Free Republic

Financial 'Reform': Sen. Chris Dodd's proposed overhaul would replace the Federal Reserve with a "super regulator" to oversee the banking and financial industries. Will it work? Consider the source. Along with fellow Democrat Barney Frank, now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Dodd, who heads the Senate Banking Committee, has done as much to damage this nation's financial system as anyone — and that includes all the CEOs and subprime scoundrels as well as former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, whom many blame for lax oversight and too-loose credit in the run-up to the meltdown. What did Dodd do? In...

On CSPAN, Just announced that the final Vote will happen by Mid-night

In the midst of New York's 23rd District race, a disturbing amendment allowing inmates to volunteer for non-profits was given the thumbs up from New York voters by an overwhelming 67 percent. According to the New York Times, The amendement would allow New York's State Legislature to write a law allowing prisoners to volunteer at churches, social service groups, and other nonprofit organizations. As of December of 2008, around 60,000 inmates are currently serving time in the state's correctional facilities, according to New York's Department of Correction

State Rep. T.D. El-Amin has pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge and will resign his seat. Following today's guilty plea for accepting $2,100 from a St. Louis gas station owner, El-Amin told reporters that he was resigning from office. He said he had broken the trust of his family, friends and supporters. In court, El-Amin admitted to soliciting the money after the gas station owner asked him for help in resolving problems with city government. El-Amin is the third Democratic lawmaker from the St. Louis area to plead guilty to federal charges in the past month. State Sen. Jeff...

August 27, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Reston, Va. — In the hour before Democratic congressman Jim Moran’s lone town hall of the August recess, the line stretched from the door of South Lakes High School, down the street, around a corner to a parking lot, into the parking lot, and then took three more turns. Temperatures remained in the 90s, the sun beat down, and flies periodically buzzed around the crowd estimated at about 3,000, many of whom came with signs, pro and con, on Obamacare. Throw in special guest speaker Howard Dean of the infamous scream, and you had the...

Hey everybody, gather around, I'm here to give you anything you like.

We have discussed this previously but now that cap and trade is on tap to become the most ridiculous tax in American history (not to mention costly and unfounded), it is all that much more important to take a look at who stands to gain in this game of carbon tax lies and global warming scares. Via Green Hell: Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Olympia Snow (R-ME) have introduced a bill to make the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the sole regulator of the carbon market created by cap-and-trade legislation. So does this mean that freebooting Goldman Sachs could be the...

A price tag is now emerging for what last year's collapse of investment giant Lehman Brothers could cost the state of Florida: more than $1 billion. The losses could make Florida and its citizens among the biggest casualties in the biggest bankruptcy ever. More than $440 million disappeared from the pension fund that pays benefits for some 1 million retirees and public employees. Counties, cities and school districts face a loss of more than $300 million for roads, sewers and schools. The state has $290 million less to pay for everything from hurricane claims to health care, community colleges and...

Breakdown of the Vote The Committee does not formally publish the actual Roll Call Vote for the H.R. 2454, but our sources on the Hill confirm the following list of "yea" votes in favor of imposing the cap and trade Carbon Tax:[snip] We expect Waxman's bill to slowly work its way through the House toward a floor vote in late June or early July. So, in our assessment, with the bill limping out of committee grassroots citizens win Round One of this very important battle.

Video: Part-time work, full-time pay May 11, 2009 Ever wanted a job that pays great, gives you generous benefits, and only requires you to show up a few minutes a day? That job exists right here in Massachusetts, at the State House. Our Political Editor Joe Battenfeld takes a look at our full-time legislature, working part time hours.

Two law firms continue to rake in fees thanks to the ethics troubles of Rep. Charles Rangel. Rangel (D-New York) paid Zuckerman Spaeder nearly $350,000 and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe $100,000 in January, according to campaign records filed Wednesday with the Federal Elections Commission. The House ethics committee is investigating Rangel's failure to pay taxes and possible misuse of office letterhead for fund-raising. Zuckerman partner Leslie Kiernan and Orrick partner Lanny Davis are representing the Congressman from Harlem, as previously reported. Rangel's legal fees were first reported by Politico. For politicians, campaign war chests are a tempting, though sometimes controversial,...

This week CRP posted new 2010 fundraising profiles for members of Congress, including the total that each lawmaker has raised and spent in the 1st Quarter of 2009. Who's raising the most? Who's already spent the most? With nearly all of the records now in from the Federal Election Commission (with the exception of some senators who aren't up for re-election until at least 2012 and have more time to raise money), we offer a few of our observations: Among members of the House of Representatives, Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) have so far raised the...

DALLAS — The Texas Department of Public Safety will appeal a ruling that blocks the agency from enforcing new rules that prevent some legal immigrants from getting drivers’ licenses, the state attorney general’s office said Friday.

DALLAS — The Texas Department of Public Safety will appeal a ruling that blocks the agency from enforcing new rules that prevent some legal immigrants from getting drivers’ licenses, the state attorney general’s office said Friday.

DALLAS -- A judge blocked the Texas Department of Public Safety on Thursday from continuing to enforce new rules that prevent some legal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses and identification cards. State District Judge Orlinda L. Naranjo in Austin issued a temporary injunction and found DPS acted outside its scope of authority when it adopted the policy last year. "This case is not about illegal immigrants obtaining driver licenses, it is about legal residents who have been denied or have been threatened a denial of a driver license," Naranjo wrote.

The Democrat made a net gain today in a count of formerly rejected absentee ballots that pushed his advantage to more than 300 votes in the U.S. Senate race. Democrat Al Franken today extended his lead over Republican Norm Coleman in the U.S. Senate election, following the counting of about 350 formerly rejected absentee ballots this morning by a three-judge panel. Unofficially, Franken took 198 of the ballots, while Coleman added 111. The ballots added about 87 to Franken’s recount lead, enlarging his margin over Coleman to more than 312. The result makes it even more likely that, barring an...

President Obama must stop the bailouts and start the prosecutions. It's time to focus on anti-poverty programs to protect the growing unemployed from hunger and homelessness. Stealth payments to billionaire bondholders must cease immediately. Since the mid-1970s, average Americans' wages have stayed flat when adjusted for inflation. Productivity rose, profits rose, but not wages. To compensate for stagnant wages and the desire to consume more each year, Americans worked more, retired later, spouses went to work, and many burned savings. Then they started borrowing. Debt became America's growth industry. The scheme collapsed because Americans' wages weren't sufficient to pay the...

The cancer spreads. A salary cap on YOUR job is next...... Drudge: "Obama will call for increased oversight of 'executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies' as part of sweeping plan to 'overhaul financial regulation', NY TIMES reporting Sunday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE. Read on

roanoke,va - WASHINGTON (AP) - Now it can be told: The mysterious petty theft that President Barack Obama’s new computer chief committed at age 21 was shoplifting four dress shirts worth $134 from J.C. Penney. A 1996 Montgomery County, Md., police report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday under a public records law shows Vivek Kundra was observed by a security guard putting the men’s shirts into a shopping bag and leaving the store without paying. Sgt. Tom Stanton wrote that Kundra was arrested after a brief foot chase and the property was recovered

he following is a copy of the March 17 letter New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sent to Rep. Barney Frank: Dear Chairman Frank: I am writing to provide you and your Committee with information regarding an ongoing investigation my Office has been conducting of executive compensation at American International Group ("AIG"). I hope this information will be useful to the Committee at its hearing on AIG tomorrow. We learned over the weekend that AIG had, last Friday, distributed more than $160 million in retention payments to members of its Financial Products Subsidiary, the unit of AIG that was principally...

The Bush administration added another $700 billion to the nation’s deficit with the bailout bill last fall, despite many warnings that it would not stabilize the economy. It didn’t. That administration ended with record spending, record borrowing, record deficits, and an economy in shambles. But my question to many of my friends in the majority is this: if record spending, record borrowing and record deficits is the path to economic recovery – why aren’t we already enjoying a period of unprecedented economic expansion? In fact, all of the bailouts, handouts and loan guarantees already enacted add up to $9.7 trillion...

In an interview with CNBC, Representative Barney Frank says he wants to push for prosecution of the people who caused the country's financial meltdown. The Massachusetts Democrat says he has no specific targets in mind, but says the most significant thing lawmakers can do is make past bad practices illegal.

Lets all send our Senators and Congresspeople our empty billfolds as a protest of their spendthrift ways....

Springfield MO, 200+ people arrived in 35 degree weather to show their support to the nationwide "tea party" movement, and the disgust at the obscene expansion of wasteful government spending.

Read it and weep. Obama and Pelosi will soon announce Porkulus II "because the first bill didn't have everything in it we need." Let 'er rip...

In his first weeks in office, President Barack Obama shut down his predecessor’s system for reviewing regulations, realigned and expanded two key White House policymaking bodies and extended economic sanctions against parties to the conflict in the African nation of Cote D’Ivoire. Despite the intense scrutiny a president gets just after the inauguration, Obama managed to take all these actions with nary a mention from the White House press corps. The moves escaped notice because they were never announced by the White House Press Office and were never placed on the White House web site. They came to light only...

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.): Democrats made the bill available at 11 p.m. on Thursday night. At 9 a.m. Friday morning, the House begins debate on the bill. If members of Congress actually took the time to read the bill, they would have to read through the night at a rate of 626 words per minute before heading to the House floor. What are the odds of that happening? (w/video)

Most historians agree that earthquakes, droughts or barbarians did not unravel classical Athens or imperial Rome. More likely the social contract between the elite and the more ordinary citizens finally began breaking apart -- and with it the trust necessary for a society's collective investment and the payment of taxes. Then civilization itself begins to unwind. Something like that has been occurring lately because of the actions on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C. The former "masters of the universe" who ran Wall Street took enormous risks to get multimillion-dollar bonuses, even as they piled up billions in debt for...

Republicans have caught the Democrats in a midnight “stimulus” power play that seeks to cut Republican conferees out of the House-Senate negotiations to resolve a final version of the Obama “stimulus” package. Staff members from the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) met last night to put together the “stimulus” conference report. They intend to attempt to shove this $1.3 trillion spending bill through in the dead of the night without Republican input so floor action can take place in both chambers on Thursday. I spoke with House Republican Conference Chairman Mike...

Panetta Earned $700,000 in Speaking and Consulting Fees, Forms Show By GLENN R. SIMPSON WASHINGTON -- The White House's nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, has earned more than $700,000 in speaking and consulting fees since the beginning of 2008, with some of the payments coming from troubled banks and an investment firm that owns companies that do business with federal national security agencies. [Leon Panetta] Leon Panetta Mr. Panetta received $56,000 from Merrill Lynch & Co. for two speeches and $28,000 for an Oct. 30, 2008 speech for Wachovia Corp. Both firms suffered big losses...

http://www.hulu.com/superbowl/55709/super-bowl-xliii-ads-monster-need-a-new-job Click on the link. Kind of sums up the idiocy of the corporate world right now.

By their actions ye shall know them. By now we are seeing an ominous pattern of actions by the O administration. We know that President Obama is a very slick liar indeed, but then so was Bill Clinton. But Clinton had a smaller majority in Congress, and was forced to compromise after the Gingrich Congress was elected in 1994. It is still possible that Obama may turn toward the mainstream. But the early omens look dark. Foreign and military affairs There is a reason why Israel s voters are suddenly turning to the center-Right Netanyahu and Likud. They fear that...

Obama's hopes DaschledHis ties to the former senator may have blinded him to potential ethics problems -- but in the end, the president takes the blame. By Mike Madden Feb. 4, 2009 | WASHINGTON -- Things would probably have gone a lot more smoothly for Tom Daschle if the whole country worked the way Washington does, at least at its most stratified levels. You serve in a high government post for a while, then you lose an election, and your friends step in to support you with helpful things like, say, a $1 million-a-year job in private equity, and a...

Wells Fargo & Co., which received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, is planning a series of corporate junkets to Las Vegas casinos this month. Wells Fargo, once among the nation's top writers of subprime mortgages, has booked 12 nights at the Wynn Las Vegas and its sister hotel, the Encore Las Vegas beginning Friday, said Wynn spokeswoman Michelle Loosbrock. The hotels will host the annual conference for company's top mortgage officers. The conference is a Wells Fargo tradition. Previous years have included all-expense-paid helicopter rides, wine tasting, horseback riding in Puerto Rico and a private Jimmy Buffett concert in...

This is FOUR people who you've appointed that can't pay their damn taxes, including your Treasury Secretary? The latest is that Daschle has withdrawn, of course. CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN? I'll tell you what would be change. Since it appears that a huge percentage of the current and former Congressional delegation has cheated on its taxes - after all, what are the odds you only picked the tax cheats, if you want me to believe in your idea of CHANGE you will immediately order all member of Congress in both Houses to undergo full IRS audits all the way...

Barack Obama says that we should not let "very modest differences" get in the way of the Democrats massive spending bill, otherwise known as the economic stimulus bill. It's funny that Obama would consider the differences between government spending and tax cuts "very modest." Do I really need to explain the fundamental differences between the plans the Democrats have proposed and those supported by Republicans? I didn't think so. Jamie Dupree has done a top notch job of combing through this Senate economic stimulus bill .. I'll give you a little taste of what he found, and you can check...

According to the Huffington Post, tax cheats and crooks in the Obama administration are a GOOD THING. None of these exceptional appointments under the Obama administration are intransigent ideologues such as we've seen in the past. Rather, they have all gone to lengths to divorce themselves from any conflicting interests and to rectify any past, "honest mistake" transgressions. They have humbled themselves and made sacrifices where necessary because they value the opportunity to lead solution-driven agendas that will hopefully reverse the ideology-driven course of the past. You can't make this stuff up. Solution driven. Is that anything like "reality based?"

Can only post link to story, http://www.freep.com/article/20090127/NEWS01/301270003/1008/NEWS06/Kilpatricks++Conyers+among+8+named+in+FBI+bribery+probe

Shortly after the House on Wednesday passed President Barack Obama's $825 billion "stimulus" package, ABC and CBS commiserated with Obama over his unsuccessful efforts to woo Republican votes. "Not one Republican voted for it," ABC anchor Charles Gibson announced on World News with "Rescue Plan" as the on-screen heading, "turning a cold shoulder to the President's appeal for bipartisan support." Reporter Jonathan Karl fretted: "So much for the President's charm offensive. Today it was all partisan rancor and name-calling." CBS reporter Chip Reid related how "the White House says this is a victory for the President, but certainly there is...

The Wall Street Journal reports on what everyone already knows: the federal bailout serves as nothing more than a political payoff machine. As long as lenders have friends in Washington, they’ll get TARP funds, regardless of how they’ve run their bank or their current health as a lender. Barney Frank leads the pack in the new version of pork: Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn’t look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department’s bank bailout fund last fall. The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen...

When I see the $170 million Inaugural celebrations, I am reminded of “Belshazzar the king of Babylon. [He] made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand. While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God...

... It seems to me and a lot of other folks that we might label the current bunch of bozos in Congress the Know-Nothing Party because, Democrat or Republican, they have reached a point at which they can be stampeded into voting for the expenditure of huge amounts of money without a clue why or to whom. Now it appears they are getting ready to “stimulate the economy” with a giant, political grab-bag in excess of a trillion dollars. Much like earlier efforts, it is likely to fail while at the same time plunging the nation into deeper and deeper...

Have you ever seen so many controversies swarming around a President who HASN'T EVEN been sworn in? I'm happy for all for the folks who are still haplessly drooling over President-Elect Obama's victory... Good for you. Hopefully his win will shut the race-rioters up good Or awhile, at least. And hopefully, when your hope and change bubble is shattered under what will ultimately be poor leadership, you Obama-drones wont lose faith in our great nation. But until then All of these controversies have got to have you AT LEAST a little worried. It's just a shame that the first African...

What I've been tying to discern about the Clinton Foundation is why -- aside from the annual fancy party in New York -- foreign governments, other foundations and charities have given money to fund what they already do themselves. There were four United Way contributions, one from the national outfit, three from local branches. Since when is the Clinton Foundation one of the approved charities of the United Way? Then there are more serious questions about operating charities. What was the purpose of a contribution by the National Opera of Paris? Or of hospitals themselves in strained circumstances, like Maimonides...

For the first time since Election Day, Democrat Al Franken is ahead of incumbent Norm Coleman (R) in Minnesota’s still-undecided Senate race. According to a tally by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Franken has taken the lead as the state’s Board of Canvassers continues to review ballots challenged by both campaigns during the state's hand recount.

The Illinois Supreme Court today rejected Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan's attempt to have disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared unable to hold the office of Illinois chief executive, court officials said. The high court, without comment, denied Madigan's attempt to file a complaint with justices arguing Blagojevich's fitness to serve. The court also rejected Madigan's attempt for a temporary restraining order, aimed at preventing him from using state law to appoint a U.S. Senate replacement for President-elect Barack Obama. A criminal complaint filed by Blagojevich, which resulted in his arrest eight days ago, contended the governor was seeking to try to...

Without explanation District Judge Amy St. Eve canceled her own deadlines for lawyers to file briefs on the upcoming sentencing of Antoin "Tony" Rezko. That name should sound familiar, as detailed in a Special Ticket Report the other day; he's the Illinois political fixer, real estate man and fundraiser with close connections to Obama, Blagojevich and other Chicago political clans who's unhappy in solitary and sought to advance his sentencing to Jan. 6 on 16 federal counts of fraud, money laundering and abetting bribery. (Obama was not implicated in that trial.)

LINK ONLY: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-12-10-corruptstates_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

The story that put the lie to the No-O & Blogo Meeting was found yesterday and disappeared down the memory hole at News : KHQA.