Free Republic

A day after a judge lashed out upon learning Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had skipped a court hearing and taken a trip to Texas, the mayor tells WXYZ the uproar "had nothing to do with me."

Mexico City, Mexico (LifeNews.com) -- Euthanasia advocates worldwide are promoting Mexico as a destination to obtain drugs that elderly people or terminally ill patients can obtain a drug to kill themselves. A Mexico newspaper said at least 200 people from English-speaking countries have traveled there since 2001 to end their lives.Exit International, a pro-euthanasia group from Australia, is behind the effort to promote the use of animal euthanasia drugs in Mexico to kill people."On the basis of Exit research, the best places to visit are the 20-odd (US-Mexico) border crossings, from Tijuana in California through to Matamoros on the...

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar shunned a U.S. proposal for naval ships to deliver aid to cyclone victims today, according to state-run media, dimming hopes that the vessels could provide a major boost to relief efforts. The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece for Myanmar's ruling junta, said that such assistance "comes with strings attached," citing fears that Washington wants to overthrow the country's government and seize its oil. The United States, as well as France and Great Britain, have naval vessels loaded with humanitarian supplies off the Myanmar coast, and had been waiting for a green light to deliver them....

The Detroit City Council Tuesday will officially ask Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from office. Last week, council members voted 5-4 to begin forfeiture of office proceedings against Kilpatrick. On a separate 5-4 vote, they approved asking Granholm to terminate Kilpatrick's hold on the mayor's office. A third vote -- to censure the mayor -- passed on a 7-2 vote.

32,000 deniers That's the number of scientists who are outraged by the Kyoto Protocol's corruption of scienceQuestion: How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming? The quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of global warming. The year was 1992 and the United Nations was about to hold its Earth Summit in Rio. It was billed as -- and was -- the greatest environmental and political assemblage in human history. Delegations came from 178 nations -- virtually every nation...

...Now it turns out that states have been goosing their financing arrangements to maximize their federal payouts and dump more of their costs onto taxpayers nationwide. The swindle works like this: A state overpays state-run health-care providers, such as county hospitals or nursing homes, for Medicaid benefits far in excess of its typical rates. Then the federal government reimburses the state for "half" of the inflated bills. Once the state bags the extra matching funds, the hospital is required to rebate the extra money it received at the scam's outset. Cash thus makes a round trip from states to providers...

Police attribute decline to Mexican military presence Brownsville police are reporting a sharp decline in motor vehicle thefts, attributing the decrease to the strong Mexican military presence in cities bordering the United States. "It's been very effective," said Brownsville police Lt. James Paschall of the Special Investigations Unit. "We have a good working relationship with state police, local police and other entities within Matamoros." So far this month, 15 vehicles have been reported stolen in Brownsville, compared to 40 in May 2007. Mexican authorities reported 18 vehicles stolen in Matamoros during April. "It's worked out very well, it's down," Paschall...

Election: Barack Obama promises "change" in politics. But his promise to end federal oversight of the Teamsters union in exchange for an endorsement sounds like Chicago backroom politics. It's change — for the worse. It's disturbing to learn that the man who may lead the U.S. in the highest office of the land still bends and grovels to union bosses whose record of corruption is so bad that they still require federal supervision to keep the mafia out.

Item likely vital to finance case. A laptop owned by the former campaign manager that Gov. Bill Ritter publicly disowned has been reported stolen, raising unanswered questions about its contents. Ritter accused Greg Kolomitz on April 15 of writing himself and his company $83,250 worth of unauthorized checks. The governor also produced an audit finding Kolomitz improperly paid $217,164.56 in campaign bills with money donated for the Democratic governor's inauguration. Three days later, on April 18, Kolomitz reported to Denver police that his Dell laptop had been stolen from inside his locked Colfax Avenue political consulting firm... "Unknown suspect(s) took...

Ciudad Juarez's security chief out, military officer in as bloody weekend claims more lives MEXICO CITY — The public security director of Ciudad Juarez resigned Sunday as gangland-style killings escalated across Mexico. Guillermo Prieto tendered his resignation just eight days after the city's police chief was cut down by a volley of 60 bullets in front of his home. "Faced with the situation that we have here it's been decided to change strategies — to something stronger," police spokesman Jaime Torres said in explaining Prieto's resignation. Prieto is being replaced by a military officer on temporary leave, Torres confirmed. Ciudad...

Sister Phylis L. Peters is going to stay with her people even if it means putting her own life on the line. Recent news that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents will check the immigration status of individuals fleeing a hurricane has sent a chill through the poor, unincorporated colonia of Cameron Park, where Peters founded Proyecto Juan Diego, a community center. If a hurricane strikes South Texas this year, the colonia's undocumented residents might have to choose between deportation and evacuation. "If they are staying, I'm not leaving," Peters said. Because many Cameron Park residents have family members residing...

A former top State Police official who killed himself left behind a detailed suicide note focusing on Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probe of the Dirty Tricks Scandal and feared an ongoing investigation of ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer's involvement with prostitutes, The Post has learned. Recently retired State Police Inspector Gary Berwick, who hung himself in the garage of his home on Thursday, wrote a wide-ranging and sometimes rambling suicide note, sources said. The letter zeroed in on his close relationship with former acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton, a key figure in last summer's political espionage scandal who was dumped after...

Stealth: (1) the attribute or characteristic of acting in secrecy, or in such a way that the actions are unnoticed or difficult to detect by others. (2) an act of secrecy, especially one involving thievery. It is said that no one can take advantage of you unless you let them. But that assumes that you are aware that someone is trying to take advantage of you. When you are asleep, you are vulnerable to attack by stealth. A thief can sneak up on you in the night without your knowledge,... In its entirety: CFP: “How To Conquer a Country Without...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Suspected Mexican drug hit men dumped the head of a murdered man on top of a car in the street, police said on Friday, in a rare outrage in the wealthy city of Monterrey. The head, found on Thursday night on the roof of a car parked in a middle-class residential area, had a written message next to it signed by the Gulf cartel, the country's most violent drug organization. The ears were chopped off, a senior state police officer told reporters on condition of anonymity. Mexican drug gangs, engaged in a bitter fight with each other...

This seems to be the year of big-time plaintiffs’ trial lawyers facing bad behavior charges. The latest case is the Kentucky Three – wealthy trial lawyers who are now themselves on trial, accused of stealing $65 million from their clients in a diet drug settlement. During the ongoing – and increasingly bizarre – saga, a new excuse has been articulated by the defense attorney for Melbourne Mills, Jr.: the accused suffered from alcoholism, wasn’t involved in the case and therefore could not be held accountable.

Texas businessman Jeff Hawn was charged May 8 in the March slaying of 32 bison near Hartsel and faces one count of class 3 felony theft, one count of class 3 felony criminal mischief and 32 counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, each a class 6 felony. Hawn turned himself in to the Park County Jail on May 12 and bonded out... Kobe Bryant's attorney The arrest warrant affidavit indicates that the bison had been killed over the course of a number of weeks. For instance, it states that on April 1 officers "retrieved a spent bullet from one of...

CULIACAN, Mexico, - Suspected drug hitmen threw grenades and opened fire on a police station in Mexico's Sinaloa state on Wednesday, just hours after the government sent thousands of troops to fight a powerful drug cartel there. A group of 10 to 12 heavily armed men shot at the station with machine guns and attacked three other houses, killing one person, in the town of Guamuchil, about an hour away from Sinaloa's capital of Culiacan. "They fired shots and threw (two) grenades and both of them exploded," a local policeman at the Guamuchil station told Reuters by telephone, asking not...

Ohio's attorney general resigned Wednesday under threat of impeachment because of a sexual harassment investigation in his office and his extramarital affair. Attorney General Marc Dann, a Democrat elected in 2006 on an anti-corruption platform, said at a news conference that he had to resign to preserve the ability of the office to carry out the priorities he established. "It is now clear to me that the only way to protect these priorities for the office of attorney general and for the people of Ohio is to remove myself from the situation," said Dann, 46, in Gov. Ted Strickland's ceremonial...

As part of a widening probe, the U.S. has charged a former UBS AG banker and a Liechtenstein consultant with helping clients avoid taxes by opening secret bank accounts, destroying documents, using Swiss credit cards and filing false tax returns. One client was billionaire California real-estate developer Igor Olenicoff. Mr. Olenicoff set up a web of secret bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to avoid taxes on $200 million in assets, a person familiar with the U.S. case said. Mr. Olenicoff has been cooperating with investigators in the wake of his December guilty plea to a criminal count of filing...

An ever-growing number of residents of the city of Edmonton, Alberta are starting to ask the question: What the hell is wrong with the Edmonton Police Service? In roughly a twenty year span, successive serious incidents and allegations have wreaked havoc to the public image of the Capital City’s police force and have now begun to shake the confidence of the citizens in their Finest....

A press conference by Attorney General Marc Dann will not be held and the 17th floor of the Rhodes Tower where his office is located is apparently on lock-down to protect sensitive documents that may be subject to investigation. The State Highway Patrol is in the attorney general's offices, checking employee badges and monitoring to see if documents are being removed from the floor, sources told The Dispatch. Troopers were even searching the purses of employees leaving the offices. Whether the patrol was working at with Inspector General Thomas P. Charles, who promised to launch an investigation today, could not...

MEXICO CITY — A federal police commander escaped killers near Monterrey on Tuesday as authorities in Mexico City pursued leads in a plot to assassinate more top police officials. For the first time, Mexico's warring drug gangs are training their guns on the heads of the nation's security forces. Under siege from an unprecedented federal anti-narcotics campaign, the gangs are switching from bribes to bullets in defending their lucrative smuggling routes to the United States. The result is three police commanders killed in the capital since May 1, including Edgar Millan, who as commissioner of the 30,000-member federal police led...

WASHINGTON — Three Mexican police chiefs have requested political asylum in the U.S. as violence escalates in the Mexican drug wars and spills across the U.S. border, a top Homeland Security official told The Associated Press. In the past few months, the police officials have shown up at the U.S. border, fearing for their lives, according to Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. "They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases," Ahern told AP. Ahern said the Mexican officials — whom he didn't name — are being interviewed and their cases...

Apparently, Louisiana legislators have decided that everything wrong in the state has been fixed. The Senate finance committee has passed Senate Bill 672 to the floor of the Senate for debate. This bill sponsored by Senator Ann Duplessis (D, New Orleans) will raise the base pay for Louisiana legislators from $16,800 to a whopping $50,000 per year. This is a 300% increase in the base pay for a part-time legislative position. An additional $12,000 or so would be added on to cover expenses. This can only mean one thing. Louisiana is fully repaired from the damages of hurricanes Katrina and...

Detroit City Council Votes to Begin Removal Process of Mayor Kilpatrick. In a 5 to 4 vote, however one Council Women thinks the Mayor may be making overtures in regards to resigning

May 9 The local governments of Tijuana and Mexicali, Baja California state, asked the federal police to send a special anti-kidnapping task force to the cities in order to combat the increasing incidence of extortion-related abductions there. A former political leader in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, was abducted by a group of armed men. Some reports indicate that a current government official who was with him at the time was wounded during the kidnapping. Police in Navolato, Sinaloa state, reported the discovery of seven bodies with signs of torture. At least one of the victims was a police officer. A...

Clinton's records vanished after warning May 12, 2008 By Jerry Seper - Hillary Rodham Clinton's Rose Law Firm billing records, found in the White House residence in January 1996 two years after they had been subpoenaed by government regulators, disappeared shortly after the first lady was warned that the firm's billing problems were "very serious" and the then-ongoing Whitewater investigation could result in criminal charges, newly obtained records show. More than 1,100 pages of grand jury testimony, investigative reports, memos, charging documents, chronologies, narratives and draft indictments, previously undisclosed but now being "processed" at the Library of Congress, say Mrs....

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States said Monday it was shocked at escalating attacks on police officers in Mexico, adding organized crime posed a "serious threat" to democratic institutions there. "We're shocked by the escalating violence against Mexican law enforcement officials," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement read out at the daily press briefing. "The recent murders of three high-level police officials by criminal syndicates and drug trafficking cartels are a brutal reaction to President (Felipe) Calderon's determination to fight organized crime," he said. "They illustrate the serious threat these organizations pose to democratic institutions in Mexico,"...

DEMING -- Authorities in southern New Mexico are worried American students living in Palomas, New Mexico may get caught in the crossfire of drug cartel-related shootings. "You feel in danger," said a student who crosses the border everyday to go to school in Deming. Monday, was the first day students went back to school since seven people were killed in drug-related shootings over the weekend. District officials in Deming say more than 400 students walk across the border from Palomas into Columbus, where they load into buses and go to schools in Deming. District school buses then return the students...

YANGON, Myanmar - The United States delivered its first relief supplies to Myanmar on Monday, as the U.N. urged the reclusive nation to open its doors to foreign experts who can help up to 2 million cyclone victims facing disease and starvation. Snip Britain's opposition leader called for air-dropping aid if Myanmar's military government remains adamant. Snip The U.S. military C-130 cargo plane, packed with 14 tons of supplies, flew out of the Thai air force base of Utapao and landed in Yangon, capping prolonged negotiations to persuade Myanmar's military government to accept U.S. help. Snip Though international assistance has...

Will Barack Obama's presidential candidacy serve his state and city by finally drawing national attention to the sleazy and corrupt politics of Illinois and Chicago? It is all about context. The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate's politics were born in Chicago. Yet he is presented to the nation as not truly being of this place, as if he floats just above the political corruption here, uninfected, untouched by the stain of it or by any sin of commission or omission. It is all so very mystical. Perhaps viewing Obama as a Chicago political creature would conflict with the established national media...

MEXICO CITY — Assassins gunned down a senior police official in the border city of Ciudad Juarez early Saturday as Mexico's gangsters pressed their counteroffensive against the country's security forces. Municipal Police Chief Juan Antonio Roman was shot about 2 a.m. in front of his house on the outskirts of the city, which is across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Another of Roman's police commanders was shot shortly before he was killed. Roman's was one of more than 100 deaths, including those of at least 20 police officers, attributed to organized crime last week across Mexico. Among those killed...

The Labor Department’s seven-year effort to improve financial reporting and disclosure by unions could come to a screeching halt once President Bush leaves office. Sen. Barack Obama’s support for ending federal oversight of the Teamsters is the clearest indication yet of how a Democratic administration would treat labor unions. Both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton wooed the Teamsters in hopes of securing its coveted endorsement. But only Obama went so far as to say that government oversight had “run its course.” The union endorsed Obama in February. Since then, Obama’s ties to Teamsters President James P. Hoffa have grown stronger....

A Chicago pol's wife gets a 200 grand salary bump (almost tripling her compensation) and a year later hubby seeks to channel a million bucks to the wife's employer. Good old time Chicago poltics, right? Apparently not, because the candidate in question is running on a platform of change, and he seems like such a nice fellow. Leon H. Wolfe of Redstate is being awfully judgmental here isn't he? Barack Obama, allegedly decent guy and agent of "change" in Washington, requested an earmark in 2006 for $1 million taxpayer dollars for the hospital where his wife works. Said hospital, by...

FBI agents on Tuesday raided the offices of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistle-blowers. The agents seized computers and shut down e-mail service as part of an obstruction of justice probe, as first

NUEVO LAREDO - A highly respected former city councilman was gunned down near his downtown office Thursday night, renewing concerns that violence may be returning to the Sister City. Rolando Montante, an engineer and owner of a construction company that often does business with local government, was a well-known political activist with the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI. He had been mentioned as a possible candidate to head the city's waterworks system. Montante was shot twice with a .40-caliber weapon sometime Thursday night, according to results of the autopsy. The gun believed to have been used in the killing was...

Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into a Washington-area donor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, investigating whether he illegally reimbursed other contributors. The case is similar to one brought last year against Norman Hsu, a New York businessman who was indicted in November on charges of paying associates for donations to the New York senator. The Clinton campaign ultimately returned more than $800,000 raised by Mr. Hsu, who was also accused of cheating investors out of millions of dollars. The new investigation centers around contributions last year by William Danielczyk, chairman of Galen Capital Corp., a northern Virginia private-equity...

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Gunmen assassinated a commander of Mexico City's anti-kidnapping police Friday, the fourth top police authority slain in 10 days here as the toll from a rising organized crime wave hits top brass. One day after acting federal police chief Edgar Millan was brutally murdered, four gunmen in a truck shot and killed anti-kidnapping commander Esteban Robles, authorities said. Robles was rushed to hospital after the attack Friday but did not survive. The violence, believed to be mostly related to the government's stepped up fight against drug trafficking, saw a new grim chapter Thursday in Mexico City...

<p>MEXICO CITY — An official says the acting chief of Mexico's federal police has been shot dead.</p> <p>The Public Safety Department says Edgar Millan Gomez was shot 10 times and died hours later in a Mexico City hospital. Two of his bodyguards were wounded.</p>

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Wednesday that he has seen an improvement in security along the U.S.-Mexico border. Problems remain, but increased policing by state and federal authorities has significantly helped, said Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador and former Democratic presidential candidate. "In my opinion, there has been a dramatic improvement in the last two months," Richardson told reporters in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua, across from New Mexico, where he met with Chihuahua Gov. Jesus Reyes Baeza. Richardson said he would ask U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza to reevaluate a travel alert, issued...

• Obama enacts stronger “federal hate crimes legislation” to “reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section.” • Obama creates “a fund to help people refinance their mortgages and provide comprehensive supports to innocent homeowners.” • Obama, following through on his pledge to “meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe,” signs a non-agression pact with the Hitler of Iran. • Obama doubles foreign aid to $50 billion to cut “poverty around the world in half by 2015.” • Obama removes our troops from Iraq, leaving a power vacuum filled by Iran. • Obama enacts socialized medicine,...

AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT OTTAWA–Canada's border agency has lost track of 41,000 illegal immigrants, and this is "jeopardizing the integrity of Canada's immigration program," Auditor General Sheila Fraser says. Fraser said in her spring report released yesterday that the Canada Border Services Agency has issued warrants for the deportation of these people, but doesn't have a clue where they are or if they are still in Canada. "The agency's working inventory contains 22,000 individuals with enforceable removal orders, whose whereabouts are known to the agency. The remaining 41,000 cases are individuals with immigration warrants for removal, whose whereabouts are unknown to...

DALLAS — Mexico has agreed to extradite a man accused of killing a Dallas-area college student whose burned body was found behind a suburban office complex, officials said. Ernesto Reyes of Denton will not face the death penalty as a condition of his extradition from Mexico, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office said in Wednesday's editions of The Dallas Morning News. He will probably be in Dallas by the end of the month, officials said. Melanie Goodwin, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Texas, suffered several blunt-force injuries. The Arlington teenager's body was set on fire and found...

PHOENIX — The arrest of a gun shop owner on Tuesday broke up a suspected firearms trafficking operation that supplied violent Mexican drug cartels, authorities said. Agents raided X Calibur Guns and arrested George Iknadosian after undercover agents bought guns at the store indicating they were to be trafficked to Mexico, said Carlos Baixauli, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Iknadosian, 46, knowingly sold at least 650 firearms, including high-end semiautomatic pistols and assault-style rifles, to drug cartels, the ATF said. The investigation began 11 months ago after some guns involved in crimes...

Former president Bill Clinton told Time magazine that his wife Hillary's presidential campaign has committed “political malpractice.” “She burned through the campaign cash and didn't plan for races past Super Tuesday,” Bill said. “If she treated our own money this way we’d be broke.” “And, voters think she’s unlikable,” he continued. “That’s understandable. She’s got some prickly parts. There were days I’d just have to stay out of sight. I practically had to lead a secret life for much of our marriage.” “The best thing the girl has going for her is Obama’s unsavory associations with kooks like Reverend Wright...

Medellin's lawyer hopes to stop it, saying client didn't get to talk to consulate A Houston man who was convicted of capital murder 14 years ago for the gang rapes and slayings of two teenage girls received a death date Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for his and other killers' executions. Jose Medellin, 33, is set to die by injection on Aug. 5 for the 1993 murders of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Peña, 16. The girls were beaten, raped and killed after they happened upon a drunken midnight gang initiation rite in T.C. Jester Park...

EL PASO — County commissioners are opposing construction of a wall along the nation's southern border with a resolution. The El Paso County Commissioners Court voted 3-1 Monday in favor of a resolution that calls for stopping the building of the border wall and says local law enforcement officials should not enforce federal immigration laws. The resolution also emphasizes placing a moratorium on immigration raids, ensuring the enforcement of labor laws and civil protection regardless of a worker's immigration status and stopping programs that criminalize immigrants. Commissioner Veronica Escobar said the commissioners aren't advocating having open borders or not enforcing...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Clinton excluded nearly $24 million of her husband's earnings from Senate financial statements from 2004 through 2006, capitalizing on rules that permit senators to limit disclosures of some of their spouses' income. Her decision, while fully consistent with Senate rules and norms, delayed the release of financial information about former President Clinton's soaring income until the couple released their tax returns in early April, under pressure from Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama. By then, about 40 states had completed their Democratic primaries and caucuses, meaning that those voters didn't get a clear look at Bill Clinton's...

MEXICO CITY — Sixty gunmen stormed a ranch, killing 10 people, as a surge of organized crime across Mexico left at least 21 dead. Gunmen with automatic weapons stormed the ranch of prominent landowner Rogaciano Alba Alvarez, who was the target of two attacks in two days, authorities said. Six people were wounded in the assault on the ranch in Petatlan, Guerrero state. "Early this morning (Sunday), shortly after midnight, some 60 gunmen launched an assault on the home of Rogaciano Alba Alvarez, head of the Guerrero Cattlemen's Association, with at least nine people killed and another six seriously injured,"...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a series of talks on Israeli-Palestinian peace here on Sunday, saying she believed an accord was attainable by year’s end. But the process was overshadowed by an intensifying police investigation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. Ms. Rice, who arrived here from a conference in London that focused on international donations to the Palestinian Authority, has held meetings with Mr. Olmert; the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas; and other top officials from both sides. In brief statements so far, all have been tight-lipped. “We continue to believe that it is an achievable goal to...