Free Republic

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY-The mother of a 12-year-old girl shocked by police with a Taser gun says she worries other children might suffer as her daughter has. The 12-year-old girl shocked by police with a 50,000-volt Taser used to dream of being a police officer when she grew up. Not anymore, her mother said Saturday. ''Now, with this, she says she's scared of the police,'' Viviana Rojas said. Miami-Dade police officer William Nelson caught Rojas' daughter skipping school on Nov. 5. When the unarmed girl ran from Nelson, he chased her through a parking lot, then zapped her with the stun gun...

Calling the federal agents who seized Elián González ''armed thugs,'' the campaign of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez chided Democratic opponent Betty Castor on Friday for campaigning with the U.S. attorney general who sent the shipwrecked boy back to Cuba four years ago. The language provoked outrage from Castor's campaign and from the national union that represented the immigration officers who took Elián from his Miami relatives and returned him to his father at the behest of then-Attorney General Janet Reno. ''Those were law enforcement officers doing their jobs, risking their lives,'' Castor spokesman Dan McLaughlin said of the...

Check out the photo from yahoo. Only Kerry Supporters would do something so low.

7-29-04                          TYRANNY UPDATE!  Oshkosh police say 'Sorry' for trampling citizens' rights in door-to-door gun confiscations.     Oshkosh, Wis. -- In what appears to be an admission of wrong-doing by the Oshkosh Police Department, Fox 11 WLUK (Green Bay) has reported that area resident Terry Wesner was offered an apology by the department.     Police evacuated citizens from their homes within a quarantined area near Smith Elementary School Saturday night (July 17, 2004) to conduct a broad gun sweep of the neighborhood following the shooting of Oshkosh police officer Nate Gallagher.    Residents reported returning home from area shelters -- where...

Shooting victim stable, expected to recover May 8, 2004 By Times staff writer (unidentified) The St. Petersburg Times P.O. Box 1121 St. Petersburg, FL 33731-1121 Fax: 727-893-8675 http://www.sptimes.com To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@sptimes.com The 22-year-old who was accidentally shot in the chest during a training exercise at the law enforcement firing range/training area near the central landfill in Lecanto on Thursday is expected to recover, authorities said. Eric C. Verhille was flown by helicopter to Tampa General Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition and underwent surgery Thursday. Verhille, a Marine from Maine who is stationed...

The D.C. Chapter of Free Republic invites all FReepers and lurkers in good standing to join us for a FReep of Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, April 21 at 6 PM (or as soon thereafter as possible) at the Dupont Circle Books-A-Million in Washington, DC. Just over ten months ago, DC Chapter co-leader Kristinn called on FReepers across the country to peaceably protest Hillary's hardcover book tour and "FReep her like a rented mule." The mule (donkey?) is back for more FReeping as she promotes the paperback release of "Living History" (aka, "Lying History"). Watch for low-flying brooms descending to a...

<p>A man dressed up in a Saddam Hussein "Ace of Spades" costume was chased from a New York City sidewalk yesterday by three of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's bodyguards as the former first lady signed copies of her new paperback book inside Borders bookstore at Columbus Circle.</p>

80-Year-Old Charged with Assault Maydell Purvis Unmasked Screaming Aggressor at March 6 Rally Maydell Purvis charged with pulling mask off protester at March 6 rally. Wearing masks at a public event is illegal in many jurisdictions, Tucson Police Go After Brave American When angry protesters screamed in her face, Maydell Purvis, an eighty-year-old resident of Tucson, had enough. She reached up and pulled the down the mask of the aggressor. Now she has been charged with assault by the Tucson Police Department (see complaint). She must appear in court on March 17. Glenn Spencer, president of American Border Patrol said...

<p>Californians are higher than ever on medical marijuana.</p> <p>Proposition 215, the state's pioneering initiative that made it legal for doctors to recommend pot to patients, has gained significant support across all segments of California's population since voters approved it in 1996, according to a Field poll released today.</p>

A man of 36 is believed to have become the first person in Britain to die directly from cannabis poisoning. Lee Maisey smoked six cannabis cigarettes a day for 11 years, an inquest heard. His death, which was registered as having been caused by cannabis toxicity, led to new warnings about the drug, which is due to be reclassified this month as a less dangerous one. "This type of death is extremely rare," Prof John Henry, a toxicologist at Imperial College, London, said after the inquest at Haverfordwest, west Wales. "I have not seen anything like this before. It corrects...

A victory for federalism Roscoe Filburn and Diane Monson both got into trouble with the federal government because of plants they grew. The future size and shape of that government hinges on whether those plants were any of its business—and, if so, why. Filburn, an Ohio farmer, grew 23 acres of wheat, 12 more than he was allowed under the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Most of it stayed on his farm, where he milled it into flour for his family, fed it to his livestock, and used it to plant the next year's crop. In 1941 Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard...

<p>BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Federal marshals have detained so many prisoners this year in the Baton Rouge area that they are being forced to house the inmates as far away as northeastern Louisiana.</p> <p>Since January, marshals handling the federal Middle Judicial District of Louisiana have averaged 64 prisoners in custody per day, more than twice as many as five years ago.</p>

Lew Rockwell's commentary on the Cincinnati beating of Nathaniel Jones mentions two groups that are happy about the event: the redistributionist political lobby and the law-enforcement centralizers. But he left out one more group of people cheering the beating on – the so-called "law and order" conservatives who think it's necessary for authorities to beat people occasionally because it's either good for them or because some people just need a good beating. These were the "conservatives" I grew up with in southern California's inland empire in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were most of the conservatives I knew...

"A 19-year-old Encinitas man remains in a wheelchair with limited mobility after suffering spinal cord injuries here Nov. 2 allegedly caused by a Bureau of Land Management ranger against whom allegations of abuse of power and use of excessive force have been raised." ... "Brian Boyd suffered bruising to the spinal cord in the neck area as well as having vertebrae in his neck and lower back wrenched out of place, said Tom Boyd, the alleged victim's father." ... " 'There seems to be a bunch of cowboys out there abusing people. ... They thought he was a punk kid...

Comedian Tommy Chong began a nine-month federal prison sentence on October 7 for operating a glass-blowing shop that sold pipes to marijuana smokers. Prosecutors were not impressed that his Nice Dreams Enterprises marketed a morally neutral product. Chong's pipes, after all, could be used with loose-leaf tobacco, just as any stoner in an Armani suit can smoke pot in a lawful Dunhill meerschaum. In fact, as the Los Angeles Times reported October 10, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Houghton's court pleadings sought Chong's harsh punishment because he got rich "glamorizing the illegal distribution and use of marijuana" in films that "trivialize...

CARLTON - Federal firearms charges have been brought against Police Chief Lee Whalon and Sgt. Rick Noble, who make up two-thirds of the Carlton Police Department. They were arraigned Wednesday before a federal magistrate in Medford, then released from custody on their own recognizance pending an April 29 trial. Each pleaded not guilty to all counts of the indictments brought against them, and each remains on the job in Carlton. Whalon and Noble each stands charged with possession of an unregistered silencer, an unregistered sawed-off shotgun and unregistered semiautomatic rifles classified as machine guns under federal law. Each also was...

After about two decades as a foreign correspondent, I returned to the United States to find my country in a war I had barely heard of before. A lot of young people were dying by swallowing poison pills or injecting the poison into their veins. Americans took to calling it the war on drugs. Thousands had died by then, and before long thousands more would be killed because of organized gangs that were operating all over the world and harvesting billions of dollars. They still are killing, often gang against gang, but with far more powerful weapons than they had...

The entire nation owes radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh a debt of gratitude, Libertarians say, because his ordeal has exposed every drug warrior in America as a rank hypocrite. "One thing we don't hear from American politicians very often is silence," said Joe Seehusen, Libertarian Party executive director. "By refusing to criticize Rush Limbaugh, every drug warrior has just been exposed as a shameless, despicable hypocrite. "And that's good news, because the next time they do speak up, there'll be no reason for anyone to listen." The revelation that Limbaugh had become addicted to painkillers -- drugs he is accused of...

The illegal drug trade has established thousands of underground people to serve as distributors of illicit substances, which people by the millions, lacking any knowledge, other than the assurances of criminals, about the exact contents of what they are ingesting, knowinginly inhale and inject into their bodies. The caves of Afghanistan were found to contain heroin, as well as weapons and other customary tools of terrorists. America also supported the Taliban's efforts of drug eradication. Suppose some shipments of drugs were assembled that had been spiked with anthrax or smallpox or other bioweapon. Some of these would be intercepted, but...

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/bal-ed.marijuana23may23,0,6766500.story?coll=bal%2Dopinion%2Dheadlines