Free Republic

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia. "These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military...

The Hustler founder has made an X-rated movie using an adult-film actress who resembles the governor of Alaska. Flynt's team had posted an anonymous advert on the website Craigslist just days after Mrs Palin took the Republican convention by storm last month. The ad read: "Looking for a Sarah Palin look-alike for an adult film to be shot in the next 10 days." The actress would be paid $3,000 (£1,700) for the part. Flynt's spokesman confirmed to the New York Daily News that the film had been shot, but he would not yet reveal the title. Bloggers have already suggested...

Malignant, malevolent, mendacious - this creep is a cancer on British life Last updated at 2:03 AM on 04th October 2008 * Comments (0) * Add to My Stories On the day Peter Mandelson was forced to resign in disgrace for the second time, I can remember writing that he wouldn’t be out of work long. He’d get his reward either in Brussels or the House of Lords. Even I didn’t imagine that one day he’d achieve both. Nor that it would be Gordon Brown who brought him back from Brussels and swathed him in ermine. Yes, that Gordon Brown....

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

SIX days ahead of the North Carolina primary comes a story of real sleaze—not Jeremiah Wright-style buffoonery, but Nixon-style illegality designed to dupe and disenfranchise voters—that should surprise precisely nobody who has been following and covering this campaign. A group called Women's Voices Women's Vote (WVWV), which claims to have been "created to activate unmarried Americans in their government and in our democracy" has been placing robocalls to voters across North Carolina that seem designed to fool them into thinking they have not yet registered to vote. Many of the voters who received those calls are black. Voters in 11...

The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state's new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs. In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago. In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999. mo here

The federal criminal investigation that has led to Eliot Spitzer's resignation as governor of New York illustrates the great dangers all Americans face from vague and open-ended sex and money-transaction statutes. Federal law, if read broadly, criminalizes virtually all sexual encounters for which something of value has been given. Federal money-laundering statutes criminalize many entirely legitimate and conventional banking transactions. Congress enacted these laws to give federal prosecutors wide discretion in deciding which "bad guys" to go after. Generally, wise and intelligent prosecutors use their discretion properly -- to target organized crime, terrorism, financial predation, exploitation of children and the...

Tehran's police chief, Reza Zarei, has been arrested after he was found nude in a local brothel with six naked prostitutes, according to report on the Iranian Farda News. Farda News is a website said to be close to the mayor of Tehran and former chief of the police forces, Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf. Following the raid, Zarei stepped down from his post as police chief. The news of his arrest however was not reported by any official Iranian news agency. According to a popular Iranian website Gooya, the order to raid the brothel was given directly by Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi...

ALBANY — On Dec. 3, Richard P. Richman, a real estate developer from Connecticut, wrote a check to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s campaign account. The check was for $10,000, less than one-fifth of the maximum donation allowed under New York State law. But it was all he could give to the governor, who had imposed strict limits on what he would accept from donors as part of his highly publicized pledge to end the excesses of special-interest money in Albany. So Mr. Richman took out his checkbook again. This time he gave $15,000, but sent it to the state Democratic Party,...

Hillary Clinton’s recent primary losses to Barack Obama may say as much about Democrats’ desires to be done with the Clintons as they do about the cult of personality that is Obama. Some say Hillary is now paying for the sins of her husband. I agree that may be true to some degree, but in many cases she was an accomplice to those sins and has only herself to blame. I have wondered for some time whether or not Americans would want another soap opera presidency and I think we are seeing the answer in the most recent primary vote...

Last year, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton took the unusual step of renting out some of her lists. The transaction once again highlights the Clintons' connections to a businessman who now faces questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SAN ANTONIO — Mikal Watts didn’t have a fighting chance — politics were in his life from the start. As a toddler, he rode in a stroller as his mother marched in a farm workers’ rights march in Austin. Politics made for dinner table conversation and filled the pages of books in the family library. He attended fundraising barbecues with his parents. Before the age of 18, he knocked on doors registering people to vote. In the years since, Watts has risen from law-school whiz kid (he received a degree at 21) to nationally known product liability lawyer and political...

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them. Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his...

NEW LABOUR DONATIONS ALLEGATIONSLabour is facing fresh pressure over disguised donations after it was reported party officials had helped draw up legal agreements underpinning the practice in 2003. The Guardian newspaper said "middle-ranking officials" sought approval from lawyers and senior colleagues for covenants used by David Abrahams to conceal his identity. Scotland Yard is investigating how the property developer was able to channel hundreds of thousands of pounds through third parties to keep his name from regulators. Mr Abrahams suggested at the weekend that about 10 party figures were aware of the practice - renewing speculation about who knew within...

Don't quit, Brown begs Scottish Labour leader as she faces criminal investigation into sleaze rowGordon Brown has begged one of his key allies not to quit as she faces a criminal investigation into an illegal donation from a millionaire tax exile. Two police forces and the Electoral Commission have launched official inquiries after Wendy Alexander, Labour's leader in Scotland, admitted breaking the law by accepting the money for her leadership campaign. The Prime Minister is said to fear that if she resigns it will spark a "domino effect" - forcing Labour ministers to stand down over the secret donations scandal...

According to The Politico, New York Post columnist and FOX News contributor Dick Morris has been secretly advising former client Mike Huckabee on his Presidential campaign. Morris claims he is acting in an entirely voluntary capacity by simply offering free advice. Keep in mind that nationally syndicated columnist George Will was pilloried by the media when it became public that he had secretly and voluntarily helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his Presidential debates in 1980. A prominent national GOP insider tells Politics1 that he believes Morris -- despite his claims to the contrary -- is paid for his services through...

Among the top tier Republican candidates, Rush says that only Fred has been a consistent conservative. You have been given your marching orders. Now you know who to vote for. RUSH: …the genuine moderate as opposed to conservative aspects of three of the top-tier, four of the top-tier candidates were on full-fledged display last night. There was one candidate who did not display any moderateness or liberalism or have any of his past forays into those areas displayed, and that candidate was Fred Thompson. … …we have a campaign now where most of the candidates are not genuine conservatives. They...

Chicago (AP) -- The son of an Illinois congressman is accused of having sexual contact with two female inmates and inappropriate contact with a third while working for the state Department of Corrections, officials announced Friday. Jeffrey M. Rush, 41, the son of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, was a supervisor of security at the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in Aurora, a facility which houses female offenders. Between February and June, Rush met two inmates for sexual contact on numerous occasions and offered a third inmate a ride, according to the Kane County state's attorney's office. Rush drove a state-issued...

House Republican leaders have publicly called on Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) to apologize for his comments today regarding American troops in Iraq or resign from his position. Stark said the following today on the floor of the House (which can be viewed on video here): “I yield myself two minutes. Madam speaker, I, first of all, I’m just amazed that they can't figure out -- the Republicans are worried that they can't pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to...

CASSELBERRY - In January, 1-year-old Joey Cosmillo wandered into the backyard and fell into the family pool. When his mother hauled him out, he wasn't breathing. Rescuers were able to bring him back to life, but he suffered severe brain damage and cannot walk, talk or even swallow. Now, his family faces another burden: One of the rescuers, Casselberry police Sgt. Andrea Eichhorn, is suing, alleging the family left a puddle of water on the floor that afternoon, causing her to slip and fall. The boy's grandparents, named in the suit, are mystified and angry. "The loss we've suffered, and...