Free Republic

During her three political campaigns, including an $18 million run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes reported paying $111,831 to Lexington companies owned by her father, former state Democratic Party chairman Jerry Lundergan, and $41,745 more in direct payments to him and other family members, for various services. One Lundergan company purchased and provided Grimes with a 45-foot tour bus she used for her Senate campaign. Another owns The Carrick House on North Limestone, where she held several major events. Grimes and Lundergan also shared Lexington attorney Robert "Coley" Stilz III, who was...

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, holds more than $1 million of stock in a fashion company founded in China. He established a nonprofit that spent big on promotion but little on its mission. And he advised a roster of foreign clients, including a Czech arms maker that top Republicans have criticized for being too tight with U.S. adversaries.

Lisa J. Stevenson, Acting General Counsel Federal Election Commission 1050 First Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20463 Ms. Stevenson, As Members of Congress, we are committed to the safety and integrity of our election and democracy. We are writing to offer our support for Public Citizen's Petition for Rulemaking to Clarify the Law Against Fraudulent Misrepresentation Public Citizen is petitioning the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to clarify that 52 U.S.C. § 30124 includes deep fakes of an election candidate as a fraudulent misrepresentation. As you know, 52 U.S.C. §30124 prohibits a candidate for federal office or an employee or agent campaign...

In 1989, Shell published an internal report analyzing two possible futures, one in which fossil fuels were brought under control and one in which they weren't. In the former, which they called the "sustainable world" scenario, greenhouse gas emissions began declining rapidly around the year 2000 and global warming was kept in check. In the other, where fossil fuel production continued apace, Shell researchers predicted a world of climate chaos—one with massive increases in "violent weather," particularly "more storms" and "more deluges." These disasters, Shell concluded, would create crises of such severity that "[c]ivilization could prove a fragile thing."....... If...

If you go by CBS News, you'll see them reporting that HHS, the CDC, and the FDA were ordered by a D.C. judge to restore deleted webpages with "health information." As Amuse clarifies, the deleted webpages were dedicated to sex change operations and gender ideology. How a judge can demand which webpages must be included escapes us.

Another piece to the puzzle was added after news broke that the machine run by leftist billionaire George Soros was suing President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). MRC Business discovered that another radical group financed by Soros, Public Citizen, requested January 13 for its co-presidents to be appointed to DOGE, which is being led by X owner Elon Musk. Public Citizen virtue signaled over “concerns about DOGE’s structure and mission. In structure, an advisory committee led by individuals such as Musk and former DOGE leader Vivek Ramaswamy over dubious allegations of conflict of interest. In short, Public Citizen...

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Lawyers advancing an effort to charge oil companies with homicide over climate-related deaths are ramping up their campaign to hold fossil fuel producers criminally accountable for contributing to climate change. The authors of “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death” embarked on a road trip of college campuses this spring, making the case for bringingcriminal charges against oil and gas companies. The push by David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s climate program, and Donald Braman, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School, aims to bolster support for the theory through presentations at law schools....

Today, U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (OR-04) introduced the Wall Street Tax Act, legislation to create a new tax on financial transactions that would generate billions in revenue, while reducing speculative trading and volatility in the market. “High-frequency traders front-run the market and drive up prices for individuals, pension funds and other value investors,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio. “Some days high-frequency traders trade billions of shares that they sometimes hold for only seconds or less. They reap enormous financial benefits for themselves and their privileged elite investors but add no value to our economy. Congress needs to rein in excessive speculative...

Sure, the economy is causing a crisis, but what about anthrax? How about smallpox? In a little noticed move, federal officials this month have declared a series of public health emergencies relating to potential weapons of biological terror. On Oct. 1, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt declared an anthrax public health emergency. On Oct. 10, he declared health emergencies for smallpox, radiation sickness from the detonation of a nuclear device and poisoning from botulinum toxins, the active ingredient of Botox. There’s no clear evidence that terrorists have managed to weaponize anthrax or stolen large caches of Botox from...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday announced the first director of a new office within the House to establish best practices for lawmakers to receive confidential information from whistleblowers about government wrongdoing. The office was established as part of the House rules package adopted in January of last year at the start of the current session of Congress. But the appointment of its first director comes after the conclusion of the process launched by House Democrats to impeach President Trump. Pelosi said that she has appointed Shanna Devine, who most recently worked at the progressive watchdog Public Citizen, to lead...

Tens of thousands of people across the country marched in support of impeachment Tuesday evening, from a demonstration through a rainy Times Square to handfuls of activists standing vigil in small towns around the country. Liberal groups organized more than 600 events from Alaska to Florida, following a familiar model of mass protest that has come to define the left during the Trump administration. For all the passion among activists, the gatherings were notably smaller than many of the other recent mass protests that began with the millions-strong Women's Marches the day after Trump's inaugural and have ranged over subjects...

A conservative watchdog group is asking the Office of Congressional Ethics on Thursday to review whether 14 Democratic lawmakers and one Republican inappropriately used their office to try to coerce a Las Vegas casino mogul into allowing his employees to unionize. In May, Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan and 13 other Democrats wrote a letter to Frank Fertitta III, the CEO of the Las Vegas-based casino management company Red Rock Resorts Inc., urging him to “respect the rights of employees” at the company “to form a union and collectively bargain.” Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania sent Fertitta a similar letter...

In order to do anything they can to stop President Trump from winning in 2020, Democrats in the Nevada Senate approved a National Popular Vote bill on a party-line vote, which will get rid of the Electoral College. From the Washington Times: Assembly Bill 186, which passed the Senate on a 12-8 vote, would bring Nevada into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between participating states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote. If signed as expected by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, Nevada would become the 16th jurisdiction to join the compact, along...

The Nevada Senate approved Tuesday a National Popular Vote bill on a party-line vote, sending the legislation aimed at upending the Electoral College to the governor. Assembly Bill 186, which passed the Senate on a 12-8 vote, would bring Nevada into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between participating states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote. If signed as expected by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, Nevada would become the 16th jurisdiction to join the compact, along with 14 states and the District of Columbia. The compact would take effect after states totaling...

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a group that says it champions citizen interests, is a lead organizer of Democracy Awakening. Weissman told Breitbart News in an interview on Tuesday that the Awakening movement’s specific plans for “direct action” are not yet finalized, but he said it will include civil disobedience and activists risking arrest. This Presidential election will be the first in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. States with the worst histories of discrimination are pushing for new barriers to block the young, the poor, the elderly and minority voters from the ballot...

In April, 2010, I posted a story pointing out a curious paradox. Inasmuch as healthcare—Obamacare—was such a hot topic, no one seemed to care about how poorly physicians were being treated by the system. Indeed, for all of its billions in spending, Obamacare does almost nothing to improve the lot of doctors, even as its rollout underscores the problems they face. Nor does it do much to alleviate their shortage. It is hardly a revelation that government bureaucrats are the enemies of practicing physicians. Heck, this goes back 50 years to Medicare. But it is only recently that academic medicine,...

Senator-elect Mike Lee has tapped one of Utah’s most prominent lobbyists to lead his Washington staff and coordinate his transition from candidate to senator. Spencer Stokes doesn’t officially become a Senate staffer until Jan. 5, but he plans to bounce between Utah and Washington in the coming weeks as he tries to hire staff, set up the Senate office and ramp down his lobbying activities. “It will be an exciting time to be back in D.C.,” said Stokes, who believes American voters used November’s election to protest government overreach. He said Republicans are now positioned to make an impact on...

Get a bunch of lefties together, mix liberally with wine, and the bombs start exploding. Public Citizen, the consumer group founded by Ralph Nader, gave its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award to Phil Donahue on Thursday night at the National Press Club. There were plenty of tributes for the talk show host, but it was impossible for the room full of pumped-up progressives to get through the evening without finding plenty of people to criticize -- including Barack Obama. "We have a president that many of us, particularly here on the left, we really want to cheer," investigative journalist Seymour Hersh...

Hatched over the last few weeks by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) with backing from House Democratic leaders and the White House, it was a legislative maneuver rich with the kind of irony that often goes unremarked in Washington — a classic backroom special interest deal to help pass a bill that would require heightened disclosure of special interest spending on campaign ads. The idea was to neutralize opposition to tough new campaign spending rules from one particularly powerful special interest group, the National Rifle Association, by exempting it as well as the left-leaning Sierra Club and the ecumenical Humane...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG   Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 12:10 pm "Words and Deeds" Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, drops by to talk about progress on ethics and transparency since the President was sworn in. The President promised across-the-board change in Washington and all of us in the White House have been pleased to help deliver. In the ethics and government reform arena, we have worked hard to help the President impose strict new ethics rules for all employees; foster a culture of compliance and respect for the law; promote greater transparency (including...