Free Republic

New York Senator Charles Schumer was instrumental in getting Bharara appointed to that position and in return was asked from time to time to do favors for the senator and his allies. Up until recently, President Trump had no idea what was really going on. Once President Trump’s staff understood the quid pro quo, they had no choice but to ask for Bharara’s resignation. In 2015, Puerto Rico defaulted on $70 billion in municipal bonds. Those involved panicked. There was ample evidence that the issuing agencies were technically bankrupt when they issued the bonds and that they purchased fraudulent credit...

Recently, the Chicago City Council named a street in honor of Oscar Lopez-Rivera, the founder of the notorious terrorist group FALN. In President Obama's waning days in office, he commuted his sentence. He had been scheduled to serve until June of 2023, and after Obama's order, he still would remain incarcerated at the Federal Prison in Terre Haute, Indiana until May 17 of this year. But early in February, a fervent Lopez-Rivera supporter, the far-left Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez, succeeded in having him transferred to Puerto Rico, where he will be with his daughter while under house arrest until his...

In truly progressive fashion, Chicago renamed one of its streets after a terrorist. Earlier this month Alderman Robert Maldonado submitted a proposal to name three blocks of a city street after Oscar Lopez Rivera, the founder of the Puerto Rican terror group FALN, which was responsible for 120 bombings and armed robberies in the U.S. during the ‘70s and ‘80s that killed nine and injured hundreds of others. On Wednesday, aldermen approved the measure honoring Lopez Rivera, the terrorist whose 70-year sentence was recently commuted by Barack Obama. Aldermen also voted to approve an honorary street re-naming for Puerto...

Although Puerto Rico is on its way to holding a status plebiscite over the summer and the governing New Progressive Party has petitioned Congress for Puerto Rico’s admission as a state, some argue the island will have a higher chance of becoming a state if U.S. lawmakers were to declare Puerto Rico an incorporated territory en route to statehood. Right now, the dominant argument among all sectors is that Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory, but pro-statehood lawyer Gregorio Igartúa, who has taken several cases to the courts that seek to grant more rights to Puerto Ricans living in Puerto...

In a fresh insult to victims of terrorism everywhere, outgoing President Barack Obama decided to commute the 70-year sentence of communist terror leader Oscar Lopez Rivera, whose terrorist group unleashed a wave of savage violence that included more than 120 bombings across the United States. The brutal Fidel Castro-backed Marxist-Leninist terror group, known as th e "Armed Forces of National Liberation" (FALN), murdered six and injured dozens of Americans amid its campaign to enslave Puerto Rico under communist rule. Critics and victims of terror expressed outrage, with some suggesting the move was a green light by Obama for future communist...

The commutation of Chelsea Manning’s sentence is getting all the attention today but President Obama also commuted the sentence of Oscar López Rivera, a former Chicago community organizer turned FALN terrorist who was convicted of “seditious conspiracy” in 1981. López Rivera is considered a political prisoner by many on the left but a domestic terrorist by many on the right. Mother Jones described his background in a 2014 plea for his release: In 1981, López was charged with armed robbery, possession of an unregistered firearm, and interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, allegedly as part of a larger plot to...

As we watch America devolve into the same racially charged, anti-police violence we endured in the late '60s, through the '70s and into the early ‘80s, our father Frank Connor, forever 33, would turn 75 years old today, July 12. Thirty three year old Frank Connor and 3 others were murdered while scores were maimed on January 24, 1975 when the Marxist, Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN blew up historic Fraunces Tavern during a crowded lunchtime profiling, targeting and executing "reactionary corporate executives."  We were to celebrate my recent 9th and brother's 11th birthdays that very night.  Instead his mother's, wife's and the lives of...

President Barack Obama’s choice to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico has withdrawn from consideration. The White House says Maria Echaveste cites a prolonged confirmation process as well as her family’s best interests. …

LIFE AFTER TERROR By JOSEPH F. CONNOR YOU sometimes hear how the first World Trade Center attack was a warning that the city ig nored. But it wasn't the first: Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the New York terrorist attack that killed my father, Frank T. Connor — the Jan. 24, 1975, bombing of Fraunces Tavern. The killers struck on a warm, clear and pleasant winter's day. My dad, a 33-year-old officer of Morgan Guaranty Trust, was having lunch with clients. The bomb killed him and three others in unspeakably gruesome ways. One of his colleagues was decapitated; silverware...

The last imprisoned member of the Puerto Rican independence group that terrorized New York in the 1970s will be a free man in May — 20 years ahead of schedule. President Obama granted a commutation Tuesday to FALN mastermind Oscar López Rivera, who’s served 35 years of his 55-year sentence

The Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter is a Muslim convert who years before joining the U.S. Army took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda and recorded Islamic religious music online, according to public records dug up by the investigative news site of an award-winning, California journalist. This is pertinent information that the Obama administration apparently wants to keep quiet, bringing up memories of the Benghazi cover up, in which the president and his cohorts knowingly lied to conceal that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. Special Mission in Libya. Information is slowly trickling out that links the Ft. Lauderdale...

Puerto Rico's new governor was sworn in Monday, promising an immediate push for statehood in a territory facing a deep economic crisis. Gov. Ricardo Rossello, 37, proposed several measures aimed at alleviating the crisis shortly after he was sworn in at midnight. Among them is a proposal to hold a referendum that would ask voters whether they prefer statehood or independence. Many have argued that Puerto Rico's political status has contributed to its decade-long crisis that has prompted more than 200,000 people to flee to the U.S. mainland in recent years. "The United States cannot pretend to be a model...

Puerto Rico’s new governor was sworn in Monday, promising an immediate push for statehood in a territory facing a deep economic crisis. Gov. Ricardo Rossello, 37, proposed several measures aimed at alleviating the crisis shortly after he was sworn in at midnight. Among them is a proposal to hold a referendum that would ask voters whether they prefer statehood or independence. Many have argued that Puerto Rico’s political status has contributed to its decade-long crisis that has prompted more than 200,000 people to flee to the U.S. mainland in recent years. “The United States cannot pretend to be a model...

A few days before the November 8 presidential election, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton trying to defend herself against the FBI's announcement that they had resumed an investigation into their e-mails, her rival, Donald Trump, traveled to Florida and met With a group of Puerto Ricans. On Trump's side was Reince Priebus, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, and now Chief of Staff of the President-elect. On the Puerto Rican side were Puerto Rican[-born Idaho] congressman Raul Labrador, some 40 Puerto Rican leaders from the Orlando area and, from the island, John Regis, spokesman for the Trump campaign here,...

Ricardo Rosselló with the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP) was elected Governor of Puerto Rico during yesterday’s general elections. With 97% of the island’s polling stations reporting, Rosselló (the son of former Governor Pedro Rosselló) received 41.76% of the vote compared to 38.93% for former Secretary of State and pro-Commonwealth Popular Democratic Party (PPD) candidate David Bernier. According to additional information posted on the Commonwealth Elections Commission website this morning, Rosselló carried 46 of the island’s 78 municipalities, Bernier carried 23, and the remaining 9 were not yet called due to a 0.5% or less difference between the two candidates....

With permission, I am sharing an email below that I received from an American friend who recently moved to Puerto Rico and participated in his first election there today: Relating to the discussion about voter ID laws on a recent CD post featuring a video by filmmaker Ami Horowitz that investigated the commonly held belief by liberals in America that voter ID laws are racist and discriminate against the poor and uneducated, let me describe my first experience voting in a Puerto Rican election today. First, you have to obtain a voter ID card before you are allowed to vote...

He should. The island is a burden. He can make it the jewell of Latin America as the Castro's and Maduro's are on the run. Dump out all the Puerto Ricans in our jails. Independence is in the heart.

With each passing day, more compromising of national security, self-serving and self-enriching behaviors, frauds, scams and general malfeasance on the part of Hillary Clinton come to light via new Wikileaks data dumps. But the news media’s obsession with things Donald Trump has said consistently overshadows things Hillary Clinton has actually done. Revelations have now surfaced that Clinton backed the Puerto Rico Debt Relief Bill, a plan to help the financially struggling U.S. commonwealth deal with a $70 billion debt it managed to rack up, after a top Clinton fundraiser –who just happens to be a lobbyist for the Puerto Rican...

Following 13 hours of deliberation, the jury in the federal case against the codefendants in accountant Anaudi Hernández's corruption scheme reached a final guilty verdict on all counts against the four codefendants. Former Administrator of the Labor Development Administration (ADL) Sally López Martínez was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit fraud against federal programs and electronic fraud; one count of conspiracy to commit electronic fraud and deprive the state of honest services; three counts of electronic fraud through a scheme at ADL; and one count of receiving bribes. She faces a maximum prison sentence exceeding 100 years....

Love, solidarity, understanding, responsibility, and education are some of the words that may describe the work done by the Manuel Fernández Juncos Boys' Home located in [the] Miramar [section of San Juan]. This not-for-profit institution which houses and provides support services to boys 8 to 18 years of age who have been victims of abuse, abandonment, and neglect is known to be a helping hand to all the boys and young men who live there through education, sports, work, and discipline. "I'm fine. Very happy. Being in this home has been a very beautiful experience because I have done so...