Free Republic

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A Florida man accused of killing his son-in-law in New Jersey is arguing that he was unable to commit the crime because he was too fat. When Edward Ates takes the stand in his defense Wednesday, he's expected to tell jurors he wouldn't have had the energy needed to climb and descend the staircase where prosecutors say the killer was perched when he shot Paul Duncsak, a 40-year-old pharmaceutical executive, in 2006. An attorney for Ates claims that in 2006, the 62-year-old who stood 5 feet 8 and tipped the scales at 285 pounds was in...

comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. ...

ACORN wants people to register to vote – as long as they’re Democrats. Republican registrations go into the trash. Here is a first-hand account of how it happens. In February 2008, Fathiyyah Muhammad of Jacksonville, Florida, heard that ACORN was paying people three dollars for each voter they could register. ACORN paid her three dollars for each voter she registered, but Fatiyyah Muhammad says that the group threw out her votes and fired her when she brought them registrations of Republican voters. Fathiyyah Muhammad voted for Obama. “I’m a Republican,” she says, “and this was the first time that I...

TALLAHASSEE -- Two suspicious Seminole County voter registration cards became a flash point Wednesday in the Republican effort to suggest the community group ACORN is committing fraud in its historic Florida get-out-the vote efforts. An ACORN spokesman said the group spotted what appeared to be forged registration cards weeks ago and fired a worker over them. Seminole's election chief, Mike Ertel, said he was still "tremendously concerned," but stopped well short of calling the incident "fraud." The Republican National Committee, though, levelled the accusation and blasted the housing and wage advocacy group in a nationwide conference call with reporters, saying...

Arrest warrants have been issued in Miami for 11 people suspected of falsifying information on hundreds of voter registration cards last year. The FBI and state authorities were making arrests Wednesday. The workers being sought were hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. Prosecutors say they were first notified by ACORN about problems with workers in June 2008. Republicans and conservative activists have accused ACORN of fraud in voter registration drives around the country. ACORN officials say the Florida case proves the organization is committed to an honest process. The case involved...

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Dr. Jason Newsom railed against burgers, french fries, fried chicken and sweet tea in his campaign to promote better eating in a part of the country known as the Redneck Riviera. He might still be leading the charge if he had only left the doughnuts alone. A 38-year-old former Army doctor who served in Iraq, Newsom returned home to Panama City a few years ago to run the Bay County Health Department and launched a one-man war on obesity by posting sardonic warnings on an electronic sign outside: "Sweet Tea (equals) Liquid Sugar." "Hamburger (equals) Spare Tire."...

MELBOURNE - A Florida woman was duped into changing diapers and providing care for a man she met through Craigslist who feigned disabilities. Turns out the man who hired Janet Schulte to look after an adult brother with diminished mental capacity was the same guy she bottle-fed and treated like a child for 3 months.

It was a $500,000 answer to his prayers and it was in his back pocket. And then, suddenly, it wasn't. On his way to a Florida Lottery office Wednesday to claim his half-million-dollar prize, Louis Tolentino, a 69-year-old retiree who lives near Wellington, lost the ticket and any claim to the prize of a lifetime. He says he had it in his pocket when he left for the lottery office. But he had trouble finding the location. He stopped at a convenience store to ask a clerk for directions. Later, he realized the ticket, a Gold Rush scratch-off, was missing....

MIAMI (Reuters) - A fight broke out on a Florida bus when news of Michael Jackson's death sparked debate over whether he should be remembered as a great musical talent, and one passenger was charged with assault, police said on Friday. The bus was moving through the city of North Lauderdale on Thursday when passenger James Kiernan received a text message about Jackson's death on his cell phone, and he read it aloud on the bus, the Broward County Sheriff's Department said. The unidentified bus driver opined that "Michael Jackson should have been in jail long ago," prompting Kiernan, 60,...

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -- A three-year-old girl was taken along for the ride during her mother's crime spree in Brevard County. Cocoa police say it all started in the early hours of Friday morning when the mother, with her daughter in the backseat, decided to rob the Wendy's on US 1 in Cocoa. Police say she was armed with a gun and got away with $600 cash. When the cops showed up, the suspect jumped in her car and took off. Police chased her for nearly 10 minutes and finally used stop sticks on her vehicle. One police car even...

WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- A Loxahatchee man is suing Cheetah nightclub, claiming he was permanently injured after a dancer kicked him in the head. Michael Ireland has filed suit against the club, alleging dancer Sakeena Shageer kicked him 'without warning.' Cheetah Palm Beach manager Rod Kimbrough says that's not quite the way they remember the night. "A patron violently slapped the young woman on her buttocks and she was walking around the top of the bar and I guess out of a natural response she turned around and kicked him. From what I'm told he refused medical attention and...

Veteran Miami-Dade prosecutor David Ranck faces battery charges after an alleged scuffle with a pizza delivery woman on Saturday during a delivery that went horribly wrong. It's the second report of prosecutors gone wild in the past week. A Broward County prosecutor was arrested late last week for punching a cop in the back of the head during a barroom fight. At least he picked on a man. According to police reports, Ranck and the unidentified woman got into a shouting match when the delivery person couldn't get into the attorney's gated community. After a bit of shouting that woke...

Two Russian tourists paid a very high price for breaking the American law which bans sex with porcupines. Staying in Florida on vacation, two Russians from Saint Petersburg decided to check whether they are able to circumvent such an unusual law or not.

MIAMI (AP) -- An uncooperative juror has been replaced on the panel in Miami deliberating the case of six men accused of plotting to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and attack FBI offices. . . . U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard said Tuesday the juror had violated her duty by refusing to deliberate and casting doubt on the law.

A Cape Coral man was injured after striking bullets with a hammer in his driveway.

Add four-day school weeks for high school students to the list of options the Broward County School Board is weighing to save money. During a Tuesday workshop, board members directed Schools Superintendent James Notter to study the idea to prepare for up to $160 million in possible budget cuts from the state for the 2009-2010 school year.

> Police are using the car's license plate and a check the woman dropped to track her down.

In the summer of 1984, 10th-grader Irwin Nanofsky and a friend were driving down the Apalachee Parkway on the way home from baseball practice when they were pulled over by a police officer for a minor traffic infraction. After Nanofsky produced his driver’s license the police officer asked permission to search the vehicle. In less than two minutes, the officer found a homemade pipe underneath the passenger’s seat of the Ford Aerostar belonging to the teenage driver’s parents. The minivan was seized, and the two youths were taken into custody on suspicion of drug possession. Illegal possession of drug paraphernalia...

MIAMI - Fidel Castro has been booked in Miami for allegedly driving with a permanently revoked driver's license, police say. Before anyone storms Calle Ocho to celebrate, it's Fidel Christian Castro, 32, not the octogenarian Cuban dictator. The younger Castro appeared in Miami-Dade bond court this morning after his arrest, the Miami Herald reports. Castro was arrested Friday about 1:31 a.m. in a white Ford pickup truck on Southwest 23rd Street and 34th Avenue, police say.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The past year in Florida saw deputies Taser an emu, iguanas fall from trees and a Christmas tree used as a weapon. What else would you expect in a state where a longtime congresswoman hung up on President-elect Barack Obama not once, but twice? In a year full of weird events, Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen thought she was being "punked" when Obama called her a few weeks after the election. She told him he was a better Obama impersonator than the guy on Saturday Night Live and hung up. Obama called back, and she hung up...

I just got home about 25 minutes ago from a frustrating afternoon to say the least. Long story short...my wife and I were leaving a restaurant late this afternoon after voting and as we were pulling out I noticed a very tall male between the ages of 18-20 yrs of age spray painting the huge McCain/Palin signs that were in front of the mall...he was putting the word "DON'T" in yellow spray paint with a nazi symbol on the bottom. He was doing this in broad daylight on a public road...so I turned my truck around and hauled it down...

NEW YORK - Leonardo DiCaprio is bringing out the big guns to get out the vote. Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg and Justin Timberlake are among the celebrities starring in a new public service announcement produced by the actor, who also appears in the spot. The video shows the stars struggling to grasp the concept of using reverse psychology to get young people into voting booths... Finally, Ford says, “You know what? I can’t do it. It’s not true, I don’t believe it — 537 people decided the 2000 election, and you want me to...

MIAMI – Gerard Damiano, director of the pioneering pornographic film that lent its name to the Watergate whistleblower known as "Deep Throat," has died. He was 80. Damiano died Saturday at a Fort Myers hospital, his son, Gerard Damiano Jr., said Monday. He had suffered a stroke in September. "He was a filmmaker and an artist and we thought of him as such," the younger Damiano said. "Even though we weren't allowed to see his movies, we knew he was a moviemaker, and we were proud of that." Damiano's "Deep Throat" was a mainstream box-office success and helped launch the...

"Participants in the Fantasy Fest Masquerade March make fun of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's bid for the vice-presidency in Key West, Florida. ""Revellers portraying a Secret Service agent, Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and his running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (L-R) walk down a street during the Fantasy Fest Masquerade March in Key West, Florida."

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, the staffers said. A Mahoney spokesperson would not answer questions about the alleged affair...

Congressman's $121,000 Payoff to Alleged Mistress Tim Mahoney Elected to Remove 'Ethical Cloud' of His Disgraced Predecessor, Mark Foley By EMMA SCHWARTZ, RHONDA SCHWARTZ, and VIC WALTER Oct. 13, 2008— West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen,...

So there I am driving though St Johns county and what do I see. Yes signs posted at major intersections saying Protect our families vote no on two. Then another sign next to them saying Jesus doesn't discriminate. I bet those people who posted them have no idea about Jesus. They tried all the dirty tactics to stop the question getting on the ballot and now they are trying to trick people How sad , notice how they did not mention the words gay or homosexuals family

Barack Obama will be campaigning in Florida for the second day in a row today, making up for lost time during the Democratic primary, when the Democrats agreed not to campaign here after the state moved it's primary to January, in violation of party rules. At a fundraiser here last night, Obama’s pitch to donors included a prediction – if he wins Florida, he will win the election. “I’ll tell you, we can win this thing without Florida, but boy, it’s a lot easier if we win Florida,” Obama said, adding, “If we win Florida, it is almost impossible for...

Over the past couple years, we’ve noticed a suspicious number of ticket camera editorials by the Orlando Sentinel. After looking more closely, we noticed that nearly every editorial in the Sentinel was strongly in favor of installing ticket cameras. Furthermore, we noticed that nearly every pro-camera article was written by one member of the Sentinel’s Editorial Board, George Diaz.This seemed odd, so we decided to look into it further.After some quick research, we discovered that George Diaz appeared at a symposium held by The National Campaign To Stop Red Light Running in late 2007.As we covered on this blog previously,...

Barack Obama's campaign went looking for unregistered black voters in barbershops and beauty salons across the state Saturday, including Broward and Palm Beach counties, in a new outreach effort to African-Americans.

<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-A newspaper is asking John McCain's campaign why a black reporter assigned to cover a rally was singled out by security and told to leave a backstage area.</p> <p>Stephen Price, a reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat, was among four Florida capital press corps reporters behind the scenes at a Panama City rally Friday when a Secret Service agent approached and asked if he were part of the national media traveling with McCain. Price said no, and the agent told him he had to leave. Price said he then pointed out that there were other state reporters in the same area, but was still told to leave. The other reporters were white.</p>

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A police lieutenant in Daytona Beach was fired over accusations that he threatened slower emergency response times if he was not given complimentary specialty Starbucks coffee drinks. An internal police investigation found that Daytona Lt. Major Garvin received free coffee for about two years from a city Starbucks coffee store. However, when recently denied free coffee from new management, Garvin allegedly told managers that he could change the police department's response time if they refuse to give him complimentary drinks. Garvin is accused of saying, "If something happens, either we can respond really fast or we...

Yet another hate crime (watch both consecutive video news reports) that gets very little reporting because the roles of perpetrator and victim don't follow the Jim Crow America image the media loves to portray. The graffiti scrawled all over this South Florida woman's walls included "White Bread" and "FTW," which I presume stands for "F-ck The White(s)." A Ft. Lauderdale woman's home was ransacked and vandalized with messages of hate, now police are hoping fingerprints left behind by those responsible will lead to their arrest. Brandy Cochran believes her home was targeted because she is one of the few white...

Honoring the Red Army of Josef Stalin Posted at 3:12pm on Jun. 30, 2008 Democrat Congressman Tim Mahoney (FL-16): Honoring Those Who Defended the Soviet Union By Jeff Emanuel Tim Mahoney, freshman Democrat Congressman from Florida, really, really loves the troops. Remember last March, when he responded to questions about whether or not the 'surge' in Iraq would work by famously saying "So what"? Well, forget it -- Tim Mahoney loves the troops, and don't you dare think otherwise.He loves them so much that he wants every person in his district to know how much he loves, and honors, the...

Describing his position as evolving, Gov. Charlie Crist said he now supports exploratory drilling for oil and gas off Florida's coast because ``Floridians are suffering.'' ''When you're paying over $4 a gallon for gas, you have to wonder whether there might be additional resources to bring that price down,'' Crist said. The governor said he ''applauds'' Republican presidential candidate John McCain for calling for a lifting of the ban on offshore oil drilling off most of the nation's coastline. The proposal drew a quick condemnation from McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, who said it would do little to affect prices....

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College on Friday, less than a week after the Democrats settled on how to handle delegates from Florida at their national convention. “It’s time for Congress to really give Americans the power of one-person, one-vote, instead of the political machinery selecting candidates and electing our president,” Nelson said in a release announcing the amendment. Nelson had announced he would offer the legislation in an address to his state’s senate in March. Nelson said his principal argument for making the change is that the Electoral College permits a candidate...

The City of Miami says it plans to give $150,000 to a civilian patrol group known as the Peacemakers, to be run by the Progressive Land Development International, an organization that shares a mailing address with the Nation of Islam in Miami. ... While the Peacemakers say they are not officially affiliated with the Nation of Islam, the group is headed by Rasul Muhammad, a prominent Nation of Islam member and the son of former leader Elijah Muhammad, and its corporate offices are at the group's Miami mosque

"Brad Blakeman, a very charming, intelligent spinmeister in Florida depicted in the film. He was, by his own account, the man at least partly behind "Sore Loserman," "Surrender Gorethy," "The Gorinch Who Stole the Election,"

Florida is courting electoral trouble. Heading toward another presidential election, state officials are making it increasingly difficult for citizens to vote. Thanks to state laws, national election experts are warning that Florida is one of the hardest places to vote. Recent court decisions and a lamentable move by Secretary of State Kurt Browning could make matters worse. The potential result: Thousands of eligible Florida voters -- many of them poor, black and Hispanic -- will be prevented from having a voice in the November election. Fining third parties Among the objectionable election laws, one chills voter-registration drives by imposing fines...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The white bus rumbles into the quiet suburban neighborhood, heading toward a foreclosed home that sits empty. Neighbors, young and old, cock their heads in curiosity or point at the slow-moving coach. Once the vehicle stops, about 20 potential buyers file out and become detectives, opening and closing cabinets and drawers, knocking on walls and asking about the price, the previous owners and what repairs may be needed. Welcome to the Foreclosure Bus Tour, a six-hour expedition to show Orlando-area homes and educate potential buyers on the vagaries of snatching foreclosures in a state where the...

BOCA RATON — A crowd of more than 500 people waiting for hours this morning for housing voucher applications were dispersed by police in riot gear at the Boca Raton Housing Authority when the applications ran out sooner than expected. The action prompted complaints that officers used excessive tactics and housing authority officials were incompetent in their planning. Two people were arrested and six to eight people hospitalized for exhaustion during the ordeal. Hundreds of people, mostly mothers who had spent more than eight hours in line, were forced to leave the property at 2333 W. Glades Road by 30...

In 2000, the Democrats in Florida fought to keep out military absentee ballot sent in by mail from determining who would be the next President. Eight years later, Florida Democrats want to conduct an entire primary by mail. What’s changed? Oh, yes — their own incompetence: [T]he disqualification of Florida and Michigan has created a headache for the Democratic party due to the unexpected closeness of the race between Obama and Clinton. Officials from both states are trying to figure out how best to resolve the issue before the national convention in August.DNC Chairman Howard Dean said a mail-in primary...

Nader is running. So says MSNBC LIVE

A top official in the Patrick administration has been placed on unpaid leave because he was arrested in Florida and charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old male in a steam room at a $500-a-night Gulf Coast resort. Carl Stanley McGee, 38, assistant secretary for policy and planning, is scheduled to be arraigned next week for sexual battery in Lee County, Fla. McGee helped draft Patrick's casino bill, life sciences legislation, and his plan to bring broadband Internet service to the farthest reaches of the state. According to police reports, McGee was arrested Dec. 28 and accused of performing oral sex...

Los Angeles - Polls were still open in California when the first challenges were raised Tuesday to ballots and voting procedures that progressive advocates - and the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama - suggested Tuesday were designed to discourage and confuse millions of decline to state voters. "This is definitely a Florida," said Rick Jacobs, who heads the Courage Campaign, the California-based progressive grassroots 527 group whose partners include Common Cause and MoveOn.org. Jacobs said that his group, which held a conference call with the Obama campaign Tuesday, has moved to mount a legal challenge to the Los Angeles County...

DENVER, Jan. 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- A new 527 political group, American Right To Life Action (ARTLaction.com), has sent 524,000 anti-Romney emails targeted primarily to Florida registered Republican voters. The text of that email: American Right To Life: Evidence proves Romney is Pro-abortion American Right To Life Action is proving to voters that Mitt Romney's record, below, is recently and aggressively pro-abortion. The group's ARTLaction.com site documents Romney's recent promotion of abortion with links to official government websites, Romney's own campaign, mainstream sources, and audio and video clips of the candidate himself. Mitt Romney claims, "On every piece of legislation,...

The first wave of exit poll numbers, including absentees: McCain 34.3 percent, Romney 32.6 percent, Giuliani 15.3 percent, Huckabee 12 percent.

In northern Coral Springs, near the Sawgrass Expressway and Coral Ridge Drive, David Nirenberg arrived to vote as an independent. Nevertheless, he said poll workers insisted he choose a party ballot. "He said to me, 'Are you Democrat or Republican?' I said, 'Neither, I am independent.' He said, 'Well, you have to pick one,''' Nirenberg said. In Florida, only those who declare a party are allowed to cast a vote in that party's presidential primary. Nirenberg said he tried to explain to the poll worker that he should not vote on a party ballot because of his "no party affiliation"...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- As Florida's primary approaches, there are already reported problems concerning ballots in Central Florida Some 2,000 absentee ballots in Volusia County have been mailed with Barack Obama's first name misspelled. On the ballot, the candidate's name is spelled B-A-R-A-K, Local 6 News reported Sunday. Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall assured people that the voting equipment will be able to read the ballots despite the error and all votes for the misspelled name will count for Obama.