Free Republic

Hey, guess who's back? In his new book on Barack Obama titled The Amateur, Edward Klein caught up with Jeremiah Wright, Obama's minister and friend for 20 years and pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The Hillary Clinton campaign nearly derailed Obama's nomination by digging up Wright's incendiary and controversial sermons at TUCC, including exhortations like, "God damn America!" and saying that 9/11 was nothing more than America's chickens coming home to roost ... among many other statements. Obama later proclaimed ignorance of Wright's rants despite his long association with TUCC, and eventually renounced Wright and TUCC...

Last week, the total amount of debt emanating from student loans in the U.S. reached $1 trillion. With the Great Recession still present in the daily lives of the middle class, salaried jobs for college graduates are tough to come by. Many have had to settle for low-wage positions stocking shelves in retail stores or serving coffee at the local Starbucks. According to the Associate Press, three out of five new graduates are unemployed. The dissatisfaction these bachelor's degree-holders have with the lack of jobs manifested into last fall's Occupy movement. Many "occupiers" naively directed their anger at capitalism and...

A spokesperson for Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel told 27 News Schimel has launched an investigation into allegations that free sandwiches given out on election day by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney violated Wisconsin law. Waukesha County investigator detective David Witkowski told 27 News the criminal probe began Wednesday with interviews and requests for records. On Tuesday, April 3, Romney and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan greeted people at a Cousins Subs restaurant on Pearl Street. News video shows Romney encouraging people to vote and inviting them to pick up free sandwiches. "A reasonable person would understand that Romney's statement...

The Department of Justice has recently begun enforcing a once-obscure anti-bribery law that makes it illegal for multinational corporations to engage in bribery with foreign governments, drawing criticism over the “very aggressive” approach to the law. The of 1977 (FCPA) has been rarely enforced over the last 35 years. But, currently, 78 companies are under investigation by the Department of Justice, including well-known companies like Avon, Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard, Pfizer and Wal-Mart Stores (SNIP) Recently however, there has been a sharp increase in cases. In the last four years, “a total of 58 companies have paid a combined $3.74 billion...

LONDON (AP) -- Britain's biggest-selling tabloid newspaper was fighting to contain the damage after five of its employees were arrested Saturday in an inquiry into the alleged payment of bribes to police and other officials, detectives and the newspaper's parent company said. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. said the five employees from The Sun tabloid had been detained and that police had searched their homes and the group's London offices, potentially deepening the scandal over British tabloid wrongdoing.

Dramatic developments are rocking the campaigns for two of Milwaukee's least dramatic offices: city comptroller and city treasurer. The comptroller's race effectively ended Thursday, the day that Milwaukee County prosecutors charged Supervisor Johnny Thomas with accepting a bribe. Thomas, who had been the front-runner in the comptroller's race, immediately suspended his campaign, leaving Martin Matson, the city's deputy pension director, as the only active candidate on the April 3 ballot. In a single day, a promising political career was derailed and a little-known bureaucrat was virtually assured of becoming the chief financial officer of a $1 billion-a-year local government. The...

North Korea’s Unlikely ‘Big 3’ By Mok Yong Jae [2012-01-28 12:38 ] Which parts of North Korean society are the most well-off today? In the past, the powerful and popular were those with good seongbun, usually members of the Korean Workers’ Party; however as a result of the ongoing economic difficulties in North Korea, some other livelihoods – well paying ones - have become lucrative enough to start attracting people in huge numbers. This focus on other aspects than seongbun can be seen in marriage. For example, many cadres now find that a good seongbun may not be enough to...

ROME -- A British lawyer says he invented accusations that Silvio Berlusconi paid him $600,000 to lie on the stand to protect the former Italian premier's business interests. David Mills' testimony Thursday at Berlusconi's corruption trial in Milan undercuts prosecutors' case against the politician.

These images were taken by an anonymous individual on the website, www.ar15.com. They were taken during a rally in Wisconsin on November 17, 2011. The poster writes: I don’t have time to extract all the cell pics and video at the moment but I’ll drop this here to get some blood boiling. I was able to get in by the North Ave Occupy situation last night –– sitting amongst these idiots is quite an eye opener to listen to the stupidity that comes out of their mouths. And the stupid things they do out in the open. I was able...

Continuing his recent tack of bypassing Congress and enacting reforms “without them,” President Obama on Wednesday announced a package of student loan reforms designed to lower college graduates’ monthly payments, arguing his plan will redirect some of that borrowed money into the economy to promote job growth. Speaking to a friendly audience of college students in Denver, Mr. Obama said the changes “won’t cost taxpayers a dime but will save you money and will save you time,” and tied the ever-rising cost of education to the nation’s lagging economy. “Living with that kind of debt means making some pretty tough...

The New Zealand Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/middle-east/news/article.cfm?l_id=8&objectid=10749523&ref=rss US regulators are investigating an Austrian lobbyist and US telecom maker Motorola over alleged bribes of up to 2.2 million euros (NZ$3.68m), Austrian weekly Profil revealed at the weekend. From April 2004 onwards, Motorola apparently transferred up to 2.2 million euros to three firms controlled by lobbyist Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, Profil said in a summary of a report to be published on Monday, local time. Mensdorff-Pouilly then used this money to make “illegal payments” to key political figures in Europe and the Middle East, it said. The US Securities and Exchange Commission had evidence that “people...

Nothing improper here, folks. Just move along. You're a homophobe if you think there was anything unseemly going on. The Fannie Mae executive who hired U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s former lover was a campaign donor and once worked for the congressman — but denies the Newton Democrat’s recommendation played a role in the controversial 1991 hiring.

How to get 'Rafale', 'bribe', 'India' and 'prostitute' in one headline By Stephen Trimble on March 10, 2011 Aero India is nearly a month in the past, but the semi-annual roar-over-Bangalore is back in the headlines. The India Today newsmagazine reported on Tuesday: The Air Force has set up a court of inquiry against a wing commander for taking bribe from foreign aviation manufacturing companies to facilitate prominent static display of their aircraft during the recently concluded Aero-India 2011 exposition. Wing Commander A.K. Thakur was caught accepting bribe from Dassault, France, for helping them display their aircraft prominently during the...

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn gave a nearly $86,000 state job to a former lame-duck lawmaker who supplied one of the votes needed to pass his major income tax increase, but the governor's office and former state Rep. Careen Gordon both said Friday that there was no connection between the actions.

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ST. PAUL, Minn. - A former IRS agent from Circle Pines, Minn. was sentenced Thursday for soliciting and agreeing to accept a bribe in May-June. Roger Anthony Coombs was sentenced in a St. Paul Federal Court to 33 months in federal prison for the $9,700 bribe, which he solicited to two owners of a small Minnesota company on May 8. The business owners then notified authorities and worked with IRS investigators, whom witnessed two payments to Coombs that resulted in his June 2 arrest. Coombs was indicted June 21 before pleading guilty on Aug. 19.

As conservatives, we understand that not everything that is dubbed as a tax cut is a good thing.  Liberals are wrought to describe handouts as tax cuts and tax cuts as handouts.  Thus, the extension of the regressive, job killing, price hiking ethanol subsidies are not good tax cuts and should not be extended.  Yet, through all of the discussion concerning the deal on the Bush tax cuts, there is a total blackout concerning the deal with the ethanol subsidies.  Tim Carney reports at the Washington Examiner, that Chuck Grassley (R-Ethanol) is claiming that a one year extension of these...

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner was convicted today in a federal court in Boston on charges that he pocketed a $1,000 bribe in his district office in 2007 and later lied about it to federal agents who were interviewing him. A US District Court jury delivered its verdict this afternoon, just a few hours into its first full day of deliberations, finding Turner guilty of attempted extortion and providing false statements to FBI agents.

Bill Clinton sought to persuade Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race for Senate during a trip to Florida last week — and nearly succeeded. Meek agreed — twice — to drop out and endorse Gov. Charlie Crist’s independent bid in a last-ditch effort to stop Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee who stands on the cusp of national stardom. Meek, a staunch Clinton ally from Miami, has failed to broaden his appeal around the state and is mired in third place in most public polls, with a survey today showing him with just 15 percent of the vote....

You have to be kidding me... Shortly after Labor Day, as polls continued to sink, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) realized it needed a cash infusion for the upcoming midterm elections. Its chairman, former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, turned to the Bank of America to secure a $15 million revolving credit line. Then, in the middle of this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) got another loan from BofA for an additional $17 million. Problem: Was the loan adequately collateralized - that is, truly "arms length"? Worse: Two days before the loan was closed, the DNC apparently changed its...

Pennsylvania legislators accepted gifts and hospitality worth at least $67,000 worth from special interests last year, according to a published report. Tickets to the Super Bowl and Philadelphia Phillies games, and travel to destinations as distant as Rwanda are among the freebies that lawmakers listed in statements of financial interest filed with the state Ethics Commission, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday.

Main Street may be about to get its own gigantic bailout. Rumors are running wild from Washington to Wall Street that the Obama administration is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans who owe more than what their homes are worth. An estimated 15 million U.S. mortgages – one in five – are underwater with negative equity of some $800 billion. Recall that on Christmas Eve 2009, the Treasury Department waived a $400 billion limit on financial assistance to Fannie and Freddie, pledging unlimited help....

A Houston woman who works for the Texas Department of Public Safety used her ready access to state driver's licenses for cash, authorities said. Gracie Gutierrez, 27, remained in custody after she was charged on Tuesday with bribery. Gutierrez is accused of accepting bribes to issue driver's licenses to people who are undocumented and have not taken the written or driving exam, said Donna Hawkins with the Harris County District Attorney's office. Also charged with bribery is Saul Ramirez, 20. Officials said he does not work for DPS. Ramirez was arrested while trying to sell a Texas driver's license to...

Did you hear the one about how President Obama got Slick Willie Clinton to offer second-term Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak an unpaid appointment to an obscure White House advisory panel in return for dropping his primary challenge to incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter? Obama and his Chicago boys are still guffawing over how all the chumps in the media reported that one with a straight face. Hey, it's a just another reason why running a gangster government is nothing but laughs for the Obama crew in the White House. The reality is that nobody outside the White House gang and...

<p>Instead of quelling a growing outcry for more information on an alleged political bargain, the White House has raised more questions and calls for an investigation after its shocking revelation on Friday that it recruited former President Bill Clinton to pitch a possible administration role to Rep. Joe Sestak if he would sit out the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary.</p>

Romanoff mum on possible Obama job offerEli Stokols Political Reporter May 28, 2010 DENVER - Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff is being dragged into the national political controversy du jour, whether he likes it or not. As the White House Friday confirmed that it enlisted former President Bill Clinton to dangle the possibility of an administration job in an effort to get Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak to drop his primary challenge to the incumbent, Sen. Arlen Specter, Colorado Republicans continued to call on Romanoff to come clean about conversations he may have had with the Obama administration about a...

The Duchess of York has held secret talks with Princess Diana's lawyers about renegotiating her 'paltry' divorce settlement with Prince Andrew. Sarah Ferguson consulted Anthony Julius at Mishcon de Reya, who famously negotiated a £17million pay off for Princess Diana when she divorced Prince Charles. The figure is in stark contrast to the £15,000 a year which the duchess receives from Prince Andrew after their marriage ended after ten years in 1996.

Does Obama EVER Take Responsibility for ANYTHING?It's bad enough Obama blames former President Bush for nearly everything that goes wrong in Obama's Administration. Now, it appears he's set to blame Bill Clinton. The head's up coming from the Washington Post's Greg Sargent is that the White House will release a statement later today placing former President Clinton at the center of the controversy. Already, this scandal has taken on Clintonian proportions with statements coming from the White House reminiscent of "depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Read more at floppingaces.net...

With the political world holding its breath for the Friday-afternoon document dump containing the Obama White House response to the Joe Sestak scandal, Greg Sargent gets a sneak peek at the possible defense. The Obama administration will say that it asked Bill Clinton to conduct “informal” talks with Sestak to determine his political ambitions, which Sestak then mischaracterized afterward: Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he’d be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation....

During yesterday's press conference, President Barack Obama was asked about allegations that someone in White House offered US Representative Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania) a job if he would bow out of a Democratic primary race against Senator Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania), His response was that there will be an official response "shortly". So we now have the answer to the question 'How long does it take to tell the truth?' It's ninety-eight days and a "shortly".

Appearing on a televised news program in mid-February, US Representative Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania) was asked if the Obama administration offered him a high-ranking federal job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge to Senator Arlen Specter. Representative Sestak said yes. Three months and a primary win later; he is still saying it happened but is refusing to provide details of the crime and, if it happened, it most certainly was a crime. Often laws, especially federal laws, are long and difficult for an ordinary citizen to understand. But the one allegedly broken by someone in the Obama administration with regard...

After eavesdropping on a call between the President and Joe Sestak yesterday, the Fly now finds himself on the wall of the White House Press Briefing Room, as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and a familiar figure enter:

Special counsel is now unlikely in Sestak's White House job investigationPublished: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 By ALEX ROSE Don’t expect the flap over an alleged job offer the White House made to U.S. Rep. Joseph Sestak, D-7, of Edgmont to let up any time soon. Sestak, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter’s seat in the November mid-term election, told veteran reporter Larry Kane in February that the offer came last July — with the caveat that Sestak bow out of the Senate primary. At the time of the alleged offer, Specter was a newly minted Democrat and was...

Look Who's Behind the White House/Sestak StonewallMichelle Malkin – Wed May 26, 3:00 am ET Creators Syndicate After three months of zipped lips and feigned ignorance, the Obama White House is finally taking real heat over Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak's consistent claims that the administration offered him a job to drop his Senate bid. Now it's time to redirect the spotlight where it belongs: on the top counsel behind the Washington stonewall, Bob "The Silencer" Bauer. On Sunday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs glibly asserted that "lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were...

Senior adviser to the president David Axelrod said Monday evening that there is “no evidence” that White House officials tried to keep a Democratic congressman from entering the Pennsylvania Senate race by offering him a high-ranking government job. “When the allegations were made, they were looked into. And there was no evidence of such a thing,” Axelrod said on CNN’s “John King USA.” Axelrod acknowledged that if White House officials dangled a job in front of Rep. Joe Sestak’s face to keep him away from challenging incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter, that would “constitute a serious breach of the law.” Axelrod...

U.S. Law states that it is a felony to offer a candidate for public office anything of substance, such as a job, in exchange for that candidate dropping out of a race. Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak, who defeated Arlen Specter for the Democratic Senatorial nomination, claims the White House did exactly that. In explaining the law on Fox Business Network's 'Happy Hour' program, Judge Andrew Napolitano stated, Well the ramifications are potentially enormous. I mean to offer someone something of value in order to affect their official behavior as a member of Congress is a felony. We call it a...

Or, as the LA Times Top of the Ticket blog puts it: "Obama White House probe of Obama White House finds no Obama White House impropriety on Sestak." Peter Baker from the New York Times: But the White House wants everyone who suspects that something untoward, or even illegal, might have happened to rest easy: though it still will not reveal what happened, the White House is reassuring skeptics that it has examined its own actions and decided it did nothing wrong. Whatever it was that it did. "Lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that...

If Sestak is lying he should be disqualified for the Senate. If someone at the White House offered him a bribe to stay out of Senate race, they broke the law. That's really the only two ways to look at this story. The White House made it clear they did not want Joe Sestak to run in the primary against Senator Arlen Specter. Sestak has repeatedly claimed that he was offered a high level job if he were to drop out of the race which he won in last week's Pennsylvania primary. Sestak was asked about the controversy this past...

In her recent article addressing the White House and its possible bribe offer to Rep. Joe Sestak, Michelle Malkin wrote: “Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the offices of Joe Sestak and the White House spin shop right now…” Fortunately, Grand Rants’ own “White House Fly” was on the scene. We’ve gotcha covered, Michelle:

Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.) called on the White House on Monday to detail conversations it allegedly had with Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) to try to convince him to drop his Senate bid. Weiner said that allegations that White House officials had offered Sestak an administration job in exchange for his dropping of his primary bid against Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) had become a growing political liability.

"So who is wrong?" ... Issa wants answers

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) got the made-for-YouTube moment of last week's House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Eric Holder: Smith repeatedly attempted to make Holder say that "radical Islam" inspired terrorism, and Holder looked for ways to be diplomatic and avoid saying it. But if Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) wins Tuesday's U.S. Senate primary in Pennsylvania, expect to hear more about the issue on which Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) grilled Holder -- Sestak's off-the-cuff comment that the Obama administration offered him a job if he would drop out of the race. (He says he was being recruited before Sen....

President Barack Obama tried to avoid a high-profile ouster of his original White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, by coaxing him out of his job and into a federal judgeship, according to a new book. Craig declined Obama’s offer, and his forced removal — which he learned of while reading the morning paper — caused a backlash by Craig’s Washington loyalists, who felt he was being treated shabbily, and by many liberals, who believed he was being punished for trying to fulfill Obama’s failed campaign promise to shut the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The details on last...

While the BP oil geyser pumps millions of gallons of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama and members of Congress may have to answer for the millions in campaign contributions they’ve taken from the oil and gas giant over the years. BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related...

The real reason the judge and Fitzgerald want to bury Obama's testimony is that if he was indeed aware of a bribe, and failed to report it, he would be guilty of the federal crime of misprision of a felony, which is the same charge Arlen Specter has made against Joe Sestak, U.S. Code Title 18, Section 4: Misprision of a Felony: Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil...

The White House counsel’s office failed to meet an already extended deadline for answering questions from House Republicans about Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), who had said the White House offered him a high-level administration job in exchange for his not running against Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also declined to say on Monday whether the administration would support a special prosecutor investigating the matter. Gibbs instead referred back to a Mar. 16 statement in which he said “whatever” White House conversations occurred with Sestak, they were “not problematic.” Legal experts...

This is a pretty long video regarding the Joe Sestak job offer, but it's interesting. Seems the White House could have a big problem on their hands. Later on they discuss Glenn Beck, and there may be other topics but I have only watched part of it so far. Video here.

Daimler Accused of Bribing Russians 25 March 2010 By Maria Antonova German carmaker Daimler paid more than 3 million euros ($4 million) in bribes to Russian government officials, largely to secure the sale of cars to the police and Federal Guard Service, the agency that provides transportation for Russian and visiting dignitaries, the U.S. Justice Department said in a lawsuit. The maker of the Mercedes sedans favored by top officials "made improper payments at the request of Russian government officials or their designees in order to secure business from Russian government customers" between 2000 and 2005, when government purchases comprised...

The healtcare bill itself has a yet unknown but enormous price. But the payola that the leftists used to buy the votes of the congresscritters also have a price. It there anywhere where we can find the numbers tally the total cost?

Supposed pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak may well have been bribed in order to buy his vote to support Barack Obama's health care "reform." Late Sunday, meticulous research by accountability-minded bloggers first brought to light a stealthy press release from Stupak's own office this past Friday. The release announced a US Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration grant in the value of $726 409 for three airports in northern Michigan, meant to go to maintenance and improvements; Stupak represents Michigan's 1st district. Suspicions have only increased with greater fervor since Stupak represented the so-called "pro-life" bloc of Democrat holdouts who wanted...