Free Republic

On the second day of her dream vacation on exclusive Bald Head Island, Julie Mall went with her family to the beach to catch the sunset. Her 11-year-old son asked to drive the golf cart back to their $1,000-a-day rented cottage. It was dusk, no traffic on the path and his father would sit next to him. A two-block, 30-second ride. She said sure. What could go wrong? In the next four hours, Mall says she was pinned to the ground by police, repeatedly accused of being drunk, frogmarched barefoot aboard a ferry in handcuffs, jailed in leg irons and...

A bizarre lawsuit, filed by the reliably leftist Rev. Michael Pfleger, was dismissed by Cook County judge Franklin Valderrama on February 25th. Other leftist activists had joined Rev. Pfleger in filing the lawsuit against three municipalities outside of Chicago.  From chicagotribune.com: A lawsuit filed by Rev. Michael Pfleger and a group of activists last year that said lax local gun laws in Lincolnwood were to blame when guns sold by the town’s only firearms dealer ended up at Chicago crime scenes has been dismissed by a Cook County judge. The lawsuits tried to make the claim that black people...

Author's Note: The email referenced in this column was composed by Chris Moore of East Carolina University, Michael Behrent of Appalachian State University, Jason Sturdevant of North Carolina State University, and Altha Cravey of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Please feel free to email these public servants with your thoughts.Dear Faculty Forward Network (info@facultyforwardnetwork.org): I received your recent email on educational inclusiveness and diversity with great interest. I have written three books, spoken on 88 university campuses, and written approximately 1000 columns on the subject in the last 13 years. This was the first time I've ever...

The Illinois Board of Elections of Monday ruled on a birther challenge to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's eligibility to be on the Illinois March 15th primary ballot.

An illegal immigrant who killed two children in a hit-and-run accident is not only avoiding deportation from the United States, she won’t receive any prison time at all. Cinthya Garcia-Cisneros, an illegal immigrant, recently had her immigration case dismissed, despite the fact that she was convicted of two felonies for a hit-and-run that resulted in the tragic deaths of two young girls. On top of the fact that her case was dismissed—although the reason for dismissal and the judge’s name have not been released—Garcia-Cisneros received no prison time for her conviction, an example of how the immigration laws in the...

**SNIP** According to court documents filed in Savannah, Ga., all claims against the TV chef have been dismissed in the suit brought by former restaurant manager Lisa Jackson, with no award of costs or fees to any party. Jackson had sued on the grounds that the work environment at Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House, owned by Deen and her brother, subjected employees to sexual harassment and racial discrimination. The news comes two weeks after a federal judge threw out the lawsuit's race discrimination claims, stating that though others may have faced that discrimination in the restaurant, Jackson could not...

SANFORD, Fla. — Channel 9 has learned a potential juror in the George Zimmerman trial who had been dismissed Wednesday was escorted out of the Seminole County courthouse on Friday. The man, referred to only by his juror number, E7, was at the courthouse demanding to know how the defense learned of a website post that got him dismissed earlier this week. Stay with WFTV.com and tune in to Eyewitness News at 4 p.m. for updates! The posting read, in part: "In Sanford and I can tell you this. Justice is coming."

Two of the key arguments of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy—that he knows best how to handle the economy and stands the best chance of beating President Barack Obama—were dismissed by conservative South Carolina voters in the Republican primary Saturday, according to exit poll data from the state. That finding shows why former House Speaker Newt Gingrich won a solid victory, and also suggests the Romney camp may seek new ways to drive home its core message in the contests that lie ahead. In all three nominating contests so far, at least a plurality of voters have said...

Under President Obama, the Peter Principle appears to have been elevated to policy, at least in the case of architects of an American intelligence disaster. The International Atomic Energy Agency will soon release a report on Iran's nuclear program. The findings have been leaking for days now -- and come as no surprise to those who have long-harbored well-grounded suspicions of Iran's intentions. Iran is close to achieving nuclear breakthrough: the ability to begin cranking out nuclear weapons. The Western world (not just Israel, the surrounded outpost of Western civilization in the Middle East) will now face a theocratic regime...

Voter Fraud Complaint Against Ann Coulter Is DismissedBy JON LENDER 5:37 p.m. EDT, October 14, 2010 HARTFORD — State elections officials have dismissed a complaint of voter fraud against national conservative columnist Ann Coulter, saying there was "insufficient evidence" to support an allegation that she wasn't a Connecticut resident when she voted here by absentee ballot in 2002 and 2004. The complaint, filed in early 2009 by Daniel Borchers, a Christian conservative blog writer who has been critical of Coulter, said her actual residence was in New York City when she cast absentee ballots in New Canaan using her parents'...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A Haitian judge said Monday he has dismissed kidnapping and criminal association charges against 10 American missionaries detained for trying to take a busload of children out of the country after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said Laura Silsby, the last of the 10 missionaries jailed in Haiti, still faced a lesser charge for allegedly organizing the effort to transport the 33 children to an orphanage they were setting up in the Dominican Republic. Silsby faces up to three years in prison if convicted on the remaining charge, the "organization of irregular trips," from a...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Reversing course, Army Secretary John McHugh warned soldiers Thursday that they still can be discharged for acknowledging they are gay, saying he misspoke earlier this week when he suggested the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy had been temporarily suspended. The public stumble by a senior service official is an indication of the issue's legal complexity. The Pentagon has said it wants to hear from gay troops as it conducts a broad study on how it could lift the ban, as President Barack Obama wants.

Priest, investigated by Vatican, chose to leave order and priesthood By JOHN P. CONNOLLY, The Bulletin Monday, July 27, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI has defrocked a priest at the center of alleged apparitions at the Bosnian town of Medjugorje, according to a report by the Catholic News Agency. Fr. Tomislav Vladic reportedly decided to leave the priesthood and his religious order during an ongoing investigation of his role in the claims of apparitions, including an accusation of sexual misconduct for getting a nun pregnant. Fr. Vladic was at odds with the Vatican and the local bishop of Medjugorje when he...

Pope defrocks priest over 'visions' of the Virgin Mary The Pope has defrocked the priest at the centre of claims that the Virgin Mary has been appearing in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje. The Vatican stripped Father Tomislav Vladic of his priest status after an investigation into growing concerns over the alleged apparitions. Father Vlasic was named as the 'creator' of the phenomenon by Pavao Zanic, the local bishop at the time the apparitions began in 1981.

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Today, a Manhattan-based federal appeals court ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against firearms manufacturers by the City of New York that sought to hold the manufacturers responsible for the criminal misuse of firearms. Court Decision Judge Robert J. Miner, writing for the U.S. Court of Appeals, held the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, enacted in 2005, is constitutional and that Brooklyn, NY, federal court judge Jack B. Weinstein misinterpreted the law by not dismissing the case. “We think Congress clearly intended to protect from vicarious liability members of the firearms industry who engage...

Rev. James Brzyski, described as one of the Archdiocese's "most brutal abusers" in a 2005 grand-jury report by the Phila D.A.'s Office, was defrocked. The report accused him of targeting at least 17 children with "unrelenting abuse, including fondling, oral sex and anal rape." Today, Catherine, whose son was abused by Rev. Brzyski, says: "I have no idea where he is." Church officials, however, know where most of the priests are living - they just won't say. The Archdiocese will not provide Brzyski's current address, as is its policy toward all 25 defrocked priests. In Feb., the Archdiocese announced that...

ROME — A prominent Italian priest accused of sexually abusing young men at the drug rehabilitation centre he founded has been defrocked, a spokesman said Monday. The Rev. Pierino Gelmini, 83, had requested that he be relieved of his priestly status and the Pope agreed, said Gelmini's spokesman, Alessandro Meluzzi. The move reduces Gelmini to a lay status, meaning he can no longer celebrate mass or other sacraments. Last year, nine young men accused Gelmini of sexually abusing them while they were residents at his "Comunita Incontro" rehabilitation centre, which is based in the Umbrian town of Amelia. Gelmini has...

The Vatican has stripped two former priests in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland of their clergy status. Brendan J. McNulty and Gary D. Berthiaume, who both served parishes in Cuyahoga County, had requested ''to be removed from the clerical state,'' according to information released Friday by the local diocese. The Holy See granted the requests of both men, who had been removed from active ministry amid allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors. The diocese said that the two men are ''no longer incardinated in the Diocese of Cleveland.'' The canonical term ''incardinated'' can be likened to the secular term defrocked,...

A marathon deportation case against two Palestinian immigrants, pursued by the administrations of four U.S. Presidents over 20 years, has been dismissed. The ruling closes a Byzantine legal saga that wound its way through federal appellate courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and federal immigration boards, breaking new legal ground along the way. It ended at the Department of Homeland Security, where the dismissal order was entered Tuesday. One of the defendants, Khader Musa Hamide, said in an interview that he will never get over the experience of being under suspicion for 20 years but now "I can breathe better." A...

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, June 4, 2007 – In a decision that could affect the future of the military commission system, the judge in the military commission case of accused terrorist Omar Khadr today dismissed all charges against Khadr and adjourned the hearing. Halting what was supposed to be a routine arraignment here, Army Col. Peter Brownback, the military judge, dismissed the charges based on a question about the jurisdiction of the military commission regarding the status of enemy combatants. Specifically, the conflict arose because Khadr’s Combatant Status Review Tribunal designated him as an “enemy combatant” and not an...