Free Republic

A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a decision allowing residents of Kansas and Arizona to register to vote using a federal form without providing proof of their U.S. citizenship.

With a 10 point lead in the most recent polls, Jeb Bush has apparently decided that 2016 is his year. He has now resigned from all corporate boards, clearing the way for his run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Washington Post: Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, moving closer to a possible presidential run, has resigned all of his corporate and nonprofit board memberships, including with his own education foundation, his office said late Wednesday night. He also resigned as a paid adviser to a for-profit education company that sells online courses to public university students in exchange...

Inside the infamous Ferrari crash that brought down Ling Jihua Staff Reporter 2015-01-01 13:29 (GMT+8) More stunning details have been revealed about the infamous Ferrari crash that killed the only son of fallen senior Chinese official Ling Jihua and sent his once promising political career into a tailspin. Ling, best known as the "political fixer" of former president Hu Jintao, has been placed under a probe for unspecified "serious discipline violations, according to a statement from the Central Inspection for Discipline Inspection, the country's top anti-graft watchdog. The 58-year-old once appeared destined for a seat on the Communist Party's elite...

Including transportation and security, total cost for the July fundraiser totaled $896,277.80 in taxpayer expenses (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it has obtained records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revealing that expenditures for security provided to President Obama on his fundraising visit to Denver, Colorado on July 8 and 9, 2014, cost taxpayers a total of $200,383.70. The documents came in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on October 16, 2014 ( Judicial Watch v. United States Secret Service (No. 1:14-cv-01732)). Previous documents released by Judicial Watch from theUnited States Air Force...

The holidays will be a little merrier for about 200 appointees of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and other constitutional officers: They are getting raises ranging from three percent to 12 percent at an annual cost of $1.4 million. The raises were announced by Ben Barnes, who oversees the budget as the secretary of policy and management. His salary jumps by 12 percent, from $186,999 to $209,439. All the raises take effect on Dec. 26. For Barnes and most of the other top officials, including the governor's chief of staff, Mark Ojakian, the raises are the first since joining the Malloy...

Turkey’s top judicial body has dismissed four judges who investigated corruption allegations against the inner circle of President Erdogan. The scandal dragged down four government ministers. The four prosecutors are accused of abusing their authority by leading the December 2013 corruption investigation that shook the government of then-Prime Minister Erdogan, and touched his inner circle. They were suspended on Tuesday by the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK). An investigation will determine whether they can continue in the profession. …

2014 has been a year of anniversaries. It was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War — a war which many at the time saw as madness, and predicted that it would be the harbinger of a Second World War a generation later. 2014 was also the 70th anniversary of the fateful landing at Normandy that marked the beginning of the end of World War II. 2014 was likewise the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that marked the beginning of the end of racial segregation, the 50th anniversary of...

Federal authorities are investigating substantial payments made to the State Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, by a small law firm that seeks real estate tax reductions for commercial and residential properties in New York City, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have found that the law firm, Goldberg & Iryami, P.C., has paid Mr. Silver the sums over roughly a decade, but that he did not list that income on his annual financial disclosure forms, as required,...

When Barack Obama was elected to be the 44th president of the United States, there were high hopes for what he could accomplish. A nation that had made it’s way past slavery, through a Civil War and beyond segregation was finally going to fully heal as Americans elected their first black president. Sadly, that promise and those dreams never came true. In fact, the opposite has happened. America’s race scars have been cut wide open, and the healing has been replaced with unnecessary and deceitful division. How? Obama’s decision to build a partnership with and lend credibility to one particular...

I am furious, in pain, and deeply offended by those who laud this betrayal of the Cuban people as a great moment in history. My family and native land were destroyed by the brutal Castro regime. In 1959, as an 8-year-old, I listened to mobs shout “paredon!” (to the firing squad!). I watched televised executions, and was terrified by the incessant pressure to agree with a bearded dictator’s ideals. I am now a professor of history and religion at Yale University….

Saying he has reformed his life, current and former law enforcement officials on Monday backed the proposed pardon of a man convicted of armed assault with attempt to murder for his part in a 1989 shooting that left a victim paralyzed. True-See Allah, formerly known as Troy Christopher Watson, was not the shooter, but he was convicted for participating in the shooting of Macarthur Williams, who was paralyzed. With an eye on a potential Boston City Council bid, he is seeking a pardon for the conviction as well as possession of marijuana and receiving a stolen motor vehicle.

Suggestions that police are biased and not doing their jobs properly -- made by some of the nation's top leaders -- create a dangerous climate for the men and women who serve and protect, says former U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.). "Why do we believe police need retraining or reorganization and reforming?" West asked. "The most important thing to understand is leaders establish climate, an atmosphere," West told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren Monday night. "And when you have people, such as the president, such as the attorney general, Eric Holder, and (New York) Mayor Bill de Blasio, and look...

A huge political scandal is slowly coming to light in Wisconsin, as information comes to light about the conduct of that state’s Government Accountability Board (GAB) as it persecuted supporters of Governor Scott Walker, who bravely took on the public employee unions of that state.  The outrageous tactics used included midnight SWAT team raids on Walker’s political supporters.  Ten days ago, I wrote about some of the potential law-breaking and document-alteration engaged in by the prosecutors.  But new evidence has just come to light. Yesterday, Judge Lee S. Dreyfus of the Waukesha County Court unsealed a trove of documents...

President’s Political Junkets Continue Unabated Who is On the Obama Enemies List? Judicial Watch Sues to Find Out. The President from ACORN President’s Political Junkets Continue Unabated It has become a tiresome, tedious – and costly – routine. Hollywood calls with a passel of cash, and President Obama comes running – at great expense to taxpayers – to fill up his political coffers. That’s what we discovered anew after obtaining records from the U.S. Department of the Air Force highlighting yet another Obama fundraising trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. These documents came to us in response to...

McDonald’s and its franchisees illegally retaliated against employees for participating in union-related activities, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer alleged Friday in a case with sweeping industry implications. NLRB general counsel Richard Griffin announced Friday he will issue 13 complaints involving 78 charges against franchises and McDonald’s USA, LLC. Though many of these alleged labor violations were committed by independent franchise owners, Griffin ruled earlier this year that McDonald’s can be held liable for those actions as a so-called joint employer, leaving the corporatrion — and potentially other franchisors — exposed to such claims. McDonald’s said the decision will...

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Suspended California state Sen. Leland Yee could face a jury as early as June for charges of political corruption and conspiracy to import guns. At a scheduling conference on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Yee will be tried along with his political consultant Keith Jackson, who also faces drug and murder-for-hire charges. Breyer said those charges will be tried separately, but lawyers for the defendants, including Yee's lawyer James Lassart, were not satisfied. "The firearms charges are going to be extremely prejudicial. The government has acquired 50 to 70 different firearms that, undoubtedly to...

December 17, 2014, 08:15 am Obamas say they're no strangers to racism By Justin Sink The president and the first lady chronicled a series experiences in People magazine that they say demonstrated some of the latent racism that blacks in America continue to face. "There's no black male my age, who's a professional, who hasn't come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn't hand them their car keys," the president said. The first lady said someone had asked her husband to get them coffee because he was wearing a tuxedo at a black-tie dinner,...

The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials. The woman, Estefanía Isaías, had been barred from coming to the United States after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids. But the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration.

When the depth of corruption, deceit and red tape bureaucracy reach such astronomical levels, it is time for a complete overhaul! Fire them all!! Both the Congress and the Senate passed a 2015 spending bill, in record time, that has been labeled a “Cromnibus.” But where was the fight? Where were our representatives who swore they would not fund amnesty, Obamacare, taxpayer-funded abortion, and more irresponsible spending? No where to be seen! About Obama’s illegal amnesty, “We are going to fight the president tooth and nail if he continues down this path. This is the wrong way to govern. This...

With the passage of a $1.1 trillion spending bill that fails to defund President Obama’s immigration amnesty plan (as promised), it seems many Republicans still believe in Beltway fairy tales. If President Obama had shut down the government by vetoing an appropriations bill that didn’t fund the president’s amnesty plan, so the fairy tale goes, Republicans would be blamed and damaged politically. There’s just one problem with this fairy tale: the 2014 election results. Nobody blamed Republicans for a shutdown in 2013, and nobody cared. The Washington establishment fears big bad shutdowns because they illustrate to the rest of the...