Free Republic

CHALMETTE, La. - A 34-year-old illegal alien was booked on three counts of forcible rape along with other sex crimes involving a juvenile girl, according to St. Bernard Parish Chief Deputy Sheriff James Pohlmann. Alvaro Gonzalez was arrested on March 2. Pohlmann said the victim was the daughter of an acquaintance of Gonzalez. According to Pohlmann, Gonzalez has been living in the Chalmette area for about a year but is in the country illegally. In addition to the forcible rape counts, Gonzalez with booked with two counts of attempted forcible rape and two counts of molestation of a juvenile. Pohlmann...

Yesterday's post looked at the issues relevant to health-care reform raised by the fact of the president's recent annual physical, starting with the act of getting an annual physical exam in the first place. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has long recommended that rather than a lock-step, one-size-fits-all approach, periodic health screening be conducted according to individualized factors. "This year's examination focused on evidence-based screening prevention and primary care, targeted to the president as an individual and his occupation," the exam's final report stated. And indeed, the president, who is 48, was too young to warrant much in...

More than 5,000 people turned up at the Sydney Opera House today to get naked in the name of art. Braving an early morning chill they shed their clothes, abandoned any embarrassment, and posed naked for renowned American nudist photographer Spencer Tunick. People came in all shapes and sizes and one heavily pregnant woman even postponed the birth of her twins so she could take part.

Joseph Stack, the anti-capitalist who killed two yesterday in a 9/11-style attack in Austin, published a "manifesto" online, which ends with the communist creed. What is most striking about this man's ramblings is that they read, at times, very similarly to a Keith Olbermann (MSNBC host) monologue. We find many of the contradictory ideas to which today's Left holds. To Mr. Stack, George Bush was a "puppet", but yet he had "cronies". To Mr. Stack, General Motors executives were reliant on their "overwhelming stupidity" for being "thugs" and "plunderers". Mr Stack had also been convinced of the idea that "insurance...

After a Census Bureau worker was found dead in rural Kentucky in September, liberals jumped at the chance to attribute his death to right-wing extremists whipped into a frenzy by the hate-filled sermons of Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck. It turns out the Census employee committed suicide and tried to make it seem like a murder to recoup life insurance payments for his son. USA Today reports that Bill Sparkman "committed suicide and staged his death to look like a homicide." He was not murdered by a government-hating extremist with Fox News prime time cued up on his Tivo. Given...

Remember earlier this year when the new era of hope and change was ushered into Washington, D.C. and President Barack Obama made the statement on day one his policies would “represent a clean break from business as usual"? Not so fast says Charles Krauthammer, columnist for The Washington Post and Fox News regular. Krauthammer on the Nov. 20 broadcast of Fox News “Special Report with Bret Baier” explained that a certain provision put into to the Senate version of health care legislation to favor undecided Democratic senators, specifically Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., represents a different brand of politics from what...

More than 150 Christian leaders are issuing a “call of conscience” to America-- urging them reaffirm their opposition to abortion, stem cell research and same-sex marriage. “The Manhattan Declaration” stresses the need to protect religious freedom in in the U.S. It’s signed by seminary leaders, pastors, professors and the heads of ministries. The Christian leaders have come together across denominational lines to call on believers everywhere to radically commit to fight for the sanctity of life, marriage and religious liberty. “And in all three of these areas we see threats in the culture and in our politics.” Robert George, one...

Youtube video linked at http://algorelied.com/ After being entertained by “We The Band", Our group walked down to the front entrance of Keller Auditorium to voice our displeasure with Al Gore and his faulty theories that he espouses in an attempt to become the first “carbon billionaire".

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Rifqa Bary’s custody battle is now in the hands of the Columbus, Ohio, court system. She will make her first court appearance there next month. The 17-year-old ran away from home after her Muslim parents discovered she had become a Christian. Her story has gained international attention, and on Monday, supporters filled the Columbus court house square to make sure it is not forgotten. More than 100 people filled the square outside the Columbus Juvenile Court to show support for Rifqa Bary, whom most have never met. Nonie Darwish traveled from Los Angeles. What will be Bary’s...

It all boils down to this simple question: Do you want to win the war or not? Barry O, Sen. Kerry and others are frittering the days away while the man that knows -- General McChrystal -- has stated he needs 40,000 more troops to win the war in Afghanistan. And he’s also said that if we don’t do this smart, hard and fast we will -- within a year -- be unable to defeat the Taliban. So what did Barry do? Nothing. So far, he’s wasted almost ninety days of that year working hard to feed Fedzilla another one-sixth...

An elderly Las Vegas, NV homeowner used his gun to fend off multiple home invaders early Thursday morning. Police say that an unknown number of intruders kicked in the door of a home near Rancho and Vegas Drive at 5:30AM. The intruders are said to have attacked the elderly homeowner, prompting him to grab his gun and fire in self defense. One of the attackers was fatally wounded, and the other criminals fled, according to police. The homewoner was unharmed. It is a sad fact that criminals prey on senior citizens, seeing them as easy targets. Unarmed senior citizens can...

Federal investigators chasing e-mail and other communication links between Fort Hood shooting suspect Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki should consult a new book that cites documents on the al Qaeda imam. “Muslim Mafia,” by investigative reporter Paul Sperry, reports on copies of once-secret U.S. immigration records revealing that U.S.-born Awlaki was detained by authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Oct. 10, 2002, as a terrorist suspect as he tried to re-enter the United States from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was mysteriously released because a warrant for his arrest had been rescinded the...

MUNICH, Germany - Increasing custody cases in Europe are proof that officials there have declared war against home schooling and parental rights, according to some residents. In Sweden, police burst onto a plane and took 7-year-old Dominic Johansson from his parents as they were about to leave the country. Months earlier, they told school officials they were going to home school Dominic, prompting officials to open an investigation. In a similar case in Germany, the government abducted 7-year-old Dan Schulz while the family was sleeping. He can be heard on tape screaming that he doesn’t want to leave his home....

Former Congressman William Jefferson, the New Orleans Democrat with bribery cash hidden in his freezer, was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison, the longest-ever for a Member of Congress on a corruption charge -- yet the CBS Evening News didn't utter a word about it, just as that newscast ignored his August conviction, while ABC's World News didn't bother to mention his party affiliation. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams noted Jefferson's party in this short item: “Former Louisiana Democratic Congressman William Jefferson made headlines a while back when the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in his freezer....

AXUM, Ethiopia -- The Ark of the Covenant was built by Moses to hold the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments -- at the command of God himself. For centuries in Jerusalem, it was the literal dwelling of the Most High, secreted in the darkness of the Holy of Holies. Then, it disappeared. For more than 2,000 years, the whereabouts of the Ark have been shrouded in mystery, despite countless attempts to track it down. There are many theories as to the whereabouts of the holy relic. Some say it's buried under the Temple Mount and others contend that it...

It’s one thing to avoid the “terrorist” label when reporting on Ft. Hood suspect Major Nidal Hasan. It’s quite another to say that those who do use it are making a political calculation to “paint the Democrats as soft terror.” Yet that’s what MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow insisted on her Nov. 11 broadcast. Maddow launched into a minute-and-a-half soliloquy on why it is bad for the Democratic Party when commentators label Hasan a “terrorist.” She even attempted to make the case on Hasan’s behalf against a terrorism label. Who needs a legal team when you have friends like Maddow and Chris...

I’ve been watching the most recent series of South Park, and like a lot of people, I’m disappointed. There hasn’t been a good ‘South Park’ since ‘Mystery of the Urinal Deuce’. Coming straight out of Team America’, which is a great movie apart from the usual Parker-Stone self-defeating scene at the end, there was the excellent ‘South Park’ season 9, with ‘Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina’, a non-PC look at “sex changes", ‘Die Hippie, Die’, a fun episode about hippies, and ‘Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow’, a non-PC look at environmentalists, and then the also-excellent season 10, with...

Americans continue to wonder whether the terrorist rampage at Fort Hood could have been prevented. What did government agencies know about Nidal Malik Hasan, and when did they know it? And how deep were Hasan’s jihadist connections overseas? In this post-9/11 world, it seems hard to believe. Details are emerging that U.S. government agencies knew about Hasan’s contacts with Islamic radicals linked to al Qaeda -- and concluded that those contacts did not pose a threat to America’s national security. For months, federal investigators monitored Hasan’s e-mail correspondence with Anwar al-Awalki, an al Qaeda recruiter living in Yemen who has...

While many of the search giant’s temporary logos - such as the recent series marking the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street - appear to surfers in many countries, some are specific to particular nations. We have trawled through all the archived doodles for the past two years to select 10 that Anglo-Saxon web users may struggle to decipher. Can you identify the celebrations and anniversaries to which they pertain, and to which nation’s Google visitors they were visible? Click at the link at the bottom of the story to reveal the full list of answers.

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said he has “no other choice” but to filibuster a health care bill that contains a government-run health insurance option, adding that while reform is needed, the public option would be harmful to America’s future and that he would use his right as a senator to try “to stop it.” “I have no other choice,” Lieberman told several reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. “I’ve got to use the right I have as a senator to stop something that I think is going to be terrible for our future, which is the public option, not health...