Free Republic

Special interests have continued to shower California legislators with hundreds of thousands of dollars in freebies, including foreign travel, golf games and concert tickets, as efforts to rein in gifts to elected state officials after a series of corruption scandals have stalled. New filings show lawmakers also were given bottles of champagne and whiskey, cigars, flowers, neckties and makeup in 2017, continuing a trend of gift-giving with few limits that has not slowed after the bribery scandals that sent former Sens. Leland Yee and Ron Calderon to prison. {snip} The governor reported $44,000 in gifts, most to cover the costs...

A local official in Hidalgo, Texas, cajoled company executives to hire a firm owned by his family in exchange for a cut of lucrative construction contracts, an investigation from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found. Claims against that official and his family were made last year in a lawsuit by the county. The kickback scheme started during a discussion at a steakhouse near the US-Mexico border in Texas. The kickback scheme was allegedly hashed out over weeknight drinks at a steakhouse in a border county in south Texas. Amid surf and turf and expensive scotch, a Hidalgo County official said...

The job of Congress is to represent the people and put the nation’s best interests first. It looks like Maxine Waters has a very different objective: Funnel as much taxpayer money to leftist cronies as possible. According to Judicial Watch, the longtime liberal lawmaker has introduced a bill that moves over a billion dollars to “Obamacare navigators,” who conveniently happen to almost always be leftist organizations. “A fraud-infested Obamacare ‘outreach’ program will get an astounding $1.2 billion from American taxpayers if legislation introduced by a veteran congresswoman becomes law,” the watchdog group explained.

When former President Bill Clinton received a $500,000 check from a Kremlin-linked bank in 2010 to give a speech in Moscow it served, to the FBI, as further evidence the Russians had unleashed an influence campaign designed to get access to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Hill newspaper reported Sunday night that the FBI had been keeping close tabs on a Russian spy network that was trying to inch closer to the Clintons at the dawn of the Obama administration, with one spy – who was eventually arrested and deported – briefly posing successfully as an American accountant and...

"I've never known a US-based nonprofit dealing in human rights or social services to have any foreign bank accounts," said Amy Sterling Casil, CEO of Pacific Human Capital, a California-based nonprofit consulting firm. "My impression based on prior interactions is that they have a small, modestly paid staff, and were regarded by most in the industry as frugal and reliable. I am stunned to learn of transfers of millions to offshore bank accounts. It is a huge red flag and would have been completely unacceptable to any wealthy, responsible, experienced board member who was committed to a charitable mission who...

On paper it’s called a “book deal”, “film rights” etc. The reality is that former FBI Director James Comey, a man who most believe lied under oath, leaked classified information, and turned the power of the FBI against POTUS Trump in order to secure a now far-reaching special counsel investigation, is being rewarded by the Deep State for a job well done to the tune of tens millions of dollars. Not bad for a guy whose FBI salary was $172,000 per year. James Comey is now a multi-millionaire. Here’s just one of many headlines from last week: James Comey Has...

Being a visionary billionaire and chief executive of three companies at once isn’t all fun and games, Elon Musk tweeted Sunday, describing “unrelenting stress” and suggesting he may be bipolar. Musk tweeted his replies to a number of questions on Twitter, starting with his response to a tweet that said he had “an amazing life.” “The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress,” Musk tweeted. “Don’t think people want to hear about the last two.” When someone else asked if he was bipolar, Musk replied “Yeah,” but then followed up with: “Maybe not medically tho. Dunno. Bad feelings...

Some notable liberals are not happy with former President Barack Obama's decision to give a speech at a Wall Street conference. Obama will be paid $400,000 to give a speech at Cantor Fitzgerald's healthcare conference this September, according to Fox Business. Some of Obama's supporters are upset with the former president who often railed against income inequality and the business practices of Wall Street. The Washington Post gave four reasons why Obama's $400,000 speech is a bad idea. One of the reasons the article cites is that in President Obama's 2006 book The Audacity of Hope he called arrangements like...

Solar company Suniva Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday after receiving millions in government subsidies to manufacture solar panels. Suniva blamed its bankruptcy on competition from cheap Chinese-made solar panels, but the company received about $20 million in support from federal and state taxpayers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “For many years, Chinese manufacturers of solar cells have benefited from favorable, state-sponsored financing and lower labor costs, allowing them to flood the United States market for solar cells and modules with cheap imports,” David Baker, the company’s restructuring officer, said in a statement. “This has negatively impacted manufacturers based in the...

Four years ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel argued that he wasn’t using public money to build a basketball arena for DePaul as much as DePaul was “subsidizing” an “event center” that McCormick Place needs to compete... Chicago-based sports business consultant Marc Ganis predicted that most of the events would be “economically meaningless, both to the facility and to Chicago taxpayers.” “I fully expect they will do whatever they can in the first few years to try and gin up a positive spin because this was such a foolhardy project in the first place,” said Ganis, who has opposed the project from...

Newly released emails show that Hillary Clinton’s top State Department adviser, Huma Abedin, granted access to the then-secretary of state during overseas diplomatic visits based upon Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) donor status. A Dec. 4, 2012 email obtained by Citizens United and shared exclusively with The Daily Caller shows that Paul McElearney, CGI’s head of member development, emailed Abedin asking if he could meet with Hillary Clinton during her trip to Ireland two days later. Abedin said that she could accommodate McElearney, and he then asked if several other people, including two CGI sponsors, could also meet Clinton. McElearney forwarded...

Charged in a corruption scandal that could have sent him to prison for three lifetimes, former Sen. Ron Calderon dropped his entrapment defense, pleaded guilty and admitted taking bribes in exchange for his influence in Sacramento. As he faces sentencing Friday, though, prosecutors say Calderon is not taking responsibility for his actions and has presented a “whimsical and revisionist view of his conduct” in an effort to serve no time behind bars for graft that lined his own pockets and helped put his children through college. Federal prosecutors asked for a 5-year prison term in a blistering brief that mocked...

It isn’t cheap to get on Hillary Clinton’s good side, but if you’ve got enough money to make a million-dollar donation to the Clinton Foundation, you are set. Say goodbye to federal regulations or bureaucratic red tape. Make a donation, get on Hillary’s good side, and you are in. This is pay-to-play, and it goes against every ethics standard in the book. No wonder Hillary Clinton lives by it. In his new book, Guilty as Sin, Ed Klein exposes Hillary’s pay-to-play scandals and how she turned the Clinton Foundation into a subsidiary of the State Department. It didn’t take too...

Graft. Corruption. In other words, Clinton stuff. While the media are hyperventilating about “Second Amendment people” - pretending to believe Donald Trump meant something they know he didn’t mean, so you will be upset - newly released e-mails prove beyond any doubt that Hillary used her position as Secretary of State as an influence-for-money operation, with Mrs. Carlos Danger as her primary cash pimpette. The New York Post is most on top of it this morning: Hillary Clinton put the State Department up for sale, with top aides pulling strings and doing favors for fat-cat donors to the Clinton Foundation...

Keeping up with his ‘man of the people image‘ Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has purchased this third house, a $600,000 lakefront vacation chalet in Champlain Islands. bernie and hillary Part of the traditional campaign negotiations between various camps is the willingness of the endorsed candidate to absorb the campaign debt of the endorser. The tighter the race, the more value is assigned to it. Subsequently, it shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise to see Sanders financially benefiting from his endorsement of Hillary Clinton. How else does a Senator afford three homes on a congressional salary. Senator Sanders owns one house...

Canadian Pacific Railroad filed an appeal Tuesday with the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals seeking an injunction to stop Illinois Route 390, also known as the Elgin O’Hare West Access (EOWA) project, from taking land in the Bensenville Rail Yard it operates in Bensenville and Franklin Park... The case sought a permanent injunction to stop the tollway from using eminent domain to take the land and make way for parts of the new tollway. The case was dismissed in March.

Health officials have reported a fourth New Mexico death from Hantavirus this year, making 2016 among the deadliest since the viral illness first appeared here in 1993. A 20-year-old Torrance County woman has died of Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome – the state’s sixth reported case this year, the New Mexico Department of Health announced Thursday. “The messaging is, (Hantavirus) is still here and you still have to take precautions,” said Dr. Paul Ettestad, the department’s public health veterinarian. Hantavirus infection is transmitted by infected rodents through urine, droppings or saliva. People can contract the disease when they breathe in aerosolized virus....

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine took advantage of the state’s lax gift laws to receive an $18,000 Caribbean vacation, $5,500 in clothes and a trip to watch George Mason University play in the NCAA basketball Final Four during his years as lieutenant governor and governor, according to disclosures he filed. Now a leading contender to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Kaine reported more than $160,000 in gifts from 2001 to 2009, mostly for travel to and from political events and conferences, according to disclosures compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project. The givers included political supporters, a drug company that soon...

Rebellious Democrats shut down the House’s legislative work on Wednesday, staging a sit-in on the House floor and refusing to leave until they secured a vote on gun control measures before lawmakers’ weeklong break. Exasperated Republicans were forced to recess while cutting off cameras that showed the protest. But in an unprecedented step, C-SPAN used live video feeds from one lawmaker’s Periscope account and another’s Facebook page to transmit words and images from the House. Nearly 100 Democrats led by Georgia Rep. John Lewis demanded a vote on measures to expand background checks and block gun purchases by some suspected...

On June 11th at 4 AM five assailants were captured on security camera assaulting restaurant patrons outside Geno’s Steaks. The jihadis beat the restaurant patrons screaming, “Don’t mess with us, we belong to ISIS!” The Philadelphia police released this report: "On June 11, 2016 at approximately 4:15 am, five (05) unknown males were captured on surveillance video outside 1219 South 9th Street assaulting the victims. After the assault the suspects fled in two (02) vehicles, a dark colored pickup truck and a SUV and fled in an unknown direction. Both vehicles had New Jersey license plates. Victim #1 was struck...