Free Republic

Biden nominated Roopali Desai to the 9th Circuit Appeals Court.. ... serves on the board of a group that backed calls to defund the police and has called to abolish prisons. ... Desai serves on the board of Just Communities Arizona (JCA), a self-described "abolitionist organization" that envisions "a world in which prisons and jails are unnecessary." ... The organization has taken several radical stances on the criminal justice system, including claiming that "the criminal punishment system isn't really about justice" and mourning Arizona’s execution of Frank Atwood last month. Atwood was convicted in 1987 of raping and murdering 8-year-old...

A refugee living in the United States from Iraq has been arrested and charged with making two bombs in Las Vegas, Nevada and allegedly teaching undercover FBI investigators how to make and detonate the explosive devices. Ahmad Suhad Ahmad, a 30-year-old Iraqi refugee living in Tuscon, Arizona was busted by the FBI after the agency spent nearly two years operating an undercover sting where they say Ahmad built bombs and taught undercover agents how to do the same. According to the FBI, the Iraqi refugee built two bombs in a Las Vegas condo. Both of those bombs, investigators say, were...

PHOENIX (AP) — A Tucson man has been arrested by the FBI and the Arizona Attorney General's Office for threatening to commit acts of terrorism on Arizona government buildings. The Attorney General's Office says 18-year-old Mahin Khan appeared before a Phoenix judge Saturday morning. He was ordered held without bond in Maricopa County Jail. Khan faces two counts of conspiracy to commit terrorism and terrorism.

At a Trump rally in Tucson, Arizona, a black Trump supporter was seen punching and stomping on a white protester who had donned a KKK hood in an attempt to disrupt the rally. Trump’s campaign events have been the target of violent protests in recents, and the rally in Arizona was interrupted by loud protesters who wore white KKK hoods, apparently mocking Trump’s alleged racism. “He puts a Ku Klux Klan hat on it. He thinks it’s cute. He’s a disgusting guy. That is a disgusting guy. Really disgusting,” Trump said of the protesters, according to Real Clear Politics. “I...

'MAYBE IF YOU TREAT POLICE OFFICERS WITH RESPECT, THEY WILL DO THE SAME TO YOU' Steven Hildreth Jr. was "a black man wearing a hoodie and strapped"—he was legally carrying a gun—when stopped by a Tucson police officer for a broken headlight. And yet, he and the officer involved were respectful to one another, and both walked away from the incident unscathed, Hildreth writes in a Facebook post that's been shared more than 250,000 times. In it, Hildreth tells the story of how he informed the officer he was carrying a weapon near his wallet, the officer disarmed him as...

Wounded warrior retired Senior Airman Brian Kolfage was startled by a strange sight as he wound his way through Davis Mountain Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz. — Old Glory, with rainbow stripes replacing the alternating red and white. It was a sight one might see at University of California, Berkeley, perhaps — but a military base? “For those of you with military ties, you’ll understand the stark contrast between military and civilian life, and ultimately know duty comes before self,” he wrote for The Blaze. “More specifically, it’s one of the Air Force’s three core values that is drilled...

TUCSON- A convenience store clerk who was stabbed early Friday morning has died from his injuries. According to Sergeant Chris Widmer with Tucson Police, 22-year-old Erick Bridges passed away Saturday afternoon. Bridges was stabbed at the AM/PM at 7601 E. Tanque Verde around 1 a.m. Friday. The suspect is described as a thin white and Hispanic man in his 20s, 5-feet-8 inches. He was wearing a grey "hoodie" and jeans and had a dark backpack. Anyone with information is urged 9-1-1 or 88-CRIME.

TUCSON — The forecast for the year ahead is dire, so officials in the public school district here, the oldest in the state, summoned parents to an urgent meeting one evening to lay out the options: close schools and increase class sizes or impose across-the-board pay cuts, making it harder for the district to recruit quality teachers. In the auditorium at Cholla High Magnet School, Bryant Nodine, the planning program manager for the Tucson Unified School District, peered into the audience and pleaded for suggestions. “We need your help,” he said. The district needs to find at least $17 million...

TUCSON, AZ (KPHO/AP) - Davis-Monthan Air Force Base has stepped up security and limited traffic in and out of the base in the midst of reported gunfire. A Davis-Monthan Air Force Base spokesperson could not confirm reports of gunfire or say if anyone has been shot. An elementary school on the base is on lockdown, but a spokeswoman would release few details other than no one was being allowed in or out of the base

NEW YORK (AP) -- The intern credited with helping Rep. Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot in the head in Arizona is speaking out in favor of changes to the nation's background check system.

While many in the mainstream press wasted no time in blaming conservatives for creating a climate of incivility that led to the tragedy in Tucson, a leading academic, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau also stepped up to the plate several days after the event to blame what he called the “climate” of speech in Arizona for the shooting. In an email to the campus, Chancellor Birgeneau called upon the academic community to ponder whether a climate “in which demonization of others goes unchallenged and hateful speech is tolerated can lead to such a tragedy.” Saying that he thought it...

Gun control advocates and even former Vice President Dick Cheney have suggested having 10 rounds available in a magazine for a semi-automatic pistol “seems” like enough to protect oneself, yet the argument is simply an extension of a random number that “seems” to make people feel better and has no relation to real-world situations. I’ve caught a few posts during the last week concerning the number of rounds a pistol magazine can hold. It’s an emotional issue for many, but limiting the magazine capacity of semi-automatic pistols would not make a difference, and could put those defending themselves in a...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she thinks Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) will one day return to Congress. Pelosi said she believed that Giffords, the victim of an assassination attempt on Jan. 8, would one day return to her seat in the House. "Yes, I think so," Pelosi said on CNN's "The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer" when asked if she thought Giffords would return to Congress. The Arizona lawmaker has been hospitalized in Tucson, Ariz., since she was shot in the head during an attack at a constituent meeting. Despite the severity of her injury, doctors...

The “Together We Thrive” T-shirts that starred at Wednesday’s Arizona `Memorial’ originated from Organizing for America (here), a sad fact unearthed by The Drumbeat of Liberty and the Preservation of Freedom editor and Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Robert Rohlfing. In the controversy of the pep rally/rock concert style Memorial for those who lost their lives in Saturday’s Arizona tragedy, the mainstream media reported that the “Together We Thrive: Tucson & America” T-shirt given to mourners as they entered McKate Center was the idea of University of Arizona brass, not the Obama administration.

. Even gun metaphors need a rest now and again. In the wake of the Tucson, Ariz., shooting at an event hosted by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has been emphatic in his assertion that he and other right-wing political figures in no way contributed to the mindset of suspected gunman Jared Loughner. But an unfortunate billboard advertising Limbaugh's show has given his critics some ammunition of their own. photograph was circulated early this morning of the Tucson billboard, which was located along Interstate 10, just five miles from the Safeway store where a gunman killed...

Since Saturday, our media have reveled in the aftermath of the avoidable slaughter in Tucson, where a young madman--ignored by “tolerant” social, educational and law-enforcement systems—gunned down, among others, a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, while gravely wounding a Congresswoman reaching out to her constituents. Caught out in his incompetence, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Arizona, railed against conservatives, who the “lawman” blamed for the massacre on his turf. Other leftists rushed to blame the Tea Party (conveniently overlooking the murderer’s internet claim that The Communist Manifesto was one of his favorite books—oops!).

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has managed to place himself in the media spotlight by blaming the political and media climate as the reason for last weekend's Tucson's massacre. In fact, the Pima County Sheriff went as far as to blame talk radio host Rush Limbaugh for the tragic shooting that took the lives of six and wounded 14. However, if Sheriff Dupnik is willing to use this line of logic, is he then willing to take responsibility for the fact that his own adult daughter was arrested on drug charges in his own county? His daughter was first arrested for on...

Deflect, divert, attack opponents... typical cornered, incompetent lib Meanwhile back in reality, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik allowed myriad opportunities to prevent a gruesome bloodbath slip right through his hands... and he knows it Yesterday the Pima County Sheriff that's been attempting to tack the Tuscon massacre on the American Right in general -and Rush Limbaugh in particular- got a call of congratulations from the President himself... isn't that special. Thinking persons can be excused for asking "what the hell for"- other than Dupnik's failure to prevent a blood-curdling tragedy right under his nose... must be the diversionary Alinskyite attacks upon American talk radio that Obama finds...