Free Republic

'WE will hunt you down!" thundered Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) during the AIG bonus demagogue-a-thon on the House floor Thursday. "If they're not going to give [the bonuses] back, we're going to take them back," growled Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who vowed to recover the taxpayers' "ill-gotten gains" from rogue corporate executives. House Republicans pressed the Democrats on who knew what and when regarding the AIG bonus protections included in Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd's now infamous amendment to the stimulus bill. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) shrieked about the Bush administration's culpability. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) smugly patted Democrats on...

A Maryland grand jury on Friday indicted Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon on 12 criminal counts, including theft and perjury, for alleged official misconduct beginning when she was a councilwoman. A number of the charges relate to gifts that prosecutors say Ms. Dixon received from developers, including her former boyfriend, Ronald Lipscomb, and didn't properly disclose. Mr. Lipscomb isn't named in the indictment but was charged with bribery this week in Baltimore. His lawyer has said he is innocent. In addition, the Maryland prosecutor's office charged that for four years Ms. Dixon misused holiday gift cards that were intended to be...

Yahoo has done Andrew Sullivan proud with their headlines.....and doesn't this have a "deja vue" ring to it? And, didn't we just see this same media trick in September? Of course the article has to go on to mention that the babies Father-Levi Johnston mothers was recently arrested on Drug Charges. Johnston's mother, Sherry, was arrested on drug charges earlier this month after an undercover narcotics investigation.

Week of babies and lies Sarah Palin talks about her daughter's baby, and a hoax that fooled Oprah Winfrey falls apart. Buzz Week in Review A collective exhale ushered the volatile 2008 out the door this week, although one baby who caused a political storm managed to quietly slip himself out before the end. Meanwhile, a long-time Oprah hoax and high-seas piracy stirred up the Buzz—and the searches—during this transition period. Mom, Do We Have to Do a Combo Celebration? Bristol Palin's boy emerged not as the grandson of the first female vice president, but as another December baby who...

<p>WLS just broke in to say Roland Burris, a former Illinois Comptroller, has been named to the Senate by Rod.</p>

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is expected today to name former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate. The action comes despite warnings by Democratic Senate leaders that they would not seat anyone appointed by the disgraced governor who faces criminal charges of trying to sell the post, sources familiar with the decision said.

Caroline Kennedy, you know, might need, you know, a speech coach, um, if she, you know, wants, um, to be a senator. Um, you know? Kennedy, who gave a flurry of media interviews on Friday and Saturday, revealed some cringing verbal tics that showed her inexperience as a speaker, experts told the Daily News. In a 30-minute session with The News on Saturday, Kennedy punctuated her answers with "you know" more than 200 times. "Um" was fairly constant, too.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An accelerant was poured around the exterior of Gov. Sarah Palin's church before fire heavily damaged the building, federal investigators said Monday. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the accelerant was poured at several locations around the church, including entrances.

Fox news, other news channel, presser coming up.

An unflattering portrait depicting Illinois First Lady Patricia Blagojevich as a modern-day Lady Macbeth who plotted against her husband's perceived enemies and backed his corrupt schemes emerged in court documents connected to the governor's arrest Tuesday. Her alleged ambitions and brashness are outlined in a 76-page federal criminal complaint: She helped her husband hatch a plan to sell President-elect Barack Obama's old U.S. Senate seat. She angled to trade her husband's power for lucrative spots on corporate boards. And she unleashed an obscenity-filled tirade suggesting Tribune Co. ownership should "just fire" Chicago Tribune editorial writers if the company wanted the...

Matthew Spalding, Director of the Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation, says the visitor center selectively cuts passages from the Constitution, weighing in on a long-running debate about the scope and limits of federal power by taking the liberal side of that debate, envisioning broad congressional powers that the founding fathers never intended. "I started looking at this stuff and it's just patently absurd," he said. "The dominant message when you walk though the doors in this exhibit you're hit with is the role of Congress is to fulfill our greatest aspirations. So the message you're teaching these...

November 25, 2008, 9:45 a.m. Opposed to Holder without ApologyThe shameful pardons are disqualifying. By Andrew C. McCarthy I’ll concede this much to Lanny Davis: Last Friday night, during our Hannity & Colmes debate over President-Elect Barack Obama’s selection of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General, Davis said (or I should say, screeched) that I’d soon be apologizing, and he’s right. I am sorry that our discussion degenerated into a screaming match. That’s wince-making television that doesn’t edify anyone. So I do apologize to anyone who had to endure that segment. But Davis’s hysterical suggestion that I...

By now you’ve all heard the Fox News report last week that “unnamed” former McCain advisers leaked that Sarah Palin was confused about whether Africa was a continent, and which countries were in NAFTA. I was perfectly happy staying under the radar as an anonymous source for Fox News‘ Carl Cameron, but now that Palin has accused her accusers of being “unprofessional…jerks…cowards… taking things out of context, and then tried to spread something on national news” and begun to cast doubt on the Fox News report, maybe she’s right to a certain extent. For those of us on the McCain...

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb. The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground. The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five...

Zomblog has obtained an extremely rare copy of the first issue of Osawatomie, a newspaper published by the Weather Underground in 1975. Noteworthy passages are reproduced below, along with exact transcriptions. The full pages, with each passage in context in high resolution, are found at the bottom of this post. Much of Osawatomie, which was written at a time when the Dohrn-Ayers wing of the Weather Underground was transitioning from terrorism to “working from the inside” for revolution, concerns itself with the need to encourage “organizers” who will work in “communities” and use “audacity” to bring about “socialism” in America....

BOWLING GREEN, OH - Sarah Palin joined her running mate's attacks against Barack Obama and the media Wednesday, suggesting the Los Angeles Times is withholding a videotape that shows Obama watching as a former Palestinian Liberation Organization spokesman bashed Israel. Palin departed from her stump speech to talk about Obama's "assortment of friends from Chicago." She described Rashid Khalidi, the former PLO spokesman, as "another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years." She said Obama was at a party for Khalidi in 2003, when he described Israel as the...

It's moving now folks. Drudge just a few minutes ago posted a red headline on the top of his page with the link to the audio posted earlier here on FR of Obama's 2001 comments where he talks about breaking free of the “constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution” and in so doing, achieve “social justice” through “redistributive change.”

Media analyst Bob Knight is questioning the Obama campaign's decision to sell Chicago election night coverage packages to news outlets. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet notes the Obama campaign is planning to charge reporters $935 for a package that includes access to a heated file tent, power, cable TV, Internet, and food. The cheapest place a reporter could stand on a riser with a view is $880. Members of the media will also be charged $300 for an unlimited long distance phone line and $275 for high-speed wired Internet. According to Sweet, "This is an outrageous pay-to-play plan that caters...

ACORN doesn't seem to have learned that if you're going to lie, at least lie consistently. The radical left-wing group, which has been arguing strenuously that Project Vote is a separate entity, posted a job listing at idealist.org for Project Vote. This demonstrates that the two organizations are virtually one and the same. In case the ad magically disappears, here is a screen grab of the top of it: The job requirements section (not shown in above screen grab) reads (SKIP TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST IF YOU'RE IN A HURRY): Description: Project Vote is seeking a Finance Director...

Chicago New Party Update by Bruce Bentley About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to update members on local activities and to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates. The NP is being very active in organization building and politics. There are 300 members in Chicago. In order to build an organizational and financial base the NP is sponsoring house parties. Locally it has been successful both fiscally and in building a grassroots base. Nationwide it has resulted in 1000 people committed to monthly contributions. The...

Whether intentionally or not Jesse Jackson is causing problems again for Barack Obama. The latest from the New York Post: Jackson believes that, although “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades” remain strong, they’ll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House. “Obama is about change,” Jackson told me in a wide-rangingMcPeak said progress had not been made in the Middle East peace process because of the Jewish community in New York City and Miami. And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is...

Newly discovered documents from the Illinois state archives prove Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has lied about his opposition as an Illinois state senator to legislation requiring health officials to provide care to babies who survived abortion. Obama has repeatedly claimed he would have voted for Illinois’ version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) had it included language to protect abortion rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, as the federal version of the bill did, which sailed through the U.S. Senate 98-0. Contrary to what Obama has said, forgotten records from the Illinois Senate archives show Obama did...

Chicago New Party Update by Bruce Bentley About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to update members on local activities and to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates. The NP is being very active in organization building and politics. There are 300 members in Chicago. In order to build an organizational and financial base the NP is sponsoring house parties. Locally it has been successful both fiscally and in building a grassroots base. Nationwide it has resulted in 1000 people committed to monthly contributions. The...

Obama stretched out his schedule for withdrawing troops from Iraq. During the debate, Obama said we could "reduce" the number of combat troops in 16 months: Obama: "Now, what I've said is we should end this war responsibly. We should do it in phases. But in 16 months we should be able to reduce our combat troops, put – provide some relief to military families and our troops and bolster our efforts in Afghanistan so that we can capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda." But in Oct. 2007, Obama supported removing all combat troops from Iraq within...

Please post the lies and gaffes that Obama made.    I know he made one --   Saying "the eight years the Bush administration has concentrated on Iraq." (I'm paraphrasing)   What a farce he is.     Please add the versions of Obama gaffes and detected lies that you heard.................

FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005 (Bill pdf ) The United States SenateMay 25, 2006Statement by John McCainSen. John McCain [R-AZ]: Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae's regulator reported that the company's quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were "illusions deliberately and systematically created" by the company's senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case...

When the federal government announced two months ago that it would prop up mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, CRP looked at how much money members of Congress had collected since 1989 from the companies. On Sunday the government completely took over the two government-sponsored enterprises, and we've returned to our data to bring you the updates, this time providing a list of all 354 lawmakers who have gotten money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (in July we posted the top 25). These totals are based on data released electronically from the FEC on Sept. 2 and include...

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. "He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview. Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in...

...when Obama was running around Indonesia in diapers, McCain was mastering this slightly technical piece of machinery...

(Regarding) the phony inquiry being staged by Alaska Democrats concerning Governor Palin’s sacking of recalcitrant underling Walt Monegan. For anyone doubting that this whole ”investigation” is a partisan scam cooked up by a bunch of good-old-boy political hacks, here’s a smoking gun from the Obama-Biden campaign web site:

In her game-changing convention speech, Sarah Palin took a swipe at Obama for having been nothing more in his life than a ‘community organiser’. This prompted the Obama campaign to issue a pained defence of community organisation as a way of promoting social change ‘from the bottom up’. The impression is that community organising is a worthy if woolly and ultimately ineffectual grassroots activity. This is to miss something of the greatest importance: that in the world of Barack Obama, community organisers are a key strategy in a different game altogether; and the name of that game is revolutionary Marxism....

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President?... Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens?... Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial?... Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy…. What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen.... Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?... [T]he indispensable credential...

CAC DOCUMENTS LINK BARACK OBAMA TO 1960'S TERRORIST AYERS UPDATE: Newly Released Documents Highlight Obama’s Relationship With Ayers Fox News hat tip Carolyn Obama’s association with Ayers, who now teaches at the university, has become an issue in the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign. The Weather Underground took credit for several nonfatal bombings on targets that included the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, and critics accuse Obama of rubbing elbows with an unabashed 1960s radical. Obama has said that, although he knew Ayers as a professor involved in community outreach efforts in Chicago, he doesn’t share Ayers’ extreme views. The massive...

The Chicago bully tactics aren’t going to work. While Obama sics his lawyers and Kossack minions on TV stations that dare to air an independent ad about his close relationship with Weather Underground terrorist-turned-academic Bill Ayers, the truth is seeping out. Thanks to the efforts of NRO’s Stanley Kurtz, blogger Steve Diamond, and intense pressure from Internet readers and talk radio listeners, the University of Illinois - Chicago was forced to release a trove of papers that a former official attempted to shield from public view. There are some 140 boxes and 1,000 files to sift through — and MSM...

Greta says there's new information on the relationship between Obama and William Ayers. Is this something new? She called it breaking news?

Covering a sensitive and explosive subject that has been off-limits for the major U.S. media, the London Daily Telegraph is now claiming that Communist Frank Marshall Davis was a strong influence over a young Barack Obama for nine years of his life, rather than just four, and was a sex pervert and pothead. The Telegraph article alleges that Davis was a bisexual engaged in “sordid” sexual activities and had repeated sexual encounters with a 13-year-old girl. ----SNIP---- Based on these sources, AIM had confirmed that Obama’s white grandfather, Stanley Dunham, picked Davis because Obama’s black father had abandoned the family...

Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Orlando, Barack Obama declared, "I will let no one question my love of this country." Obama has felt the sting of recent attacks from conservative critics, and prominent Democrats have been pressuring him to hit back harder at John McCain. Universal praise of John McCain's performance in their first joint appearance at Saddleback Church also has the Obama campaign on the defensive. But we believe the recent polls are tightening not because of Obama's failure to get tough. The race is tightening because Obama's worldview is coming into focus. A worldview colors...

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama's only claim to administrative leadership (as covered today by Thomas Lifson), was evaluated by the esteemed Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an independent outside body with expertise on educational reform. A larger study has a section focused on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama's project. It does not take much for grantees who receive funds from the Obama-Ayers led Anneberg Chicago effort to sign its praises. When an outside group audits the performance and reveals scores of millions of dollars were all but wasted, I think that should have some bearing on our evaluation of Obama...

Warren had asked Obama to provide an example of where he had gone against party loyalty and his own best interest. Obama cited a speech he had given as a state senator from a liberal district in Chicago. At the time, he had no responsibility to cast a vote that would affect the outcome, nor (as he indicated later to Russert) sufficient information to do so. His "Meet the Press" interview shows that, in the midst of his run for the Senate in 2004, as he prepared to take the national stage, Obama put party loyalty (and his own best...

In the least credible and most vicious corner of the internet, liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos are accusing John McCain of plagiarizing from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The story Solzhenitsyn told was of a prisoner who drew a cross in the dirt in a Soviet Gulag. McCain's story is of a guard who drew a cross in the dirt in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. The only similarity between the two stories is a cross in the dirt, but it is hardly an unlikely coincidence that there were practicing Christians in both Russia and Vietnam, or that in the prisons...

Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama’s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During...

Jerome Corsi's expose The Obama Nation jumped to the #1 slot in most book sales charts yeterday during it's first day of release destroying competition in non-fiction and political book sales. Scrupulously sourced with more than 600 footnotes, The Obama Nation is the result of that research. By tracing... ...Meanwhile rumours circulated online of readers visiting local bookstores such as Barnes & Noble only to find that the book was no where to be found. In certain stores, Obama supportive employees are apparently... Meanwhile purchases of Nancy Pelosi's newest release continued to plummet as she maintains her low, low, low...

Edwards' mistress raised in Ocala By Fred Hiers Star-Banner Published: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 6:30 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 4:49 p.m. OCALA - Before she was former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' mistress, before she was Rielle Hunter, before she was the face splashed on national television networks, she was the teenage equestrienne Lisa Druck of Ocala. Chuck Olsen/The Associated Press At work: In this video still, Rielle Hunter films John Edwards after a rally in New Hampshire in 2006.In a story already spawning countless tabloid headlines, here's another - Hunter was familiar with controversy...

While Obama was spending three hours watching “The Dark Knight” five time zones away, and going to a fund-raiser featuring “Aloha attire” and Hawaiian pupus, Hillary was busy planning her convention. You can almost hear her mind whirring: She’s amazed at how easy it was to snatch Denver away from the Obama saps. Like taking candy from a baby, except Beanpole Guy doesn’t eat candy. In just a couple of weeks, Bill and Hill were able to drag No Drama Obama into a swamp of Clinton drama. Now they’ve made Barry’s convention all about them — their dissatisfaction and revisionism...

Excerpt - ~ snip ~ "Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise" is coming out Sept. 9 as a paperback with an announced first printing of 300,000 copies and a list price of $13.95. Looking ahead to the digital market, the e-book, also $13.95, will go on sale the day before. ~ snip ~

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

David Shuster, arbiter of journalistic standards? The MSM didn't bother to pursue the Edwards story, yet Shuster, he of "pimped out" fame, has had the chutzpah to look down his nose not once but twice on the National Enqirer during an interview this afternoon with Barry Levine, its Executive Editor. Levine laid out a number of open issues, including paternity and the source of funding for Rielle Hunter's living arrangements. BARRY LEVINE: I think this story is far from over in that regard. DAVID SHUSTER: And finally I mean, I mean, as a newsman, and I sort of, take that...

It Ain’t Over ‘Till The Fat Lady Sings - - And She Just Hired New Songwriters The Washington – New York news phones lines were buzzing last night and again this morning. The news is considered so volatile two national news producers were telephoned after 11:30 last night for their input. The story? Hillary Clinton is removing her support (such as it was) from Barack Obama and plans for a knock-down floor fight for the nomination at the Democrat Convention in Denver. The reason for this is simple, she thinks she can win the nomination, and only she can win...

As the presidential candidates enter the three-month sprint to November, Barack Obama must be wondering: If that did not do it, what will? The antecedent of the pronoun "that" is his Berlin speech. The antecedent of the pronoun "it" is assuage anxieties about his understanding of the need to supplement soft power (diplomacy) with hard power (military force). He spoke in Berlin at the bullet-scarred base — it was in the crossfire 63 years ago as Russian troops neared Hitler's bunker about a mile away — of an 1873 monument to German militarism. To be precise, the monument celebrates the...

BAGHDAD - The monthly U.S. toll in Iraq fell to its lowest point since the war began, with 11 American deaths as July drew to a close Thursday after the departure of the last surge brigade. Iraqis also are dying at dramatically lower numbers with the war in its sixth year.