Free Republic

Ron DeSantis has replaced his campaign manager Generra Peck, in what is the third major reshuffling of his operations, a campaign spokesperson and a person familiar with the move confirmed to POLITICO. Peck will be shifted to a role of chief strategist as part of the new order. Taking her place atop the campaign will be James Uthmeier, who has served as chief of staff in DeSantis’ governor’s office.

Tyra Banks is set to be announced as the new host of Dancing With The Stars, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal. Multiple sources from within ABC have confirmed the former America’s Next Top Model host, 46, will replace Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews, who were both dropped from the hit show on Monday.

Progressives are taking shots at Joe Biden, seeking to blunt the former vice president’s rise in polls by arguing he is too conservative to be the party's presidential nominee. The criticism has come from rivals to Biden on the campaign trail as well as liberal groups seeking to put a dent into his poll numbers. They are casting Biden as an establishment figure out of touch with the grass roots of his party, highlighting his work on a Clinton-era crime bill and the Iraq War, among other issues. The criticism suggests some angst on the part of progressives, who fear...

Channing Dungey, the ABC Entertainment president who made the bold decision to yank Roseanne after its star made a racist tweet, has resigned her post. Dungey will be replaced by Karey Burke, the current head of programming at Freeform, ABC’s sister cable network. “I’m incredibly proud of what the team and I have accomplished over the years, and all the meaningful and impactful programming we’ve developed,” Dungey said in a statement. “This job has been the highlight of my career. While I’ve loved every moment and knew I could call ABC home for many years to come, I’m excited to...

The Conservative talker quit his show during the middle of his program 7/31. “The Jason Lewis Show” is syndicated by Genesis Communications. Lewis spent a decade at KSTP-AM in the Twin Cities before leaving the station in 2003 for a job at WBT in Charlotte. He returned to the Twin Cities in 2006 for a job at KTLK. Lewis’ show was syndicated in 2009. His flagship was Clear Channel’s KTLK. “He told me two months ago he intended to retire Aug. 1,” Mike Crusham, president and market manager of CCME Minneapolis/St. Paul told The St. Paul Pioneer Press. “He decided...

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, plans to return to teaching economics at the University of Chicago this fall, the White House announced Monday night. Goolsbee has been on leave for four years from the university’s Booth School of Business and could have lost his tenured position at Chicago, where he was a professor for 14 years before joining the administration, if he did not return, an official said. Goolsbee, one of Obama’s longest serving aides, was an economic adviser on the 2004 Senate campaign, and the senior economic adviser on the 2008 presidential campaign.He...

NEW YORK (The Blaze/AP) — The executive editor of The New York Times is stepping down after eight years on the job. The Times announced Thursday that Bill Keller is leaving the post to return to writing. He will be replaced by Jill Abramson, formerly one of his top deputies. Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says in a statement that Keller asked for the change a few weeks ago. Keller plans to write for The New York Times Magazine and the paper’s Sunday opinion and news section.

A retired couple who were enjoying a luxury cruise fought off Somali pirates with deck chairs as they attempted to storm the ship and kidnap them. John and Barbara Jeffery had been enjoying the trip of a lifetime when the violent pirates tried to take over the ship they were sailing on. As gun shot rang out, the couple defiantly armed themselves with deck chairs, tables and whatever came to hand as they helped to beat off the outlaws. terror struck just one week in, when the MSC Melody was off the coast of Somalia, a spot haunted by pirates,...

(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve's journey to the outer limits of monetary policy is raising concerns about how hard it will be to withdraw trillions of dollars in stimulus from the banking system when the time is right. While that day seems distant now, some economists and market analysts have even begun pondering the unthinkable: could the vaunted Fed, the world's most powerful central bank, become insolvent? Almost by definition, the answer is no. As the monetary authority, the central bank is the master of the printing press. It can literally conjure up money at will, and arguably did...

Tina Brown is expected to address her staff at The Daily Beast this morning about its merger with Newsweek, which was confirmed late Thursday.... ...The merger follows a protracted search by Harman for a new editor-in-chief of Newsweek, which he officially purchased in early October for $1, while agreeing to take on the magazine's mountain of debt.... ...Under the terms of the deal, Newsweek and The Daily Beast will become a 50-50 joint venture called The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, owned equally by Harman and IAC. The nuances of how the editorial operation will function are still unclear, but Brown...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has picked liberal firebrand Rep. Pete Stark to replace ousted Chairman Charles Rangel on the tax-writing committee, according to a House leadership aide. The decision was made during a Wednesday morning leadership meeting following Rangel's announcement that he would temporarily step aside as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the aide said. Rangel announced earlier Wednesday morning that he is taking a leave of absence pending the results of an ethics investigations. In Stark, Pelosi is picking a fellow Californian to head one of the House's most powerful committees. Stark becomes the sixth House Democratic chairman...

In mid-2011, Katie Couric's five-year contract at CBS News will expire, and network executives appear to be exploring a "Plan B" if she departs after her oft-rocky tenure in the anchor's chair. According to the New York Times, that backup plan could very well be CNN host Anderson Cooper, who reportedly met with CBS execs months ago about anchor opportunities at the network. The Times got the information from a pair of "TV veterans informed of the meeting." However, a spokesperson for CNN denies a meeting ever occurred and claim in a statement to EW that Cooper "is not engaged...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama says ACORN misdeeds captured on secretly taped videos should be investigated, but that the controversy over the community service group was not occupying much of his time. In an interview broadcast Sunday on the ABC program "This Week," Obama was asked if he supported cutting off all federal funding for ACORN — an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — due to the incriminating videotapes. "What I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated," Obama said.

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....

Van Jones is an exceptional and inspired leader who has fought to bring economic and environmental justice to communities across our country. He has chosen to resign because he believed he was serving as a distraction to the president's agenda. I respect that decision. Van was working to build a common ground agenda for all Americans, and I am confident he will continue that work. Unfortunately, his critics on the right could find no common ground with him. Clearly, Van was the subject of a right-wing smear campaign shrouded in hypocrisy. Van's chief tormentor Glenn Beck, who spent weeks engaged...

President Obama's announcement of his selection of Ron Bloom as "manufacturing czar" follows the weekend resignation of Van Jones, the White House "green jobs czar" who had come under fire in recent weeks for past inflammatory statements. As one White House "czar" departs amid a cloud of controversy, an undeterred President Obama is naming a new one to advise him on manufacturing, defying conservative critics who have raised concerns about these advisory positions that do not require congressional oversight. Obama chose a Labor Day union picnic on Monday as the backdrop to announce his selection of Ron Bloom, a member...

The following is a memo from ABC News president David Westin to ABC News staff today: Today, Charlie Gibson announced to his colleagues at World News that he has decided to step down as anchor effective at the end of this year. I attach below Charlie's full email. I have asked Diane Sawyer to serve as the next anchor of World News, and she will assume that position in January. -snip-

BREAKING NEWS updated 17 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, naming longtime aide Maggie Williams to the top job. Solis Doyle announced the shift in an e-mail to the staff on Sunday. “I have been proud to manage this campaign and prouder still to call Hillary my friend for more than 16 years,” Solis Doyle wrote. “Maggie is a remarkable person and I am confident that she will do a fabulous job.” The move comes a day after rival Barack Obama swept contests in Washington state, Nebraska, Louisiana. Solis Doyle said...

Commentary: CBS should shelve the cute stuff and stick to ... the news NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - "I am very happy to be with you tonight." With those un-momentous words Tuesday night, Katie Couric, 49, was off and running as the new anchor of "The CBS Evening News." At last the hype was over and the former star of NBC's "Today" show would have an opportunity to prove herself as a serious evening-newscaster. She dropped the ball. At its worst, the show reinforced all of the worries of grizzled veteran journalists. This wasn't all Couric's fault. She was, as billed,...

With tears welling up in his eyes, Bob Schieffer finally concluded his 18-month tenure as anchor of the CBS Evening News with an emotional in-studio tribute. Incoming anchor Katie Couric joined Schieffer at the end of Thursday night's broadcast in studio for a retrospective of his career, featuring a one-one-one pre-taped interview with the former Today Show host herself (perhaps to give viewers a sneak peek of the Katie to come?). Schieffer's professionalism resuscitated the reputation of the CBS Evening News at a time when the legendary news organization was mired in scandal in the wake of a widely disputed...