Free Republic

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says some Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for their roles in the financial crisis that gripped the country in 2008 and triggered the Great Recession. Billions of dollars in fines have been levied against major banks and brokerage firms in the wake of the economic meltdown that was in large part triggered by reckless lending and shady securities dealings that blew up a housing bubble. But in an interview with USA Today published Sunday, Bernanke said he thinks that in addition to the corporations, individuals should have been held more accountable....

“[We] thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn’t have this effect,” he told the Associated Press in an interview. The award so early in his term appeared to take the Obama White House by surprise, and Mr. Lundestad said U.S. officials privately asked if a Nobel Prize-winner had ever skipped the awards ceremony. Normally the Nobel committee’s decision regarding recipients remains private, and Mr. Lundestad’s frank and revealing remarks regarding internal decisions have caused a stir in Norway, detailing the politicking and compromises that have gone into determining the annual laureate. “Even many of Obama’s supporters thought that the...

Authorities say rivers tainted by last week’s massive spill from an abandoned Colorado gold mine are starting to recover, but for the Environmental Protection Agency the political fallout from the disaster could linger. The federal agency’s critics are already seeking to use its much-maligned handling of the mine spill to undercut the Obama administration’s rollout of major regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the nation’s power plants. Members of oversight committees in both the House and Senate say they are planning hearings after Congress returns from its August recess. “The EPA is supposed to help prevent environmental catastrophes,...

More than 200 people have been killed in the renewed fighting between the PKK and the security forces since July, including around 100 soldiers and police officers. The spike in violence comes amid increased political uncertainty in Turkey. The country is holding a new election on Nov. 1 following the ruling party's failure to form a coalition government after an election in June. The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey since 1984. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its allies.

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she does not need to apologize for using a private email account and server while at the State Department because "what I did was allowed." In an interview with The Associated Press during a Labor Day campaign swing through Iowa, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination also said the lingering questions about her email practices while serving as President Barack Obama's first secretary of state have not damaged her campaign. "Not at all. It's a distraction, certainly," Clinton said. "But it hasn't in any way affected the plan for our campaign, the efforts we're...

Here's a little parlor exercise readers can conduct with their friends who think that high-tech CEOs are the innovative saints of the universe. The game would be to take the first three paragraphs of Michael Liedtke's Associated Press report on the collusion settlement to which that industry's major players just acquiesced, and revise it to reflect a different industry far less favored by the press. Then accurately point out the following: "There is no way this industry would gotten as much sympathy from the press as the AP gave these high-tech titans." After the jump, readers will see how I...

BEIRUT (AP) — Anti-government violence erupted Saturday in a southern Syrian province that had largely stayed on the sidelines of the country's civil war. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports suggesting that Russia was planning to expand its military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad prompted a warning from the U.S. that such actions could lead to a confrontation with coalition forces. The violence in Sweida province, a stronghold of the Druze minority sect, followed the killing of a prominent cleric in rare explosions Friday that claimed the lives of at least 25 others, activists and pro-government media said. Rioters holding the government...

The Friday politics panel of CNN’s New Day agreed that Republican Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign was in trouble, citing his poor poll numbers and his wooden attacks on Donald Trump. CNN’s John King noted that while Trump’s poll numbers have gone up and Ben Carson more than tripled his support, Bush’s support has fallen from 12% down to 8% in the newest Monmouth poll. “There’s a reason that Bush better get ‘damn mad,’” King said, quoting Bush’s attack on Trump. “He’s in trouble.” “He’s in big trouble,” agreed AP’s Julie Pace.

President Barack Obama is comparing tensions between the U.S. and Israel over the Iranian nuclear deal to a family feud and says he expects quick improvements in ties between the longtime allies once the accord is implemented. “Like all families, sometimes there are going to be disagreements,” Obama said Friday in a webcast with Jewish Americans. “And sometimes people get angrier about disagreements in families than with folks that aren’t family.” The president’s comments came as momentum for the nuclear accord grew on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers will vote next month on a resolution to disapprove of the deal. Sen....

NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press plans to move its global headquarters from Manhattan's far west side to a smaller, less-expensive space adjacent to the World Trade Center site, the news cooperative's president said Wednesday. The move, planned for early 2017, would bring the AP to 200 Liberty St, which is across the street from the Sept. 11 memorial in a waterfront neighborhood that has blossomed as the city has recovered from 9/11. At the time of the terror attacks, the building was known as One World Financial Center.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Casting himself as a tax-cutting, passionate government reformer, Jeb Bush drew merely polite applause Friday from thousands of the nation's most-active tea party conservatives gathered at the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers' summit. Only when the Republican presidential candidate wrapped up his 20-minute speech by calling for a military buildup did the more than 3,000 conservatives from around the nation join in a sustained cheer for Bush, a familiar face in American politics but a newcomer in front of the tea party crowd. "I promise you, if I'm elected president of the United States, I will restore the...

Des Moines, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz criticized former President Jimmy Carter's administration during a stump speech in Iowa, one day after Carter announced he was suffering from cancer that has spread to his brain. Speaking on a political soapbox at the Iowa State Fair Friday, Cruz said there were parallels between the Obama and Carter administrations. "I think the parallels between this administration and the Carter administration are uncanny. Same failed domestic policy, same misery, stagnation and malaise. Same feckless and naive foreign policy,"(continued)

News org, together with British Movietone, aims to promote licensing deals with filmmakers The Associated Press is uploading more than 550,000 video clips to YouTube — covering news events dating back to 1895 — which the news org said will be the largest collection of archival news content on the Google-owned platform to date. AP, together with newsreel archive provider British Movietone, will deliver more than 1 million minutes of digitized film footage to YouTube. The goal: to provide high-profile, searchable repositories that let documentary filmmakers, historians and others find news footage, and to promote licensing deals for rights to...

Martin Crutsinger has been a business and economics writer at the Associated Press for over three decades. Certain people in high places apparently hold him in high regard. In early 2014, on his 30th anniversary with the wire service, he is said to have received congratulatory letters from soon-to-be Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, soon-to-be-former chair Ben Bernanke and Obama administration Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, which he clearly enjoyed as those in attendance munched on a very delicious-looking cake. We can't know whether the congrats from those heavy hitters merely marked a career milestone, or if they included an element...

The symptoms of the prion disease are beginning to become so obvious that even some of our more prominent pundits are beginning to notice them. For example, even former Karl Rove life-coach Ron Fournier has noticed the severe lack of Abraham Lincolns in the current GOP presidential candidates. And noted climate-denialist and baseball drone George Effing Will has staked out the bold position that many of these candidates have gone so far around the bend that they've crossed some kind of termination barrier. It is, therefore, especially disheartening that Cruz, who clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and who is...

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston attorney on the National Rifle Association's board of directors is blaming the deadly Charleston church shooting on one of the victims, saying the slain pastor had opposed concealed carry legislation as a state senator that could have saved him and his fellow worshippers. Related Stories 1. NRA executive suggests slain Charleston pastor to blame for gun deaths Reuters 2. Slain Pastor Clementa Pinckney’s Mission Suited His Storied Church The Wall Street Journal 3. And The First Person To Blame The Charleston Shooting On A Lack Of Guns In Church Is... Huffington Post 4. White gunman...

The Associated Press won the Astroglide prize for stroke headline of the year when they went with this headline for Hillary Clinton’s “official” campaign kickoff.

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke claimed Friday that the “goal posts haven’t moved” in Iran negotiations as he struggled to explain the administration’s latest concessions. The United States is in negotiations with Iran in regards to their nuclear program. During Friday’s press briefing, Rathke struggled to define what concessions or conditions were required for the Iranians to meet for a nuclear deal to be achieved. Associated Press reporter Matt Lee pressed Rathke to clarify what the United States objectives are for the negotiations.

It was an unlikely display of protesters: nuns cloaked in white, a black-clad priest clutching a golden scepter and dozens of Arab schoolchildren picketing outside the hulking headquarters of Israel’s Education Ministry. Their message, raised high on large banners: “Take your hands off our schools.” Private Christian schools are among Israel’s highest ranked educational institutions, established by churches in the Holy Land hundreds of years ago—long before Israel’s own creation. But school administrators are accusing Israel of slashing their funding as a pressure tactic to get them join the Israeli public school system—a move they say would interfere with the...

The teeming plant world could become a virtual mystery in the coming decades as college students increasingly shy away from studying botany and universities across the U.S. shutter their long-standing herbaria. Since 1988, the number of research universities offering botany degrees has dropped by half, according to National Science Foundation research funding statistics. And the National Center for Education Statistics reports that fewer than 400 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral botany degrees were awarded in 2012. Educators say that’s because students are being pushed into more modern, technology-related majors. Current botanists fear that will lead to a dearth of people able...