Free Republic

<p>Racy photographs allegedly of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, in sexually suggestive poses with young women, hit cyberspace Tuesday in an apparent extortion plot.</p> <p>One image of the outspoken football executive showed him cupping the breasts of a blond woman in a restroom.</p>

Synology network attached storage (NAS) devices, capable of storing terabytes of data, have been targeted by ransomware that encrypts victims’ files. Owners of Synology's NAS devices might want to unplug their storage boxes now to avoid being affected by ransomware that uses strong encryption to lock files on the brand’s machines and demands US$350 for the decryption key. The new attack on Synology kit comes within a year of Synology NAS devices being struck by fraudulent Bitcoin mining operators, with several owners on Sunday reporting that they had found a message from the “SynoLocker Automated Decryption Service” — when accessing...

In order to deliver a Super Bowl, the NFL wants free luxury hotel rooms, police escorts and tax exemption from the host city. A leaked report reveals the league's 153 pages of requests for the 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis. Two years ago, the Minnesota State Legislature and the city of Minneapolis were ready to walk away from a plan to provide approximately $500 million to Vikings owner Zygi Wilf to pay more than half the costs a new stadium. It took a veiled threat to move the team to Los Angeles and a dramatic last-minute lobbying campaign from NFL...

In the dystopian future of George Orwell's "1984," the government uses an endless state of war to justify food rationing by the Ministry of Plenty, rewriting history by the Ministry of Truth, and brutal interrogation by the Ministry of Love. Recently, President Obama's Privacy Working Group -- a response to the public outcry over the mass collection of telephone data -- concluded that the government needed to collect and review more private data. It's tempting to think, "you couldn't make this up." But, of course, Orwell imagined it in detail. The working group's report contains several mundane policy recommendations to...

<p>Those big, ugly early birds began circling over the corporate headquarters of the revenue-camera industry last week when federal prosecutors announced that felony corruption charges had been filed against the Chicago city official in charge of one of the world’s largest red-light camera operations. More dominoes are expected to fall as FBI agents take the investigation to other cities.</p>

Determined to maneuver Republicans in Congress into supporting immigration reform before the November elections, President Obama ordered the release of 36,000 illegal alien criminals. The crimes committed were for offenses other than entering the country illegally, including 116 homicides, 426 sexual assaults, 303 kidnappings, 1,075 aggravated assaults, 1,160 stolen vehicles, 9,187 dangerous drug possessions, and 24,822 driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. “By denying these undocumented immigrants legal status we force them into the shadows where they must struggle to support themselves,” the President complained. “The vast majority accept low-wage work cleaning our homes, mowing our lawns, and...

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling received a lifetime ban from the NBA and a $2.5 million fine. NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced the discipline Tuesday...

Litigation: After thwarting a $9.5 billion judgment from an Ecuadorean court, Chevron is going after the entire edifice of environmentalist enablers who make such junk lawsuits possible. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. To the surprise of many, the oil giant is suing the tony, white-shoe law firm of Patton Boggs for alleged unethical involvement in an all-out legal attack by environmentalists over rainforest pollution in Ecuador. Chevron accuses the oh-so-respected firm of lying, concealing inconvenient facts, running a public smear campaign and miscellaneous other flim-flammery, all for the sake of the dollar signs spinning in their eyes.

A "goon-squad" group named The Helpful Union Guys (THUG), members of Ironworkers Local 401 set fires, started riots, and took crowbars to the competition in an effort to protect union jobs. THUGs stalked women, took baseball bats to a Toys R Us site, and even torched a Quaker meetinghouse that dared to use non-union labor. Philly.Com reports 10 leaders of Ironworkers Local 401 charged in racketeering indictment. They called themselves "the Helpful Union Guys" - "THUGS" for short - and woe awaited any contractor who dared cross them by hiring non-organized workers. For, federal authorities alleged Tuesday, this "goon squad"...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Rev. Jesse Jackson plans to lead a delegation to the Hewlett Packard annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday to bring attention to Silicon Valley’s poor record of including blacks and Latinos in hiring, board appointments and startup funding. Jackson’s strategy borrows from the traditional civil rights era playbook of shaming companies to prod them into transformation. Now he is bringing it to the age of social media and a booming tech industry known for its disruptive innovation.

The 2011 downing of a helicopter in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 30 American troops—including 17 Navy SEALs, a number of whom were members of the SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden—was not compromised but did suffer from faulty planning, a defense official said on Thursday. Some of the families of the fallen said they appreciated the controversial hearing where the official testified. However, they said the testimony left them unsatisfied and vowed to press for more answers. The contested mission known as Extortion 17 involved a CH-47D Chinook helicopter shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)...

A band of Dartmouth College students has sent an extortion letter to the school’s administration. The group, self-described as “concerned Asian, Black, Latino, Native, Undocumented, Queer, and Differently-Abled students,” wants Dartmouth to yield to its demands under threat of “physical action.” The un-named collection of radicals demand a number of steps be taken by Dartmouth to “eradicate systems of oppression as they affect marginalized communities on this campus.” Taken verbatim, their list of demands are as follows: • Racial enrollment quotas for Black and Latino students to “at least 10 percent each” • “Ensure that 47 percent of post-doctoral students...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Former Arkansas treasurer Martha Shoffner pleaded not guilty Thursday to mail fraud charges alleging that she misspent campaign funds — counts that won't be part of her upcoming bribery and extortion trial. Shoffner, a Democrat, didn't speak during her arraignment in federal court on the new charges, 10 counts of mail fraud. The charges allege that she misspent $9,800 in campaign funds on clothing, cosmetics and other personal items. The judge set a March 31 trial date. Shoffner is scheduled to stand trial Monday on the bribery and extortion charges. In that case, she is...

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., have been pulled into a lawsuit between two local chapters of the Service Employees International Union, which represent health care workers, and nursing homes. At issue is whether a campaign to pressure the management of the nursing homes during labor disputes crossed the line into extortion. ... both lawmakers are now in the uncomfortable situation of being deposed by lawyers representing the nursing homes and are forced to provide a wide array of documents relating to their interactions with the SEIU. The subpoenas, obtained by the Washington Examiner, require them...

Feds Charge Philadelphia Ironworkers with Extortion, Arson and Racketeering Federal prosecutors today announced an indictment charging 10 members of the Philadelphia Ironworkers Union Local 401 with extorting and forcing businesses to hire their colleagues and defending their turf from non-union workers with violence. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Zane Memeger announced the charges at a press conference this morning after the 10 union members named in the indictment were arrested. According to the indictment, members of the Ironworkers would approach foremen at construction sites where iron work was being done and “implicitly or explicitly threaten the foreman...

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the Economic Growth Subcommittee, sent a harsh letter to Attorney General Holder Wednesday accusing the Department of Justice of abusing its power and intimidating banks through its "Operation Choke Point." In the letter, Issa and Jordan stated, "[t]he [House Oversight and Government Reform] Committee is concerned that both the goal and mechanisms of Operation Choke Point may constitute a serious mismanagement and abuse of the Department´s FIRREA [Financial Institution Reform and Recovery Act of 1989] authority." Breitbart News broke the

War On Banks: Attorney General Eric Holder has opened up a new front against car lenders and has forged an alliance with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to frame them for racism, too. We don't use the term "frame" capriciously, certainly not like Holder uses the charge of racism. His department and the president's new consumer credit watchdog agency, CFPB, have announced a new settlement with Ally Bank for nearly $100 million. It's the largest fair lending deal against the auto industry and the third-largest ever to resolve charges of lending discrimination. Throw in four new mortgage-lender settlements over equally...

Eric Holder’s idea of implementing justice is to shake down banks on trumped up charges based on vague statistics and leftist theories. Holder’s Department of Justice recently leveled a $100 million fine against Ally Bank for “racist” lending practices without a shred of evidence. And Ally’s not the only victim of Obama/Holder Inc.’s protection racket. Apparently, the post-racial presidency of Barack Obama has decided to extort almost a billion dollars from capitalist institutions under the unjustified pretense of ‘race-based’ predatory lending. The recent settlement made between Ally Bank and the DOJ’s Orwellian named Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of...

Members of the University of Michigan Black Student Union said they would have to resort to “physical action” if a list of seven demands issued on Martin Luther King Day are not met within seven days, The Ann Arbor News reported. “If negotiations are not complete we will be forced to do more, beginning to increase valiantly our activism for social progress and take physical actions on the University of Michigan’s campus,” said senior Shayla Scales to a group of students gathered on campus, according to the Ann Arbor News. The seven demands, read aloud by an activist associated with...

Some of the world’s most famous people became such by challenging conventional wisdom. Who does not know the name Galileo? He was scorned as a heretic in his day. Or what American does not know of Jonas Salk, who developed a nonconventional process and saved the world from the dreaded polio disease. Now comes along a man challenging conventional wisdom. The subject is not as lofty as curing polio or defining the center of the universe, but it challenges an accepted orthodoxy that has been beaten into our brains for decades. Though campaign finance reform dates back to 1867 when...