Free Republic

Romney-tied PAC has taste for secrecy [Millions in gifts tied to obscure or shell firms] "Among all the super PACs that have brought a deluge of big-money donations into the presidential nomination race, only the one allied with Mitt Romney has established a pattern of accepting big contributions from corporate entities that tend to obscure the actual source of the money or appear to have been created specifically as vehicles to mask the wealthy donors. Twice, the Restore Our Future super PAC has amended its reports to the Federal Election Commission after media reports indicated that contributions of $1 million...

Narcissistic personality disorder, characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and the need for constant attention, has been eliminated from the upcoming manual of mental disorders, which psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness. As Charles Zanor reports in today’s Science Times, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — due out in 2013 and known as D.S.M.-5 — has eliminated five of the 10 personality disorders that are listed in the current edition. The best known of these is narcissistic personality disorder. It is a puzzle why the manual’s committee on personality disorders has decided...

Over the years a lot of suspicion has built up across the country about Washington and its population of opportunistic transients coming to see themselves as a special kind of person, somehow above average working Americans who don't work down in that former swamp. Well, finally, an end to all those undocumented doubts. Thanks to some diligent digging by the Washington Post, those suspicions can at last be put to rest. They're correct. Accurate. Dead-on. Laser-guided. On target. Bingo-bango. As clear as it's always seemed to those Americans who don't feel special entitlements and do meet their government obligations. We...

A Houston woman who works for the Texas Department of Public Safety used her ready access to state driver's licenses for cash, authorities said. Gracie Gutierrez, 27, remained in custody after she was charged on Tuesday with bribery. Gutierrez is accused of accepting bribes to issue driver's licenses to people who are undocumented and have not taken the written or driving exam, said Donna Hawkins with the Harris County District Attorney's office. Also charged with bribery is Saul Ramirez, 20. Officials said he does not work for DPS. Ramirez was arrested while trying to sell a Texas driver's license to...

MONTREAL (AFP) - French guru Claude Vorilhon, alias Rael, advised golf superstar Tiger Woods in an open letter on Thursday to divorce his wife and embrace "Adultery is not mental disease but a very normal behavior among both humans and animals," said the leader of the atheist Raelian Movement, whose followers believe life on earth was created by extra-terrestrials. "I encourage you to explore what more and more people are calling 'polyamory,' which means loving many people simultaneously and with no jealousy," he said. .... "If she (Elin Nordgren) doesn't get therapy, you will be better off divorcing such a...

I'm not sure which is funnier about this Miami Herald story; that Adultery 101 was published in that newspaper or the fact that it was actually written by Herald staffers. It is so bizarre of a story that it should be marked down as a sign of desperation to attract readers in the midst of a calamitous circulation plunge. So let us now join the Miami Herald staffers as they present their readers with "helpful tips" on how to commit adultery with a celeb shoutout to Tiger Woods: So you're left scratching your head, wondering how a guy like Tiger...

One never knows what might be posted as a YouTube video, readily available to anyone with an internet connection. Among the most recent is a shocker starring Planned Parenthood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvlCx3w_tss Federation of America's vice president for medical affairs, Vanessa Cullins, M.D. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/ask-dr-cullins-6602.htm In a recent Wednesday STOPP Report, http://www.all.org/article_printerfriendly.php?id=12279 Rita Diller, http://www.stopp.org/rita_diller.htm national director of Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP), described this video's basic message quite simply as "Get sexually active and get your STDs." In fact, Cullins makes it clear that you should "expect to have HPV (human papillomavirus) once you become sexually intimate; all of us get...

(CNN) -- If you were to judge the success rate of monogamy by the sex lives of public figures, perhaps couples should change their marriage vows to say, "Till a tempting new partner do us part." Talk-show host David Letterman recently joined former presidential candidate John Edwards, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer on a long list of politicians and entertainers (think Jude Law) who have admitted having sex outside their marriage or committed relationship. But do they just illustrate the realities of modern life? In the age of hookups, friends with benefits and...

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,...

Blagojevich tops scandal list of the last 10 years - only beat by Clinton/Lewinsky. See the goods at the link!

There’s been a lot of talk lately that former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) will have some sort of role in the Obama administration, if there is one. A few months ago, Edwards, the Democratic Party’s 2004 vice presidential candidate, seemed to pull himself out of the VP race. But then, a couple of weeks ago, Edwards quietly put himself back in, telling National Public Radio, “I’m prepared to seriously consider anything, anything [Obama] asks me to do for our country.” “Anything” could, of course, mean running for vice president. But Edwards has done that before, and he didn’t exactly put...

As Nevada comes into the final 60 days before its presidential caucuses, this question looms: Will the candidates submit themselves to tough questions from the Review-Journal, the state's largest newspaper? The answer, dear Las Vegans, is ... probably ... but they'd prefer not to. Presidential candidates parachute into Las Vegas weekly. But they don't come here intending to actually answer questions. They drop by a school or a union hall for carefully planned rallies. Pictures are taken, safe questions from safe questioners get safe answers, the candidates smile ... and then they're gone. Here's the secret everyone knows: Presidential campaigns...

A former high school English teacher who "betrayed a position of trust" was sentenced to 2 to 23 months in York County Prison for having sexual relations with two male students. Robin Lynn Winkis, who taught and coached at Central York High School for five years, was immediately taken into custody Monday. York County Judge Stephen Linebaugh rejected Winkis' request for probation, saying she betrayed the school, parents, her students, the community and "every person who entered the teaching profession." "You crossed the border that one may not cross. There may be no excuse or rationale," Linebaugh said. "When you...

Ex-President Bill Clinton said Monday that he had to assure world leaders that there was nothing seriously wrong with America after the Congress impeached him in 1998. "During that time, a lot of world leaders would ask, 'What is going on? Is this serious?'" he told New York magazine. "I kept assuring them that nothing bad had happened to America," he recalled, "but that we periodically went through spasms." Interviewed while traveling in Africa, the ex-president claimed, "Africans saw [my impeachment] for exactly what it was: an abuse of power." "They got it here," he insisted. The magazine noted that...

One mislaid credit card bill or a single dangling e-mail message on the home computer would have ended everything: the marriage, the big-time career, the reputation for decency he had built over a lifetime. So for more than 10 years, he ruthlessly kept his two identities apart: one lived in a Westchester hamlet and worked in a New York office, and the other operated mainly in clubs, airport bars and brothels. One warmly greeted clients and waved to neighbors, sometimes only hours after the other had stumbled back from a "work" meeting with prostitutes or cocaine dealers. In the end,...

Voting by dead people isn't always a scam By Jonathan Martin and David Heath Seattle Times staff reporters Days after his wife of four decades died of liver cancer, Robert Holmgren came home to find her absentee ballot. He filled in Charlette Holmgren's intended votes for Dino Rossi and George W. Bush, forged her signature, and mailed her ballot along with his. "I know by the law it wasn't right, but it felt right in my heart," he said. "I wasn't trying to defraud anybody. I was just going with my wife's last wishes." In six of the state's largest...

Events of the past week reminded me of the wisdom of the late Bill Crane, one of my political science professors. Crane wrote a popular textbook on Texas politics. Needless to say, he understood political corruption, and divided it into two types. It wasn't Democrat and Republican. This was before Texas Republicans had enough power to be corrupt. Crane's distinction was between Catholic corruption and Protestant corruption. He wasn't talking theology, but sociology. His use of the term "Catholic" was shorthand for immigrant groups that arrived relatively recently: Irish, Italians, Mexicans, and so on. The "Protestants" were the moneyed and...

TIGER FORCE - Ex-officer may face justice for atrocities - Army lawyer calls for war-crime charge By JOE MAHR, BLADE STAFF WRITER Three decades after an Army platoon repeatedly executed unarmed civilians and prisoners in Vietnam, a military lawyer has recommended the unit's former commander be brought up on a war-crime charge. In what would be an unprecedented event, retired Maj. James Hawkins could face a military court-martial regarding his actions commanding a platoon known as Tiger Force that killed hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children 37 years ago, The Blade has learned. As the scope of war crimes...

Kennedy clan black sheep William Kennedy Smith is again facing accusations that he raped a woman. The nephew of Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and the late President John F. Kennedy was sued yesterday in Chicago by his former personal assistant, who charged that Smith, 43, sexually assaulted her in his home five years ago. The suit, filed 13 years after Smith beat a highly publicized rape case in Florida, comes from Audra Soulias, who says Smith attacked her at his North Side digs in 1999 after plying her and friends with booze to celebrate her 23rd birthday. "He dragged me...

DETROIT - Andrea Carlton hadn't planned on telling her daughter about the birds and bees until she was 8 or 9. But that changed the night 4-year-old Catherine spotted a porno movie flickering on a screen in a minivan nearby.

WHY WE CHEAT By SUSAN EDELMAN -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FORBIDDEN PLEASURES: Some researchers believe changes in gender roles are prompting more married women to sleep around. July 13, 2003 -- More women are cheating on their husbands - and doing it without remorse, sex researchers say. A stunning 90 percent of adulterous wives told one Manhattan researcher they suffered "no guilt," but rather felt "entitled" to the pleasure and excitement of their secret trysts, said Susan Shapiro Barash, a gender-studies professor and author. "Women feel entitled because they're not getting what they need in the marriage. That's why women today have affairs,"...

<p>DETROIT — The U.S. Attorney's Office is expected to seek an indictment as early as Wednesday of NBA star Chris Webber for allegedly lying to a federal grand jury about his dealings with banned University of Michigan basketball booster Eddie Martin.</p>