Free Republic

Barack Obama's presidential campaign is getting a bargain for the half-hour of Oct. 29 primetime it's bought on CBS and NBC. The Democratic presidential candidate's camp is paying under $1 million to each network to run the programming it will produce for the first half-hour of primetime that Wednesday night, less than a week before the election. This is considerably less than the networks would otherwise get for the 10-11 ad "units" they run during that half hour, between 8 and 8:30 p.m. Obama is not getting a price break; the campaign will be charged what's called the "lowest unit...

Our elections serve as an example of free choice and peaceful transfer of power to the world where too many people are denied the right to vote and a new governing authority comes in during a bloody coup. That's why allegations of rampant voter registration fraud and electoral fraud throughout Ohio and the country are all the most disturbing. But what makes me angry - and what makes a lot of my constituents angry - is that an organization at the heart of this controversy is receiving federal tax dollars. For years, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now...

Main Street Bank, Northville, Michigan, was closed today by the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC approved the assumption of all the deposits of Main Street Bank, by Monroe Bank & Trust, Monroe, Michigan. All depositors of Main Street Bank, including any with deposits in excess of the FDIC's insurance limits, will automatically become depositors of Monroe Bank & Trust, and they will continue to have uninterrupted access to their money. Depositors will still be insured with the new institution. Therefore, there is...

Meridian Bank, Eldred, Illinois, was closed today by the Illinois Department of Financial Professional Regulation-Division of Banking, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC approved the assumption of all the deposits of Meridian Bank by National Bank, Hillsboro, Illinois. All depositors of Meridian Bank, including any with deposits in excess of the FDIC's insurance limits, will automatically become depositors of National Bank, and they will continue to have uninterrupted access to their money. Depositors will still be insured with the new institution. Therefore, there is no need for customers to change...

Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott speaks to a crowd of thousands who gathered at Germain Arena at a rally for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speak on Monday, Oct. 6, 2008, in Estero. His comments about U.S. Senator Barack Obama brought national attention to the rally. David Albers/ Staff BONITA SPRINGS — Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott’s now infamous appearance at Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s public rally has caught the attention of federal officials. Scott is under federal investigation for wearing his uniform during the campaign stump, a spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel said on Tuesday. The...

John McCain called for suspension of the requirement that retirees must begin liquidating their retirement accounts when they reach age 70 and a half, the latest economic policy rolled out by the Republican presidential candidate. The Arizona senator announced the plan at a rally Friday morning in La Crosse, Wis. Buried a third of the way through his typical stump speech, McCain said his priority was to “protect investors – especially those relying on their investments for retirement.” “Current rules mandate that investors must beginning to sell off their IRAs and 401Ks when they reach age 70 and a half,”...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Friday the U.S. government was moving aggressively to address the financial markets crisis, but he acknowledged that anxiety was feeding on itself as stocks continued to plunge. "The United States government is acting; we will continue to act to resolve this crisis and restore stability to our markets," Bush said in an eight-and-a-half minute statement in the White House Rose Garden aimed at calming Americans' growing fears. The credit markets have remained largely frozen despite coordinated interest rate cuts by central banks and government intervention to safeguard deposits and provide additional...

NEW YORK, NY (October 10, 2008) - Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that his office has filed a lawsuit in New York County Supreme Court against Arbitron, the largest media ratings company for the radio market in the United States. The lawsuit accuses Arbitron of deceptively claiming that its Portable People Meter (PPM) system is valid, fair, and representative of diverse radio markets. It also charges Arbitron with failing to disclose important flaws in the PPM methodology to broadcasters, advertisers, shareholders and the public, including serious shortcomings in the accuracy of the new system and its inadequate representation...

On Nov. 4, Maine voters will be asked to repeal a package of tax levies passed earlier this year by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. John Baldacci. Without hesitation, voters should blacken the “yes” box on their ballots next to Question 1, The People's Veto, which reads:

A federal judge on Wednesday allowed the criminal charges against Sen. Ted Stevens to stand, but he delivered a sharp blow to the government by throwing out key evidence in the case. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, in the second time in as many weeks, rejected a defense motion to declare a mistrial or dismiss all seven felony charges facing the Alaska Republican, but he scolded the government for keeping key evidence from defense lawyers that they could have used during cross-examination and their opening argument. “I don’t doubt you take your jobs seriously, what I have doubts about is whether...

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks Sunday at a rally at Memorial Stadium at Asheville High School in Asheville, N.C. A Lufkin, Texas, woman was recently visited by Secret Service agents following a call from a Texarkana-based Obama volunteer. Associated Press A telephone request from the Obama Volunteers of Texarkana asking a Lufkin, Texas, woman to vote for Sen. Barack Obama has prompted an investigation of a perceived “death threat” against the presidential candidate. But Jessica Hughes, who was questioned by the Secret Service about her alleged remarks, said the events were “like a high school rumor.” Hughes...

The Securities and Exchange Commission's ban on short selling, which sparked a series of similar bans around the globe, was intended to be a "time out" and "restore equilibrium to markets." By the time it expired Wednesday night, the general view was that it added to market confusion and didn't do much to halt the slide in financial stocks. "I think what we did was we gave these stocks an artificial boost for a while, but it was pretty short-lived," said Charles Jones, a professor at Columbia Business School. "It was just like a glass of orange juice, and then...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- You've got to give California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger credit for being the first to stick his hand out. Even before the vote on the $700 billion bailout bill last week, the wily Terminator of fiscal discipline had a letter on the desk of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson making the case for a $7 billion loan to keep the nation's most populous state running past October. Arguing that California -- and many other states -- have been frozen out of the credit markets like a subprime homebuyer, Schwarzenegger said the state needs the money to pay teachers,...

WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department is considering ways to inject capital directly into banks, possibly by taking equity stakes, as the financial crisis continues to worsen. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in a marked shift in rhetoric, played up Treasury's newfound authority to "to inject capital into financial institutions" in remarks Wednesday. Mr. Paulson, who won approval from Congress to buy $700 billion worth of distressed assets, had previously focused on Treasury's plan to buy mortgage-related securities from financial institutions that are having trouble getting the assets off their books. As the financial crisis continues to escalate, Treasury has begun fleshing out ways...

Federal income taxes are about to go up sharply, but you wouldn't know it listening to the majority in Congress.With the coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, tax rates on income will rise. And with the alternative minimum tax poised to hit tens of millions of Americans with the expiration of the latest "patch," the Treasury will collect even more tax revenue. All of this will happen automatically, without action by Congress or the president. Tax increases on automatic pilot spawn political word games that mislead and numb the electorate. Under conventional "current law" accounting, for example, when a...

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge seemed ready to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Controller John Chiang to cough up $250 million in the next few weeks for prison health care construction. But Senior U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson isn't quite ready to hold the governor and controller in contempt of court, a move that could put California on the hook for millions of dollars in fines per day until state officials do the judge's bidding. Henderson said the $8 billion price tag that his appointed receiver, J. Clark Kelso, has placed on construction required to bring the state's long-addled...

WATERLOO — Despite an impassioned plea from former village trustee Richard Schreck, the Village Board voted Monday to stop paying health insurance premiums for him and three other former elected officials with 10 or more years service. The payments will stop as of Jan. 1. By a 4-1 vote, the board voted to overturn a 1973 board motion that provided health insurance for life for elected officials who leave with at least 10 years of service. A village board in 1986 voted to stop the practice from that point on. The move affects Schreck; former trustees Steven Craig and Thomas...

Tax policy has two main goals: fairness and efficiency. Fairness encompasses philosophical values regarding how the tax burden should be distributed based upon the ability to pay. Efficiency incorporates economic consideration of how incentives built into the tax code affect individuals' willingness to work or save. Deciding whether a given tax plan maximizes fairness and efficiency is a difficult task under the best of circumstances. But given how most information pertaining to the two presidential candidates' tax plans is presented in the press, it is all but impossible to say much about either fairness or efficiency. The media typically report...

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve announced a radical new plan on Tuesday to jump-start the engine of the financial system. The Fed said in a statement that it would begin to buy large amounts of short-term debt in an effort to stimulate the credit markets, which have all but dried up. Under the program, the Fed said that it would buy the unsecured short-term debt that companies rely on to finance their day-to-day activities. “This facility should encourage investors to once again engage in term lending in the commercial paper market,” the Fed said Tuesday in a statement. “An improved...

With less than a month to go, presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to deliver a knock-out punch by hitting John McCain on health care. On Saturday Mr. Obama called his rival's health-care proposal "radical" and, in swing states, he is now blasting it in TV ads. Mr. Obama is also distributing mailers and organizing "Docs for Barack" meetings to rally voters. It's good politics for Mr. Obama. But it's bad policy. Mr. McCain's proposal -- to give every American the tax credit businesses get for buying health insurance -- is the right prescription for what ails our health-care system. The...

U.S. Tax on Business, 40% - In Europe, 23% Monday, October 06, 2008 By Chris Edwards Of late, U.S. economic policy has been dominated by responses to short-term crises — the Wall Street bailouts, the economic stimulus bill, and post-hurricane spending. Whether or not such interventions make sense, they divert attention from the urgent need to bolster America’s long-term competitiveness in the global marketplace. While U.S. fiscal policy has been directionless, many of our international competitors have initiated dramatic tax reforms that put them at a distinct advantage for attracting outside investment and attendant job growth. Consider that 12 of...

President Abraham Lincoln said it succinctly. It is true, he said, that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time. One thing is clear and constant. There has been a lot of rhetoric thrown around about which political party represents “rich” people and which is the party that is not representative of the “rich.” That’s a subject that’s repeated so often it may be difficult for the average South Carolinian to grasp what it’s all about....

How AIG's Collapse Began a Global Run on the Banks By Porter Stansberry Something very strange is happening in the financial markets. And I can show you what it is and what it means... If September didn't give you enough to worry about, consider what will happen to real estate prices as unemployment grows steadily over the next several months. As bad as things are now, they'll get much worse. They'll get worse for the obvious reason: because more people will default on their mortgages. But they'll also remain depressed for far longer than anyone expects, for a reason most...

Things You’ll Never Read… AP. “Addendum to House Bill on the $700 billion Bail Out Added to the house bill was a clause that amends IRS regulations to retroactively tax officers of the 700 financial companies as follows. Any income derived from salary and sale of company shares at inflated market prices that were based on falsely booked profits from dubious loan activity from 2003 onward, shall be retroactively taxed by the government at a rate of 90%. Those individuals unable to come up with the tax money due to the retroactive nature of the tax shall be given the...

Markets flashed signs of panic Thursday as evidence of recession mounted and banks remained wary of lending to one another. Stocks and commodities slid, prices for U.S. Treasury bonds and other safe-haven investments rose sharply, and European currencies slumped amid worries that economic weakness there will deepen. In the U.S., new data showed a seven-year high in jobless claims and a plunge in factory orders, underscoring the woes in non-financial sectors of this country's economy that have gotten relatively little attention amid the recent debate over a rescue package for troubled Wall Street firms. Traders welcomed the passage of that...

Asian investors placed little faith and credit in the U.S. Senate's passage of a revised bailout package; stock indexes in Japan, South Korea and Australia deepened their morning descent into the red as Thursday wore on. Markets were moving on signs of a intensified global downturn rather than on U.S. bailout developments, some analysts said. Hong Kong managed, however, to turn around its early losses in the final hour of trading. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.9%, to 11,154.76 points, as manufacturers and financials slid. The broader Topix suffered an even steeper decline of 2.2%, to 1,076.97. Shares of Japanese automakers...

Greek officials said the state would cover "all bank deposits, whatever the amount." The move follows the dramatic decision by Ireland this week to guarantee the deposits and debts of its six biggest lenders in the most sweeping bank bail-out since the credit crisis began. "The whole of Europe will have to do same thing, otherwise Europe will have a split banking system," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas. British banks are already facing a haemorrhage of deposits to Irish banks that now enjoy the AAA sovereign rating of the Irish state. Greece has so far escaped attention...

Bill Manville says he is proud of his representative, freshman Democrat Nancy Boyda of Kansas, for helping vote down the $700 billion financial-rescue bill Monday. But the Winchester farmer and staunch Republican quickly adds that doesn't mean he will necessarily vote next month for Rep. Boyda -- a top target of Republican strategists. The size and timing of the rescue plan, a month before Election Day -- and with early balloting already under way in parts of the country -- made it the most consequential vote many House members say they have ever taken. The short-term economic consequences were quickly...

Dow futures are down -110 per Fox News post bailout vote. The Hang Seng just opened at the top of the hour and is already down 2.0%. The Nikkei was up 0.7% prior to the vote, and now it is down 1.1%. I think the Asia markets don't like this bill.

You wouldn't know it from all the panicky headlines but the current turmoil on Wall Street is not the world's first financial crisis. Latin America has suffered more than a few, and many were on a larger scale relative to the economies they hit. One was triggered by Chile's 1982 economic collapse. For a small country it was a lot worse than what is happening in the U.S. today. The Bush economic team could learn from how it was handled. The Chilean plan helped the banks recapitalize and protected depositors. It also minimized moral hazard and kept the government's role...

The family of a Jamaica Plain woman crushed to death in the 2006 Big Dig ceiling collapse will collect more than $28 million ... A spokesman for the Turnpike, Mac Daniel, said, "The tunnel collapse in 2006 was the result of a colossal failure of oversight by past administrations..." Investigations of the collapse showed that a string of failures - and, in some instances what authorities said was negligence - caused the collapse ... Concrete panels weighing 26 tons fell from the ceiling after the failure of bolts that had been secured with epoxy. The National Transportation Safety Board faulted,...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate is set to vote Wednesday evening on its version of the emergency financial rescue package rejected Monday by the House of Representatives, which will include an increase in the cap to the level of deposits in bank accounts insured by the federal government up to $250,000, a senior senate Democratic aide said Tuesday. The vote will also include the Senate version of an extension to a series of renewable energy and other business tax credits. There had been speculation throughout Tuesday that the Senate might move to act on the bailout legislation after a surprise...

Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Eugene-area Democrat, plans to unveil a new financial industry bailout bill in the House at noon Tuesday. DeFazio, who voted against Monday’s failed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, is backing the new measure with six other representatives. He blasted architects of the failed $700 billion bailout bill, saying the new measure isn’t based on the Bush administration’s bailout package. “Instead of throwing taxpayer dollars at the program and crossing our fingers that the plan work, the measure will direct the Administration to take five simple steps” suggested by former FDIC head William Isaac, DeFazio...

1. This is the largest expansion of government in the history of the world. 2. When the surgeon screws up a procedure and you sue for malpractice, who do you hire for the next surgery to repair the damage? The "oversight board" that the bill purported to create consisted of the exact same people who let this happen in the first place. 3. We are willing to take a short term hit in order to prevent the next trillion dollar bail out, and the next, and so on, because we don't believe either Wall Street or the government should be...

Josh Ashley has never been involved in politics but last week he became so enraged at the prospect of the government spending that much money on a rescue package for Wall Street, he put together a local protest movement. His small group began sending e-mails to their Congressman, Jeff Miller, and organized a rally in front of his office last Friday. Three days later, Mr. Ashley could barely contain his joy when he heard that the U.S. Congress had voted against a $700-billion (U.S.) bailout of Wall Street. "I'm incredibly happy," Mr. Ashley, 23, said from his office in Fort...

Newt Gingrich has gone on the record with a solution to the crisis that is the best I have seen so far. Rather than pass a $700 billion bailout, suspend the accounting rules that are causing the liquidity crisis to begin with. In the past few years, accounting rules changed and these changes are in part causing the current crisis. Specifically, the problem is mark-to-market accounting where all assets are required to be valued at current market prices. If the market is temporarily depressed, it can cause an artificial crisis. Let me give a silly but simple illustration. If you...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement after the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives against the financial rescue plan. He said: “I have never been more disappointed in the Congress than I am today. I hope every member of the House of Representatives—Republican and Democrat—who voted against this legislation will work in the next twenty-four hours to improve the bill. Now is the time to put the national interest above the self interest. “Speaker Pelosi’s partisan comments before the vote obviously did not help matters. Now is not the time for extreme partisanship...

With a firm rejection of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the House Republicans have told the financial markets that they'll have to solve their problems on their own, without $700 billion of taxpayer money. In a stunning vote on Monday, the House rejected the financial rescue package on a vote of 205 to 228. Republicans voted against the bill by a two-to-one ratio, and in the process rejected their own leadership, who had worked for nearly a week to craft a bill that could gain a majority. Nearly 100 Democrats also voted against the bill, spurning...

I was just watching Fox News and they have looks at the latest Fed Data and it turns out that 92% of Banks are fine and issuing credit to safe and moderately safe credit applicants. This is a bailout for business and consumers with Bad credit! This is a bailout to encourage the issuing of more loans and credit to HIGH RISK individuals and businesses. Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place?

““SEC. 1338. Housing Trust Fund. “(a) Establishment and purpose.—The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (in this section referred to as the ‘Secretary’) shall establish and manage a Housing Trust Fund, which shall be funded with amounts allocated by the enterprises under section 1337 and any amounts as are or may be appropriated, transferred, or credited to such Housing Trust Fund under any other provisions of law. The purpose of the Housing Trust Fund under this section is to provide grants to States for use— “(1) to increase and preserve the supply of rental housing for extremely low- and...

Military members will get a 3.9 percent pay raise in January, but the fiscal 2009 defense authorization nearing final passage will not support a House-passed plan to set military pay raises through 2013 a half percentage point higher than private sector wage growth. The new defense bill will protect working-age military retirees from a final try by the Bush administration to raise Tricare fees, deductibles and drug co-payments. Instead, beneficiaries of every age will see new enticements to stay healthy through no-fee check-ups, age-appropriate disease screening, smoking cessation help and other “wellness” programs. And, for a fourth straight year, the...

A KEY reason the public hasn't bought the case for the $700 billion bailout plan is that the Bush administration hasn't explained why the financial sector is unique - unlike the auto industry or any economic actors who are hurting and asking for aid. Hence the opposition on the left, from those who want a broader bailout, and on the right, from those who want no bailout for anyone. The basic problem is that the financial sector faces systemic risk in a way that no other industry does: By its nature, it is a house of cards that can collapse...

Readers will not be surprised, or disappointed, that I haven’t added my two cents to the apparently ongoing conversation about our financial crisis. As a former graduate student, I feel perfectly comfortable saying that’s not my field. But there is one political point I’d like to make, primarily because I haven’t seen anyone else make it. The defenders of the Paulson plan argue that the survival of our financial markets depend on its passage. This conviction is shared not only by both President Bush and his administration but also by the Democrats. For example, late yesterday afternoon, according to the...

The federal government is sending nearly $70-million in emergency housing assistance to the Tampa Bay area to help local governments with the growing foreclosure crisis. The money will be used to buy homes emptied by foreclosures to protect neighborhoods from blight. They will be sold and the proceeds used to buy more. Pasco County got one of the largest amounts in the country, and Tampa and St. Petersburg got more than they expected. Hernando County, which has one of the worst foreclosure rates in Florida, gets nothing because it has less than 200,000 residents. The money comes from the $3.92-billion...

~snip~ The fundamental bailout authority is in the legislation, yet it seems likely to be delivered in chunks of $250 billion, followed by $100 billion, followed by congressional signoff for the remainder of the money. Strong congressional oversight and independent inspector general authority is likely to be in the bill, along with a taxpayer stake in equities that the government plans to buy. A crackdown on executive compensation has wide support on both sides, but aides in both chambers warn that the actual details of determining who gets paid how much and what those limits are has become be very...

Britons should be subjected to random carbon spotchecks and intensive surveillance of their diets, transport and waste disposal habits, says the Government's architecture and design quango in a new report today. The word "monitoring" occurs 19 times in the 32-page publication by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). If the proposals in the report What Makes An Eco Town?are implemented few aspects of life will go unrecorded. CABE says the strict monitoring is needed to ensure the carbon footprint of the eco-town dwellers remains at one-third of the British average, which is the requirement for what's called...

The seeds of the House Republican revolt over the financial industry bailout were sown in an e-mail message circulated Monday night as internal animosity built quickly over the Bush administration’s request for $700 billion to prevent an economic collapse. In a message to members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, leaders of the bloc of more than 100 lawmakers solicited ideas, calling for a “free-market alternative to the Treasury Department’s proposal so that, regardless of how individual R.S.C. members vote on final passage, House conservatives have something to be for.” As the week progressed, it became abundantly clear that one...

Who is attacking the U.S.? The big casualty in this 21st century U.S. civil war is the Middle Class George Soros, Maurice Strong and company redefine the Middleclass George Soros, Al Gore, Warren Buffet, Maurice StrongThe Democrat-loving mainstream media is missing the boat on Warren Buffet’s take of America’s economic meltdown as …”a sort of economic Pearl Harbor we’re going through.” That being the case, then surely the first question should be: “Who is attacking the U.S.?” The billionaire’s $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. at the same time he’s touting the Treasury’s $700 billion bank rescue plan,...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and Congress closed in on a new compromise aimed at stabilizing U.S. financial markets, a move designed to assuage conservatives who one day earlier had staged a revolt against the controversial $700 billion project. The potential compromise isn't yet final, and details could change. But as of Friday night it appears that the plan's central elements, as originally envisioned by the Treasury Department, remain intact. Congressional leaders were planning for possible votes Sunday. The renewed effort represents a remarkable turnaround from the fracas that engulfed Washington Thursday night. In a sign of the political tensions...

Just wondering if anyone else smells a link b/w Goldman Sachs and the many people pushing this $700 billion dollar TAXPAYER bailout. Buffett offers his dire warnings re:the market and this bailout... but he just invested $5 billion into Goldman Sachs. It just seems EXTREMELY interesting to me that Paulson was the former CEO over at Goldman, the memo forwarded to Obama's team, regarding the House's Republican plan, before the meeting at the WH on Thursday afternoon came from a "reliable" sourse over at Goldman, Jim Johnson is on the board over at Goldman, Buffett is an advisor to the...