Free Republic

Recipes for the Post-Apocalypse: How and Why to Eat Rat Meat Rat is a readily available street food in some Southeast Asian countries, and earlier editions of The Joy of Cooking contained instructions on the proper butchering of squirrels. But rodents have fallen out of favor in most Western cuisines, relegated to mere vermin. So how would you go about cooking a rat if you'd never tried it before? Laura Ginn did just that recently, breaking her lengthy vegetarianism to how to butcher and prepare rodent meat. Ginn is an artist whose work largely incorporates survival skills such as skinning...

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Pat Quinn is renewing a push in Illinois to ban assault weapons in the wake of the killings at a Colorado theater that left 12 dead and dozens more wounded. The Democratic governor also revealed plans today to propose a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines in Illinois. He said in a letter to all state lawmakers that he supports the U.S. Constitution's 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, but the "proliferation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines undermines public safety and the right of personal security of every citizen." The proposal comes in the form...

Corzine is having no fun in the shunShamed pol a Hamptons pariah By SELIM ALGAR and LEONARD GREENE Last Updated: 5:56 AM, July 5, 2012 How the mighty have fallen. It seems like only yesterday that Jon Corzine was the life of the party, holding court on the Hamptons political circuit, raising money for Barack Obama. Now, Corzine — just months removed from a humiliating financial scandal — is persona non grata in the tony playground of the rich, and it’s clearly taking its toll, insiders said. “He’s certainly not getting the invitations that he would have gotten before,” a...

After 25 years in Washington, nearly half of it as the highest-ranking woman in American politics, Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi has learned the art of when to attack and when to pull back. The Democratic House minority leader, in an interview in her hometown last week, was asked about former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's recent comment that President Obama has "lost his mojo" on the campaign trail and shows "no life, no personality and no real enthusiasm." Her answer was typically diplomatic. "I don't agree," she said. "I love Willie, but maybe he hasn't been to any of the public...

OAKLAND -- Eight candidates are vying to replace disgraced ex-Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer including three veteran city politicians and Lockyer's predecessor Gail Steele. The major names in addition to Steele are Union City Mayor Mark Green, who also is running for State Assembly; former Union City Councilman Richard Valle, who also is running to be that city's mayor; and Newark Councilwoman Ana Apodaca, who lost a mayoral bid last year. County supervisors next month are scheduled to appoint Lockyer's successor, who will serve through the November general election, when voters in Hayward, Union City, Newark, Sunol and north Fremont...

Once a revered Knox County Criminal Court judge, Richard Baumgartner on Tuesday shuffled into a federal courtroom in shackles, accused of covering up the drug-trafficking crimes of the mistress he met via a Drug Court program he helped found. Baumgartner, who sent thousands of people to prison in his nearly two-decade-long tenure as judge, was arrested Tuesday as he drove away from his East Knox County farm and hauled into U.S. District Court with shackles on his feet and a chain wrapped around his belly and connected to handcuffs. He said little during his appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford...

It was a revealing moment for California Rep. Pete Stark, the irascible East Bay liberal who has forged a reputation as a firebrand during four decades in Congress. The 80-year-old Democrat, in a meeting with Chronicle editors and reporters this week, appeared to be confused about Solyndra, the Fremont solar power company whose collapse has fueled Republican criticism of the Obama administration's energy policies this election year. "I wish I had enough expense allowance to get one of those new S's that Solyndra's going to make down there - the electric car," Stark said, after being asked about the company....

By many accounts, Rep. Pete Stark's re-election campaign should've been a cakewalk. But with less than five weeks to go before the primary election, his recent gaffes have left some wondering whether he's got a real race on his hands. The 80-year-old Stark, D-Fremont, has a long-standing reputation for (ahem) direct language. In 2003, he called a GOP congressman "a fruitcake." Three years ago, when a constituent asked him not to "pee on my leg and tell me it's raining," Stark replied that he wouldn't waste the urine. But those and other incidents tended either to be rhetorical ripostes or...

California Rep. Pete Stark, the 20-term South Bay Democratic Congressman, raised eyebrows in a public debate last month by accusing his primary challenger of misconduct — taking “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes — without any evidence. On Tuesday, he was at it again — but this time his target was columnist Debra J. Saunders, whom he wrongly accused during a Chronicle editorial board meeting of contributing to Democratic opponent Eric Swalwell’s campaign.Stark was forced to publicly apologize to Swalwell last month after his unsubstantiated charges. On Tuesday, he had to apologize again, after he said he had documentation proving Saunders – who writes the Chronicle’s “Token Conservative” blog”...

William Jefferson should serve his 13-year sentence in a minimum-security prison, judge saysBy Bruce Alpert, Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune Updated: Friday, April 20, 2012, 10:11 PM Alexandria, Va. -- Former Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, must report to prison by May 4 to begin serving his 13-year sentence on bribery and public corruption charges, more than two years after he was convicted and almost seven years after news of a federal investigation of his dealings became public. Judge T.S. Ellis III rejected a motion Friday by Jefferson's lawyer, Robert Trout, and supported by lead prosecutor Mark Lytle, that Jefferson be allowed...

The smart thinking among savvy election lawyers and political insiders is that federal prosecutors will have a hard time proving that John Edwards broke campaign finance laws when he ran for president in 2008. Edwards has pleaded not guilty. Election lawyer Jerry Goldfeder captured this view when he said, "With the government having to prove that Edwards knew the intricacies of the campaign finance law and intentionally broke it, the government has a very tough road in this trial. He may not be a sympathetic figure, but that doesn't mean he should go to prison for trying to hide his...

Week after week, messages from Nadia Lockyer came in a barrage of lurid and disjointed emails, texts and photos. They were a confusing attempt to explain her tortured, drug-fueled affair with a meth addict and her crumbling marriage to state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who is three decades her senior. One email that ended "Goodbye to everyone" seemed so desperate, so disturbing that the newspaper called police to rush to her home.Then, in an effort to be believed and understood, the woman who had held office as an Alameda County supervisor for little more than a year sent us one more...

On the heels of a headline-making split with talk show host Keith Olbermann, San Francisco-based Current TV has hired on a new talk show host — one well-known to progressives — California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom, the Democratic former mayor of San Francisco, will star in a weekly show for San Francisco-based Current TV called “The Gavin Newsom Show” beginning in May, the network announced Wednesday. According to the release from Current: “The hour-long talk show will have a decidedly California touch as Newsom interviews notables from Silicon Valley, Hollywood and beyond.” “The Gavin Newsom Show” will be executive...

Pete Stark’s political consultant Alex Tourk sent out this email today to apologize to Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Eric Swalwell. Stark’s bad, as The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci reported: He accused Swalwell, who serves on the Dublin city council, of accepting “hundreds of thousands” in bribes — even though Stark could not substantiate the charge. Here’s the statement:“I misspoke the other evening when I made allegations against my opponent for taking bribes and for that I apologize.   Yet I do have concerns about my opponent’s behavior. . . . “Stark gives bumbling, dyspeptic old fools who say stupid things a bad name.”

Sometimes, you actually get what you ask for. After nine unsuccessful attempts to win a seat on the Richmond City Council, Corky Boozé prevailed in 2010 - winning election and a long- sought place in public office. After that much effort, it's only natural to ask what people think of your performance in office. Politicians rely on public polls to measure their popularity and take the public's pulse on controversial political issues all the time. But the method Boozé chose to test the waters is one for the books. He asked his council colleague - and former campaign supporter Tom...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A man convicted of child rape in Knox County has been granted a new trial after arguing that a pill-addicted judge presided over the original trial. Jayson Bailey was convicted in April 2010 on four counts of child rape. Former Judge Richard Baumgartner sentenced him to 38 years in prison.

KNOXVILLE — A judge today granted a new trial for a man convicted of killing a toddler. In the continuing fallout over former Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner's pill addiction and resulting crimes, Paul Jerome Johnson Jr. will be retried in the July 2008 beating and strangulation of 18-month-old Joseph De'Jon Manning. Johnson was convicted in a July 2010 trial presided over by Baumgartner. However, Baumgartner resigned before ruling on Johnson's motion for a new trial. Such motions are routinely filed after trials and generally denied, paving the way for appeal. Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood ruled today...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – John Glenn fever has taken hold of Cape Canaveral once again. Three days before the 50th anniversary of his historic flight, the first American to orbit the Earth addressed employees at Kennedy Space Center. The NASA auditorium was packed Friday with hundreds of workers, many of whom stood along the walls to see the space legend. The 90-year-old Glenn was joined on stage by Scott Carpenter, 86, the only other survivor of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. Glenn recalled how he and his fellow Mercury astronauts traveled to Cape Canaveral to watch a missile blast off....

Court of secrecy: How Richard Baumgartner, a drug-addicted judge, stayed on the bench despite warningsIt was a Thursday night in January 2010 when the phone rang at the Andersonville home of then-Knox County Sheriff's Office courtroom security officer Meredith Driskell. "He said, 'I'm coming to get those pills.' He told me to put them in a brown paper bag. I told him no ... but he told me I was going to," she recalled when contacted by the News Sentinel. "So, I put them in a brown paper bag and handed it to him, my husband, who hadn't been in...

Dear Friends -- There's something happening in Richmond that I think you should know about. Right now, Republican legislators are going out of their way to make it harder for Virginians across this Commonwealth to vote. Republicans are pushing legislation to prevent thousands of Virginians who do not have government-sponsored identification from casting a regular ballot on election day. They want to make people who register to vote wait five days before casting an absentee ballot. They are also trying to make it illegal to help more than two people with an absentee ballot application in the same election year....