Free Republic

Oregon’s Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber will resign this afternoon, multiple sources told Portland’s KOIN. News of the governor’s resignation comes after the governor was accused of using his influence to arrange contracts for his fiance’s green energy company and ordering the deletion of thousands of emails relevant to the scandal.

The authorization for the use of military force against ISIS that the Obama administration sent Congress this week is not worthy of the name. Its language is far more about what the president won’t do against the terrorist army that controls much of Syria and Iraq—limits on ground troops and a sunset provision for the authorization after three years—than what he will do. Congress should reject it. If the threat of ISIS is as dire as the president says it is in the preamble of his resolution, if ISIS really does pose “a grave threat to the people and territorial...

The Democrats on the FCC are working towards the creation of massive regulations on the internet. Preparing them in secrecy, they apparently have 322 pages worth of regulations that they’re prepared to vote on later this month. Meanwhile at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) Democrats want to create massive regulations for speech on the internet. Apparently the Democrats aren’t happy with recent Supreme Court decisions which limit the government’s ability to prohibit people from donating money to campaigns and PAC’s. Their solution is to have government regulate internet speech. Some of the rules they’re talking about would regulate blogs, even...

DONNA, Texas – The president of the Donna Independent School District (ISD), Albert Sandoval, hired a convicted felon to be general counsel for the district and agreed to pay him $300,000 per year in retainer fees plus $225 per hour for legal services. The negotiating of the contract with Robert J. Salinas, and his hiring was done without input from the school board. Breitbart Texas’ Ildefonso Ortiz previously reported that Salinas was hired at a rate that was over three times the retainer that was paid to his predecessor, the law firm of Guerra & Farah. That firm was paid...

Rev. Jesse Jackson said Wednesday he is planning to celebrate Jackie Robinson West at a “Reaffirmation of Championship” celebration on Saturday. The event will be held at 9:30 a.m. at Rainbow PUSH Coalition, 930 E. 50th St. ”I was upset to the point of tears this morning,” Jackson said, adding that he already had spoken to some of the parents of the players and was distressed to learn they had heard the news through the media. Their children already have been harassed over the controversy, Jackson said, and “it’s not like the children are cheating.” Violating a boundary line when...

The charitable foundation run by Hillary Clinton and her family has received as much as $81m from wealthy international donors who were clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank. Leaked files from HSBC’s Swiss banking division reveal the identities of seven donors to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation with accounts in Geneva. They include Frank Giustra, Canadian mining magnate and one of the foundation’s biggest financial backers, and Richard Caring, the British retail magnate who, the bank’s internal records show, used his tax-free Geneva account to transfer $1m into the New York-based foundation. Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over...

recently, came to my attention after filing a police report, whereby the city manager granted special provisions to his insurance carrier whom was in violation of a zoning ordinance. the zoning ordinance is specific and the city manager allowed the zoning ordinance infraction to be overlooked, a multi-vehicle accident whereby serious injuries ensued. The city manager is claiming doing nothing wrong, but the emails claim otherwise

David Brock on Monday abruptly resigned from the board of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, revealing rifts that threaten the big-money juggernaut being built to support Hillary Clinton’s expected presidential campaign. In a resignation letter obtained by POLITICO, Brock, a close Clinton ally, accused Priorities officials of planting “an orchestrated political hit job” against his own pro-Clinton groups, American Bridge and Media Matters. Those groups — along with another pro-Clinton group, the super PAC Ready for Hillary — had their fundraising practices called into question last week by a New York Times report. It pointed out that veteran Democratic...

U.S. Senate Follows JW Lead on Obamacare FraudObama IRS Obstructs Justice?Election Integrity Battle Moves to Supreme CourtU.S. Senate Follows JW Lead on Obamacare Fraud Someone on Capitol Hill has taken notice of the lawsuit we filed last fall challenging members of Congress who are taking advantage of health benefits they are not entitled to claim. That someone is Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) who now chairs the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee. As a prominent figure in the new Republican majority, Vitter is well-positioned to investigate and expose illegal maneuverings that make it possible for elected officials, and their staff members,...

Oregon's governor is struggling to deal with allegations that his fiancee used his position to land clients for her environmental consulting business, claims that have drawn an ethics investigation and the scrutiny of the state's attorney general. Although his role in arranging the deals isn't clear, the scandal has posed a threat to the decades-long political career of four-term Democrat John Kitzhaber, Oregon's longest-serving governor. The editorial board at the state's largest newspaper, The Oregonian, called for him to resign this week, saying the controversy has become such a distraction that he can't effectively lead. Two advisers to the Republican...

Joe Biden will skip Israeli Prime Minister’s Congressional speech in March. He is going to leave the country. Minority Leader Pelosi says Democrats will be busy and she hopes the event won’t take place. And now we know that the Obama administration told Black Caucus members to skip the speech and to publicly speak out against it. The Daily Mail reported: Two prominent black Democrats in the House of Representatives are vowing to skip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress next month, a move that a White House insider says was put in motion by the Obama administration.

Al Capone, America’s “favorite” gangster, went to prison because he failed to pay $215,000 in taxes from his gambling profits. Al Sharpton, on the other hand, is still romping around screaming about racism despite the fact that he owes roughly $4 million to Federal and State revenuers. I guess the IRS is just too busy harassing conservatives to care about some uppity liberal who’s a few million dollars behind on his taxes.The gaffable (is that a word?) Al Sharpton personally faces Federal tax liens for more than $3 million in back taxes. He has over $770,000 in state tax liens. Two...

The self-proclaimed “activist” Attorney General, Eric Holder, told reporters that he “fixed” George Bush’s politicized Department of Justice. In fact, he went on to explain that the Obama DOJ is completely unbiased, irrefutably fair, and painstakingly judicious. And, humbly, the guy who once sued Ally Bank for discrimination without any actual evidence took full credit for “fixing” the politicization that took place during the years of Obama’s incompetent predecessor.And, he did it all without any intended sarcasm, satire, or irony… Given his history of suing banks, and handing the revenue over to Democrat oriented non-profits, I’d have to say this took a little bit...

THE FDLE POLITICAL WEAPON The accusations of using the FDLE as a political weapon against opponents of the Governor Scott administration may not be limited to the incident involving interim Orange County Clerk of Courts Colleen Reilly. It appears another case involving retaliation, document suppression, conspiracy and unlawful imprisonment of a Grand Jury Foreman Whistleblower may have occurred as local and state officials, including Governor Rick Scott, were accused of bribery for the implementation of Common Core just before Gov. Scott’s re-election in November. Introduction Corruption in our state, county, and local governments goes very deep and wide. According to...

MINNEAPOLIS — For decades, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has been shifting money into separate nonprofits that may be beyond the reach of its creditors in bankruptcy court. *snip* The nonprofits were created for various reasons, but they carry the potential benefit of protecting the church’s assets from liability linked to clergy abuse suits.

...The new revelation that Nisman had drafted arrest warrants for the president and the foreign minister further illustrates the heightened tensions between him and the government before he was found dead Jan. 18 at his apartment with a gunshot wound to his head. He had been scheduled the next day to provide details before Congress about his accusations against Kirchner.... He acknowledged that previous legal cases had shaken Argentina’s political establishment, but he emphasized that this case involved a request to arrest a sitting president. “It would have been a scandal on a level previously unseen,” Berensztein said. Kirchner, who...

California state regulators allowed oil companies to dispose of wastewater in clean groundwater supplies for years, according to a new report. The San Francisco Chronicle, citing a review of state data, reports that oil companies built more than 170 waste-disposal wells feeding into bodies of groundwater that could otherwise have been used for drinking or irrigation during one of the area’s worst droughts in centuries. The wells are primarily located in the state’s agricultural Central Valley region, which was particularly devastated by the drought.

In recent years, conservative politicians have found themselves prosecuted not for the types of crimes elected officials committed in the past like theft, bribery and nepotism, but instead for nebulous sounding activity, the kind where it is difficult to understand why exactly something was wrong. It has proven easy for Democrat prosecutors to convict each “ham sandwich” victim, because the laws have become so vast, vague and complex that the public – including those serving as jurors – cannot understand them. On January 7, former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a conservative Republican once considered a leading contender for President, was...

"Could you be a church in Selma and not march, just handle your own community?" says pastor Stan Mitchell of GracePointe Church. "I don’t think I can do that." Three Sundays ago in Franklin, Tenn., twenty minutes south of Nashville and in the heart of the country’s contemporary Christian music industry, pastor Stan Mitchell of GracePointe Church preached what was perhaps the most important sermon of his life. You can watch it above–start around 44:40 if you are short on time.

You almost have to feel sorry for new Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf (D). The man’s just moved into Harrisburg, gotten his voice mail straightened out, starting to get a feel for the morning commute, and then WHAMM! – his (Democratic) Attorney General (Kathleen Kane) is on the verge of being indicted for perjury and his (Democratic) Treasurer (Rob McCord) is resigning, not to mention preparing to plead out on extortion charges: