Free Republic

Right after Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman got a phone call. Whitman, a Republican, had endorsed Biden in the race against then-President Donald Trump. Now, the caller said, Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris wanted her cell number. No one ever called. Whitman was part of a cohort of prominent Republicans who broke with the party in 2020. Fed up with Trump, they gravitated to Biden’s campaign thinking he would be a unifying figure. Former Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, endorsed Biden in 2020 but says he is now...

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. In the 80s, the Sandinista Marxist terrorists were hotter than pastel suits and shoulder pads. Sandinista! by The Clash was eating up the music charts and Hollywood celebrities like Ed Asner and Mike Farrell bypassed Cuba for the exciting new socialist nightmare in Nicaragua. When Marxist butcher Daniel Ortega appeared at a New York Athletic Club reception in 1984, CBS' Mike Wallace, Michael Douglas, and the entire media showed up to give the terrorist and his...

Embattled governor Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) has retained the services of a high-powered criminal defense attorney who defended Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen against allegations of sexual assault. Elkan Abramowitz, a former federal prosecutor with close ties to Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance, will serve as legal counsel to the governor and his top aides, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. New York attorney general Letitia James is investigating the Cuomo administration on several fronts. Three women have now accused the governor of sexual harassment. Allegations include unwanted kissing and touching, as well as inappropriate or suggestive comments, such as...

A Democratic effort is underway in at least 16 states to overturn restrictions on mail-in balloting and third-party ballot harvesting. A nationwide effort by Democrats is underway in at least 16 states to overturn restrictions on mail-in voting and third-party ballot harvesting. States where suits have been filed include the swing states of Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The effort is being backed by the National Redistricting Foundation, a Democratic group headed by the Obama administration’s Attorney General Eric Holder. The suits appear to be funded by Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC. A Wall Street Journal headline from April read,...

When former Sen. Chris Dodd, a member of Joe Biden’s vice presidential search committee, recently asked Kamala Harris about her ambush on Biden in the first Democratic debate, Dodd was stunned by her response. “She laughed and said, ‘that’s politics.’ She had no remorse,” Dodd told a longtime Biden supporter and donor, who relayed the exchange to POLITICO on condition of anonymity. “Dodd felt it was a gimmick, that it was cheap,” the donor said. The person added that Dodd’s concerns about Harris were so deep that he's helped elevate California Rep. Karen Bass during the vetting process, urging Biden...

WASHINGTON — A Massachusetts woman who accused former Senator Chris Dodd of sexually assaulting her after a booze-fueled dinner in 1985 is speaking out, saying she can’t understand why the Biden campaign tapped him to lead their vice presidential search. Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, 77, was already embroiled in his own sexual assault controversy when the campaign last week announced Dodd, a former Democratic Connecticut senator with a past of misconduct charges, would co-chair his Vice Presidential Selection Committee. In a lengthy phone conversation with The Post on Tuesday, Dodd’s accuser, Carla Gaviglio, now 59, said she was stunned...

Former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, who is linked to corporate bailouts, lobbying for Hollywood, and alleged sexual assault of a waitress at a restaurant, is among seven individuals appointed to Joe Biden’s Vice Presidential selection task force. Dodd, the 75-year-old from Connecticut, will be joined by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., and former Biden counsel Cynthia Hogan. Three other appointees will work specifically on vetting chosen candidates; Bob Bauer, husband to former Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn, Obama homeland security advisor Lisa Monaco, and law professor Dana Remus. Dodd also chaired the Senate Banking Committee...

Joe Biden, already facing allegations of sexual assault at home and nepotism in China, has chosen a former U.S. senator with his own political baggage on China, ethics, and women to run the search for a vice presidential nominee. Christopher Dodd, who retired from the Senate a decade ago, was a central figure in the 1990s China fundraising scandal, having served as the General Chairman of the Democratic Party at a time it and Bill Clinton’s campaign accepted illegal foreign donations and turned the Lincoln bedroom into a donor perk. The retired Connecticut Democrat also has long boasted a friendship...

The Biden campaign, which is under mounting pressure after a woman claimed Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in the early 1990s, announced Thursday that former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd will assist in the effort to evaluate potential female running mates. Yes, that Chris Dodd. As in, the other half of the late Ted Kennedy’s infamous “waitress sandwich.” Biden’s Vice Presidential Selection Committee will also include Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and former White House counsel to the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee Cynthia C. Hogan.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has come under fire from Democrats, and at least one Republican, for his coordination with the White House on the pending impeachment trial in the Senate — but the outrage overlooks the fact that Democrats took a similar approach with President Bill Clinton during his 1999 impeachment trial. McConnell, R-Ky., stirred a hornets’ nest when he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier this month that he will be “coordinating” with the White House and that “there will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.” […] But...

Charles Rivkin, former President Barack Obama’s former ambassador to France and a former top State Department official under Obama who was Obama’s 2008 campaign co-chair and has since taken over the MPAA as its chairman, announced on Monday morning to the board of the MPAA that Fabrizio has been terminated as a result of the arrest.Rivkin took over the MPAA from former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), a longtime top Democrat who ran for president and has deep connections in Washington. When he retired from the Senate in 2011 after 30 years, he took the job at MPAA as its chairman....

The Motion Picture Association of America and its chief, former Democratic senator Chris Dodd, have yet to comment on the slew of sexual assault allegations against Hollywood giant Harvey Weinstein, a longtime friend and political donor of Dodd's. Dodd, who took the reins of MPAA in 2011 after a 30-year stint in the U.S. Senate, has made no public comment on the rape and sexual assault allegations against Weinstein that have piled up after numerous women told their stories to the New York Times and The New Yorker a month ago. The MPAA, which works with major film studios including...

It seems as though everyone and his publicist is commenting on Harvey Weinstein and the Hollywood sex culture, but there is an interesting exception: the Motion Picture Association of America.  The scandal is not noted on its blog, nor in its news section, nor in its press releases, nor in the recent speeches by its chairman extolling the First Amendment and the institution of copyright. One would normally expect a major trade association to be active on such a big issue, but the explanation for the silence seems pretty easy.  The MPAA chairman (until the end of this year, which...

''People will understand that we are serious about going after government corruption,'' he added. ``There is a very selfish reason for this: We end up paying for the bill when these people steal the money, because we have to provide aid, or accept the citizens as refugees or as migrants.'' The Bush administration says it is about to unveil a new weapon to help fight corruption in Latin America: a list of corrupt government officials from the region who will be denied entry visas to the United States. The anti-corruption drive is being led by Otto J. Reich, the...

U.S. prosecutors have abandoned their case against Angelo Mozilo, the over-tanned character at the center of the risky subprime mortgages that fueled the financial crisis, after a two-year quest to bring a civil suit against him. As Bloomberg reports, The Justice Department has decided not to sue Mozilo, according to people familiar with the matter, ending a decade-long hunt for someone, anyone to jail over what happened.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau remains "the most out-of-control, unaccountable, and nontransparent agency in the federal government... And we can say that without reservation because this is one of the only agencies that literally operates outside of congressional oversight," added Wise, whose Virgina-based organization "works to protect consumers' right to access free-market goods and services." The CFPB, created under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, is funded largely by fees banks pay to the Federal Reserve. While its director, Richard Cordray, has bragged that his bureau has levied more than $141 million in fines used for CFPB education programs or reparation to...

(Hartford-AP, July 14, 2003 6:11 AM) _ Three Republicans have stepped forward to challenge Connecticut's senior senator in 2004. Miriam Masullo of New Canaan, Paul Streitz of Darien and William Bentley of North Haven have all filed papers with the Federal Election Commission to challenge Democratic Senator Chris Dodd. The three have a tough road ahead of them. Dodd has served four terms in the Senate and has almost two million dollars already for his re-election campaign. But Dodd's challengers say they're not daunted by his political experience. Bentley, who manages a Taco Bell in Wallingford, says his lack of...

Washington · Otto Reich, President Bush's chief adviser on Latin America, said on Thursday that the administration will step up efforts to pressure the Fidel Castro regime, aid dissidents and hasten the political transformation of the island. "I know that President Bush is interested in doing more to accelerate the process of change in Cuba, and it's safe to say that in the next few weeks and months you will see some additional steps," Reich said. "It's been very difficult for this president to implement this policy for Cuba and the Western Hemisphere because up to this week he was...

U.S. prosecutors could make Bank of America Corp. pay more than $13 billion to resolve probes into the lender's sale of bonds backed by home loans in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, Bloomberg reported on Friday. Last month, the bank agreed to pay $9.5 billion to resolve Federal Housing Finance Agency claims, and the new settlement would come on top of that, according to Bloomberg.

Bank of America is paying $6.3 billion to settle a lawsuit arising out of troubled mortgage-backed securities it cobbled together and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the run-up to the financial crisis. Including this latest settlement, the housing finance agency has recouped $16 billion in cash payments from banks and financial firms that sold mortgage-backed securities. The regulator, which filed 18 lawsuits, still has claims pending against seven banks and financial institutions.