Free Republic

“He does not have the ability to fight back in a way like a normal person would,” Jurgena said. The video later shows another teenage boy being handcuffed. Jurgena said that boy, 16, was the one initially filming. Deputies caused him to hit his head on a wall and then put him in a patrol vehicle, according to Jurgena. But he was then released.

...Ogg said that as investigators probed the case, they determined that Goines first lied about using a confidential informant to buy heroin; then claimed to have bought the drugs himself; then lied about who identified the drugs; and finally admitted that he couldn’t determine whether Tuttle was the same person from whom he allegedly purchased the drugs....

...The coroner said cocaine, antidepressants and alcohol were found in Betts’ system at the time of the shooting. A pipe device and a clear baggie with cocaine were found on Betts’ body.

In 2017 alone, Chicago booted more than 67,000 vehicles for unpaid tickets. In about a third of those cases, the driver couldn’t afford to remove the boot, and the vehicle was later towed to a city impound lot. Of those 20,000 impounded cars, more than 8,000 ended up like Botello’s: They were sold off, with the owners receiving none of the sale proceeds. Instead, the city and its towing contractor pocketed millions of dollars, while residents were left with ticket debt. All told, there have been nearly 50,000 of these sales since 2011.

The lesson thus learned is obvious for anyone debating the rationale for increased American deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—where America’s industrial might is checked by the sheer enormity of the geography and overwhelming numbers and munitions have little effect on the enemy. Indeed, MacArthur, Kennedy, and Eisenhower, the acknowledged leaders of “the greatest generation,” would look skeptically on a foreign policy that features endless and costly wars in faraway lands. It is not simply that if these men were alive today they would withdraw America’s military from the Middle East; had they been alive and in a position to...

“Kristol was trying to remake the Republican Party,” Carlson says. A significant part of Kristol’s GOP makeover project was portraying antiwar conservatives as heretics. Carlson recounts, “Years later, writer Philip Weiss described a conversation he had with Kristol in which this [remaking the GOP] became explicit. There are Republicans, Kristol told Weiss, ‘of whom I disapprove so much that I won’t appear with them. That I’ve encouraged that they be expelled or not welcomed into the Republican Party.’” “’I’d be happy if Ron Paul left and ran as a third party candidate. I was very happy when Pat Buchanan was...

This wasn't supposed to happen. New Hampshire reformed its civil asset forfeiture laws in 2016 to require a criminal conviction before police or prosecutors could force people to forfeit money or property. Unfortunately, the state's reform did not close a loophole that lets local police partner with the feds in a program called Equitable Sharing. In this system, local police use the federal asset forfeiture program instead of their own and then the Justice Department distributes most of the forfeited money back to local law enforcement. That's why the Department of Justice is involved here. The state police can't seize...

...FBI agents later interviewed Marrero's ex-girlfriend, who confirmed that she was 17 at the time the pictures were taken. A conviction will force Marrero to register as a sex offender and could land him in prison for up to 30 years. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's guide to federal child pornography law, "a first time offender convicted of producing child pornography...face fines and a statutory minimum of 15 years to 30 years maximum in prison." Under Ohio law, which also sets the cutoff for child pornography at 18, Marrero would have faced between six months and eight years....

The other crux of my discontent with The Simpsons comes from the way Marge is continually treated like a doormat. Obviously, The Simpsons started in the 1989, before “political correctness”—otherwise known as being tolerant and conscientious towards people—was a concern for a lot of folks. I didn’t go in expecting it to be free of prejudice, but the fact that people still love the show and considered it progressive for its time gave me a kernel of hope. Not so, at least not when it came to the abuse heaped on Marge. I don’t understand why she doesn’t just divorce...

But now the FBI has managed to anger both major political parties and much of the country. It's demonstrated its capacity for political meddling and misuse of power—even if people disagree on who was on the receiving end. That offers a rare opportunity to pull the plug on a dangerously powerful agency at a moment when its potential for bias, arrogance, insubordination, and plain incompetence are on public display. Let's kill the FBI while we can.

“The fact that VA has waited for more than two years to properly address this, I think underscores leadership failure at the highest levels.” Dr. Head says he and others reported the fly problem but he says instead of addressing it, the VA suspended one doctor and he says they retaliated against him as well. “I believe there’s a culture in the Veterans Administration that punishes people who are willing to come forward.”

If we extend the attorney general's medical advice to people who suffer from severe chronic pain—people who need opioids to get out of bed in the morning and have something like a normal life, people who may be driven to suicide when they are denied adequate medication—his attitude is not merely cruel but downright barbaric. As a college student with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome told me when I interviewed him for an upcoming Reason feature story about opioids, the right kind of pain medication can be "the difference between wanting to put a bullet in your brain and enjoying life." Sessions' "tough...

FBI evidence shenanigans destroyed the prosecution of Cliven Bundy, the Nevadan rancher who was involved in a high-profile standoff with federal agents in 2014. The feds charged the Bundy family with conspiracy in large part because the ranchers summoned militia to defend them after they claimed that FBI snipers had surrounded their ranch. Justice Department lawyers scoffed at this claim in prior trials involving the standoff but newly-released documents confirm that snipers were in place prior to the Bundy’s call for help. Federal judge Gloria Navarro slammed the FBI last month for withholding key evidence in the case. Evidence disposal...

Federal judge Gloria Navarro slammed the FBI and Justice Department on Monday, Jan. 8, for “outrageous” abuses and “flagrant misconduct” in the prosecution of Cliven Bundy and sons, the Nevada ranchers who spurred a high-profile standoff with the FBI and Bureau of Land Management in 2014. Navarro condemned the "grossly shocking” withholding of evidence from defense counsel in a case that could have landed the Bundys in prison for the rest of their lives. Navarro, who had declared a mistrial last month, dismissed all charges against the Bundys. Navarro was especially riled because the FBI spent three years covering up...

Claims by police apologists that a "war on cops" ensued from a reform movement that emerged after the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, has no statistical support. Preliminary data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) finds that 128 police officers died in the line of duty in 2017—44 of them were fatally shot. Last year 64 officers were fatally shot. And since 2011, the numbers have largely gone down. In the meantime, police have fatally shot 971 people so far this year—the youngest of them just 6 years old. Last year, 963 people...

An angry Queens man stabbed his sister’s boyfriend during an argument over who to invite to Thanksgiving dinner, police said Wednesday. The man, identified by sources as 56-year-old David Williams, arrived home at his apartment on Anderson Road near 179th St. in St. Albans and quickly got into an argument with his sister. He wanted to invite his girlfriend to Thanksgiving dinner — but sis Dianna Gadson disapproved. A shouting match followed and Williams shoved Gadson, 66, to the ground, prompting her boyfriend Silas Stewart to order Williams to keep his hands to himself, police said. “I want you the...

Gently, politely but insistently, they offered an establishment tutorial on statecraft for an administration that has disdained the very notion. The discussion was friendly and hardly confrontational, yet it felt like a deposed order seeking to influence the revolutionaries who toppled it. In Ms. Haley, they coached the figure seemingly most sympathetic to the traditional ways of doing business — not to mention the one who may assume their old job soon enough. As a Democrat who served under President Bill Clinton, Ms. Albright felt freer to be direct. “Nation building is not a four-letter word,” she told Ms. Haley...

Drive the car with the windows rolled up and the heat on. Do this on a dry day. If you see fog forming by the air vents, it’s another Danger! Danger! Will Robinson! warning. You will probably smell funk, too. Check all dash warning lights. They should all come on briefly when the ignition is first turned on, then turn off after a few moments. If some – especially the “check engine” light – don’t come on, it’s possible the bulb was pulled to make it appear that all is ok. Find out why the light isn’t coming on. Look...

More than 30 cases involving three Baltimore police officers who are the subjects of an evidence-planting investigation have been dismissed or are set to be dismissed, the Baltimore City State's Attorney said Friday. Body camera footage from an arrest in January that appears to show one of the officers hiding drugs at the scene has called the credibility of the trio into question, Marilyn Mosby, State's Attorney for Baltimore City, said. She said 34 cases will be dismissed while 77 are still being reviewed. Twelve other cases are moving forward. "Where these officers are material and necessary witnesses, we are...

a) Deputies ordered students to stand facing the wall with their hands and legs spread wide apart; b) Deputies touched and manipulated students’ breasts and genitals; c) Deputies inserted fingers inside girls’ bras, and pulled up girls’ bras, touching and partially exposing their bare breasts; d) Deputies touched girls’ underwear by placing hands inside the waistbands of their pants or reaching up their dresses; e) Deputies touched girls’ vaginal areas through their underwear; f) Deputies cupped or groped boys’ genitals and touched their buttocks through their pants. This is shocking, at least at first glance. But perhaps it shouldn’t be....