Free Republic

Congressman-elect Bill Owens was sworn in at noon today. Owens indicated in a press release that he was now in favor of the bill in direct contrast to his earlier position during his campaign. According to Politico.com, Mr. Owens assured voters that he felt the public option had no place in the health care reform bill. Contrary to that position, Mr. Owens now indicates that he intends to vote in favor of the bill even though it now contains a public option. Mr. Owens also indicated during his campaign that he was firmly opposed to cutting Medicare benefits, taxing health...

Sen. David Vitter's bid to require the 2010 Census to ask all respondents about their citizenship was killed today when the Senate voted to invoke cloture and end debate on the Commerce spending bill without having to consider the Louisiana Republican's amendment. The Democratic leadership, which had been trying to block the Vitter amendment since early October, eked out a victory with the bare number of votes needed to invoke cloture, prevailing 60 to 39. Vitter's Democratic colleague, Sen. Mary Landrieu, who had been caustic in her criticism of Vitter's measure, voted with the majority. Vitter intended the citizenship count...

very ironic announcement that I just got in my Harvard email announcing a forthcoming lecture: HARVARD UNIVERSITY EDMOND J. SAFRA FOUNDATION CENTER FOR ETHICS Eliot Spitzer, former Governor and Attorney General of New York, will deliver a public lecture as part of the 2009/10 Labs Lectures on the Question of Institutional Corruption. Thursday, November 12 at 4:30pm Emerson Hall, Room 105 25 Quincy Street, Cambridge This is a ticketed event.

 If you are the Democrat party of New Jersey and it looks like you may lose the Governors office to a 500 pound fat guy (Jon Corzine's words, not mine), what do you do? After all, even the great One, Obama himself, could not seem to turn the tide that was ready to hit them from the Republican Party and it's candidate, Christie. Well, we have documented the story after story about intimidation tactics used by the left in this country, but what the Democrats did in this election has even left some liberals scratching their heads. Imagine you are...

The National Education Association has made a glowing assessment of radical socialist community organizer Saul Alinsky and is enthusiastically recommending American public school teachers read two of his books, including one dedicated to Satan. On its website, the NEA dubs Alinsky "an inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!" It recommends Alinsky's "Reveille for Radicals," a 1946 book about the principles and tactics of "community organizing," and "Rules for Radicals," a 1971 text that articulated a socialist strategy for gaining political power to redistribute wealth from the "haves" to the "have-nots." The NEA, the largest...

In the midst of New York's 23rd District race, a disturbing amendment allowing inmates to volunteer for non-profits was given the thumbs up from New York voters by an overwhelming 67 percent. According to the New York Times, The amendement would allow New York's State Legislature to write a law allowing prisoners to volunteer at churches, social service groups, and other nonprofit organizations. As of December of 2008, around 60,000 inmates are currently serving time in the state's correctional facilities, according to New York's Department of Correction

New Jersey Democrats have admitted that a series of robocalls on behalf of third party candidate for governor Chris Daggett were paid for by the Democratic State Committee - final proof that Daggett has been a spoiler for Republican Chris Christie all along. Matt Friedman of Politiker New Jersey writes: A Democratic spokeswoman says the party's chairman, Joe Cryan, was not aware of the robocalls when he denied that the state committee had anything to do with them yesterday afternoon. Cryan, who told PolitickerNJ.com yesterday afternoon that the Democratic State Committee had "absolutely" nothing to do with the call, could...

Ron Dellums, who earns about $184,000 as Oakland mayor on top of a congressional pension, appears to owe the Internal Revenue Service at least $66,554. A lien has been placed against his property for failing to pay taxes for 2006. According to the East Bay Express, which broke the story, Mayor Dellums and his wife, who file jointly, may owe more than $239,000 in taxes, mostly for the years he worked as a lobbyist in Washington, DC.

Published on CREW's Most Corrupt Members of Congress (http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org) Murtha Acknowledges He Is Subject of Ethics Inquiry By Paul Singer, Roll CallNovember 1, 2009After years of allegations that he improperly lavishes federal dollars on local supporters and campaign donors, Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) acknowledged for the first time last week that ethics investigators are looking into his earmarks.After the Washington Post disclosed a leaked list of Members being investigated by the House ethics committee, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, and the Office of Congressional Ethics — including seven members of...

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July. The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer. The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff...

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, held hearings yesterday to look into fraudulent letters which were sent on behalf of the coal industry to several members of congress. The original hearing was to take place on October 15, but was postponed until yesterday morning. The committee lined up the following witnesses: Rep. Tom Periello (D-Va.) Mr. Jack Bonner, Bonner & Associates Mr. Steve Miller, President and CEO, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity Ms. Lisa M. Maatz, Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, American Association of University Women Mr. Hilary...

WASHINGTON -- Internal investigations into the conduct of several House members have been exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach of security involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics. Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct -- also known as the Ethics committee -- shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday. The panel announced that it was probing two California Democrats -- Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson -- even as its embarrassed leaders took pains to explain that several other lawmakers also...

Thursday, October 29, 2009 Democrats Ask New Jersey Secretary of State to Ignore Mismatched Signatures on Absentee-Ballot Requests This year, New Jersey’s registered voters can request a mail-in ballot for any reason. (Before 2005, voters needed to provide a reason for why they needed an absentee ballot.) The state received about 150,000 absentee-ballot applications this year. On about 2,300 of those applications so far, the signature on the request form does not match the signature on the voter’s registration forms with the state. In a development that is depressingly predictable, the New Jersey Democratic party is asking the state to...

<p>Prominent Houston attorney John O'Quinn was one of two men who died this morning when their SUV slammed into a large tree on Allen Parkway after the driver apparently lost control, police said.</p> <p>"I'm stunned. The community lost one of its biggest assets," said Rick Laminack, who worked with O'Quinn from 1987 until 2006. "He was a great lawyer who shared a lot of his wealth with people who needed help."</p>

Note: Notice how AP does not mention Larry Langford is a Democrat!TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) - A federal jury convicted Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford on Wednesday on all charges of accepting bribes in exchange for funneling $7.1 million in bond business to a prominent investment banker. As a convicted felon, Langford was automatically removed from the office he won in a landslide in 2007. Jurors deliberated less than two hours before returning their sweeping verdict on all 60 counts. It came after six days of testimony in which they heard Langford accepted cash and luxury items worth some $236,000 while serving...

Harris County taxpayers may have to inject up to $7 million a year into the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority for the next two years due to a financial crisis sparked by the souring of bonds used to build Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and the Toyota Center. Facing balloon payments on $117 million in variable-rate bonds, the authority now is obliged to pay off the debt in five years instead of 23 years. That would require $24 million a year — a figure that, together with more than $30 million in additional obligations, would push the authority to the brink...

A Houston city councilman running for city controller owes more than $100,000 in federal income taxes dating back seven years, public records show. Ronald C. Green, a lawyer who has served in the city’s At-Large Position 4 since 2004, owed $120,043.11 to the federal government earlier this year, according to federal tax liens filed with the Harris County clerk’s office this past summer. The delinquent taxes go back as far as 2002.

After King County Superior Court Judge Gregory Canova awarded Microsoft an $8.7 million judgment in a 2008 lawsuit involving unpaid software licenses, he might have been surprised to learn that Microsoft isn’t actually in the software licensing business in Washington – or at least that’s what it reports to the state Department of Revenue. For tax purposes, Microsoft reports that it’s earned its estimated $143 billion in software licensing revenue in Nevada, where there is no licensing tax. However, for legal purposes, Microsoft executes its licensing contracts so they are governed by and rely on the protections of Washington law...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "First of all, I don't think people quite understand, Nancy Pelosi is not simply the first woman Speaker of the House -- I think she's going to go down as one of the greatest Speakers of all time. And she's very nice and she's very friendly, but, boy, she is tough."

Congressional Democrats are set to announce Tuesday legislation aimed at squeezing more information from foreign banks and U.S. citizens with offshore accounts to ferret out tax evaders. The bill from Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.), and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.), includes some of President Barack Obama's proposals to fight offshore tax cheating. According to a summary of the bill obtained by Dow Jones Newswires, it is expected to raise $8.5 billion for the U.S. government over 10 years. Foreign banks with U.S. customers would face a 30% withholding tax on income from...

A spokesman for Rep. Alan Grayson is defending the Florida Democrat’s use of the word “whore” to describe a female official at the Federal Reserve, pointing to a secondary dictionary definition to argue that Grayson meant only that the woman had sold her soul for financial gain. “The attack was on her professional career, not her personal life,” Grayson spokesman Todd Jurkowski wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO. “The second definition of ‘whore’ in the American Heritage Dictionary is 'A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.’ “I think a reasonable person could believe that a person who...

Let's not mince words here: The entire finance and real-estate "industry" is filled with massive, pernicious fraud, and we now have only one question remaining - will The Government do its lawful and mandated job, that of prosecuting the bad actors, or has it joined with the fraudsters, become one with them, and thus, declare itself as a gang of mobsters rather than a legitimate government? The latter, of course will beg only the question of what should be an ordinary American's response. Let's start with what may be one of the most outrageous yet least-actionable examples: Alan Greenspan. Alan...

By AP - newtimesonline.com Tue, 04 Nov 2008 | Print | E-Mail | PDF | Graphics Version Americas Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 After almost two years of campaigning, Democrat candidate Barrack Obama, Republican, John McCain yesterday brought their train to a halt in their respective home states to await the verdict of Americans. So far, the odds favour the once underdog in American politics, Obama, the African-American Senator from Illinois State . A Congressional Quarterly (CQ) politics monitored on BBC put the Kenyan born American ahead of his rival, Senator McCain. Even though Senator Obama leads in all polls, unlike in...

The U.S. Justice Department has denied Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel’s appeal of its decision to reject Handel’s plan for verifying voters’ citizenship. Handel, a 2010 Republican gubernatorial hopeful, asked the department in August to reconsider its decision to reject the system. The Justice Department in May said the verification program is frequently inaccurate and has a “discriminatory effect” on minority voters. The decision meant Georgia had to halt the citizenship checks, which Handel launched in 2007 in response to the Help America Vote Act. That federal law required states to verify voters’ identity, but not necessarily citizenship. Handel...

All week, intrepid bloggers have been trying to trace the source of two "racist" quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh -- quotes which poisoned the atmosphere to the point where he was dropped from a bid to purchase the NFL's St. Louis Rams. Now comes word that the quotations may have been added to Rush Limbaugh's Wikipedia entry by someone using a computer at a liberal New York law firm.

HAMMOND, La. (AP) - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. Neither Bardwell nor the couple immediately returned phone calls from The Associated Press. But Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist.

Democratic State Sen. Hiram Monserrate was found not guilty today of the felony assault after Queens Supreme Court Judge William Erlbaum rendered his verdict after reflecting on the evidence. Monserrate was found guilty of the lesser charge of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, in the non-jury trial for dragging his girlfriend down a hallway, an incident that was caught on surveillance cameras. Monserrate, who gets to keep his seat as a result of being acquitted on felony charges, faces up to a year in jail. He will be sentenced Dec. 4.

In its pages, Omar (and his mother) reveal that the Clinton administration failed in a major assassination attempt of Osama bin Laden, just days after the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. This is something that has often been speculated but never confirmed. Former insiders like Richard Clarke say Omar bin Laden’s account of the assassination failure appears to be credible. And if this is the case, it might explain a little more about what documents Sandy Berger really had stashed away.

Published: October 13, 2009 11:27 pm 2 former colonels sentenced: Military contract case had ties to Murtha By MELISSA NELSON The Associated Press PENSACOLA, Fla. — A federal judge sentenced two former Air Force colonels to prison on Tuesday for destroying documents, lying to a grand jury and other crimes related to a wider fraud scheme by contractors and defense lobbyists with ties to powerful Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown. The men, both engineers and graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy, are among those accused by federal prosecutors who are looking into alleged wrongdoing by contractors with ties to Murtha, chairman...

In assembling a new committee of Mobile County Democrats, the state Democratic party included one person who died last year, his widow and other party members confirmed this morning. Reynolds Smith, Jr., of the Eight Mile community, passed away in November at age 83, according to a Press-Register obituary at the time.

Speaking to a respected Hispanic leader in KCK, Dennis Moore reportedly called decorated and disabled Marine Veteran and Congressional Opponent "White Trash" in a recent (recorded) telephone conversation. The KCK leader, who has formally supported the incumbent congressman, is supporting Daniel Gilyeat's candidacy for the Kansas 3rd District Congressional seat. Dennis Moore called the KCK man after hearing the Hispanic community leader's support had changed. Dennis Moore said he had $7 million for the campaign and could not believe the naturalized citizen was supporting "White Trash" over Moore.

John McCain's campaign is still being audited by the Federal Elections Commission, while Obama – the only presidential candidate in history since the public finance system was established to decline public funds during the general election – may have escaped similar scrutiny by the FEC. An FEC spokesman told WND that the commission is obligated to complete an audit of McCain's campaign because he received public funds during the general election. "Under regulations, that is automatically audited by the FEC once you receive public funds," he said. "For the Obama committee, there's a possibility, just like with any other committee,...

The vote comes the same day reports emerged that the New York Democrat funneled a $3 million earmark -- included in the massive Defense Appropriations Bill -- to City College to fund research on materials used to protect Army vehicles from attack.

Rangel dodges the bullet again with a little help from his corruption-enabling friends. Final vote tabling Carter’s resolution to remove Rangel from W&M chairmanship: 243-156. 19 voted present. 3 REPUBLICANS joined the Democrats. Will post roll call vote as soon as it is up.

Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, has apparently hired a cadre of left-wing, Democrat campaign bloggers to troll through the Internet looking for news stories and blog posts that denigrate the Obama agenda. After such websites are found it is the job of these secret lefty bloggers to leave comments that come to the support of Obamaism in the comments sections. It seems that Eric Holder has created his own little propaganda unit in a valiant effort to become the Bloggi Riefenstahl of the Obama era. As reported at The Muffled Oar, a blog that first broke the story of Holder's...

ACORN wants people to register to vote – as long as they’re Democrats. Republican registrations go into the trash. Here is a first-hand account of how it happens. In February 2008, Fathiyyah Muhammad of Jacksonville, Florida, heard that ACORN was paying people three dollars for each voter they could register. ACORN paid her three dollars for each voter she registered, but Fatiyyah Muhammad says that the group threw out her votes and fired her when she brought them registrations of Republican voters. Fathiyyah Muhammad voted for Obama. “I’m a Republican,” she says, “and this was the first time that I...

Waters: 'Many members' suffer from problems like Rangel's By Michael O'Brien - 10/07/09 10:59 AM ET "Many members" of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as the embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), one of his congressional allies suggested Wednesday. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) downplayed the seriousness of allegations against Rangel that he failed to disclose sources of income and pay taxes on some properties, saying that many lawmakers suffer from innocent lapses in judgment when filing mandatory financial disclosure forms. "I want to tell you, there are many members who, if you go back over all of their records,...

State Senator Anthony Galluccio was cited Monday for leaving the scene of an accident after he allegedly collided with a vehicle carrying three people on Sunday afternoon in Cambridge and then fled. Galluccio, a Cambridge Democrat, collided with the other vehicle at about 5:30 p.m. as he was driving around Garden and Linnaean streets, said officer Frank Pasquarello, spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department.

The B-Cast: How Obama's 'Coalitions of Power' Are Key to 'Stealthy Agenda'

Over the last week, Big Hollywood and Big Government have been extensively covering the August 10 conference call between the National Endowment for the Arts and a group of artists – a call on which the artists were encouraged to support President Obama’s agenda, with the tacit promise that they would be handsomely rewarded with government grants. The NEA representative on the call was then-Communications Director of the NEA Yosi Sergant. Now we have new evidence that the White House itself has been using its sway to recruit artists – not just to support President Obama’s “volunteerism” initiatives, but to...

Everybody may have a different Idea of what “safe schools” may mean, but I would imagine many people who would include pedophilia in a list of things that make schools safe, with the exception of President Obama’s safe schools Czar, Kevin Jennings. A teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an “older man.” At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is President Obama’s “safe school czar.” It’s getting hard to...

The State of Virginia has argued in a federal court filing that they can legally send out absentee ballots to active duty soldiers the day before an election. Restated again, the Democratic Chairwoman of the Virginia State Board of Election (appointed by the Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine, in his capacity as Virginia Governor) Jean Cunningham just claimed a legal basis for massively raising the barrier to voting for soldiers at war.

Robert Forrey regularly skewers city officials in Portsmouth while pontificating on their perceived sins on his River Vices blog. The self-styled government watchdog concedes that Mayor Jim Kalb is a favorite target, but he never expected the rant that landed in his in-box at 1:47 a.m. Sunday. The e-mail was from Kalb, who informed Forrey that he could drop by the mayor's office in the Ohio River city to pick up a public record he had requested. The mayor went on to write, asterisks and all: "I think that you're a worthless piece of s**t and I wouldn't p**s on...

It would be next to impossible to fact-check everything Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd says. Lord knows the endeavor would be worthwhile; after all, politicians such as Sen. Dodd inspired the joke: "How do you know politicians are lying? Their lips are moving." Sen. Dodd's reason for staying on as chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee, rather than taking over the late Ted Kennedy's Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, is one of his more recent statements that fails the smell test. "We have important work to do on the Banking Committee, and I intend to...

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) mocked Republicans Wednesday who demanded he apologize for saying that they want people who get sick to "die quickly." "I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America," Grayson said on the House floor. The "holocaust," he said, was the 44,789 people who die each year in the United States each year because they don't have health insurance, citing a Harvard study. Republicans said Democratic leaders should force Grayson to apologize. “Alan Grayson not only refuses to apologize, he is doubling down on his despicable remarks...

It is a rare politician who unites newspaper editorial boards across the political spectrum and across the state of Virginia. Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds has done just that: Throughout the state, observers agree that he is running a flatly dishonest advertising campaign that discredits his own claim to be worthy of the office. In return, the campaign of Republican Robert F. McDonnell trumpets the editorial rebukes, but the words of Virginia editorial writers speak for themselves. Consider, for instance, a Deeds ad that directly blames Mr. McDonnell for a series of rate increases by the Appalachian Power Co....

A Republican state legislator released documents Tuesday which he says show the community-organizing group ACORN focused on helping Democrats in three legislative races in the November 2008 election and had developed a game plan to "take power” in Oklahoma within five years. "They say they’re not political, but one of the subdirectories was called political action plans,” Reynolds said. "It was their political plans to take over key targeted races in Oklahoma City to show how powerful they are.” One of the key legislative races mentioned in the documents was the Senate District 43 race involving Reynolds’ brother. State Sen....

Just heard on FoxNews. Former Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu (shoo) is headed for a lengthy prison sentence after his conviction for violating campaign finance laws. Story still developing.

Bread and Circuses: Wikipedia “Bread and circuses” (or Bread and games) (from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metaphor for handouts and petty amusements that politicians use to gain popular support, instead of gaining it through sound policy. The phrase is invoked not only to criticize politicians, but also to criticize their supporters for giving up their civic duty.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

Reuters newswire service recently published a story reporting that accused swindler Allen Stanford has been moved to a federal lockup facility in downtown Houston in order "to be closer to his attorneys." In fact in a fairly long story as wire copy goes, Reuters reports all sorts of details of Stanford's alleged financial crimes and current status. There is only one little detail that Reuters seems to have forgotten to report. Allen Stanford was a major fundraiser and lobbyists for some of the biggest Democrats in the country. There isn't a single mention, for instance, that Stanford lobbied Congress for...