Free Republic

Politics in the US is steadily devolving into a form of consumer entertainment. That corrosion of basic civic interest has hit the Republican Party particularly hard because of institutional factors that leave the organization bent toward extremes. It will be difficult to stop the GOP from nominating cartoon characters like E.W. Jackson without examining and addressing the institutional characteristics that have made the Republican Party America’s choice for the politically weird. A glance across the aisle at the Democrats might yield some insights. Ideology is a secondary concern in Democratic politics. Since the mid-19th century the party has been organized...

The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department. Connect with NYTMetro Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. Ms. Abedin did not disclose the arrangement — or how much income she earned — on her financial report. It requires officials to make public any significant sources of income. The disclosure of the agreement that Ms. Abedin made with the State Department comes as her husband, former...

You knew the mainstream media was biased, but this is incredible. It was revealed today that CBS News President David Rhodes' brother is Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was instrumental in rewriting the Benghazi talking points. But it gets worse. It is now learned that ABC President Ben Sherwood's sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is a Special Assistant to Barack Obama on national security affairs. But even this isn't it! CNN's deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is the wife of Tom Nides, who until February was Hillary Clinton's deputy.

Executive Summary:On March 21, 2012, a group of Army mutineers appeared on Mali's national television station to declare that they had ended President Amadou Toumani Toure's regime and put in place the “National Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of State” (CNRDR). In the days following the coup, the leader of the CNRDR – Captain Amadou Sanago, a virtually unknown junior officer, has shown an inability to command discipline from his troops – who have looted the capital. The disappearance of President Toure and the factional infighting of the Army have made the country defenseless against AQIM’s...

European nations are not doing enough to fight corruption and bribery, according to an annual report released on Wednesday (9 May) by the Council of Europe (CoE). In the EU alone, corruption costs an estimated €120 billion annually. The CoE's group of states against corruption (GRECO), which acts as a peer review system producing reports and recommendations on different aspects of each member's efforts to fight corruption, says members need to increase transparency of political funding. In April, GRECO requested Italy to clean up its act, citing a gross lack of transparency throughout its party funding structure. "The control performed...

Mitt Romney may not be Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s biggest problem. The nonprofit group Texans for Public Justice, a good-government foundation that has been keeping tabs on him for years, may claim that title. Its Web site’s homepage features a quote from its Crony Capitalism report: “As Texas Governor Rick Perry’s influence at the RGA increased over the past five years the political finances of both the governor and the Governors Association skyrocketed. The RGA raised a record $216.9 million during the Perry years between January 2006 and June 30, 2011.

Obama Fundraiser Llnked To Loan Program That Aided Solyndra The revelation is likely to spur new inquiries about the solar company's political influence. Separately, California lawmakers seek investigation of a state tax break the firm received. By Matea Gold and Stuart Pfeifer September 17, 2011 The White House faced mounting political complications as a second top fundraiser for President Obama was linked to a federal loan guarantee program that backed a now-bankrupt Silicon Valley solar energy company, and as two California lawmakers called for investigations of a state tax break granted to the firm. Steve Spinner, who helped monitor the...

Since his announcement for the presidency, there have been a slew of articles, left, right, and center, decrying Rick Perry’s cronyism — his supposed habit of rewarding his biggest donors with patronage positions or valuable state contracts. So is the criticism fair? Perry is a legendary fundraiser, and his preferred method is sticking with the big game. He has raised $37 million over the last decade from just 150 people, per the Los Angeles Times. Expand the list to the top 200 or so donors and you get $51 million, per The Nation. That’s already more than the total amount...

Someone submit the Morning Joe java to Henry Waxman for analysis. There seems to be something in it causing top Dems to experience serious delusions . . . On today's show, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius claimed that the people of her home state of Kansas are "wildly supportive" of the substance of ObamaCare. Unfortunately, suggested Sebelius, they're just too ignorant to know what's in the blessed bill. Later, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine didn't deny that the Obama admin had engaged in two sleazy patronage deals, involving Joe Sestak and Scott Matheson. Instead, the DNC Chairman laughed off the cynical, and...

Ambassadors: Do patronage picks matter? Obama continues tradition — so far, more than half are political nominees By Domenico Montanaro Political Researcher NBC News WASHINGTON - American presidents rewarding top campaign fundraisers with plum ambassadorships has long been common practice for both Democrats and Republicans alike. But President Obama, who has vowed to “change the ways of Washington,” has not only continued this tradition of his predecessors, he has outpaced them. So far, 57% of Obama’s picks for ambassador positions — 34 of 60 — have been political appointees, or people not considered career Foreign Service, according to the American...

The Swift Economy of Colonial Justice Here are just a few incidents of crime and punishment as they were administered throughout the colonies in the years 1768 through 1770 and chronicled by the Portsmouth New Hampshire Gazette. Contrary to what you might assume, crime was not a major feature of colonial newspapers. In this era, correspondents were far more interested in political intrigue and the ideas surrounding the rights of free men. You have to really look, in other words, for a crime blotter, and when crime was reported, unlike today, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end....

Ben Stein stated an old friend of Obama from Chicago that will oversee the Cap and Trade fiasco will benefit greatly from doing it. Was he talking financially? It appeared so. Ben Stein said this is a huge scandal, and he could not remember the guys name. Beck said they will look into it and cover it tomorrow.

The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Blagojevich's administration hired Roland W. Burris II as a senior counsel for the state's housing authority Sept. 10 -- about six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped a $34,163 tax lien on Burris II and three weeks after a mortgage company filed a foreclosure suit on his South Side house.

     Amid the furor over controversies regarding Cabinet-nominee tax problems and the seismic battle over a nearly trillion-dollar economic rescue bill, President Obama made a little-noticed appointment that is now generating intrigue.     Shauna Daly, a 29-year-old Democratic operative, was named last month to the new job of White House counsel research director. Though she is inside one of the most powerful legal offices in the land, Miss Daly holds no law degree and doesn't list any legal training on her resume. -snip-     "Daly does not have the qualifications to be holding a significant position in the White House...

VIDEO AT LINK

Click on the Stimulus Watch link. Select your state, and then click on your town of city. If you do this before calling or faxing your Senator, you will have VERY GOOD AMMO. It lists ALL of the local area projects in the Porkalus Bill for your reference.

She hasn’t shown up for work very regularly over the last year or so, so when Michelle Obama’s $300,000 job was cut at the University of Chicago Hospitals, it may have been hard to notice the difference.

Perhaps no governor has rewarded so many supporters with so much. Five years ago, just eight of Gov. Bill Richardson's political appointees made more than $100,000 a year. Today, more than 100 earn at least that much. Also up under Richardson: the number of gubernatorial political appointees, formally known as exempt employees. In his first 15 months in office, the number of appointees scattered throughout government grew from 167 to 307. Today, there are 468 gubernatorial appointees in exempt positions. That growth in the patronage, or spoils, system of state government is one of the legacies of Richardson as he...

President-elect Barack Obama's top adviser and chief political strategist, David Axelrod, penned an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune in 2005 that could come back to haunt Obama as the investigation into disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich goes ahead. In the article, Axelrod, who was a political adviser to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley before becoming the architect of Obama's presidential campaign, wrote that trading political jobs for favors is a perfectly acceptable practice and part of the way American democracy works. "The democratic process is often messy. Diverse constituencies fight fiercely for their priorities. Their elected representatives use the influence they...

Barack Obama’s election with the middle name Hussein (invoked to rile Republican crowds during the presidential campaign) should inspire Muslims to pursue public service and other work, even if they speak with accents or their names are perceived as foreign-sounding, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison told the recent annual meeting of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress, followed up on CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad’s plea for Obama to hire Muslims to federal posts by urging American Muslims to apply for some of the administration’s 8,000 job openings.