Free Republic

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Venezuelan armed forces occupied 32 sugar plantations Thursday, the latest in a wave of takeovers that some say is a bid by President Hugo Chavez to regain political momentum and reverse his recent slide in the polls. The farms in Lara state were taken over by army units at the request of the Chavez government's National Land Institute, or INTI. The institute in recent years has handled the takeover of thousands of acres of farmland and turned them over to worker cooperatives. The government last week said it would seize privately owned cement manufacturers, and Wednesday it...

(snip) Denise Mafi, a nine-year veteran of homeschooling, has confirmed to WND she and her children packed up their essentials – clothes and homeschool materials – and fled Utah over the weekend, spending more than 50 hours on a bus trip to an undisclosed part of the country. There she has obtained an empty home and is spending the Christmas break trying to find beds for her children and herself. After the New Year she will involve the children in a local homeschooling process. "We're shampooing carpets right now. We have no furniture. We have no beds," she said. "But...

Today a Louisiana Federal Jury found Attorney Tommy Cryer NOT GUILTY of 2 counts of willful failure to file an income tax return. Earlier on Monday July 9th the Government had on its own motion dismissed 2 counts of tax evasion charges that it had charged Tommy Cryer with.

Some Homeowners Vow To Stay Despite Ruling Against Them But few options seem availableNew London — Drive by Michael Cristofaro's home at 50 Denison Ave. tomorrow; he promises you'll see this sign: FOR SALE. “I'm out of here. I'm selling my home,” Cristofaro, a New London resident for 43 years, said Thursday. “I'm a white-collar worker, a computer engineer. Who do they want living in this town?” The Cristofaro family owns a second home, at 53 Goshen St., in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the city's right to take that home, and the homes...