Free Republic

This is beyond belief. Its bad enough the moderator of tomorrow nights debate is an outspoken Obama supporter. But the fact that she has a pro-Obama book set to be released on inauguration day 2009 and thus has a vested interest in seeing Obama elected was the icing on the cake. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??? Or more importantly, why is the McCain campaign not up in arms about it? If the moderator was a known McCain supporter you can bet the Obama campaign would be crying foul, as would their MSM cronies. This is no different then a lawyer defending...

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee declared Friday that an agreement on legislation to relieve a spreading financial crisis depends on House Republicans "dropping this revolt" against President Bush. Rep. Barney Frank said leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at a White House meeting Thursday, not long after key congressional players of both parties declared they'd achieved the broad outlines of an agreement on a bill implementing the administration's proposed $700 billion bailout plan.

Ifill is working on a book called Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, focusing on the Democratic nominee and such up-and-coming black politicians as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., on panel that oversees federal agency - TVA has approved a water-access deal for a development group whose investors include U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., who sits on a committee that exercises oversight of the federal utility. On June 3, TVA CEO Tom Kilgore approved a transaction that provides 145 feet of water-access rights along the shoreline of Watts Bar Reservoir in Roane County to an entity called The Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC. In exchange, The Cove agreed to relinquish 150 feet of water-access rights in Rhea County and also provide approximately $15,000 for...

While to some folks the idea of dual citizenship might seem benign, it can greatly effect a person’s emotional attachment and identification with this country. Emotional attachment and identification with a country contributes greatly to a person’s willingness to make sacrifices and stand in harms way to defend our home, values and ideals. Still, dual citizenship has become acceptable because instead of promoting assimilation, diversity has become the mantra of our public institutions, undermining what traditionally binds us together; the shared values and political beliefs that make us one people… This notion and the idea that there are no consequences...

New York (AP) -- A judge has ordered New York's governor, Senate and Assembly to raise the pay of the state's judges within the next 90 days. State Supreme Court Justice Edward Lehner in Manhattan said Wednesday that the defendants unconstitutionally abused their power by depriving judges of a pay hike for almost 10 years. He said state legislators illegally linked a judicial salary increase to one for themselves. Lehner, who acknowledged he would be affected by his own decision, ordered the state to raise judicial pay to reflect cost of living increases since 1998.

SEC readies report on credit rating agencies Stephanie Baum 23 Apr 2008 The US Securities and Exchange Commission will issue a report this summer following an examination of credit rating agencies and their roles in the credit crunch as they prepare new rules governing their behavior. SEC chairman Christopher Cox told the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs that the focus of the SEC’s research is to determine whether the ratings agencies violated their conflict of interest rules to determine their clients’ credit ratings. Cox told the committee that the SEC is looking at requiring more transparency...

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has released a list of $740 million in earmark requests he made in the past three years, and it includes $1 million for the hospital where his wife Michelle is a vice president. The request for $1 million for the University of Chicago Medical Center was to help pay for construction of a new pavilion. “I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Michelle Obama was not part of our lobbying over the request, not in any way,” Kelly Sullivan, another vice president at the medical center, told the New York Times. In any case,...

As American banks go hat in hand to foreign financial institutions and governments, begging for capital to help them get out of the mess into which their subprime loans have landed them, the question arises as to whether the United States should permit nations like China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the banks they control to acquire part ownership of our leading banks. The presidential candidates discussed this issue in their Nevada debate and Hillary was asked about it in an interview with Neil Cavuto on the FOX Business Network yesterday. She replied that she would not...

Link references article which can't be posted here. ~~~~~ As always in the liberal Beltway, no one's ever questioned Fitzgerald's unsupervised free ride and tenure as Special Prosecutor in the Plame/Libby case by his college summer roommate, James Comey, now legal counsel for the giant, Lockheed Martin.

In Wednesday’s edition of "Best of the Web Today" (BOTWT), James Taranto takes The Associated Press to task for its "accountability journalism" approach being a "departure from its old-fashioned just-the-facts style of journalism."Taranto also seizes upon this quote by Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas in an article published in American Journalism Review about coverage of the Duke "rape" case: "We just got the facts wrong. The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong." "The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong." This is reminiscent of the "fake but accurate" defense of CBS's Bush National Guard hoax. If...

James Taranto’s "Best of the Web Today" (BOTWT) on Thursday, July 5th, led off with an item about how the suspects in the failed London and Glasgow terror plots were depicted by The Associated Press ("[t]hey had diverse backgrounds, coming from countries around the globe, but all shared youth and worked in medicine"), which bent over backwards to sidestep the incontrovertible fact that the countries from which they immigrated to England are overwhelmingly Muslim.Then to buttress his case that it is disingenuous – and dangerous - to pretend that the terrorists aren’t all Muslim, Taranto adds: Why would that matter?...

It’s been a month since James Taranto and his wannabe pundit joined together in Best of the Web Today (BOTWT) to gangbang Harvard University terrorism expert Jessica Stern with erroneous accounts in the New York Sun and BOTWT about her remarks on religious extremism at a conference organized by security think tank EastWest institute.As of yet, Taranto has not seen fit to:† Correct the shoddy reporting he cited from , on which his shoddy analysis was based;† Disclose* to BOTWT and OpinionJournal readers why he did not verify the facts in the Sun article himself, instead of relying upon the...

James Taranto spotlights a piece about an EastWest Institute conference from the New York Sun in Friday’s edition of his "Best of the Web Today" column (curiously, he did not include this item in a new feature he calls "Wannabe Pundits" - but this is a whole ‘nother story that’s long and convoluted and has an expanding cast of characters, so The Stiletto must leave it for later). In a recent post, The Stiletto suggested that Taranto has been somewhat remiss in making disclosures ethical journalists typically make when they have a particular interest or stake in something they are...

In a classic example of misleading by omission, OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto’s bio states, "He attended California State University, Northridge." In a commentary about Marilee Jones, who had lied to her bosses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology about her educational credentials for 28 years, Taranto belatedly fills in the blanks: I left high school after my sophomore year; and although I spent several years in college, I never bothered to graduate. Noting that "[b]y all accounts Marilee Jones did an excellent job," Taranto brushes aside the central issue in her dismissal - "[o]stensibly Ms. Jones was forced out because she...

In many ways, Terri Hall was on a collision course with Texas toll road policies long before she and her family loaded up their van and drove from California to the Hill Country three years ago. A lifetime of volunteering, a hunger for staying on top of politics, and strong religious and moral convictions helped hone Hall's activist instincts. Her brains, drive, superb speaking skills, engaging personality and wholesome good looks — noted by friends and enemies alike — make Hall especially effective. They help explain why this 37-year-old mother of six is a leading force in a populist assault...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used her clout to get lawmakers to back a San Francisco redevelopment project near her multimillion-dollar rental properties, disclosure documents reveal. Pelosi got House members to authorize $25 million to improve the Embarcadero port area, clearing the way for cruise-ship-dock development and other improvements to aid the neighborhood's comeback. [Snip] "The appearance is obviously not good, and she needs to be forthcoming about how this impacts her financial interest," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told The Post. [Snip] Pelosi is the ninth richest member of the House, according to last year's disclosure reports, with stocks and real-estate...

Federal investigators are reviewing the activities of 103 scientists who may have had improper links to pharmaceutical companies while they were employed at the National Institutes of Health, apparently resurrecting a conflict-of-interest inquiry that many in the agency thought was closed. In a letter sent to several members of Congress on March 23 and made public yesterday, Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, said his office is looking into the cases "to determine whether investigation is warranted." Levinson also wrote that his office is reviewing whether NIH is adequately monitoring potential conflicts of...

LOS ANGELES- The Los Angeles Times has decided to scrap a guest editor program in which prominent outsiders would have occasionally planned the Sunday opinion and editorial section, the paper reported Tuesday. Publisher David D. Hiller said the program, whose debut section was killed last week over the selection of the first editor, had become a distraction... Hiller spiked last week's section after revelations that the guest editor, Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, had a business relationship that might have suggested he had received favored treatment in landing the assignment. Grazer was represented by publicist Kelly Mullens, who dated Times Editorial...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein. As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects,...

Gov. Jon Corzine has acknowledged for the first time that, while a candidate for governor in 2005, he gave state workers union leader Carla Katz, his former girlfriend, substantial gifts beyond what he previously disclosed. The gifts were made to avoid "ongoing financial connections" after their serious, two-year relationship ended in the summer of 2004, Corzine told The Star-Ledger. Corzine previously said that he forgave a $470,000 mortgage on Katz's home in Hunterdon County, but he had not spoken publicly of other gifts. In an interview Friday he refused to provide the amounts or any other details, but indicated they...

Harry Reid says: “I believe in ensuring all facts come to light.” However, two years after $1.1 million was paid directly to Reid for the sale of land which he no longer personally owned, he announced he was amending his ethics reports to Congress… to more fully account for the Las Vegas land deal, which was reported last week in a story by the AP. [After initially refusing to discuss the matter - Reid reportedly hung up on the AP reporter when asked about it - he has since offered to amend his financial disclosures link] Reid labeled the AP...

Lee Hamilton (co-chair) of the 911 Commission is on the Board of Directors of Sandy Berger's company - Stonebridge International. I saw another freeper post this and thought it warranted its own vanity thread.

Michael J. Gerson, President George W. Bush's longtime speechwriter and adviser, joined the Council on Foreign Relations as senior fellow on July 31. He will author a book on the future of conservatism, and speak and write on issues such as global health and development, religion and foreign policy, and the democracy agenda. "I am thrilled to welcome Mike to the Council," said President Richard N. Haass. "It is not just that he is one of the country's great writers, which he most certainly is. It is also that he is one of this country's most important thinkers-someone in a...

  Courting Chaos: Senate Proposal Undermines Immigration Lawby Kris W. Kobach WebMemo #1083 May 17, 2006 |   | Once again, the Senate Judiciary Committee has rolled out a massive amnesty for more than 11 million illegal aliens. Rewarding aliens who have violated federal law is bad enough. However, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) does much more than that. Buried deep inside the bill—beginning at page 540—are provisions that would radically alter our immigration courts, making them far less likely to enforce and implement the law faithfully. Not surprisingly, these items have not caught the attention of...

LANCASTER - The local deputy alternate public defender has requested all judges serving the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse be disqualified from the case of a man charged with marijuana possession with the intent to sell, because of the supervisor's involvement in the courthouse and use of his office's money to support a task force responsible for his client's arrest. The defense attorney, Walter Katz, described his motion as a unique one "that could have far-reaching consequences" in the Los Angeles County legal community. In effect, because Antonovich's name is on the courthouse, and because his office provided funds...

DICK MORRIS: CLINTON IS A PAID AGENT OF THE CROWN PRINCE OF DUBAI by Mia T, 03.03.06   A CALL TO IMPEACH CLINTON IN ABSENTIA by Mia T, 11.17.05         id you see it? More to the point, did the American press? bill clinton made page one of Al Jazeera today. A schizophrenic mix of schadenfreude and agitprop, it was the story of an impeached ex-president of America trashing America--to standing Os--in the Arab state of Dubai--in the middle of a war zone--only several hundred miles from the American troops. And, to rub it in, the...

The University of California's former No. 2 official, who resigned under a cloud last month, violated conflict-of-interest rules by helping to create a management job for a friend with whom she owned rental property, a UC investigation concluded Wednesday. In addition, UC investigators found that a subordinate for the former official, ex-Provost M.R.C. Greenwood, had improperly helped create an internship for Greenwood's son, though they couldn't find evidence he had done so at Greenwood's direction. The subordinate, university Vice President Winston Doby, 65, remains on administrative leave while UC auditors look into two other hires in which he was involved....

TRENTON, N.J. -- Just over a month before he jumped into the governor's race, U.S. Sen. Jon S. Corzine sank $7 million into a firm owned and controlled by one of the state's casino operators. The investment with Icahn Partners LP, a hedge fund headed by Carl Icahn, earned Corzine up to $100,000 by the end of last year, according to the Democrat's Senate financial disclosure statement. Corzine in a published report Friday conceded that if he defeats Republican Doug Forrester in November, the investment could run afoul of a state law that largely restricts governors from holding financial interests...

Alito's Sock Drawer If you can't beat him on philosophy, try ethics. Monday, November 14, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito must be sailing toward Senate confirmation. We say this because his opponents--who know they can't beat him on credentials or judicial philosophy--are now rolling out the "ethics" machinery. The eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote last week to the chief judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals demanding more information about Judge Alito's participation in a 2002 case called Monga v. Ottenberg. On Thursday, Chairman Arlen Specter urged the nominee to give a...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The state's political watchdog agency has closed an ethics complaint into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's magazine consulting contract without conducting any investigation into whether the agreement violated conflict of interest laws, according to documents released Friday. The Fair Political Practices Commission concluded that there is no provision in state law that allows the agency to sanction a statewide elected official - such as the governor or the Attorney General - for conflict of interest. Therefore, they reasoned, the agency had no reason to carry out a probe into the question, documents obtained by The Associated Press under the...

Hurricane Katrina slashed U.S. oil production by 1.4 million barrels a day -- the global equivalent of suddenly losing two-thirds of all oil produced by Iraq or Kuwait. "President George W. Bush has responded quickly to Hurricane Katrina," said a Bloomberg report, "suggesting that Hurricane Ivan last year taught him a lesson about opening up the reserve." Energy Secretary Bodman announced he had "approved a request for a loan of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve" and "continues to review other requests as they come in.'' That announcement should have been made by the president at least a week before...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ended his $8-million contract with a muscle magazine publisher last week. But his deep emotional, political and business ties to bodybuilding — and to the supplement industry that feeds it — won't be so easily severed. Since becoming governor, Schwarzenegger has remained closely involved with the bodybuilding world and with the supplement companies whose products promise such things as ripped muscles, "thermonuclear" energy and better sex. According to documents and interviews with industry leaders, Schwarzenegger has continued to give the industry advice. He has participated in private meetings about government regulations. The governor also received...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Tucked deep in the August 2005 issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine, past the photographs of men with chiseled muscles and stories such as "How I Built the World's Biggest Chest," is a glossy, two-page article proclaiming "It's Now Or Never!" The article details the bodybuilding industry's efforts to block state and federal regulations on nutritional supplements. It also proclaims the support of a powerful spokesman, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The story describes how Schwarzenegger attended a private meeting with bodybuilding executives at the Arnold Classic in March to vow a united front in the battle...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is being paid $1 million a year for his role as a consultant to a company that publishes several fitness magazines, a deal critics say represents a serious conflict of interest for the former bodybuilding champion. The payments, revealed Wednesday in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are from Schwarzenegger's consulting job with American Media Operations, a subsidiary of the company that publishes Flex and Muscle & Fitness magazines, among others. Critics say the contract is a conflict of interest because Schwarzenegger's pay comes from the magazines' advertising revenue and the magazines...

SACRAMENTO — Two days before he was sworn into office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger accepted a consulting job paying an estimated $8 million over five years to "further the business objectives" of a national publisher of health and bodybuilding magazines. The contract pays Schwarzenegger 1% of the magazines' advertising revenue, much of which comes from makers of nutritional supplements. Last year, the governor vetoed legislation that would have imposed government regulations on the supplement industry. According to records filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Schwarzenegger entered into the agreement with a subsidiary of American Media Inc. on Nov. 15,...

Rep. Wu acts to aid Wiederhorn The Oregon congressman writes asking that an inmate, part of the Capital Consultants scandal, be kept in state for medical care Friday, May 13, 2005 JEFF MANNING U.S. Rep. David Wu has intervened in the case of imprisoned Portland executive Andrew Wiederhorn, urging the chief of the federal prison system to hold off on a plan to transfer Wiederhorn to a Minnesota prison hospital. Calling Wiederhorn his "friend and constituent," Wu, D-Ore., said in a May 10 letter to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons that Wiederhorn needs special treatment for diabetes and should be...

Army Radio Journalist Admits 'Conspiracy of Silence' 14:07 May 13, '05 / 4 Iyar 5765 A leading Army Radio journalist has confessed that the media and political systems have turned a blind eye in allowing/encouraging the disengagement at the price of democracy. "I have failed. We have failed," wrote Kaveh Shafran, political affairs correspondent for Israel Army Radio (Galei Tzahal) in a recent article for the Israeli Institute for Democracy. "As a diplomatic correspondent, I was among those who in the past year were supposed to tell the public exactly what is the disengagement plan, why it was created, how...

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz is blasting Sen. Hillary Clinton's key accuser, Peter Paul, whose allegations spurred the indictment of David Rosen, the finance chairman for Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign. In a trial that began Tuesday in Los Angeles with Judge Matz presiding, Rosen is charged with filing false reports to the Federal Election Commission in connection with an August 2000 Hollywood gala fund-raiser that Paul produced. While outlining instructions he intends to give the jury, Judge Matz, who was appointed by President Clinton, called Paul "a thoroughly discredited, corrupt individual." "He's a con artist. The fact that he...

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is investigating whether a senior official at one of its agencies, Justin Leites, violated U.N. rules and the organization's spirit of international neutrality by taking a paid leave of absence last year to work as a Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign official in his home state of Maine.

Greene County Division of Family Services Surreptitiously Invite Prosecutor and Defendant to same Meeting: Conflict of Interest Questioned. May 2, 2005 During a recent Family Services Team Meeting conducted by the Greene County Division of Family Services a serious conflict of interest was recorded. Sitting at the same table as the father in this open disclosure meeting was a Greene County Prosecutor. Jill Patterson, the prosecutor, recently leveled charges of child abuse against the Father for an incident that allegedly occurred in December of 2001. The Father has plead Not Guilty in the case which is currently working it's way...

Friday, March 25, 2005 10:57 p.m. EST Greer Got Donation From Mike Schiavo's Lawyer Reclaiming America, an organization backed by Rev. D. James Kennedy, reported that a serious conflict of interest may exist for the Fla. State Judge who is ruling on the Terri Schiavo case. The report from Reclaiming America follows: As if the circumstances surrounding Terri Schiavo could not get any more suspicious, the Center for Reclaiming America has uncovered evidence that Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Judge George W. Greer accepted a campaign contribution from the law firm of Michael Schiavo’s attorney only one day after "Terri’s Law” was...

Day 5 going into Day 6 of no food or water for Terri. Affidavit of William Polk Cheshire, Jr., M.D., M.A., F.A.A.N., who Examined Terri Schiavo on 3/23/05: http://www.nationalreview.com/pdf/Affidavit.pdf Florida DCF files petition for intervention: http://www.nationalreview.com/pdf/Petition%20for%20Intervention%20in%20Schiavo%20Case.pdf

Tallahassee, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's parents are running out of legal options. Last week, Judge George Greer overturned more than 10 motions designed to prevent their daughter from being starved to death. Now they're looking to the Florida legislature to save her. Bob and Mary Schindler, along with dozens of pro-life advocates, lobbied state lawmakers on Sunday to pass legislation that would protect Terri and other disabled people like her. The Florida legislature is considering a measure that would require courts and doctors to assume that disabled patients who are unable to make their own medical decisions would not...

Paul Volcker was picked by U.N. Sec retary-General Kofi Annan to head an "independent" panel to investi gate the Oil-for-Food scandal ostensibly because of the former Federal Reserve chairman's international credibility. But credibility, like fame, can be fleeting — and Volcker's is fading fast. [snip] As Fox News Channel's Jonathan Hunt reported yesterday, Volcker is smack in the middle of the interlocking global corporations that appear to lie at the very heart of the scandal. Proceed slowly; it's complicated: [snip] * Volcker, along with a close friend named Paul Desmarais, Sr., sits on the advisory council of a Canadian...

Here is a sampling of recent Loven quotes that have appeared on the AP Wire. HEADLINE: Bush claims Kerry and congressional liberals will hurt the economy BYLINE: By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer I like this juxtaposition to make Bush look bad. "Kerry has proposed paying for new initiatives by rolling back taxes only on the wealthiest Americans. Bush said, 'We're not going to let them tax anybody, because we're going to win in November.'" Why the use of the qualifier "only?" Obviously to make Kerry sound like a reasonable guy who reall yloves tax cuts as long as it...

<p>An SBC board member is also one of the largest investors in rival MCI -- a situation that Wall Street analysts and experts in business ethics say represents a clear conflict of interest.</p> <p>Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, 64, the richest man in Latin America and a major telecom investor, has sat on SBC's board since 1993. He served until last month as chairman of Telmex, Mexico's largest phone company, in which SBC holds an 8 percent stake.</p>

POLITICS Hearing on Controversial Dem Memos Could Be Soon By David Brody Congressional Correspondent April 27, 2004 The content of the memos detail how Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem to be taking marching orders from liberal special-interest groups, when it comes to derailing President Bush's judicial nominees. CBN.com – CAPITOL HILL - Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee may find themselves on the hot seat soon, especially Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA). CBN News has learned that there is a good chance the Senate will hold hearings on Democratic memos that reveal possible collusion and obstruction of justice between...

<p>September 11 commission member Jamie S. Gorelick, who recused herself from questioning some Clinton administration officials last week, still can help draft parts of the board's final report on the "wall" between intelligence and law enforcement that she defended while in the Clinton Justice Department.</p>

9/11 Commissioner Caught in Conflict of InterestSpeaking on his radio program Friday, talk show host Rush Limbaugh predicted 9/11 Commissioner and former Clinton Administration operative Jamie Gorelick would not resign her post despite the rising tide of criticism and questions over a potential conflict of interest."Gorelick won't resign because she has been ordered to protect Clinton, Reno and the Democrats," said Limbaugh.Gorelick's problems emerged on Tuesday when Attorney General John Ashcroft declassified a Justice Department memo (PDF) written by Gorelick in 1995 in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General under the Clinton Administration. The memo mandated a policy that would...