Free Republic

JERSEY CITY -- City Councilwoman-at-large Joyce Watterman was caught this week using her City Hall office and taxpayer-funded aide to solicit donations to her political committee. Watterman, a Democrat who was first elected to the council in 2013, sent out invitations to a $100-a-head "birthday fundraiser" scheduled for tonight at Liberty House and included the phone number to her City Hall office on the invite.

Congressman Justin Moed, a Democratic legislator representing downtown Indianapolis, the state’s largest city and its capital, posted graphic sexual texts to Leathers on Twitter using the handle “Bitch Boy” and sent her gifts including a “Fetish Fantasy Series Pink Leash & Collar." Moed apologized on Tuesday in a statement to the Indianapolis Daily Star. "I am truly sorry I have hurt the ones I love most with my poor judgment. I am committed to rebuilding trust with my family and my community. This is a private matter and I ask for it to be treated as such. I apologize to...

Unlike its foolish neighbors to the north in New York, Pennsylvania has been enjoying the fruits of the energy boom for several years now. Natural gas drilling in particular has been paying benefits to the government and the citizens, with thousands of new jobs and all of the secondary growth which is associated with higher employment levels. In November of last year, however, the citizens of the Keystone State decided to oust incumbent Republican Governor Tom Corbett and replace him with Democrat Tom Wolf. Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to what one of the new guy’s...

A Chinese immigrant who stole trade secrets from the Chicago Merc worth an estimated $50 million was spared prison Tuesday by a federal judge who cited his otherwise “exemplary life.” Chunlai Yang, 50, of Libertyville, was instead sentenced to just four years probation for stealing software that underpinned the CME Group’s Globex trading platform. Yang, who worked as a high-ranking programmer for the Merc from 2000 until his arrest in 2011, pleaded guilty in 2012 to the theft, admitting he was trying to create a similar product in China when he illegally downloaded more than 10,000 computer source code files....

On the day after Hillary Clinton went on “60 Minutes” to hide the lies of her husband — 21 years ago — I rode knee-to-knee with her in a small plane and listened to her rehearse her war strategy: “Pound the Republican attack machine and blame the press.” The events of the past week have confirmed a nagging fear: Those of us who’d hoped the controlling, deceptive, defensive Clinton of years past had grown into a more mature kind of leader are wrong. She has reacted to a series of legitimate press reports raising serious questions about her use of...

California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who has announced she will run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by her fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer, was recently shot down by the California 5th District Court of Appeal for downplaying a prosecutor’s fabrication of a confession by a defendant charged with child molesting who was recently charged again for child sex abuse. The national political media is ignoring Harris’ embarrassment before the court even as she moved on to the national stage last week speaking at a gala dinner by the pro-abortion group Emily’s List held in Washington, D.C. The Hill reported...

Mayor Danny Jones of Charleston, WV makes lewd comments in front of children about gun rights groups on election night. video only on link

Kshama Sawant, Seattle’s Socialist Alternative City Councilmember, was captured on video entering a February 21 fundraiser and birthday celebration for a local leader of the Democratic Party, King County Councilmember Larry Gossett. The video was posted online, but has subsequently been removed. Sawant and the organization to which she belongs have not yet sought to explain why a self-proclaimed socialist would spend an evening rubbing elbows and clinking glasses with the political elite in a major American city. Nor did Socialist Alternative announce beforehand that Sawant would be appearing at an event sponsored by the Democratic Party establishment. That’s because...

Despite the fact that Democrats are rushing to protect him from a potential brewing Republican coup attempt, House Speaker John Boehner—currently a Republican—has no intention of leaving the Republican Party to join his new friends in the Democratic Party, his spokesman Michael Steel tells Breitbart News. “Speaker Boehner is a proud, conservative Republican, and enjoys the strong support of an overwhelming majority of the House Republican Conference,” Steel said in an email on Friday morning when asked by Breitbart News if the Speaker plans to switch party affiliations, given that several Democrats now say they’ll protect him from a Republican...

There is no Plan B for 2016. I’ll say it, happily: Democrats should be worried about Hillary Clinton, and moderately panicked about the immediate future of both their party and their cause. This is not, of course, because Hillary’s latest scandale du jour is in any practical way going to “disqualify” her; and nor is it because leftward-leaning voters are likely to recall anything more from this rather awkward period in time than that the Clintons are as perennially sleazy as they ever were. Rather, it is because the last few days have underscored just how tenuous the Left’s grip...

In 2013, The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza posed a question: "If not Hillary Clinton in 2016, then who?" That's a question that Democrats may have to begrudgingly ask themselves in the coming weeks, as a New York Times story about Clinton's email use during her time as secretary of state—compounded with earlier reporting on the Clinton Foundation—roil Clintonland. [Snip] But Democrats with wandering eyes may find themselves in a very tough spot: The window for other Democrats to jump into the race is quickly closing.

Conservatives are not fooled by floorshows and half-baked schemes designed to appease them. And if talk is cheap, then the words that have come from most Republicans in Congress must surely be discounted to less than $1.99. Meanwhile, for all of their bold talk and harsh criticism of President Obama, the president continues to run circles around GOP congressional leaders. Floorshows like the brilliant speech given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his address before Congress are wonderful. But what his speech most reminds us of is that our country lacks the kind of leaders who could stand in...

South Carolina’s U.S. Rep Jim Clyburn was among nearly six dozen Democrats who boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warning to a joint session of Congress not to strike a deal that puts Iran on the path to nuclear weapons.

Hillary Clinton reportedly plans to announce her candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination in April. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday Clinton and her close advisers decided on the move to allay uncertainties and boost fundraising. [Snip] Clinton had been expected to put off an announcement until summer, but donors had been holding back, thwarting fundraising efforts. A source told the Journal John Podesta played a big role in the decision. She is expected to skip the step of forming an exploratory committee. Money appears to be the issue.

Black Caucus Democrats are planning to walk out during Netanyahu’s speech on the security of Israel. The move was reportedly planned after communications with the Obama White House. In response to this outrageous act, conservative black ministers are holding a press conference to show their support for the Israeli Prime Minister. Urban Cure reported: Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu will address a joint session of congress on March 3rd, and in a political move, leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus are planning to skip the speech in protest of Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu to do so. While the Congressional...

State Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union) tonight acknowledged that her husband got help from a non-profit group that assists low-income homeowners in demolishing a shore home severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy that records show had been purchased for nearly a half-million dollars. The owner of the Manasquan home — identified in public records as Richard Stender, the assemblywoman's husband — applied to Monmouth County-based Coastal Habitat for Humanity for help, said Maureen Mulligan, the group's executive director.

The United States military does not currently have the ability to fight two major wars simultaneously, according to a new report, a significant reduction from the capacity enjoyed by defense officials for decades. The Heritage Foundation’s "2015 Index of U.S. Military Strength" concludes that the armed forces “would be ill-equipped to handle two, near-simultaneous major regional contingencies (MRC).” The two-MRC goal was largely attained during the Cold War, when U.S. forces engaged in a conflict every 15 to 20 years while maintaining ground forces in other regions to ensure stability and deter aggressors. That strategy enables the U.S. military to...

The Democratic National Committee Saturday released a report blaming the lack of a central narrative and waning support from Southern, white voters for "devastating" losses in midterm elections and at the state level. “It is strongly believed that the Democratic Party is loosely understood as a long list of policy statements and not as people with a common set of core values (fairness, equality, opportunity),” said the long-awaited DNC autopsy of what went wrong for the party in 2010 and 2014. [Snip] Democrats, most recently President Obama, suggested that Americans side with liberals on most issues — they just say...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are struggling to answer a simple question -- "What's a Democrat?" -- and must do a better job of explaining its core values to voters, according to a task force formed after the party's dismal showing in the 2014 election. **SNIP** It calls for more financial support and training for state parties in a return to the principles behind the "50-state strategy" promoted by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who led the DNC from 2005 to 2009. That approach aimed to compete in state and local elections throughout the country, even in states dominated by Republicans....

Former small town Democratic Party chairman 'plotted to hire hit man to kill girls aged nine and ten who he molested' before they could testify against him A former chairman of the Falls Church Democratic Party charged with molesting two young girls is accused of plotting to have them killed before they testified against him during his trial. Michael Gardner, 50, from Falls Church, Virginia, is said to have approached an inmate in 2013 about finding a hit man to kill the young girls. The inmate he contacted notified police in January about their multiple conversations, according to court documents....