Free Republic

Cell Phone Data At the same time, while the cell phones of most Twin Peaks Mass Murder witnesses were searched, there doesn’t seem to be any public record that Doan’s cell phone or the cellphones of other Twin Peaks employee witnesses were ever examined by police. It has just never come up in the criminal cases. But it is an issue in the Multi District Litigation against the restaurant that is unfolding in Dallas. In fact, besides never being searched by police, Doan’s cellphone seems to have disappeared from June 2015 until November 8, 16 days after he testified in...

Lil Peep, the New York rapper who mixed guitar-driven emo and rap production on mixtapes that gained millions of plays on SoundCloud, died Wednesday night at age 21.

McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna filed Wednesday to seek re-election. Filing started Saturday for the March 6 joint primary, and about 20 people have filled out Republican candidate applications, said Barbara White, McLennan County Republican Party vice chairwoman. The local party is in the process of reviewing the applications, and seven candidates have been approved by the party chairman so far, White said. A local Democratic Party representative did not return a call seeking information about Democratic candidates. Filing ends Dec. 11, and the general election is next November.

Billionaires, get out your checkbooks. A one-of-a-kind Lamborghini -- blessed and signed by Pope Francis -- is coming to auction soon. The Italian sportscar maker designed and built a special Huracan for the pope, who officially received it at the Vatican today with Lamborghini executives in tow. The donated car was painted to replicate the Vatican's flag colors, complete with papal-gold accents on the hood, roof and doors. Pope Francis smiled as he signed "Francesco" with a black marker on the car. Sotheby’s will auction off the sportscar, the Vatican said in a statement. The money raised will go toward...

Convicted killer Jodi Arias is targeting the man who once stood by her side during the trial of her lover’s death now that he's told the world his account of the case. The now 37-year-old former waitress is serving life in prison in Arizona for the murder of Travis Alexander, found dead at his home in Mesa. Her 2013 and 2015 trials, which included tales of rough sex before the killing, grabbed headlines nationwide, and on Tuesday she sued her attorney Laurence Kirk Nurmi for capitalizing on the attention with a self-published book. “Trapped with Ms. Arias” already contributed to...

Has anyone had experience rebuilding after a disaster? What did you have to deal with? What government agencies became involved? I am in Sonoma County and was in the Nuns Fire. As many of you know from the news many lost everything. We have been stymied at every turn by the county, FEMA, EPA, Army Corps and other agencies preventing clean up. They want home owners to sign over insurance to them so they may provide clean up (contract out). As I understand it, the county has yet to issue a single clean up permit to anyone. Out of county...

Republican Roy Moore is trailing Democrat Doug Jones by 12 points in the Alabama special Senate election, according to a poll conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee after five women accused Moore of pursuing them as teenagers. Jones led Moore 51 to 39 percent, according to the survey taken Sunday and Monday. The NRSC withdrew its support for Moore after the Washington Post published the first allegations against Moore on Thursday, and the group’s chairman, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) said Moore should be expelled from the Senate if he wins on Dec. 12.

In my last blog post, I wrote about how critical specialization is to progressive ideology, and the weaknesses that get bred in because of that. I also wanted to point something out, and I don't think very many people will like it. Culturally, I am quite certain that progressivism would be hard pressed to justify its own existence without specialization, and gun control is one of those topics that is probably the easiest to dissect. One of the main stated goals of gun control is to get guns out of the hands of pretty much everybody, but the only people...

By now, you're aware of the bombshell affidavit written by former Chief Deputy Prosecutor Greg Davis. It lists the criminal cases that AR dismissed for his cronies and campaign contributors. It also suggests that AR may be a cokehead. "WHAT?!" Oddly enough, none of the official media outlets actually linked to the affidavit. Here it is. Read it carefully, because it is far more detailed (and important) than what was reported.

Republican Roy Moore is trailing Democrat Doug Jones by 12 points in the Alabama special Senate election, according to a poll conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee after five women accused Moore of pursuing them as teenagers. Jones led Moore 51 to 39 percent, according to the survey taken Sunday and Monday. The NRSC withdrew its support for Moore after the Washington Post published the first allegations against Moore on Thursday, and the group’s chairman, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) said Moore should be expelled from the Senate if he wins on Dec. 12.

Penguin Young Readers has announced plans to publish a companion book to activist and former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton’s bestselling nonfiction picture book, She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World. The collective biography, She Persisted Around the World: 13 Women Who Changed History, will be released on March 6, 2018. Alexandra Boiger, who illustrated She Persisted, will provide the artwork. Both books take their titles from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s now-famous critique of Senator Elizabeth Warren—“She was warned. Nevertheless, she persisted”—when she tried to read Coretta Scott King’s words on the floor of the Senate. The incident...

Former First Daughter Malia Obama was seen attending a VIP party for a new hot spot in Massachusetts. Malia was spotted at the grand opening for the new Kings location in Seaport, Massachusetts, on Nov. 12, the Boston Herald reported. The party included other big names such as "Wonder Woman" star Gal Gadot, celebrity chef Jason Santos and several Boston Bruins alumni. According to the Boston Eater, Kings is an enormous entertainment complex that also offers food, drinks and arcade games. Its first location opened in 2002, and three other locations have opened since. Malia was spotted signing a bowling...

In the criminal justice system, the district attorney has more far-reaching powers than any other figure, given that some 95 percent of felony convictions arise from guilty pleas, resulting in prosecutorial discretion rather than that of judges or juries. Thus it’s critical that whoever occupies the post of district attorney be beyond reproach on all ethical and moral levels. And that’s why the sworn affidavit by one of McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna’s former prosecutors should be exceedingly worrisome to every law-abiding citizen. Greg Davis, a veteran prosecutor who put 18 people on death row before going to work...

Last week, Page Six ran a report alleging Gal Gadot told Warner Bros. she won't sign on for Wonder Woman 2 unless Brett Ratner, the producer who helped finance the first Wonder Woman film, is removed from the equation. If you've been following the news, then you know Ratner's been accused of sexual assault and harassment by several women in Hollywood, including Olivia Munn, Natasha Henstridge, and Ellen Page. So it'd make sense Gadot wouldn't want him a part of the Wonder Woman franchise because it's been lauded for depicting strong, empowering, and three-dimensional women. “The truth is, there’s so...

In a single evening, and at the hand of a single man, shootings at Mandalay Bay in Los Vegas added more than 500 to the pool of Americans who have to be treated for gun injuries. The cost of these wounds cannot be calcuated. Beyond the financial expense, the societal and emotional expenses are difficult to imagine. But researchers have quantified one corner of the problem: hospital expenses. Gunshot wounds cost Americans $2.8 billion in hospital bills alone per year, according to a new analysis published in the journal Health Affairs, released coincidentally a day after the Las Vegas attack....

Open thread on your opinion regarding the tax cuts being retro active to January 1, 2017. Presently, the Congress is pushing that these tax cuts would apply to Tax year 2018. This makes absolutely no sense for many reasons. American taxpayers need relief now. If the tax cuts are delayed until next year, then in 2018, an election year, Americans and American business will see no change in their incomes. We need to contact our representatives to push for tax relief this year. Please weigh in on this with your opinion.

Abelino Reyna, the McLennan County Texas District Attorney with the courtroom manner of an infomercial salesman, announced today that his strategy for winning the Twin Peaks case is to do the same thing over and over until he gets s different result. Reyna, just spent 30 months prosecuting Dallas Bandido Christopher Jacob Carrizal for conspiring to murder nine people, conspiring to wound 18 more and leading a criminal street gang “exactly like the Bloods and the Crips.” The prosecution sort of culminated in a five-week-long trial that ended with a hung jury. Multiple reports after the jury was dismissed said...

The estate of the late, great Dick Clark has just price-chopped his beloved Malibu hideaway by $250,000, bringing the price down from $3.25 million to $2,995,000. After two years on the Malibu housing market, this Flintstone-esque home atop a bluff got a price cut for the second time, as first reported by Curbed. It came down $250,000 in the summer of 2013, and without a buyer in sight, the price has been reduced by a quarter million dollars once again. One of Malibu’s landmark properties, Clark’s stone home features unparalleled 360 degree views of the Pacific Ocean, Channel Islands, Boney...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A report to the U.S. Congress released on Wednesday accused Chinese state media entities of involvement in spying and propaganda and said their staff in the United States should be required to register as foreign agents. The annual report of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission said that while China had tightened restrictions on domestic and foreign media, Chinese state media had rapidly expanded overseas. The commission, created by Congress in 2000 to monitor national security implications of U.S.-China trade relations, said China’s state media expansion was part of a broader effort to exert greater...

It watched as its then-owner, King Charles I, was beheaded in 1649. It was hanging in Buckingham Palace back when it was still called Buckingham House in 1703. It survived the Nazis’ 1940 London Blitz when its keepers abandoned it in their basement. By 1958, its origins had become so lost in time that it was sold for a paltry $90 to a collector from Louisiana. The long, strange journey of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterwork “Salvator Mundi” takes its next turn Wednesday at Christie’s, when it goes under the hammer for a hoped-for $100 million. It is the first Leonardo...