Free Republic

My general position on last week's Tennessee flap was that the expulsions may have been a bit heavy-handed, despite clear cause for disciplinary action. Ejecting elected representatives from a legislative body is a very serious step, and should generally be avoided to the greatest extent possible. Instead, perhaps some combination of formal censures, stripping of committee assignments, and an official final warnings against future misconduct (more instances of which would result in a zero tolerance response) may have been the better path. Plus, it would've denied these loud showboats the tribal martyrdom and accompanying prominence they clearly crave and relish....

The police chief in Miami has been ousted after only six months on the job amid intense clashes with City Hall and accusations of bizarre antics. Art Acevedo — once called “the Michael Jordan of police chiefs” by Miami’s mayor — was suspended Monday with “the intent to terminate his employment,” City Manager Art Noriega said in a statement. Acevedo had quickly fallen out of favor with Miami’s top officials since his April hiring, accusing them of corruption and sparking outrage by referring to police commissioners as “the Cuban Mafia,” according to The Miami Herald. “The relationship between the Chief...

Amid a departure of top executives at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a new report details allegations of sexual misconduct and racial discrimination against those very individuals at the progressive nonprofit which frequently has targeted conservative groups. A report from the New York Times on Monday detailed several complaints by both current and former employees that indicated a “climate of intolerance” in the workplace -- complaints including sexual harassment and a lack of diversity based on race and gender. **SNIP** On Friday, SPLC President Richard Cohen announced he would be stepping down from the civil rights organization amid the...

BRASILIA — Brazil’s Senate ousted Dilma Rousseff as president Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to impeach the leftist leader in the culmination of a protracted process that has divided the country. The vote to impeach Rousseff was 61 to 20. Two-thirds of senators — 54 out of 81 — were needed for impeachment to pass. Senators broke into cheering and applause after the electronic voting was announced and sang the national anthem, concluding a process that was given the go-ahead in December. But a second vote to strip Rousseff of her political rights for eight years fell well short of the required...

A middle-school teacher in Dublin, Georgia, was tossed from school – and her job – for allegedly telling her students President Obama isn’t a Christian. Nancy Perry is now due to retire at the end of the year, said Dublin Schools’ spokesman Chuck Ledbetter, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. “It is not the place of teachers to attempt to persuade students about religious or political beliefs,” Ledbetter said, in the news outlet. “In doing so, the teacher was wrong and that has been communicated to her. … Just as importantly, we are communicating this message to all staff of the school...

An Army lieutenant colonel who was on the fast track until Muslim groups complained about a course he taught on radical Islam has a legal foundation in his foxhole. Attorneys for Lt. Col Matthew Dooley, a West Point graduate and highly-decorated combat veteran, was an instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College at the National Defense University, where by most accounts he won praise from students and faculty alike. But when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey excoriated Dooley during a Pentagon press conference in May, characterizing his course, “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism” as objectionable,...

Politico says White House correspondent Joe Williams is on his way out the door. But the reporter who found himself ousted from his job — after making a penis joke about the Romneys, accusing his own publication of “blatant racism” and saying the Republican nominee for president is much more comfortable around “white folks” — isn’t technically gone yet. In fact, Williams — who pleaded guilty in May to assaulting his ex-wife — is still employed with the company and is still using his company email.

The Washington Post reports that Mohamed Nasheed, the former president of Maldives, claims the United States has given legitimacy to the Islamist coup which deposed him. Mohamed Nasheed won the presidency in Maldives’s first multiparty elections in 2008, after a lifetime advocating democracy and human rights and several long stints in jail. Less than three years later, he was forced to resign by an angry mob of police officers and soldiers, in what he says was a coup engineered by his autocratic predecessor. “We have to have an election,” he said in an interview while visiting the Indian capital, New...

WASHINGTON – An embarrassed White House apologized on Wednesday to a black Agriculture Department employee who was ousted for her remarks about race, acknowledging that officials did not know all the facts when she was fired. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the dismissal of Shirley Sherrod an injustice and a mistake. He said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was trying to reach her to extend the administration's apology.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Deposed President Manuel Zelaya and his opponents have agreed to a U.S.-brokered deal that he said will return him to power four months after a coup shook faith in Latin America's young democracies. The power-sharing agreement reached late Thursday calls for Congress to decide whether to reinstate the leftist Zelaya. While the legislature backed his June 28 ouster, congressional leaders have since said they won't stand in the way of an agreement that ends Honduras' diplomatic isolation and legitimizes presidential elections planned for Nov. 29. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said Friday that the two...

CHICAGO (AP) — Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says in a new book that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel wanted his help in arranging to leave the Obama administration after two years to reclaim his seat in Congress. Blagojevich writes in "The Governor" that Emanuel spoke with him about whether it was possible to appoint a "placeholder" to the congressional seat Emanuel was giving up so that he could win back the seat in 2010 and continue his efforts to become speaker some day.

Dennis Ross, who most recently served as a special State Department envoy to Iran, will abruptly be relieved of his duties, sources in Washington told Haaretz. An official announcement is expected in the coming days. The Obama administration will announce that Ross has been reassigned to another position in the White House. In his new post, the former Mideast peace envoy under President Bill Clinton will deal primarily with regional issues related to the peace process

John McCain's campaign asked a prominent Republican consultant, Craig Shirley, to leave his official campaign role Thursday after a Politico inquiry about Shirley's dual role consulting for the campaign and for an independent "527" group opposing the Democratic presidential candidates. The campaign also released a new conflict of interest policy barring such arrangements. Shirley, a conservative public relations veteran, doubled as a consultant to McCain and to the group Stop Her Now, a 527 group barred from coordinating its activities with presidential campaigns. He is not currently on the McCain campaign’s payroll, but would also step down from his role...

Take your pick. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger either felt the need for “fresh legs” on the state Park & Recreation Commission or was in the mood for political payback. Whatever his true sentiments, his staff notified his brother-in-law Bobby Shriver and actor Clint Eastwood on Monday that they were no longer needed as state park commissioners. Shriver, 53, a Democrat and brother of First Lady Maria Shriver, and Eastwood, 77, a Republican and former mayor of Carmel, were first appointed to the advisory commission by Gov. Gray Davis in 2001. Three years later, Schwarzenegger reappointed both of them to four-year terms....

Jefferson To Meet With Congressional LawmakersUPDATED: 3:20 pm CDT June 7, 2006 WASHINGTON -- A spokeswoman for Rep. William Jefferson said he will attend a meeting with congressional lawmakers. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked Jefferson to appear before the Democratic Steering Committee on Wednesday afternoon. The committee, which is charged with determining panel assignments, could vote to oust Jefferson from the powerful House Ways and Means Committee while he is under investigation. According to court documents, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson told an FBI informant, that Nigeria's vice president sought up to $500,000 and a stake in a technology venture...

Chief ousted as British troops head for Afghan drug region By Ahmed Rashid in Kabul (Filed: 23/12/2005) Britain has had a feudal chief removed from the region at the heart of Afghanistan's drug trade in an effort to calm the violent region before some 3,000 British troops deploy there next year. Sher Mohammed Akhunzada was removed from office as governor of the south-western province of Helmand, bordering Pakistan, last week. His family, who have governed the province for more than 25 years, has long been suspected of heavy involvement in drug trafficking. The combination of drug and Taliban activity in...

The girl of the Noriega General named with the consulate from Panama in Miami PANAMA - One of the girls of the former strong man of Panama, the Manual General Noriega, was named as diplomat with the consulate from Panama in Miami, announced the minister panaméen Foreign Affairs Samuel Lewis. His/her father is imprisoned there since 1990. Sandra Noriega "is a qualified person who has the right to serve her country", affirmed Friday the minister. The father of the diplomat directed Panama of 1981 to 1989, after death in an air crash of the president panaméen Omar Torrijos, father...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The president of the nation's largest pension fund believes he will be ousted from the board after waging a corporate reform movement using its $177 billion investment portfolio as leverage, according to a newspaper report. Sean Harrigan, head of the California Public Employees' Retirement System since 2003, serves on the pension fund's panel as the representative of the state Personnel Board. Harrigan told the Los Angeles Times in Tuesday's editions that he has been told that a majority of his fellow Personnel Board members will vote Wednesday to replace him when his term expires early next year....

Bush energy policy critic ousted as head of climate change panel By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 20 April 2002 The Bush administration was accused of pandering to the oil industry last night after an outspoken critic of America's energy policy was voted out of his job as chairman of the world's premier scientific body on climate change. In a secret ballot held at a meeting in Geneva, the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change elected the India delegate, Rajendra Pachauri, as its chairman. He beat the current chairman, Robert Watson, the US delegate, by 76 votes to 49. Controversy had...