Free Republic

War On Terror: A foreign country puts its men on the line to rescue American hostages and pulls off one of the greatest rescues in history. Might a little gratitude from Congress be in order?Not since the 1976 Israeli raid on Entebbe has a rescue of hostages held by terrorists ended so spectacularly. Wednesday's liberation by the Colombian army of three Northrop contractors and 12 others will go down as one of history's great strikes against terror. In the wake of the rescue, Democrats' caricature of Colombia as a night-haunted right-wing dictatorship, a la 1976 Guatemala, looks increasingly hollow. The...

Moon Says No Longer Possible For Police To Protect Citizens General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon said Friday that crime in Chattanooga "has become so rampant that it is no longer possible for the police department to protect our citizens." He told a woman who had been pulled from her car and beaten in the head that she or her mother needed to "purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself." The woman moved back in with her mother after the May 4 incident on E. 17th Street. Judge Moon said, "The U.S. Supreme Court has...

MOSCOW On Nov. 9, 2007, during a special operation in the village of Chemulga, in the republic of Ingushetia, Russian special forces shot and killed an individual by the name of Rakhim Amriyev. Eyewitnesses said that they shot him in the head and placed an automatic rifle beside his body. Then, as dozens of villagers who had run out of their homes looked on, the troops used an armored personnel carrier to demolish a wall of the one-room house where Amriyev lived and announced that he had died in a shootout. You may ask how I can be sure that...

A senior labour leader with the Canadian Auto Workers union confronted Americans buying Asian cars recently about their choices and compared Japanese car dealers to the enemy in the Second World War, according to a union summary of the trip. Ron Carlyle, the CAW's chair representing workers at General Motors Corp.'s car plant in Oshawa, Ont., spoke at a GM union leadership meeting this past spring about a trip he took to a NASCAR event in the United States. Minutes of the meeting, dated March 20 and posted on the CAW Local 222 website, describe what Mr. Carlyle said. "Ron...

...Well, maybe Vigna has calmed down. His threat to sue me was in April, and it's June now. Maybe he has finally found that serenity he sought. Nope. Now my parents tell me that Vigna has been harassing them at their home. Vigna has been sending a private investigator to my parents' house again and again, demanding to see me. My parents, who are far more polite than I am, keep telling Vigna's hired tough guy that I don't live there anymore. I did when I was a teenager. But that was in 1990. The last time Vigna's hired muscle...

A group of teenagers on a MAX train robbed some recent high school graduates from Boise who were on a road trip to Portland, police said. Police arrested Alan Jamerson, a 17-year-old described in court papers as the ringleader in the Wednesday robbery. He was charged with four counts of second-degree robbery and appeared in court today. Three other suspects, ages 13, 15 and 16, were taken to juvenile detention on robbery charges. The teenagers from Boise were waiting at the Overlook Park platform in North Portland and told police that 10 to 15 young men started to harass them....

GRAND RAPIDS -- Kent County Republicans continue to claim a recent break-in at their Grand Rapids headquarters was politically motivated And one party leader publicly blamed unnamed Democrats in a mass e-mail sent to supporters. "We knew the Democrats would do anything to win, but we didn't expect this!" wrote Kent GOP Chair Dave Dishaw in a note asking for money to help cover "costs" and support candidates. Grand Rapids Police on Tuesday confirmed they are investigating an early morning break-in that occurred last Thursday at the GOP's offices at 264 Leonard St. NW, near U.S. 131. Lt. Ralph Mason...

NEW YORK — A string of shootings in a New York City neighborhood left eight people, including half a dozen teenagers, with gunshot wounds, police said Tuesday. All of the victims were expected to recover from their injuries. The six teens were found near Harlem's Marcus Garvey Park, where a crowd had gathered. It was not immediately clear whether they were wounded at the park or as they fled when gunfire erupted about 10:15 p.m. Monday, police said. The victims — between the ages of 13 and 18 — were found on several blocks along Lenox Avenue, from 125th...

Harlem erupted in mayhem last night when bullets began flying on jampacked streets across the neighborhood, sending panicked residents running for their lives. Seven victims, all youths in their teens or early 20s, were wounded - including one who was in critical condition. The other victims were stable. The trouble began just after 10 p.m. at a Memorial Day barbecue in Marcus Garvey Park. A witness said a fight over girls broke out and violence spread like wildfire. People were shot at four or more locations. "First thing, I heard six shots, then I heard about another 12 shots another...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A Jacksonville high school student was recently beaten and battered at school by three students he said he didn't even know. Witnesses to the attack told police Forrest High School sophomore Karl Koch Jr. was targeted because of the color of his skin. "They started closing in, and all I remember is getting hit," Koch said. Koch's wrist was shattered and six screws and a plate now hold it together. He also has nine stitches above his right eye. Two 15-year-old students and one 17-year-old student were taken into police custody and charged with aggravated battery in...

You've heard of resume inflation? You've heard of people who lie about having Ph.D.s or Ivy League pedigrees in order to get ahead? The world of thug culture has its own perverse equivalent, in which middle-class men with minor legal transgressions exaggerate their bad behavior, claiming to be hard-core degenerates in order to impress youngsters looking for outlaw role models. In this destructive environment, the more violent and predatory you are, the more heroic you seem. That helps to explain why a metro Atlanta hip-hop star known as Akon wove a tall tale of malevolence and criminal activity, claiming to...

Demonised in the West as goons guarding the Olympic torch along its chaotic world tour, these pictures show how China's paramilitary police learn their unwavering discipline. Officers of the People Paramilitary Police preparing for the Olympics are drilled on the parade ground with pins in their collars and crosses on their backs to ensure perfect posture. But instead of the blue tracksuits members wore while escorting the flame, they are kitted out in full dress uniform during the exercise at their base in Shenyang, Liaoning province.

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

MORTALLY wounded and bleeding profusely, Pela Atroshi covered her head with her hands, pleading "please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me". As her sister and her mother screamed, her uncle Rezkar Atroshi raised his gun and killed her. The family's honour had been cleansed. Rezkar had already shot Pela twice in the back in the upstairs room. Helped downstairs by her mother and her younger sister, the 19-year-old Kurdish Swede was confronted by four resolute men - her father and his three brothers. The men pulled the women apart. Her youngest uncle then finished the job, shooting Pela in...

Anthony Cataldo of Oakland first raised concerns about aggressive bullying at his son's elementary school last year after Zachary lost four teeth on the playground - but he said he received only a verbal assurance that things would change. Cataldo said he complained again when some boys at school kicked 7-year-old Zachary in the stomach three months ago but got no response. Now - two days after an older student slammed Zachary against a tree, fracturing his skull and sending the first-grader to intensive care - Cataldo is hiring a lawyer, and school officials are paying attention.

"Asked if China supported the action against CNN, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu characterized it as "spontaneous activity by Chinese civilians"." - Uh huh...

You know Jimmy Carter has gone too far when even Sen. Barack Obama blasts him. Talking to Jewish voters Wednesday, Obama lit into Carter, saying he had a "fundamental disagreement" with the ex-prez regarding his meetings with Hamas. "We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel's destruction," the junior senator from Illinois insisted. But what about when Obama was asked if he'd parley with Iran's leaders? Absolutely, he said. And throw in the heads of Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and Syria, too. "It is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them," he huffed. Hmm. Iran's...

Thugs beat up Los Angeles Sikh, accuse him of being bin Laden Anger against Asians in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks continues in the United States, the latest victim being 47-year old Surinder Singh Sidhu, a liquor store owner who was beaten by thugs accusing him of being Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden. Los Angeles police list the attack on Sidhu as a hate crime, one of more than 100 logged since September 11. Surinder Singh Sidhu had been wearing a star-spangled turban to show his patriotism - and to protect himself. For a Sikh fearful ...

BARTOW, Fla. -- One of eight teens accused of taking part in the notorious videotaped "animalistic" beating of another Central Florida teen snickered while a judge issued bail on Friday. April Cooper, 14, giggled and attempted to hold in her laughter as she was told that she was being held on $36,000 bond, Local 6 News reported. It's not known why Cooper giggled. A judge set bails ranging from $30,000 to $37,000 for each during their first court appearances. They also were ordered to stay away from their high school and Internet social networking sites, such as MySpace. The judge...

The head of London's 2012 Games described as "horrible" the burly henchmen who barged their way through the capital, shoving the public and even police out of the way. His trenchant remarks followed those of former Blue Peter presenter and torchbearer Konnie Huq, who revealed the Chinese minders barked orders at her and pushed her arm up to hold the flame higher. Sunday's scenes, which were repeated in France yesterday, brought accusations that Britain had imported Chinese police state tactics to control the supposedly showcase relay. Lord Coe made his remarks during a conference phone call, which unknown to him,...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

EU parliament Pres. says Olympics boycott should be considered By DPA and Haaretz Service Tags: Hans-Gert Poettering, China A boycott of this summer's Beijing Olympic Games should be considered if China does not re-evaluate its actions in Tibet, the president of the European Parliament said in an interview to be published in a German newspaper on Sunday. "Beijing must decide. It must negotiate with the Dalai Lama immediately," Hans-Gert Poettering told the mass circulation Bild newspaper. Poettering added that boycott measures were justified, if there was no attempt at reconciling the differences. "We should not exclude the possibility of a...

The sordid details: In March of '07 my house in Homestead, FL was broken into by a thug gang-banger and a handgun was taken. I called Homestead PD and they came right out and filed a report. A Homestead detective followed up a week late to gather more info. I didn't figure to ever see the gun again, so I gave up on it. Late September I received a letter from the State Attorney's office requesting that I call in. They had arrested the thug up in Miami and needed to ask me some questions. I called and answered all...

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Department is investigating an alleged sexual assault incident that is said to have occurred Sunday at the home of Indiana Pacers guard Marquis Daniels. According to a release from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department, Sunday afternoon around 4:30 sheriff's investigators were contacted by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department from Methodist Hospital regarding the incident. The sexual assault was reported to have occurred early Sunday morning in Daniels' Carmel home. Daniels is said to not be a suspect in the investigation, and is cooperating fully with Sheriff's Investigators. Stay tuned to 93 WIBC for the latest in...

Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia provoked fresh unrest Friday as U.N. police were attacked by ethnic Serb demonstrators in northern Kosovo a day after angry demonstrations in the Serbian capital Belgrade left one person dead. art.embassy.afp.gi.jpg Serbian riot policemen guard the entrance to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade on Friday. more photos » The Associated Press said protesters among a crowd of 5,000 trying to cross a key bridge in the divided city of Mitrovica, hurled empty bottles and stones at the police. It was initally thought that the police retaliated with canisters of tear gas but AP later said this...

Newly Formed Terrorist Group Busted In Pakistan - Had Plans To Target Charity Groups Ten members of the newly formed Tehreek Islami Lashkar-e-Mohammadi were arrested Friday with weapons, explosives, chemicals and poison, Jihadi literature, and hit lists of high-profile people, politicians, international and national NGOs and police officials. The organization is anti-Semitic.The group apparently wanted to target charity groups for what they say are links to the Free Masons and other groups. Read more »

The leader of Hizbullah Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has now called for revenge against Israelis and Jews around the world, for the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, which he claims was done by Israel. It does not matter, of course, who actually pulled off the assassination. Israel and the Jews would be blamed by Hizbullah even if Syria had been responsible. Blame Israel and the Jews for everything is what Hizbullah always does. In the past, Hizbullah has taken revenge against what it claimed to be Israeli actions by murdering Jewish schoolchildren in Argentina. Once again it is threatening to attack innocent...

Al-Qaeda in Iraq Offers Palestinians Military and Economic Aid – And Help in Manufacturing Rockets In a 30-minute video posted February 14, 2008 on the Islamist website Al-Hesbah (hosted by NOC4Hosts Inc. in Florida), Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, commander of the Al-Qaeda-founded organization Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), presents his position on "winning the war against the Jews." In it, he calls Israel "a malignant germ that was implanted in the heart of the Islamic nation and must be eradicated," and stresses that liberating Al-Aqsa mosque is a duty incumbent upon each and every Muslim. He also accuses Hamas of treason...

VIDEO - Iran's president sent a condolence letter on Thursday to Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah following the assassination of the Lebanese terror group's top military commander Imad Mugniyah. "(Mugniyah) was neither the first nor the last victim in the defense of the dignity of the nations, but his death is casts more shame on the Zionists and their supporters," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote in the letter. "The occupiers of Jerusalem (Israel) must know that these crimes will not compensate for their humiliating defeat during their invasion of Lebanon," he continued to say. "Despite the fact that the Lebanese nation has lost...

Here's a radical concept: Maybe parents should check their kids' knapsacks for guns, knives, baseball bats and brass knuckles before the little darlings leave for school in the morning. Maybe those same parents, rather than hollering discrimination and inequity in the application of formal discipline by school officials – as feeble and litigiously diluted as that has been – should explore attitudes, rationalizations and see-no-evil laissez-faire in their own households. If you think this is not true, or too harsh, then spend a day in youth court and observe while young people who've run afoul of the law – repeatedly,...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― Police are searching for two suspects wanted in connection with an assault on a Geno's Steaks employee just two days after Christmas. Surveillance video shows the suspects at the world-famous cheesesteak shop in South Philadelphia in the early morning hours of December 27. Police said the unidentified males reportedly were verbally harassing a female employee at about 6:30 a.m. A 32-year-old male employee, who was outside power-washing, tried to intervene when the suspects turned their attention to him. Following a brief argument, one of the males allegedly picked up the employee up and flipped him onto...

EAST COUNTY - Activist Quannell X and dozens of supporters converged Sunday on a Porter neighborhood where on Nov. 29 Gary Southworth, a white property owner, shot and killed Rodney Shamlin, a black man. Advertisement They arrived in Porter around 3 p.m. in SUVs, on motorcycles and on horseback, gathering at a nearby school before following Quannell X down West Hammond Drive to the property where Southworth shot Shamlin in the chest. Quannell walked with Rodney Shamlin's father, Lenard, and widow, Trina, to the property, where the crime scene tape was still strung. "Brother Rodney Earl Shamlin was not some...

A lawyer for the owner of the Player's Club Bar and Grill in Independence has challenged in court the enforceability of the city's Clean Indoor Air Act ordinance and won. John Carnes, an Independence attorney for Player's Club owner Jennifer Brashear, got Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Bushur to overturn two clean air citations given to Brashear. Municipal judges in Independence had found Brashear guilty of violating the city's health code by allowing patrons of the lounge to smoke on two separate occasions. "There are some holes in that ordinance that basically makes it unenforceable," Carnes said. "It's an...

NYC Councilman Decries 'Thug Chips' Snack Food LineSaturday, December 15, 2007 NEW YORK — A new consumer product line headed by NFL legend Jim Brown and featuring "Thug Chips" has left a bad taste in the mouth of at least one politician. City Councilman Leroy Comrie claimed on Friday that the manufacturer's name, OG Nation, stands for "original gangster." He accused the Arizona-based company of exploiting urban youth by glorifying violence. "They're trying to mainstream the gangster lifestyle and the criminal lifestyle," Comrie said. The company's Web Site lists Brown as president while promoting products like "King Pin" lager beer,...

The Pasadena man who killed two suspected burglars as they left his next-door neighbor's home did not intend to kill them when he stepped outside with his 12-gauge shotgun, his lawyer said Friday. In portraying Joe Horn as a victim of circumstances, lawyer and longtime friend Tom Lambright called the 61-year-old computer consultant "a good family man" who has been devastated by the Wednesday afternoon burglary and shooting. Killed in the incident in the 7400 block of Timberline were Miguel Antonio DeJesus, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, both of Houston. Each had a minor previous brush with the law. Records...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2007 – Afghan and coalition forces detained one suspect and treated a woman victimized by Taliban gunfire in Afghanistan in recent days, military officials said. Combined forces detained one suspect in a Nov. 13 operation to disrupt foreign-fighter facilitators in the Qalat district of Zabul province. Actionable intelligence led coalition forces to compounds in the district where they searched for militant facilitators thought to be hiding in the area. Troops found and detained a person with alleged links to foreign-fighter-facilitation operations, as well as other extremist activities, officials said. Some damage occurred to a building during the...

Anger and grief were just some of the emotions expressed Tuesday night by a crowd that gathered at the site of a police-involved shooting in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood.... Miami-Dade police said two officers who were working a robbery suppression detail pulled the SUV over after the driver ran a red light near 65th Street and North Miami Avenue. The officers approached the SUV on foot, but investigators said the SUV accelerated at a high rate of speed towards the officers, who then opened fire in self-defense.

ELYRIA — An Elyria man who beat his elderly grandmother during a robbery last year was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison. Shawn Bowens, 26, told county Common Pleas Judge Christopher Rothgery that he was truly sorry for the grief he had caused his family and the pain he had inflicted upon his grandmother, 75-year-old Velma Bowens...." Aric Bowens (center) reads a statement from his family during the sentencing for his cousin Shawn Bowens (right) who was convicted of attempted murder, felonious assault and aggravated burglary against their grandmother, Velma Bowens.

COMMITTEE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE P.O. Box 306, Cheltenham, PA 19012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 10, 2007 Contact: Don Adams, ###.###.#### Teamster Beating Victims Appeal Judge’s Order To Pay Union $15 Grand Philadelphia – Two Clinton protesters, viciously beaten up by a group of pro-Clinton teamsters outside Philadelphia’s City Hall during a presidential visit nine years ago, last week appealed a federal judge’s order to pay two teamster unions $15,000.00 in legal costs stemming from an October, 2000 Federal Civil Rights suit. Five members of Teamsters Local 115 eventually pled guilty to criminal assault, conspiracy, and various other charges in the...

Freedom: As thousands of monks marched on Rangoon last week, a velvet revolution seemed near. But barbarism destroyed the road to democracy. Burma's rulers sent a message that tyranny pays. It must stop. Burma is often characterized as a pariah state in the Western media, with its reclusive regime holding few friends or allies. In reality, that's fiction. Burma remains a fine upstanding member of the United Nations while a real Asian democracy, Taiwan, is shut out. Burma is also a full member of the region's Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Burma has China as a patron, doing $2 billion...

RVING -- When pro-immigrant activists held a rally Wednesday against a police program that has led to more than 1,500 deportations this year, they told the crowd to call City Hall and demand an end to the program. City officials said they were swamped with nearly 500 calls the next day. But the calls were overwhelmingly in favor of the police crackdown, called the Criminal Alien Program. "We received a ton of phone calls at City Hall, ... and they have mostly been in support of our program," Mayor Herbert Gears said. He said he also got 265 e-mails Thursday,...

Fight the bully smear merchants at MoveOn.org By Michelle Malkin  •  September 29, 2007 06:30 AM Update: Another challenge to the MoveOn legal thugs… Photoshop credit: Blue Crab Boulevard*** This is one of the logos MoveOn.org doesn’t want you to see: Go ahead. Sue.Earlier in the week, the LA Times reported that MoveOn.org, the infamous left-wing thugs who sponsored the “General Betray Us” ads, had unleashed its lawyers on Internet retailer Cafe Press, which allows folks to sell custom-designed t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. The anti-military smear merchants don’t take kindly to be being mocked and satirized on homemade items and knick-knacks:...

On the September 28th Democracy Now! broadcast, hostess Amy Goodman led off the program's headlines with... Black Teen Jailed in Jena Six Case Freed on Bail In Jena, Louisiana, the seventeen year old Mychal Bell -- one of the Jena Six -- has been released on bail after ten months in prison. Bell and five other African American high school students were arrested last year for beating a white student during a schoolyard fight. The fight occurred after white students hung three nooses in a tree in the schoolyard. An all-white jury convicted Bell of aggravated second-degree battery.

Smith’s computers destroyed on same day he was ‘evicted’ by protesters By CHARLES WEBSTER HAMILTON — A band of rowdy war protesters invaded the township office of U.S. Rep. Chris Smith last week on the same day that wires were ripped from the office’s computer equipment.No one is flat-out blaming the activists — yet — but the coincidence is enough to prompt an investigation. “We don’t know who did this, that’s why we’ve contacted the authorities,” Smith spokeswoman Mary Noonan said yesterday from Washington. “But we do know who was in the office that day.”The computer vandalism brought the...

NFL team's attire holds gang appeal 10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, September 1, 2007 By JOHN F. BERRY The Press-Enterprise SAN BERNARDINO - The Oakland Raiders, a dozen years after fleeing Los Angeles, finished the 2006 regular season with a 2-14 record -- the worst in the NFL. Despite the teams' embarrassing performance, silver-and-black attired Raider Nation fans significantly outnumber any other sports team appearing daily at the main San Bernardino County courthouse in downtown San Bernardino. Criminal gang prosecutors are unimpressed. "Generally speaking, those wearing Raiders gear in Southern California are associated with gangs," said Cheryl Kersey, who leads...

Atlanta Falcons Quarterback To Plead Guilty To Lesser Charges (CBS News) RICHMOND, Va. The National Football league has suspended Michael Vick indefinitely after he pleaded guilty to charges related to dogfighting on Friday. Vick filed his plea agreement in federal court Friday admitting to conspiracy in a dogfighting ring and helping kill pit bulls. He denied ever betting on the fights, only bankrolling them. The Atlanta Falcons quarterback is scheduled to formally enter his plea Monday in U.S. District Court. He signed the plea agreement Thursday. "Most of the Bad Newz Kennels operation and gambling monies were provided by Vick,"...

Democratic presidential candidates argued Saturday night that organized labor is an essential part of the nation's economy whose troubles mirror the deterioration of the middle class way of life. "The only way to reinvigorate the middle class is to reinvigorate the labor movement," Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware told several hundred union members at a labor forum in eastern Iowa.

Act now to beat young thugs, says police chief By Martin Beckford Last Updated: 2:40am BST 15/08/2007 A senior police officer yesterday issued a devastating critique of the way towns were being blighted by violent, drunken youths who had made people afraid to walk the streets. Garry Newlove was killed after confronting a gang of youths outside his home in Cheshire last week Speaking after the death of a father allegedly at the hands of teenage yobs, Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Cheshire, blamed parents for abdicating responsibility for their children and shops that sold cheap alcohol. A "hard...

Homeland Security: Forget everything you've been told about "moderate" Muslim groups in America. New evidence that U.S. prosecutors have revealed at a major terror trial exposes the facade. Exhibit No. 003-0085 is the most chilling. Translated from Arabic by federal investigators in the case against the Holy Land Foundation, an alleged Hamas front, the secret document outlines a full-blown conspiracy by the major Muslim groups in America — all of which are considered "mainstream" by the media. In fact, they are part of the "Ikhwan," or Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas, al-Qaida and other major Islamic terror groups....

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has backed off its vow to honor accused dogfighter Michael Vick at its convention this week. "There is no award or no honoring of Michael Vick," said SCLC spokesman David Stokes. rights organization would honor and recognize the embattled Falcons quarterback who is under federal indictment on dogfighting charges. "We need to support him no matter what the evidence reveals," Steele said before the convention began, adding that his organization was focusing on Vick's redemption. So far the convention, which began Friday and ends Wednesday, has had no special event for Vick.