Free Republic

Army National Guard Maj. Shawn Fulker is thousands of miles away serving in Afghanistan, and when his wife's birthday came around, he decided he wanted to do something very special. Josephine Fulker loves Mellow Mushroom pizza,so her husband emailed Mellow Mushroom's corporate website on Thursday to ask whether one of the company's Jacksonville stores could deliver a pizza and a $50 gift card to his wife at their Jacksonville, Fla., home.If they could, he said, he would call the store and pay for it with his credit card. Mellow Mushroom did one better. Unbeknownst to Shawn Fulker,a local Mellow Mushroom...

PECKVILLE - Teams of FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents raided the Archbald home and Peckville office of retiring state Senate Democratic Leader Robert J. Mellow on Friday in an apparent widening of an ongoing public corruption investigation. The nature of the investigation is unknown, but Mellow's spokeswoman denied he has done anything wrong and said he is cooperating with the investigation. FBI agents arrived simultaneously at 9 a.m. and executed search warrants at Mellow's Main Street office and his home in the Hills of Archbald housing development, where five unmarked vehicles ringed the senator's corner property, which he recently...

Agents from the FBI and IRS executed search warrants at the home and district office of Pennsylvania Senate Democrat Leader Robert J. (Bob) Mellow yesterday. The feds were mum on what it was about and Mellow spokeswoman Lisa Scullin said the senator is cooperating with all request. Mellow has represented the 22nd District since 1971.

Pennsylvania Republicans are threatening the Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania (YCOP) for sponsoring a public information campaign exposing a hefty pay raise passed for lawmakers, judges and top executive-branch officials. On July 7 at 2 a.m., state legislators voted to give themselves a pay increase of more than 30% without debate. YCOP is demanding repeal.

More than 80 percent of state lawmakers — and almost 90 percent of local state legislators — are eligible to earn salaries even bigger than the new, higher base pay the General Assembly recently approved. When the majority of state lawmakers voted themselves raises earlier this month, they not only added 16.4 percent to their base salaries, they also gave extra pay for the first time to the chairmen and vice chairmen of legislative committees and chairmen of committee subcommittees. And the top officers of both Houses are now eligible for more extra pay than they were getting before. Among...

It's Christmastime and so another Jimmy Carter campaign to sell a book. This must be his 19th. In the fancy Westwood district of los Angeles last week, the lines snaked around the block at Borders, with each liberal awaiting the signature of our country's worst-ever president. But besides the book tour, Carter's also got a public relations campaign, and Reuters, naturally, is happy to spread the clichés. This Reuters title probably tells you all you need to know: "Mellow Jimmy Carter Finds Joy In Sharing." But to peruse the moldy Reuters template, we learn that Carter's been through it all,...