Free Republic

Nutcase bloggers will have to find another smear against Sarah Palin … again. Did you hear that Todd Palin’s former business partner tried to get his divorce records sealed? Conspiracy theorists immediately began speculating on line that Sarah Palin — that vixen! — must have had an affair and broken up the marriage. Why else would the partner suddenly act to seal his records? As the Smoking Gun discovered, Scott Richter wanted them sealed — to protect himself from conspiracy theorists: --------------------- So when the blogosphere discovered today (via an online court docket) that Scott Richter, a Palin associate, personally...

This woman leads a double life. Her boyfriend thinks she’s a secretary. In fact she is one of Japan’s new breed of professional seducers, hired by embittered spouses to entrap their straying partners. And she’ll stop at nothing to get the desired results.Case 1: Mr A and Kyoko 3.30pm. Mr A is outside a bank in a busy part of Ikebukuro, a faintly seedy area of Tokyo, waiting for his date. He beams as she teeters across the road on high heels. Kyoko, 20, is half his age. She has a mane of black hair, sloe eyes, a fetching smile...

Maggie Scarf, an American journalist [] has written a succession of books on family and marriage. In this one, she turns her attention to couples in their 50s and 60s, and finds older marriage is full of unexpected pleasures. ... [T]he clearest message, both from the research and from the couples, is upbeat. Those later years are, of course, a time of adjustments. The nest empties. Retirement approaches. The body may start to hint that it is not immortal. ... This time around, however, the answers are more manageable. The popular image of these late years may be of crusty...

I contemplate divorce every day. It tugs on my sleeve each morning when my husband, Will, greets me in his chipper, smug morning-person voice, because after 16 years of waking up together, he still hasn't quite pieced out that I'm not viable before 10 a.m. ..snip.. Maybe one day, marriage -- like the human appendix, male nipples, or your pinky toes -- will become a vestigial structure that will, in a millennium or two, be obsolete. Our great-great-great-grandchildren's grandchildren will ask each other in passing, "Remember marriage? What was its function again? Was it that maladaptive organ that intermittently produced...

TORONTO — A little over a week ago, the literary world was lauding novelist Stephenie Meyer, a Mormon stay-at-home mother, as the new J.K. Rowling amid the excitement surrounding the release of the fourth instalment in her "Twilight" teen fiction series, "Breaking Dawn." Today, the bestselling book is the subject of a backlash that's prompted a group in the United States to organize a "return your book" protest. On Amazon's U.S. website, a group of readers, led by a one-time bookstore employee, is urging former fans to return their copies of "Breaking Dawn" in order to deprive Meyer of royalties...

A New Jersey judge recently confronted an issue that courts have been avoiding for years: are restraining orders constitutional? Accused criminals have "due process" and many other constitutional rights, but the feminists have persuaded many judges to issue orders that restrain actions of non-criminals and punish them based on flimsy, unproved accusations. These restraining orders are issued without the due process required for criminal prosecutions, yet they carry the threat of a prison sentence for anyone who violates them. Mr. and Mrs. Crespo were divorced and rearing their children in the same household when they had a fight, and Mrs....

A businessman decapitated himself in his sports car to get back at his younger wife for leaving him, an inquest has heard. Gerald Mellin, 54, taunted his estranged wife Mirrielle, 33, with threats of suicide. He even showed her the rope he was going to use, which he kept in the boot of his open-top Aston Martin DB7....

Scenario: Couple married 6 months. Upon marriage, husband rented out his home to move into wife's home so that her child would not be disrupted re school, friends, etc. Now wife wants him to leave because they are not getting along. He feels he should be able to stay untilthe lease on his home expires so he can move back into his own home. Can the wife "Evict" him? There has been no physical violence, just fighting over finances and differences in running a household.

Earlier this week, the Mike and Juliet Morning Show featured a segment about divorce and the damage it can wreak on children's lives. Texan Mario and his ex-wife Brenda appeared on the show with their two teenage kids to discuss how the divorce has affected them. Mario was in a tough situation, due to the angry and accusatory Brenda, but I thought he handled himself well. I'm sure Mario was not a perfect husband/father -- we men aren't as perfect as women are -- but she threw accusation after accusation at him and little seemed to stick. Mario and Brenda...

"Basically throwing me out on the street." Yup. Getting $750,000, as agreed in their prenup, is being "thrown out into the street." You remember Tricia Walsh-Smith--according to the AP, she vilified husband Philip Smith in a "furious YouTube video, which has attracted more than 3 million hits. She makes embarrassing claims about their intimate life and then calls his office to repeat those claims to a stunned assistant. "On the video, Walsh-Smith also goes through their wedding album, describing family members as 'bad,' 'evil' or 'nasty,' and expresses concern about eviction from the couple's luxury apartment." Her routine was so...

Former Colombian hostage Marc Gonsalves filed for divorce from his wife Alisa ''Shane'' Gonsalves Thursday in Key West. Gonsalves, a resident of Big Pine Key, was one of three Americans rescued from the jungles of Colombia on July 2 after being held captive for more than five years by FARC guerrillas. He returned to Big Pine Key on Saturday, flying into Marathon airport aboard a private plane. Gonsalves grew up in Connecticut. He and his wife have three teenage children: Joey, Cody and Destiny. Shane Gonsalves has declined all requests for interviews since her husband's rescue.

Two lovers had a brush with death after their car plunged 46m down a cliff, while they were having sex in the back seat. According to the police Lin Gu, 25, and lover Lee Shin, 29, suffered broken bones when their car tipped over the edge of the hill in XinDian, Taiwan. "They had parked up close to the edge of the mountain and had left the handbrake off," Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman, as saying. "When they started having sex the rocking motion started the car moving and it rolled off the hill. They were lucky they were not...

In the debate over gay marriage, strikingly little attention has been paid to the impact on children. Some question the wisdom of having children raised by two homosexuals, but the best they can seem to argue is that serious flaws vitiate the literature defending it. Almost no attention has been devoted to what may be the more serious political question of who will supply the children of gay "parents," since obviously they cannot produce children themselves. A few will come from sperm donors and surrogate mothers, but very few. The vast majority will come, because they already do come, from...

A TRAINEE priest due for an audience with the Pope this week has agreed to leave a seminary after church officials discovered he had an ex-wife 56 years his senior and that he claimed his late father may have been involved in murdering close family and friends. But Salvatore Scevola, 36, still plans to get in to see the Pope through his media accreditation with Vatican television channel Telepace. Catholic officials became concerned about Mr Scevola's suitability for the priesthood when they discovered that in his 20s he was married to a woman 56 years older than him, eventually divorcing...

Outside her Bel-Air home, Nancy Reagan stood arm in arm with John McCain and offered a significant -- but less than exuberant -- endorsement. "Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed," the Republican matriarch said in March. "Well, obviously this is the nominee of the party." They were the only words she would speak during the five-minute photo op. In a written statement, she described McCain as "a good friend for over 30 years." But that friendship was strained in the late 1970s by McCain's decision to divorce his first wife, Carol, who was...

The bad economy strikes again. This time – it’s marital relationships, or people’s ability to end them. NBC’s July 11 “Today” found an unlikely victim of the economic slowdown – divorce rates. According to the segment, the high cost of divorce is keeping some couple together. “[W]hile the price of divorce normally doesn’t run that high, there is evidence the troubled economy is forcing some troubled couples to stay together, at least for the time being,” NBC’s “Today” co-host Natalie Morales said.

Kerrville Texas - A bitter divorce trial slated to begin in a Kerr County courtroom in late August between Joseph and Kimberly Burkett already is making national headlines. Public interest in the case grew when CBS’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, Lara Logan, announced she was pregnant. The father, she claims, is Joseph Burkett of Kerrville. Their relationship began while Logan was on assignment in Iraq, where Burkett was stationed as a federal contractor, according to news reports. The relationship reportedly began shortly after Logan broke off another relationship with a fellow journalist last November. Burkett and Logan apparently met years...

Tuesday, July 8th 2008, 4:00 AM Alex Rodriguez's bitter divorce took an ugly turn on Monday night when Team A-Rod accused his estranged wife of going on a spiteful spending spree in Paris. Spurned spouse Cynthia Rodriguez used the Yankee slugger's credit card to the tune of $100,000 to punish him for a dalliance with Madonna that both he and the Material Girl deny, an A-Rod pal said. "She's been spending wildly," the friend said. "She spent close to $100,000 on her jaunt to Paris." Cynthia flew the godparents of her daughters, Dodd and Sabina Romero, and their older...

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. (MyFOX Atlanta) – A Clayton County man was behind bars Sunday, accused of killing his own daughter. Police said the father was angry because he felt his daughter was disgracing the family. Investigators said 54-year-old Chaudhry Rashad was so outraged at his daughter, Sandela Kanwal, and her plans for divorce that he killed her after a heated argument at the family's home. Investigators said Rashad confessed to strangling the 25-year-old woman.

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's hopes of seeing communion extended to divorcees like himself have been quashed by Pope Benedict XVI.Newspapers reported on Sunday that while attending a ceremony in Sardinia Mr Berlusconi had asked a bishop when the Church planned to change the rules. But the Pope told a conference in Canada that communion can only be received by those free of major sin. "We have to do everything... to receive [communion] in a pure heart," he said. No changeMr Berlusconi has recently begun a major effort to try and get communion granted to divorced and remarried people...

- In Sweden that is. All the same, if various experts are right, the Nordic countries are not only the richest part of the world, but also global leaders in the domain of QUALITY of life. Therefore, living in this part of Stockholm is probably as good as life gets, or? The article: "The Stockholm suburb of Danderyd is the best municipality in which to live, according to a new ranking by the magazine Fokus. Lund and nearby Lomma in southern Sweden follow closely behind. Ljusnarsberg municipality in the Bergslagen region of central Sweden ended up in last place. The...

Recently Jennifer Butler Murray, actor Bill Murray's wife, filed for divorce, accusing him of "drug abuse, sex addiction and physical violence towards her during their 11-year marriage." I have no idea as to the veracity of these claims, but it certainly appears that Jennifer has some problems of her own. According to this recent New York Post story: Jennifer Butler-Murray has gotten a reputation in her suburban Charleston, SC, neighborhood as an avid drinker who gets "physical" with her children and gets into bizarre police incidents. On March 17 of this year, Butler-Murray allegedly got drunk and two of her...

Half a million elderly men lead lonely lives with no friends and no contact from their families, a report warned yesterday. It found that one person in five with an elderly father is no longer in touch with him. One in four claims to be too busy to maintain contact. Divorce and family break-up has left millions of men without ties to their children and with few or no family links, said the charity Help the Aged. Retirement deprives many of the company of work colleagues and others are left alone by bereavement or their own poor health Of the...

Next week, same-sex couples across the country who want to marry will be welcomed in California. But what happens if they later want to divorce? That is one of the many legal issues that could confront California newlyweds who return to home states where same-sex marriages are prohibited. Unlike a Massachusetts ruling a few years ago, a landmark court ruling last month allowing same-sex marriages in California will permit almost any out-of-state couples to wed there. But that doesn't mean their lives after the wedding will be easy. Some gay and lesbian couples joined by marriage in Massachusetts or Canada,...

TAMPA, Fla. -- The wife of a Tampa man who hired a nude maid to clean their home while she was away is speaking out about jewelry stolen from their home. Police say Kenna Dimartini is a person of interest in the case. The wife, who does not want to be identified, says $40,000 worth of jewelry was stolen from their home. The husband was able to point officers to the woman's Web site and give a description. The wife says she plans to file for divorce.

Britain's first 'divorce fair' aims to make breaking up easier By Martin Beckford, Social Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 2:48PM BST 04/06/2008   Britain's first-ever "divorce fair" is being held to cater for the growing number of couples whose marriages are breaking down. Estranged spouses will be able to get information from lawyers, financial advisers and self-help experts at the event, to help make their separation easier and rebuild their lives. Organisers insist there is a real need for the show, after official figures showed almost half of newly married couples will end up getting divorced. But critics claim the...

ELIZABETH, N.J. -- Opposing sides in the divorce trial of New Jersey's gay ex-governor focused on his estranged wife Thursday in an acrimonious dispute over whether she is entitled to collect on the opulent lifestyle she lost when a sex scandal toppled his administration. Dina Matos -- who said she now prefers to be called by her maiden name -- faces more tough questions Friday after spending all day on the witness stand Thursday. Under gentle questioning from her lawyer in the morning, Matos painted herself as a dutiful spouse and loyal political partner of former Gov. James McGreevey. But...

ELIZABETH, New Jersey (AP) -- The estranged wife of New Jersey's gay former governor portrayed herself as a dutiful spouse and dedicated political ally who went so far as to pay for their $30,000 wedding and to add his political cronies to the guest list. Taking the stand Wednesday in their bitter divorce trial, Dina Matos McGreevey claimed she devoted herself to James McGreevey's goal of being elected governor. "Once we became engaged, I was a full partner," said Matos McGreevey, who was to return to the witness stand Thursday. The McGreeveys wed in 2000, but their marriage unraveled after...

An alarming 70 percent of Americans now believe that divorce is “morally acceptable,” according to a recent poll by Gallup’s 2008 Values and Beliefs survey. The new figure – the highest on record – represents an 11 percent increase from just 7 years ago and a 3 percent increase from 2 years ago. Only 22 percent of Americans said they believed divorce was “morally wrong,” according to the results. The acceptability of divorce among Americans was ranked higher than all of the other 16 ethical issues surveyed – including the death penalty, gambling, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, abortion and medical research...

Since the California Supreme Court lifted the ban on gay marriages, Ellen DeGeneres has announced her plans to wed Portia de Rossi soon. The two have been going together since December of 2004. Is the viewing audience of Ellen ready for that? Or will they be ready to divorce Ellen for putting gay rights front and center?

A few days ago I shared this outrageous story with you--Father Jailed Because His Adult Daughter Fails to Get Her GED. In the case, father Brian Gegner was ordered to see to it that his daughter gets her GED, but she has not done so, in part because she struggles with math. The daughter's problems in school came at a time when she lived with her mother. The daughter herself--now almost 19-years-old--says that she alone is responsible for her own problems and that her father shouldn't be blamed. Nevertheless, the father is in jail on a six month sentence. The...

It's tough to run a college these days. It's tougher still when you set high standards. And it's toughest of all when those standards reflect an Ozzie and Harriet morality in a Sarah Jessica Parker world. Just ask the folks at Wheaton College. Wheaton is a Christian college that takes its beliefs seriously. These beliefs are embodied in a "Community Covenant" that all must sign and live by if they hope to teach or study there. The provisions include a biblically based view of marriage, and the understanding that the only acceptable grounds for divorce in this community are those...

According to Jury convicts wife of forging checks while her husband was serving in Iraq (Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5/2/08): "Dana M. Kieser deceived and defrauded her husband when he was at his most vulnerable, serving in Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard, a Ramsey County jury heard Friday. "She closed out John Kieser's retirement and college-savings accounts, forged his name on two checks totaling almost $25,000, bought a home in Fargo, N.D., and sold their home in Maplewood -- all without his knowledge or consent, prosecutor Laura Rosenthal said. "Dana Kieser showed little emotion when the verdicts were read. John...

Saying "I divorce thee" three times, as men in Muslim countries have been able to do for centuries when leaving their wives, is not enough if you're a resident of Maryland, the state's highest court ruled yesterday. Yesterday, the Court of Appeals rejected a Pakistani man's argument that his invocation of the Islamic talaq, under which a marriage is dissolved simply by the husband's say-so, allowed him to part with his wife of more than 20 years and deny her a share of his $2 million estate. The justices affirmed a lower court's decision overturning a divorce decree obtained in...

McGreeveys Appear In Divorce CourtMay 6, 2008 7:52 pm US/Eastern TRENTON (AP) Lawyers representing the nation's first openly gay governor and his estranged wife ended the first day of their scheduled divorce trial reporting progress in settlement talks. The talks are to resume Wednesday afternoon. Testimony was delayed to allow the discussions to take place. "We are happy to report on behalf of both of our clients that they have made progress toward settling their case," said John Post, lawyer for Dina Matos McGreevey, who read from a joint statement issued by him and Stephen Haller, lawyer for former Gov....

New Jersey's gay ex-governor Jim McGreevey and his estranged wife Dina Matos McGreevey showed up for court Tuesday morning to begin the process of ending their marriage. The first three days of the trial will be closed to the media as Union County Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy considers custody issues surrounding the couple's 6-year-old daughter. The issues to be decided in the divorce settlement involve custody, alimony and child support, and whether McGreevey, now openly gay, committed fraud by marrying a woman. Matos McGreevey, 41, is seeking $600,000 for time she would have spent at the governor's mansion had...

Divorce and unwed childbearing cost taxpayers at least $112 billion each year or more than $1 trillion over the last decade. This estimate from the Institute for American Values is, as the authors suggest, likely to be an underestimate. This staggering but plausible tally of the economic costs of family dissolution follows what we have long known about the social costs. All our major social ills -- poverty, violent crime, substance abuse, truancy and more -- are more closely linked to family breakdown and single-parent homes than to any other factor. A poor black child from an intact home is...

Family fracture, unwed births cost us dearly By Leah Ward Sears For the Journal-Constitution Published on: 04/24/08 This year, nearly four of every 10 babies will be born outside of marriage. We know statistically and intuitively that, overall, children do not fare as well when their parents are divorced or never married. As a judge, I know that 65 percent of all civil cases heard in Georgia's superior courts involve issues regarding children and families. We also know that in 2005, more than 14,000 children were in the care of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services; more than...

According to Virginia Supreme Court to Weigh in on Lesbian Couple's Custody Battle (CNSNews.com, April 15, 2008): "The Virginia Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Thursday in a case involving a lesbian couple fighting over who gets full custody of a five-year-old girl. Janet Jenkins, former partner of Lisa Miller, is suing for custody of Miller's biological daughter even though Jenkins is not an adoptive or biological parent. "Jenkins and Miller (pictured with their baby) entered into a Vermont civil union in 2000 while living in Virginia. Miller got pregnant through artificial insemination from an anonymous donor and gave birth...

Twice-divorced former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani took Communion at a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict on Saturday, breaching rules that bar those who remarry outside the Church from doing so. As he left New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral with his third wife, Judith, the failed presidential candidate confirmed to Reuters that he took Communion from a priest. Asked if he was uncomfortable with having broken the Church ban on the divorced and remarried taking Communion, Giuliani said, "No." The Church does not recognize divorce and teaches that divorced Catholics are still married to their earlier partner unless the...

NEW YORK - Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing costs U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by groups advocating government action to bolster marriage.

NEW YORK (AP) — We're the YouTube Generation, living in the YouTube Era, in a YouTube World. And now we apparently have a YouTube Divorce. Some prominent New York divorce lawyers couldn't think of another case where a spouse — in this instance, the wife of a major Broadway theater operator — had taken to YouTube to spill the secrets of a marriage in an apparent effort to gain leverage and humiliate the other side. "This is absolutely a new step, and I think it's scary," said Bonnie Rabin, a divorce lawyer who has handled high-profile cases. "People used to...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Gay couples had to struggle mightily to win the right to marry or form civil unions. Now, some are finding that breaking up is hard to do, too. In Rhode Island, for example, the state's top court ruled in December that gays married in neighboring Massachusetts can't get divorced here because lawmakers have never defined marriage as anything but a union between a man and woman. In Missouri, a judge is deciding whether a lesbian married in Massachusetts can get an annulment. "We all know people who have gone through divorces. At the end of that long...

NEW YORK — Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages. Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages. Two experts not connected to the study said such programs are of dubious merit and suggested that other investments — notably job creation — would be more effective in aiding all types of needy families. There have been previous attempts to calculate the...

Nojoud Muhammed Nasser YT Photo by Hamed Thabet SANA’A, April 9 - An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man. Nojoud Muhammed Nasser arrived at court by herself on Wednesday, April 2, looking for a judge to handle her case against her father, Muhammed Nasser, who forced her two months ago to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a man 22 years her senior. The child also asked for a divorce, accusing her husband of sexual and domestic abuse. According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute,...

A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut his farm tools and machines in half to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife. Branko Zivkov, 76, said he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment. "I still haven't decided how to split the cow. She should just say what she wants - the part with the horns or the part with the tail," he said.

Divorce and abortion are offences in the sight of God, Pope Benedict XVI charged Saturday, while calling on the Catholic Church to be merciful to those who had experienced such events. "The ethical judgement of the Church on divorce and abortion is clear and well-known," he told participants in a Catholic congress on marriage and the family. "They are serious offences... which violate human dignity, inflict deep injustice on human and social relations and offend God himself, guarantor of conjugal peace and origin of life," he said. However he added that there were people who had committed such "errors" but...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported on Thursday. Branko Zivkov, 76, told Belgrade daily Kurir he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment. Instead, he bought a grinder and cut in two all his tools, including large items such as cattle scales, a harrow...

prayer request (wonder if I should post this on FR) for my friend Brenda. She has five kids and is divorced. She is a Christian. Her ex pretended to be one, he is a spoiled brat pastor's kid. He abuses her verbally constantly, can't hold a job, steals money from their bank account (doesn't tell her where he spent it or how much or that he even DID spend it so they end up bouncing checks!). They are in serious debt with no real options for paying it off because of his behavior and inability to keep a job or...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- When Roslan Ngah took a second wife, he might have wondered if she would get along with his first. He need not have worried. The two women got on so well they decided to leave him at the same time. Faced with their united stand, Roslan, a 44-year-old Malaysian Muslim, divorced his two wives, aged 46 and 35, in an Islamic Shariah Court in northeastern Terengganu state on Tuesday, a lawyer said Wednesday. According to Islamic law, a woman can submit a request to leave her husband, but the pronouncement of divorce must come from the...