Free Republic

State Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, for decades one of the most powerful Democrats in Massachusetts, announced Thursday that he will resign Friday after 31 years as a lawmaker because of a scandal involving his estranged husband. His decision follows Wednesday’s release of an ethics report that states Rosenberg “failed to protect the Senate” from his estranged husband, who faces charges of racially and sexually harassing Senate employees. Rosenberg, 68, of Amherst, a former president of the Massachusetts Senate, was the first openly gay lawmaker to lead a legislative chamber in the Bay State, Boston’s Fox 25 reported. He stepped down as...

pecial Counsel Robert Mueller III and lead attorney in the Special Counsel’s Office Andrew Weissmann have been connected to one another throughout most of their careers, and both men moved quickly to the top tackling major crime syndicates and white-collar crime. Ironically, both men were also connected in two of the biggest corruption investigations in FBI history. But rarely are Weissmann and Mueller’s past cases discussed in the media. Their past is relevant because it gives a roadmap to the future — now that these two longtime colleagues are charged with one of the most controversial investigations into a president...

Six foreign nationals have been charged with illegally entering the US after being deported, federal prosecutors said Monday. Marco Lopez-Chavez, 24, and Virgilio Pedro Vicente-Lopez, 39, of Guatemala, Leandro Guimaraes, 38, and Nivaldo Gomes, 57, of Brazil, Bulmaro Enriquez, 32, of Mexico, and Milton Mejia-Padilla, 36, of Honduras, were indicted, according to a statement from the US Attorney’s office. They each face a fine of $250,000 and up to 20 years in prison, after which they will be subject to deportation, prosecutors said.

Good Afternoon And WELCOME!

Good Afternoon And WELCOME

Well, so much for that “agonizing reappraisal” (allowing truth) by the media/Hollywood complex on the Kennedys. Naturally we were asking too much. Apparently the movie Chappaquiddick, which forthrightly—and thus astoundingly! -- showcases a Kennedy’s perfidy, was a flash in the pan.Recently here at Townhall your humble servant speculated the movie might open a tiny crack for historic truth about Kennedy treachery to seep through. So I quickly slipped in the truth on the Kennedy treachery at the Bay of Pigs.Alas! Now we’re back in traditional media/Hollywood Kennedy hagiography mode. I refer to this week’s Netflix’s release of “Bobby Kennedy for...

The most popular place to put a city park is, increasingly, on a highway. Cities looking to boost their downtowns, or to improve downtrodden neighborhoods, are creating “highway cap parks” on decks constructed over freeways that cut through the urban center. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Denver and Dallas have deck parks underway. Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis and Santa Monica, California, are among the cities considering similar projects. In crowded cities, highway deck parks are a way to create new acreage and provide green space that can spur downtown development. Capping a highway to create a park also can reconnect urban neighborhoods sliced apart...

At a time of ugly race-baiting in politics, a good laugh is like a ray of sunshine. For the funniest candidate of the day, conservatives owe a big vote of thanks to a gentleman named Shiva Ayyadura (pronounced ah-yah-DOO-rah) in the Commonwealth of Mass., a man who is both a real Indian (from India!) and a real American (from America!) – unlike Fauxcahontas Warren, the current senator from that benighted state. So Mr. A. is running against Liz (Fakey) Warren for Senate, and naturally, local leftist thugs are trying to shut him up. Liz Warren is the most ridiculous senator...

Yawkey Way is no more. On Thursday, Boston’s Public Improvement Commission unanimously approved Boston Red Sox owner John Henry’s request to change the name of Yawkey Way, according to the Boston Globe. The street will now be known as Jersey Street, its original name.

ESSEX – A World War II veteran who spoke nationally about his participation in the D-Day invasion and stood with other veterans behind President Obama at the 70th anniversary in Normandy has admitted to misrepresenting his military record. Morley Piper, 93, of Essex, said he was not a member of the 29th Infantry Division, which suffered heavy casualties as part of the first wave of the historic invasion, as he had claimed. Piper’s fabrication was brought to light when someone contacted the New England Newspaper & Press Association, where he worked for 47 years and has an award named in...

The words, emblazoned on two signs that hang off U.S. Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai's campaign bus, appear next to two images: one of a stoic Ayyadurai looking into the camera, and another of a closeup of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wearing a Native American headdress. Ayyadurai, a 54-year-old scientist born in Bombay, India, told the Washington Times the city of Camridge, Mass., had ordered him to remove the signs because they were placed "without approvals and permits." He believes this was instead a case of the city trying to clamp down on his right to free speech. “This is a...

In recent days the hordes of social media activists and agitators have been busier than ever intimidating, excoriating and stomping out diversity of thought wherever it appears. This weekend, the Guardian newspaper published an interview with country music star Shania Twain. She discussed her career, troubled childhood, marriage and other typical areas of conversation and then ventured into politics and, of course, Donald Trump. “I would have voted for him because, even though he was offensive, he seemed honest. Do you want straight or polite? Not that you shouldn’t be able to have both. If I were voting, I just...

Complete Headline: 'Real Indian' running against Sen. Elizabeth Warren sues after city tells him to stop calling her 'Fake Indian' A self-described "real Indian" who is running against Mass. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is suing after city officials demanded he take down his signs calling her a "fake Indian." The upstart independent Senate challenger, Shiva Ayyadurai, on Sunday filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the demand from the city of Cambridge violates his constitutional free speech rights, according to The Washington Times. Since March 17, Ayyadurai's campaign bus has sported two identical signs picturing himself and a rendition of Warren...

Good Afternoon And WELCOME!

President Obama did not attend the funeral of his late aunt Zeituni Onyango. Instead, he went golfing. The New York Times reports: After Zeituni Onyango, the woman President Obama once called Auntie, died in a South Boston nursing home this month, her closest relatives gathered her belongings at her nearby apartment. There, framed photographs of her with the president covered the wall. Weeping before a polished wood coffin at her wake this past Saturday, they described Ms. Onyango, the half sister of the president’s father, as “the spirit of the Obama family” and talked about raising money to send her...

Unless lawmakers can work a small miracle, a referendum question on raising the minimum wage will be on ballots in November. Beacon Hill has limited time to get an acceptable compromise solution through the normal legislative process and avoid an expensive and contentious campaign on the issue. And the proponents of the higher minimum have the prerogative to reject any half measure they believe falls short of their goals. The big player in this initiative is called Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition that includes unions, community activists and clergy. Their petition would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage from the...

I think I must have been ill that day. At some point, no one can say precisely when, libertarians apparently swore a feudal oath of fealty to the Republican Party. In response to an American Prospect article on libertarian disenchantment with the Bush administration, Reason's own former editor in chief Virginia Postrel explained that "real Dean voters don't like Jeff Flake. (I do.)" On the Crossfire view of politics, this makes sense: You pick your team and root for it, come hell or high water. The Platonic Real Dean Voter can't possibly hold any affection for a member of the...

Conservative climate champions are often laughed off or ignored. But what’s happening within the American political right could change everything, and fast.Each year since 1989, the JFK Library bestows its Profile in Courage award to a public servant who takes a principled but unpopular position. This year,the award went to Bob Inglis, a former congressman from South Carolina who’s turned into America’s best hope for near-term climate action. Oh, he’s also a Republican.As you might expect, Inglis wasn’t always a climate campaigner. In his acceptance speech last week at the JFK Library in Boston,he described how and why he changed...

Jerry Taylor believes he can change the minds of conservative climate skeptics. After all, he helped plant the doubts for many in the first place. He’s president of the Niskanen Center, a libertarian-leaning Washington, DC, think tank he founded in 2014. He and his colleagues there are trying to build support for the passage of an aggressive federal carbon tax, through discussions with Washington insiders, with a particular focus on Republican legislators and their staff. Lesson one: Pick the right targets Political scientists consistently find that mass opinion doesn’t drive the policy debate, so much as the other way around....

Is Gov. Charlie Baker going to the wrong convention? As of now the Republican-in-nameonly (RINO) governor is expected to win the GOP endorsement for a second four-year term when the Republican Party holds its convention at the DCU Center in Worcester Saturday, April 28. But the governor is so popular with Democrats on Beacon Hill and elsewhere that he could probably win the Democrat Party endorsement as well. Democrats will meet at the same Worcester site on June 2 to endorse its gubernatorial candidate as well as candidates for the other statewide offices. Candidates endorsed by the party have an...