Free Republic

Oversight: As the Senate votes to de-fund Acorn, add pimping, tax evasion and human trafficking to voter fraud paid for with taxpayer dollars and you have an organized criminal enterprise. It's time to investigate.After Acorn workers were caught on tape in three cities allegedly abetting what they believed was a fraudulent-mortgage and sex-trafficking scheme, the Senate has voted overwhelmingly to strip the group of funding in the Transportation/Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. The amendment, offered by Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns, passed by an 83-to-7 margin and marked the third time this year that Republicans have tried to block...

Two more ACORN officials were fired Friday after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers' Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel. The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes....

Republican Congressmen want to know the answer although Democrats seem perfectly content to have a bunch of thugs physically blocking access to polling places, using racial slurs and carrying nightsticks. Perhaps since their president is trying to turn America's economy into a third world mess they believe aping banana republic electoral tactics just follows naturally. To try and find out why the Obama Justice Department dropped the case (or at least to get them on record saying it was for political purposes), a group of prominent GOP lawmakers have dispatched a letter to the DOJ Inspector General asking him to...

Top aides to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) called a last-minute, pre-emptive strike on Wednesday with a group of prominent Democratic lobbyists, warning them to advise their clients not to attend a meeting with Senate Republicans set for Thursday. Russell Sullivan, the top staffer on Finance, and Jon Selib, Baucus’ chief of staff, met with a bloc of more than 20 contract lobbyists, including several former Baucus aides. “They said, ‘Republicans are having this meeting and you need to let all of your clients know if they have someone there, that will be viewed as a hostile act,’” said...

The media is a abuzed about this, and the lefty blogs are acting as though this being some nuance of the right. Wrong. Let’s not forget that Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, both antisemitic and neither considered spokesmen for the right. But after some research it appears the shooter, James Von Brunn is in fact - despite the protestations of the Kos Kids - a registered democrat from Maryland. So much for the “Right Wing Conspiracy”. Fact is that most of the Holocaust Denier crowd is from the left. Many of the groups follow the writings of Naom Chomsky, the...

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) said he can "blame Republicans" for the current financial disaster. The transcript is available below.

The FBI issued a subpoena to the state Highway Patrol today, ordering the agency to produce all records related to private air travel of the Easley family. The request is made as part of a grand jury investigation, according to the documents. The grand jury meets next week, according to the subpoena. Besides seeking information about the private travels of former Gov. Mike Easley, his wife Mary Easley and his son Michael Easley Jr., the subpoena requests documents relating to: Payments made in exchange for the air travel. Communications with the Easley family regarding the private travel. Communications regarding public...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her eyes wide, her hands gesticulating wildly, on Thursday laid out a third version of what she knew and when she knew it on the Bush administration's interrogation policies, edging ever closer to debating what the meaning of the word "is" is. With her own second-in-command now demanding more answers, the California Democrat, her voice barely audible at times, read a rambling statement at her weekly press briefing about her prior knowledge of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EITs) employed by under President Bush, asserting that she was not told in a September 2002 briefing that the...

"What I heard her say -- and I was quite taken aback by her when she said -- was that politics are more important than national security."

House Democrats Block Republican Effort to Force Ethics Inquiries of Several Lawmakers The Republican resolution focused on a lobbying firm, PMA, which was raided by the FBI last year WASHINGTON -- House Democrats on Tuesday stopped a Republican plan to force a campaign finance inquiry that likely would have investigated several influential Democrats. It was the eighth time since late February that the Republican move was halted. One of the biggest recipients has been the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania. The vote was 215-182 to stop consideration of a GOP resolution to initiate a...

A federal jury on Friday acquitted W.R. Grace & Co. and three of its former officials of charges that they knowingly exposed residents of Libby, Mont., to asbestos poisoning associated with a mining operation and conspired to hide it. The verdict brings to an ignominious end one of the most significant criminal prosecutions the government had ever filed against a corporate polluter. The acquittals raise new questions about prosecutorial failings in the Justice Department, which already was reeling from the dismissal of its corruption case against former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).In Libby, where an estimated 1,200 residents have died or...

Former top Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to charges he cheated investors out of at least $20 million in a massive Ponzi scheme. The 58-year-old Hsu (SHOO) pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire and mail fraud before U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero. "I knew what I was doing was illegal," Hsu told the judge.

The Allegheny County District Attorney announced today that he is charging seven members of the political action group, ACORN, with forgery and election law violations.

[T]he House Judiciary Committee chairman's May 4 statement exonerating ACORN couldn't have come out at a worse time. "Based on my review of the information regarding the complaints against ACORN, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time," Conyers said in a statement aired that night on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." Just hours earlier his fellow Democrats in Nevada, Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto dropped a bombshell. ACORN and two former senior ACORN employees in the state, they announced, had been charged with a total of 39 felony...

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala today charged seven employees of ACORN (snip) with forgery and election law violations, saying they filed hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations during last year's general election. The charges are part of a continuing investigation of ACORN, (snip) fake voter registrations were filed by hourly employees apparently attempting to meet daily registration quotas in order to be paid. (snip) ACORN officials have denied those charges.

Senior Senate Democrats are objecting to the deal Majority Leader Harry Reid made with Sen. Arlen Specter, saying they will vote against letting the former Republican shoot to the top of powerful committees after he switches parties. Several Democrats are furious with Sen. Reid (D-Nev.) for agreeing to let Specter (Pa.) keep his seniority, accrued over more than 28 years as a GOP senator. That agreement would allow Specter to leap past senior Democrats on powerful panels — including the Appropriations and Judiciary committees. “I won’t be happy if I don’t get to chair something because of Arlen Specter,” said...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- An ethics complaint has been filed against Gov. Sarah Palin, claiming the legal defense fund she established last week to challenge such claims is an ethics violation itself.

Bill Haling: Where’s the outrage? President Obama has been in office just 60 days and we have tripled the nation’s debt. Wow! All those that voted for change certainly got it — along with the rest of the taxpayers. Everyone knows this depression is Bush’s fault. “Give the stimulus time!” is the response. The Bush depression will take time for the Democrats to rescue this country. How long will it take for our children and grandchildren to pay for the excesses? Any outrage? The news of AIG paying $165 million in executive bonuses has certainly created a lot of media...

California Democrat Has Championed Minority-Owned OneUnited on Capitol Hill and Criticized Its Government RegulatorsWhen Rep. Barney Frank was looking to aid a Boston-based lender last fall, the Massachusetts Democrat urged Maxine Waters, a colleague on the House Financial Services Committee, to "stay out of it," he says. The reason: Ms. Waters, a longtime congresswoman from California, had close ties to the minority-owned institution, OneUnited Bank. Ms. Waters and her husband have both held financial stakes in the bank. Until recently, her husband was a director. At the same time, Ms. Waters has publicly boosted OneUnited's executives and criticized its government...

PHOTO: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10555339 The community organization group ACORN is protesting a decision made by the self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America" to keep illegal immigrants at tents that house prisoners, separate from the rest of the inmate population. ACORN has lambasted Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's action, calling it a "blatant disregard for civil rights." Arpaio announced Wednesday that he plans to accompany about 200 inmates -- along with members of the media -- from a Phoenix area jail to Tent City on Wednesday afternoon. "Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sherriff's Department have routinely violated the civil rights of...