color still matters to many Americans.

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - Trash talk over college football has led to the first arrest ever in East Baton Rouge Parish under a new state law making it a crime to intimidate using a hangman's noose. Reggie Drummer, an employee at the engineering firm of Louis J. Capozzoli in Baton Rouge, says he and another co-worker were "trash talking" last week about the upcoming LSU vs. Georgia football game. "Another guy was bragging for LSU, and of course, I was rooting for Georgia at the time," Drummer recalled. "It was just all friendly and trash talking." Drummer says he...

Justice Minister Eisuke Mori announced on Tuesday that two death-row inmates have been executed, marking the first executions under the government of Prime Minister Taro Aso formed in late September and breaking a record high for the number of people executed per year. According to the Justice Ministry, the two are Michitoshi Kuma, 70, who was at the Fukuoka detention center, and Masahiro Takashio, 55, at the Sendai detention center. They were the first executions since Sept. 11. They bring the annual total of people executed by the government to 15, the most since 1999 when the government started publishing...

A Halloween decoration showing a mannequin dressed as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose from the roof of a West Hollywood home is drawing giggles from some passers-by and gasps of outrage from others. The mannequin is dressed in brunet wig, glasses and a red business suit. Another mannequin dressed as John McCain emerges from a flaming chimney. Chad Michael Morisette, who lives in the house, told CBS 2 News that drivers and bus passengers have been stopping to snap pictures of the macabre scene. Morisette says the effigy would be out of bounds at any other...

Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie on Tuesday pledged to increase military cooperation with Ecuador. Liang, also a State Councilor, made the remarks during his talk with Ecuador Minister of Defense Javier Ponce.

A Louisiana teenager who hung nooses off the back of his truck to intimidate a group of black civil rights demonstrators has been sentenced to four months in prison.

BRIDGEPORT — The jury in an attempted murder-rape case in Fairfield was dismissed Thursday after a hangman's noose was found drawn on a blackboard in the jury deliberation room. Superior Court Judge Lawrence Hauser said he had no choice under state law but to dismiss the six jurors and three alternates, and to order the case begin over again. The judge pointed out the noose has come to symbolize racial or ethnic bias because of the history of lynchings. A Halloween display in Stratford attracted widespread condemnation when a dark-skinned mannequin hanging from a noose was included in the display...

Police have launched an investigation after an anonymous package containing a noose was sent to an Orlando commissioner. Someone sent a noose to Orlando Commissioner Daisy Lynum, and police are investigating it as a threat. The small rope noose, delivered to Lynum's City Hall office Friday, was turned over to the Orlando Police Department. The anonymous package carried no return address. ''There was no name, so to me it's like the cowards in the Ku Klux Klan who wore hoods over their faces,'' Lynum said. ``This just shows there is still ignorance in our society.'' Last week, Lynum prompted an...