Free Republic

Alonza Gonzalez was turning right near 59 and FM 762 several months ago but just recently received the dash camera video after he filed public records requests. "Just because I have a handgun on me and a license to carry should not be a big deal, but that is what made it the turning point," Gonzalez said... ...Seconds later, Gonzalez was arrested: "You're under arrest for your traffic violations." During an interview at his Rosenberg home, Gonzalez told Channel 2 he thinks if he didn't have a gun, things would have ended differently. "If I didn't have my firearm on...

In what appears to be a first for a serious presidential contender, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is going after five comedians who made fun of the former Secretary of State in standup skits at a popular Hollywood comedy club. A video of the short performance, which is less than three minutes, is posted on the website of the renowned club, Laugh Factory, and the Clinton campaign has tried to censor it. Besides demanding that the video be taken down, the Clinton campaign has demanded the personal contact information of the performers that appear in the recording. This is no laughing matter...

After being pulled over for driving at night without her headlights on, a “fidgety” Florida woman exhibited several signs of intoxication, according to a recent police report.The motorist failed a series of field sobriety tests. Since her blood alcohol content registered a .000, police suspected--correctly as it turned out--that the driver was impaired due to the ingestion of some kind of illegal narcotics.But what likely convinced officers that the woman was driving under the influence was what happened when she was asked for her driver’s license. The subject, cops noted, "attempted to hand the officer a baseball card."

A decade ago, as attorney general of South Dakota, Larry Long saw the need for a more direct approach and launched a program called “24/7 Sobriety.” I first encountered 24/7 Sobriety five years ago, and it confounded much of what I had learned in my years as an addiction-treatment professional. On a clear South Dakota morning, I found myself in a Sioux Falls police station, waiting for more than a hundred repeat offenders to appear for court-mandated appointments. They had to blow into a breathalyzer to prove that they had not been drinking. I expected that many wouldn’t show up;...

Larry Ira Estrin, 62, was at a vehicle checkpoint near Sherman Way and Lankershim Boulevard when a police dog screening cars with its handler signaled that it had detected a firearm, Los Angeles police said. ... Authorities found a loaded gun under the passenger seat and detained Estrin. He was being booked Wednesday afternoon on a misdemeanor charge of possession of a loaded firearm and was held in lieu of $35,000 bail, said Sgt. Kyle Kirkman of the LAPD’s North Hollywood division. Estrin, of Los Angeles, will probably be released later in the day...

With EVs and other fuel-efficient vehicles saving consumers money at the pump, Oregon will be the first to issue a per-mile road tax to refill its coffers. Automotive News reports the state will offer two options to its motorists: pay at the pump, or pay a 1.5-cent rate per mile traversed. The latter will be conducted through a device that plugs into a vehicle’s OBD port, then gathers mileage data to determine how much the motorist will pay in tax. Right now, the program — set to begin July 1 — will be implemented by the Oregon DOT in partnership...

19-year-old Alecia Faith Pennington has spent her life so sheltered by her Christian fundamentalist parents that now, as a young adult, she is finding it almost impossible to prove to the government that she actually exists. In a video uploaded to YouTube and quickly going viral, Pennington documents the various ways her parents have managed to prevent leaving even a single speck of evidence to help her gain an official identity or to prove that she is a United States citizen. For starters, they gave birth to her at home, and declined to get a birth certificate or social security...

The U.S. Department of Justice secretly spies on millions of cars by gathering and storing information about motorists in order to build a national database to track movements, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal. The database was originally used by the Drug Enforcement Administration to hunt vehicles involved in drug crimes by tracking license plates, but according to the WSJ, the program expanded to hunt for criminals sought for crimes that were non-drug related. DEA officials have been on record saying they track vehicles near the U.S.-Mexico border to help fight drug cartels, but the new...

A new proposal in Oklahoma would bar drunk drivers from buying or consuming alcohol -- and already is raising concerns over how it would be enforced. Fox 25 in Oklahoma City reports that state Sen. Patrick Anderson is proposing a bill that would allow a judge to enforce the alcohol restrictions on anyone with a DUI charge for a set period of time.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Roger Susanin) -- A little-known Metro Parks & Recreation regulation requires people pay $125 for a permit to take photos or shoot video at Nashville public parks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is re-establishing a law enforcement group to fight those it designates as domestic terrorists, with an announcement expected on Tuesday, Department of Justice officials said. Following hate-motivated shootings such as the one at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City, Missouri in April, federal prosecutors have pressed the need to coordinate intelligence of such criminals on a national level, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The group will coordinate cases that involve Americans who may be spurred to violence for political or prejudicial reasons.

You can find tons of advice about how to get a job interview and how to snag a job. Most of it comes from the “Do whatever you have to do to get hired!” school of thought. The job market isn’t a job-seeker’s paradise, but it isn’t bad considering what it was like just a year or two ago. If you’re willing to step outside the velvet ropes and try something new in your job search, you can get the interview, and get the job. When you’ve been through a job-search drought for months and haven’t had much or any...

What if you were forced to “register” in order to buy groceries? And what if, through that registration, the food you bought could be tracked and quantities could be limited? That’s exactly the plan in Venezuela right now. The AP reports that in an effort to crack down on “hoarding” that ID cards will be issued to families. These will have to be presented before foodstuffs can be purchased.

Robocoin said on Tuesday that later this month it will install the first automated teller machines in the United States that let users buy and sell bitcoin, the latest step into the mainstream for the digital currency. The kiosks, to be installed in Seattle, and Austin, Texas, are similar to ATMs but have scanners to read government-issued identification such as a driver's license or a passport to confirm users' identities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether police can search an arrested criminal suspect's cell phone without a warrant in two cases that showcase how the courts are wrestling to keep up with rapid technological advances. Taking up cases from California and Massachusetts arising from criminal prosecutions that used evidence obtained without a warrant, the high court will wade into how to apply older court precedent, which allows police to search items carried by a defendant at the time of arrest, to cell phones.

Just as you were wrapping your mind around the idea that under Obamacare and the accompanying changes in the health-care system, your medical records will be floating around in some online repository, available to far too many people, you’re being told you’ll soon have a National Identity Card and a Western Hemisphere-compliant travel document whether you want it or not, if you plan to drive in the United States. The federal government says it soon will be enforcing its demands that state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards comply with Department of Homeland Security standards. DHS announced just before Christmas a...

Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood. It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers. "It just doesn't seem right that you can be forced off the road when you're not doing anything wrong," said Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Beach Street in North...

Daylight checkpoints

PELL CITY, Alabama -- St. Clair and Bibb county authorities are confirming there were roadblocks at several locations in their counties Friday and Saturday asking for blood and DNA samples. However, the samples were voluntary and motorists were paid for them as part of a study, they said. According to Lt. Freddie Turrentine of the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department, it isn't the first time such roadblocks have occurred in the area. "They were here in 2007," said Turrentine, the supervisor in charge of the roadblocks, which took place in several locations in St. Clair County Friday night, early Saturday...

The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life," Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday. "That's going to be very, very powerful," Waters said. "That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it's never been done before