Free Republic

Most lawyers trying a case abide by the maxim: Don’t piss off the judge. President Obama disregarded that when he lectured the Supreme Court not to overturn the health care law. Indirectly the President was challenging the entire judiciary and it struck a raw nerve with Judge Jerry Smith, of the 5th Circuit Appeals Court. Judge Smith had, less than two years earlier rejected, in a 2 to 1 decision, the Interior Department request to stay a lower court order lifting the offshore drilling moratorium (Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar) – thus requiring the moratorium lifted. In one of...

Late last week, Spike Lee re-tweeted the address of ‘George Zimmerman’ to his quarter of a million followers. Except it was the wrong address. It was the address of an elderly Florida couple whose son... William George Zimmerman (no relation to shooter) - lived briefly there in 1995. Now the 70-year-old school cafeteria lunch lady with a heart condition and her 72-year-old husband have been forced to move out of danger into a hotel temporarily after receiving hate mail, threats, harassing visits from reporters and fearful inquiries from neighbors.

The city of Berkeley has hired a law firm to investigate the police chief's decision to send an officer to a reporter's home after midnight to push for changes in a story, officials said today. Interim City Manager Christine Daniel issued a statement confirming the independent investigation shortly after the police union called for an outside probe, saying the top cop should be held to the same standard as the rank and file. Chief Michael Meehan has apologized for what he has described as an "error in judgment." Any officer under his command who did what the chief did would...

Democrat Ballot Challenger called as he was walking out of the court house in Tallahassee …. Posted by By GeorgeM at 15 February, at 22 : 53 PM Mike Voelz called me a few minutes ago to say that he was feeling “relief and excitement” upon completing his filing of a Florida Ballot Challenge to Obama. He had been studying FL statutes for two years and is a registered Democrat. He remarked that he was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to file and how friendly they were. He said that they asked him for his BAR number and...

An administrative law judge in Georgia who held hearings on citizens’ complaints that Barack Obama isn’t eligible to be president and so shouldn’t be on the 2012 presidential ballot in the state failed to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedent, according to one of the attorneys representing clients bringing the complaints....Appeals of the decision already are in the works, ... Hatfield ... told WND he had expected Kemp to rubber-stamp whatever Malihi wrote....He noted since Obama and his lawyer “failed to appear” and “failed to submit any evidence,” the determination by Malihi in the cases brought by his clients appears to...

[snip]...Jablonski remained true to his word -- neither he nor Obama showed up for the January 26 hearing. I noted last week that Obama was not scheduled to be anywhere near Atlanta on the date of the hearing, although I had wondered if still, perhaps, Georgia might be on his mind. According to reports in the blogosphere, the president's schedule on the morning of the 26th was open, and according to an unnamed source, Obama watched the live feed of the hearings. Perhaps Obama, as well as the several mainstream media news outlets I spotted at the hearing, were merely...

After hearing evidence with neither President Barack Obama nor his lawyers in attendance, a state administrative law judge on Thursday did not issue a ruling as to whether Obama can be allowed on the state ballot in November. Lawyers for area residents mounting "birther" challenges told Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi that Obama should be found in contempt of court for not appearing when under subpoena to do so. But Malihi did not indicate he would recommend that and cut off one lawyer when he criticized Obama for not attending the hearing. "It shows not just a contempt for this...

Scoffing at a judge’s call for Barack Obama to appear in court Thursday, Obama attorney Michael Jablonski says that not only will the president not be on hand but neither will Jablonski.

President Obama plans to head out on a 3 day trip arriving in Las Vegas Wednesday afternoon and staying overnight well into Thursday. That afternoon he will leave for Denver and then Detroit. The president plans to promote his State of the Union address. With this action, President Obama intends to ignore a legal judicial subpoena from the state of Georgia requesting him, by name, to appear in court January 26th 2012 at 9am in Judge Michael Malihi's courtroom. Barack Obama's attempt as a candidate to be on the state ballot in Georgia has been officially legally challenged by state...

Billionaire George Soros gave advice and direction on how President Obama should allocate so-called “stimulus” money in a series of regular private meetings and consultations with White House senior advisers even as Soros was making investments in areas affected by the stimulus program. It’s just one more revelation featured in the blockbuster new book that continues to rock Washington, Throw Them All Out, authored by Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer. Mr. Soros met with Mr. Obama’s top economist on February 25, 2009 and twice more with senior officials in the Old Executive Office Building on March 24th and 25th as...

After the collapse of Solyndra, a solar company that received over $500,000,000 in loans from the Obama Administration, Republicans noted the unsettling amount of ties that the White House had with the defunct company. Vice President Biden called on his advisers to hurry through the loan, President Obama toured the Solyndra plant in 2010, and the top executives of Solyndra donated heavily to then-candidate Obama in 2008. President Bush rejected loaning the company money, saying that it was too risky, and even President Obama's advisors told him in person that the half-a-billion-dollar loan was "not ready for prime time." The...

...Obama will hold a news conference on Wednesday morning at 11:30am EDT, giving reporters the chance to ask....

WASHINGTON — Knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious, a controversial border security strategy that allowed guns to be shipped illegally into Mexico in an effort to track them to drug cartels, went to the top of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, according to evidence released on Wednesday at a House Oversight Committee hearing. Witnesses at the House hearing included three relatives of a Border Patrol agent killed in Arizona and three A.T.F. agents, right. The operation, which began in 2009, came under fire after two guns linked to it were found at the scene of the killing of...

Whither the Dems? Why NO call for Weiner to resign? The behavior of the Democrat leadership after Weiner’s presser yesterday afternoon is probably MORE bizarre that the congressman’s risky behavior…sending lewd pics of himself to women in cyberspace. If you think about it, it makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. It is a LOSE/LOSE proposition for them. And thus, it’s reasonable to inquire if there is indeed something in the Dem/liberal DNA, psyche, ethos, whatever, that makes them behave in this way. Comparisons have already been made as to how Boehner handled the fairly comparable Chris Lee incident. He was gone...

Congressman Anthony Weiner instructed one of his Internet women how to lie about their relationship ... and even offered PR help from his team, which could create major legal issues for him ... TMZ has learned. Weiner and former porn star Ginger Lee exchanged scores of sexual emails over a long period of time.  When the underwear scandal broke on May 28, Lee began receiving calls from the media, and Weiner was more than happy to help her control the situation ... by lying. On June 2, Weiner emailed Lee, "Do you need to talk to a professional PR type...

Weiner voted against censuring Rangel By Daniel Strauss - 06/06/11 07:50 PM ET When Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) colleague, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), faced ethics charges in the House in 2010, Weiner voted against censure. Now Weiner will face ethics charges of his own. On Monday, Weiner revealed that for the past three years he had had "inappropriate" Internet conversations with six different women around the country. Weiner's announcement is the most recent major development of the so-called "Weinergate" scandal that started after Weiner's Twitter account sent out a picture of a man in underwear. Initially, Weiner maintained that his...

In this era of tight airport security, the Transportation Safety Administration typically will not allow a passenger to board an airplane if the name printed on the ticket differs from the way it appears on government-issued identification. Now that the White House has released President Obama's purported long-form birth certificate, a question arises as to why the name on that document does not match the name on his State Department passport. This matched how his name was listed on the short-form Certification of Live Birth released during the 2008 presidential campaign, as first presented by DailyKos.com June 12, 2008: Below...

Preface: Some defendants are no longer allowed to see the "secret evidence" which the government is using against them. See this and this. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges can throw out cases because they don't like or believe the plaintiff ... even before anyone has had the chance to conduct discovery to prove their case. In other words, judges' secret biases can be the basis for denying people their day in court, without even having to examine the facts. Claims of national security are being used to keep the shenanigans of the biggest banks an corporations secret,...

The White House is skipping a legal deadline to seek congressional authorization of the military action in Libya — but few on the Hill are objecting. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 a president can only send troops into combat for 60 days without congressional mandate.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn will admit he had sexual contact with the hotel chambermaid who alleges he attacked her, but insist it was consensual, his lawyers have indicated. The International Monetary Fund chief allegedly locked the maid in his suite at Manhattan's Sofitel on Saturday and forced her to give him oral sex. He was denied $1m bail and is being held at Rikers Island jail. However in a hint at what may become his main line of defence, his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said at New York criminal court: "The evidence, we believe, will not be consistent with a forcible encounter". It...

AFL-CIO Attorney: "It is legally impossible to conduct a nationwide raffle"We recently sent a complaint to the Federal Election Commission with regard to the "Dinner with Barack" fundraising promotions of 2007 and 2008. The Center for Competitive Politics quoted AFSCME (part of AFL-CIO) associate general counsel Jessica Robinson on the use of raffles to raise money for political campaigns. Ms. Robinson says unequivocally that it is impossible to legally conduct a nationwide raffle and furthermore that doing so violates the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute. Racketeering includes systematic violations of any state's gambling laws.. This means there...

A coalition of local Hispanic leaders is calling for an independent investigation to determine if racial profiling exists in DuPage County. The group examined Illinois Department of Transportration statistics on traffic stops, which they say show police in some DuPage towns pulled over a higher percentage of minority motorists in 2009 than reflected in the racial makeup of their communities. “What exactly are they looking for?” said Cristóbal Cavazos, a coordinator with Immigrant Solidarity DuPage. “I think us in the Latino community know very well what the police are looking for. They’re targeting Latino drivers in this county.” The countywide...

In a suit filed in federal court in New York, former president Jimmy Carter, along with his publisher, Simon & Schuster, is being sued by five readers of his 2006 book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." The suit alleges that the defendants violated New York's consumer protection laws by committing "deceptive acts in the conduct of business, trade, or commerce." The plaintiffs, who hope to be considered a class, were "members of the reading public who thought they could trust a former president of the United States and a well-established book publisher to tell the truth..." Does Carter deserve this trouble?...

Sanitation workers spotted asleep on the job, apparently hanging out at a Coney Island Dunkin Donuts for 11 straight hours and some drinking beer for six or seven hours instead of working are all being probed. “If they find people that did criminal acts they’re going to arrest them,” Department of Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said. Sources tell Kramer that one of the most amazing charges being investigated concerns the reported refusal of some sanitation supervisors to give assignments to crews of Department of Transportation plows that were sent to sanitation districts to plow residential and secondary streets in the...

Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher reports voter intimidation in Harris County, Texas (Houston) by volunteer poll watchers trained by King Street Patriots, a local non-partisan group who started the True The Vote campaign. Tommy leads with this inflammatory paragraph saying: In a story that’s sure to draw comparisons to the New Black Panther Party member who brandished a nightstick at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008, a Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots has been accused of “1960s style” voter intimidation in primarily minority precincts on the first day of early voting in Texas. The group is being sued by...

USA Today is reporting that nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers. Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's and Jack in the Box won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees. The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead...

As Obama administration officials put into place the first major wave of changes under the health care legislation, they have tried to defuse stiffening resistance — from companies like McDonald’s and some insurers — by granting dozens of waivers to maintain even minimal coverage far below the new law’s standards. The waivers have been issued in the last several weeks as part of a broader strategic effort to stave off threats by some health insurers to abandon markets, drop out of the business altogether or refuse to sell certain policies. Among those that administration officials hoped to mollify with waivers...

While the Imam behind plans for a mosque near Ground Zero was jetting around the globe and advocating for his Downtown project, a pair of dilapidated apartment buildings he owns in New Jersey fell into such disrepair that cops have to stand watch in the event of a fire. The fire watch, at taxpayer expense, was revealed during a court hearing today when Union City lawyers asked to have two buildings owned by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf placed into receivership so that rent s could be used to fix dozens of violations, including inoperable alarms and sprinklers. Rauf skipped today’s

A couple weeks ago, House Member Eleanor Holmes Norton made a fundraising call to a lobbyist. The lobbyist wasn’t available, so Holmes Norton left a voicemail. We have been given a copy of that message. The audio is below. By way of background, with their prospects for November quickly deteriorating, Congressional Democrats are scrambling to assemble the financial resources they hope can stave off their electoral armageddon. Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team are putting a lot of pressure on Democrat members to pony up campaign contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In the article linked above, Politico noted:...

Over the years a lot of suspicion has built up across the country about Washington and its population of opportunistic transients coming to see themselves as a special kind of person, somehow above average working Americans who don't work down in that former swamp. Well, finally, an end to all those undocumented doubts. Thanks to some diligent digging by the Washington Post, those suspicions can at last be put to rest. They're correct. Accurate. Dead-on. Laser-guided. On target. Bingo-bango. As clear as it's always seemed to those Americans who don't feel special entitlements and do meet their government obligations. We...

  Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) received up to six sweetheart home loans from Countrywide Financial, even though he has only publicly admitted to accepting two special deals, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The revelations were brought to light by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, raising questions about a previous Senate ethics committee investigation into Dodd’s dealings with Countrywide that just disclosed information about two of the loans. In 2008, Dodd was accused of accepting two very favorable home loans in 2003 from Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo, through the bank’s “Friends of Angelo” program....

How has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fulfilled her vaunted promise to "drain the swamp" and preside over the "most ethical Congress in history"? By shrugging her shoulders, downplaying the gravity of myriad ethics charges against Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel and waiting for the "political chips" to "fall where they may." At a press conference to preempt the bipartisan House ethics panel's announcement of 13 ethics and federal regulation charges against Rangel on Thursday afternoon, Pelosi claimed to take "great pride" in her swamp-draining record. Unblinkingly, she cited the House trial against Rangel as proof that the "process" is working. But...

Per Foxnews, a local affiliate is reporting Rangel has struck a deal. FNC is working to confirm...

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Senator John Kerry found himself answering questions Monday about his new $7 million yacht and the controversy about where he's docking it. "There's nothing more to say about it," he told reporters at an event at the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station Monday. The "Isabel" is docked in Rhode Island rather than at Kerry's summer home on Nantucket or in Boston Harbor. That means he avoids paying nearly $500,000 in taxes to Massachusetts and he doesn't have to pay a $70,000-a-year excise tax. Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something...

The ENQUIRER reports in an exclusive bombshell exclusive that police have investigated charges from TWO MORE WOMEN who claimed they were abused by former VP AL GORE! The allegations come hot on the heels of an ongoing Portland, Ore., police investigation that reopened after The ENQUIRER exclusively revealed accusations by a licensed massage therapist who says Gore groped her in 2006. The ENQUIRER recently uncovered shocking allegations, from two other massage therapists. The first incident allegedly took place at a Beverly Hills luxury hotel when Gore, 62, was in Hollywood to attend the Oscars in 2007. The second reportedly occurred...

Leaders of the New Black Panther Party express joy in a newly available video that Attorney General Eric Holder tolerated their voter-intimidation activities and dropped a case against them. In the video below, Malik Shabazz, president of the New Black Panther Party, explains at a NBPP meeting why New Black Panthers were sent to polling places with batons. His comments include some jokes, as when he cracked to members “You know we don’t carry batons…. PSYCHE! I’m just playin’.” Shabazz goes on to explain that his brother got a pass from the Obama Justice Department because “Justice Department leadership changed...

"And what bank underwrote Wright’s mortgage and $10 million line-of-credit? That would be none other than the troubled ShoreBank, a favorite of the Obama family and other Democrat politicians, who have worked mightily to have the feds rescue it despite the fact that it would otherwise not qualify for a bailout. In fact, while other banks in ShoreBank’s boat have been permitted to fail, the Obama administration allegedly pressured Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and others to prop up the bank. According to news reports, this infusion would permit ShoreBank to receive an additional $75 million in TARP funds. The Central Illinois...

Only in the Obama administration would a public official sanctioned for a form of malfeasance be honored as a speaker by the same organization that sanctioned him. It helps, of course, when he is a self-proclaimed Friend of the First Couple. It also doesn't hurt that the administration already found it politically convenient to fire the inspector general, Gerald Walpin, who blew the whistle on his misdeeds. Still, the public should consider it a brazen affront for this administration to feature Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson as a key speaker at a major conference sponsored later this month by the Corporation...

A lone protester paced the state Capitol parking lot Tuesday holding a U.S. Marine Corps flag and sign that read, “Prosecute Blumenthal Stolen Valor Act.” The protester, Jim Bancroft of Windsor Locks, says he served in as a U.S. Marine from 1977 to 1981 and claims that he has defended Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in the past against accusations regarding his military service because during conversations, the two had Blumenthal had always said he served state-side as a reservist. While the two had nothing in common politically, “I thought he was a decent guy” until he watched the video,...

According to a search done by former British police detective Neil Sankey, now a U.S. citizen and a licensed private investigator in Los Angeles, Barack Obama reportedly has 27 different social security numbers under 21 different personal and/or familial name variations in 22 different states plus the District of Columbia. Along with PI Susan Daniels, Sankey generated a large social security public data base in his lengthy research project, titled “List of Properties associated with Barack Obama and his family.” Sankey’s research is featured in a web video entitled Dossier2MP4 produced by Jim Przybowski. The Sankey/ Daniels social security investigation...

Attorney General Eric Holder failed to tell the Senate about seven legal briefs he signed when lawmakers considered his nomination to his current job, according to a letter released on Friday.Two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, who sought release from a military prison in South Carolina where he was being held after then-President George W. Bush designated him an "enemy combatant." Padilla was held in a military brig for three years before his case was moved to a criminal court in Miami, where he was convicted on charges of offering his services to...

No laws, no rule of law. Anarchy. This is so outrageous, it leaves one feeling..... powerless. Raping America. Ethics, morals, the best of America squashed in a stealth coup. ACORN is a criminal racketeering organizations. Prostitution, child trafficking, fraud, illegal voter registration -- all sanctioned and financed by ACORN. It's a sewer, and so is 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Obama Justice Department Shut Down Federal ACORN Investigation According to Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detailing...

A day after Republicans on Capitol Hill said they were "deeply concerned" over news that, during his confirmation process, Attorney General Eric Holder failed to disclose work on a terrorism-related legal brief, the Justice Department revealed Friday that the problem was wider than previously known. "It has come to our attention that some but not all briefs submitted to the Supreme Court by or on behalf of Attorney General Holder … [were supplied] in the course of his confirmation process last year," Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which vets judicial nominees....

During his confirmation last year, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. failed to notify the Senate that he had signed several briefs urging courts to reject President George W. Bush’s claim that he had the power to imprison an American citizen as an “enemy combatant,” the Justice Department acknowledged Thursday. The briefs should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” said Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed. In any event, the attorney general has publicly discussed his positions on detention policy on many occasions, including...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mnu9IgEYQQ

Muslim Woman Barred From Flight After Refusing Body Scan A Muslim woman is thought to have become the first passenger to be stopped from boarding a flight after refusing to go through a full body scanner for religious reasons. 03 Mar 2010 Civil liberties campaigners have criticised the scanners as an invasion of privacy. The passenger was at Manchester Airport for a flight to Islamabad when she was selected at random to pass through the security screen. She was warned she would not be allowed to board the Pakistan International Airlines flight if she did not comply with the request...

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt blew nearly $560,000 in campaign cash last year - much of it on lavish meals and a family-friendly payroll that includes his ex-wife, son-in-law and daughter - stoking speculation the Quincy Democrat is emptying his war chest and won’t seek re-election. Nickolai Bobrov, who is married to Delahunt’s daughter Kara, has raked in $47,732 since landing on the payroll as the congressman’s campaign manager in July, including a $10,000 payment that month marked retroactive for “consulting services April-July,” according to campaign finance records. Bobrov also is listed as treasurer of Delahunt’s Campaign for Change political action...

Charlie Rangel: I’ve been 'admonished' by ethics committee By: John Bresnahan and Patrick O'Connor February 25, 2010 07:08 PM EST The House Ethics Committee has found Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel violated ethics rules by accepting corporate-funded trips to the Caribbean, according to House sources. Rangel told POLITICO Thursday night that he was being “admonished” by the committee on the grounds that at least two members of his staff knew about the corporate funding for the trips – and that Rangel himself should have known. “I’m satisfied that when you read the report, that you will see that...

John Brennan Involved in Obama Passport Breach Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs Quid pro quo?If you recall, during the presidential election, I ran a number of stories on the passport breach of Obama's passport at the Department of State. It bears noting that John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, who made those recent incredible pro-terror remarks, some in Arabic no less, about the beauty of jihad, was connected with the tampering with Obama's passport. Back in March 2008, the State Department launched an investigation of improper computer access to passport...

As I have been saying, it would only be a matter of time till the cesspool of Chicage politics would rear it's ugly head in Washington D.C. Those that remember Watergate, it was not about a second rate burglary gone bad, but the abuse of power in the attempt to cover it up. Well now Barack Hussein Obama has been implicated in a riminal conspiracy to manipulate the balance of power in an political election. In a major political scandal orchestrated by the Obama Administration, a popular Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania has revealed that the White House tried bribing him...