Free Republic

The "Madison Uprising" is the beginning of the end of the incestuous relationship between government and the unions. That fact has been recognized by the public sector unions and the Democratic Party and is why they have pulled out all the stops and reverted to their 1960's playbook in order to maintain the status quo. However, it is a battle that the unions and the Democratic Party will lose regardless of the immediate outcome in Wisconsin. The Democratic Party has sold its soul to the public sector unions. In the 2010 mid-term election, the American Federation of State, County and...

*snip* The Obama transition team released the names of 13 people on Wednesday who will direct a top-to-bottom review of federal agencies and another six who will lead teams that will review Treasury, State and Defense department policy, budget and personnel issues. *snip* It includes four former lobbyists, three top campaign fund-raisers and two former employees of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, with some overlap among them. Four people in the group have ties to the consultant McKinsey & Co. and two have experience leading high-tech start-ups. Mr. Obama's transition advisers include Tom Donilon, a top lobbyist for Fannie Mae,...

PHOENIX — An official autopsy says a New York woman died after accidentally strangling herself while in police custody after being arrested during an airport layover in Phoenix. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office says 45-year-old Carol Anne Gotbaum also was acutely intoxicated on alcohol and prescription drugs when she died in a police holding room at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Sept. 28.

PHOENIX (AP) — A woman who died in police custody during an airport layover was intoxicated on a potent mix of alcohol and antidepressants and accidentally strangled herself on her shackles, an autopsy released Friday concludes.

PHOENIX (CBS) ― Six weeks after a hysterical Carol Anne Gotbaum died in a holding cell at Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport, a medical examiner on Friday ruled she was intoxicated by alcohol and prescription pills and that she accidentally strangled herself. The official cause: Asphyxia by hanging. Carol Anne Gotbaum, the 45-year-old stepdaughter of NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, was arrested for disorderly conduct after becoming irate when she missed a connecting flight that would have taken her to an alcohol treatment center. Surveillance video showed the mother of three struggling with police, who handcuffed and shackled the screaming woman...

I am haunted by the death of Carol Anne Gotbaum. I didn't know the mother of three who died shackled to a bench in the Phoenix airport on Sept. 28, en route to an alcohol treatment center in Tucson. I don't know, beyond what I read in the newspapers, what troubles weighed on her. But I do know this: Based on my own recent flight experiences, hers was a death foretold.

Carol Gotbaum was already dead by the time her husband, Noah, made frantic telephone calls to the airport where she had been arrested to try to warn the authorities that she was “suicidal” and “alcohol abusive,” the Phoenix Police Department said on Friday. According to preliminary information from the Aviation Communication Center at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Mr. Gotbaum’s first call was received at 4:39 p.m., a little more than an hour after his wife had been pronounced dead, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a spokesman for the Phoenix police. The authorities released a statement Friday night saying that they...

Last Nov. 1, Noah Gotbaum phoned his father and stepmother to say that he had just discovered his wife, Carol, drunk and passed out in their town house on West 95th Street. An ambulance, he told them, was rushing her to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. He asked them to come watch his three young children, Ella, 7, Nathaniel, 5, and Tobias, 3. His stepmother, Betsy Gotbaum, who is the New York City public advocate, has been married to Victor Gotbaum, the former labor leader, for 30 years and has close relations with his children and grandchildren — particularly Noah’s children,...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― CBS 2 HD has obtained surveillance video showing three different angles of last week's arrest of Carol Anne Gotbaum at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. The video shows the daughter-in-law of New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum reacting after learning she had missed her flight. It also shows Phoenix police officers move in on her, take her to the ground and arrest her. Different angles show officers taking Gotbaum to a holding cell, where she later died mysteriously. On the morning of Sept. 29, Gotbaum left her Upper West Side home, brought her children to...

Others familiar with Carol Anne Gotbaum's history said she had longstanding mental health issues. Gotbaum attempted suicide twice in the past year, they said. She had also tried a brief detox program last fall at Manhattan's St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, but it did not work. Gotbaum was sober on the flight from Manhattan to Phoenix, but a friend who was supposed to meet her at the terminal for the last leg to Tucson failed to show, sources said. She had lunch solo at the terminal, got drunk and didn't hear her connecting flight being called for Tucson, airline workers said. She...

NEW YORK (AP) - A traveler who may have accidentally choked herself to death while handcuffed in an airport holding cell was a "wonderful" woman and mother, according to New York City's public advocate, who is her relative. Carol Anne Gotbaum, 45, was arrested Friday at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix after she became irate when gate crews refused to let her board a flight for which she was late, officials said. "She was a wonderful mother; she was sweet and kind and loving," said public advocate Betsy Gotbaum, the woman's stepmother-in-law. "It's obviously very, very difficult for us;...

PHOENIX (AP) - A woman late to her plane became irate, was put in handcuffs and was later found dead in a holding cell, police said. Authorities were investigating Saturday if the woman choked herself while trying to get free from the handcuffs. Carol Ann Gotbaum, 45, of New York, was arrested Friday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after a conflict with gate crews who refused to allow her to board a plane, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a Phoenix police spokesman. The airline said the plane was already preparing to depart. She was rebooked on the next flight, but...

I've been trying for two weeks, without success, to come up with a humorous angle on this story so bear with me. Yes, my identity was thefted. Yes, the consequences have been relatively minor. Yes, I'm pissed as hell and want to have the guy strung up by his scrotum in a junkyard filled with hungry, snarling Rottweilers. And I would prescribe a more torturous fate for the long line of bureaucrats and political flunkies who could have helped at any point along the line, but chose to do nothing other than suggest that I "pay the two dollars." Well,...