Free Republic

JOHANNESBURG - A German Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse of children in his native country and in South Africa has been extradited to Germany, police said Wednesday. Georg Kerkhoff, who is in his 50s, was put on a plane to Germany on Tuesday night, South African police spokesman Lungelo Dlamini told AFP. "We took him to the airport and handed him over to the German police. He will face trial in Germany," he said.

A couple whose two dogs mauled a jogger on a rural Michigan road have been charged with murder, reports CBS Detroit....In addition to the murder charges, federal authorities said Quagliata and Lucaj are Albanians living in the U.S. illegally. A report in the Detroit Free Press stated they were facing imminent deportation at the time of the attack. It is unclear if their citizenship status will affect their trial.Authorities said it was the third attack by the dogs in the past two years. The couple was apparently breeding dogs at their property, officials said.

First Amendment: Government's assault on religious liberty has hit a new low as the IRS settles with atheists by promising to monitor sermons for mentions of the right to life and traditional marriage. A lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asserted that the Internal Revenue Service ignored complaints about churches' violating their tax-exempt status by routinely promoting political issues, legislation and candidates from the pulpit. The FFRF has temporarily withdrawn its suit in return for the IRS's agreement to monitor sermons and homilies for proscribed speech that the foundation believes includes things like condemnation of gay...

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Republican state Sen. Steve King is facing three felony charges alleging he falsified time cards and defrauded two former employers out of thousands of dollars.

A while back, I suggested in this space that Obamacare might go the way of McCain-Feingold. That campaign finance “reform” law was not, you will recall, killed by a single lawsuit or act of Congress. Indeed, the general consensus at the end of 2003 was that McCain-Feingold was in perfect health. Less than seven years later it was, for all intents and purposes, dead. It had succumbed to a long series of attacks by determined opponents who were convinced that it was unconstitutional. Much the same thing is obviously happening to PPACA. Congress has already been compelled to repeal a...

Why are tens of thousands of unaccompanied children traveling thousands of miles to the U.S.? Is it to avoid violence? Or is it for a chance to live in a much wealthier country? The answer will likely determine whether they can stay. ADVERTISEMENT Last week, Fox News’ Catherine Herridge cited a government report showing that 219 of 230 illegal immigrants who were interviewed said they came to the U.S. because they thought they could get a free pass to American citizenship. Another study, by the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged that many “are probably seeking economic opportunities in...

Judge of the Millennium Wade McCree has a special place in the hearts of ATL’s writers. The former Wayne County circuit judge had a penchant for disrobing for shirtless selfies and sex in his chambers, and was consequently disrobed by the Michigan Supreme Court. On Monday, the Sixth Circuit correctly (if you mean “applying the law as it currently exists,” and “incorrectly” if you mean “adopting the better policy”) held that Judge McCree is immune from a civil suit brought by a man McCree slapped with a tether and high child support payments. The man’s complaint is that while Judge...

CHICAGO – Employers in Illinois can no longer access criminal background checks on potential hires until after an interview is conducted. Gov. Quinn signed into law this week a bill that prohibits private employers from asking applicants about their criminal history prior to determining if they are qualified for the job. “Everyone deserves a second chance when it comes to getting a job,” Governor Quinn said in a press release. “This law will help ensure that people across Illinois get a fair shot to reach their full potential through their skills and qualifications, rather than past history. It will also...

The feud between Campbell, Wisconsin, Police Chief Tim Kelemen and local Tea Party Leader Greg Luce began last fall, when Luce started organizing protests against Barack Obama on an interstate overpass. Kelemen objected to the protests, claiming they disrupted traffic. So, he did what any responsible police chief would do: he persuaded the town board to pass an ordinance banning signs on the bridge. Oh, and he also signed Luce up on homosexual dating, pornography and federal healthcare websites. Via Police One: Kelemen told investigators ...........

On Thursday, with PJ Media's J. Christian Adams as her guest, Fox News's Megyn Kelly recited a list of assertions (under oath, she reminded us) made by Internal Revenue Service officials which have later been shown to be lies or cause for agency flip-flops after "new" facts have been revealed. It's a significant list. By implication, it's an indictment of the vast majority of the establishment press, which has refused to give the IRS scandal the attention it deserves. Video and a transcript follow the jump. ... The establishment press has been almost completely uninterested in telling their readers, listeners,...

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 NIV It is time to impeach this Marxist dictator, not for this generation, but for generations to come. It is time for America to send the message that this is still a country of laws even for the lawless. This is not a political message, it is a message that nobody is above the law and especially the most powerful person in the land. This is once again calling on the most democratic institution in the land, our House of Representatives...

The media are abuzz with the IRS affair. As you may have heard, former IRS official Lois Lerner, in charge of tax exempt groups, directed harassment operations targeting conservative groups. She also recommended auditing Republican Senator Charles Grassley. Appearing in front of the House Oversight Committee (HOC) in May 2013 and again last March, she pled the Fifth and refused to answer any questions. Later, IRS commissioner John Koskinen announced that potentially damning emails that were subpoenaed by the committee had disappeared in a series of computer crashes affecting Lerner’s machine, as well as the machines of at least six...

. July 27, 2014 Newt Gingrich : Bigger than President Obama ===================================================== A Fox News poll this week reported that 58% of the American people felt the Obama Administration was incompetent. That sense of incompetence included 32% of Democrats, 67% of independents and 84% of Republicans. As president, having your political opponents believe you are incompetent is not a shock. Having two out of three independents find you are incompetent is a shock. Having one out of three of your partisan supporters consider you incompetent may mean it is time for the Obama team to panic. This survey on incompetence...

I visited the Kelly File last night on Fox News with Megyn Kelly. The segment provides an excellent summary of the IRS flip flopping and lies. Here is the video from Fox News Insider:

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was arrested today as a result of a 13-count indictment which claims the powerful Texas Democrat took $950,000 in bribes. Wiley's attorney, Billy Ravkind, confirmed that he was arrested early Friday morning and is in Federal custody. The indictment indicates Wiley received the bribes in the form of cash, cars and property and that he and his political operatives used the ill-gotten gains to commit tax and mail fraud. For the full indictment, please access the following link. The indictment charges that, among other things, Price and his accomplices used his office and stature...

<p>DALLAS - Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was arrested Friday morning and is in federal custody.</p> <p>The arrest for bribery, mail fraud and tax fraud comes after a lengthy federal investigation.</p> <p>Three years ago, the FBI served search warrants at Price’s home, his county office and at the homes and offices of others. They were looking for evidence of public corruption.</p>

... “They are people who have already made money and are now scared to lose it,” Paley said.... “I don’t share the opinion of 90 percent of the country: I feel like a foreigner here now so why not leave?” said Tatiana Konkova, a Russian literature teacher and singer, giving her last concert in Moscow this month.... The number of Russians emigrating in the last two years was some five times higher than in the two before Putin began a new six-year term in May 2012, official figures show.... Echoing the post-Soviet brain drain, sociologists say Russia is bleeding exactly...

Paul Farhi of The Washington Post writes today about a trend at the White House—and throughout journalism—that threatens the quality and credibility of news-gathering: Public-relations "minders" are injecting themselves into our interviews with politicians, CEOs, and other policymakers. Minder madness joins the surge of "background briefings" and the decline of access to decision-makers as evidence that the White House—and other big instititutions—are manipulating the press. It's that, but it's also something worse: It's evidence that journalists are ceding control when they should be seizing it, accepting canned news rather than breaking it. Farhi writes, "Almost every officially sanctioned exchange between...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his top staff thwarted efforts by an investigatory commission to uncover political corruption and expose campaign finance loopholes because the panel... got too close to the governor's own politics... Cuomo's top aide, Larry Schwartz, interfered with the commission's attempts to investigate campaign spending for a media company that the governor also used....the commission's executive director reported back to Schwartz while its staff grew increasingly suspicious and frustrated that the governor's office was meddling in the investigations. The commission developed a list of promising targets, including a lawmaker suspected of using campaign funds to...

An investigation has found that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s aides deeply compromised the panel’s work, objecting to any inquiries about groups tied to Mr. Cuomo.