Free Republic

A former rising star in the Republican Party, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was red-faced and sobbing Thursday after a jury convicted him and his wife on multiple counts related to influence-peddling while he was in office. After more than a month of sometimes soul-baring testimony, the federal jury issued guilty verdicts on 11 counts against McDonnell, while clearing him on two others. His wife, Maureen, was convicted on nine while cleared on four. The charges involved gifts the couple received from a businessman, including a Rolex watch, a $15,000 check for their daughter’s wedding and other items that are...

A federal jury Thursday found former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, guilty of public corruption — sending a message that they believed the couple sold the office once occupied by Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson to a free spending Richmond businessman for golf outings, lavish vacations and $120,000 in sweetheart loans.

DALLAS, Texas -- It is like a Texas sampler platter of the 2014-15 Common Core offerings served up around the state -- Sadlier "Common Core Enriched Edition" Vocabulary, Springboard and Carnegie Math. There is even a kindergarten handout that defines the importance of the term "Common Core." Parents are up in arms. More so, they are worried. They have heard endlessly that there is no Common Core in Texas. It is the law. Yet, this is what is coming home in the backpacks. To her surprise, a Boerne Independent School District (ISD) parent pulled out the "6 Math Terms to Know...

On August 28, police in Davenport, Iowa, arrested Tyshon VanBlue, 24, following an investigation which alleges he raped two mentally disabled young men at the Special Olympics games held on the campus of Iowa State University in May. VanBlue was employed as a caretaker at a residential care facility in Davenport, and was assigned to the two victims when the abuse took place. VanBlue reportedly assaulted both men on May 22, in Maple Hall dormitory. Both men are in their 20s, according to court documents. The Des Moines Register reported: “During the interview with St. Luke's Child Protection Center, the...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog I just added these 5 new items to my list of Obama’s misdeeds, bringing the total to 826 The complete list can be found at http://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/Here are the new entries:822) Obama sued Bank of America because it did exactly what he had told it to do. Obama then gave some of the settlement money to left wing groups that he had worked for.While working as a “community organizer,” Obama filed lawsuits which forced banks to give mortgages to people with bad credit and low incomes. As a result, many of these people ended up defaulting on...

A joint session of parliament is to be held in Pakistan as PM Nawaz Sharif seeks to rally support against protestors calling for his resignation. Clashes between security forces and demonstrators continued for a third day on Monday in the capital Islamabad. The army has denied suggestions it is backing anti-government groups, insisting it is "apolitical". Mr. Sharif-who was elected last year-has said he is determined to protect democracy and will not resign. Opposition cleric Tahir ul-Qadri has insisted that Mr. Sharif should step down to face murder charges and a terrorism probe. Mr. Quadri is supported by another opposition...

It started on the bumper cars in the children’s arcade of the local shopping mall. Lucy was 12, and a group of teenage boys, handsome and flirtatious, treated her and her friends to free rides and ice cream after school. Over time, older men were introduced to the girls, while the boys faded away. Soon they were getting rides in real cars, and were offered vodka and marijuana. One man in particular, a Pakistani twice her age and the leader of the group, flattered her and bought her drinks and even a mobile phone. Lucy liked him. The rapes started...

DES MOINES, Iowa — A former state lawmaker accused of accepting payments to change his support to a different presidential candidate in the 2012 election cycle has pleaded guilty to two federal charges. The Department of Justice says Kent Sorenson, a former Republican state senator, admitted to receiving “under-the-table” payments from Ron Paul’s campaign committee in return for switching his support and services from candidate Michele Bachmann. The payments totaled about $73,000 and were made monthly in the amount of around $8,000. They were concealed by first sending the money to a film production company, then through another company —...

The mayor of Lynn, Mass. says that some of the illegal aliens from Guatemala who are enrolled in her city’s public schools are adults with graying hair and “more wrinkles than I have.” “They are not all children,” Judith Flanagan Kennedy told reporters at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. “One of the things that we did notice when we were processing some of these students coming in was that they were adults,” she said. She added that the federal government will not allow school officials to verify their ages even though one...

<p>Scandal: Talk of crashed and recycled hard drives, like that Benghazi video, was a distraction from the truth, which is that the missing emails detailing IRS perfidy exist on a system intended for government wide catastrophe.</p> <p>It would make sense that such a system would exist in the event that, say, the Islamic State or some other terrorist entity managed a nuclear attack on Washington D.C.</p>

California history textbooks will now be asked to cover "the significance of President Barack Obama's election," under a law signed this week by Gov. Jerry Brown. requires California's Instructional Quality Commission "to consider including, and recommending for adoption by the state board, instruction on the election of President Barack Obama and the significance of the United States electing its first African American President, as appropriate." The author, Democratic Assemblyman Chris Holden, said in a statement: "We want to make sure that future generations understand that the election of our nation's first African American president was a historic step in the...

Former acting director of cyber security for the Department of Health and Human Services Timothy DeFoggi was convicted for a myriad of gruesome child pornography charges Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced. DeFoggi, who had top security clearance in his capacity as cyber security director, first joined the child pornography website PedoBook in March 2012. The Omaha World-Herald reported that he was arrested in April of last year, when law enforcement officials serving a search warrant found him downloading child pornography in his home. In addition to viewing and soliciting child pornography, reportedly asking another member of the site whether...

When President Obama declared last Super Bowl Sunday that there was "not even a smidgeon of corruption" at the Internal Revenue Service, he gave his personal Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to it and especially vouched for Lois Lerner, the key figure in the IRS scandal over the treatment of tax exemption applications. To vouch is "to give personal assurances; give a guarantee" (www.thefreedictionary.com/vouching). Team Obama predictably blamed conspiracy theorists for the idea that something was amiss at the IRS. To date, no evidence has surfaced that President Obama personally ordered discriminatory treatment of tax exemption applications to promote his...

Justice Department officials today announced that Timothy DeFoggi, former director of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Cyber Security division was convicted for his role in a child pornography ring. DeFoggi, 56, was convicted of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, conspiracy to advertise and distribute child pornography, and accessing a computer with intent to view child pornography in connection with his membership in a child pornography website by a federal jury in Nebraska\, according to an official statement by officials with the FBI's Omaha Division. DeFoggi is the sixth individual associated with the child porn ring...

Led by state representative Bob McDermott, outraged parents in Hawaii continue to fight valiantly to get an explicit sex instruction program coauthored by Planned Parenthood out of their middle schools. Rep. McDermott has just released his second meticulously researched report detailing the impropriety of the curriculum and violations of state and federal law regarding the testing and implementation of the program. At the same time, television ads have begun airing that feature a Hawaiian grandmother extolling the virtues of Pono Choices—dubbed Porno Choices by those who are familiar with the content. It is the first instance of which we are...

Shannon Bream ?@ShannonBream · 8s BREAKING: #TomFitton of @JudicialWatch just told us on @FoxNews DOJ atty told JW atty that IRS/Lerner emails DO EXIST in backup somewhere

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) suggested that Republican candidates in this year's midterm elections should run on granting a pathway to citizenship for all of the country's illegal immigrants. Ryan, who had reportedly been working behind the scenes with Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) to get House Republicans to support a broader immigration bill, said that he was "having problems" convincing conservatives to support immigration reform, which he said was "very important." In a Wednesday interview with Bloomberg News, Ryan said he supported a "path to legalization" for all of the country's illegal immigrants. He said illegal immigrants should be able to...

During the last week of May abortion proponent Dawn Porter and members of the National Network of Abortion Funds traversed southern Texas and upper Mexico to film footage for an upcoming documentary, Trapped. Trapped will “look at the impact of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws in the southern United States, and their disproportionate effect on women living in poverty.” There are currently no abortion clinics in the Rio Grande Valley, which borders Mexico. The nearest one in the U.S. is 230 miles north in San Antonio. The group filmed themselves crossing the border to buy Misoprostol, an ulcer...

In a piece for The Washington Post, blogger Carter Eskew recently argued, “It’s time for a new dialogue on abortion.”Eskew, director at The Glover Park Group (which lobbies for Planned Parenthood) and former strategist for Al Gore, wrote in response to his colleague Janet Harris, who insisted abortion is never immoral or “difficult.” “Control over one’s reproduction is a deeply affirmative value,” he approved, and “It’s time to assert it.” Citing Harris, Eskew affirmed, “She couldn’t be more right” and added, “the current political dialogue is even worse than she documents.” “The pro-choice movement,” he lamented, “has been on the...

A U.S. District judge ruled on Wednesday that the Department of Justice must turn over a privilege log of documents withheld by the agency on Operation Fast and Furious. Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Justice Department must provide the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with a list of documents — but not the documents themselves — withheld on the gunrunning operation.