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Iowa City police are investigating an early morning assault in which a man accused another of being a zombie, then punched him twice. Police say the assault occurred at 1:17 a.m. Sunday at an Iowa City restaurant south of the University of Iowa campus. A man was ordering food when he was approached by another man who called him a zombie, then hit him in the eye. When the victim tried to call police on his cell phone, the man punched him again, breaking his nose. The man then ran out a back door. The victim was taken by ambulance

Last week, longtime of head of ACORN's Louisiana branch, Beth Butler, was summarily fired from ACORN by a directive that came straight from ACORN's chief organizer, Bertha Lewis. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, this had to do with an internal struggle over where the power center would be, near Louisiana or in New York. At the time, I speculated that Butler, the common law wife of Wade Rathke, would join him at Community Organizations International. I was wrong. Several Louisiana ACORN leaders, including the recently ousted state leader, are expected to announce today that they have...

The man is accused of killing his then-girlfriend's daughter so the girlfriend could obtain custody of a granddaughter. A San Bernardino County sheriff's unit reopened the cold case last year. A San Diego lawyer who wrote a book on Internet dating was arrested Wednesday for allegedly killing his girlfriend's daughter 20 years ago so the girlfriend could gain custody of her granddaughter. Eric Fagan, 74, was arrested about 7 a.m. at his Chula Vista home as he was getting ready for his morning jog, said Jodi Miller, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, which made the arrest....

His name was Richard "Ricky" Ramirez, but the nation knew him as "The Night Stalker," a silent menace who cut window screens and crept into homes at night to murder more than a dozen people in California. Ramirez, 49, is being held on death row at San Quentin State Prison after being convicted in 1989 in Los Angeles of 13 murders. His body count is likely going to grow, now that he's been linked by DNA to the 1984 murder of a 9-year-old San Francisco girl. In 1989, I found myself face to face with Ramirez in a Los Angeles...

A hand-picked team from CO19, the Metropolitan Police's elite firearms unit, will walk the beat in gun crime hotspots where armed gangs have turned entire estates into "no go" zones. Local politicians and anti-gun campaigners have reacted with anger at the news that the officers will carry Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns – capable of firing up to 800 rounds-per-minute – and Glock semi-automatic pistols. Gill Marshall-Andrews, chairwoman of the Gun Control Network campaign group, described the routine arming of officers as a "very retrograde step" and warned that it could lead to higher levels of gun crime. "This...

“I ain’t never seen the girl before in my life,” Davidson answered during the interrogation shortly after his Jan. 11, 2007, arrest. Defense attorneys David Eldridge and Doug Trant have been trying this week to sow seeds of doubt about whether Christian, 21, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23, were victims of a carjacking turned kidnapping, rape and murder by suggesting the couple went to Davidson’s Chipman Street neighborhood in search of drugs. “I’m assuming my gun was used ‘cause the pistol, a bullet was missing out of it,” he said. “One of my bullets had been shot. (He told...

WASHINGTON - During consideration of H.R. 3126, legislation to establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee voted to pass an amendment offered by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) that will make ACORN eligible to play a role in setting regulations for financial institutions. The Waters amendment adds to the CFPA Oversight Board 5 representatives from the fields of "consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgages" to join Federal banking regulators in advising the...

Caught On Camera: Shocking Moment Teenagers Launch Racist Attack On Asian Shopkeeper [Pics & Video in URL] By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 24th October 2009 This is the moment three teenage thugs launched a savage racist attack on a terrified Asian shopkeeper. Twins Luke and Justin Lovedale and Nicholas Gardener, all 16 at the time, beat up four shop workers in a series of assaults while screaming abuse. CCTV footage shows the yobs wrestling one shopkeeper to the floor before stamping on him as they shouted 'f****** Paki' while a terrified female shopkeeper desperately tries to fend off them off.

We all know that ACORN is having some serious short term financial difficulties. Ever since the video tapes made by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles were released, ACORN's image has suffered. With that image in decline, so to has funding begun to dry up. First, several governmental agencies began to cut off funds. Then, Bank of America cut ties. With funding drying up, ACORN is having all sorts of short term funding issues. Like any other organization, when you're unable to generate revenue, you are forced to lay off and even fire. Unlike most organizations, ACORN isn't simply laying off...

The mean-spirited would call it Darwinism at work. A suspected thief got the shock of his life after apparently trying to steal copper. The man is in a Northern California burn unit after his alleged robbery attempt when horribly wrong. Police were tipped to the crime by a power outage. Soon after the power went out someone called the Rodeo Fire Department to report a telephone pole fire. As crews responded to the fire, they noticed a man walking down the street suffering from visible burns. Investigators with the East Bay Regional Parks District say they think the man was...

TITUSVILLE -- A mother is facing attempted murder charges after police said she admitted to watching her toddler smother her infant. Christina McIntyre, 23, told authorities that on Oct. 6, she watched her 2-year-old put several blankets and a bean bag chair on the 11-month-old. When the infant stop breathing, McIntyre said she did nothing. She said at the time she thought life would be easier if the baby boy was dead. In a Probable Cause affidavit, McIntyre told police she wanted to go back to work and couldn't afford to put both children in day care. The affidavit shows...

Retired accountant James McDermith's mad dash to retrieve a camper and pack it with belongings as a wildfire chewed closer to his home six years ago may have cost him his life. But it wasn't the flames or smoke that got him. The 70-year-old church deacon was one of five men to have a heart attack during the 2003 blaze that surged through the San Bernardino Mountain foothills. With evidence that stress from the wildfire led to the deaths, prosecutors took the unusual step this week of charging a suspected arsonist with five counts of first-degree murder that could signal...

An upstate New York teen streamed live on the Web a fake suicide attempt, acting as if he had slit his wrists and using ketchup to simulate blood, police said. State police said callers from as far away as Israel reported about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday that they saw a young male attempting suicide and streaming it over the Internet, the Buffalo News reported. Police traced the computer address to the 17-year-old's home in Clarence. The boy said the stunt was a joke and he had no intention of hurting himself. But state police said the incident tied up officers and...

An American man who made coffee in his own home while nude is facing charges of indecent exposure. Eric Williamson, from Springfield, Virginia, was brewing coffee in his kitchen when a woman and a seven-year-old boy walked past the window and saw him. The woman complained to police who arrested Williamson shortly after the incident on Monday morning. Williamson, 29, insisted he did nothing wrong and that any exposure of his private parts were accidental. "Yes I wasn't wearing any clothes but I was alone, in my own home and just got out of bed. It was dark and I...

Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city gripped by a drug cartel war, has laid new claim to the title "murder capital of the world" as the number of killings so far this year passed 2,000.The city of 1.5 million people just across the border from El Paso, Texas, had 1,600 murders last year but in 2009 that total was exceeded by late summer. Latest figures from the Chihuahua state attorney general's office showed there were 195 this month alone. Mexican drug wars force police to claim asylum in US How to make a billion out of blood and cocaine US marshall...

It’s like being in the middle of a “tsunami” or an “avalanche” — or maybe both at the same time. That’s how Arthur Schwartz described his experience as general counsel of ACORN amid the recent right-wing attacks and congressional caving that are bringing the national community-organizing network to its knees. In an interview with The Villager last week, Schwartz, a prominent New York City labor attorney and longtime member of Community Board 2 in Greenwich Village, where he lives with his family, painted a dire picture of ACORN. Speaking in his office in the Unite Here! headquarters building at 26th...

The sexual assault of a female student by a group of men on the San Diego State University campus is being investigated by campus police.A dusty vacant lot became the backdrop to the horrifying assault. The victim told police that six black men attacked her. They held her down, poured liquid into her mouth, and sexually assaulted her. Breanna Piper knows the pain this latest victim is going through. She just started up a campus organization at SDSU for sexual assault victims called Sorority Outreach and Support. "We have a society

MEXICO CITY -- Gustavo de la Rosa looks over his shoulder, notes suspicious license plates, changes his routine. As one of the most prominent human rights officials in Ciudad Juarez, he would be a fool not to. On Wednesday, his Juarez reached a milestone: more than 2,000 people slain this year. His phone rings with pleas for help -- and with threats. When de la Rosa crossed the international bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso on Oct. 15, as he has done hundreds of times, he did not think it unusual that inspectors with the U.S. Customs and Border...

Allegations of continuing corruption continue to mount against the embattled Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). In the wake of tremendous negative publicity, much of which was featured here at Big Government, and adverse House and Senate votes ACORN has begun laying off dozens of low-level workers and staff across the country. However, under conditions of strict anonymity, ACORN organizers and staff have complained to the ACORN 8 (www.acorn8.com) that senior management has ordered them to continue to work for ACORN as “volunteers” but for them to apply for unemployment insurance.

A shop assistant who was told she could not sing while she stacked shelves without a performance licence has been given an apology. Sandra Burt, 56, who works at A&T Food store in Clackmannanshire, was warned she could be fined for her singing by the Performing Right Society (PRS). However the organisation that collects royalties on behalf of the music industry has now reversed its stance. They have sent Mrs Burt a bouquet of flowers and letter of apology.

Shades of Tawana Brawley. The Rev. Al Sharpton revealed Wednesday that he gave a $1,000 Christmas gift to a black West Virginia woman who claimed she had been gang-raped by a group of white men - and is now recanting her story. Only this time, Sharpton wants cops to investigate whether Megan Williams "fabricated her story" and the convicted men sprung "if they are being held under false information and she misled authorities." Williams, 22, told cops in 2007 she escaped from a ramshackle trailer near Charleston, W.V., where she was held captive for a week - and where she...

Just breaking...found in a Georgia landfill..confirmed by Gov. Crist

Convicted German man 'kidnapped' A German doctor convicted over the death of his step-daughter nearly 30 years ago was found tied up outside a French court house, police say. Dieter Krombach, 74, was allegedly kidnapped in Germany and found in the French border town of Mulhouse, after an anonymous phone call to police. Krombach was investigated in both France and Germany, but only a French court found him guilty of manslaughter. The girl's father was arrested on suspicion of organising the kidnapping.

When sober-minded individuals begin to regard an enterprise within a nation as "an enemy of the people" you can bet that some serious blood is going to flow. This is now essentially the situation for the Goldman Sachs company, which last week announced third-quarter earnings of over $3 billion largely derived from converting zero percent loans from taxpayers into zero risk profits off of anything paying more than zero percent in interest, revenue, or dividends. The "people" across this big country may not have a clue how any of this is done, and there may be much to fault them...

Andrew Breitbart has released another ACORN video. This one is from Philly and it's done on his other site, Breitbart TV. The video is heavily edited and intermittently shows news coverage of their sting. Ultimately, here is the story as told by Giles and O'Keefe. After these initial videos came out, ACORN and some of its allies, mainly Media Matters, claimed that when they came to the Philadelphia office they were immediately thrown out. This was something said by CEO Bertha Lewis and Carol Hemingway, head of the Pennsyvlania ACORN. They said this on news outlets like CNN and CSPAN...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Even when executions are not carried out, the death penalty costs US states hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depleting budgets in the midst of economic crisis, a study released Tuesday found. "It is doubtful in today's economic climate that any legislature would introduce the death penalty if faced with the reality that each execution would cost taxpayers 25 million dollars, or that the state might spend more than 100 million dollars over several years and produce few or no executions," argued Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the report's author. "Surely...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Andrew Breitbart's Big Government will hold a press conference featuring James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the two daring young journalists who, posing as a "pimp" and "prostitute," exposed massive corruption within ACORN's offices throughout the country. The Press Conference will be held at the National Press Club of Washington, DC on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. After suing Breitbart.com, Mr. O'Keefe and Ms. Giles in Maryland over the release of the Baltimore tapes, ACORN has issued public statements denying any wrongdoing in its Philadelphia office and lying about what happened there. Mr. O'Keefe...

Not long ago, Pam Geller told the story of an ACORN office in Florida that had destroyed all the Republican voter registration forms it had gotten during a 2008 voter registration drive. Geller had a first-hand account of this crime from one Fathiyyah Muhammad, an Obama voter that is a registered Republican. She is also an African-American. "This is my first experience" with ACORN, Muhammad said. "This was before Obama got the nomination, long before then….I heard about this group that was paying $3.00 per person, to go out and to get people to sign up to vote. So I...

Jews and Guns Posted By Robert J. Avrech On October 19, 2009 @ 6:43 am In Military, Politics | An Ethiopian Jewish [1] woman soldier takes aim. Both men and women serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. Thus, there is a weapon in almost every Israeli home. Before our son Ariel Chaim [2] ZT”L passed away, age twenty-two, in 2003, we spent a good deal of time discussing the Second Amendment, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Ariel was amazed that so many American Jews—overwhelmingly liberal and secular—aligned themselves with the advocates of gun control, in reality a movement...

In an amateur video that's shocking for its violence against a young girl, a House of Blues security guard repeatedly shoved a female concertgoer to the ground and roughed her up -- all because she took a photograph of him, police say. Watch the video Here. Darrell Gibson, 31, of Sauk Village, was arrested for misdemeanor battery. Police would not confirm that Gibson worked for the House of Blues, but a spokesperson for the venue said that "an incident occurred on Monday night outside House of Blues involving an individual and a security guard" and that the venue would "cooperate...

Organizers of a vigil against the mistreatment of federal detainees called for the closure of the nation's largest immigration detention center known as “Tent City” in Raymondville. The vigil was held by some one hundred people from across Texas Friday evening. The privately-operated prison in Willacy County houses some 3,000 immigrants. Some of them have turned to Action 4 News to sound off on allegations of horrendous conditions, sexual assaults, rotten food and poor medical care inside the facility. Vigil organizers, some from as far away as Austin and Laredo, said the inhumane treatment of detainees must be stopped. “We...

Police: Jewelry store owner's actions 'commendable' Daily Record/Sunday News Updated: 10/17/2009 02:05:26 PM EDT Two people attempting to rob a Shrewsbury jewelry store Friday night were chased away when the store owner fired a shot at one of them, according to Southern Regional Police. Chief James Childs said this morning that police will be looking at what Alexander's Jewelry owner Ken Zampier did, but said, "I think what he did was commendable," and described Zampier's actions as "sort of heroic." Police said Friday night that Zampier may have hit one of the people attempting to rob the store. The (Baltimore)...

EVERETT, WA — An Everett nursing home is being accused of neglecting a 97-year-old man and allowing his penis to slowly rot off. A lawsuit was filed against the Everett Rehabilitation and Care Center earlier this week. The lawsuit alleges that nursing home staff failed to adequately care for a patient who had developed penile cancer. The man died March 31, 2008, about two weeks after he was rushed to the emergency room and doctors made the grim discovery. They were the first to report that the man's penis had disintegrated, Seattle attorney James Gooding said Thursday. “They were shocked...

Note: The following text is a quote: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the 78th Interpol General Assembly SINGAPORE ~ Monday, October 12, 2009 In Bucharest, a little over a year ago, my predecessor U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Mark Filip, joined by the Romanian Prosecutor General, announced criminal charges in a case that was emblematic of the evolution of transnational organized crime. That case charged that a racketeering enterprise in Romania joined forces with other criminals around the world -- including street gangs in Los Angeles -- to use the Internet to defraud thousands of people and...

Ponzi schemer's son storms off after bitter fight Cops were searching for one of Bernie Madoff's sons yesterday, but not for the reason you may think. Mark Madoff, the frazzled former trader at his father's firm, disappeared yesterday after an acrimonious argument with his wife, who, fearing for his safety, desperately called the cops, according to a published report. That frantic call prompted a police search, which ended when Mark came back home, saying he had spent the night in a fancy hotel and planned to get help for his issues from a doctor, reports The New York Post. The...

AUSTRALIANS could soon be paid for spotting crimes happening on the other side of the world. British company Internet Eyes will offer a reward of up to $1740 to people who detect shoplifting and other crimes on a network of UK security cameras. Subscribers will watch live footage over the internet on their home computers. The company believes the different time zones made Australia the ideal location for detecting night-time crime in the UK. "I would love people in Australia to be looking at this," managing director Tony Morgan says. The scheme could also be switched so that UK residents...

Raj Rajaratnam was ranked by Forbes magazine last year among the 400 richest AmericansThe billionaire founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund and five others were arrested in a $20 million insider trading scandal, federal authorities said Friday. Raj Rajaratnam, 52, ranked by Forbes magazine last year among the 400 richest Americans, was charged with conspiracy and securities fraud along with current and former executives from Bear Stearns, IBM, Intel Capital and McKinsey & Co., according to federal prosecutors. Rajaratnam, was ranked No. 559 by Forbes magazine this year among the world's wealthiest billionaires, with a $1.3 billion net worth....

A popular Boca Raton chef is in jail and faces aggravated assault chargesYou have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, but one chef decided he would crack a few skulls if he had to make one more dish of mozzarella Caprese. Chef Mark DeCraepeo was arrested Wednesday night after he pulled a gun on two waitresses at his restaurant because he was tired of seeing orders for the appetizer, according to the Sun-Sentinel. "If you hang one more f---- ticket for mozzarella Caprese, I swear to God I'll shoot you in the forehead," witnesses at Pizza Time...

"They spent 42 days trying to drive me bizarre, but thank god I’m smart and rich ... In America, California, I lose my wife, my baby, my friends, perhaps my sanity and almost my freedom. No, I say, no! The Nazis couldn’t take it away from me, nor could the grief of my losses. And this little whore and the California laws won't either. I have given much and they have taken too much from me."

  Last Saturday night, President Barack Obama spoke to the nation's leading homosexual-rights lobbying group, the Human Rights Campaign, in Washington, D.C. Among the several promises Obama made were "to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act" and "to pass an inclusive hate crimes bill."   As I reported a few days ago, the USCCB has yet to make any comment on Obama's intention to put an end to DOMA and, as he puts it, ensure "that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country." The hate-crimes legislation passed recently...

Eddie Rodzwicz (don't ask me to pronounce that one) is sure to claim he was railroaded. Like a good union thug he'll likely try to blame everyone else. But whatever Ed claims about the charges filed against him it seems he's run off the rails. It's charges of bribe taking and soliciting bribes being pressed against Rodzwicz we are told. It seems that this union criminal got up a full head of steam and chugged forward toward his troubles by contacting an attorney that was supposed to be taken off the union approved vender list because of the lawyer's ethical...

Stopped by State Police on suspicion of driving while intoxicated Monday morning, the driver identified himself as Carlos Billamarin, 22, of Hampton Bays. But a fingerprint check revealed a sinister secret life almost a decade in the making, police say. Billamarin, police said, turned out to be Erick Morales, 27, a fugitive wanted in the 2001 stabbing death of a 15-year-old classmate in Daly City, Calif. State Troopers Matthew W. Stumpf and Andrew Gargiulo stopped Morales' 2000 Kia Sportage on Springville Road near the Long Island Rail Road station in Hampton Bays Monday at 2:50 a.m. Police said Morales was...

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently attracted major attention when he dramatically warned, as Rep. Nancy Pelosi had done earlier, that malicious words can lead to life-threatening violence. Yet both were silent about the wave of political violence that reached its peak a year ago this month in a series of crimes that were not deemed especially newsworthy, because they were committed by supporters of presidential candidate Barack Obama. How many of us remember the McCain-Palin campaign bus coming under gunfire in New Mexico last October? Through sheer luck, neither McCain, Palin, nor anyone else was harmed by the...

A teenage girl was raped four times by a gang who took pictures of the abuse on their mobile phones. The 16-year-old victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was attacked in the attic room of a house in Rochdale on 28 May 2008. The girl's mother called her mobile phone after noticing she was missing from their home, only to hear the cries of her daughter on the end of the line. Her four attackers, aged 17 to 20, pleaded guilty at Bolton Crown Court. The girl had gone to the house after being called on her mobile....

Senior Democrats are taking shots at the House’s new ethics watchdog, which has come back to bite some caucus members a year after Democratic leaders created it. Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) acknowledged a growing number of concerns about the Office of Congressional Ethics’s (OCE) record and predicted a coming public clash over its activities. “A lot of people have been raising concerns [about the OCE], and I support them,” Clyburn said. “At some point in the not-so-distant future, these concerns will have to be addressed.” Clyburn’s terse comments are surprisingly strong from a member of the Democratic leadership. The...

Tony Ray was talking with a police officer outside the Forest Park Community Center in Joliet a couple of weeks ago when the two men suddenly heard the crack of gunshots. Ray, executive director of the center, headed to safety inside the building. The officer ran to investigate. Sadly, the incident is not all that uncommon. There have been 165 shootings so far this year, almost as many in all of last year. Murders are up, too. There have been nine so far this year compared to six in all of 2008. That has community leaders like Ray and the...

Carmen Huertas Accused Of Driving Drunk With 7 Girls In Car; Daughter Pleaded With Woman To Slow DownSuspect Asked Children To 'Raise Your Hands If You Think I'm Gonna Crash' NEW YORK (CBS) - She promised another parent that the children would be in good hands. She even joked about it. But what happened next was no joking matter. Now a young girl is dead, a mother is under arrest, and families are devastated after a tragic accident on Manhattan's Upper West Side. A woman stands next to her critically-injured daughter's hospital bed Monday, hoping and praying she will make...

Just as criminal justice officials in New Orleans started to take note of a remarkable stretch -- two weeks and counting without a murder -- a homicide call crackled over police radios. New Orleans' murder total ticked up by one Monday afternoon when a 22-year-old man was killed after a triple shooting in the Desire neighborhood. The violent death brings the number of homicides in the city to at least 150 this year, closing out the longest murder-free stretch -- 15 days. The last time [New Orleans Police Department] detectives were called to a murder scene was Sept. 27, when...

A Houston man found asleep with a corpse inside a closet of a vacant home has been charged with misdemeanor drug offenses, authorities said Monday. Cody Jean Plant, 21, was discovered Sunday after the owner of the house reported hearing voices and seeing signs of forced entry at the home in Cypress, about 25 miles northwest of Houston, according to a Harris County Precinct 4 Constable official. Authorities did not immediately release the dead man's identity. "There were two guys in the closet. They appeared to be sleeping, one was snoring and the other was deceased," said Assistant Chief Deputy...

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is working assiduously to get prisoners registered to vote in the state of Maine. Maine is one of only two states in which it is legal for prison inmates to vote. Vermont is the other. Rachel Talbot Ross, president of the Portland chapter of the NAACP said “it is time to bring prisoner voting into the mainstream. A growing proportion of our population is comprised of criminals who are behind bars. Denying this segment of society the right to participate in self-government is a taint on our democracy.” Ross pointed...