Free Republic

Derrick Shepherd pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering this morning in federal court, a sharp turnaround for a feisty and defiant public official who last year accused the government of pursuing an indictment against him after he refused to give them dirt on other elected officials.

God help me. I’m beginning to sound like Joe Biden. I hope there is a cure. If not, the next thing you know, I’ll be confusing Herbert Hoover with Franklin Roosevelt, insulting Indian-Americans who don’t work at 7-11, calling Barack Obama “clean” and “articulate,” and vowing he’ll will never take away my gun. For now, I’ll have to accept the fact that my views on Mexico are similar to those espoused by the Democratic vice presidential candidate. A few weeks ago, while addressing about 20 Latin American professionals in San Diego on the subject of immigration and the 2008 election,...

In The Post interview, Ifill said that as the daughter of a minister who marched in civil rights demonstrations, she recognized the historic nature of Obama's candidacy. But, Ifill said, "I still don't know if he'll be a good president. I'm still capable of looking at his pros and cons in a political sense." She added: "No one's ever assumed a white reporter can't cover a white candidate."

Hard-Hitting McCain Ad Links Obama to Chicago Political ‘Machine’ by FOXNews.com Monday, September 22, 2008 John McCain’s campaign released one of its hardest hitting ads in this election on Monday, aiming to ratchet up the guilt-by-association game by linking Barack Obama to convicted felon Tony Rezko. The new spot, “Chicago Machine” also connects the Democratic presidential nominee to three prominent Illinois politicians– former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, Illinois state Senate President Emil Jones and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — all of whom have faced criticism for questionable ties to businessmen and political power brokers. The ad claims Obama is...

Via Drudge. Direct link to source here: How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis: Kevin Hassett

Rangel to Remain as Committee Chief By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ Representative Charles B. Rangel will not step down from the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, despite pressure from Republicans and others who say his leadership is being undermined by his swirling ethical problems. Mr. Rangel’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, told reporters during a conference call on Tuesday that the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, supports his decision to remain in the chairmanship. The announcement came after Mr. Rangel, the 78-year-old Harlem Democrat, met behind closed doors on Monday with the speaker and other party leaders. Mr. Davis...

The L.A. Times is just popped a big story the Obama-Biden folks don't want to be reading the night the Delaware senator introduces himself to the nation: a potential conflict of interest involving Biden and one of the nation's biggest asbestos litigation law firms — which also happens to be his top contributor.

author tour 8/12/2008 Dominican University Angelico Hall 50 Acacia Avenue San Rafael, CA 94901 415-927-0960 7 pm 8/13/2008 Forum for Women Entrepreneurs Oracle Corporation 500 Oracle Pkwy. Redwood City, CA 94065 415-382-6022 7 pm 8/14/2008 Cowell Theater Fort Mason Center, Pier 2 San Francisco, CA 94123 415-643-3400x11 7 pm 8/20/2008 Tattered Cover Bookstore 1628 16th Street Denver, CO 80202 303-436-1070

I am calling for the immediate removal of Nancy Pelosi, D-CA and Harry Reed, D-NV from their positions in the House and Senate, respectively. The reason is treason by High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Specifically Domestic Terrorism, misfeasance and malfeasance in office detrimental to the security of the nation. Following removal, they should be tried, and if found guilty, punished in accordance with the laws of the land. The reason for this is the recent actions by both leaders with respect to not allowing valid legislation to be properly argued in congress. Further, they have lied to their constituents and fellow...

Senate President Therese Murray yesterday declined to strip of his chairmanship a senator charged in a series of bizarre sexual incidents despite a request from a top Republican lawmaker. Sen. Robert L. Hedlund (R-Weymouth) asked Murray to remove Sen. James Marzilli, indicted on four counts of accosting a person of the opposite sex, from his position as co-chairman of the Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development Committee. “Sen. Marzilli is clearly incapable of fulfilling his duties as chairman,” wrote Hedlund in a letter he sent to Murray (D-Plymouth) yesterday. “I cannot think of a single argument why the taxpayers of Massachusetts...

MOSCOW On Nov. 9, 2007, during a special operation in the village of Chemulga, in the republic of Ingushetia, Russian special forces shot and killed an individual by the name of Rakhim Amriyev. Eyewitnesses said that they shot him in the head and placed an automatic rifle beside his body. Then, as dozens of villagers who had run out of their homes looked on, the troops used an armored personnel carrier to demolish a wall of the one-room house where Amriyev lived and announced that he had died in a shootout. You may ask how I can be sure that...

He’s an Army vet, 9/11 survivor, and small business owner who is challenging smear merchant/corruptocrat Rep. John Murtha. I saw Russell at the fantastic Pennsylvania Leadership Conference last month (where the photo above was snapped). He is a staunch conservative, a true American patriot, and he deserves your support. If there were ever a time for the grass-roots to come together and help an underdog Republican candidate make a difference, this is it.

A number of U.S. congressmen and their families — including former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert — have personally profited from congressional earmarks they slipped into federal legislation, a FOX News documentary reveals. The documentary, “Porked: Earmarks for Profit,” hosted by Chris Wallace, premieres Sat., May 31, at 8 p.m. EDT on FOX News Channel. Budget earmarks became a national scandal — and a national joke — after some wasteful schemes made headlines recently: a $223 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, a $500,000 teapot museum in North Carolina, a $10 million extension to Coconut Road in Florida. Many...

Disturbed by troubling connections and unflattering publicity, John McCain has just purged several prominent Washington lobbyists from his presidential campaign. Surely his intentions are laudable, but if Sen. McCain is consistent in ridding his campaign of such compromised people, he will find himself riding lonesome on the Straight Talk Express. That's because nearly all of his advisers, fundraisers and top staffers have worked on K Street, starting with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, and his senior adviser and spokesman, Charles Black. From the beginning, the McCain team has been thoroughly infested with representatives of corporate special interests, from the campaign's...

DETROIT, Mich. - Rescue 4 has learned from sources close to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that a legal defense fund is in the works for the mayor and will be set up soon. City employees are being asked to give between $100 and $1,500. And city contractors are being asked to give between $10,000 and $100,000. Business leaders tell Rescue 4 they were contacted in the days before Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy brought charges on Kilpatrick.

Prosecutors are homing in on the disgraced former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer, by investigating whether he used money raised for political campaigns to pay for travel and other expenses relating to his meetings with prostitutes. The New York Times, which broke the story of his involvement with a prostitution ring that led to his resignation on Wednesday, said the inquiry into his actions was focusing on three trips in which he employed the services of women supplied by the Emperors Club VIP, a New Jersey-based operation. One of those meetings was the February 13 liaison at a Washington...

Are we ready for a new nominating process? America has been an open barn door for far too long, in many areas. This has been apparent as all manner of kooks from ex-klansmen to you-name-it have run as Republicans in the past years and decades. It was apparent when the drive-by media gave up all pretense of journalism, and gave in to openly mocking and mucking around with the American Electoral Process, and when the States began pushing up all of the Primary/Caucus dates to ensure a premature decision and massive boredom in a long long wait until November. (Might...

OBAMA TAKES ALL 3; AS HILLARY CRIES AGAIN

The clever people in Michigan who decided to get into a game of chicken with New Hampshire last fall over the timing of their Democratic primary should be having second thoughts this weekend. Had Michigan Democrats not engaged in gamesmanship over the shape of the nomination calendar, they would be holding the premier contest on today's slate, by far the biggest and most influential of the events between Super Tuesday and next week's Potomac primaries, rather than the nonbinding event that was held Jan. 15. Michigan Democrats long argued that the party needed a major industrial state playing an early...

"Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard..." Oh, really? That was a direct quote taken from an official statement issued by the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women, after Ted Kennedy’s grand endorsement of the Barack Obama presidential candidacy last week. The news of this Kennedy rebuke was widely reported, but, because of some confusing headlines, some were left with the impression that N.O.W.’s national leadership issued the reprimand. This prompted N.O.W. President Kim Gandy to issue her own statement, assuring the world that N.O.W....

Note: Mrs. DFU has warned me for many years that, if I am arrested at a FReep, she will not post bail.

Why hasn't anyone raised the matter of the Keating Five and John McCain's involvement in that scandal? To jog your memory, here is (liberal) wikipedia's description of the basic facts of the case: "In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed. Lincoln's chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift's failure. Keating, however, told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It...

n 2001 and 2003, Bush pushed two massive tax-cut packages through Congress, with near-universal Republican support. Indeed, it was something akin to a GOP fealty test -- to vote for the White House taxes cuts was to be a good Republican. In the Senate, two GOP lawmakers balked -- Lincoln Chafee, who later left the party, and John McCain, who no longer wants to talk about his votes.

MIDI - YESTERDAY

It’s been a long 3 weeks of voting but we finally have a winner for Douchebag of the Year! The voting was closer for runner-up than it was for first because our douchebag was such a jackass in 2007. First, a few words about our runners-up.

Washington, DC –Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2007 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes: 1. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): In addition to her long and sordid ethics record, Senator Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat in 2007 – and rightly so – for blocking the release her official White House records. Many suspect these records contain a treasure trove of information related to her role in a number of serious Clinton-era scandals. Moreover, in March 2007, Judicial Watch filed an...

Donations scandal: SECOND police inquiry will focus on planning permission for Abrahams' business parkA second police inquiry is to be launched into allegations over secret Labour donor David Abrahams and his business dealings. The Metropolitan force has already decided to investigate Mr Abrahams's secret gifts to Labour through intermediaries, following a complaint by Liberal Democrat leadership contender Chris Huhne. Yesterday Durham police said they also intended to speak to Mr Huhne after he raised questions in the same letter about how Mr Abrahams received the green light to build a business park. A company apparently controlled by him was originally...

MIDI - ALWAYS A WOMAN Riding on his coattails...that is her claim to fame For her qualifications, that really is lame What has she really done...there is nothing to see She says she's the woman so women must vote Hillary She was given the chance but her healthcare exploded She held meetings in secret, the judge duly noted What has she really done...there is nothing to see She says she is the woman so women must vote Hillary When we learned of the assaults that her husband had done What did Hillary do? She sent out her secret police...to...

A pre-election year is always more politically pronounced then others as Americans are busy taking a national inventory to see which candidate best reflects their beliefs. Traditionally, Congress can get away with a lot, and this one has pushed that limit further then most. They now have less than a 14% popularity rating to show for it. Earmarks, non binding resolutions and a severe budget problem plague this current Congress! It seems that one significant issue may have slipped through the cracks; they have forgotten to charge themselves with Treason. Whether your reaction to that comment is a gasp or...

LOS ANGELES – Health Net, Inc., one of California's largest health insurers, rewarded an analyst for canceling policies and saving it millions of dollars on medical reimbursements, it was reported Friday. The company avoided paying about $35.5 million in medical expenses by revoking about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006, the Los Angeles Times said. During that period, the Woodland Hills-based insurer paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses – based in part, the Times said, on meeting or exceeding the annual company goals for revoking policies. Most major health insurers review – and...

November 7, 2007 Dear xxxxxx, The big news in last night’s elections is obviously the Democrats both gaining majority status in the Senate and gaining seats in the House. We congratulate the Democrats. However, VEA-PAC is party blind and issue driven, and we backed Independent, Republican and Democratic friends of public education with notable success. Our success race in Senate Elections was a most impressive 89%, and our success race in House elections for our recommended candidates was 78%. This success rate is reflective of hard work on the part of many VEA members, including President Moss and other VEA-PAC...

TRICK OR TREAT FOR UNICEF ... PLEASE DON'T Yesterday we had a caller tell us that her government school was promoting a "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" program for Halloween. She asked me what I though. I told her that UNICEF was definitely NOT one of my favorite charities. Now I'm certainly not an expert on charities, though there are several that I personally support. My wife, however, has made herself somewhat of an expert through her own tax-exempt charitable foundation. Not meaning to brag, but Donna is so serious about the ethics of charitable giving that she personally shoulders...

ALBANY -- U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty, who has represented his Albany-based district since 1988, is stepping down at the end of this term. McNulty's office wouldn't confirm the news, but several sources inside the Capital Region's Democratic organization, confirmed he has decided not to seek what would have been an 11th term in 2008. Politicians across the Capital Region have received postcards inviting them to the Crowne Plaza for a noon event at which McNulty will discuss the ``future of the 21st Congressional District.'' In Washington, all while flashing an apologetic smile, McNulty said ``no,'' he wouldn't talk about his...

In September, when the Clinton Campaign committed to return all contributions bundled by con-man Norman Hsu, many pundits wondered where the $800,000 would go once returned. In a conference call shortly after Hsu made news, Mrs. Clinton announced her intention to accept more donations from the same contributors. "We're not asking that that be done. But I believe that the vast majority of those 200-plus donors are perfectly capable of making up their own minds about what they will or won't do going forward." Well, they certainly did make up their own minds. *** Faced with the opportunity of donating...

SHREVEPORT, La. -- Two judges from northwestern Louisiana face racketeering charges for allegedly taking bribes, according to a federal indictment made public Thursday. State District Judge Michael Walker, 57, of Shreveport is accused of taking cash or goods in exchange for reducing bonds, making himself available to quickly set bonds and taking other actions helping criminal suspects or people held for probation violations get out of jail. Caddo Parish Juvenile Court Judge Vernon Claville, 56, in the same indictment, is accused of taking cash in exchange for helping remove blocks to juvenile defendants getting released. Both judges are accused of...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Former state Sen. Gene Stipe and his brother, Francis Stipe, were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury in Muskogee on charges of mail fraud, witness tampering, conspiracy and money laundering. The McAlester businessmen were accused of taking part in a real estate scheme that cheated taxpayers. Part of the scheme, the indictment alleges, involved a $48,000 kickback to ex-state Rep. Mike Mass, who has pleaded guilty to mail fraud and is cooperating with the government. Clark Brewster, Stipe's attorney, said the allegations stemmed from events in 2002 and are "entirely defensible." "To me, it is...

An overwhelming majority of New York State voters believe that Gov. Eliot Spitzer should testify under oath about what he knew of the so-called Troopergate scandal, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today. The poll found that 78 percent of voters called for the governor to testify under oath, slightly higher than the 70 percent who said that the governor should testify under oath in a Siena Research Institute poll released last month. The new poll also found that 56 percent of voters believed that the governor knew what his aides were doing when they arranged for State...

"THERE ARE basically only three options: We can raise taxes again, which no one wants to do because the payroll tax is regressive. . . We can cut benefits. . . Or we can work together to try to find some way to increase the rate of return." Once there was a Clinton who understood three key things about Social Security: The system is not sustainable without changes; these changes entail either risk or pain; making them sooner is easier than making them later. That Clinton, of course, was Bill Clinton, quoted above from December 1998. But listening to Sen....

As Clinton demonstrated during her pentathlon of Sunday talk shows, she is an effective Q-and-A advocate for her new health-care plan. And that probably guarantees her the Democratic nomination. But Clinton is ahead of the Republican hopefuls, although not by much - just three points or so - against the leading Republican, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. And that's a surprisingly narrow margin, given the anti-Republican mood of the country; the best overall metrics of public opinion are President Bush's job-approval ratings and the right track/wrong track question - and both are 2-1 negative. In such a situation,...

MORGAN CITY, La. (AP) — A member of the Louisiana Democratic Party's central committee has been arrested by federal agents who accused him of harboring aliens, his defense attorney said Wednesday. Lenny Dartez, the husband of state Rep. Carla Dartez, a Democrat representing the Morgan City area, was taken into custody Tuesday at his business, said Dartez's attorney, Mike Skinner. Dartez employs labor crews in the area, Skinner said. Dartez was named in a federal complaint issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and taken to a federal magistrate in Lafayette, who released him on his own recognizance, Skinner said. been...

WASHINGTON - Democratic White House front-runner Hillary Clinton's buck-raking campaign is a "poster child" for corrupt Washington, a top adviser for rival John Edwards charged yesterday. "If you want to know why we need change in Washington ...then just look at Sen. Clinton's schedule for today," Edwards adviser Joe Trippi e-mailed supporters, calling her $1,000-a-head fund-raiser with security industry fat cats "a 'poster child' for what is wrong" with D.C. "The American people know that the system in Washington has become corroded and corrupt," he continued, "yet too many in office have fallen under the spell of campaign money at...

U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY) listens to testimony of U.S. Army General David Petraeus, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the state of the war in Iraq on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 11, 2007. REUTERS/Molly Riley (UNITED STATES)

Two state lawmakers accused of accepting bribes for political favors have officially resigned from the Assembly. Alfred Steele, D-Passaic, and Mims Hackett, D-Essex, both sent letters Monday to the Assembly’s clerk saying they would formally step down. Steele, Hackett and nine other public officials -- including Passaic Mayor Samuel “Sammy” Rivera -- were arrested on influence-peddling charges last week following an 18-month FBI corruption sting. All remain free on $200,000 bail. The government alleges Steele, who is also county undersheriff and a Baptist minister in Paterson, accepted $14,000 in exchange for his promotion of a phony insurance firm set up...

Sant S. Chatwal, an Indian American businessman, has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaigns, even as he battled governments on two continents to escape bankruptcy and millions of dollars in tax liens. The founder of the Bombay Palace restaurant chain, Chatwal is one of a growing number of fundraisers in the 2008 presidential campaign whose backgrounds have prompted questions about how much screening the candidates devote to their "bundlers" while they press to raise record amounts. Chatwal's case reached from his native India to New York City. The IRS pursued him for approximately...

The executive director of the state Democratic Party took a leave of absence Thursday after he was arrested on a count of third-offense DWI. John Daniel “Danny” Ford, 31, was arrested Thursday by city police, Parish Prison booking documents said. Besides being suspected of driving while intoxicated, Ford was cited for driving over the median, failure to signal and reckless operation of a vehicle, booking documents said. Ford, 143 Cloud Drive, is out of jail on a $20,000 bond, documents show. Ford will step down temporarily from the Democratic Party’s top administrative job at a time when the fall election...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Former Louisiana state film industry recruiter Mark Smith pleaded guilty on Friday to federal charges that he took more than $60,000 in bribes to help inflate state tax credits for a motion picture producer. Smith headed the state's motion picture development effort in the Department of Economic Development under Govs. Mike Foster and Kathleen Blanco from 2002 to 2006. The state offers tax credits to movie investors and producers in a program that has brought many films, TV movies, music videos and commercials to Louisiana. The charges against Smith -- bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery...

Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy said Tuesday he's not returning $6,600 in donations he got from Norman Hsu, a prominent Democratic donor whose criminal past was recently revealed. Several top Democrats, including 2008 presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Kennedy's father, Sen. Edward Kennedy, have said they will return Hsu's donations or give them to charity. Rep. Kennedy will keep the money because there is no indication that Hsu's contributions to him were illegal, according to his chief of staff, Adam Brand. "We are complying with all applicable (Federal Election Commission) rules and...

Judges (unlawfully) do not read the pleadings or letters of the non-attorney, self-represented, plaintiff. Judges have abandoned decision to their clerk, who relies upon the opposing attorney. Busy Judges have given their clerks rubber-stamps of the Judge's signature, and have them write orders, and the like, creating unlawful position where motive and opportunity lie for clerks to decide the cases of non-attorney plaintiffs. The law presumes unlawful acts occur in unlawful positions.

Dear Friend, We Did It: Keep the Pressure on Bush-backing Republicans Today, we saw what can happen when we stand together to hold Republicans accountable. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned today because of the relentless pressure that our people-powered Democratic Majority brought to bear. We could not have done it without you. But there is no time to rest - we need to ratchet up the same kind of pressure on those Republicans who continue to obstruct our efforts to change the direction on the war in Iraq. News is out that a group of well-funded Republicans, led by Bush's...