Free Republic

CLEVELAND — Federal prosecutors this morning charged a Cleveland construction contractor with bribing Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora with $33,000 in cash, lawn work, Cavs and Indians tickets and hundreds of dollars in meals and drinks for county contracts. The charges said an unnamed public official whose description matches Dimora helped Steve Pumper's company, D-A-S Construction, obtain work on county projects, including brownfield and public housing projects. The bribery charges were filed in U.S. District Court, and they allege that Pumper also used bribes to win contracts in Parma schools. They say he paid former board President J. Kevin Kelley...

The attorney for William J. Jefferson tackled the "elephant in the room" in opening statements Tuesday, explaining the notorious $90,000 "cold cash" discovered in the former congressman's freezer as an FBI setup bid. Prosecutors, for their part, painted a portrait of a debt-ridden man selling out the public good. In his opening speech in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Jefferson attorney Robert Trout addressed the best-known detail in the case - the marked bills found by federal agents in Mr. Jefferson's freezer wrapped inside Pillsbury Pie Crust boxes. He described the money as the trial's "elephant in the room." He...

The media is a abuzed about this, and the lefty blogs are acting as though this being some nuance of the right. Wrong. Let’s not forget that Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, both antisemitic and neither considered spokesmen for the right. But after some research it appears the shooter, James Von Brunn is in fact - despite the protestations of the Kos Kids - a registered democrat from Maryland. So much for the “Right Wing Conspiracy”. Fact is that most of the Holocaust Denier crowd is from the left. Many of the groups follow the writings of Naom Chomsky, the...

Logan County Politician indicted

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Three more federal charges have been filed against a University of Tennessee student charged with hacking into the personal e-mail account of Alaska Gov. and former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

A political candidate who bowed out of the Minneapolis City Council race is being called a fraud and some people are even calling for a criminal investigation. In an exclusive interview with 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, the 23-year-old former candidate for Minneapolis City Council admits he lied to campaign donors, volunteers and supporters. Charles Carlson burst onto the political scene in December. The University of Minnesota grad student with a British accent announced his campaign for Minneapolis City Council.

With pressure growing on him to act, U.S. Sen Christopher Dodd Monday morning allowed reporters to view all of the loan documents and communication he and his wife had when negotiating mortgages with Countrywide Financial Corp. ... "I regret I did not do this sooner and I apologize to the people of Connecticut for the delay,'' said Dodd, who was joined by his wife Jackie Clegg Dodd in a sometimes tense meeting with reporters at his Hartford offices.

CANTON — Interactions between Canton Mayor William J. Healy II and a high-school-age girl are at the center of two law-enforcement investigations. The investigations began after Canton police received an anonymous tip, even though neither the girl nor her mother had filed a complaint. The mayor denies wrongdoing and wants authorities to discover who sent anonymous letters naming the girl.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois Senate voted to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office Thursday, marking the first time in the state's long history of political corruption that a chief executive has been impeached and convicted. The 59-0 vote followed several hours of public deliberation in which senator after senator stood up to blast Blagojevich, whose tenure lasted six years. And it came after a four-day impeachment trial on allegations that Blagojevich abused his power and sold his office for personal and political benefit. The conviction on a sweeping article of impeachment means the governor was immediately removed from office....

You'd think, listening to Portland Mayor Sam Adams' apologies for his poor judgment in having sex with a teenager, that the whole thing was a passing mistake. A misjudgment, maybe, covered up by a pro forma lie in the heat of a campaign. When pressed, Adams on Monday reversed that long-standing lie about his 2005 relationship with a young man named Beau Breedlove and admitted that it was sexual, not platonic or mentoring. Adams apologized Tuesday for lying and for pressuring Breedlove into lying, too, when the rumors about them first arose in 2007, early in the mayoral campaign. Adams...

One thing we seem to breed in Oregon are big political scandals, and the latest one is hitting Portland Mayor Sam Adams with gale force. Adams admitted to The Oregonian and Willamette Week Monday that he lied back in September of 2007 when he denied rumors that he had had a sexual relationship with a teenager who had been a legislative intern. Adams, who is openly gay, said that while he first met the intern, Beau Breedlove, when he was 17, the two did not have sex until after Breedlove turned 18. When rumors about the two first surfaced in...

Racine - Authorities seeking felony charges against Mayor Gary Becker say the 51-year-old married father of two, who ran unopposed for re-election two years ago, used the Internet to try to arrange a sexual liaison with what he thought was a teen girl. Taken into custody at Brookfield Square mall Tuesday evening, Becker became one of the more than 475 people arrested by the state's 10-year-old Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. By now, it is relatively widely known that investigators from the Division of Criminal Investigation pose as youths on the Internet, looking for adults who want to have...

Gary Becker, 51, Held On $165,000 Bond Racine city officials say Mayor Gary Becker is under arrest on possible charges of child pornography and solicitation of a minor. The 51-year-old mayor is being held in the Kenosha County Jail on $165,000 bond. City administrator Ben Hughes says Becker was arrested on Tuesday by agents from the state Division of Criminal Investigation at a shopping mall outside of Milwaukee. The case is under review by the Kenosha County District Attorney's office. City Council President David Maack says he got a call from the police chief shortly after midnight telling him about...

JACKSON, MS (WLBT) - Former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters has given up his license to practice law. Attorney Joey Langston has linked Peters, attorney Dickie Scruggs, and Hinds county judge Bobby Delaughter in a judicial bribery sceme. According to Langston, Scruggs paid Peters to help influence Delaughter in a dispute over $15-million in legal fees for asbestos litigation. Peters was Delaughter's longtime friend and former boss. Judge Delaughter eventually ruled in Scruggs ' favor. Peters -- along with Langston and former state auditor Steve Patterson -- pocketed $1-million from Scruggs , according to Langston's plea agreement in the...

Democrats have had success running against what they called a GOP 'culture of corruption.' Now the party hopes the political fallout from the Blagojevich case and others will be limited. By Janet Hook December 10, 2008 Reporting from Washington -- The arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich on Tuesday marked the latest in a series of scandals involving Democratic politicians -- an ironic turn for a party that won control of Congress in 2006 in part by saying it would end a "culture of corruption" under Republican leadership. Democrats also highlighted Republican ethical problems in the successful bid to...

CBS Radio: They make no mention Blagojevich's party, but refer to Larry Craig as a Republican I was listening to KNX 1070 News Radio (CBS News Affiliate) just minutes ago. Their top two stories were (1) Blagojevich's arrest and (2) Larry Craig's conviction upheld. For the first story, absolutely no mention of Blagojevich's party was made.... For the second story, Larry Craig was referred to as the "Idaho Republican"..

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff were arrested in Chicago Tuesday on two counts each of corruption charges relating to trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat. More at Fox News

Gov. Rod Blagojevich became the state's first Democratic chief executive in more than a quarter of a century after vowing to reform what he labeled the culture of corruption surrounding his predecessor that had fed deep cynicism among Illinoisans. But little more than a year after replacing George Ryan in office in 2003, Blagojevich found his administration at the early stages of what became a host of state and federal investigations into allegations of wrongdoing involving state hiring, board appointments, contracting and fundraising that battered his tenure. *snip* As part of the investigation, in which 13 people have been indicted...

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford was arrested this morning on federal charges and is being held at the federal courthouse, the FBI and other federal officials confirm. A special grand jury for several months has been investigating county bond deals and Langford's financial dealings. Langford was Jefferson County Commission president 2002-06. Al LaPierre, a close friend of Langford's who also was part of the federal investigation, will be surrendering today, said his attorney, Tommy Spina. David McKnight, Montgomery banker Bill Blount's attorney, said Blount is on his way to Birmingham from Montgomery to surrender. U.S. Attorney Alice Martin will hold a...

West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose predecessor resigned in the wake of a sex scandal, agreed to a $121,000 payment to a former mistress who worked on his staff and was threatening to sue him, according to current and former members of his staff who have been briefed on the settlement, which involved Mahoney and his campaign committee. Mahoney, who is married, also promised the woman, Patricia Allen, a $50,000 a year job for two years at the agency that handles his campaign advertising, the staffers said. A Mahoney spokesperson would not answer questions about the alleged affair...