Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The California State Senate held an "ethics refresher course" for its members after federal indictments were issued against two senators and a third was convicted. Senate leaders are hoping to regain the public's trust. The purpose of the course is to teach members and their staffs to avoid potentially compromising situations. It's the latest in a series of moves by senate leaders aimed at putting political distance between them and their colleagues facing criminal charges. The leader of California's state senate stopped all regular business on Wednesday so everyone could go "back to school" in a...

“You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson shouted at Tom Cruise during the climactic court-martial scene in the movie “A Few Good Men.” Caught in a lie that exposed his “above-the-law” mentality, Nicholson’s character, Col. Jessup, justifies his lawlessness, declaring, “I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it!” It’s a riveting scene, pitting security against the rule of law. But before agreeing with Jessup that lawfulness conflicts with freedom, Think...

As the 2014 elections draw near, despite an outward appearance of confidence Democrats on both national and local levels are bracing themselves for an uphill battle against a resurgent Republican opposition. Beset by coast-to-coast scandals and lack of a cohesive message, Democratic Party officials acknowledge growing concerns of a tarnished public image as the midterms loom ahead. In attempts to rally party faithful, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) displayed confidence in the party’s chances to not only hold their majority in the Senate but at their prospects for taking the House and returning the Speaker’s gavel to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi...

Former President Bill Clinton is set to back Rep. Charlie Rangel, who’s seeking a record-setting 23rd term in Congress. And the endorsement couldn’t come at a better time: The Harlem district representative has fallen out favor with several notable politicos. Mr. Rangel, 83, has had strained relations with President Obama since 2008, when he supported Hillary Clinton for president. And there’s also no love lost between Mr. Rangel and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mr. Rangel in 2013 backed city comptroller Bill Thompson for mayor, Politico reported. That, after Mr. de Blasio had endorsed Mr. Rangel’s re-election campaign in...

Readers of USA TODAY: Some have asked why didn't my father pay the grazing fee. This can be understood in two ways. One is founded on preemptive rights and the other upon state rights or state sovereignty. When my family rolled into this country in the 1800's they began to tame the land and use it for survival, settling this land the same as the rest of the United States. Each family claimed their stake and developed the area. Others respected the area and understood as long as the family was using the resources or land it was the families...

WASHINGTON — President Obama announced Monday that he was naming W. Neil Eggleston, a veteran lawyer with extensive experience representing government officials in congressional and criminal investigations, as his next White House counsel. In choosing a veteran of Washington’s recurring oversight wars, the White House may be signaling that it expects the final two years of Mr. Obama’s presidency to be defined by politically charged hearings, demands for information by Republicans in Congress and legal battles over the scope and limits of executive authority.

Long before Cliven Bundy faced down federal agents in his dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights, fellow Nevada rancher Raymond Yowell, an 84-year-old former Shoshone chief, watched as the BLM seized his herd. Adding to that, since 2008 they've taken his money as well -- in the form of a piece of his Social Security checks. Yowell's 132 head of cattle had grazed for decades on the South Fork Western Shoshone Indian Reservation in northeastern Nevada until 2002, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) -- the same agency at odds with Bundy -- seized them....

landed in the Facebook gulag when I tried to post our daily Bible verse. ... Now before you call up the preacher had put me on the church prayer list – let me assure the posting was neither unseemly nor ungentlemanly. Nevertheless, it caused great consternation and angst among Facebook’s left-wing censors. Following is the egregious text: “Rancher Bundy should’ve told the feds that those were Mexican cows – who came across the border illegally to seek better grazing opportunities. It was an act of love.” Thousands of you posted comments and many more shared that message. It’s now gone...

Senator Harry Reid told reporters the Bundy Ranch dispute is not over. “Something will happen.” ... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says “something is going to happen” to get Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to stop letting his cattle graze on federal land. “It’s obvious that you can’t just walk away from this. And we can speculate all we want to speculate to what’s going to happen next,” Reid told KSNV-TV. “But I don’t think it’s going to be tomorrow that something is going to happen, but something will happen. We are a nation of laws, not of men and women.”...

<p>The Internal Revenue Service has revoked the tax-exempt status of a conservative charity for making statements critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, according to a USA Today report.</p> <p>The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, based in Manassas, Va., “has shown a pattern of deliberate and consistent intervention in political campaigns” and made “repeated statements supporting or opposing various candidates by expressing its opinion of the respective candidate’s character and qualifications,” according to a written determination released Friday by the IRS.</p>

"""(Graphic picture) Digging up 1 of the HUGE holes where they threw the cows that they had ran to death or shot. I feel that this NEEDS to be put out for the public to see."""

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama is getting a number of critical report cards on his foreign and domestic policies lately. Here at home, Janet Yellen, in her first monetary policy address as the head of the Federal Reserve Board, said the labor markets were still weak, and that it will likely take two years or more before the U.S. fully recovers from its recession. Ouch. If Yellen's forecast proves right, this means it will have taken Obama's administration nearly eight years to lift our economy out of its long and painful lethargy.

WASHINGTON – Political and military elites are seizing protected areas in one of Africa's last bastions for elephants, putting broad swaths of Zimbabwe at risk of becoming fronts for ivory poaching, according to a nonprofit research group's report that examines government collusion in wildlife trafficking.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That adage has more application than usual in California, where Democrats hold all of the statewide offices and supermajorities in the legislature. They can enact any policies they want, with only the judicial branch offering belated checks on their power. And when I say belated, that’s literally the case with state Senator Rod Wright, whom a jury found guilty in January of committing eight felonies regarding his residency and eligibility for the office he held.Normally, politicians who get that kind of a verdict have the decency to resign. If not, the body in...

Beginning in early 2011, state Sen. Leland Yee repeatedly solicited bribes to fund his San Francisco mayor and California secretary of state campaigns, according to the FBI agents who brought him down last month. But he appears to have devoted more time and energy to a far more lucrative pursuit: crafting or carrying legislation benefiting special interests who supply campaign contributions. It's a practice that's all too common in Sacramento, but Yee was a master. :snip: Yee introduced 20 bills from 2011 to 2014 that advanced a special interest over the public interest, according to this newspaper's review of his...

Lakeland Police SWAT team officers looking for stolen motorcycles tried out their newest technologies Friday evening while serving a search warrant on a house in South Lakeland. Police said detectives have been investigating motorcycle thefts in Polk, Hillsborough and Orange counties. After conducting surveillance and gathering information for a judge to sign a search warrant, LPD called in its SWAT team to execute the warrant at a house on Empress Way in the neighborhood near Kelly Recreation Center, Sgt. Mike Lewis said. "We did not know if anyone was inside and we had information that the persons involved were armed,"...

In the wake of the Bundy Ranch standoff, Nevada’s public energy utility confirmed it has so many renewable-energy projects in the works that it has no need for the $5 billion solar-power project with the Chinese government and ENN Group that was withdrawn last year. Fay Andersen, spokeswoman for NV Energy, told WND the state currently has 39 producing renewable energy projects, with an additional project under construction and another in the development phase. “Nevada has one of the highest Renewable Portfolio Standards in the country, determined as a percent of retail energy sales, and requiring the company to achieve...

New York University’s controversial penchant under President John Sexton for doling out real-estate perks to top professors and executives also extended to his son.Jed Sexton, whose sole affiliation with NYU was his status as the president’s son, for years enjoyed a spacious faculty apartment while the university experienced a “severe” housing shortage, The Post has learned. In spring 2002, NYU ordered that a pair of one-bedroom apartments normally reserved for law school faculty be combined into a lavish, two-story spread in the heart of Greenwich Village, property records show.The Harvard-educated Sexton, who was a 33-year-old aspiring actor at the time,...

Sheriff Mack: federal snipers at Bundy ranch are mercenaries, hit men Posted on April 18, 2014 by Dr. Eowyn BLM-snipers-outside-of-Bundy-Ranch In an interview with TPN’s Dylan Scott Wednesday, April 16, 2014, Richard Mack, former Arizona county sheriff and founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), said: “One of our CSPOA members who was there earlier and got there before I did was phoning me and telling me that they were going to be killed. The federal snipers, several of them — I don’t know if you know this — but they were paid mercenaries. They’re contractors. They’re...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A story that sounds like a movie script is slowly grinding its way to trial. All of the 29 defendants in the massive corruption case involving suspended State Senator Leland Yee and reputed gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow appeared in federal court Thursday. With so many defendants, lawyers, and documents, the judge is trying to set up a system to manage what could be an unwieldy trial. What makes it even harder is that not everyone's on the same page. The frustration is beginning to show. There are 29 defendants, even more lawyers, a 137 page...

A Utah businessman is rocking both state and national politics after claiming Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped him broker a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a federal investigation into his company quietly disappear, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Jeremy Johnson was allegedly told that the price would be $600,000, and claims to have made an initial payment of $250,000 when he was slapped with a federal lawsuit. Now he says he wants his money back. The Salt Lake Tribune points out that Johnson has no way of knowing whether the funds actually made it to...

As more solar farms arise in the sunny corners of the U.S., it’s inevitable that solar developers will have to play ball with environmentalists. First Solar and SunPower announced an agreement with the environmental groups to add thousands of acres near their projects for wildlife protection. As more solar farms arise in the sunny corners of the U.S., it’s inevitable that solar developers will have to play ball with environmental groups. First Solar and SunPower announced an agreement on Tuesday with the Sierra Club and others to add thousands of acres near their proposed projects for wildlife protection. The agreement...

WATCHUNG, N.J., April 16, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- In an April 8 interview on AutismOne's A Conversation of Hope radio show, Congressman Bill Posey's strong resolve and demands for transparency were evident as he discussed the Center for Disease Control (CDC)'s handling of vaccine safety studies which affect "our most precious resource in our nation – our children." The 30-minute interview, conducted by vaccine industry watchdog, PhD biochemist Brian Hooker, delves into what Posey called "the incestuous relationship between the public health community and the vaccine makers and public officials." The Florida legislator, known as "Mr. Accountabililty," did not mince words...

concerned with a local Nevada rancher? By Wayne Allyn Root Published April 16, 2014 FoxNews.com Facebook787 Twitter123 Gplus26 I live in Las Vegas. I live and breath Nevada politics. Something is very wrong. Something smells rotten in the Nevada desert. And Senator Harry Reid’s fingerprints are all over it. I am of course referring to the Bundy Ranch siege. This was a dispute between a Nevada ranching family with rights to the land in question for 140 years and the BLM (Bureayu of Land Management). The government claims they haven’t paid grazing fees for 20 years. The result was a...

USA Today will only allow the posting of titles and links http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-11-reid_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Andy Barrie recently held a property rights seminar for landowners. Asked what lessons they shared, Ceil Barrie said with teary eyes, "Yeah, don't annoy the government."

Fox News toured the damage -- allegedly caused by the Bureau of Land Management -- which included holes in water tanks and destroyed water lines and fences. According to family friends, the bureau's hired "cowboys" also killed two prize bulls.

(CNN) – Hoping to help close the gap between workers' skills and the needs of businesses, President Barack Obama on Wednesday will announce he's putting hundreds of millions toward job training programs that produce highly skilled workers. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will head to a community college in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to make the announcement. The funding will come in two parts: $500 million toward a new job training competition that pairs community colleges with businesses, and $100 million for new apprenticeship programs to train workers. The White House says the new initiatives are meant to combat a...

An effort by Washington to build housing for Haitians in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake has fallen short and exceeded costs, a U.S. government report said Tuesday. The audit by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Agency for International Development said the project to build 4,000 houses outside Haiti's capital resulted in the construction of only 816. The U.S. plan also sought to provide "home sites" on which others would pay for the construction of houses. This, too, fell short, with USAID completing engineering and design services for only 2,300 home sites out of a projected...

The major news media, with the exception of Fox News, has been deafeningly quiet about the federal government’s thwarted raid last week on a Nevada rancher. Heavily-armed agents from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) descended upon Cliven Bundy’s ranch, seizing 389 of his 900 cattle. The BLM shut off access to federal lands, claiming he was illegally using them, and a no-fly zone was established for a 3-mile-square area around Bundy’s ranch. A sign was posted - unconstitutionally - limiting the First Amendment to a small designated area. The feds flew helicopters overhead to chase the cattle, knowing full...

PRIMM, Nevada – As part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above approach to energy, today Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar “flipped the switch” on the Enbridge Silver State North solar project, the first large-scale solar energy facility on U.S. public lands to deliver power to American consumers. This milestone is in line with the administration’s broad commitment to expanding production of all sources of American made energy, including from renewable sources, such as wind and solar, which has doubled in the President’s first term, as well as domestic production of oil and gas resources, which have increased each year the President...

The events in Nevada this week have made a number of things crystal clear: 1) Our government, at least at the upper management/executive service level, is incredibly corrupt. 2) Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Majority Misleader, is incredibly corrupt. 3) Obama’s Executive Branch, which allowed this situation to take place in the way that it did, is incredibly corrupt. 4) The judicial branch that has consistently allowed “environmentalists” to dictate public land policy is incredibly corrupt. 5) The “environmentalists” and their co-conspirators in Congress who foisted the so-called “Endangered Species Act” and numerous other extreme laws on us, and turned...

Other than hitting the perfect tee shot, nothing is more gratifying than the sight of liberals hoisted on a petard fashioned by their own corruption. In May of 2011, anti-gun lunatic Garry McCarthy was named Chicago Police Superintendent by mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Though making all of the usual promises about reducing the city’s crime rate, during his first full year–2012–Chicago recorded 507 murders, the most since 2008 and more than in any year since 2003. Of course, more important than 507 dead was the fact that Emanuel’s approval rate seemed to decline another notch...

Following remarks Senate Majority leader Harry Reid made at the University of Nevada, Reno on Monday, the Nevada Democrat told Reno's KRNV TV his thoughts on the cattle controversy in Gold Butte. "Well, it's not over. We can't have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it's not over," Reid said. There is no question that there were a lot of things going on down there with breaking the law," Reid said. "And that is not over yet. We can't let that continue. So I'm sure it is not the end of...

During my last bombshell blog post, I chronicled the Spanish conglomerate Abengoa that snagged billions of U.S. green energy stimulus funds, exposing how this foreign-owned entity screwed over American taxpayers, workers and vendors. This included a long wrap sheet of chilling, unethical and potentially criminal activity that only came to light due to the testimony, coupled with substantiated documentation, by a whistleblower, whom had worked for Abengoa for three years, from 2010 until 2013. In summary Abengoa: Violated at least the spirit of the 2009-stimulus law as well as the Department of Energy (DOE) loan stipulations Conspired and blatantly broke...

The standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) deescalated on April 12, when the bureau announced that it will stop its operation to confiscate Bundy’s cattle.But another aspect to this ongoing story is jumping: The blogosphere is alive with allegations that Senator Harry Reid (pictured), and his son, Rory, have motivations of their own for wanting Bundy’s cattle off the disputed lands.Though the major media announced that a “deal” had been reached between Bundy and the BLM, Bundy explained what transpired differently in an interview with KLAS TV in Las Vegas: “There is...

On June 10, a blistering new book on the Justice Department and the shenanigans inside the DOJ Voting Section is released. "Obama's Enforcer" by John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky will detail abuses of power at Holder's Justice Department. It has disturbing stories from inside the Department about Justice Department staff both giving a pass to criminal election activity as well as naming the names of those inside the Civil Rights Division who engaged in criminal activity. Amazon link here.

Like all mergers, the proposed $45.2 billion Comcast CMCSA +1.67% merger with Time Warner Cable TWC +1.3%—the largest and second largest cable providers in the nation—has its advocates and critics. There are certainly important questions about what impact the merger would have on consumers—but there are equally significant issues associated with the highly politicized approval process. The Obama Department of Justice, led by Eric Holder, must review the merger and decide whether to approve or block it. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration and Justice Department have a long track record of pushing the rule of law aside and making decisions based...

Two members of Congress are asking if the Treasury Department disproportionately targeted more Republican or conservative owned auto dealerships during the government-lead restructuring of General Motors in 2009. Breitbart.com reported today that Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jim Renacci (R-OH) released a letter asking Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to release documents regarding the process and methodology that determined which GM dealerships were closed. GM was loaned $50 million by Congress as part of the restructuring included consolidating dealerships and closing some of the under-performing GM dealerships. In 2009 and 2010 there were several reports in the press raising the question whether...

Two lawyers have joined forces to assemble a case challenging in U.S. bankruptcy court the federal government's use of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to bail out Chrysler and in doing so may have created a scenario that finally will bring to a head the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president. The attorneys are Leo Donofrio, who has launched cases directly challenging Obama's eligibility, and Stephen Pidgeon, who also has worked on the issue. Their new case questions the authority by which the federal government and administration officials intervened in the auto industry, specifically allocating some $8 billion-plus...

Former Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino (D) — he stepped down a couple of weeks ago — has pleaded guilty today to federal charges of money laundering, according to the McAllen Monitor. Just 17 days after stepping down as sheriff and three days after his former chief of staff entered a related plea, Treviño stood before U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez and pleaded guilty for his part in laundering campaign contributions that were tied to a convicted drug trafficker. Testimony in court this morning suggested that the amount of money laundered could be anywhere between $70,000 and $120,000. Treviño was...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said little as federal agents seized and then released cattle last week from the Bundy ranch, but there is little doubt that the highly charged episode was threatening to become a political headache for the Nevada Democrat. The Bureau of Land Management is headed by former longtime Reid aide Neil Kornze, who was confirmed by the Senate as BLM director on Tuesday, just as federal authorities descended on the cattle ranch outside Mesquite, Nev.

Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow (full name Raymond Chow Kwok Cheung), the reputed San Francisco China Town Racketeer has a much more extensive relationship than some in the mainstream media would like to point out. Chow, who was in connection with a Federal probe which included disgraced California State Senator Leland Yee, has numerous connections to powerful California Democrats, particularly since his early release from a 24 year prison sentence on 2003. Since his release, Chow has been increasingly active in Democrat politics circles, regularly sharing the spotlight with leading Democrats, entertainers, Hollywood executives and socialites as part of the elite...

Definitions of Words and Idioms that Mean Something Else in Illinois; posted as a public service for the consumers of news... City Council: A rectangular block of rubber, affixed to a rounded wooden handle. Ordinarily used in conjunction with an ink pad. (Alternate definition: a justification for tax increases). City Jobs: Political jobs. (Alternate definition: Bitter people who thought they were getting one of those cool ghost-payrolling jobs, but were surprised to find that they didn't). Collective Bargaining: The union boss talks; you listen. There’s nothing collective about it, and there’s no bargaining either. (Alternate definition: a justification for tax...

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced today that it was ending its effort to seize Cliven Bundy’s herd of cattle that has been illegally grazing on federal land. The reason the BLM suspended the cattle round up was to protect the safety of federal employees and members of the general public. Bundy and a smattering of his right-wing supporters have threatened to wage a range war if the government continues with its effort to enforce the law. Let that sink in for a minute. The government is halting their efforts to enforce the law because of the threats being...

Just saw news flash - BLM is pulling out over concerns for safety.

User Actions Follow ✨✨ Starr ✨✨ �@Gator_Girl_2489 Pay attention people!! WATCH http://www.ustream.tv/channel/thepetesantillishow … #BundyRanch Reply Retweet Favorite More

U.S. Senator Harry Reid recognized nine years ago that connections between his official duties and the lobbying activities of his relatives could lead to ethical questions. In 2003, the Nevada Democrat publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after newspaper reports showed that Nevada industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid's sons or son-in-law for representation. Now, questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm...

BUNKERVILLE — The militiamen rolled in to draw a line in the dirt. About 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas, they set up camp on a sun-baked patch of land next to a bend in the Virgin River, keeping supplies — like rucksacks and sleeping bags — in neat piles under the roof of an abandoned shack. Gruff and largely unshaven, dressed in camouflage fatigues and cut-off shirts, the men kept their intentions quiet, telling news reporters the reason they pulled their trucks into this rural desert town — on one of the hottest days of the year — is...

By now you’re familiar with the standoff between the federal government, i.e. the Bureau of Land Management, and 67 year-old rancher Cliven Bundy. .. The BLM asserts their power through the expressed desire to protect the endangered desert tortoise, a tortoise so “endangered” that their population can no longer be contained by the refuge constructed for them so the government is closing it and euthanizing over a thousand tortoises. The tortoises, the excuse that BLM has given for violating claims to easements and running all but one lone rancher out of southern Nevada, is doing fine. In fact, the tortoise...