Free Republic

Cast your vote to name the 2006 National Thanksgiving Turkey and alternate. President Bush will announce the winning names on Wednesday, November 22, 2006. -snip- This year marks the 59th anniversary of the National Thanksgiving Turkey presentation. Though live Thanksgiving turkeys have been presented intermittently to presidents since the Lincoln administration, the current ceremony dates to 1947, when the first National Thanksgiving Turkey was presented to President Harry Truman. The presentation at times has brushed against broader history. For example, the November 1963 event was one of President Kennedy's last in the Rose Garden. The first President Bush conducted the...

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Authorities say a businessman pardoned by former President Clinton has been found dead inside his South Beach condo. Miami Beach police say 63-year-old Almon Braswell was found dead October 28th in his Ocean Drive condo by his employees. It's believed he died from a previous injury. Additional information hasn't been released. The Miami-Dade County medical examiner is labeling Braswell's death as "unclassified" pending more tests. Clinton granted 177 pardons and clemencies just before leaving office in 2001. Braswell was pardoned of convictions for fraud and other crimes stemming from false claims in 1983 about...

White House spokesman Tony Snow Asking whether two U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to prison for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks is "nonsensical," according to a White House spokesman, even if it is something of high interest among WND readers. Yesterday Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, asked Bush spokesman Tony Snow whether Bush would use his power of pardon to free the agents. "That's an unanswerable question, Les. The president is the person who is responsible for pardons. You can tell the network, which made you ask that question, that it is nonsensical," Snow...

Mel and Bill: bosom buddies By Michelle Malkin Wednesday, January 31, 2001 Johnny-come-lately liberals are in an uproar over former President Clinton's peddling of White House pardons: Clinton has no shame! He'll do anything for a quick buck! He disgraced the highest office in the land! This is news? Lost in the hoopla is Clinton's repugnant clemency action for former Congressman Mel Reynolds. There was no quid pro quo here. No cash contribution or new living room couch. Just a heartfelt gesture of sympathy from one big creep to another. Clinton ordered Reynolds released from federal prison and commuted the...

BILL Clinton's scathing, defensive attack against Chris Wallace and Fox News on Sunday left me once again struck by the former president's pure hypocrisy and arrogance. Clinton wagged his familiar finger in the face of the American public - which he clearly takes for fools - as he defended the indefensible: his administration's abysmal record on terrorism.

Billy Carter, registered foreign agent of the Libyan government and brother of President Jimmy, urinated in public at the Atlanta airport. Sam Houston Johnson, alcoholic and brother of President Lyndon, claimed he was virtually a hostage in the White House and was followed by the Secret Service when he went out. Donald Nixon, budding entrepreneur and brother of President Richard, used his fraternal connection in the late 1950s to secure a business loan. You can choose your friends, but not your family. A number of politicians have found the axiom all too true. Mrs. Clinton’s brothers may yet play a...

Washington, D.C. – In a letter today to President George W. Bush, Third District Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC) expressed deep concern over the Justice Department’s unacceptable prosecution of two U.S. Border Patrol agents for simply doing their jobs to protect our homeland. “Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean should have been commended by our government for their actions last year in attempting to apprehend a Mexican drug smuggler who brought nearly 800 pounds of marijuana across our border,” Jones wrote. “But because of an incomprehensible prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office – including granting full immunity to the...

Remember Jimmy Carter's buffoonish brother Billy, known for "Billy Beer" and dealing with Libyan dictator Gadhafi? Well, Hillary Clinton has a brother, too, and, as reported in the Washington Times, Anthony D. "Tony" Rodham was named recently in an Alexandria, Virginia bankruptcy court filing that could boomerang on Hillary herself as she prepares her presidential run. The Tony Rodham story, in which he is accused of being paid and loaned hundreds of thousand of dollars to lobby for presidential pardons, could resurrect numerous Clinton scandals. The media's blackout of this story demonstrates how Senator Clinton is once again benefiting from...

WASHINGTON -- Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the CIA leak probe, President George W. Bush must weigh whether to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the only one indicted in the three-year investigation. Speculation about a pardon began in late October, soon after Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unsealed the perjury indictment of Libby, and it continued last week after Fitzgerald chose not to charge Rove. "I think ultimately, of course, there are going to be pardons," said Joseph diGenova, a former prosecutor and an old Washington hand who shares...

The Clintons pass in the night Written in conjunction with Eileen McGann Bill and Hillary Clinton are the first couple to appear simultaneously and independently on the national political stage. They are using their special circumstances as a convenient shield for one another, fulfilling, at once, Hillary’s dream of no accountability and Bill’s of being able to take both sides of an issue. Did Hillary know that Bill was pardoning the FALN terrorists to help her win Puerto Rican votes in New York? Oh, she was opposed to the pardon. Did Hillary find out that Bill was granting pardons to...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to parole a convicted murderer who became an Episcopal priest while behind bars, according to a spokeswoman. The state parole board voted last October to release James Tramel, 38, who was convicted in 1986 of killing a homeless man in Santa Barbara. Schwarzenegger, who rejected parole for Tramel a year ago, declined this time around to review his case, said Julie Soderlund, an aide to the governor. If the case is not reviewed by the governor, the parole board's decision stands. Tramel is scheduled to be released Sunday, said the Rev. Richard Helmer,...

Death Penalty ReduxThe execution of Tookie Williams has brought new life to efforts to undermine California’s death penalty law. AB 1121, a two-year moratorium on executions introduced by Assemblyman Paul Koretz will be taken up by the state Assembly on January 10, just a week before 75-year-old convicted killer Clarence Ray Allen is sentenced to die. Koretz argues that the moratorium is necessary to assure that innocent people are not put to death while the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice reviews California’s criminal justice system. But California’s death penalty review process is already the most rigorous and...

CONCORD -- President Bush's former New England campaign chairman was indicted Wednesday on charges he took part in the jamming of the Democrats' get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002. James Tobin, 44, stepped down Oct. 15 -- two weeks before Election Day -- after the Democrats accused him of involvement. "I am saddened to learn that this action has been taken against me," he said in a statement. "I have great respect for the justice system and plan to fight back to clear my name." In 2002, six phone lines run by the Democrats and the Manchester firefighters union...

A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted James Tobin, President Bush’s former New England campaign chairman, on four counts related to the jamming of get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002. State Democrats, who have filed a lawsuit over the jamming, had accused Tobin in October of involvement in the conspiracy. Tobin, 44, stepped down Oct. 15, but released a statement calling the allegations “without merit.” Full article.

SACRAMENTO - The state denied Michelle Delk a teaching credential for the same reason she was so highly regarded in the classroom: her criminal past. But now Delk, a former drug addict who turned her life around and taught substance-abuse courses to inmates at the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas, is trying to make another comeback. And she's counting on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to help her do it. If the governor pardons the most serious felony on her record -- a burglary conviction from nine years ago -- Delk could get her adult education teaching credential and return to the...

Rep.Cunningham Pleads Guilty to Tax Violations...And Hillary Skates Again Once again, the media and law enforcement contrasts between their dealings with the GOP leadership and the DNC/Clinton leadership, is extremely puzzling. The serial criminal violations by the Clinton DNC leadership that I personally know of, and that I detailed to the Justice Department in six separate proffers in 2001-2002, as well as to various media outlets, remain entirely unaddressed. (The sole exception being the half hearted trial of a Clinton underling, David Rosen, intended to provide a convenient Fall Guy to insulate the Hillary/Bill DNC leadership). There seems to be...

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AUSTIN, Texas - A judge dismissed a conspiracy charge Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out far more serious allegations of money-laundering, dashing the congressman's hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader. Texas Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay's attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed. When he was indicted in September, DeLay was required under House rules to relinquish the leadership post he had held since 2003. While Monday's ruling was a partial...

Presidential pardon causes controversy 02.12.2005 Poland's outgoing president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, has launched a procedure to pardon a member of the previous, leftwing government who was involved in a scandal, which rocked the Polish political scene for over two years. Zbigniew Sobotka was convicted for 3 and half years in jail for tipping off gangsters about a prepared police action against them. The scandal which involved many left wing politicians brought to light many links and corruption affairs among the former ruling left. President Kwasniewski's decision to pardon Sobotka has given rise to outraged comments from the ruling right wing as...

SAN DIEGO — Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges involving the sale of his home two years ago to a defense contractor at an inflated price. Admitting to a judge that he took bribes, Cunningham entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004. Cunningham, 63, and his wife, Nancy, used the proceeds from the $1,675,000 sale to defense contractor Mitchell Wade to buy a $2.55 million mansion in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe. Wade put the Del...