Free Republic

In the wake of the brutal death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man killed by a white police officer while in custody, people all over the country have united to protest police violence and call for charges to be brought against the police officers responsible for his death. Others have backed up social action with dollars, flocking to grassroots organizations in the state of Minnesota to support protesters on the ground. One of these organizations is the Minnesota Freedom Fund, an abolitionist-focused group working toward ending cash bail in Minnesota and nationally. Over the past few days, a Twitter trend...

A Missouri couple filed a lawsuit Sept. 28 against four defendants for a birth gone horribly wrong. The New York Daily News reports Friday that Arteisha Betts and Travis Ammonette of Florissant, Mo., claim their newborn son, Kaden Travis Ammonette, died while in the birth canal. The baby's head was allegedly decapitated from its neck when the doctor tried pulling the baby out of the birth canal. * The media report claims court documents reveal Dr. Susan Moore told the couple in February 2011 their baby would have to be born with a Caesarian section because his abdomen was too...

We did some public records searches (thanks to the help of Gawker's John Cook) and found Sikes and his wife Patty found themselves, like many in the California real estate business, on the bursting side of the real estate bubble last year. The two declared bankruptcy in June of 2008 and have a combined liability of over $700,000 dollars in debt.

Scientists have been warning us about the devastating impact global warming could have if human-made greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, and many believe that these impacts are being felt now. Because of this sense of urgency to reverse global warming, pressure has been mounting on the three branches of government at state and national levels to take action to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, corporations that emit greenhouse gases, ranging from energy companies to toymakers, are becoming increasingly exposed to regulatory orders and lawsuits for which they will tender claims to their insurers. Enter an era of...

She's definitely not a woman for all seasons. A Connecticut secretary who suffers from the "winter blues" is suing her ex-employers for $33 million, claiming they wouldn't give her a well-lit desk with a window view. Caryl Dontfraid says she has seasonal affective disorder, which causes depression during the fall and winter and can be alleviated by exposure to bright light. "She wanted to work closer to a window with good light," her attorney, Robert Campos-Marquetti told the Daily News. "This is a request that could have been easily accommodated." Dontfraid was cited as an "exemplary employee" for Binder &...

Write about politics long enough and you come to think you've seen everything. But even we didn't expect to see a leading Senate Democrat declare that tort law abuse is making America less economically competitive. Has Chuck Schumer told his colleagues about his epiphany? Mr. Schumer was knocked off his horse last week on the way to a press conference with Governor Eliot Spitzer and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg to discuss the ways that regulation is driving financial business from U.S. shores. Governor Spitzer's presence was so ironic that even he -- not famous for his self-deprecation --...

Childless couple Denis and Sarah Scheele, currently residing in Annapolis, MD, doted over their two dogs, feeding them the same food they ate, brushing their teeth and dressing them in raincoats when the weather was inclement. One of them, Shadow, a shepherd-chow-spaniel mix, was fatally shot in 2003 by their neighbor, Lewis Dustin, after wandering onto his property. Dustin had fired a BB pellet at Shadow's haunch to scare him off, but the shot instead pierced the dog's chest and severed an aorta. Dustin pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty and was ordered to pay $4,000 in...

A 12-year-old Latino boy arrived at a Boston emergency department with dizziness anda headache. The patient, whom I'll call Raul, had limited proficiency in English; his mother spoke no English, and the attending physician spoke little Spanish. No medical interpreter was available, so Raul acted as his own interpreter. His mother described his symptoms: "La semana pasada a el le dio mucho mareo y no tenía fiebre ni nada, y la familia por parte de papá todos padecen de diabetes." (Last week, he had a lot of dizziness, and he didn't have fever or anything, and his dad's family all...

LOS ANGELES - The future of one of the country's leading class-action law firms, Milberg Weiss, is in grave doubt after a federal grand jury returned a criminal indictment yesterday accusing the firm of engaging in a secret, 25-year-long conspiracy to kick back attorneys fees to investors who served as named plaintiffs in more than 150 lawsuits brought against publicly-traded American companies.

THIS year's Thanksgiving Day Parade brought us another "Miracle on 34th Street." Tethers from the "M&M's Chocolate Candies" balloon became entangled with a lamppost along the parade route — causing a 30-pound light to strike two sisters from Albany, Sarah Chamberlain, 11, and Mary, 26. Sarah required nine stitches to close a head wound. Mary, who uses a wheelchair, got a bump on the head. Then came the miracle: The girls' father, Stephen Chamberlain, noted that it was "a freak accident," said "accidents just happen" — and announced he had no intention of filing a lawsuit. Instead, he accepted Macy's...

Retiring to the sofa after turkey dinner tomorrow, most Americans may feel they have little in common with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock. But one defining feature of 17th-century Americans remains: We still migrate for freedom. American mobility is legendary and the notion that it is driven by a desire for liberty is the basis for the methodology behind the Pacific Research Institute's U.S. Economic Freedom Index released last week. Kansas is America's freest state while New York -- home of the Statue of Liberty -- ranks at the bottom. The Index uses five categories -- fiscal, regulatory, judicial, government...

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hastened America's descent from the rule of law into the rule of lawyers. In Ileto vs. Glock, the increasingly infamous court ruled 2-1 that the gun manufacturer could be held liable for selling a firearm in Washington state that wound up being used in Buford Furrow's 1999 shooting spree in California. Judges Richard A. Paez and Sidney R. Thomas, who cast the two deciding votes, were also on the three-judge panel that voted last September to stop the California recall election. It's an ironic decision, given that it has come along while...