Free Republic

If raising cash is the first presidential primary, the latest round of campaign filings contains early warning signs for Barack Obama in key states that were crucial to his election in 2008. Though he’s raised almost three times as much as Mitt Romney—the former governor of Massachusetts has brought in $32 million—the president is trailing his GOP rival in a handful of battleground states. In both Florida and Nevada, Romney nearly doubled the president’s haul, despite a crowded field of Republican candidates who are also vacuuming up donations. And Romney, of course, doesn’t enjoy the power of incumbency.

The political geniuses in Louisiana have decided they hate poor people so much, they passed House Bill 195—near unanimously! (One nay in the senate.) It bans cash on all second-hand transactions. Now, when a good Louisianian holds a garage sale after a bout of spring cleaning, if they accept cash for their old vinyl collection, they’ve broken the law. Swap meets. Church bazaar sales. Antique stores. Buying used skis off Craigslist. You can’t use cash in the Pelican State. Their stated reasoning is to prevent the sale of stolen goods—their view is cash transactions make it easy for criminals to...

Cold hard cash. It's good everywhere you go, right? You can use it to pay for anything. But that's not the case here in Louisiana now. It's a law that was passed during this year's busy legislative session. House bill 195 basically says those who buy and sell second hand goods cannot use cash to make those transactions, and it flew so far under the radar most businesses don't even know about it. "We're gonna lose a lot of business," says Danny Guidry, who owns the Pioneer Trading Post in Lafayette. He deals in buying and selling unique second hand...

Cold hard cash. It's good everywhere you go, right? You can use it to pay for anything. But that's not the case here in Louisiana now. It's a law that was passed during this year's busy legislative session. House bill 195 basically says those who buy and sell second hand goods cannot use cash to make those transactions, and it flew so far under the radar most businesses don't even know about it. "We're gonna lose a lot of business," says Danny Guidry, who owns the Pioneer Trading Post in Lafayette. He deals in buying and selling unique second hand...

Five foreign men were arrested during a courthouse break-in early on Wednesday and police said they found photographs of public buildings, water systems and malls from various U.S. cities in their van. The men, at least three of whom were in their 20s, will be questioned by a joint terrorism task force including the FBI and immigration authorities, officials said. Bexar County spokeswoman Laura Jesse said three men were found inside the 120-year-old Bexar County Courthouse, a landmark in downtown San Antonio and two in a large recreational vehicle parked in front of the building. She said all five were...

Cold hard cash. It's good everywhere you go, right? You can use it to pay for anything. But that's not the case here in Louisiana now. It's a law that was passed during this year's busy legislative session. House bill 195 basically says those who buy and sell second hand goods cannot use cash to make those transactions, and it flew so far under the radar most businesses don't even know about it.

Anti-Wall Street protests are growing in number across the country and around the globe, but their political impact remains unclear and will likely depend upon their staying power. At a minimum, the protests have become a channel for public anger over rising economic inequality and Washington's ineffectiveness. "They are a pretty good thermometer for the level of discontent in the country," said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. "But the connection between Republicans and Wall Street and the banks will surely be an election issue next year." Romney used...

I thought this was pretty comical...

Reporting from Washington and Sacramento— A suspected embezzlement scheme that has ensnared hundreds of campaign accounts of Democrats has sent candidates scrambling for new cash as they prepare for an election season that could reshape California's political landscape. Just when they need to start hiring staff and commissioning polls, many candidates have no idea how much might have been taken from them or how much they have left, and they cannot find out: As many as 400 political accounts have been frozen by the banks holding the funds since the Sept. 2 arrest of treasurer Kinde Durkee. This January 2008...

Economy: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is reaching back 50 years for a "trick" to get the economy moving, but it won't work. Our problem today isn't monetary policy. It's government meddling. The idea is simple: The Fed holds $1.7 trillion in Treasury debt. It wants to "rebalance" that by selling short-term debt and replacing it with long-term Treasuries. In theory, that would cut long-term interest rates, boosting investment in both housing and business. Sounds good, but we've tried it before, in 1961. The strategy — dubbed "Operation Twist" — was supposed to keep rates low and give the economy a...

The Left’s working motto consistently turns out to be “do as I say, not as I do.”  How else could they possibly make bold pronouncements to the media but live the exact opposite? The day before his declaration of war on the Tea Party movement, Teamsters President James Hoffa appeared on CNN and deemed American companies as “unpatriotic,” according to the Political Ticker. “I think the president should challenge the patriotism of these American corporations that are sitting on the sidelines,” Hoffa said. “The problem in America isn’t that we don’t have enough money. We’ve got more money than any...

No! Next question. But really, are we okay with this? An actual newspaper (the Austin Chronicle) is running this full-page ad next week? This seems like an awful lot of money to spend on an ad likely to result in a large number of people saying, “No!” emphatically and continuing with their days, but then again, perhaps this lack of acumen is why I am not the president of CASH. And I’m not sure why he chose the “Star Wars” font. Nothing says effective ad-making like “an ad (hominem) hoping to find someone who has had sex with Rick Perry,...

An Austin Ron Paul supporter has taken out a full-page ad in the local alt weekly newspaper seeking any "stripper ... escort ... or 'young hottie'" who has slept with Rick Perry, part of his single-minded jihad against the presidential candidate. Robert Morrow describes himself as a "self-employed investor and political activist" as well as a three-time delegate to the Texas state GOP convention. "Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?" blares the ad, placed by Morrow in this week's Austin Chronicle. "Are you a stripper, an escort, or just a 'young hottie' impressed by an arrogant, entitled governor...

Ron Paul Supporter Takes Out Full-Page Ad In Texas Paper A full-page newspaper ad by a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is raising eyebrows, asking, "Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?" Robert Morrow placed the ad in the Austin Chronicle alt-newsweekly less than one week after the Texas governor threw his hat in the ring for the presidency, Salon.com reported.

A Ron Paul supporter in Texas has taken out a full-page ad in a local alternative weekly newspaper seeking women who have slept with the presidential candidate. “Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?” asks the ad, which runs in this week's Austin Chronicle. The ad was placed by Robert Morrow, who describes himself as a “self-employed investor and political activist” and a three-time delegate to the Texas state Republican convention.

A steady stream of people in need flows through Granters Jewelry & Loan, an El Cerrito pawn shop with a carved carousel horse in the window and a cigar-store Indian in the vestibule. Two guys hock a guitar for $300 to get rent money. A woman offers up a diamond ring for cash to pay her PG&E bill. A man pawns a laptop for $40 to last until payday. A mother with two toddlers in tow counts out $99 to repay a loan plus interest so she can retrieve a necklace and some rings. "It's hard times," said Tammi Owens...

As the Administration’s push for alternative fuels grows stronger, Congress is set to consider H.R. 1380, which would create very generous tax credits to manufacturers who retrofit existing work vehicles to run on natural gas rather than on that terrifying global menace known as oil, and very generous subsidies to natural gas vehicle consumers: $7500 per car and a whopping $64,000 for heavy-duty trucks and 18-wheelers. It’s common knowledge in DC that Texas hedge-fund operator and natural gas-magnate T. Boone Pickens is the force behind this bi-partisan, pork-laden legislation, possibly because his natural gas empire would greatly profit from the...

As was pointed out yesterday, courtesy of a blistering $80 billion cash burn in the first half of July, Tim Geithner managed to reduce Treasury cash balances from $130 billion to $39 billion. Granted this number will increase next week after this week's $66 billion in Treasury auctions settle, only to drop once again when another batch of Bills mature and are not rolled. So in response to various inquiries we present the 29 public companies that hold more cash than the US Treasury does as of July 13 (Geithner is tied with Google at $39 billion). Not very surprising,...

The number of dollar bills rolling off the great government presses here and in Fort Worth fell to a modern low last year. Production of $5 bills also dropped to the lowest level in 30 years. And for the first time in that period, the Treasury Department did not print any $10 bills. The meaning seems clear. The future is here. Cash is in decline. You can’t use it for online purchases, nor on many airplanes to buy snacks or duty-free goods. Last year, 36 percent of taxi fares in New York were paid with plastic. At Commerce, a restaurant...

The leader of Scotland's doctors has questioned whether society can afford to pay thousands of pounds to keep terminally-ill people alive for weeks or months when health service budgets are under unprecedented strain. Dr Brian Keighley, chairman of the British Medical Association Scotland, said in some cases tens of thousands of pounds were spent on drugs to extend cancer patients' lives for relatively short periods.[Snip]But he stressed any decision had to be made at a society level, rather than being left to doctors. Patient groups are concerned that many cancer treatments are being rationed by the NHS