Free Republic

What's the hottest ticket in the nation's capital? An engraved invitation to Tuesday's White House state dinner, the first hosted by President Obama. He and the first lady will honor India's prime minister. But in a departure from the traditional venue -- the elegant State Dining Room -- the Obamas will gather with a few hundred VIPs in a huge, heated tent on the South Lawn. The guest list for the black-tie gala remains a closely guarded secret. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will certainly be there. Several notables are good bets, such as Oprah Winfrey and...

Barack and Michelle Obama's fairytale love story of an adoring couple propelled on to the international stage has caught the imagination of millions. Their regular Friday "date nights" make the television news, and there was a stir recently when they caught Air Force One for a night at the theatre in Manhattan. This weekend, in the aftermath of the D-Day celebrations, they are in Paris with their young daughters - having turned down an invitation for dinner with President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla in favour of a more intimate family event. But it was not always wedded bliss...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/beyond_the_echo_chamber/ Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm Advice from "beyond the echo chamber" We just learned the economy lost another 600,000 jobs last month. It's a staggering number, and it underscores just how deep this crisis is – and, as the President pointed out this morning, it’s accelerating. That's why he created the Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to solicit ideas from "beyond the echo chamber of Washington, DC." "I’m not interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology," he said. "We’ve recruited...

For eight years, the president of the United States — the ex-officio socialite in chief — has turned up his nose at the slightest whiff of social aspiration. Now a new generation of Washington socialites has a dream. They see a dashing, young, brilliant president and his equally brilliant wife ushering in an era of inclusive entertaining. Gone is the white-gloved, debutante-loving, Pilgrim-pedigreed culture that still mattered in Kennedy’s Camelot and Reagan’s Hollywood East. Starting Jan. 20, when President Barack Obama and Michelle move into the White House, the “in crowd” will include just about everyone who, since the dawn...

Barack Obama's audacity is a grave concern for anyone troubled by the Wall Street meltdown. Sen. Obama continues to support Penny Pritzker -- the disgraced billionaire hotel heiress who helped sink a major bank that used subprime mortgage machinations -- as she helps fund his crusade. Ms. Pritzker is the finance chairwoman overseeing Obama's fundraising and a "bundler" who has pledged to personally raise between $200,000 and $500,000 for him. She has contributed nearly $500,000 to Democrat candidates and political action committees since 2000, reports The Washington Times. Pritzker, among Forbes magazine's 2008 richest Americans with a net worth of...

John W. Courtney's world collapsed at dinnertime on a Friday in July 2001. That's when he learned from a television newscast that much of the $200,000 that he had saved from his construction job over a 30-year period was lost when his Chicago-area bank was shut down after pursuing a failed strategy of subprime loans. Seven years later, the Vietnam War veteran has yet to recoup $85,000 of his uninsured losses from Superior Bank's failure. And he watches in disbelief as one of the bank's former top officials, billionaire hotel heiress Penny Pritzker, leads the record-breaking fundraising machine of Democratic...

John W. Courtney's world collapsed at dinnertime on a Friday in July 2001. That's when he learned from a television newscast that much of the $200,000 that he had saved from his construction job over a 30-year period was lost when his Chicago-area bank was shut down after pursuing a failed strategy of subprime loans. Seven years later, the Vietnam War veteran has yet to recoup $85,000 of his uninsured losses from Superior Bank's failure. And he watches in disbelief as one of the bank's former top officials, billionaire hotel heiress Penny Pritzker, leads the record-breaking fundraising machine of Democratic...

For the Pritzker family of Chicago, the 2001 collapse of subprime-mortgage lender Superior Bank was an embarrassing failure in a corner of their giant business empire. Billionaire Penny Pritzker helped run Hinsdale, Ill.-based Superior, overseeing her family's 50% ownership stake. She now serves as Barack Obama's national campaign-finance chairwoman, which means her banking past could prove to be an embarrassment to her -- and perhaps to the campaign. Superior was seized in 2001 and later closed by federal regulators. Government investigators and consumer advocates have contended that Superior engaged in unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices. Ms. Pritzker, a...

We are all now focused on Obama's financial industry bedfellows, who are running his campaign. Here is a story that the main street media (aka Obama protective press) will not cover. His national chairperson, senior advisor on economic issues, and close personal friend rumored for a cabinet post or senior advisor in an Obama White House is Penny Pritzker. • Penny Pritzker through her development of Superior Bank utilizing accounting firm of Ernst & Young and close personal business relationship with Merrill Lynch developed and pioneered the securitization of sub-prime/predatory loans. Using Pritzker reputation convinced rating agencies to give junk...

The Pritzker holdings constitute one of the top 10 private wealth buckets in the U.S.,'' says Byron Trott, vice chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and lead investment banker for the Pritzkers and Buffett. ``They've compounded wonderfully in value over the last 15 years, and Penny is one of two key operating executives.''

ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala Reports: Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin warned against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's pursuit of nuclear weapons for a "second holocaust," while blaming "Democrat partisans" for forcing rally organizers to withdraw her invitation to speak before an anti-Iran protest in New York next week. "John McCain and I are committed to drawing attention to the danger posed by Iran's nuclear program and we will not waver in our commitment," Palin told a crowd of 9,000 supporters in Blaine, MN. "I will continue to call for sustained action to prevent Iranian President Ahmadinejad from getting these weapons that he...

I’m sure this isn’t the Penny Pritzker Obama knows and all, but it sure doesn’t look good to have her around anymore. Senator Barack Obama’s campaign faces a potential controversy over finance chairwoman Penny Pritzker’s past association with Superior Bank, which failed and was seized by regulators in 2001. “Billionaire Penny Pritzker helped run Hinsdale, Ill.-based Superior, overseeing her family’s 50% ownership stake,” John R. Emshwiller writes for The Wall Street Journal. “She now serves as Barack Obama’s national campaign-finance chairwoman, which means her banking past could prove to be an embarrassment to her — and perhaps to the campaign.”...

The woman whom Barack Obama is crediting for organizing the Barbra Streisand fundraiser it held last night in Hollywood is also partially responsible for one of the greater banking collapses in American history. Penny Pritzker, Obama's national finance chair was, with her family, the half owner of Superior Bank, which was shut down in 2001 by the FDIC after it had lost nearly all of its more than $2 billion of assets on bad loans to high-risk borrowers, federal regulators said. Pritzker has avoided media attention over the past week as reporters covering the Obama campaign sought comment on the...

  New Emperor...Same Old Clothes July 3, 2008 It’s patently absurd how liberals run around chanting “change we can believe in” when, in fact, their new would-be Emperor Obama is the same-old disingenuousness in a new suit. Obama’s version of “change” began by greasing his millionaire buddies. A quick trip to the Obama campaign website reveals that Barack just can’t wait to start bestowing his largesse on “workers’, “working families” and the “middle class”. In fact, he’s so excited about playing political “trick or treat” that he confidently promises to immediately “eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans” and “provide 150 million workers the tax...