Free Republic

The Senate released its bill Thursday to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years, but the bill also renews a host of more minor tax provisions aimed at winning over recalcitrant Democrats in the House and Senate. The bill, which faces its first key test vote Monday in the Senate, mirrors the deal that President Barack Obama struck earlier this week with Republicans. It extends the tax cuts for all Americans regardless of income, renews jobless benefits for one year and reinstates the estate tax at a level pushed by Republicans. But in the face of loud resistance from...

Do the congressional Republicans get the message of the 2010 election? The House Appropriations Committee will be a key test. Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) has been a thorn in the side of congressional appropriators — both Democratic and Republican — for years. That this “anti-earmark crusader” has been recommended for a seat on the House Appropriations Committee seems to be a clear indication that Republicans are listening to the American public’s concerns over wasteful spending by Washington. “I don’t see how you can view it any other way,” Flake tells National Review Online. “People expect us to go in...

SCRANTON - A federal grand jury has indicted longtime State Sen. Raphael J. Musto, the latest legislator to be caught up in an overlapping series of corruption investigations. The indictment announced Tuesday alleges that Musto (D., Luzerne), 81, accepted bribes, gifts, and construction work from an unnamed contractor in return for his help in obtaining state grants and loans. Known as "Ray," Musto, who is to retire next week after 38 years in the General Assembly, has been a political fixture in the state's northeastern region since 1972, when he succeeded his father to a seat in the state House.

TSA’s other body-scanner contractor is Rapiscan Systems Inc. In 2009, the company was awarded an agreement that could be worth up to $173 million. And like L-3, Rapiscan has a notable K Street presence. Holland & Knight, Rapiscan’s outside lobbying firm, has earned $480,000 in fees from the company since May 2008, according to lobbying disclosure records. David Whitestone, a former aide to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), and John Buscher, once the chief lobbyist for United Airlines, are lobbying for the company. Overall, Rapiscan has spent close to $3.6 million on lobbying since 2007, according to records.

WhilWASHINGTON - Despite their claims, the Republicans' ban on earmarks won't stop lawmakers from steering taxpayers' dollars to pet projects. And it will have little if any effect on Washington's far graver problem — the gigantic budget deficit.

Despite a long and deep recession, the collective personal wealth of congressional members increased by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to a study released Wednesday by the Center for Responsive Politics.The steady also indicates that a significant number of members owned shares of major players in the health-care and financial-services sectors, which were the subject of major reform legislation during the period. The findings—based on federal financial disclosure data released earlier this year—paint a wealthy bunch in Congress, with more than half of all members—261—were millionaires. About one in five of those had average calculated wealth...

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) spent a lengthy period of time on the Senate floor this afternoon defending earmarks. Inhofe argues it is the constitutional duty (citing Article 1, Section 9) of the Congress to appropriate earmarks.

Washington (CNN) -- A suburban Washington county official at the center of an FBI investigation into years of kickbacks says he is innocent and that the facts will prove it. Jack Johnson, who served as the executive of Prince George's County, Maryland, since 2002, spoke to reporters late Friday after the FBI released details of how he and his wife allegedly tried to hide checks and evidence of illegal payments, even going so far as to flush a $100,000 check down the toilet.

Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson and his wife were arrested at their home Friday and charged in federal court with trying to hide or destroy the proceeds from a bribe from a local developer, according to court papers and federal law enforcement authorities. Johnson and his wife, Leslie E. Johnson, were charged with evidence tampering and destruction, alteration and falsification of records. After brief hearings late Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Connolly ordered Jack Johnson to be released and placed under electronic monitoring. The judge released Leslie Johnson on her own recognizance. Both Johnsons were ordered to surrender...

When the Nov. 2 general election is over and the lame duck session of Congress begins, Inhofe said he plans to take up the cause of earmarks again. Inhofe said he is listed as the most conservative member of the U.S. Senate by a number of conservative journals and will try to reinstitute the practice of earmarks. He said earmarks should be germane to the legislation they are attached to. “It would be nothing short of criminal to go to all the trouble of electing great new anti-establishment senators, only to have them cede to the executive branch their constitutional...

Ah, how sweet. Now they’re buying votes with pork rinds , booze , crack cocaine , free food ice cream. High school officials in Cincinnati are accused of taking van loads of students to vote last week for democrats and then out for ice cream. Cincinnati.com reported: Three van loads of Hughes High students were taken last week – during school hours – to vote and given sample ballots only for Democratic candidates and then taken for ice cream, a Monday lawsuit alleges. The complaint was made by Thomas Brinkman Jr., a Republican candidate for Hamilton County auditor, and the...

A law enforcement scandal is unfolding on Long Island. A Suffolk County District Attorney investigator and a police officer are now charged with tipping off members of organized crime about police investigations.

Wife of Rep. Conyers begins federal prison sentence By Michael O'Brien - 09/10/10 04:28 PM ET The wife of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) reported to a federal prison in West Virginia on Friday to begin a 37-month sentence on corruption charges. Monica Conyers, a former Detroit city councilwoman, reported to the Alderson Federal Prison Camp this afternoon 20 minutes before deadline, the Detroit Free Press reported. Conyers pleaded guilty last year for taking bribes to influence a vote on a sludge disposal contract in Detroit. She has since attempted to withdraw her plea. Her husband, the chairman of the House...

General Motors Co. has begun to once again contribute to political campaigns, lifting a self-imposed ban on political spending put in place during the auto maker's U.S.-financed bankruptcy restructuring last year. The Detroit company gave $90,500 to candidates running in the current election cycle, Federal Election Commission records show. GM Resumes Campaign Contributions The beneficiaries include Midwestern lawmakers, mostly Democrats, who have traditionally supported the industry's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.). The list also includes Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican Whip,...

Don Williams, the campaign manager for Harry Reid from 1965 to 1974 will reveal on Steve Wark's AM 670 radio show (tomorrow, August 24th at 7:00am pst) how he picked up illegal cash from Joe Conforte at the Mustang Ranch Brothel on two campaigns. The reason this is important is because there are a number of other leads now working through the system regarding a history of Reid taking money - Williams provides a polygraphed verifiable anchor point to the other stories. Once on the take, always on the take.

WASHINGTON – In February 2009, the United States had fallen into the deepest economic slowdown since the Great Depression. The housing bubble had burst, unemployment was nearing its highest level in almost three decades and the once-freewheeling banking sector had turned tightfisted. At the urging of President Barack Obama, Congress passed an $862 billion economic stimulus bill on Feb. 10, 2009, to get federal dollars flowing into the U.S. economy. Eighteen months later, the administration estimates that about 85 percent of the jobs it expected to create or save in the first two years have indeed been created or saved....

NOTE The following text is a quote: Innospec Agent Pleads Guilty to Bribing Iraqi Officials and Paying Kickbacks Under the Oil for Food Program WASHINGTON—Canadian/Lebanese dual national Ousama M. Naaman pleaded guilty today to participating in an eight-year conspiracy to defraud the United Nations Oil for Food Program (OFFP) and to bribe Iraqi government officials in connection with the sale of a chemical additive used in the refining of leaded fuel, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division. Naaman, 61, of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, was originally indicted on Aug. 7, 2008, in U.S. District...

rivate security contractors protecting the convoys that supply U.S. military bases in Afghanistan are paying millions of dollars a week in “passage bribes” to the Taliban and other insurgent groups to travel along Afghan roads, a congressional investigation released Monday has found. The alleged payments, which are reimbursed by the U.S. government, help fund the very enemy the U.S. is attempting to defeat and renew questions about the U.S. dependence on private contractors, who outnumber American troops in Afghanistan, 130,000 to 93,000. The report's author called the findings of the six-month investigation “sobering and shocking.” “This arrangement has fueled a...

Mickey Kaus is undoubtedly my favorite Democrat in California. That alone means that he is probably pretty well hated by the ruling far-left, establishment of the state party. The California Democrat Party, as well as the state itself is run almost entirely by the public employee unions. Hence the wonderful shape we find ourselves in today… People always say “well Arnold is a Republican.” Yes he is, but he’s a poor excuse for one and he was never any match against the unions and their bidders in the legislature. This brings me to the one democrat I have seen in...

The White House and Rep. Joe Sestak agree: Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, is a buffoon. For months, the White House stonewalled inquiries about whether Mr. Sestak had been offered a federal job in exchange for dropping his challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary. Mr. Sestak won the Pennsylvania primary in part because his reputation for candor (apparently undeserved) contrasted favorably with Mr. Specter's blatant careerism. But if Mr. Sestak wasn't lying in February, he is lying now, or so the evidence suggests. If the facts were as the White House now claims,...