Free Republic

The idea of PA legislative cronyism sadly goes on. They take care of their own. In this case Republican Sen Mike Regan's wife Frances. Then Democrat Frank Dermody got his turn after losing reelection in 2020 after 30 years in office Both were appointed by legislative leaders to Pennsylvania’s Gaming Control Board, whose responsibilities include meeting once or twice a month — three times in busier months — have among the highest-paid positions in state government, with annual salaries topping $145,000. It’s one of the best jobs in town — if you can get it. That is because ex-state legislators...

This deal has a precedent in the history of Athens and Sparta. The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today. For my last column I spoke with The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman about an article he wrote more than a decade ago, during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. His important piece documents the exact moment when the American elite decided that democracy wasn’t working for them. Blaming the Republican Party for preventing them...

Mishkin, 65, would seem an unlikely election analyst for the news network that is closely associated with the Republican Party. A registered Democrat, both his parents were Holocaust survivors, as he detailed in a speech to his Upper West Side synagogue B’nai Jeshurun in 2001. His father was the physics and engineering professor Eli Mishkin, whose obituary said he was the first person to receive a doctorate from the Israel Institute of Technology. His mother Esther volunteered at YIVO, the institute for Jewish research that preserves European Jewish history. Tuesday night wasn’t the first time Mishkin angered Republican politicians tracking...

Fox News Channel announced Friday that it will host a town hall with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, marking his first appearance on the network as a presidential candidate. "Special Report" anchor Bret Baier and "The Story" anchor Martha MacCallum will co-moderate the town hall on Monday, March 2 in Manassas, Va., from 6:30-7:30PM/ET.

Do you think Rep. Steve King (R-IA) should've been removed from committee assignments after his white supremacy remarks? Watch here: (link: https://cs.pn/2CojJTm) cs.pn/2CojJTm Yes/No

The Queen had just stepped out of a Rolls-Royce to greet 3,500 well wishers when a distinctive crack rang out across the grassy reserve. According to former Dunedin police det sgt Tom Lewis (no relation to the shooter), police immediately attempted to disguise the seriousness of the threat, telling the British press the noise was a council sign falling over. Later, under further questioning from reporters, they said someone had been letting off firecrackers nearby. According to Tom Lewis, the then prime minister Robert Muldoon feared if word got out about how close the teenager had come to killing the...

A video was sent in showing a high school teacher who has been identified as Lyn Orletsky from River Ridge High School in Georgia by Turning Point News. The incident happened Thursday according to sources. Lyn Orletsky via Facebook In this video the teacher appears to order her students wearing Trump shirts to turn them inside out. She didn’t want her students wearing these shirts for the same reason ‘you cannot wear a swastika to school’.

A Georgia homeowner shot in the neck after police went to the wrong house has died, a lawyer for the family said Friday. William Powell, 63, died Thursday afternoon at Atlanta Medical Center, attorney Keith Martin said. A preliminary review of the 911 call indicates the three officers who responded had gone to the wrong home and showed up at Powell's house, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. Powell was armed with a gun and was shot in the neck by Sgt. Patrick D. Snook, the GBI said in a report. Snook is on paid leave, the standard protocol in...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The U.S. Marshals Service says one of its employees was photographed having sex on the roof of a federal courthouse in Pennsylvania. A resident of a nearby apartment building who was concerned that there was a security breach snapped the pictures this week and sent them to WHTM-TV in Harrisburg, which alerted authorities. U.S. Marshal Martin J. Pane issued a statement Thursday confirming the employee’s involvement. He said the matter is under investigation.

Some things in life are just too good to handle. Quincy Kroner had that exact feeling on March 13 when he met his local heroes -- the neighborhood garbage men, Mark Davis and Eddie Washington. The Cincinnati 2-year-old has been fascinated by the garbage truck “since about the age he could walk,” the toddler’s father, Ollie Kroner, told The Huffington Post in an email. But this was the first time he met the garbage men in person, and it was all too much for him -- resulting in the adorably priceless photo above. “He was all smiles as the garbage...

After passing the Senate by unanimous consent on Monday, it seemed as if the FOIA Improvement Act would become law—a nearly identical version passed the House earlier this year. Today, however, it was up to Speaker of the House John Boehner to allow a vote on the bill’s final passage before the House adjourned this week. Instead, it was “held at the desk,” meaning Boehner may have just killed FOIA reform. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a law, signed in 1966, that gives U.S. citizens the right to access information from the federal government. Through FOIA, journalists and...

TEHRAN, Iran – A billionaire businessman at the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam, the largest fraud case since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution, was executed Saturday, state television reported. Authorities put Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, also known as Amir Mansour Aria, to death at Evin prison, just north of the capital, Tehran, the station reported. The report said the execution came after Iran's Supreme Court upheld his death sentence. Khosravi's lawyer, Gholam Ali Riahi, was quoted by news website khabaronline.ir as saying that his client was put to death without any notice.

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. It was kept secret and remains so today. President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by...

If President Barack Obama has disappointed Syrian rebels by deferring to Congress before bombing Damascus, he has also dismayed the United States' two main allies in the Middle East. Israel and Saudi Arabia have little love for each other but both are pressing their mutual friend in the White House to hit President Bashar al-Assad hard. And both do so with one eye fixed firmly not on Syria but on their common adversary - Iran. Israel's response to Obama's surprise move to delay or even possibly cancel air strikes made clear that connection: looking soft on Assad after accusing him...

Many Americans think we live in a country of rights and especially of self protection via the Castle Doctrine. They are wrong. We live in a police state where you pay their wages and they decide if you live or die at their discretion.

Seattle has a brilliant solution to their many police problems — refuse to release police dash-cam footage, then sue the person requesting said footage.

November 7, 2011 | By Trevor Timm The Stop Online Piracy Act: A Blacklist by Any Other Name Is Still a Blacklist During the past week, momentum against the House’s draconian copyright bill has gained steam, as venture capitalists, Internet giants and major artists have denounced it for handing corporations unprecedented power to censor countless websites and stifle free speech. In response, the bill’s big-pocketed supporters have gone on the offensive, attempting to mislead the public about the bill’s true reach. In a particularly egregious example, the Chamber of Commerce posted an attack on its website insisting that the Stop...

Iceland's special prosecutor has taken Larus Welding, the former head of the failed Glitnir Bank, into custody, Reuters reports. Glitnir Bank was the first of the top three Icelandic commercial banks to fail in 2008. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/iceland-glitnir-bank-larus-welding-2011-12#ixzz1frUOZ09P http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/30/us-iceland-glitnir-idUSTRE7AT2UX20111130

Dividing along party lines, the House of Representatives voted to end public financing for presidential campaigns. On a vote of 235-190, the House also eliminated the Election Assistance Commission, a group that among other things certifies voting machines, The Washington Post blog 2chambers reported. The bill, that was proposed by Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., heads to the Democratically-controlled Senate where its fate is uncertain. The White House said it opposed the measure but did not make a veto threat, the Post reported. The bill also would end public funding for the Democratic and Republican national conventions. The two groups have...

The SEC alleges that Citigroup Global Markets structured and marketed a CDO called Class V Funding III and exercised significant influence over the selection of $500 million of the assets included in the CDO portfolio. Citigroup then took a proprietary short position against those mortgage-related assets from which it would profit if the assets declined in value. Citigroup did not disclose to investors its role in the asset selection process or that it took a short position against the assets it helped select. Citigroup has agreed to settle the SEC’s charges by paying a total of $285 million, which will...