Free Republic

Until recently, the public was privy only to snippets of conversations secretly recorded by the government over 30 months of the San Diego City Hall corruption investigation. But prosecutors for the first time disclosed 111 pages of dialogue in order to rebut 19 pretrial motions filed by attorneys for Councilmen Michael Zucchet and Ralph Inzunza and Las Vegas political consultant Lance Malone. With about 10 weeks until the trial is scheduled to begin, the prosecution has served up a preview of what's to come: lots of profanity-laced exchanges between strip club owner Michael Galardi and his employees about their elaborate...

On a day when hundreds remembered six people killed in a fire many believe was set in retaliation for a mother's stand against drug dealers, politicians scrambled for ways to address Baltimore's crime problems and the failures of the state's criminal justice system. At an afternoon news conference, Mayor Martin O'Malley outlined a plan calling for enlisting 100 state troopers to help city police, increasing jail and prison capacity by sending some inmates out of state, and finding more volunteers to mentor city children. Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend asked Gov. Parris N. Glendening to lift a hiring freeze on...