Free Republic

Leading Democrats and Republicans are unanimous in thinking that the United States should provide more military and financial assistance for Ukraine, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday after a closed-door briefing on the state of the Russia-Ukraine war. “The briefing made it so clear that we need to continue significant aid to Ukraine,” he told reporters.

Video of Barr Playing Bagpipes while Dems make asses of themselves. PS Barr's actually a pretty good bagpipe player.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed voter fraud charges Thursday against two Paterson city officials who allegedly engaged in a mail-in ballot scheme in connection to a special election in May. Grewal levelled the charges against Paterson City Councilman Michael Jackson, Councilman-Elect Alex Mendez, and two other men after the Postal Inspection Service warned Grewal’s office that hundreds of mail-in ballots were found in a Paterson mailbox, InsiderNJ reported Thursday. The attorney general’s Office of Public Integrity & Accountability (OPIA) began a probe after the Postal Inspection Service issued the warning. Paterson authorities decided to conduct the May 12...

MOUNT LAUREL — New Jersey taxpayers paid almost $78,000 in staff time to remove the track star Carl Lewis from the November ballot in his bid for the state Senate. After a tangled five-month battle in both state and federal court, the state Attorney General and Burlington County Republicans succeeded in making sure Lewis, a Democrat, could not run in the Republican-leaning 8th Legislative District.

One of Hillary Clinton's closest advisers traveled to Libya on the dime of a controversial group that was paid by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to enhance the strongman's public image in the U.S., WND has learned. Anne-Marie Slaughter was considered one of the most influential officials at the State Department until she abruptly departed last month. She served as State's director of policy and planning, where she spearheading major initiatives for Clinton. WND has learned Slaughter, who continues to advise both Clinton and the State Department, also has been listed as "official talent" for Monitor Group, the Gadhafi-paid organization that...

Former NC Gov. Mike Easley enters felony plea agreementUpdated: Nov 23, 2010 12:34 PM EST RALEIGH, NC (WBTV/AP) - The former governor of North Carolina has entered a plea agreement over a false campaign finance report. Former Governor Mike Easley entered an Alford plea in Wake County court, which means he acknowledged the state's evidence could result in a conviction without having to admit any guilt. By entering the plea Easley would avoid any prison time. Prosecutors say the plea also ends a federal probe that started in February 2009, a month after he left office. As a part of...

<p>Jack B. Johnson, and wife, Leslie, were arrested Nov. 12 as federal investigators served search warrants at the County Administration Building. Each was charged with evidence tempering and destroying evidence. Just after 10:12 am Friday, Leslie Johnson frantically phoned her husband. Two FBI agents were at the front door of their two-story brick colonial in Mitchellville. "Don't answer it," the county executive said, unaware that FBI agents were listening in. Johnson ordered her to destroy a $100,000 check from a real estate developer hidden in a box of liquor. "Flush that," he said. And the cash? "Put it in your underwear." She replied, "I have it in my bra" - which is where agents discovered the money after she answered the door.</p>

Police Officers Steal From Police Department 10/25/2000 A former West New York police sergeant pleaded guilty today, admitting his role in a scheme to steal approximately $60,000 seized by police during the investigation of a fire in West New York, U.S. Attorney Robert J. Cleary announced. Ronald Riccie, 58, of Little Ferry, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle to a one-count Information, charging him with participating with other West New York Police officers in the theft of the $60,000. http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nj/publicaffairs/releases/2000/ri1025_r.html Eminent Domain Squabble 02/22/2003 Rowan University and Wal-Mart squabbled over 102 acres of land. Last fall, Rowan...

Tomorrow House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to bring the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade emissions bill to the floor for a vote. It will be the biggest political risk of her speakership and the first broad-based tax increase of the Obama years. Already President Obama and the Democratic Congress have raised taxes on smokers, boosting the cigarette tax. But a tax increase that affects just a fifth of the electorate is unlikely to lead to a second Boston Tea Party. The Obama budget blueprint anticipates a return to Clinton-era marginal tax rates on upper-income earners, but that can easily be justified as a...

It appears that years of debate about climate change and energy may now come down to a vote on an actual bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). As I write this, the vote is scheduled for Friday. If it occurs, you will be asked to vote to implement carbon rationing in the United States.   Without regard to party or ideology, I believe that the evidence is clear that this law would be contrary to the public interest. Here is why, in a nutshell: 1.  It would be a terrible deal for American taxpayers. According to the...

The House of Representatives will vote Friday(Today) on the so-called “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” -- a.k.a the “Waxman-Markey” global warming bill. But whatever you want to call this legislative atrocity, if enacted into law, it will go down in history as the death knell of the American standard of living and way of life. If you hate America, this bill is for you. After decades of fierce battling between rabid greens -- that is, left-wingers masquerading as “environmentalists” -- and the global warming skeptics, few Americans seem to have bought into the bill’s premise ­ that...

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that had proponents of the bill claiming Americans could save the planet for just $175 per household. That was the figure CBO estimated cap and trade would cost households in 2020 alone.[1]Both the CBO's analysis and the subsequent legislation are troubled: The analysis grossly underestimates economic costs while the legislation will have virtually no impact on climate. Overall, there are a number of basic problems with CBO's analysis: Their allowance cost numbers do not add up; They ignore economic costs such as the decrease...

The National Republican Senatorial Committee spent almost $1 million last month on Republican Norm Coleman's attempt to win last year's U.S. Senate race. Coleman is attempting to overturn Democrat Al Franken's slender lead. The former senator's appeal of a trial court's decision that Franken won is awaiting a ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court. That ruling could be issued any day. Last month, the NRSC spent $937,917 to help Coleman in that effort. Minneapolis law firm Dorsey & Whitney, home to Coleman attorney Jim Langdon, received $350,171 of that and Washington, D.C., law firm Patton Boggs, Coleman legal spokesman Ben...

WASHINGTON – America’s third largest party urged the U.S. House Tuesday to defeat plans for a $1.9 trillion energy tax hike over eight years. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to rush H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey energy tax bill, to a vote this week. “With unemployment rising above and beyond what President Obama said it would be with the multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus bill, now is not the time to dismantle our economy with a multi-hundred billion dollar energy tax hike,” said William Redpath, Libertarian National Committee Chairman. “Libertarians urge House members to defeat this job-killing tax hike on Americans,”...

ABSTRACT: Democratic leaders in the House have scheduled a Friday vote on a climate change bill that would establish a complex cap-and-trade system to limit the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, a priority for President Obama. The House Rules Committee unveiled the latest version of the bill, which weighs in at 1,201 pages. It features new items such as $7.5 billion in "green bonds" for a new federal financing agency called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, extra emission allowances for politically powerful rural electric cooperatives, greater flexibility for states that want to use free allowances for mass transit, and tweaks benefiting...

Is an imperfect climate bill (Waxman-Markey) better than no bill at all? Al Gore says yes.To bring environment supporters together, Gore will host a nationwide conference call on June 23 at 8 p.m. ET. The purpose, according to his Repower America e-mail sent to a selected audience, is “to build urgency around this bill and make sure it passes. We have to go to the grassroots – we have to continue building support in communities across the nation.”“As this climate legislation moves before the full Congress this summer, we have an opportunity unlike anything we’ve seen yet,” the e-mail concludes.Gore...

The state has denied pension benefits to two former Luzerne County judges who took kickbacks from a juvenile-detention provider and is seeking repayment of $4.3 million the judges' kids-for-cash scheme allegedly cost state taxpayers. Reversing its earlier position Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. are eligible to receive benefits until they are sentenced, the State Employees' Retirement System ruled the former judges' guilty pleas to fraud and conspiracy in February provided sufficient grounds to deny them benefits. In a letter to two state lawmakers who proposed bills to immediately rescind pension benefits when a judge or other state...

(Please don't move this, admin. It is a blog post that links to an article I know freepers will want to read.) If conservatism is a disease, David Brock’s group, Media Matters for America, believes it’s the cure. Of course, those few conservatives who actually work in the liberal-dominated media are not infallible. A bona fide media watchdog that monitored the right and kept reporters and pundits honest might contribute something of value to society, but that’s not what Media Matters is about. Masquerading as an impartial media watchdog, it is the mission of the left-wing opposition research organization to...

- - Absentee ballots to be counted will be far fewer than Coleman sought in effort to close the U.S. Senate gap. Abstract: Norm Coleman's lawyers all but conceded defeat Tuesday and promised to appeal after a panel of three judges ordered no more than 400 new absentee ballots opened and counted, far fewer than the Republican had sought to overcome the lead held by DFLer Al Franken. The ballots include many that Franken had identified as wrongly rejected as well as ballots that Coleman wanted opened in his quest to overcome the 225-vote lead that Franken gained after a...

ALBANY, N.Y — New York campaign finance records show American International Group donated $100,000 to the state Democratic Committee just before Democratic Gov. David Paterson and his insurance superintendent launched marathon sessions to prop up the embattled insurer. ...