Free Republic

Today at progressive "watchdog" group Media Matters's blog the Left was throwing a fit over Fox News' comparison of Obama to The Godfather: Media Matters claimed that this was something of a meme in the conservative community and supported it with a link to their "research" from May. The first commenter, someone with the clever moniker Rasta Farian wanted answers: Can someone please tell me why this okay? Yes, I'll tell you why this is OK. Another commenter, "Historically Correct" (a less amusing and rather pretentious handle) also wanted answers: Why on earth is this okay? FoxNews should be forced...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thR-lVuztIY

Michael Barone departs from his normally moderate tone in today’s Investors Business Daily column to label the Obama administration as Gangster Government. Instead of following the rule of law, Obama and his henchmen have threatened to kneecap their opposition in the press and use Porkulus as an extortion device to dictate policy. So far, only one group has been the beneficiary of the gangster tactics:

WILL our economic trou bles produce a significant rise in crime? It's not as certain as some suggest. The common predictions of rising crime bring to mind the eminent criminologists who warned in the 1990s that "super predators" were about to go on the rampage or that the country would soon experience "a bloodbath." In fact, the reverse happened. Since 1990, cities across America have seen large drops in crime with New York, down 75 percent, leading the way. A look at the Great Depression of the 1930s suggests a jump in the crime rate is not inevitable now. And...

Craig's assertions that the transition team was unaware of Blagojevich's efforts to sell off Obama's old seat do not correspond to the transcripts of wiretapped conversations released by the FBI two weeks ago in which the governor repeatedly swears and expresses frustration in his attempts to strike a deal on the Senate seat.

I have a feeling the prosecutors are not about to cause serious legal problems for the incoming Obama administration as they pursue Blagojevich. So Team Obama is fairly confident that their self-examination will stand. The country has two wars on its hands and an historic economic crisis facing it. I don’t think that Fitzgerald is about to blow the whistle on Team Obama that could disrupt the smooth transition of power from Bush to Obama. If there is incriminating evidence, it will be spiked “for the good of the country.” Ace of Spades comments: Obama's lawyer Gregory Craig (remember him?)...

President-elect Barack Obama was interviewed by the office of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as part of Fitzgerald's criminal probe into embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Obama was interviewed last Thursday. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was interviewed Friday, and incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was interviewed Saturday.

CHICAGO – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he is not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing and plans to stay on the job. In his first official statement since his arrest on corruption charges last week, Blagojevich (blah-GOY'-Uh-vich) says he will fight until he takes his "last breath." ... The Democratic governor says he intends to "answer every allegation in a court of law."

Suppose you're Bashir Assad or Putin, and you watch the Blago Blowup, a month before the next president even takes office. What are you thinking right now? First, Obama looks vulnerable to blackmail. His homey network is full of people who can't stand the light of day. They know all kinds of things the leftist media suppress -- people like Auchi (the Iraqi billionaire), Rezko (the corrupt Syrian multimillionaire), Emil Jones (the Godfather of Southside), and the whole Daley Machine. That's not even counting the freaky radicals or the pols Obama has surrounded himself with. Mayor Daley's brother is one...

Blagojevich refuses to budge NBC Nightly News VIDEO: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/28200681#28200681&gt1=43001

Extorting Children's Hospital is a new political low. Chicagoans and Illinoisans love political scandal the way that Milanese love opera. We trade recollections, like baseball cards, about the secretary of state (Paul Powell) who stashed money in shoeboxes, and the Chicago mayor (Harold Washington) whose birthday was April 15 but never filed his income tax return. Rod Blagojevich stands a chance to be the fourth Illinois governor in recent history, and the second in a row, to wind up in prison. This run suggests that Illinoisans are indifferent to political corruption, and it's hard to argue with such an impressive...

America wanted change and we sure got it. We elected a politician who looked and sounded fresh and new and different (and don't forget "clean" as Senator Biden once remarked), and promised that magic word "change." Aren't we lucky? It appears that the change we got is that we've moved Chicago machine-style politics into the White House. We found out on Tuesday what that business model consists of- the good Governor of Illinois was arrested for allegedly trying to sell Barack Obama's United States Senate seat. Yes, I said sell Obama's seat to the highest bidder. It's nice to know...

Wow. Ace of Spades highlights a photo that suggests when Obama said, "I had no contact with the governor or his office," what he really meant was "I met him and shook his hand in front of photographers at the National Governors Association meeting last Tuesday." Which, you know, kinda makes that "no contact" statement not accurate. Or, in some less generous eyes, a lie.

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

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday that he's confident no member of his staff was involved in discussing deals for his Senate seat with disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Obama also said once again that he had no discussions about the seat he is vacating with the Democratic governor, who was arrested by federal agents this week in connection with an alleged corruption scheme. "I was as appalled and disappointed as anyone," Obama said at a news conference called to announce a series of new appointments to the administration he is setting up. "I have never spoken to the...

There's nothing like a little Guilt-by-Association Red Meat to bring the anti-Obama crowd back to the comment boards. Hundreds of posts have found their way to various articles on washingtonpost.com and elsewhere about the dramatic arrest yesterday of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for, among other things, allegedly trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama. Federal prosecutors said without equivocation that there is no evidence of Obama's involvement in the matter, but the noisy anti-Obama comment crowd stirred from its post-election silence to fire away. Because, as Michael D. Shear and Chris Cillizza wrote, "the conspiracy allegedly dreamed...

Somewhere, Ulysses S. Grant is thrilled, Richard M. Nixon’s chuckling, and Warren G. Harding sighs with relief, because Obama seems destined to give them all a real run for their money to become the most corrupt administration this nation has ever seen (and that’s even before we get into doling out billions in infrastructure spending, which will be a Pandorrian Box of potential graft and corruption). The media deliberately ignored Obama’s connections to Tony Rezko (convicted felon), Valerie Jarrett (known in Chicago for her housing fraud and slumlord deals), James Meeks (rabid homophobe), Yesse Yehudah (whom you have probably never...

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama liked to boast that he was a tough survivor of the bare-knuckled world of Chicago politics. But the president-elect also has steered clear of most of its scandals, navigating a careful middle ground that has left him relatively unscathed in a city synonymous with corruption.

Sweet catch by Tapper, showing why he got that promotion. Obama today…“I had no contact with the governor or his office and so I was not aware of what was happening, ” Obama told reporters today in Chicago. “It’s a sad day for Illinois. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s appropriate to comment.” …versus Axelrod on November 23, as seen below. Be sure to read Tapper’s post, as he has plenty more on The One’s long history as a friend of — and advisor to — Blago. Axelrod himself begged off Blagojevich’s first gubernatorial campaign because “I was concerned about...

<p>A source said today that Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning. The U.S. attorney's office would not confirm the information, and a spokesman for the governor did not immediately return a phone call for comment.</p>

78 Pages of corruption by the numbers...........

COSTA MESA – Three teens, including the son of a former City Council candidate and community activist, have been arrested in connection with a shotgun attack on a teenage girl, police said today. The arrests stem from a July 28 shooting on Shalimar Drive – a notorious area barricaded with concrete stumps at all but one access point because of rampant gang activity – that resulted in a 15-year-old girl being hospitalized with a shotgun wound to the torso. The three suspects - one young man and two juveniles - were booked on suspicion of attempted murder, conspiracy and street...

Mexico: the danger of 'drug ballads'  Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/06/2008       In the past two years, 15 mexican musicians have been murdered. Their crime: to fall foul of the country's drug barons. Ioan Grillo reports It was three in the morning and the Mexican group Banda Guasavena were driving back from a concert at a cockfighting festival, just over the border from Texas. The audience had been even more rapturous than usual and Fausto Castro-Elizalde, the band's horn player, recalls them chatting happily about the evening.   Grupo Cartel de Sinaloa pose in a cemetery full of extravagant...

RIVERSIDE Two recent shootouts between law officers and several members of the Soboba Indian tribe have prompted the Riverside County Sheriff's Deputies Association to warn the public that it considers the tribe's casino to be unsafe, it was reported on Saturday. The 3,700-member union considers the tribal reservation to be "unstable" as a result of "recent violence against Riverside County deputy sheriffs," the Los Angeles Times and Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Tribal leaders shot back that the deputies union has brought the shootouts into the poitical arena, and said in an e-mail that "the recent tragic events were unrelated to the...

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld Gilroy's right to exclude members of a motorcycle club from the annual garlic festival because their garb violated a ban on clothing that could be associated with gang colors. In a 12-page ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the arguments of the Top Hatter motorcyle club, which argued their free speech rights were violated when they were ordered to leave the garlic festival in 2000. The club sued in federal court in San Jose, but a judge ruled against their arguments in 2005, prompting the appeal. The 9th Circuit concluded...

May 23, 1934: Police kill famous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde On this day in 1934, notorious criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police while driving a stolen car near Salles, Louisiana. Bonnie Parker met the charismatic Clyde Barrow in Texas when she was 19 years old and her husband (she married when she was 16) was serving time in jail for murder. Shortly after they met, Barrow was imprisoned for robbery. Parker visited him every day, and smuggled a gun into prison to help him escape, but he was soon caught...

Long before the O. J. Simpson trial, the "trial of the century" was the Lindberg baby kidnapping and murder case. The son of the most famous American family of the 20th century, (Colonel Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh) was kidnapped in 1932 and declared dead after being missing for six weeks. The body (so badly decomposed that proper identification was not possible), was presented to Charles Lindberg. Mr. Lindberg identified the body as that of his missing son, even though witnesses question even the sex of the corpse. Bruno Haupmann, a carpenter, and German immigrant, who had some acquaintance...

Critics of vulgar, violent, gangster-style rap music make a mistake when they write off rap stars as stupid, immoral and self-destructive. They may be immoral and self-destructive, but they're not stupid. As one of my readers observed in a thoughtful e-mail, they're making a rational economic choice. The reader wrote: "I had to stop and ask this question to myself: 'Would I call my mother a 'ho' or my sister a 'bitch' if I could make a couple of million dollars and get out of poverty and live a pretty good life?" In a line of work that dangles riches...

I was threatened to have my ass kicked the next time in San Diego because I dared quote Chris Rock who, at least in his stand up routine, claims to have as little use for niggas (as opposed to hard-working, law-abiding, descent black people) as I do. No one has yet to give me a reason to change that opinion. In fact, my opinions were vindicated, yet again, by the 403 arrests that tarnished the mid-February NBA All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas, According to Edward Lawrence of WLAS-TV, “It wasn’t the shootings, but the general rudeness of the NBA fans...

A federal appeals court refused yesterday to revive civil-rights claims against Gov. Rendell, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, and Teamsters Local 115, part of a lawsuit filed eight years ago by a man who says he was beaten and falsely prosecuted after protesting a 1998 appearance by President Clinton. The opinion by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is likely the end of the federal suit filed by Don and Theresa Adams, although Adams has said he will press civil claims involving state law in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. Neither Adams, 46, of...

By Emer Mullins The large increase in babies being born to immigrants in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is putting maternity hospitals in that city under strain, The New York Times has reported. Hundreds of babies are being born to Latino immigrant workers, who flocked to the city to work during the reconstruction. “The throng of babies gurgling in the handful of operational maternity wards here has come as a big surprise — and a financial strain — to this historically black and white city, which before the hurricane had only a small Latino community and virtually...

LOS ANGELES Police Friday announced a second arrest in the racially motivated shooting death of a 14-year-old black girl who was gunned down -- allegedly by two Latino gang members -- in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles last month. A news conference was scheduled this afternoon to announce details of the arrest, but police earlier identified the second suspect as Jonathan Fajardo. The other suspect, Ernesto Alcarez, 20, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on murder, attempted murder and hate crime charges that were filed Dec. 26. Cheryl Green, an eighth-grader at Stephen M. White Middle School, was...

A violent fight between clans in Khan Yunis in central Gaza on Saturday erupted into an all-out battle in which an officer of the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s new elite army was killed, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Five children and 24 others were injured in the fracas, which broke out Saturday night between two clans. The newly-created Interior Ministry Executive Force, made up of terrorists from various organizations, tried to break up the fight and was drawn into an armed battle.

Recent violence in Sao Paulo may just be the tip of the iceberg: Many parts of Brazil and indeed across Latin America, governments have capitulated to gangsters, and the rise of organized crime could end the recent leftward shift across Latin America. Garbage containers block the road into slum district Vigario Geral, one of the most dangerous favelas in Rio de Janeiro. A visitor approaches the barricade, two youths appear from the shadow of a nearby building. They're carrying machine guns, and handguns are tucked into their pants. "You want to go to church, right?" the older of the two...

Among the most important priorities of U.S. global policy is combating the international traffic in drugs and in persons (often a euphemism for women and children forced into prostitution). Because of the linkage and overlap among terrorist networks and organized criminal gangs, the battle against trafficking is also an integral part of the war on terror. Amazingly, that's what the international community seems to want to help establish in the Serbian province of Kosovo. When Kosovo was placed under United Nations administration and NATO military control at the end of the 1999 war, some hoped the province soon would meet...

Many of those on the left who are attacking President Bush for toppling Saddam Hussein were not so particular when Clinton was president. The man who sent American troops into Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, etc, did so with the support of liberal-leaning Congressmen and Senators. This fact needs to be borne in mind because I think provides a clue as to why the same Liberals are now snapping at President Bush’s heels. Taking a look at the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign we find that it provided the means by which those who are deeply hostile to American values and...

An e-mail is bouncing around the Internet with photographs of alleged Bolivarian gunmen in an area of Caracas that appears to be 23 de Enero. Many appear to be teenagers, they are wearing Bolivarian t-shirts with Che Guevara's face super-imposed on Venezuela's national colors, and they are armed with Glock 9mm semi-automatic handguns. According to Pensamiento Militar Venezolano 2005, a strategic and tactical military defense document drafted under the direction of President Hugo Chávez, the core mission of these armed youths is to turn Caracas into a kill zone where escualidos will be hunted down systematically if the Chávez regime...

Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti's office confirmed Wednesday that it is investigating the alleged looting of a New Orleans car dealership by city police officers. More than 200 vehicles were taken from the Sewell Cadillac Chevrolet dealership in the Central Business District, and in the most chaotic hours after Hurricane Katrina, some New Orleans Police Department officers reportedly pulled up outside the mobile command center at Harrah's casino in bright, shiny Cadillac SUVs. The cars allegedly still had "2004" stickers in their windshields and "Sewell" medallions on the back. The fancy rides appeared at a time when a desperate force,...

New Orleans Gangs, Drug Dealers May Re-Emerge ElsewherePOSTED: 2:43 pm EDT September 27, 2005 BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Katrina did what authorities couldn't: put a stop to illegal drug operations in New Orleans and pushed its ruthlessly violent gangs from the streets of the city's poorest neighborhoods. The exact landing point of gang members isn't known for sure, though federal authorities suspect popular evacuation sites like Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Houston. But no matter where they land, the thugs from the Big Easy have been put at a distinct disadvantage, authorities say. "They are crippled," said U.S. Attorney Jim...

Just as Katrina's receding waters revealed acres of ruined houses, flooded cars and pockets of bodies, the post-storm cleanup also raised the curtain on a trail of mass looting that left even the most jaded New Orleans police officers awestruck. As search and rescue crews staged house-to-house searches for survivors during the past two weeks, they repeatedly stumbled upon stacks of merchandise -- from large appliances still in the box to knotted tangles of hastily pilfered jewelry. Much of the loot is being recovered from the drier areas of Uptown and Central City in the 6th Police District. "At first,...

The man approached her at the school bus stop Monday afternoon. The 14-year-old freshman had just gotten off the bus from Eastern Hills High School. The man tried to talk to her. She ignored him and walked away, but he followed. Police say the girl called 911 and kept the operator on the phone during the chase that followed. Her quick thinking helped them catch the man. Glenn E. Holloway, 28, an evacuee from New Orleans, remained in the Mansfield Jail Tuesday night facing a charge of unlawful restraint of a person younger than age 17. The man chased her...

COMMERCE, Calif. - The parents of a Navy sailor slain while on leave from the war in Iraq pleaded Thursday for the public's help to find the gunman who also shot the man's pregnant wife in the stomach and wounded his teenage brother. "I need justice for my son," said Jorge Hipolito, who sobbed at a press conference surrounded by video stills of the shooting. "I have too much pain." Osiel Hipolito, 20, was shopping for a television Saturday at a strip mall near Compton with his 16-year-old brother and 21-year-old wife, Lizveth Valdivia, when two men confronted him, said...

New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compas said "In the annals of history, no police department in the history of the world was asked to do what we (were) asked," He also said the Federal goverment should bring in a Cruise Ship for his police officers for some relaxation...

http://www.infowars.com/articles/new_orleans/police_loot_walmart.htm

NEW ORLEANS -- There are reports from New Orleans of shots being fired at cell phone workers on towers trying to restore service. Authorities have been going door to door at nearby apartment buildings, sometimes forcing doors open in their search for snipers. Some pawn shops in the area are federally licensed gun dealers that were looted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The operation includes dozens of New Orleans police, Louisiana State Police, ATF and other law enforcement members. Most are wearing flak jackets. No shots have been heard during Wednesday morning's operation and no one has been pulled...

Evacuee charged in sexual assault Plano: Man staying with relatives accused of attacking girl, 13 12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 7, 2005 By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News A Hurricane Katrina evacuee staying with a Plano family was arrested Tuesday and accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, police said. Freddie Murray, 48, of New Orleans was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. Mr. Murray is a distant relative of the girl, police said. Police didn't know the exact relationship. "The guy is an evacuee staying with distant relatives, and he allegedly assaulted a 13-year-old...

The story that isn't shown on TV. Scratch the surface in San Antonio and you find people who deeply resent the idea of their law-abiding city with its NBA basketball champion team being forced to accommodate people from a city known for its lawlessness well before Hurricane Katrina. The fear here is that the evacuation of New Orleans will see chaos and gang violence spiral outwards to the communities at the front line of the relief effort. "SWAT police don't normally get assigned to jobs like this but a lot of these people are carrying guns," he said. "We've been...

NEW ORLEANS - Rapists, an attempted murder suspect and dozens of men who looted New Orleans after hurricane Katrina huddle in a temporary jail set up as police try to regain city streets which were lawless last week. The scrawled cardboard sign on the front door of the Greyhound Bus Station, now a makeshift jail reads simply, "We Are Taking New Orleans Back." Inside the accused, almost all black men aged 18 to 35, are herded out of confinement into buses by heavily armed officers from Angola State Penitentiary. They stand handcuffed, disheveled and filthy, many with torn clothes, waiting...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. A well-known Florida newspaper says one of its reporters was shot and wounded while covering the hurricane aftermath in Baton Rouge. The St. Petersburg Times says Marcus Franklin was shot Monday night while on his way back to a motel. The newspaper says the reporter was at a stop sign in a dimly-lit area when a man with a revolver walked up to the car and asked for his money. Franklin says he heard a pop but didn't realize he'd been shot in the stomach until he started driving off. The 34-year-old journalist called 9-1-1 and was...

LET ME START by saying that if I had my life to live over a thousand times, the one thing I would not change would be my race. I am proud to be a black man. There are times however, when I wish that certain people and I did not share that trait. For the past few days, the whole world ... well, at least those who have access to satellite and cable television, have been seeing pictures of the virtually total devastation of the cities of the U.S. Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 90 per cent of...