Free Republic

The nine people convicted in the Newsday circulation scandal were each sentenced Friday to 5 years' probation and up to $125,000 in fines, escaping potential restitution totaling $5.9 million and up to 20 years in prison. Those sentenced - in what federal prosecutors said was the end of their investigation - included Louis Sito, a former top Newsday executive who ran the newspaper's day-to-day business operations, and Robert Brennan, former vice president of circulation. Sito also served as vice president of Hispanic media at Tribune Co., which owned Newsday and the Spanish language Hoy, also implicated in the scandal. The...

The family of Joe Biden appears to be enmeshed in the same D.C. money game that Obama denounces.

Three people charged in case. Two Austin health care workers and the daughter of one of them have been charged with stealing from a 96-year-old man under their care. Austin police said Monday that John Oatman was the victim of theft and credit card abuse. Cynthia House, 36, and her daughter, Myesha Harper, 20, were arrested May 13 on charges of theft, a third-degree felony. There's a warrant out for a third suspect, Latasha Mae Hill, on a charge of credit card abuse, a felony in Texas. Police say she also financed a car in Oatman's name while working for...

Whirlpool Corp.'s Evansville, Ind., plant has suspended 39 workers for smoking while claiming on their health insurance they were nonsmokers.

HR4774 On March 5th, the US House of Representatives unanimously approved the naming of a Post Office after Cyndi Taylor Krier. Normally, a vote like this would not make news in The Daily Congressional. This, however, is a special case. According to The Washington Post“One of Washington’s minor traditions is to name post offices after heroes, usually recently deceased. A lot of them have been named recently for service members killed in Iraq. But Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) has taken a new approach. He’s pushing to name a post office after a prominent, very-much-alive lobbyist. And that’s not all. His...

Dear Mr. [REDACTED]: This letter will constitute notice to you, as Chairman of Premise Media Corporation, of the copyright infringement by your corporation, and its subsidiary, Rampant Films, of material produced by XVIVO LLC, in which XVIVO holds a copyright. It has come to our intention that Premise Media and Rampant Films has produced a film entitled "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," which is scheduled for commercial release and distribution on April 18, 2008. To our knowledge, this film includes a segment depicting biological cellular activity that was copied by computer-generated means from a video entitled "The Inner Life of a...

Clinton Sheiks the Money Tree By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann Monday, April 07, 2008 QUESTION: Is it appropriate for the spouse of a US senator and a presidential candidate to be in business with the leader of a foreign country? A foreign country that has lots of matters before the US government? ANSWER: No. Hillary and Bill Clinton's tax returns from 2000-2006 reveal that he made at least $8 million from foreign sources and another $15 million from Yucaipa, which is owned by supermarket magnate and "Friend of Bill" Ron Burkle. It's been reported that Yucaipa manages the financial...

World Exclusive: 4/4/08 15:43:06 ET 2000-2007 Returns Feds Taxes Paid: $33.7 million Charity: $10.2 million

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must...

Jury Finds 5 Former Insurance Executives Guilty of Scheme to Manipulate Financial Statements HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Five former insurance company executives were found guilty Monday of a scheme to manipulate the financial statements of the world's largest insurance company, American International Group Inc.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of homes entering into some stage of foreclosure is surging, according to a survey released Wednesday. In August, 115,292 properties entered into foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure sales. That was 24 percent above the level in July and 53 percent higher than a year earlier. Where foreclosures are jumping Year over year gain in homes in foreclosure. Click for more stats on each state. Nevada: Up 255% California: Up 160% Florida: Up 62% It was the second highest monthly foreclosure total of the year; in February, 117,151 properties entered foreclosure....

WHITESBURG, Kentucky (AP) -- The crime scene -- a once-wooded landscape marked by tire tracks and tree stumps -- makes the victim, Verna Potter, feel physically violated. Dave Potter, left, and his cousin, Mark Combs, sit on oaks that were allegedly chopped down by a timber thief. "It's just like someone cut your heart out," says the 77-year-old Potter, who lost an estimated $50,000 worth of generations-old oak trees, which were taken from her property and sold, without permission, while she was away. Rogue loggers have long preyed on private properties from coast to coast, taking advantage of the elderly,...

Video Professor? I remember seeing infomercials for The Video Professor years ago. He sells computer instructional material. I never would have guessed he's still in business. But after reading this, I know why: A Visit to the Video Professor's 'Classroom'. For 20 years, John Scherer, otherwise known as the Video Professor, has advertised on cable TV the wonders of his educational software. "I am so confident that I'm going to give you one free disc," he says on his "limited time offer" advertisements. But in actuality, it appears impossible to just get one free disc. Instead, it is a packaged...

A little-noticed aspect of an appellate court decision could sharply limit investigations of members of Congress and hamper ongoing corruption probes, the Justice Department said this week in a motion seeking an emergency stay of the ruling. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was handed down in August in the case of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), but its effects complicate other investigations, including those stemming from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Justice Department lawyers said in their motion that the appellate ruling represents an "unprecedented expansion" of the "speech or debate"...

Rudy Giuliani is jetting around the country wooing Bible-thumping conservatives, but his plane is often provided by a king of Sin City. The Republican presidential hopeful anted up more than $122,000 last summer alone for jets traceable to casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, whose Las Vegas Sands empire has made him the third-richest American, a Daily News review of campaign records shows. Last quarter, The Sands' innocuously named Interface Operations LLC was the top provider of corporate jets to the frequently flying Giuliani ... (snip) In addition to the Las Vegas Sands, Giuliani's fleet of corporate connections includes more than a...

NovaStar Financial shares sank by roughly half Thursday after the company, which has halted subprime mortgage lending, posted a big quarterly loss and said bankruptcy is possible. The company late Wednesday posted a $598 million third-quarter loss, or $64.05 per share. Results reflected a nearly ten-fold increase in bad loans, mortgage write-downs, higher legal bills, a charge to end the company's real estate investment trust status, and other items. Profit a year earlier totaled $25.3 million, or $2.91 per share, NovaStar said. In its quarterly report filed with securities regulators, Kansas City, Mo.-based NovaStar outlined several scenarios under which it...

A new book reveals the deep division that developed between Vice President Al Gore and first lady Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton’s years in the White House. “For Love of Politics — Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House Years” by Sally Bedell Smith claims that Hillary not only tried to usurp Al Gore’s role as vice president, she cost him the presidency in the 2000 election by draining funds and resources away from his campaign in favor of her Senate bid. [Editor’s Note: Get Sally Bedell’s book “For Love of Politics — Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House...

LONDON – The fate of the world economy hinges on what happens to house prices in America and that may not be a good thing, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday. Speaking at the Reuters headquarters in London, the former Fed chair delivered a gloomy prognosis on the state of the global economy – U.S. house prices are likely to fall further and they could drag the rest of the world with them. * * * “The critical variable in this judgement is the price of homes in the United States,” said Greenspan, who ran the U.S....

NASHVILLE — State Rep. Rob Briley has resigned as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, according to a statement issued today by House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh. Briley had earlier indicated he intended to remain in the leadership position, despite his arrest last weekend on charges of drunken driving, evading arrest, vandalism and lesser offenses. Briley, D-Nashville, had come under some pressure to resign the committee chair. Gov. Phil Bredesen yesterday joined those saying he should give up the seat. Briley was also removed as a member of a House study committee that will be reviewing the state’s DUI laws with...

Snip, The more experienced Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has relied largely on her husband and a triumvirate of senior officials from his presidency—former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger (who tries to keep a low profile after pleading guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor charges of taking classified material without authorization). Hillary also consults with an informal group of 30 less prominent advisers. But she has shown increasing anxiety over Obama's active recruiting effort—so much so that she recently hired Lee Feinstein, a prominent and well-connected scholar at the Council on Foreign...

He wasn't dressed for a swim, but Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale plunged into a slimy brook Thursday to help arrest a man who allegedly stole a police car and dragged a detective with it. At 4:36 pm, two plainclothes detectives from the Sheriff's Department's warrant unit noticed a stopped Jeep Cherokee...........One detective recognized the driver as having outstanding arrest warrants, according to department spokesman Bill Maer, and they pulled their unmarked Ford Explorer in front of his vehicle. When detectives asked the driver for his identification, he handed them a Peruvian passport that appeared fake. Realizing he was about...

WASHINGTON - Plummeting stock prices. Mortgage lenders filing for bankruptcy or shutting down. Layoffs at homebuilders and banks. Soaring foreclosures and loan defaults. Damage from the nation's slumping housing market is evident throughout the economy and permeates financial markets. Add real estate agents to the growing list of victims, although they know few tears will be shed for them. The National Association of Realtors expects membership rolls to decline this year for the first time in a decade. The group ended 2006 with nearly 1.4 million members — almost double the roughly 716,000 it had in 1997 — but expects...

This is not my opus with respects to Free Republic, but it is my opus with respects to NJ. I hated that place since I left it 30+ years ago, when I joined the Marines vowing never to return (we all know that tune) HA! But being a responsible carbon unit I accepted a position back there not really wanting to but as my Rice Krispies whisper to me each and every morning, (besides clean your weapons) "it is better to be employed in NJ than un-employed in Missouri". They (the Krispies) repeated the same thing in Baghdad & Afghanistan...

Imagine going to get your car repaired, paying for it, and then finding out the work was never even done. With the help of insiders, NBC4 uncovered an apparent scheme at stores that are part of a nationwide chain with 30 million customers a year.NBC4 shelled out a lot of cash at repair shops across town. But were the repairs paid for really done? "Does this happen to customers a lot?" NBC4's Joel Grover asked a former employee of America's biggest Lube and tune chain, Jiffy Lube. "Every day," the insider replied. To conduct the investigation, NBC4 wired two test...

WASHINGTON -- Did Internet thieves steal Herman Munster's MasterCard number?Crooks in an underground chat room for selling stolen credit card numbers and personal consumer information offered pilfered data purportedly about Herman Munster, the 1960s Frankenstein-like character from "The Munsters" TV sitcom.

With the indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) on a slew of federal corruption charges last week, The Crypt figured it was time to provide you, our readers -- most notably congressional staffers -- with a few tips to help you figure out whether your boss might be a crook. As always, all lawmakers are presumed innocent until proven otherwise. 10. He's a he. No female representative or senator has ever been to prison. Investigated, yes. Convicted or pleaded guilty, yes. Incarcerated, no. 9. He keeps asking what size your freezer is. 8. He comes from a state ending in...

Do you think the Republicans or the Democrats are winning the race to prove they are the dumbest and most incompetent political party? The Republicans were clearly winning the race until January 2007. They threw away their majorities in both houses of Congress, by not only failing to have a realistic postwar strategy in Iraq but by such things as greatly expanding government and federal spending when they had promised the voters the opposite. The Democrats won the congressional elections by promising they would have a clear and coherent plan to end the stalemate in Iraq and to be "fiscally...

Double Standard: It took 18 months of wasted taxpayers' dollars to clear former Senate GOP leader Bill Frist of insider-trading charges. Now let's probe Sen. Harry Reid, who made a million selling someone else's land. From the beginning, it was clear that Frist's sale of stock two years ago in his family's company, Hospital Corp. of America, was on the up and up. It was public knowledge for months that HCA management was engaged in an increasingly intense sell-off as the firm's stock price rose steadily. The M.D.'s meticulously kept e-mails provided the Securities and Exchange Commission with ironclad documentation...

The Iraqi Prime Minister said that the Iraqi Cabinet accepted a draft law which states how Iraq's oil profits will be shared, it will also outline terms of how foreign oil agencies will be able to operate in the country, Iraq Development Program reported. Under the terms of the new draft law, the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC) will be independently functional and joined with oil companies around the country. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister stated that the oil sector's profits will be put in a central account and distributed according to population and that the draft law will be put...

Two suspected thieves were nabbed after mistakenly telephoning police as they tried to set up a drug deal, police in California say. The two men - Paul White, 38 and Ryan Ogle, 25 - were arrested after dialing the emergency number 911 in an attempt to page a drug dealer, Pomona police sergeant Eddie Vazquez says. The misplaced phone call from a public booth alerted police, who arrived on the scene and found the men standing beside a car which had been reported as stolen, Sergeant Vazquez says. He says the men were arrested for various offences, including auto theft,...

Former New York mayor and current Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani acknowledged Friday that he made a mistake by touting his former police commissioner Bernard Kerik to be President Bush's homeland security chief. "The Mayor has said repeatedly it was a mistake to recommend Mr. Kerik for DHS," Giuliani's consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, said in a statement to The Associated Press. That followed a New York Times report that Giuliani was told about Kerik's relationship with a company with suspected ties to organized crime as long ago as 2000, when he was considering Kerik for the city's top police spot....

When Civil Court Judge Karen Yellen sat down, hat in hand, with Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman, Jr., to ask for his support in the 2002 primary, it wasn't her record he was interested in. Nor the awards the judge, who was seeking re-election, had received. Nor even the high-profile endorsements she promised. It was a $12,000 check to a Norman crony for an all-but-useless mailing and a $9,000 payment directly into the pocket of a shady political consultant, prosecutors alleged......."Because I am the King of Brooklyn, they're going to do it my way or the highway," said prosecutor Kevin...

1. "We're making a mint on your 401(k) — even if you're not." The number of 401(k) investors has soared in the past decade, to nearly 50 million from 28 million, according to Cerulli Associates. That torrid growth has created impressive efficiencies for the folks who run your plan. But it doesn't mean those savings show up in your account; in fact, they could be coming straight out of it. In a practice known as revenue sharing, providers get a cut of the expense ratio on the funds in your 401(k) to cover day-to-day "administrative costs." Since the fee is...

Harry Ried (D-Nev.) reacts to reports that he has been named to federal prosecutors by Jack Abramoff.

State Rep. Tom Prezelski Jr. is the suspect in a Tucson Police Department felony fraud investigation and had a financial crisis after taking office that included an arrest warrant for a bad check, an Arizona Daily Star investigation shows. A friend told police in May that Prezelski, 35, had stolen a blank check from her, made it out for more than $10,000 and forged her signature in June 2003, four months after he took office. That's around the same time the Democrat's Tucson home was being foreclosed upon. Four months later, he was accused of issuing a bad check, a...

The people who loan money to New York farmers are concerned with recent illegal immigrant crackdowns that have led to a farm labor shortage. Bob Smith is with the Northeast Farm Credit Association. [He] says if the raids continue, New York will lose nine hundred farms and more than 200 thousand acres of farm land in the next two years. One Finger Lakes farmer, who did not want to be identified, tells Finger Lakes News Radio farmers themselves are afraid to complain about the raids for fear they will be targeted nex

Please be warned of the following apparently new scam: They call and say you've been randomly selected to receive a "general purpose grant" of $7500 from the US Treasury. The name they give for themselves is American Financial on Ynez Rd in Temecula, CA. They say you can have the money and the administration fee is only $279.95.

"Adriana Hernandez, 20, said that her ceiling leaked and the air conditioning didn't work but that the apartment she shared with her 9-month-old baby and her parents isn't the only one in the city with problems. "There are worse," Ms. Hernandez said as she carried clothes to a truck. "They have much bigger problems." She didn't apply for the rental assistance, she said, because too many documents were required. Forms handed out to residents stated that they needed Social Security numbers or birth certificates, recent pay stubs and a copy of their lease, among other documents. But some people did...

UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General Kofi Annan has refused to fill out a newly minted U.N. financial disclosure form, rejecting advice of his inner circle that doing so would send a good signal as the U.N. seeks to counter allegations that it is closed to public scrutiny, U.N. officials said Thursday. The U.N. unveiled new rules last year that tightened staff financial disclosure requirements in effect since 1999. Annan is not required to fill out the form because he is technically not a staff member. Nonetheless, two U.N. officials told The Associated Press that several of Annan's top aides had recently urged...

I came home from work yesterday and there was a Harold Ford for U.S. Senate sign in my yard. Checked with the wife and she had not given anyone permission, nor had the sprogs. What would you do? Other than ripping out the sign which I did pronto. I find this to be just unbelieveably sleazy, but I guess that should be no surprise from this dirty family and their dirty dirty campaign staff.

Texan hosts arm against crime wave By Philip Sherwell in Houston (Filed: 27/08/2006) Hurricane Katrina may not have pounded Houston, but a year later the city is reeling from an ugly aftermath of the storm - a surging crime wave. The murder rate in the Texan city has soared by almost 20 per cent since 150,000 Katrina evacuees arrived in August last year. According to police statistics, they are involved - as victim or killer - in one of every five homicides. In the gun stores and on the shooting ranges of America's oil industry capital, business is booming as...

See for example this thread first. Some high-tech CEO's complain the SEC's causing them pain But despite all they say-- (you can go thank Ken Lay) we don't care much if "they can explain."

Democrats have reined in their use of the "culture of corruption" mantra in their efforts to oust congressional Republicans from power, fearing the slogan would backfire after two senior members of their own party were implicated in ethical scandals. Last year, minority-party leaders announced that they would offer something different from a culture of corruption, after a series of indictments and resignations involving Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other Republican lawmakers. The phrase became a regular Democratic refrain. Then, FBI officials revealed they found $90,000 in marked $100 bills in Rep. William J. Jefferson's freezer, and the Democrats opted to...

United Nations an Accomplice in Hezbollah Kidnapping: After Hezbollah's kidnapping of a pair of Israeli soldiers spurred an Israeli counter-attack, many critics of Israel actions have suggested that the United Nations can serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah. To the contrary, the United Nations has a well-established record of collaboration with Hezbollah in the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been deployed since 1978, not long after Israel first entered Lebanon in pursuit of PLO terrorists. UNIFIL was created pursuant to Security Council Resolution 425, for the purpose of "confirming the...

A growing number of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps leaders and volunteers are questioning the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars in donations collected in the past 15 months, challenging the organization's leadership over financial accountability. Many of the group's most active members say they have no idea how much money has been collected as part of its effort to stop illegal entry -- primarily along the U.S.-Mexico border, what it has been spent on or why it has been funneled through a Virginia-based charity headed by conservative Alan Keyes. Several of the group's top lieutenants have either...

The financial crisis enveloping the Hamas government escalated today when unpaid civil servants stormed parliament demanding wages and a minister was stopped at the border carrying $20 million cash in a suitcase. Mahmoud al-Zahar, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, was stopped crossing into Gaza by presidential guards loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the rival Fatah party. It was unclear whether he would be permitted to pass with the money: all sums above $2,000 must be declared and their provenance verified. Dr al-Zahar has visited Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, China, Pakistan, Iran and Egypt on a fundraising tour in recent weeks,...

PHILADELPHIA -- The FBI arrested two men who did computer work for a powerful state senator Wednesday on charges that they permanently deleted e-mails to thwart a federal investigation. Leonard P. Luchko and Mark Eister performed electronic "wipes" of computers at Sen. Vincent J. Fumo's Senate offices, his home at the New Jersey shore and at a nonprofit with deep ties to Fumo, authorities allege. "This was a deliberate, systematic and ultimately successful effort to interfere with a federal investigation," U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan said. "We have to assume that valuable information is lost forever." The document does not name...

The court-authorized search of the Congressional office of Representative William Jefferson by federal agents was as unprecedented in the 217-year history of Congress as it was alarming to lawmakers of both parties. Critics instantly suggested that Congressman Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat suspected of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, should have been spared the raid under some broad interpretation of the Constitution's separation of executive and legislative powers. Fuming lawmakers claim that the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause — which protects a lawmaker from politically motivated criminal harassment in the course of official business — should extend to...

For years, the securities class-action law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman sparked fear and uncertainty in executive suites and corporate boardrooms across the country. These days, however, the firm finds itself on the hot seat as it faces the possibility of an indictment in connection with a six-year federal investigation into whether the firm made illegal payments to clients. An indictment, while it would not prevent the firm from practicing law, would have dire consequences for its business. Negotiations to avert an indictment of the firm have stepped up in recent weeks. But by this week, hopes for...

CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.