Free Republic

(Reuters) - Iranian-American Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine whose previous death sentence in Iran on espionage charges was overturned, has been secretly retried, convicted of collaborating with the U.S. government and sentenced to 10 years in prison, the New York Times reported on Friday, quoting his lawyer. The newspaper quoted lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei as saying Hekmati, held since 2011, was not told by Iranian officials about the retrial, conviction or prison sentence. The Times quoted Tabatabaei as saying Hekmati was retried by a revolutionary court in December and convicted of "practical collaboration with the American government." :snip: The...

A House committee voted Thursday to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress, as Republicans escalated their bid to "get to the bottom" of the former IRS official's role in the political targeting scandal. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 21-12 to hold Lerner in contempt. The party-line vote followed hours of heated debate on the committee. The contempt measure heads next to the House floor. House Speaker John Boehner predicted earlier this week that unless Lerner agrees to cooperate, the full House will support contempt -- from there, the case would likely head to the courts. "This...

A fed-up Attorney General Eric Holder is accusing congressional critics of launching “unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive” attacks on him and the Obama administration. During a speech to the National Action Network, a group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton, in New York on Wednesday lauding the organization’s effort to advance racial equality, a heated Holder went a little off-script.

A top building trades union is launching a midterm-election assault on House Democrats who oppose construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. A letter distributed Friday by the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) to the districts of 27 House Democrats calls for union members to make sure their representative "feels the power and the fury of LIUNA this November." Their crime: signing a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry last month urging him to reject Keystone, which would carry oil sands from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

Put this in the column of seriously strange news. A dentist in Canada who bought an old tooth that came Beatles icon John Lennon's mouth now thinks he can turn DNA from that tooth into a baby via cloning. Michael Zuk, who paid $33,000 for the tooth at an auction three years ago, told Britian's Channel 4 during an episode of "Dead Famous DNA" that he now is going to try to make a John Lennon-like baby that he can raise as his own. "If there is enough DNA to sequence it, it could be basically genetic real estate," Mr....

<p>US Attorney Preet Bharara of the southern district Thursday did not rule out investigating whether Gov. Cuomo and his aides improperly intervened with the investigations undertaken by the governor's anti-corruption commission.</p> <p>"We're going to look at the documents, we're going to see what the facts are, and if there are questions that are appropriate to ask, as I think the public knows by now, there are strong-willed and aggressive--but fair--people in my office who will ask those questions," Bharara said during an appearance Thursday morning on WNYC public radio's "The Brian Lehrer Show."</p>

OPINION Here's What I Would Have Said at Brandeis We need to make our universities temples not of dogmatic orthodoxy, but of truly critical thinking. By AYAAN HIRSI ALI April 10, 2014 On Tuesday, after protests by students, faculty and outside groups, Brandeis University revoked its invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary degree at its commencement ceremonies in May. The protesters accused Ms. Hirsi Ali, an advocate for the rights of women and girls, of being "Islamophobic." Here is an abridged version of the remarks she planned to deliver. One year ago, the city and suburbs of...

The U.S. Department of Justice sued the Town of Oyster Bay and Town Supervisor John Venditto Thursday for allegedly discriminating against black people in two affordable housing programs -- one aimed at first-time buyers, the other at senior citizens. In a complaint filed in federal court in Central Islip, prosecutors said both programs violated the federal Fair Housing Act because preferences were given to residents, or their children, living in the town, which has few black residents. To ensure that black people were not discriminated against in the selection process, the town should have given equal treatment to prospective occupants...

We’re told that there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to Common Core. If that’s true, what’s with the intimidation and the punishment for those who oppose it: A 13-year-old student at Orange-Ulster BOCES believes she was suspended from school this week as a result of telling other students they didn’t have to take the Common Core English test Tuesday. The girl, eighth-grader Seirra Olivero, was suspended for two days for insubordination. While she acknowledges the charge, she contends in a complaint filed with the district that she felt bullied by three administrators because she told other students they...

More than a million children attend public schools in New York City. About 780,000 of them are poor enough to qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch. Getting into the program requires some paperwork, which is a burden but not a terrible one; the application is just one page. So why do so many eligible children — about 250,000 — not participate? The problem, advocates for schoolchildren say, isn’t so much aversion to the menu — today across the city, it’s roast turkey, stewed beans, sweet plantains and an oatmeal raisin cookie (plus chickpea salad, for high schoolers) — as...

The registry process of New York’s SAFE Act allows for warrantless police searches into gun owners’ homes, a violation of the Fourth Amendment, according to plaintiffs of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Eastern District.The law firm representing plaintiff Gabriel Razzano argues the registry process is “essentially secret and results in a mandatory, warrantless Penal Law 400 gun removal visit from police.”“The entire purpose of the registry is a sham to permit intrusions into a person’s home on consent without a warrant for a ‘gun removal,’” La Reddola, Lester and Associates said in a release. “The entire registry and...

If you suspect that politics might have played a role in the Justice Department bringing charges against conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, consider the financial support to Barack Obama from a key DOJ lawyer in the U.S. Attorney’s office that filed the charges. Each U.S. Attorney’s office has a lone District Election Officer (“DEO”). The DEO is the singular point person in each U.S. Attorney office for any matter related to an election or campaign finance. The U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York is the office which brought the campaign finance charges against D’Souza. David Kennedy is...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)70-year-old Judith Moroney was the victim of an unprovoked attack as she was sitting on the Southbound R platform Sunday morning. Her attacker struck, and she thought it was the knockout game. "Then I realized I wasn't knocked out  it was a surprise attack, and that's what I thought it was," Moroney says. Moroney's attacker, police say is a man who they caught on security cameras. He was also caught on camera at the upper level token booth. "I felt like I was seeing stars, I felt this punch right up here  I was wearing my glasses," Moroney...

A man spat on a 15-year-old Muslim girl and called her a "terrorist" as she rode a city bus in Kew Gardens Hills in an incident police are investigating as a hate crime, authorities said. The teen, who was on her way to school, was riding on the Q88 bus on Tuesday around 9 a.m. at Kissena Boulevard and Horace Harding Expressway, when the man standing next to her pushed her and called her a “terrorist,” police said. He also spat on her and raised his fist in an aggressive manner, the NYPD said. According to a published report, the...

He can't help himself, or he doesn't want to. Notoriously hot-tempered Twitter-fight addict Alec Baldwin, who has sworn off the service, the city, and public life multiple times, got into it again over basically nothing today, quickly resorting to his default tactic: questioning his opponent's manliness in a way that could be construed as homophobic."You're on your knees in that photo," Baldwin tweeted at former Mitt Romney aide Garrett Jackson, after a derisive mention of working in fashion. "What's up with that, Garrett?" It all started with a tweet by Baldwin endorsing a documentary about the Keystone pipeline and a...

I, Ronn Torossian, am a born & bred New Yorker, who raises a family here, owns a business – and loves all this city has to offer. Yet, I would be among the first to advise people not to live or move to New York if they don’t have to. If they have ambition or drive, New York isn’t the place to be. From the non-stop energy to the culture, indeed, this city deserves its title as capital of the world. Yet, from a business perspective, there are so many obstacles for living – and dying – in New York...

GARY, Ind. - Federal agents raided a northwestern Indiana township trustee's office Thursday, although they stayed mum on the reasons for the raid. FBI agents were joined with officers from the Indiana State Police and the IRS in a sweep of Calumet Township Trustee Mary Elgin's office in Gary on Thursday. Call 6 Investigator Kara Kenny found a 2011 audit of the trustee's office that raised concerns about the township's finances, including nine employees with take-home cars.

Three Democratic lawmakers were either arrested or had their office raided Wednesday by the FBI. Two of the Democrats, including Charlotte, N.C. Mayor Patrick Cannon, were charged in connection with FBI stings that caught them allegedly taking bribes from undercover agents. Coupled with an FBI raid that led to the resignation of a prominent Democratic lawmaker in Rhode Island this past weekend, four Democrats have recently come under the FBI’s radar. Here are the four: New York state assemblyman The FBI raided Democratic New York Assemblyman William Scarborough’s Albany office Wednesday morning and also took papers from his office in...

WASHINGTON — Republican strategists have settled on a new strategy in their fight to a keep Staten Island’s lone congressional seat in GOP hands: tie Democratic challenger Domenic Recchia to Mayor de Blasio at every turn.

Censured tax dodger Charles Rangel, who once in a fit of projection accused Mitt Romney of not paying his fair share in taxes, has been caught channeling his inner Jimmy McMillan. Apparently the rent is too damn high.From the New York Post via American Thinker: State taxpayers were stiffed out of at least $87,000 when Rep. Charles Rangel stopped paying for the district office he rents in Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, records ­obtained by The Post show.His staffers’ excuse? They lost the lease, according to state Office of General Services correspondence.“I finally heard back from Congressman...