Free Republic

BY THE OREGONIAN/OREGONLIVE (Compiled from news accounts, court records, public notices) Last week's arrest of a long-sought accused eco-saboteur pushed the spotlight back on a tight-knit cell of radical environmentalists responsible for a $48 million run of firebombings and other crimes across the West in the 1990s and early 2000s. Six men and five women prosecuted in Oregon received sentences ranging from three years to 13 years. They were arrested starting in 2005 in what the FBI called "Operation Backfire," a task force that tracked down the suspects with the help of an informant deep within the underground group....

A close friend told me of a high school field trip he went on in 1975. The trip was to a slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There, he encountered a Maxim Silencer attached to a .22 single-shot pistol. The Maxim and pistol were displayed on the wall. The display said the silenced pistol had been used to slaughter over two million cattle before it was retired, presumably when a captive bolt system was substituted. Research revealed Sioux Falls was close to where my friend went to school. It has a huge slaughterhouse industry, started in 1909. The number of...

A pig appears to have got the ultimate revenge at a Hong Kong slaughterhouse — knocking over and killing a butcher with the cleaver about to be used on him. Police told CNN that the pig had been shot with an electric stun gun at the Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse on Friday when it suddenly woke and pounced on a 61-year-old worker. The swine knocked over his would-be slaughterer — who seemingly dropped his 15-inch meat cleaver onto his own foot. Another worker found the butcher — named by local media as Cai — with the cleaver in his hand and...

BOISE, Idaho — Four University of Idaho students found dead in an off-campus home were targeted, and the killer or killers used a knife or other “edged weapon” in the attack, police said Tuesday. The Moscow Police Department made the announcement in a news release, adding that investigators were working to establish a timeline to recreate the victims' activities before they were found dead Sunday. Police said the killings likely occurred in the early morning hours, and the bodies were found around noon. The students' deaths were considered to be “an isolated, targeted attack and there is no imminent threat...

It's nationwide knowledge that in early May the Colonial Pipeline company suffered a severe cyberattack that shut down its pipeline connecting Texas to the East Coast. On June 1, JBS Foods suffered another crippling cyberattack. According to industry estimates, JBS controls 20 percent of the slaughtering capacity for American cattle and hogs. The JBS attack also generated headlines. The FBI and security officials believe two criminal organizations conducted the attacks. Their names sound a bit like those of the sinister super gangs found in James Bond novels. However, these gangs aren't fiction nor are their crimes. A crime group called...

<p>The Trump administration will be screening an anti-abortion film at the White House on Friday, according to reports.</p> <p>The 2018 indie flick — “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” — is based on the true story of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of three babies that were born alive at his clinic.</p>

A cow injured two men in central Germany on Wednesday while making a break for freedom from an abattoir. One of the victims was so badly hurt he had to go to hospital. A farmer in Hesse planned to take the eight-year-old cow to slaughter. But as he was unloading her from the truck, she bolted, injuring the 66-year-old driver on her way out. The animal raced about 500 metres away from the abattoir at Tann near Fulda at around 10am, eventually coming across two brothers who were walking down the road carrying tools. One of the men, a 53-year-old...

Do pro-life Americans have free speech rights – the right to quietly talk to willing passerby’s on the street corner – or are the public sidewalks surrounding abortion clinics somehow speech free zones impervious to the protections of the First Amendment? That is the precise question considered by the Supreme Court today in McCullen v. Coakley. Pro-abortion legislators in Massachusetts passed legislation making it illegal for anyone to speak on the public sidewalks – otherwise known as exercising the First Amendment – within 35 feet of abortion clinics. Illegal that is for everyone but employees of the abortion clinics. Today’s...

Hearing cries in the home next door, a Northampton man instinctively ran to help. It was the natural thing to do in a borough where violence is rare and people know their neighbors. But the Good Samaritan got just past the front door at 1917 Lincoln Ave. when he was stabbed to death. Three others also were found slain in the home Saturday. A suspect, who has not been identified, is in custody. Police have not released the names of the victims. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said all were adults. The bodies of two men and a woman,...

(RNS) As Sholom Rubashkin sits in an Iowa jail awaiting a possible life sentence on fraud charges related to his now-defunct kosher meat business, his ultra-Orthodox Jewish support base has ramped up protests over his case. Through an online petition, media outreach, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, some rabbis have called it a "sacred obligation" for Jews to contact the Justice Department before Rubashkin's April 28 sentencing. While their grassroots efforts stop short of claiming anti-Semitism against the former CEO of Agriprocessors--the Postville, Iowa plant where a 2008 government raid found hundreds of undocumented workers--they believe some discrimination has occurred....

States' Rights: Idaho requires its attorney general to sue the feds if ObamaCare passes while Virginia, the cradle of liberty, heads the line of states in front of the federal courtroom. Somewhere Patrick Henry is smiling. As the second coming of King George III seeks to impose the leftist mandate of national health insurance on the unwilling American people, the states are once again in revolt. This time they're unwilling to be the colonies of an imperial federal government determined to spend and tax us into bankruptcy while treating the Constitution as if it were bird cage liner. Is this...

Politics: The water spigots are back on, at least temporarily, in California's Central Valley. Turned off to protect a tiny fish, they happen to be in the districts of two congressmen "undecided" on health care reform. One could chalk it up to good fortune or just good constituent service. But in the middle of a contentious health care debate marked by Cornhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases, we may be forgiven if we find an announcement by the Department of the Interior regarding California's water supply a tad too coincidental. On Tuesday, the Department of the Interior announced it was increasing...

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might instead attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it. Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would instead vote on a more popular measure that presumes the health-care bill has passed the chamber. The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one...

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might instead attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it. Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would instead vote on a more popular measure that presumes the health-care bill has passed the chamber. The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one...

The Washington Examiner reports that House Democrats appear poised to adopt a rule that would pass the Senate health care bill without actually voting on it. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is preparing to pass the health care overhaul through the House of Representatives without a vote, as was originally reported by the National Journal’s Congress Daily. Mark Tapscott observes that such a maneuver would be the penultimate refutation of the people’s will. In the Slaughter Solution, the rule would declare that the House “deems” the Senate version of Obamacare to have been passed by the House. House members would still...

Via Doug Ross: In the Slaughter Solution, the rule would declare that the House “deems” the Senate version of Obamacare to have been passed by the House. House members would still have to vote on whether to accept the rule, but they would then be able to say they only voted for a rule, not for the bill itself.Thus, Slaughter is preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill “passed” once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes. Democrats would thereby avoid a direct vote on the health care bill while allowing it to become law!Constitutional attorney...

A very dangerous act is being attempted by the Left to secure their rule over the American people and transform the legislative process from a Constitutional Republic to a government by fiat. Today on Fox News Sunday, Democratic leader Rep. Chris Van Hollen admitted Democrats intend to use the unconstitutional “Slaughter Rule” as a solution to ram nationalized health care through Congress without majority vote and in defiance to the will of the American people. The Slaughter rule would declare that the House of Representatives “deems” the Senate health care bill “passed” by the House. House members would have to...

The following excerpt is from the blog of Republican Representative John Boehner of Ohio: Democrats Prepare "Slaughter Solution" to Ram Unpopular Health Care Takeover Through Congress Without a VoteThe twisted scheme by which Democratic leaders plan to bend the rules to ram President Obama's massive health care legislation through Congress now has a name: the Slaughter Solution.The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the...

We are apparently at crunch point on the efforts of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi in the House, and Majority Leader Reid in the Senate to pass by whatever means necessary the “health reform” bill. In the national debate, however, no one has asked whether the Supreme Court has any role in this matter. It does, and it may be definitive. There is a question of what the bill is, since there are many versions, and several are under wraps. The opponents of the bill, whatever it is, includes Democrats and Republicans who believe that the bill is ill-thought takeover of...

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have never before been asked to pass legislation by "deeming" it approved under a House rule instead of following the process required by the U.S. Constitution in which they actually vote on the proposal itself, according to a senior aide to House Republicans. The procedure - dubbed by critics as the "Slaughter Solution" - is the brain-child of House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-NY, who, at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, is trying to fashion a rule that would allow the House to move toward passage of a...