Free Republic

You all missed this one. Obey is retiring for one reason, and one reason only. Do you all realize that Obey's son's organization received $2B+ from last year's Porkulus bill? The only reason Obey is quitting is that he now has a nice little "nut" of tax-payer money and is going to retire in style with his pension and his son shuffling some cash under the table to him. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/29/stimulus-includes-plum-lawmakers-son/ http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/10/how-democrat-david-obeys-son-lobbied-for-porkulus-earmark/ http://www.npca.org/who_we_are/staff.html Craig Obey is David Obey's son. I am shocked, shocked I tell you!

TMZ has learned Rachel Uchitel -- the pilgrim of alleged mistresses -- settled up with Tiger Woods for waaaaaaay more than you think ... as in $10 MILLION!! There were numerous reports Rachel settled on the brink of holding a Gloria Allred-style news conference for anywhere between $2 - 5 million. But our sources -- and they are good -- tell TMZ Tiger was so concerned with the depth and detail of information from Alleged Mistress #1 that they folded like a cheap suit, and offered the huge $10 million sum in return for an ironclad confidentiality agreement. TMZ has...

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) announced three airports in northern Michigan have received grants totaling $726,409 for airport maintenance and improvements. The funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration. “This federal funding will help these airports better provide critical services to communities in northern Michigan,” Stupak said. “I am pleased the FAA has made this investment in our local airports and the individuals and businesses they serve.” Alpena County Regional Airport received a grant of $85,500 to acquire friction measuring equipment, specifically a decelermeter and tow vehicle, to replace equipment that has...

The ultimate fall from grace, a Federal grand jury is about to indict John Edwards, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively. In another shocker, close sources say Edwards' estranged wife Elizabeth could help send the former presidential candidate to jail! Edwards, the disgraced two-time Presidential loser, is being investigated by the feds, including the FBI and IRS, for possible campaign violations related to paying his mistress Rielle Hunter. The grand jury has been meeting since April 2009, and insiders say an indictment is imminent. "John is terrified that he's going to be indicted," a friend told The ENQUIRER. "While he believes...

Ow. Ow. Ow. I am laughing so hard I can’t breathe. Can. Hardly. Type. WaPo brings us the beyond-satire news that the White House wants to put SEIU president Andy Stern on the federal deficit panel. Now, it’s not just a dog-and-pony show. It’s a dog-pony-and-thug show. I love how WaPo uses the word “eclectic” to describe the choice. “Eclectic” is the new synonym for corruptocrat: Eclectic trio of candidates considered for Obama deficit panel: Republican David M. Cote, the chief executive of Honeywell International, has emerged as a top contender for a slot on President Obama’s commission to bring...

I think the GOP is better off without another politician that is for sale.

Black farmers – possibly over 70,000 of them – will get cash payments and debt relief from the federal government totaling $1.25 billion, in reparation for alleged racial discrimination suffered under the Department of Agriculture’s loan programs, the Obama Administration has agreed. The president announced the deal on Thursday, applauding Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder for “bringing these long-ignored claims of African American farmers to a rightful conclusion.” The Washington Post called the settlement “part of a wider effort by Obama and senior officials to dispense with lawsuits stemming from America’s checkered civil rights legacy.”...

Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) said yesterday that the White House offered him a federal job in an effort to dissuade him from challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in the state's Democratic primary.

Two new polls have come out confirming that the American people are overwhelmingly rejecting Obama's porkulus (union payoff) scam and want him removed from office as soon as possible...

Big Labor got some big love from President Obama and congressional Democrats yesterday after they agreed to exempt union workers from the whopping “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health-care plans until 2018. The sweetheart deal, hammered out behind closed doors, will save union employees at least $60 billion over the years involved, while others won't be as lucky -- they'll have to cough up almost $90 billion. The 40 percent excise tax on what have come to be called "Cadillac" health-care plans would exempt collective-bargaining contracts covering government employees and other union members until Jan. 1, 2018. In another major concession...

The Washington Times reported last night Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) had told reporters no deal was agreed to after he emerged from a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and other Democratic leaders. He went on to say health care talks were ongoing. What he failed to mention, through all of his rhetoric about his concern for pro-life language in the bill, was the huge Medicaid pay off to Nebraska being slipped into the health care bill. Essentially, the federal government will pay for Nebraska's new Medicaid recipients. The provision is worth about $45 million for the first...

The health care debate began for real in June when ABC devoted an entire hour to Obamacare in a special edition of ABC's Prime time hosted anchor Charlie Gibson and (now incoming anchor) Diane Sawyer. Called "Questions for the President: Prescription for America" the special aired on June 24, 2009, from the East Room of the White House. Basically Obama was given solo airtime to pitch his health care agenda both in prime time and later that evening on Nightline. To make matters worse, Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR) a group that opposes Obamacare tried to air commercials giving the...

First, Senator Joseph Lieberman -- the former Democrat, current independent from Connecticut -- rejected the so-called public health care option. Then he threatened to torpedo the entire health care reform bill if it allowed people over 55 to buy Medicare plans. The aim of that idea, like the public option, is to provide more choice for consumers and more competition for the private insurance industry. And that industry, you will not be surprised to hear, has been very, very good to Mr. Lieberman. What makes it all the more hypocritical is that Mr. Lieberman claims to want health care reform....

Watching liberal journalists desperate for a government bailout as they prostrate themselves before Congress can be so confusing: Should we be embarrassed as these media representatives of the "best and brightest" beg for official handouts while proclaiming their devotion to independent journalism? Or should we laugh at the irony of what is left of a once-proud liberal media establishment choosing to become wards of the very state they so vigorously promoted for the past several decades? Speaking as somebody who has made his living reporting and analyzing the news for more than two decades, I tend towards the embarrassment option....

Sen. Mary Landrieu holds off on taking health care stand, while pressing for aid for Louisiana WASHINGTON (Nov. 20) -- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., remained mum Thursday on whether she will deliver a crucial vote Saturday night to enable the Senate to debate health-care reform when it returns from the Thanksgiving holiday. But Landrieu has already succeeded in adding a provision to the 2,074-page Senate version of the health care bill unveiled this week that would provide Louisiana between $100 million and $300 million in Medicaid funding in fiscal 2011. "Look," said [Louisiana secretary of health and hospitals] Alan Levine,...

Schwartzenegger sells out to NFL.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Two key Democrat senators were cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee on Friday from year-long investigations about whether mortgages they obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The bipartisan committee, which supported the decision unanimously, did scold the senior lawmakers, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., for not being more careful in their dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised...

Al Gore and Wall Street traders will rake in millions of OUR MONEY while the cap and trade plan won't do a thing to help the environment!Obama's cap and tax scam isn't just a payoff to the environmental lobby, or the big government liberals salivating over the gold mine of new tax revenue they can use to buy more votes. Nope! The cap and trade scam will be a huge financial payoff to the rich Wall Street traders who overwhelmingly backed Obama in the presidential election. It's no secret that the security and investment community gave the majority of their...

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The United States will sign an agreement Tuesday to forgive nearly $30 million in Indonesian debt in return for the large Southeast Asian country agreeing to protect forests on Sumatra Island, which is home to endangered tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutan. The deal is the largest so-called debt-for-nature swap the U.S. government has organized so far under the U.S. Tropical Forest Conservation Act and its first such pact with Indonesia, which has one of the fastest deforestation rates in the world, losing an area of forest the size of Switzerland annually. Under the deal, Indonesia will pay...

OAKLAND — Russell Bileci owed Maurice Williams $100. How police said they decided to settle the debt could cost both men long prison terms. Investigators said Friday that Bileci said he would repay the debt by allowing Williams to have sex with his 46-year-old girlfriend in the downtown residential hotel where they all lived. The woman, who was asleep when the deal was made, knew nothing about the agreement, and investigators said Bileci sat silently in their room while she was sexually assaulted for at least a half-hour before she was rescued by police who arrested the two men. Bileci,...