Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Did 911 dispatcher curse at Amanda Berry? Operator under investigation over claims he called kidnap victim a 'f****** b****' The police dispatcher who spoke to kidnap victim Amanda Berry after she escaped from the Cleveland house of horrors is being investigated over claims he swore at the end of her 911 call. The man has previously been criticized for failing to keep Miss Berry on the line or comfort her during her desperate call for help. But now new allegations have been made that the dispatcher calls Miss Berry a 'f****** b****' just before hanging up. It was...

Monday afternoon, ABC News released a chilling report that details what journalists have faced while trying to get some answers from the Cincinnati IRS office, which is where a majority of the Tea Party targeting took place. According to ABC, an "armed uniform police officer with the Federal Protective Service" "escorted" reporters through the public building. ABC says if the intent wasn't to "scare off" employees who might talk, "it was the effect."

New defenses and distractions in the IRS scandal are going to come rolling out from the administration and its defenders like water off a duck's back. One ploy is evident in this sympathetic story from Friday's Washington Post seeking to portray the IRS Determinations Unit as a just a group of nice, non-partisan number-crunchers: The [determinations] staff member [in Cincinnati], who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said that the determinations unit is competent and without bias, that it grouped together conservative applications “for consistency’s sake” — so one application did not sail through...

During the summer of 2010, the dozen or so accountants and tax agents of Group 7822 of the Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati got a directive from their manager. A growing number of organizations identifying themselves as part of the Tea Party had begun applying for tax exemptions, the manager said, advising the workers to be on the lookout for them and other groups planning to get involved in elections. “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as rogue agents,” said Bonnie Esrig, a former senior manager in the I.R.S. office in Cincinnati. The specialists, hunched over laptops on...

More utter cluelessness from IRS employees, plus, as a bonus, some "Good German" excuses for why the targeting of conservative groups happened. Washington Post: As could be expected, the folks in the determinations unit on Main Street have had trouble concentrating this week. Number crunchers, whose work is nonpolitical, don't necessarily enjoy the spotlight, especially when the media and the public assume they're engaged in partisan villainy. "We're not political,'' said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. "We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That's why...

Two members of Congress are asking if the Treasury Department disproportionately targeted more Republican or conservative owned auto dealerships during the government-lead restructuring of General Motors in 2009. Breitbart.com reported today that Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jim Renacci (R-OH) released a letter asking Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to release documents regarding the process and methodology that determined which GM dealerships were closed.

Two members of Congress are asking if the Treasury Department disproportionately targeted more Republican or conservative owned auto dealerships during the government-lead restructuring of General Motors in 2009. Breitbart.com reported today that Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jim Renacci (R-OH) released a letter asking Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to release documents regarding the process and methodology that determined which GM dealerships were closed. GM was loaned $50 million by Congress as part of the restructuring included consolidating dealerships and closing some of the under-performing GM dealerships. In 2009 and 2010 there were several reports in the press raising the question whether...

It's rigorous work keeping pace with all of these scandals, as House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer discovered earlier this week, but we're doing our best nonetheless. On the IRS targeting issue, we covered a lot of ground yesterday and earlier, but the "fun" never ceases. It will come as a surprise to no one that IRS employees lean heavily Democratic. Their livelihoods depend on the existence of big, complicated government, so of course they'd vote blue. In the 2012 cycle, during which their agency's abusive methods were in place, IRS employees donated to Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by more...

COLUMBUS, May 14, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – The Central Ohio Association of Catholic Educators (COACE) is backing the diocese in its decision to fire a homosexual teacher, according to a letter sent to the teacher. Gym instructor Carla Hale, 57, was fired from her job at Bishop Watterson Catholic High School last month after an anonymous parent wrote to the Diocese of Columbus to complain that in an obituary for Hale’s mother, Hale was listed as a surviving family member together with her longtime lesbian partner, Julie.

Prior to the 2012 Election and after the first Romney/Obama Presidential Debate I started creating prediction models for each of the contested "Battleggrounds". OH was the first and most detailed state I reviewed because it seemed like it could go either way. The original model spreadsheet I posted on FR contained county by county results for the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections, the 2010 OH Governor Race, and the 2010 Referendum Union Question. I used this data to develop the probable voter turnouts for each county and determined the number of votes and vote margin the GOP candidate would need...

.. Record low temperatures set at Toledo OH... A record low temperature was set at the Toledo Express Airport on Sunday may 12 2013. The temperature dropped to 30 degrees at 1140 PM EST breaking the old record of 34 degrees last recorded on may 12 1969.The temperature at the Toledo Express Airport remained seasonably cold overnight and registered 30 degrees at 145 am EST this morning. This equals and sets a new record low of 30 degrees which was last recorded on may 13 1946.... Frost advisory in effect from midnight tonight to 9 am EDT Tuesday...The National Weather...

Cleveland, OH (LiveActionNews) — Kidnap and rape victim Amanda Berry is a recent high-profile example of a woman’s love for a child conceived in rape. Her fellow kidnap and rape victim, Michelle Knight, is reportedly another example. Michelle’s brother Freddie tells the New York Daily News that Michelle wants to be reunited with the son she had before she was abducted by Castro. He was born after Michelle was gang-raped by boys at school prior to her abduction. “She was a delightful girl, outgoing,” Deborah Knight, 62, told the Daily News. “She was very helpful. We just had a lot...

FULL TITLE: Kidnap victim Michelle Knight is deaf in one ear and will need facial reconstruction surgery after years of brutal beatings at the hands of her captor Michelle Knight, the longest-held Cleveland kidnap victim, suffered such severe beatings while locked inside the house of horrors that she will require facial reconstruction surgery, her family said. Knight, 32, was released from hospital on Friday, five days after she and two other victims Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, 23, along with Berry's six-year-old daughter were rescued following a decade held captive in the dungeon-like home. 'When she was severely beaten,...

House Speaker John Boehner is facing mounting pressure to create a special or select committee to investigate the Benghazi terror attacks in which four Americans were killed. The House resolution to form a special committee now has at least 139 co-sponsors who are putting Boehner in the difficult position of leading efforts to get the White House to release emails on Benghazi-gate but not agreeing to the demands of many rank-and-file Republicans.

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and 2008 vice-presidential candidate, released a statement today concerning the news that the IRS targeted conservative leaning groups during the 2012 presidential election. She said, “today we learned that our government targeted and harassed conservative Americans who simply wanted to be involved in the national discussion. Is it any wonder why Americans are so distrustful of D.C.? I'm sure President Obama is grateful for all the help the IRS gave his reelection campaign, but, still, you have to wonder how the bureaucrats who tried to pull this off can sleep at night.” “So many...

An IRS official apologized on Friday to tea party organizations and other conservative groups for inappropriately targeting them during the 2012 election, the Associated Press reports. The groups, which enjoyed tax-exempt status under the internal revenue code, were singled out for additional scrutiny of their tax exemption if their names included the words "tea party" or "patriot." In several cases, the groups were asked to provide a list of donors for review, usually a violation of IRS policy. "That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive, and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases,"...

"Helping to free three women from nearly a decade in captivity would seem to be enough. Neighbor Charles Ramsey has also become a star, offering moments of levity in an unspeakably horrible story, free publicity for a restaurant chain and unexpected lessons in race relations. Ramsey lived next door to where Ariel Castro is alleged to have kept the women in a makeshift prison until Monday afternoon. Or let him tell it: "I got the day off from work, so naturally you're doing nothing." Actually, he was "eating my McDonald's," a fact he trumpeted so frequently that the grateful food...

According to voter registration records, Ariel Castro, the Cleveland kidnapper, is a registered Democrat. He was also the alleged leader among the three Castro brothers, who were arrested this week, and the owner of the house at 2207 Seymour Ave., where the three abducted local women had been kept in captivity for over a decade. Why is this important? Whenever a crime or a scandal captures national attention, the pattern in the mainstream media is to either identify the culprit as a Republican or hold silence -- in which case we can rest assured that the culprit is a Democrat....

CLEVELAND, Ohio: US police interrogated three brothers on Wednesday as grim details began to emerge about how three young Ohio women were kidnapped and held captive for 10 years in an unremarkable city home. Cleveland police chief Michael McGrath said he expected the trio, a group of men in their fifties, to be charged later in the day, after a crime that left many wondering how it could have gone undetected for so long. "We have confirmation they were bound and there were chains and ropes in the hall," McGrath told NBC television's Today Show, near the home in a...

Complete Headline: Three naked women on all fours were spotted being led around on leashes in backyard of Cleveland kidnap house TWO years ago - but police didn't take the neighbor who called it in seriously Neighbors of accused kidnapper Ariel Castro have revealed they saw three naked young girls crawling in the backyard of his house on all fours with dog leashes around their necks and three men controlling them, but amazingly police never responded to their call. The shocking revelation is one of a number of stories to have emerged from neighbors who say they reported unusual...

Police knocked on the door of the home where three missing girls were held captive for a decade - but found nothing, it was revealed today. Officers visited the home on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio in 2004 as part of a child services' investigation but left when no one answered. Police had been alerted to the man living at the home, Ariel Castro, now a suspect in the abduction, after he inadvertently left a boy at a bus depot while working as a school bus driver. No criminal charges were brought and no follow-up inquiries made. Amanda Berry, 26,...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Long-missing Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus have been found alive, a police source confirms. WOIO Channel 19 had reported that a woman claiming to be Berry called police Monday afternoon and told a dispatcher that she was in a house on Seymour Avenue on the city's West Side. The woman said DeJesus was with her. "We've confirmed it's them," a detective said. "They are alive and safe." Berry, now 27, and DeJesus, 23, were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center. The FBI and police will interview the women when they are discharged, the detective said. Police arrested the...

CLEVELAND (AP) — The woman's voice was frantic and breathless, and she was choking back tears. "Help me. I'm Amanda Berry," she told a 911 dispatcher. "I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm, I'm here, I'm free now." Those words led police to a house near downtown Cleveland where Berry and two other women who vanished a decade ago were found Monday, elating family members and friends who had longed to see them again. Authorities later arrested three brothers. They released no names and gave no information about them or what charges they might face....

Terrifying dash-cam footage captures the moment a crazed motorist opened fire with an AK-47 rifle at police officers who had just pulled him over for a minor traffic violation in Middlefield, Ohio. James Gilkerson, 42, exited his parked car and then fired 37 shots at the officers and their patrol car, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. Officers Erin Thomas and Brandon Savage returned fire, killing Gilkerson.

State officials in Ohio have ordered the closure of an abortion clinic in Ohio that is breaking a state health and safety law designed to protect women’s health. Although abortion advocates frequently cite women’s health as the reason for supporting abortion, Ohio state officials today exposed a cover-up involving Center for Choice of Toledo, a local abortion center. According to Ohio Department of Health documents, this abortion clinic operated without a transfer agreement resulting in a recommended closure and a $25,000 fine. The transfer agreement is needed so abortion practitioners can quickly admit a woman who was injured in a...

The lawyer for the fired gym teacher has filed an anti-discrimination complaint with the city’s Community Relations Commission and might also file a lawsuit.COLUMBUS, Ohio — Bishop Frederick Campbell and other school officials in the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, could face criminal charges under the city of Columbus’ anti-discrimination laws for upholding the Church’s moral teachings on sexuality by firing a lesbian gym teacher. The diocese has come under fire for terminating the contract of Carla Hale, 57, a physical education teacher employed for 19 years at Bishop Watterson High School, after learning of Hale’s “spousal relationship” with another woman....

News of the (failed) push to pass gun control legislation in the U.S. Senate, as well as the terror attack on Boston, dominated the media last week for good reason. But here in Ohio, a series of events that might otherwise have received wider news coverage went virtually unnoticed. Saturday, April 13 Toledo Police say a homeowner shot and killed a man who was attempting to break into his home.

the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate... The deal... was fashioned in White House meetings... the $50,000 payouts to black farmers had proved a magnet for fraud. the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie... Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination. As a senator, Barack Obama supported expanding compensation for black farmers, and then as...

CUYAHOGA FALLS, OH, April 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A northeastern Ohio abortion facility was ordered to stop operations after it failed a state health and safety inspection, Ohio Right to Life has reported. The Ohio Department of Health issued an order prohibiting the Capital Care Network abortion facility, located at 2127 State Rd in Cuyahoga Falls, from providing any medical services. Officials cited multiple health and safety violations and informed the owners of the business that their license to operate a health care facility was about to be revoked. According to the Ohio Department of Health's inspection report, investigators conducted...

House Speaker John Boehner Monday defended the way he has handled the investigation into last year's attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, insisting a select committee is not needed to probe the incident. The Ohio Republican told the media that he has resisted lawmakers’ calls for a select committee because he doesn't think one is necessary. “The five committees that have jurisdiction over this matter are working closely together,” said Boehner. “They're getting the job done.” As of Monday, The Hill reports, 117 of Boehner's fellow lawmakers have signed onto a resolution from Republican Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia,...

April 23, 2013 New Congressional Quest: End Prison Phone Call Price Gouging Bridget Johnson The Congressional Black Caucus Working Group on Prison Telecomm Reform is protesting high call costs for phone-homers behind bars. The CBC group will hold a press conference with former inmates and family members “to expose the often exorbitant rates that prisoners and their families are being charged for telephone calls and to announce the CBC response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to resolve the issue after more than a decade of delay,” according to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D)...

Full title: Beck Breaks Exclusive Information on Saudi National Once Considered a Person of Interest in Boston Bombings Background points: A Saudi national originally identified as a "person of interest" in the Boston Marathon bombing was set to be deported under section 212 3B -- "Security and related grounds" -- "Terrorist activities" after the bombing As the story gained traction, TheBlaze's Chief Content Officer Joel Cheatwood received word that the government may not deport the Saudi national, originally identified as Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer questions on the subject when confronted by Rep....

Burying the dead is a work of mercy. So, too, is voting for them, according to Sister Marguerite Kloos. Or at least that’s what she thought last year until Ohio investigators nabbed her for an act of voter fraud. This week she plead guilty to the charge of voting twice, acknowledging that she forged the signature of a deceased nun, Sister Rose Marie Hewitt, on an absentee ballot.“When the absentee ballot was received at Ms. Hewitt’s address, (Kloos) opened the envelope, forged Ms. Hewitt’s signature, voted Ms. Hewitt’s ballot, and mailed the ballot back to the Board of Elections,” according...

CINCINNATI (AP) -- A popular southwest Ohio air show has canceled plans to stage a re-enactment of the devastating World War II atomic bomb attack on Japan after protests, officials said Thursday. Dayton Air Show spokeswoman Brenda Kerfoot said the June 22-23 event at Dayton International Airport will keep a planned "Great Wall of Fire" pyrotechnic show but not as an event meant to re-enact the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima. The B-29 plane "Fifi," similar to the Enola Gay B-29 bomber used to attack Japan, will remain in the show but in a separate role. Air show officials...

It was three years ago, early morning, when Elizabeth Perez returned to her Cleveland home from the doctor’s office with good news to tell her husband, Marcos: She was pregnant with their second child. For several moments, they celebrated with kisses, hugs, and tears of joy. Mr. Perez headed to work. A few minutes later, he was pulled over for a traffic-stop violation. Less than a month later, he was deported to Mexico City. “Noooooo!” Mrs. Perez wailed into the phone receiver when immigration authorities called to inform her that her husband had been apprehended. Mr. Perez would not be...

Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said at a Thursday press conference that House Republicans will rise up against GOP leadership if House Speaker John Boehner tries to rush any immigration reform bill through his chamber of Congress. “There would be a revolt among Republicans” if Boehner abandoned regular order on this issue, Rohrabacher said in response to a question from Breitbart News at the presser. According to a recent Politico report, Boehner is seriously considering abandoning regular order to rush through immigration reform. Regular orders is the process by which a bill is supposed to come up through the respective committees...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday refused to weigh in on the substance of a bipartisan Senate agreement to expand background checks for gun purchases, saying only that the House would “review” any legislation the Senate passes. “As I’ve made clear, any bill that passes the Senate, we’re going to review it,” Boehner told reporters after a meeting of the House Republican conference. “In the meantime, we’re going to continue to have hearings looking at the source of violence in our country. We’re going to wait and see what actually passes over in the Senate.”

Most political observers in Ohio believe Governor John Kasich wants to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. If that’s true, he’s approaching it in an odd way, alienating much of his conservative base by making controversial tax proposals and proposing to expand Medicaid — although he now appears to have given up on the latter. In his 30-year-long political career, John Kasich has prided himself on being a conservative. In his successful 2010 race for governor he boasted he was in the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party. For years before that he hosted a...

Earlier this week I wrote letting you know that over 700 retired Special Forces signed an open letter to the United States House of Representatives demanding that there be a select committee be formed by Congress to investigate the attack that took place on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya. Well, here’s something. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) put forth a House Resolution to that effect back on January 18, 2013 and do you know where it’s gotten since that time? It’s languishing in committee. Rep. Wolf introduced H. Res 36, establishing a select committee to investigate and report on the...

Rick Santorum says it would be “suicidal” for the Republican Party to support same-sex marriage. In an interview with The Des Moines Register on Monday, Santorum said that Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) backing same-sex marriage is similar to the Republicans in the 1960s and 1970s who broke with the GOP and supported abortion. “I’m sure you could go back and read stories, oh, you know, ‘The Republican Party’s going to change. This is the future.’ Obviously, that didn’t happen,” Santorum told the Register. “I think you’re going to see the same stories written now, and it’s...

Seven hundred retired Military Special Operations professionals from the organization "Special Operations Speaks" sent a letter to the House of Representatives urging members to support H.Res 36, which will create a House Select Committee to investigate last September’s deadly terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. “It appears that many of the facts and details surrounding the terrorist attack which resulted in four American deaths and an undetermined number of American casualties have not yet been ascertained by previous hearings and inquiries,” the letter states. It continues further, "Additional information is now slowly surfacing in the media, which makes a comprehensive bipartisan...

Dear Speaker Boehner, I am writing to you about Immigration Reform. As of late last year, the total estimated number of illegals in America exceeds nearly 20 million people at a cost of $118 Billion dollars annually. That is twice the population of many States and very nearly the population of Texas. It exceeds the entire State Budget of Georgia by 600% for 2013. As Speaker of the House, I expect you to follow the law as it exists today. It is the duty and the law of our nation that our borders be defended by the United States government....

Ever since Asian carp were accidentally introduced into U.S. rivers in the 1970s, the invasive fish have been hungrily making their way to the Great Lakes, causing residents of the watershed to dread the arrival of carp in delicate Lake ecosystems, and their potential impacts on the 7 billion dollar fishing industry that represents a major economic driver for the region. Now, a new study suggests that Asian carp have breached southern Lake Michigan, although they have not yet arrived in numbers great enough to devastate native ecosystems. Scientists at Notre Dame University, Southern Michigan University, and The Nature Conservancy...

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Attorneys for a group of Amish men and women found guilty of hate crimes for cutting the hair and beards of fellow members of their faith in eastern Ohio are arguing that the group's conviction, sentencing and imprisonment in separate facilities across the country violates their constitutional rights and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, according to recent court filings. The filings in federal court in Akron seek the release of seven of 16 Amish convicted in September in the 2011 attacks that were meant to shame fellow Amish they believed were straying from strict religious interpretations....

Thousands of Americans are sent to jail not for committing a crime, but because they can't afford to pay for traffic tickets, medical bills and court fees. If that sounds like a debtors' prison, a legal relic which was abolished in this country in the 1830s, that's because it is. And courts and judges in states across the land are violating the Constitution by incarcerating people for being unable to pay such debts. Ask Jack Dawley, 55, an unemployed man in Ohio who between 2007 and 2012 spent a total of 16 days in jail in a Huron County lock-up...

COLUMBUS, April 3, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-life group that shows graphic images of aborted babies says it had its display vandalized at Ohio State University on Tuesday. Created Equal, which is based in Columbus, posted a video on YouTube of an angry college-aged woman tearing down its signs while shouting population control slogans. “You want an overpopulated earth?” she asked, as she tore apart a series of freestanding posters. “You want to keep on paying taxes for babies that are born to crackheads? Do you really want that? Do you really want a population of people that were born...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Condemned killer Steven Smith's argument for mercy isn't an easy one. Smith acknowledges he intended to sexually assault his girlfriend's 6-month-old daughter but says he never intended to kill the baby.The girl, Autumn Carter, of Mansfield, died because Smith was too drunk to realize his sexual assault was killing the child, Smith's attorneys were telling the Ohio Parole Board on Tuesday. And Ohio law is clear, they say: a death sentence requires an intent to kill the victim. "The evidence suggests that Autumn's death was a horrible accident," his attorneys, Joseph Wilhelm and Tyson Fleming, said...

ASHTABULA, Ohio—Witnesses say the 25-year-old man accused of walking into an Ohio church and fatally shooting his father after an Easter service Sunday was yelling about God and Allah after the killing. Police say Reshad Riddle walked into the Hiawatha Church of God in Christ in Ashtabula and killed his father, 52-year-old Richard Riddle, with a single shot from a handgun Sunday afternoon. Associate Pastor Sean Adams told The (Ashtabula) Star Beacon newspaper that worshippers started screaming, ducking down and calling 911 on cellphones after the shooting. ""It was terrifying," Adams told the newspaper. "The children were screaming and people...

Children screamed in terror and hid under the pews at Hiawatha Church of God in Christ on Sunday, witnesses said, as an Ashtabula man was shot and killed by his son just after the Easter service.

Q What is the biggest national/international issue in your worldview right now? A The new pope Gay marriage GMO food, The Monsanto Protection Act Gun control Middle East unrest East Asian economics, unrest Other