Free Republic

NBC/WSJ poll: Romney Struggles With Primary Voters, Gingrich With General Electorate By Mark Murray, Deputy Political Director, NBC News WASHINGTON - Exactly three weeks until the first Republican presidential nominating contest in Iowa, front-runners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have two different challenges, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Romney faces a challenge with the Republican primary electorate, trailing Gingrich nationally by 17 percentage points as nearly two-thirds of Republicans view him as either liberal or moderate. Gingrich, meanwhile, faces a challenge with the general electorate, as half of all voters say they wouldn’t vote for him...

So far the sum total of the times that Operation Fast & Furious has been mentioned on NBC is exactly ONE time and that was when it briefly mentioned in passing on Dateline NBC. Even though this scandal has been much discussed on the Web and covered in detail on CBS by Sharyl Attkinson, Brian Williams has yet to even mention this scandal once. However, there might come a point where even Brian Williams' virgin lips will be forced to be "deflowered" by uttering the taboo words "Fast & Furious." Therefore let us have a Brian Williams Fast & Furious...

Morning Joe remains the home of the overwhelming ratio of liberal to conservative guests. Even so, in recent weeks a narrative unflattering to Barack Obama has emerged around the table: Obama doesn't like his job. He doesn't particularly like people and is in the wrong line of work. An even more damning appraisal was offered today: Obama doesn't think he has failed America. He thinks America has failed him. Or as Jon Meacham encapsulated the concept, Obama believes "the country is not commensurate with his gifts." View the video here.

Embattled government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were under fire again Thursday as the House Committee on Financial Services grilled leaders on "lavish" spending and executive pay. This after the government mortgage giants both posted huge losses last quarter and have appealed to the Treasury Department for more funds—almost $14 billion between them—to shore up their shaky balance sheets. With a hefty dose of indignation, Texas Republican Rep. Randy Neugebauer railed on Fannie Mae chief Michael Williams about more than $5 million budgeted for "meals and social activities" for employees—wondering why a taxpayer-funded organization in major financial trouble...

Although it did not go unreported, convicted Chicago political influencer Tony Rezko's 10-year prison sentence was treated as an afterthought during the short Thanksgiving workweek. Also an afterthought: the amazing facility with which President Obama has completely escaped Rezko's orbit in the liberal mainstream media's standard narrative.

A west Georgia business owner’s sign that he is not hiring until President Obama leaves office is going viral, according to a local Georgia television station. "New Company Policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone," read the company’s signs on the side of its trucks, according to the station, 11Alive. "Can't afford it," explained the employer, Bill Looman. "I've got people that I want to hire now, but I just can't afford it. And I don't foresee that I'll be able to afford it unless some things change in D.C." Looman's company is U.S. Cranes, LLC. He said...

For supercommittee, failure was an optionBy KEITH CHROSTOWSKI - The Kansas City Star Updated: 2011-11-22 Well, they’ve blown it. Failure was an option. The 12 supercommittee senators and representatives announced Monday they couldn’t come up with a spending, taxing and deficit reduction package. Thanks for wrecking everyone’s Thanksgiving. The stakes for the long-term health of the economy have just grown more dire. America’s reputation for leadership has just taken another hit. An agreement would have provided a bracing contrast to the struggles in Europe over the debt crisis there. It would prove to the world that the United States can...

For Immediate Release: Monday, November 21, 2011 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) today made the following statement after an announcement by co-chairs Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R- Texas) that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction was unable to reach an agreement on a plan to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion:“I'm deeply disappointed with this outcome. We all are. This was an historic moment to do something big, bold, and balanced that demanded shared sacrifice to put our country first. Everyone worked hard and everyone wanted success.“It’s too easy just to...

Top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Wednesday defended their companies' pay practices which have drawn opposition after it was disclosed the government-controlled firms were paying out nearly $13 million in executive bonuses. Michael Williams, chief executive of Fannie Mae, and Charles Haldeman, Freddie Mac's chief executive, both argued the compensation structures at the mortgage finance firms were warranted to retain and attract qualified staff. A bill to block the pay packages was approved by the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday in a 52-4 vote. The full House must still vote on the measure. A similar bill...

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received the biggest federal bailout of the financial crisis. And nearly $100 million of those tax dollars went to lucrative pay packages for top executives, filings show. The top five executives at Fannie Mae received $33.3 million in 2009 and 2010, while the top five at Freddie Mac received $28.1 million. And each company has set pay targets of as much as $17 million for its top managers for 2011. That's a total of $95.4 million, which will essentially be coming from taxpayers, who have been keeping the mortgage finance giants alive...

First Thoughts: Romney's Clear Path By NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Brooke Brower *** Romney’s clear path: After Herman Cain’s defiant news conference on Tuesday and after Rick Perry’s brain freeze at Wednesday night’s CNBC debate, Mitt Romney’s path to the GOP presidential nomination is now WIDE open. In fact, not since Bob Dole in 1996 has a candidate been such a clear front-runner right before the primaries and caucuses begin. The ’96 comparison is also instructive: Dole still lost New Hampshire to Pat Buchanan. What this all means: While Romney looks to be on his way...

Fannie Mae taps $7.8 billion from Treasury, loss widens Photo 6:42pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fannie Mae, the biggest source of money for U.S. home loans, on Tuesday said it needed a further $7.8 billion in federal aid to stay afloat as a shaky housing market widened its third-quarter loss to $5.1 billion. Fannie Mae also attributed the deeper cash drain to losses on derivatives that are used to hedge the firm's exposure to swings in interest rates and expenses related to home loans made prior to the 2008 financial collapse. In the year-earlier quarter it had a loss of...

Over a period of just three and a half days, CBS, NBC and ABC have developed an insatiable hunger for the Cain sexual harassment story, devoting an incredible 50 stories to the allegations. In contrast, over a similar period these networks mostly ignored far more substantial and serious scandals relating to Bill Clinton. After Paula Jones held a press conference there was only one report of her allegations. Following Kathleen Willey's claims of being groped by Clinton, there were a mere three reports. For Juanita Broderick, who came forward in February 1999 to say Clinton RAPED her, only three stories...

Government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac has requested $6 billion in additional aid after posting a wider loss in the third quarter. Freddie Mac said Thursday that it lost $4.4 billion, or $1.86 per share, in the July-September quarter. That compares with a loss of $4.1 billion, or $1.25 a share, in the same quarter of 2010. This quarter's $6 billion request from taxpayers is the largest since April 2010.

The Obama administration’s efforts to fix the housing crisis may have fallen well short of helping millions of distressed mortgage holders, but they have led to seven-figure paydays for some top executives at troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator for Fannie and Freddie, approved $12.79 million in bonus pay after 10 executives from the two government-sponsored corporations last year met modest performance targets tied to modifying mortgages in jeopardy of foreclosure. The executives got the bonuses about two years after the federally backed mortgage giants received nearly $170 billion in...

Tom Brokaw is shocked and stunned at Herman Cain's web ad that features his Chief of Staff smoking a cigarette. Brokaw did not appreciate the cigarette because of the damage smoking does to one's body. Brokaw even went so far as to say Cain should rename his 9-9-9 plan to include cancers and diseases one gets from smoking. "I must say on the Cain thing, I was stunned by that ad that he did with his campaign manager, ending up smoking a cigarette. Which, in my judgment, is one of the great health hazards in America in terms of lethal...

Charles E. "Ed" Haldeman, Jr., has announced his plans to step down as chief executive officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac sometime in the next year. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Freddie and its counterpart Fannie Mae, announced Wednesday that Haldeman is looking to leave the government-sponsored enterprise some time next year.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) on Wednesday called for the redistribution of America's riches and hammered the wealthy for benefitting from a war effort fought by the poor and middle class. Citing statistics that show 1 percent of Americans now own 42 percent of the nation's wealth, the lawmaker representing Harlem said: "There is something wrong with that formula." Rangel offered no specific remedy for adjusting those figures during his comments on the House floor, but argued further that the wealthiest one percent have the added benefit of not needing to get involved in military service. "Why is it that we...

“Warning: You’re going to want to strangle Lawrence O’Donnell after watching this, if you don’t already.” Posted October 6th, 2011 Herman Cain versus demigod Lawrence O’ Donnell. Annoying Liberal Larry met his match with Cain. Highlights of LO’D got-ya questions (teasers to watch video) to Cain since no transcript out yet. LO’D : ‘ Has the Democrat Party managed to brainwash 81% of the American people into supporting that idea? (more taxes on the rich) LO’D Reads Twitter question : “Ask him how he would ever expect to get the African American vote when all he has done is insult...

I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard a more offensive interview on MSNBC than the one I just heard from Lawrence O’Donnell with Herman Cain. In one interview O’Donnell managed to accuse Herman Cain of not only sitting on the sidelines during the civil rights movement, but also of dodging the Vietnam war. His contempt for a black Republican has never been more clear. At one point in the interview, O’Donnell asked Cain where America would be right now if Rosa Parks took his dad’s advice to stay out of trouble and just sit in the back of the bus....