Free Republic

New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel visited the "white, ethnic...stronghold" of Hazleton, Pennsylvania on Monday and cast it as reactionary under the headline "New Attitude on Immigration Skips an Old Coal Town." Before Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, before “self-deportation” became the Republican presidential platform in 2012, there was Hazleton. This working-class city in the Poconos passed the country’s first law aimed at making life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they would pack up and leave.

A Texas high school student has filed a federal lawsuit against her school and her teachers after she was punished for refusing to salute and recite the Mexican pledge of allegiance. The Thomas More Law Center filed the suit on behalf of Brenda Brinsdon alleging the McAllen Independent School District violated the 15-year-old girl’s constitutional rights when she was forced to recite the Mexican pledge and sing the Mexican national anthem. Brinsdon, who is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and an American father, refused. She believed it was un-American to pledge a loyalty oath to another country. Ironically, the...

PASADENA (CBSLA.com) — Authorities say an investigation was underway Sunday after police officers came upon a human skull and other bones in Pasadena. Pasadena police Lt. Clawson says police responding to a “trespassing” call made the discovery about 12:50 p.m. Saturday. According to Clawson, the artifacts were found at a makeshift altar in a detached garage in the 800 block of N. Oakland Avenue. Other items, including burned artifacts and animal bones, were also recovered. The altar was adorned with incense and candles, Pasadena police said in a department statement. Authorities say they’ve since collected the items. No one arrested...

<p>The attacks on the family are the latest in a series of violent incidents in which Latino gangs targeted blacks in parts of greater Los Angeles over the last decade.</p> <p>Compton, with a population of about 97,000, was predominantly black for many years. It is now 65% Latino and 33% black, according to the 2010 U.S. census. But it's not only historically black areas that have been targeted.</p>

Bob Clark, director of classic "A Christmas Story", and his son were killed by a drunk illegal alien on 4/4/2007. by John HillStand With Arizona For many Americans, Christmas means something else besides faith, family, food (and presents). It means movies: It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (pick one), Miracle on 34th Street. Yesterday I myself watched a modern classic: A Christmas Story, the irreverent adaptation of Jean Shepherd's memoir of Christmas memories from childhood. Many of our readers also caught this extraordinary film (at least) once yesterday, as the cable network TBS shows it non-stop for 24 hours every...

Saying they want to get the conversation on immigration reform started, top Senate Republicans on Tuesday introduced a version of the so-called “Dream Act” to grant young illegal immigrants legal status in the US, though not giving them a special path to citizenship. Read more: GOP lawmakers float immigration reform plan - Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/27/gop-lawmakers-float-immigration-reform-plan/#ixzz2DSu7D9wy Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

There is more to Anaheim, Calif., than Disneyland. As shown by this crime map, the unfortunate tourist who takes a wrong turn on his way out of the Magic Kingdom may quickly find the neighborhood he has entered is far from The Happiest Place on Earth. Things are not getting any happier. On a recent Friday morning, Anaheim police officers shot at (and missed) a man who attempted to run them down with a car when they interrupted him and an accomplice while committing a burglary. The previous weekend, officers tried to stop a stolen car whose driver led them...

A Toms River woman, who was on her way home with her husband after a minor car accident, was killed when their pickup truck was hit head-on by a van, which police say was driven by a drunk driver. Ed McCarthy, 74, was driving his wife Jean, 71, west on Route 70 when they were hit by a van making a left turn onto Massachusetts Avenue from Route 70 East, according to Police Chief Michael Mastronardy. Abel Hernandez, 28, of Lake wood, allegedly fled the scene and was apprehended within the hour, Mastronardy said. Hernandez is charged with being an...

While the elites make excuses, citizens cope with theft and destruction. I am starting to feel as if I am living in a Vandal state, perhaps on the frontier near Carthage around a.d. 530, or in a beleaguered Rome in 455. Here are some updates from the rural area surrounding my farm, taken from about a 30-mile radius. In this take, I am not so much interested in chronicling the flotsam and jetsam as in fathoming whether there is some ideology that drives it. Last week an ancestral rural school near the Kings River had its large bronze bell stolen....

An 18-year-old gang member has pleaded not guilty in the death of a pizza delivery man who was killed in a car-to-car shooting. Jose Beltran is accused in the murder of Juan David Vasquez, 25. A judge Wednesday increased his bail from $1 million to $3 million. Vasquez was shot in the head in what authorities are calling a road-rage incident while driving two co-workers home in the early morning hours of August 7. The youngest of four children, Vasquez worked two jobs to help support his family. He was a bus boy at one restaurant and delivered pizzas for...

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A 79-year-old Oak Cliff woman succumbs to the North Texas heat and dies in her home just two days after reporting to police that her central air conditioner had been stolen.Dolores Grissom’s home sits on a corner with the air conditioning unit is completely exposed; only protected by a cage with a lock. On July 14 Grissom reported that her $2,500 unit was stolen. On July 16 she was found dead. Just this week the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office completed their report that stated Grissom’s death was heat-related.Grissom, who was buried last week, lived with her...

KENT -- At least 11 people were injured in a mass shooting Saturday afternoon that may have started with an argument over a paint job at a low-rider car show off Pacific Highway.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — For some believers and church leaders, opposing Alabama's toughest-in-the-nation law against illegal immigration is a chance for Bible Belt redemption. During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and `60s, many state churches didn't join the fight to end Jim Crow laws and racial segregation. Some cross-burning Ku Klux Klan members took off their hoods and sat in the pews with everyone else on Sunday mornings, and relatively few white congregations actively opposed segregation. Some black churches were hesitant to get involved for fear of white backlash. Now that Alabama has passed what's widely considered the...

In a first for any administration, President Obama has implemented a new system to spare a myriad of illegal immigrants from removal by authorizing—and encouraging—low-level field officers to block deportations by using an outrageously broad list of exemptions. The unprecedented program will allow droves of undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. by drastically expanding factors that can be considered to exercise “prosecutorial discretion.” That’s when agencies get to decide to what degree they enforce certain laws against particular individuals. Beginning this week, federal immigration officers, attorneys and other officials can cancel the removal of an illegal immigrant that is...

SAN JUAN - Hidalgo County Sheriff's deputies are searching for the suspects of a drug stash house. The house was filled with thousands of pounds of marijuana, a shrine devoted to Santa Muerte and an empty box of AK-47 ammunition. Deputies raided the home off the intersection of Linda and Jardin Street, just north of Highway 495 at 9 p.m. Saturday night. Inside, they found every room in the home filled with bundles of marijuana. The bundles weighed about 7,000 pounds and filled the beds of five pick-up trucks. "I'll guarantee you, it'll be several drug trafficking organizations that are...

This year's May Day rally is expected to draw fewer immigrant rights activists to downtown Los Angeles than in past years, but police said they would be prepared for any problems that might occur. Organizers said the demonstration could draw more than 50,000 people, but permits sought for the march estimate a crowd of about 10,000. Whatever the turnout, police said, they would be ready with a significant deployment of officers. As in the past, the annual immigrant and labor rights march is seen as a way to rally public support for federal legislation that would legalize the nation's 11...

FLUSHING, Queens (WABC) -- It was a dramatic and heart-wrenching day in a Queens courtroom. A 23-year-old woman from China was raped and fatally beaten on a street in Flushing. Wednesday, her killer was sentenced, and her mournful family was there.

[B]y midcentury the white population will decrease to less than 50% and the Hispanic population might top one-third. So what! As long as new and recent Hispanic immigrants buy into the American philosophy of freedom, rule of law and limited government, they will melt into American society and the grand American experiment in individual liberty can continue. ... what happened with previous waves of immigrants over the last 125 years. Not exactly! In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the large Protestant white majority of US citizens worried that the incoming flood of southern and eastern Europeans - Italians, Greeks...

For years, the man known as Rafael Espinoza was widely respected as an exemplary police officer who was popular among his peers in Alaska's largest city. All that ended this week when authorities discovered he was really Mexican national Rafael Mora-Lopez, who was in the U.S. illegally and stole another man's identity, officials charged.

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced Wednesday that they hired former Los Angeles Police Department chief Bill Bratton to assess policies and procedures regarding security and fan services at Dodger Stadium. The move comes a week after a San Francisco Giants fan was badly beaten by two men wearing Dodgers gear after the season opener. The victim remains hospitalized in critical condition. Bratton, who will work in a consulting capacity, will also develop a best practices security plan that extends to both the stadium and parking lots Bratton and his Kroll security consulting team will begin immediately, according to a Dodgers...