Free Republic

Two days ago, I praised Gov. Scott Walker’s quiet conservatism. Today, I’ll criticize his inconsistency. The Milwaukee Bucks decided they needed a new basketball arena and they told the government to pay for it. If politicos didn’t cough up $250 million, the NBA warned that the Bucks might leave Wisconsin. Nice team you have here, Milwaukee. It’d be a shame if something happened to it… Taxpayers would rightly be furious if a private business demanded they fund a supermarket, an office building, or a strip mall — why on earth should they send their hard-earned money to millionaire athletes and...

Hackers from Syria and Iran are on the prowl to hold a neighborhood or city's gasoline supply up for ransom, or, worse, cause it to spill and explode, with Washington being high on the target list, according to a new report. The report, issued over the weekend by a group of digital security sleuths, found that a number of groups, including the notorious Syrian Electronic Army — known for hacking news groups — are looking for soft targets they can take control of easily through the Internet, and use to cause a variety of mayhem. The report shows that retail...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s closest aide is starting to look like a liability on the campaign trail for the Democratic presidential front-runner. Huma Abedin, who has been at Mrs. Clinton’s side as her personal assistant — or “body woman” — since the 2008 presidential race, has come under scrutiny for pocketing a $33,000 payout from the State Department for unused leave and using her simultaneous employment inside and outside of government to “deliver favors” to Clinton cronies.

Financial companies are facing extortion threats from hackers who threaten to knock their websites offline unless firms pay tens of thousands of dollars, an FBI agent told MarketWatch Thursday. More than 100 companies, including targets from big banks to brokerages in the financial sector, have received distributed denial of service threats since about April, says Richard Jacobs, assistant special agency in charge of the cyber branch at the FBI’s New York office. With these types of attacks, known as DDoS, criminals jam websites by flooding them with useless traffic. The ransom requests typically run in the tens of thousands of...

According to the New York Times, Bill Clinton was willing to show up at the Petra Nemcova gala commemorating the 10th anniversary of the tsunami to accept an award only after the skids were greased with an invoiced $500,000 donation. Pictures at link:

The city council in Jacksonville, Florida, is considering a bill that would make it a violation of city code for residents to back their vehicles into their driveways if their license plates cannot be seen from the street. According to the text of the bill, the new proposed ordinance would prohibit the “improper storage of vehicles” to reduce the “visual blight” of neighborhoods. It is also aimed to regulate “potentially hazardous conditions” on private property. Supporters say the ordinance is needed in order for officers to issue citations for abandoned vehicles, the Florida Times-Union reported. Currently, if a vehicle doesn’t...

A legal team investigating the Obama administration’s order that certain American military veterans deemed “incompetent” give up their weapons says the problem is worse than expected. People who live with veterans now are being ordered not to possess a gun, and some veterans are told they can “buy back” their Second Amendment rights by giving up their veterans’ benefits. “This is simply unbelievable, On the one hand the [Veterans Administration] and the FBI have found veterans to be mentally ill and too dangerous to be allowed to own firearms, while on the other hand allowing these allegedly dangerous people to...

Hillary Clinton is set to launch her presidential campaign for the second time Saturday in New York amid a barrage of criticism that has marred her first weeks on the trail. The Clintons have been no stranger to scandals, some dating back to when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. But there are many scandals that originated in Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. The following 15 scandals are just a few to keep in mind as she launches her presidential campaign. Boeing bucks Boeing gave generously to the Clinton Foundation after Hillary Clinton personally intervened on its behalf...

This Memorial Day weekend marked a historic uptick in violence in many US cities. Three cities seem to symbolize our national woes the most - Baltimore, Chicago, and Ferguson. In Baltimore 9 people were killed and 29 shot. Chicago marked 12 killed and 44 wounded. The police in Baltimore and the other cities seem to be moving with unprecedented caution. Further, self initiated policing has slowed down significantly. The morale of law enforcement officers is at a decadal low. Therefore, both violent and petty crimes may flourish in several “hot spot” cities this summer. In Ferguson, sky rocketing crime rates...

Dennis Hastert has not been indicted on a charge of sexual abuse, nor has he been indicted on a charge of paying money he was not legally allowed to pay. The indictment of Mr. Hastert, a former House speaker, released last week, lays out two counts: taking money out of the bank the wrong way, and then lying to the F.B.I. about what he did with the money. Does that make sense? Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, for example, is worried that the indictment constitutes government overreach, punishing Mr. Hastert for concealing payments whose disclosure he may have thought would...

In discussing the scandal engulfing former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who is due in court this week, one thing must be made absolutely clear. What he is alleged to have done to young boys has absolutely nothing to do with being gay or gay rights. * Almost immediately after the news broke of Hastert’s indictment, folks looked to Congress for signs of hypocrisy. Former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, made an assertion during an appearance on Huffington Post Live last Monday that was flat-out inappropriate. “Dennis Hastert twice as speaker tried to get the house to pass a...

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Chicago. The Illinois Republican, 73, is charged with trying to evade cash withdrawal requirements, and with lying to the FBI about it.

The Clinton Foundation said Thursday it received as much as $26.4 million in previously undisclosed payments from foreign sources, universities, large corporations. South Korea, Thailand and Nigeria. Etc. This after “forgetting” to disclose 1,100 foreign donors. This after the Clinton Foundation failed to report $$tens of millions in foreign donations on their taxes, forcing them to refile at least five years’ worth of returns. I’m sure the IRS is cool with that – after all, they don’t have “Tea Party”, “Conservative” , “Christian” or “Palin” in the name of their organization – Friend me on Facebook – no one turned...

Potential candidate for president and former Governor of Florida JEB Bush told FOX News’ Megyn Kelly that “unlike some other GOP presidential contenders, I would not move to immediately undo President Obama’s executive action granting special privileges to illegal immigrants. Instead, I would refuse to revoke it until Congress passed appropriate enabling legislation. In any case, the American voter can count on me to see that legalizing those in this country illegally will go forward with or without legislation.” Bush acknowledged the shaky legality of Obama’s executive action, but averred that “doing the right thing is more important than confining...

Lyndon McLellan fought the law -- and apparently, he won. The North Carolina business owner for months has been battling the federal government after IRS agents last fall seized $107,000 from him, under a controversial practice known as civil forfeiture. But his attorneys at the Institute for Justice announced Thursday that the IRS and Department of Justice have moved to dismiss the case and give him back his money. “What’s wrong is wrong, and what the government did here was wrong,” McLellan said in a statement Thursday. “I just hope that by standing up for what’s right, it means it...

The mother and sisters of Roosevelt Champion III, who was found dead Monday, tell The Daily Beast he was being questioned in the death of a white woman—and doubt he killed himself.GREENSBORO, Ga.—A body hanging from a tree. For the mother of any black man living in the South, it’s an image laden with awful symbolism. “It hurt,” JoAnn Henderson said of learning Monday morning that her son, Roosevelt Champion III, 43, had been found hanged from a tree behind a home on Martin Luther King Drive. “It really hurt.” Henderson and I were standing some hours later in the...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) said Sunday that the administration should name a "hostage czar" amid revelations that a U.S. drone strike killed two innocent hostages in Pakistan. “What we're calling for is the creation of effectively a hostage czar, which deals with a slightly different issue, which deals with finding these hostages,” Delaney said on ABC's "This Week." President Barack Obama on Thursday took full responsibility for the deaths of Warren Weinstein, an American hostage, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian national hostage. “In my experience with Warren's case, we do not do as good of a job,...

CHANNELVIEW, Texas – The pregnant Popeyes manager, who was fired less than 36 hours after a robbery, has been offered her job back. Marissa Holcomb, who is a mother of three with a fourth child on the way, had a meeting with Z & H Foods owner Amin Dhanani on Wednesday, a day after our original story aired of her firing. "He just apologized and pretty much offered me if I wanted to go back to his business and work there again," she said. Holcomb says she was originally terminated because she refused to pay back money that was stolen...

Despite questions of the Rev’s financial irregularities and allegations of shakedowns, they support him. Several big corporations sponsored the annual convention last week for National Action Network, Al Sharpton’s in-the-red nonprofit, according to a list obtained by National Review.

So exactly what is the use in having the United Nations exist at all? It obviously doesn’t do very well in that whole “Let’s prevent war” thing and apparently has all but given up that idea. Unless one considers all their other, marginal efforts, aimed at creating a global government (which would probably operate about as well as the European Union) the United Nations has no reason to continue existing at all. After all, as we said at the start of this article, it doesn’t accomplish much, and then only on a very good day if at all.