Free Republic

a former legislator sentenced to prison for taking a bribe and misusing campaign money wants to take advantage of public financing to fund his return to the General Assembly. "We're close. We're very close," Ernest Newton II said last week when asked about collecting the $15,000 in small $5 to $100 contributions necessary to qualify for public financing. A 17-year veteran of the Legislature, Newton was sentenced in February 2006 to five years in federal prison and three years probation for taking a $5,000 bribe to push through a state grant, diverting $40,682 in campaign contributions to himself and...

Link to page with YouTube Video.(Video caption: Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) speaking at a forum on national housing policy on December 11, 2006. Three weeks after making this speech at the Treasury Department, Frank became Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Frank on Democrats taking over regulatory reform:“You will see far less difference with Democrats taking over in the Financial Services regulatory area than in virtually any other area of public policy, because we did work together on things like regulatory relief and we have more to do yet in the deregulation. One of the things we did was...

Harlem Democrat Charles Rangel now says he will step down as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, NBC News has learned. He may make the move as early as tonight and Michigan Democratic Rep Sander Levin will temporarily take over the committee. Some details still need to be ironed out, but sources said Rangel has been pushed to step down before the House voted on a bill to forcefully strip him of the coveted chairmanship. Rangel has been under fire ever since an ethics committee released a report Thursday that found that he violated House rules by...

Here is video of Ann Coulter and Al Sharpton on "Geraldo at Large" talking about Michael Steele's comments on Obama asking David Paterson not to run in 2010. Al Sharpton said "if I had taken the position that Michael Steele took I'd be accused of playing the race card." Ann Coulter said "the Democratic Party is racist" and used as evidence the way they have treated New York Governor David Paterson. (Video)

Holder confirmed as attorney general, 75-21

By now, just about everyone knows that IL Governor Rod Blagojevich has reportedly been caught on tape as saying that “Obama's Senate seat was “*expletive deleted* valuable” and that “it wasn't something to be given away for free”. The scenario is that ‘Blago’ - as he is called by both supporters and opponents - was being taped by the Feds as part of another investigation. And, if true, just about everyone concluded, among other descriptors, ‘how stupid’ ‘Blago’ must be. But now, ‘Blago’ has shown he can also be ‘politically clever’. Rather than wait to see what the Feds will...

OBAMA-BUST: Bill Richardson will withdraw as Commerce secretary... Developing...

GOP tactic blocks Iraq debate As Democrats were getting ready to debate what was wrong with President Bush's plan to send additional troops to Iraq, Republicans managed to block the resolution. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Republicans of giving Bush a "green light." "You can run, but you can't hide," Reid said. "We are going to debate Iraq."

Ann Coulter criticized four of the women whose husbands died on 9/11, and now a congressmen from the New York/New Jersey area has written a scathing letter-signed by nearly two dozen other congressmen-to the author.In Coulter's new book "Godless: The Curch of Liberalism," she wrote, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much," and that the four were "reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by giref-arazzis."In response, House Democrats from Long Island and New York City have signed their names to a letter drafted by Rep. Steve Israeil (D-Hungtington) demanding that Coulter apologize.

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."

Organizations with ties to West Virginia Congressman Alan Mollohan have been subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. According to a May 17 report in the Charleston Daily Mail, a West Virginia nonprofit organization has submitted documents related to a 500-page complaint the National Legal and Policy Center filed against Mollohan in February for ethics violations. Citing an anonymous source, the article states that all together, between 25 and 30 organizations have received subpoenas. "The source said a rental van with about 160 cartons of documents was sent from the I-79 Technology Park to the U.S. Attorney's...

Who is Mary McCarthy? Well, as of this morning (Saturday) most of the big media don't care. They're fixated with the weather and gas prices — and anything else that will divert the public's attention from the stunning revelation that a Sandy Berger crony has apparently been leaking top-secret information from her high post at the CIA. The media will continue to downplay this story as they cover-up their own role in exposing our nation's secrets, including the supposed existence of CIA prisons in Europe. She'll be called a "whistleblower" and praised as some kind of patriot (a patriot, in...