Free Republic

Federal authorities accused Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on Tuesday of accepting travel to the Dominican Republic, a custom sofa and other gifts in exchange for offers to fix cases and ease law enforcement troubles for a friend and business owner.

HARRISBURG - Philadelphia prosecutors plan to announce criminal charges Tuesday against two more elected officials ensnared in the undercover sting investigation that state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane rejected as too flawed to prosecute. District Attorney Seth Williams is expected to announce charges against State Reps. Vanessa Lowery Brown and Ronald G. Waters, both Philadelphia Democrats, for allegedly accepting cash from an undercover operative, according to people familiar with the matter. Waters' attorney, Fortunato Perri Jr., said he was making arrangements for Waters to turn himself in Tuesday morning. Perri said he expects Waters will face felony charges of conflict...

Last year, Harry Reid invoked the nuclear option in the Senate in order to get Barack Obama’s appointees confirmed over Republican opposition. His latest appointee might be doomed anyway. Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) announced on Friday that he will oppose the confirmation of Debo Adegbile to run the Civil Rights Division at Justice on account of Adegbile’s activism for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal: Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said Friday he will vote against Senate confirmation of Debo Adegbile, an Obama administration nominee who has been criticized for his role in trying to overturn the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal,...

The Associated Press has been one of the few national media outlets providing at least some coverage of the Kermit Gosnell trial, presumably from their local partners, so they certainly deserve some credit for going where their competitors wouldn’t — at least not until recently.  As with most news outlets following an ongoing story, the AP started looking for fresh angles to frame their stories.  Last night, though, the AP sent out a wire story headlined “Philly abortion workers saw few options,” in which Maryclaire Dale focuses on the employment woes of Gosnell’s co-defendants to explain why they followed Gosnell’s orders...

My first reaction to this story was, “Unbelievable.” My second reaction was that, sadly, it is entirely believable. With a shocking altercation between Philadelphia police and a 25-year-old IT worker putting the spotlight back on open-carry gun laws, local authorities are warning gun owners that they will be “inconvenienced” if they carry unconcealed handguns in the city. Lt. Raymond Evers, a spokesman for the city police, told FoxNews.com that gun owners who open carry, which is legal in the city, may be asked to lay on the ground until officers feel safe while they check permits. Let’s be clear here....

When Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams raided the medical offices of Kermit Gosnell, he thought he was raiding a pill mill, the largest source of illegal painkillers sold on the streets of his city. Williams instead discovered a squalid “house of horrors” where illegal late-term abortions were done on drugged, dazed women, where the late-term babies were born alive then murdered by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and where the severed feet of those late-term babies were kept in jars as trophies.Williams, a newly elected Democrat, was not an anti-abortion crusader by any means, but what he found shocked...