Free Republic

With U.S. policymakers distracted by the situation in Honduras, Nicaragua continues to move toward authoritarianism. On October 19, a Nicaraguan Supreme Court panel overturned a constitutional provision limiting presidents to two non-consecutive terms in office. The ruling will allow incumbent Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega--the Sandinista party leader, former Soviet client, vociferous critic of the United States, and current Hugo Chávez acolyte--to run for another term in 2011. If there were any doubts that Nicaraguan democracy is slowly being extinguished, this latest development should remove them. The Nicaraguan Supreme Court is composed of 16 members. Thanks to a political deal made...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – John Glenn fever has taken hold of Cape Canaveral once again. Three days before the 50th anniversary of his historic flight, the first American to orbit the Earth addressed employees at Kennedy Space Center. The NASA auditorium was packed Friday with hundreds of workers, many of whom stood along the walls to see the space legend. The 90-year-old Glenn was joined on stage by Scott Carpenter, 86, the only other survivor of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. Glenn recalled how he and his fellow Mercury astronauts traveled to Cape Canaveral to watch a missile blast off....

Jon S. Corzine, the former U.S. senator and New Jersey governor who presided over the collapse of the commodities brokerage MF Global, says he cannot explain what happened to “many hundreds of millions of dollars” that the firm was holding for customers. In testimony prepared for delivery to Congress on Thursday, Corzine says he was “stunned” to learn shortly before the firm sought bankruptcy protection at the end of October that MF Global could not account for the money. “I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” the former...

Rep. Barney Frank won't seek re-election Posted by CNN Wire Staff (CNN) - Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, a 16-term Democrat, will announce Monday he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012........

President Obama did voters a favor. During the 2008 campaign and early in his administration, he laid out the standards by which he should be judged. He made it perfectly clear under what conditions he would deserve re-election. And by his own standard he doesn’t deserve a second term. In February 2009, when employment was at 8.2 percent, he declared, “If I don’t get this done in three years, then this is going to be a one term proposition.” Unemployment has yet to return to February 2009 levels, much less fall lower. Based on that standard alone, this should indeed...

Corzine lobbied feds to ease regsBy MARK DECAMBRE and KAJA WHITEHOUSE Last Updated: 11:42 PM, November 3, 2011 Months before the stunning collapse of MF Global, the embattled brokerage firm mounted a full-court press to compel regulators to allow it to tap customer funds to invest in the kind of dicey sovereign debt that led to its demise. The lobbying effort was in response to new rules that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, run by chairman Gary Gensler, was planning to impose on broker-dealers, restricting them from making investments with client money in sovereign debt securities. Broker-dealers are allowed to...

Censure by the House hasn't cramped his style one bit. The last time I wrote about Charlie Rangel (D-NY), he was standing in the bowels of Congress shedding tears as Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) read House Resolution 1737, which resolved he be censured. Censure was his penalty for cheating the U.S. tax code which, as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee — and prior to that, as the ranking minority member — he had helped write. From the wailing and gnashing of teeth taking place that day, one would have thought that Rangel was actually receiving a penalty commensurate with...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A real estate investment by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi's husband went undisclosed for years and has opened a window into a loophole that allows House members to avoid specifying some of their financial assets. In 2010 and 2011, Pelosi voluntarily reported the Sacramento, Calif., land investment as an asset of her multimillionaire husband, Paul. She had not reported the investment for about 10 years previously because it was held by an S corporation her husband had set up, said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for the California congresswoman. Under House financial disclosure rules, lawmakers are not obligated...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s husband, a real estate developer and investment banker, stands to make millions of dollars in a previously undisclosed residential real estate project in California as a partner with the father of a woman Mrs. Pelosi helped become ambassador to Hungary, records show.

A renowned TV pitchman who allegedly defrauded at least 220,000 people of nearly $52million is believed to have committed suicide in jail. Don Lapre, 47, of Phoenix, Arizona, was charged with running a nationwide scheme to sell essentially worthless Internet-based businesses. The father-of-two was found dead in his prison cell in Florence, Arizona, on Sunday - just two days before his trial was due to begin on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama told an audience of high school students in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday that he was “not always the very best student” and that ethics “would not have made it on the list” of his favorite subjects. “I was not always the very best student that I could be when I was in high school, and certainly not when I was in middle school,” Obama said, speaking at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School. “I did not love every class I took. I wasn’t always paying attention the way I should have,” Obama said. “I remember when I was...

'Pass this bill now," President Obama is repeatedly demanding, regarding his new American Jobs Act. There's nothing new in the legislation, just more government spending, more transfer of money from "the rich" to Obama's political allies, more spending for infrastructure enhancement so we all won't allegedly be buried by collapsing schools and bridges. And the "rush" tactics are the same. As with ObamaCare, there's a proclaimed "crisis," followed by demands to pass legislation "now," even if no one's adequately analyzed the bill, even if no one's read it, even if the legislation will only make things worse, and even if...

Some 200 California Democrat clients have fallen victim to a Madoff in their midst. Could it turn the state light blue? It's said that word-of-mouth advertising is the best kind. It certainly worked for Ms. Kinde Durkee for more than 12 years. It would still be working if she hadn't helped herself to some of her clients' bank accounts once too often. Durkee's nearly 200 clients weren't stores and small factories. They were California Democratic office holders, candidates, and committees. For all those years she was the go-to person to be treasurer for any Democrat's campaign accounts. Campaign treasurers serve...

Drip. Drip. Drip. Whether it is Solyndra, Obamacare, or Fast and Furious, President Obama’s push for his “American Jobs Act” has been drowned out this week by the failure of his past policies. Every night it seems there is a new angle on the Energy Department’s failed loan to the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Not only was there a headline-grabbing hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday (at which Obama officials tried to blame Bush) , but the Treasury Department separately announced that their Inspector General (IG) would join the FBI and Energy Department IG in their...

Lackawanna County Judge Terrence R. Nealon admitted Wednesday to committing "a lapse of ethical judgment" seven years ago by privately advising local Democrats on how to oppose a county voting plan in a case over which he was asked to rule. Judge Nealon, a lifelong Democrat, admitted his lapse after being shown a copy of an email he sent to prominent Democrats on how to oppose the plan. The email was obtained from a confidential source by The Times-Tribune, and the judge confirmed he wrote it. Read Judge Terrence R. Nealon's email HERE (.pdf) Judge Nealon had been a contender...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will nominate businessman John Bryson to lead the Commerce Department, a White House official said Tuesday. Bryson's appointment brings another private sector player into an administration that has been making a concerted effort to improve its relationship with the business community.

A Pennsylvania federal judge thinks being a Philadelphia ward leader is ripe with so much temptation for wrongdoing that she has prohibited convicted felon Carlos Matos from being one - less than a month before several heated contests in the May 17 primary elections. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody ordered Matos to give up his leadership of Norris Square Park's 19th Ward, an unpaid and publicly unelected position he has held since last June, following his release from prison. Beginning in 2007, Matos served three years and was fined $50,000 for bribing three Atlantic City councilmen whom...

Barry (verified but he refuses to use) & Last Name (quite frankly unknow) plans to announce his reelection campaign early next week in an electronic message to grass-roots supporters, Democratic sources tell POLITICO. Obama launches with a recovering economy and a weak, fractured Republican field, but with chaos in the Middle East that adds unpredictability to an environment that points to likely reelection. Obama’s campaign, which could raise $1 billion or more, will be based in Chicago, just a few blocks from the headquarters of his historic 2008 race. The most likely day for the campaign to file registration papers...

Actually, it’s difficult to hear Senator Frank Lautenberg’s patronizing follow-up, because the right-to-life counterprotestors taping his remarks reacted vocally to the idea that an elected official would divide up Constitutional freedoms based on whether people “deserve” them or not. His allowance that he’d give those freedoms to Tea Partiers despite their political views might be even more offensive than his initial remark on Tuesday, as he addressed a Planned Parenthood demonstration: … The Republicans in Congress claim they’re concerned about the budget balance, but it’s a disguise! It’s not true! It’s a lie! That’s not what they want. They want...

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Wednesday that she would reimburse the government $88,000 for flights chartered from a company she jointly owns with her husband. McCaskill's office said she had not profited from the flights and that she was returning the money out of concern for how the arrangement might appear. "Sen. McCaskill has been very careful flying on taxpayer dollars," said Maria Speiser, a spokeswoman for McCaskill. "She has only paid for the use of her plane as required by the Senate rules, and there has been no profit to her or her family. She's glad there's transparency -...

As the film director Peter Jackson recovers from emergency surgery, it has emerged that he is the victim of a US$190,000 (£120,000) credit card fraud. Sir Peter, a keen collector of military memorabilia, used his American Express card online to buy items from the Michigan Toy Soldier Company, which specialises in historical miniature models and figurines. Richard Berry, owner of the company, is now facing up to 18 months in jail after admitting fraudulently using the director's credit card information to shore up his struggling business, based in Royal Oak, Michigan. Berry's lawyer, David Steingold, told a US court: "He...

*snip* Fern Stephens, a revenue officer at the Internal Revenue Service, is being charged by the U.S. Attorney's office for stealing more than $160,000 in unclaimed tax funds from 12 taxpayers, according to federal court documents. *snip* Stephens also allegedly took advantage of her position in the IRS to put in fake tax refund requests and transfers in an IRS computer system so the money would go right back to her or relatives and friends.

The Federal Election Commission is investigating a complaint that Rep. Charles Rangel improperly used his National Leadership PAC to fund his legal defense on ethics charges for which he was censured Thursday, The Post has learned. * * * The center expects to file a second complaint this week contending that Rangel's PAC money included at least $195,000 in donations from lobbyists with business before the House Ways & Means Committee, of which he is a member.

The House on Thursday formally censured Rep. Charlie Rangel for financial misconduct despite pleas from the New York Democratic lawmaker and some of his colleagues for a less punishing reprimand. The House voted to censure Rangel 333-79. Rangel, who became the 23rd House member to be censured, appeared at the front of the chamber while Speaker Nancy Pelosi read the resolution.

Full House Votes On Rangel Censure TodayDecember 2, 2010 12:12 PM NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The once powerful Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel lobbied colleagues against long odds Thursday in an effort to receive punishment milder than censure by the House for ethical misconduct. A half-dozen supporters spoke on Rangel’s behalf at a closed-door Democratic meeting hours before the House was to discipline the New York Democrat for financial and fundraising misconduct. But Rangel would need to overcome the 9-1 vote for censure from an ethics panel that has five members from each party. “I think it’s important for members on...

Battle-weary Bay State Democrats are getting squeezed by U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry this Christmas, as the nation’s richest senator puts the arm on cash-strapped party donors to fill his campaign war chest — even though he’s not up for re-election for another four years. “I think people feel very tapped-out,” said Phil Johnston, former Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman, who is helping to organize Kerry’s Dec. 13 gala. Johnston, who said he is seeing steady ticket sales, still expects a full house. “It’s a measure of John Kerry’s strength among Democrats that this event should be hugely successful,” he said....

President Obama's original car czar has been sued for corruption in New York: Former Obama administration official Steven Rattner was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Thursday for his role in a pay-to-play scheme involving New York's pension fund. Rattner, the former auto czar, agreed to pay $6.2 million and to a two-year ban from associating with any investment adviser or broker-dealer to settle the SEC allegations, the SEC said Thursday. Separately, Cuomo's office filed two lawsuits against Rattner, seeking at least $26 million and an immediate lifetime ban from...

The bedbug-infested building owned by the imam embroiled in controversy over his request to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site has been placed into temporary custodial receivership by Hudson County Judge Thomas Olivieri, who cited a lack of improvements as the reason for his decision. According to Tuesday's decision, the custodial receiver, Raymond Bulin, will be in charge of using the October rent money to eliminate bedbugs from four apartments, cap sewer lines in the basement and improve the fire escape ladder. The building, located at 2206 Central Ave., is owned by Feisal Abdul Rauf, who was...

After narrowly beating Republican challenger Sharron Angle and waking up to see a landslide of anti-Democratic voting last Tuesday, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid has declared, "I welcome every opportunity to work with our Republican colleagues." The statement comes as a 180 to the formerly anti-Republican Senator, who famously compared the GOP to those who supported slavery. In a statement on his campaign website, Senator Reid explained how important it was to work together with Republicans, even though most of the legislation that the Senate has passed in the last two years have been down party lines: "The message that...

The mortgage foreclosure crisis has claimed an unlikely victim: Carl R. Greene, executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA). Wells Fargo Bank has foreclosed on Greene's $615,035 condominium in the upscale Naval Square development in the city's Schuylkill section. In a lawsuit filed July 27, Wells Fargo said the amount in dispute was $386,685.22. Greene, 53, runs the nation's fourth-largest public housing agency and is one of the highest-paid public officials in the city. His salary is $306,370, and last year he got a $44,188 bonus. Kirk Dorn, a spokesman for Greene, confirmed Thursday that the housing chief was...

RE: Rangel's RantPosted by Jay Newton-Small Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 4:45 pm The Speaker Pro Tempore: For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition? The house will be in order. Members will take their seats. The house will be in order. Members will please clear the aisles. The chair is aware of a valid basis for the gentleman's point of personal privilege. The gentleman from New York is recognized for one hour … Rangel: I rise to the floor because the newspapers and the media have indicated that there's a concern of some of the members...

WASHINGTON – House investigators accused veteran New York Rep. Charles Rangel of 13 violations of congressional ethics standards on Thursday, throwing a cloud over his four-decade political career and raising worries for fellow Democrats about the fall elections. (rest of article at source)

SACRAMENTO, CA (KGO) -- A Sacramento woman says a tech support engineer in India managed to expose her secrets and make charges to her credit card after she called him with a desperate request. ... Shortly thereafter, 16 nude photographs appeared on a vulgar website created for the sole purpose of displaying her pictures. ... In conversations that became increasingly personal, the support technician offered to help Fitzgerald remove the offensive website and somehow convinced her to ship him a brand new Dell laptop so he could work on her case from his home in Mumbai.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the economy was experiencing "very encouraging" recovery, but cautioned that a transition from government intervention to private investment needed to be made to keep recovery going. Geithner, appearing Sunday morning on both ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet the Press," struck a mostly optimistic tone even when asked about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's remarks last week that the economic outlook was "unusually uncertain." On NBC, Geithner said he didn't find anything unusual about cautious growth given the severity of the recession. "Americans are still living with some caution," he said, adding that healing was occurring...

Charles Rangel at Friday’s news conference. In his first news conference since learning his fellow lawmakers would put up him on trial for ethics violations, Representative Charles B. Rangel urged his constituents and the press to be patient, saying he would not address the specifics of the charges against him until the proceedings begin next week. But Mr. Rangel, who snapped at reporters in Washington on Thursday, appeared determined to strike a softer tone at Friday’s appearance, even offering a public apology to one reporter, Luke Russert, whose question on Thursday — about whether the charges would cost the congressman...

Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has been indicted on federal fraud and tax charges. Federal prosecutors say the alleged scheme is related to the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, a tax-exempt fund that was supposed to pay for voter education and other purposes. Instead, Kilpatrick is accused of using it as a slush fund to take cash payments for himself, friends and relatives. In an indictment filed Wednesday, he's accused of failing to report at least $640,000 in taxable income between 2003 and 2008, which includes money, private jet flights and personal expenses paid by the civic fund. The government says he used...

BREAKING NEWS, 11:50 A.M. est: Matzav.com has learned that Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin ahs been sentenced to 27 years in prison. Sholom Mordechai will also been ordered to pay nearly $31 million restitution when he’s sentenced tomorrow in U.S. District Court. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Linda Reade issued the sentencing memorandum today, outlining the sentence she will impose at tomorrow’s hearing in Cedar Rapids. Reade indicated in the document she would not impose a fine. Sholom Mordechai’s attorney Guy Cook says the sentence is unfair and excessive and that the conviction and sentencing will be appealed. Family, friends and supporters...

President Obama’s approval number dropped to 41% following his lackluster oil spill speech on Tuesday.

Precious few politicians know when to leave the world of politics, according to retiring Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). “We all know when to get into this business, or you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t,” Dodd said in an interview with The Hill in his office.“I think very few know when to get out.”Dodd, who describes life in the Senate and politics as “addictive in some ways,” chose to retire in January after enduring what he described as a “miserable” political situation.The 30-year Senate incumbent faced poll numbers that suggested his party had a better chance of winning his seat...

How do I feel? Click the Murtha tab to find out - but until then, our friend Phil can pass the good news.The Navy’s 10th San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock will be named for Rep. John Murtha, the long-serving Pennsylvania Democrat who chaired the powerful House appropriations defense subcommittee before he died in February. According to a Navy memorandum obtained by Navy Times, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus notified Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead that he had selected “John P. Murtha” for the previously unnamed LPD 26. It’s the latest example of the Navy breaking a convention for naming...

WASHINGTON—Senate legislation aimed at overhauling regulation of finance would cost large banks billions of dollars, prevent them from taking certain risks and create a new regulatory infrastructure to oversee their activities. The draft bill introduced Monday by Senate Banking Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is tougher on financial companies than was expected just a few weeks ago. Mr. Dodd's bill would allow the Fed to examine any bank-holding company with more than $50 billion in assets, and large financial companies that aren't banks could be lassoed into the Fed's supervisory orbit. One of the most controversial aspects of the...

Palm Beach County residents who believe they live in a cancer cluster met up with US Senator Bill Nelson, who promised to get them more help Friday afternoon.

Rangle is holding a news conference in 15 minutes. Will he throw in the towel? No link yet.

Much that is wrong with Congress was well illustrated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's inability to answer a straightforward question about the ethical lapses of one of her most powerful members. Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News asked Pelosi on Sunday whether House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel should have known it was a violation of ethics rules to accept Caribbean trips paid for by special interests.Here's the exchange:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration will wait until 2011 to propose an overhaul of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday, arguing that he wanted to put some distance between a new system and what he called "the worst housing crisis in generations." Geithner also told lawmakers the administration had no intention of including the two entities in the federal budget, even though they were taken over by the government in 2008 as they faced mounting losses from mortgage defaults.

I think the GOP is better off without another politician that is for sale.

When a personality trait becomes so self-evident that someone feels compelled to deny it by saying I am not a... then you know they are one. Nixon's I am not a crook vs Obama's I am not an Ideologue statements. Two presidents denying a facet of their personality that had become obvious to everyone else in the world by that time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6H6zKcwIwI

Murtha-tied Company Wins Sole-Source Vaccine Contract Michael Goldfarb January 4, 2010 Several months ago we warned that Tara O'Toole who recently became Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security would reward her friends resulting in millions of dollars in gifts to John Murtha cronies who supported her nomination. And it now appears the Murtha/O'Toole favor factory has begun production. In February 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a second-generation Anthrax vaccine. This RFP was issued to be a re-procurement for a contract that...

'There is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America." With these words at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama electrified a divided country, launching a victorious Senate campaign, and four years later, a triumphant presidential campaign. He took office amid the worst conditions facing any incoming president since Franklin D. Roosevelt -- a great recession, two wars, financial free-fall. In his first year he staved off depression,...

Friend -- Remember all those socialist-hollering, Glenn Beck-worshiping, tea party wing nuts from this summer's town hall meetings? If Sarah Palin gets her way, one of them could soon be a member of Congress. Next week marks one year since President Obama was elected. The amount of money we have in the bank will be used as an instant referendum on his first year. With Sarah Palin out there raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to stack Congress with those tea party lunatics, the media is watching to see how Grassroots Democrats respond. Help us raise $500,000 in response to...