Free Republic

A San Diego man who sent explicit material to an 11-year-old girl featured on the reality TV show "Dance Moms" was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison. Phoenix Sundown, 37, pleaded guilty to sending harmful material to a minor with intent of seduction and to a charge of animal cruelty. ((snip)) When Judge Herbert J. Exarhos asked Sundown if there was anything he'd like to say before sentencing, the defendant made several statements unrelated to the case. "Vote Hillary Clinton for President," the defendant said...

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump drew a distinction between eligibility questions surrounding Marco Rubio's run for the presidency versus those clouding Ted Cruz's bid, saying the Florida senator is qualified because although his parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of his birth, he was born in the U.S. -- unlike Cruz. "It's a different, very different thing because he was born here. He was born on the land," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." "Ted was not born on the land, and there's a very strict reading that you have to be born on the land....

Do you support the president's executive order on gun sales? POLL HERE Scroll down, poll on right. 43% YES 56% NO

The owners of an Oregon bakery who denied service to a same-sex couple have paid more than $135,000 in state-ordered damages – months after refusing to do so – according to state officials Monday. Aaron Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes, by Melissa, dropped a check off for $136,927.07, according to the Bureau of Labor and Industries. The payment includes interest. Klein also paid $7,000 earlier this month. Damages were award in July for emotional suffering caused by the bakery which refused to make a wedding cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer more than two years ago. The bakers said they...

The FAA finally confirmed this afternoon that model aircraft registrants' names and home addresses will be public. In an email message, the FAA stated: "Until the drone registry system is modified, the FAA will not release names and address. When the drone registry system is modified to permit public searches of registration numbers, names and addresses will be revealed through those searches." I've been trying to get to the bottom of whether names and home addresses of model aircraft or hobby drone owners - including children as young as 13 - will be made available by the FAA to the...

Would you favor a renewal of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban? Poll Here

SAN DIEGO - A Harbor Police officer fatally shot a man near a Point Loma hotel late Tuesday night after the officer spotted the man peering into cars in a nearby parking lot and the two struggled over the officer's gun, a San Diego police homicide lieutenant said. ((snip)) After getting out of his car, the officer was "immediately attacked" by the man in the hotel parking lot, Rorrison said. The officer was able to stand up and, as the suspect continued to fight, he fired his gun once, hitting the man in the torso. The man who was killed...

Kelly Gissendaner, the only woman on Georgia's death row, was executed early Wednesday, authorities said. The execution came after Georgia's Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal appeals court all denied requests for a stay of execution. Gissendaner, who was convicted of orchestrating her husband's murder almost 20 years ago, died by lethal injection at 12:21 a.m. Wednesday.

(Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service cut the credit rating of Ferguson, Missouri to "junk" status on Thursday, citing its sharply deteriorating finances following the fatal shooting of a black teen by a white policeman in the city in August 2014. The rating agency said the seven-notch downgrade of Ferguson's general obligation rating, to Ba1 from Aa3, was due to a "severe and rapid" financial deterioration that could lead to insolvency for the St. Louis suburb by the end of its fiscal 2017. "Key drivers of this precipitous drop are declining key revenues, unbudgeted expenditures, and escalating expenses related to ongoing...

U.S. Republican party presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said on Sunday high salaries paid to chief executives were a "joke" and a "disgrace" and said these were often approved by company boards stacked with the CEO's friends. Trump, a real estate mogul who has said he plans to use his net worth of $8.7 billion to fund his White House campaign, said in an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation" that it was hard to tackle the question of corporate pay because too many corporate boards lacked independence. "It's disgraceful. Sometimes the boards rule but I would probably say it's less...

San Pedro is not reacting kindly to Donald Trump’s scheduled national security speech at the Battleship Iowa next week. In fact, some serious name-calling has erupted in an online petition, signed by nearly 3,000 people, that encourages cancellation of the celebrity presidential candidate’s visit.

WASHINGTON — President Obama, under increasing pressure to demonstrate that the United States is joining European nations in the effort to resettle Syrian refugees, has told his administration to take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrians over the next year. At a briefing at the White House on Thursday, the press secretary, Josh Earnest, said the United States would “accept at least 10,000 refugees in the next fiscal year,” which begins Oct. 1.

Vice President Joe Biden issued a fiery call for a more equitable tax system as he marched with union workers Monday, diagnosing fairer taxes as a solution to a growing disparity between the wealthy and middle class. “I hope everybody in America has a chance to become a millionaire. And we need some billionaires,” Biden said at a Labor Day gathering in Pittsburgh. “But let me tell you something, man. The tax code’s not fair. It’s simply not fair.” Biden’s every public utterance is being heavily scrutinized of late amid questions of if, and when, he might enter the 2016...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that while “There’s only so much we can do. We have to fix our own country” the US should “help as much as possible” with the European refugee crisis and “possibly” let some refugees into the US on Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Trump was asked about the European refugee crisis and, “Should we be letting some of those people into this country?” He answered, “So horrible on a humanitarian basis when you see that. It’s like incredible what’s going on. But, you know, we have so many problems. And the answer is...

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Hillary Clinton is dropping in the polls here, and her presidential campaign is beset by the continued controversy over her private e-mail server, but she tried to place both issues on the back burner here Saturday in a showy display of what her latest big-name endorser called “pink power.” On a warm and clear day in this historic New England port city, Clinton rallied about 1,300 supporters on the steps of an old schoolhouse with a focus on women’s and family issues.

Negative views of Hillary Clinton have jumped to nearly their highest on record in ABC News/Washington Post polls, while Donald Trump’s personal popularity has grown more polarized along racial and ethnic lines. Clinton’s favorability has burbled back under water: 45 percent of Americans now see her favorably, down 7 percentage points since midsummer, while 53 percent rate her unfavorably, up 8. Her unfavorable score is a single point from its highest in ABC/Post polls dating back 23 years; that came in April 2008, in the midst of her last presidential campaign. Trump is much farther under water than Clinton, rated...

(CNN)Donald Trump often vows he'll win the Hispanic vote if he becomes the Republican candidate for president next year. If so, he might have some work to do. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday finds that the real estate magnate is viewed unfavorably by 82% of Hispanics, with 68% feeling "strongly so." Just 15% of those surveyed view Trump favorably.

Donald Trump Says "China"

CLEVELAND — Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday drew parallels between terrorist organizations and the field of Republican candidates for president when it comes to their views on women, telling an Ohio audience her potential GOP rivals were pushing "out-of-date" policies. "Now extreme views about women? We expect that from some of the terrorist groups. We expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world," Clinton said. "But it's a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States, yet they espouse out-of-date and out-of-touch policies," she added at...