Free Republic

Jeri Wright, the 48-year-old daughter of President Barack Obama’s mentor and former pastor Jeremiah Wright, is heading to jail. Free on bail while awaiting sentencing for money laundering in connection to a government-funded jobs training program, a U.S. District Court Judge found “there was probable cause to believe Wright committed a separate theft while on bail, thereby violating terms of her supervised release.” The new charges against Wright involve more sketchy bookkeeping. The Chicago Sun-Times reports: Prosecutors now say Wright was taking part in another scheme — this one involving ghost payrolling — even as she was standing trial. Between...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: – January 24, 2012, 3:50PM, Camp Pendleton CA Puckett and Faraj Press Statement on Sentence of SSgt Wuterich We wish to first acknowledge the tragic loss of civilian life in Haditha on November 19, 2005, and express our condolences to the families who lost loved ones that day. The military justice system has fairly dealt with SSgt Wuterich’s case by delivering a measure of justice. Today, SSgt Wuterich stands vindicated by the very system that has held him captive for over 6 years. This case began with sadness for the loss of life and ended with rage...

April 20, 2012 SECNAV Boots Two Sergeants for Lying At Haditha Court-Martial Neal Puckett Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has ordered administrative separation processing of two squad members who testified against SSgt Wuterich in January and admitted lying to NCIS and on the stand about the November 2005 shooting deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha.  During the January 2012 court-martial of the squad leader, SSgt Wuterich, Sgt’s Humberto M. Mendoza and Sanick P. Dela Cruz testified on the stand that they lied to NCIS during the investigation, the Article 32 investigations and withheld information.  Their motivation to do so was...

Bill Clinton has an interesting suggestion for what to call him if his wife becomes president: “Adam.” In an interview with Rachael Ray airing Thursday, the cook-turned-talk show host asked the former president about what his title would be if Hillary Clinton were to win a 2016 White House bid. “Let’s say, if a woman became president, we could, I could be called ‘Adam.’ I don’t know,” Clinton said, according to comments released in advance of the show’s airing. Clinton also wondered aloud about what would happen if a gay couple occupied the executive mansion: “You know, if the president...

EXCERPT Good-naturedly referencing his friend Andrew Young—who marched with King and is prominent in the film—early in his speech, Clinton told the sold-out crowd, “I saw Andy earlier today and I said, ‘Andy, I just watched Selma. Were you ever that thin?’ (eliciting thunderous laughter) and he said yes, he was, that they were dodging so many bullets in droves they all used to be thin.” As he continued to speak, he got decidedly more serious. “If you haven’t yet, go see the movie Selma,” he insisted, “and you will see the enormous pressures imposed on the King family and...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The California State Senate held an "ethics refresher course" for its members after federal indictments were issued against two senators and a third was convicted. Senate leaders are hoping to regain the public's trust. The purpose of the course is to teach members and their staffs to avoid potentially compromising situations. It's the latest in a series of moves by senate leaders aimed at putting political distance between them and their colleagues facing criminal charges. The leader of California's state senate stopped all regular business on Wednesday so everyone could go "back to school" in a...

One of the student survivors I worked with, Jenna*, was gang-raped by five fraternity men early in her freshman year. Despite the severity of the assault and injuries she sustained, Jenna still experienced a feeling of personal responsibility. Looking for affirmation, she sought out peers and told her story. Sadly, each and every one of the friends she reached out to responded with varying denials of her experience; these responses worsened her feelings of self-blame – that she must be confused because that fraternity “is full of great guys”; that she must have made them think she was “down for...

The Justice Department acknowledged that it misled a federal Appeals Court during oral arguments last month in a case reviewing whether the government should be able to secretly conduct electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant. In a newly unsealed letter, a Justice Department lawyer told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that it spoke erroneously when describing the disclosure restrictions placed upon the FBI's use of so-called national security letters. NSLs, as they are often referred, can compel companies to hand over communications data or financial records of certain users to authorities conducting a national security...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is backing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his bid for a second term. Clinton appeared Thursday at a Manhattan rally with the Democratic incumbent and his pick for lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul. Clinton says Cuomo is the "right leader at the right time." The rally was run by the Woman's Equality Party, a political organization founded by Cuomo.

Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Democratic voters not to be complacent about the November midterm elections, saying Monday that working women and their families will lose out on a better future if Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress. The former secretary of state made the remarks during a sold-out women's luncheon in San Francisco that raised $1.4 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "It's truly regrettable that despite all the great work Nancy did and President Obama, given what was inherited when the president came into office that we are having to work so hard to elect and...

Monica Lewinsky was "in love" with former President Clinton, the disgraced former intern revealed Monday. "Sixteen years ago, fresh out of college … I fell in love with my boss," the infamous former White House staffer told a business conference Monday during an eye-opening speech about her devastating experience in the public eye following the revelation of her affair with Clinton — her first public address in 13 years. "Overnight I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was patient zero," she said, according to reporters present at the Forbes magazine "30 Under 30"...

In May, Monica Lewinsky vowed to speak out in order "to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past." Now she seems to be doing just that -- on Twitter. Just months after Lewinsky’s personal revelations were made public in a Vanity Fair interview, she sent her first tweet this morning.

Former President Bill Clinton returned to his old haunts of northwestern Arkansas on Tuesday and implored college students to support Democrats at risk of losing what's left of the political power they have held since Reconstruction. Next to the building where he once taught law, Clinton challenged students at the University of Arkansas to turn out for an election without a big national race. "The polls that show us in trouble uniformly believe that younger voters who voted for president will not show up in a midterm," Clinton said.

Back in the 1990s, then-President Bill Clinton instituted the don’t ask, don’t tell ban on gays in the military and signed the Defense of Marriage Act, both now in history’s dustbin. On Oct. 25, Clinton will headline the Human Rights Campaign’s huge annual shindig in Washington, expected to draw 3,000 monied guests, the group said Thursday. The event is already sold out. The Hill quotes an interview Clinton gave in 2009 in which he said he was wrong to sign DOMA: “I grew up in a different time. And I was hung up about the word. And I had all...

What can be said about Eric Holder’s six years as attorney general that PJ Media hasn’t already said? The news that Holder is going to resign should be bittersweet to anyone who cares about racial equality and the rule of law. The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm. Our country is more polarized and more racially divided because of Eric Holder. He turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for...

Democratic state Sen. Roderick D. Wright, convicted earlier this year on felony perjury and voting fraud charges, was sentenced Friday to 90 days in county jail and barred for life from holding public office. After turning down Wright's request for a new trial, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy also sentenced the senator to three years' probation and 1,500 hours of community service. He was ordered to surrender and begin serving his sentence Oct. 31. Some observers have speculated that Wright will serve little or no time behind bars, given his heretofore clean record, the nonviolent nature of...

President Obama’s international woes give his former secretary of state good reason to seek political distance. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s recent foreign policy criticisms made that clear. Domestically, their interests diverge in a different way. A Republican takeover of the Senate this fall would hurt Mr. Obama for the final two years of his presidency, but it might help Mrs. Clinton if she runs to succeed him. Republican control of both the House and Senate would provide Mrs. Clinton a clearer target to run against in courting voters fatigued by Washington dysfunction. The longer an unpopular president and his more-unpopular partisan...

Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Attorney General Eric Holder blasted former Gov. Sarah Palin's (R-AK) for her call to impeach President Barack Obama by saying, "She wasn't a particularly good vice presidential candidate. She's an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why." House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other senior Republicans have dismissed Palin's calls and instead have opted to file a lawsuit against Obama's executive overreach. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said earlier on the program, "We are not working on or drawing up articles of impeachment. He has not...

Hillary Clinton — the woman assumed to be the next Democratic Party presidential nominee and quite possibly the next president — is evidently a big snooze. According to Mediate [1], her interviews to promote her book on CNN and Fox had underwhelming numbers. In the case of Greta Van Susteren’s show, she sent people fleeing midway. More importantly, her book itself is a sales disappointment and, I would wager, even more disappointing if you could ascertain how many who did buy it read actually past page 15. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was in single digits.No, I haven’t...

As she launches her book tour to rebrand her image, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is becoming less liked by Americans. According to a Gallup survey, only 54 percent of Americans now view Clinton favorably, which is her lowest rating since 2008. She had a 59 percent favorability rating before her book tour. Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential contender, is less liked when she enters the political arena, and her book tour is being run like a campaign. Clinton has already made plenty of blunders during her book launch, like claiming that she was "dead broke" after she and...