Free Republic

CHICAGO - In one of his first public interviews since being picked by new Governor Bruce Rauner to be the state's new school superintendent, Rev. James Meeks told WLS 890 AM this morning that he intends to implement the Common Core curriculum in the state's schools. Meeks, a Democrat, headed the Illinois Senate Education Committee while he was a state senator serving his Chicago-based district. He continues to pastor the 15,000-member Salem Baptist Church and has become an advocate of school choice over the years. ...

As the US and world powers approach a November 24 deadline on nuclear talks with Iran, governmental sources in the Islamic regime have reported that they are conducting secret talks with America about renewing diplomatic ties for the first time in 35 years. Iranian government advisers spoke to the British Times, and said secret talks with American officials have centered around the possibility of opening a US trade office in the Iranian capital of Tehran if a nuclear deal is reached. Those talks are to continue this week, and according to the officials will take place in the Azerbaijani capital...

There’s fallout from the July 27 Houston Chronicle exposé of a trip to Azerbaijan by 10 member of the House that violated House rules. The trip was ostensibly sponsored by nonprofit groups but was actually funded by oil companies BP, Conoco Phillips and SOCAR, the national oil company of Azerbaijan. According to the New York Post today: Rep. Gregory Meeks pushed to let an Iran-backed natural-gas project dodge US sanctions — after attending an illicit junket paid for by energy companies. Also from the Post: “Congressman Meeks went on a 2013 Congressional trip to Baku, Azerbaijan, subsidized in part...

Amateur Diplomacy: Somebody explain to us why an official U.S. delegation was sent to Caracas for the funeral of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. It only boosts our enemies while diminishing America. The death of Chavez this week should have been an opportunity for the U.S. to rally global support for Venezuela's battered democrats and make a stand for democracy. Instead, the Obama administration has done all it can to validate and bolster Chavez's gangsterly minions desperate to perpetrate their Marxist kleptocracy. Already these surviving Chavistas have made clear who they are and what the U.S. can expect: President Obama called...

Today the House Ethics Committee announced that it was taking no action against Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) who secretly took a $40,000 payment from an individual who subsequently pled guilty in a multi-million-dollar mortgage scam. In 2007, Meeks received $40,000 from a "businessman," Edul Ahmad. Under the Ethics in Government Act, Congressmen are required to disclose such financial transactions on their annual Financial Disclosure Reports. Meeks failed to disclose the transaction on his reports for 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2010, the New York Daily News reported, "Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks made no payments for three years on a...

In a recent interview with the "City and State" website, which covers New York politics, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) said that he wants "to go after" our not-for-profit status. The threat was part of a more general attack on the New York Post, which has published a series of articles based on information we have provided. We have also provided information to the New York Times and New York Daily News . All the headlines have led to a House Ethics Committee investigation, and reportedly, a grand jury investigation of Meeks' finances. We are not exactly quaking in our...

NLPC has asked federal prosecutors to investigate the sale of a home by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), alleging that it was sold at an inflated price and that the purported buyers could not have qualified for a mortgage. The 2006 transaction was handled by an attorney named Alexander Kaplan, who was subsequently convicted of 18 counts of mortgage fraud and is currently serving a 46-month prison sentence. The sale of the home at 660 Grassmere Terrace in Far Rockaway, New York appears to have allowed Meeks to purchase his present Queens home in late 2006 that New York City...

Complete title: House dismisses Meeks loan probe Ethics Committee sees no violation but will look into another $40,000 borrowingThe U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee said it will not look into a nearly $60,000 home equity loan received in 2010 by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica) after the Office of Congressional Ethics determined there was no reason to believe the congressman violated House rules. But the committee said it will pursue a claim Meeks failed to disclose a $40,000 personal loan in 2007 from Richmond Hill developer Edul Ahmad in a timely manner. “Several months ago, the House Ethics Committee dismissed...

On October 28, NLPC filed a formal Complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), his campaign, and his "leadership" political action committee called Build America PAC. The Complaint alleges that Stanford Financial Group made illegal, in-kind contributions to Meeks' campaign for a 2008 fundraiser in the Virgin Islands. The event was hosted by R. Allen Stanford, who is currently in prison awaiting trial for charges related to his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. The Complaint also alleges that Meeks appears to have disguised a personal gambling junket to Las Vegas as a leadership PAC fundraiser. In...

WASHINGTON -- A House ethics probe of Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks is focusing on possible criminal charges for his failure to report a $40,000 payment from a businessman that investigators say appears to have been an illegal gift -- and not a loan, as he has claimed. The bipartisan Ethics Committee yesterday announced it would investigate Meeks over the $40,000 he was given by businessman Ed Ahmad in 2007, and it released an investigator's report that blasted Meeks for being uncooperative with the probe. The investigation will try to determine whether Meeks "failed to disclose a payment he received in...

On Friday, the FBI arrested Ed Ahmad, the Guyanese businessman who made an unsecured $40,000 loan to Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) that Meeks failed to publicly disclose as required. Ahmad was charged with mortgage fraud in connection to a wide-ranging scheme that involved faking income for applicants and the use of straw buyers. He was reportedly released on $2.5 million bail.According to one report, "Ahmad had already boarded Delta 383 at JFK International to head to Guyana when Federal agents boarded the aircraft, handcuffed him and removed him from the aircraft." As first reported in the New York Daily News,...

The House Ethics Committee on Friday announced that it would "extend" a previously unacknowledged review of Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY).In January 2010, we exposed Meeks involvement in a charity called New Direction Local Development Corporation that raised money for Hurricane Katrina victims who never received it, among other questionable dealings. In March 2010, we asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate Meeks for paying $830,000 for a newly built home in 2006 that was worth more than $1.2 million. Click here to download a 26-page pdf of the Complaint.Media coverage of these controversies reportedly prompted an FBI investigation of...

Looks like Rep. Gregory Meeks is running on a new campaign slogan: Viva Las Vegas!As The Post’s Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein reported last Sunday, the Queens Democrat spends an awful lot of time in the gambling city, ostensibly raising funds for his political action committee.Problem is, he has precious little to show for these outings.In fact, Meeks spent more than $8,000 late last year on hotels and food in Sin City — plus another $17,000 on fund-raising “consultants” — but didn’t report taking in a single penny.Worse still, he isn’t very forthcoming about the trips on his official...

  Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) held what looks like a fundraiser in Las Vegas but he reported no donations from the event. Talk about a bad bet. According to Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein in today's New York Post: Meeks purported to hold a fund-raiser in Sin City for his Build America Political Action Committee, but his office refused to say when it took place or who attended. The financial disclosures for the Queens Democrat were similarly vague.The latest disclosure for the PAC -- covering Nov. 23 to Dec. 31, 2010 -- shows the group spent $8,063 at the...

“The word ‘minority’ from our standpoint should mean African American. I don’t think women, Asians and Hispanics should be able to use that title,” he said. “That’s why our numbers cannot improve — because we use women, Asians and Hispanics who are not people of color, who are not people who have been discriminated against.” Hours after making those remarks, Meeks back-tracked by saying he would only exclude white women if elected mayor. The set-aside program currently earmarks 25 percent of all city contracts for minorities and 5 percent for companies owned by women. “I don’t believe white women should...

Chicago - On Wednesday, Chicago mayoral candidate James Meeks said that only African-Americans should be able to participate in affirmative action programs-- and that Hispanics, Asians, and women should be excluded.

Rep. Gregory Meeks' Build America Political Action Committee pays $325 in monthly rent for a phantom Queens office. The organization says it is based in "Suite 535" at 153-01 Jamaica Ave., but there is no such office in that building, which houses Meeks' district office and his campaign committee. And the building's manager said it had no record of the Build America PAC as a tenant. The questionable spending is one of several inconsistencies in the PAC's records, a Post review found. The organization's legal fees jumped this year after Meeks became the target of a federal investigation. Lawmakers are...

  Benjamin Lesser of the New York Daily News reports today that Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) on November 17 amended his 2008 financial disclosure forms to show $3,500 in "gambling winnings." This disclosure, late by two years, raises more questions than it answers. According to the Daily News: The amendment does not say how Meeks won the money, where he was gambling or how much he bet. It merely says: "In 2008, I had gambling winnings of approximately $3,500." This is the second time that Meeks has amended his disclosure forms. In June, he reported that he was the...

TAMPA -- Heading into the weekend before the election, Floridians thought the three-way race for a U.S. Senate seat here could not become stranger without one of the candidates checking into a hospital before Tuesday for a sex-change operation, or another dropping out to attend seminary. Wrong. On Thursday evening, bulletins started coming out of Washington, beginning with a report in Politico that former President Billy Bob Clinton had tried to talk Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek, who trails Republican Marco Rubio and free-agent Charlie Crist badly, into dropping out of the race in order to give the liberal Crist a...

Broward Politics Meek says he's staying in Senate race By Russell Small October 28, 2010 10:17 PM Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek denied reports by the Washington, D.C., political website Politico that former President Bill Clinton tried to convince him to drop out of the race and endorse independent Charlie Crist. “President Clinton did not ask me to drop out of the race,” Meek said at a hastily called press conference Thursday night at his campaign headquarters in Miami Gardens. “No one has called to ask me to drop out.”