Free Republic

A former senior executive for Uber who once served as Barack Obama's campaign manager has been fined $90,000 by the Chicago Board of Ethics for illegally lobbying Mayor Rahm Emanuel on behalf of the ride-hailing company. The board voted 5-0 to find that David Plouffe violated city ethics rules by failing to register as a lobbyist after contacting Emanuel to help the company on regulations for picking up travelers at Chicago's two airports.

Patrick Moran claims he was just joking about encouraging voter fraud. But he nonetheless resigned last week as field director for the campaign of his father, Virginia Congressman Jim Moran. Guerrilla videographer James O’Keefe caught Patrick Moran on tape offering advice on how to commit in-person voter fraud. The scheme involved forging utility bills that would satisfy Virginia’s non-photo ID law, and then casting ballots in the name of others — relying on the help of Democratic lawyers stationed at the polls if there were any problems. Some joke. Last April, a 22-year-old O’Keefe associate showed how easy it is...

Stop the presses! (Yeah, no one’s said that in any newsroom I’ve worked in four decades in the business.) A major surprise. (Yeah, more sarcasm.) The Los Angeles Times reports that “California lawmakers kill measure banning gifts to themselves” And the sun rose in the east . . .

The shocking ACORN videos produced and distributed by James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles and Andrew Brietbart reflect the founding purpose of ACORN: creating chaos to overwhelm the system. As I reported last September, and as Glenn Beck and others have reported since then, ACORN was created specifically to execute the Cloward Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis across our country. This series of videos demonstrates in microcosm how ACORN workers promote the strategy. By agitating for mortgage loans that the borrowers could never repay, ACORN and similar groups were primarily responsible for the conditions that led to our current financial crisis. This...

'I'm saying that when the president does it that means it's not illegal," shouts Frank Langella's Richard Nixon at Michael Sheen's David Frost in "Frost/ Nixon." He was wrong, and so was President Obama when he said last week that he'd override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler's senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers. Typically, lenders who make money available to a company in return for a first claim on the company's as- O's deal will make investors sit on their assets. sets get about 80 cents back for every...

Obama's control over census likely illegal.

ONE NATION, TWO WORLDS Creating an American life By EDWARD HEGSTROM and ELENA VEGA Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle The vacant house in a struggling northside neighborhood listed for $40,000. It had two bedrooms, one bath and a carpet soiled by squatters. But Veronica, a recently widowed mother of four with a $5.25-an-hour dishwashing job, looked at the house and saw beyond the filth. She saw a solid structure and an expansive yard. She saw a stable future she could own. So she put down most of her savings as a deposit and arranged a financing plan with the seller. She...

Have you heard about what New York Sen. Charles Schumer's meddling minions tried to do here in my home state of Maryland to embarrass a Republican opponent? Don't bother with the New York Times if you want details. Since revelations of the scandal first broke a week ago on the national wires and in the rest of the New York media, the Times has failed to print a single word about the Dems' invasive -- and obviously illegal -- dumpster diving. Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a rising star in the party, is considering a Senate bid for the Maryland...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

<p>A state investigation into the Davis administration's troubled 2001 software deal with the Oracle Corp. showed "no evidence of illegality" or corruption relating to the contract, Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Tuesday.</p> <p>What Lockyer called the "possible conclusion of the Oracle investigation" came as he filed 12 felony counts against former Gov. Gray Davis' policy director, Kari Dohn, for allegedly falsifying computerized documents nearly a year after the deal was completed in May 2001 - just as investigations were getting under way.</p>

"Weapons of Mass Obstruction" Tom Daschle and the Democrats have been OUTRAGEOUSLY blocking votes on a number of the President's judicial nominees, as you've probably been reading about in my columns lately. This Friday will mark the two-year anniversary of President Bush's nominations of Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen. For TWO YEARS now, these highly qualified individuals have languished in confirmation hell while the Democrats drag their heels, hoping to keep them off the bench. So I had my friend Jim Bieber at Beiber Communications come up with an original ad poking fun at the Democrats and calling on them...

<p>SACRAMENTO -- Republican Bill Simon's claim to have evidence of illegal fund raising by Gov. Davis unraveled Tuesday after photographs his supporters produced failed to provide the proof he promised.</p> <p>At a press conference coordinated with Simon's campaign, the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs released two almost identical photos taken Jan. 31, 1998.</p>