Free Republic

In the weeks before the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Obamacare, the country trembled with anticipation. No such eagerness is evident now -- yet the court is again poised to rattle our world. The case of Fisher v. Texas could upend the system of racial preferences in use throughout American higher education. The pursuit of racial justice in education has arguably led to some benefits since its inception in the 1960s. But in the two generations that have elapsed since affirmative action began, evidence of its unintended consequences has accumulated -- even as a society-wide taboo has forbidden...

“I demand justice for Trayvon Martin! Sanford PD should be ashamed of themselves.” On March 19, 2012, those were the first words I ever vocalized in regard to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. I had been driving home that day from a long day on the road, and while listening to my satellite radio, I heard for the first time the story of this young, 17 year old, unarmed kid who was walking home from the store, minding his own business, carrying nothing but a can of iced tea and some Skittles that he’d bought for his younger brother...

On the evening of February 26, 2012, at approximately 7:16PM, a white vigilante named George Zimmerman, fueled by racial animosity, called police to report that he was suspicious of an African-American child based entirely on his skin color and the hoodie sweatshirt he was wearing. George ignored clear instructions from police and chased down Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed and had been on his way back from a trip to the store to purchase iced tea and Skittles for his younger brother. Zimmerman held Trayvon at gunpoint and allowed him to scream for help for 42 seconds before Zimmerman pulled...

... "She connects the dots," Crump told the media excitedly. "She completely blows Zimmerman's absurd defense claim out of the water." According to Crump, the heavy-set, twenty-eight year old "loose cannon" had no intention of going back to his truck. He pursued Martin and shot him down. Dee Dee heard it all. The witnesses confirmed her testimony. Cried the outraged Crump at the end of his presentation, "Arrest George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin in cold blood today." Crump got his point across. Gutman headlined his piece on ABC.com, "Trayvon Martin's Last Phone Call Triggers Demand for Arrest...

While watching George Zimmerman's immunity hearing online in late April 2013, Chip Bennett took satisfaction seeing Florida prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda flail away at the one blog that has given him fits from the beginning. "BDLR alleges that The Conservative Treehouse doxed Witness 8," Bennett commented. "Double shot!"

<p>SANFORD - Trayvon Martin's parents have settled a wrongful death claim for an amount believed to be more than $1 million against the homeowners association of the Sanford subdivision where their teenage son was killed.</p> <p>Their attorney, Benjamin Crump, filed that paperwork at the Seminole County Courthouse, a portion of which was made public today.</p>

If you think a twenty-something ought to be tossed in federal prison for 35 years because he tried to download some musty academic journal articles without permission, you are a lot things, but a conservative is not one of them. You might be relieved to know that Aaron Swartz, one of the internet geniuses behind RSS and Reddit.com, will not be imprisoned for a third of a century. Unfortunately, that’s because the fragile young man hanged himself after the United States attorney prosecuting the case generously offered him the alternative of pleading guilty to a felony, paying a crippling fine...

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian woman who admitted killing her ex-lover and attempting to hack off his penis was jailed for three years and nine months on Wednesday, with a court accepting she was suffering depression. Jian Chen, 47, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her former partner Jin Xiang Peng over his fatal sedation and stabbing in February 2011 amid a protracted and bitter dispute over money and their young son. Jian told a psychiatrist that "something inside me" told her to destroy the "monster's weapon", that he "uses his penis to harm woman and children". "I knew Peng...

VANCOUVER, Wash. -- Seventeen-year-old John Clark, a senior at Hudson's Bay, says he didn't think twice about running into the ocean to save a drowning 12-year-old. But what he hasn't stopped thinking about, is the bill he received as a result of his effort. What started at Rockaway Beach The guardian angel is busy this week teaching Boy Scouts to tie knots. It's a far cry from the sand at Rockaway Beach nearly a month ago -- when John Clark heard screams for help from a 12-year-old swept out to sea. The call for help came just five days after...

Progressive organizations behind White House policy have crafted specific, second-term plans for President Obama to transform the U.S. Armed Forces into a social work-style organization designed to combat “global warming,” fight global poverty, remedy “injustice,” bolster the United Nations and increase “peacekeeping” forces worldwide. The groups, already instrumental in influencing Obama’s first-term defense agenda, call for massive, second-term slashes to the military budget. The savings are to be used to invest in “sustainable energy” and in fighting worldwide climate change. The schemes, and many more, are documented in the soon-to-be-released book “Fool Me Twice: Obama’s Shocking Plans for the Next...

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is joking that he’ll be spending some time in “an impregnable fortress” after casting the decisive vote upholding President Barack Obama’s health care law. Responding to a question about his summer plans, Roberts quipped that he thought his planned trip to Malta to teach a class was a “good idea.” He delivered the joke Friday at a federal court conference at a posh Pennsylvania resort. Roberts declined to answer a question about the landmark opinion issued Thursday. But he says he hopes the court will be remembered for “protecting equal justice under the...

The important question to ask about Attorney General Eric Holder is: Whom does he protect and whom does he pursue? Until recently, Holder claimed "deliberative privilege" to justify his refusal to comply with House Oversight Committee subpoenas for documents involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Fast and Furious program of 2009-10. The infamous "gun walking" program allowed Mexican smugglers to walk away with about 2,000 firearms, two of which were found at a December 2010 shootout that left Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry dead. On Wednesday, as the committee was set to vote to find Holder in...

GREENVILLE, SC (WYFF) - A drunken driver killed an Upstate women's son last year, and if the grief wasn't enough, she's had to deal with bills associated with the wreck, even for the cost of cleaning up her son's blood. A coroner called Loretta Robinson last June and told her that her oldest son, Justin Walker, died when his car was struck by a drunken driver on White Horse Road. "I never would have imagined getting that call," she said. "Never in one million years expected that." Robinson looked Anna Gonzalez, the accused driver, in the eye in court Tuesday...

KNOXVILLE — A judge said today he has no authority to make public the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's file on former judge Richard Baumgartner. "This court has no authority whatsoever to decide on its own, 'I'm going to let the public see this file,'" Special Judge John Kerry Blackwood said at a specially-called hearing in Knox County Criminal Court. Blackwood said the portions of the file not made public contain phone records and recorded conversations in which Baumgartner discusses sex with two women and makes "crude remarks" about people. "What you're not going to find (in the TBI file) is...

It's official. Death is no longer a possible fate for three of four defendants in the January 20007 torture slayings of a Knox County couple. Assistant District Attorney General Leland Price has filed notice of an intention to seek the death penalty as punishment in the deaths of Channon Christian, 21, and boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, only against alleged ringleader Lemaricus Davidson. Price this month notified attorneys for Davidson's brother, Letalvis Cobbins, and Cobbins' friend, George Thomas, that he will push for a fate in their cases no more than life without possibility of parole. Because Cobbins' girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman,...

A pensioner could be sent to prison after admitting illegally possessing guns and ammunition. Percy Hermitage, of Mead Court, Cannons Mead, Stansted, pleaded guilty to possessing an automatic-loading pistol with a barrel of less than 30 centimetres; a Saxby and Palmer .177 self-contained gas cartridge air pistol and a .22 double action revolver, without authority. The 85-year-old further admitted possessing a Victor .22 calibre rifle, two .22 calibre rounds of ammunition, as well as a hollow-point bullet without permission. Hermitage claimed to have had the weapons since the 1960s and although the offences attract a minimum five-year prison term, the...

NEW YORK — A federal judge says there isn't enough evidence to support a claim that money from a construction company founded by Osama bin Laden's father supported terrorists. Judge George Daniels in Manhattan dismissed the Saudi Binladen Group on Wednesday as a defendant in Sept. 11 lawsuits brought by families of terrorism victims and others.

It is a true pity that Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22, is no longer with us. He deserved the chance to observe his character Milo Minderbinder, come to life. Minderbinder is Heller's prototype of deceitful, arrogant authority gone so awry he undercuts the very reason for his post and its operations. I'm talking about our own Attorney General Eric Holder under whose watch arms were shipped to Mexican drug gangs, U.S. agents laundered the cartels' drug money, and hundreds of Mexicans and one -- perhaps two -- federal agents were murdered with the illegally sold guns.

Justice: Another border patrol agent faces prison after arresting an illegal alien smuggling drugs. When not being killed by guns funneled into Mexico by their own government, they are prosecuted for doing their job. In a case reminiscent of an earlier injustice against those protecting our borders, Border Patrol Agent Jesus E. "Chito" Diaz Jr. has been sentenced to two years in prison by U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum in San Antonio. The illegal alien he arrested for drug smuggling goes free. In November 2009, Diaz was named in a federal grand jury indictment after an October 2008 arrest...

:28 Chaffetz: When did you first speak with Eric Holder about Fast and Furious? Napolitano: I don't believe I have ever spoken with Eric Holder about Fast and Furious. 3:01 Why is that you, as the Secretary of of Homeland Security with one of your agents dead on the scene, did not get briefed about fast and furious? Napolitano: I do not know.