Free Republic

If you haven’t paid your parking tickets you may soon have a face-to-face with “the Barnacle.” The yellow monstrosity, which latches on to the windshield and blocks the driver’s view, rendering the car undriveable, has already begun replacing the parking boot in cities like Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as part of a 60-day trial that began Sept. 23. The peculiar device is more effective than the boot at immobilizing cars and is easier to install, Kevin Dougherty, president of the New York-based Barnacle Parking Enforcement, told Philly.com. The Barnacle — an opaque piece of plastic held in place...

Besides Gary Johnson, he means, right? Doesn’t he? Or was Carl Bernstein right that Weld, a Massachusetts centrist, would end up defecting from the ticket and trying to help Clinton down the stretch if he got spooked that a Trump presidency is a real possibility? He’s much more complimentary of Johnson in the clip below than the headline above would suggest, as you’ll see (the key line about Hillary comes near the very end), but it’s odd nonetheless for a candidate in one party to say that no one’s more qualified than a candidate from another. It’s not the only...

Via Breitbart, the key bit below starts at 6:30. When he says “set the country on fire,” does he mean people literally setting things on fire in rage over how much they hate a Trump/Cruz ticket? Because I can sort of see that. Trump’s numbers are flaming garbage, as you know, but check out Cruz’s numbers from the same poll:What should we call that? Smoldering garbage? I’m a Cruz backer but I’m also under no illusion about how popular he is and isn’t among the general electorate. (Although the AP data here is from a poll of adults, not...

<p>The busiest days create frustrations for visitors such as long lines and temporary gate closures when parks get too full. The company is expanding the parks with new attractions based on popular franchises such as “Star Wars” and “Frozen.”</p> <p>The shift to demand-based pricing is designed to help spread out crowds at Walt Disney World in Florida and at Disneyland Resort in California, Disney said in a blog post.</p>

The months and months of hype have paid off for Disney and Lucasfilm this afternoon, as theater chains began offering advance ticket sales for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which hits theaters two months from today on December 18. Perhaps a little too well, however. Legions of Star Wars fans immediately rushed to online ticket sellers to secure their seats but alas, the force is not strong with them. The sudden rush of demand from Jedi-happy fans has caused loading issues and site outages on purchasing platforms including Fandango, the Alamo Drafthouse, and AMC Theaters. Fandango was most seriously affected...

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have united to fight the Iran nuclear agreement. On Thursday, the Texas senator invited the real estate mogul to join him in rallying against the deal on the Capitol grounds, and Trump accepted. The two Republican presidential candidates said they would do “something very big over the next two weeks in Washington.” Trump made his announcement after a campaign rally in South Carolina, referring to Cruz as “a friend of mine and a good guy.” The event will be sponsored by Tea Party Patriots, the Center for Security Policy, and the Zionist Organization of America,...

Attorneys for the city have failed to turn over even one email from the files of former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly or former Chief of Department Joseph Esposito regarding summons activity over the last eight years... Police Lt. Stevelle Brown, who is alleged to have implemented a quota in Queens’ 105th Precinct, has destroyed text messages in which he denied a cop time off for failing to meet goals for traffic summonses... [Attorneys] also point[] to an exchange from an officer identified only as Sgt. Carty, who sternly admonished a cop for failing to issue enough seatbelt summonses.

BOSTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama got more than an education when he attended Harvard Law School in the late 1980s. He also got a healthy stack of parking tickets, most of which he never paid. The Illinois Senator shelled out $375 in January _ two weeks before he officially launched his presidential campaign _ to finally pay for 15 outstanding parking tickets and their associated late fees. The story was first reported Wednesday by The Somerville News. Obama received 17 parking tickets in Cambridge between 1988 and 1991, mostly for parking in a bus stop, parking without a...

In most countries, taxes are progressive, so the more you make, the higher your taxes. In contrast, most parking and speeding tickets are about what you did, not about how much you earn. But in Finland, you might pay for speeding based on the size of your fortune. That is what happened to Mr. Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman who was fined 54,024 euros (about $58,000) for speeding. He wasn’t even going terribly fast, although his clocked 64 miles per hour did exceed the posted 50 mph limit. The whole idea of a progressive fine based on one’s income may...

Video has emerged showing a Newaygo County Sheriff deputy admitting his department breaks federal and state laws. Each Newaygo County Board of Commissioners meeting is recorded as a matter of record. The videos of the commissioners’ meetings are public domain. In the video, recorded in January, the Newaygo deputy knowingly admits to breaking federal and state laws that prohibit quota policies in police departments. Not only does he admit to breaking the law, but after he does so, the entire board of commissioners votes to enact his measure of breaking the law. According to the Michigan Vehicle Code, it is...

Swear in downtown Brighton near the Imagination Station playground, and there’s a good chance you’ll be getting a ticket. Colin Andersen learned this lesson the hard way. Upset that his friend had been ticketed for skateboarding in downtown Brighton and told to leave, Andersen said he was simply venting when he said, “This is f------ bull----.” The 19-year-old Brighton resident was hanging out with his friends on a sunny April day in a parking lot next to the pavilion and Imagination Station; Andersen said he swore under his breath and no children heard him. However, a Brighton Police Department officer...

Josh Finkelman’s quest for Super Bowl justice began on a Monday in December with the click of a computer mouse. The day before, a busy football Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks had demolished the St. Louis Rams and the sport’s postseason landscape was finally shaping up. Mr. Finkelman, who is from New Jersey, was entertaining friends that night at his home in New Brunswick, a 40-minute drive from the site of the approaching championship game: MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. It was, as he remembered, your basic guys’ night in — beers and ESPN. “We were talking about the...

So much for being the most expensive Super Bowl ever. With ticket prices in a freefall, seats for Sunday’s MetLife Stadium matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos could end up being the least expensive for a Super Bowl since the post-9/11 game of 2002. After hitting record highs last week, ticket prices took a nose dive over the weekend, with the cheapest prices plummeting nearly 50 percent, to a low of $1,150 from about $2,200 at 9 a.m. on Jan. 19.

Even with the proliferation of digital cameras providing endless streams of seemingly irrefutable video evidence, there are still many sides of any given story that go unknown. And that is most likely what's going on with this video. What we do know is that YouTube user JokRKidd has a neighbor that really doesn't like him, and that he lives in a city with some questionable law enforcement. How questionable you ask? More questionable than the laws that used to make it illegal to park a pickup truck in the driveway of a private residence at night in Coral Gables, FL....

Ticket sales for President Obama’s big fundraiser Monday at the SFJazz Center are so sluggish, organizers are cutting the price of some tickets in half. The cheap seats for the Democratic National Committee luncheon — the ones that were going for $1,000 — have been reduced to $500, according to an e-mail to potential donors sent out Monday by Ella Arnold of Buell Private Political Management in San Francisco. Arnold added, “We are thrilled to announce that if you have already purchased a $1,000 ticket … your seat will now be upgraded to VIP, which includes rope line access!” We’re...

Created: 11/05/2013 10:45 PM By: Caleb James, KOB Eyewitness News 4 Some think they know what the 2016 Republican presidential ticket looks like. It includes New Mexico governor Susana Martinez. On Monday, Martinez made eight campaign stops with New Jersey governor, republican Chris Christie. The appearances have some saying Martinez and Christie together could be a preview of 2016's republican presidential ticket. Martinez and Christie are no new political team -- they've campaiged together before. After Monday though, some say looking at these two together could be a preview of the 2016 Republican presidential ticket: "We cross party lines, we...

BERKELEY, CA -- A truck driver was beaten within an inch of his life by California Highway Patrol for not signing a traffic ticket that he could not read. The driver, who broke no laws, was beaten so badly that he woke up in a trauma hospital. Olegs Kozacenko, a local resident originally from Russia, was pulled over and cited by police for allegedly driving too many hours in one day. Kozacenko refused to sign the ticket because he had not or could not read it. CHP Officers didn't take kindly to the driver's refusal to sign. Two officers, one...

The death of a resident of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Ata is being investigated, after he keeled over and suffered an apparent heart attack – as police handed him a traffic ticket. The 64-year-old man died on the spot Saturday evening. His funeral was set for Monday. The man suffered the attack as he was speaking to a female traffic police officer, who stopped him for an alleged driving offense. The policewoman said that the man had shown no signs of panic, nor had he indicated that he had any health problems. The two talked as she wrote...

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi has stepped into the leadership void left by a state Supreme Court that seems more concerned with quelling embarrassment than fixing the historically dysfunctional Philadelphia Traffic Court. Pileggi wants to abolish the city's Traffic Court and transfer its authority over moving violations to Municipal Court. The Delaware County Republican's proposal comes in the wake of a scathing report documenting widespread ticket-fixing at Traffic Court for the friends and families of the politically connected. **SNIP** The report was ordered by Supreme Court Justice Ronald D. Castille after the FBI raided judges' homes and the court. It...

For several weeks, indeed months, President Obama's numbers in West Virginia polls have shown that this is one state that is not expected to reward Obama/Biden with our five electoral votes this year. This administration's double hit to West Virginia's economy--in the form of the war on coal and coal-fired power plants and Obamacare's sapping of our small businesses--make another term less than appetizing for most West Virginians, regardless of political party. But since we've known this dynamic in our electorate for some time, how might those voters who really want to make a statement do that in early voting...