Free Republic

WASHINGTON — As international leaders gathered here on Saturday to grapple with the global financial crisis, the Bush administration embarked on an overhaul of its own strategy for rescuing the foundering financial system.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on Friday sought to reach out to white, working class voters in this center of Appalachian Ohio with his populist promises to rescue the economy, boost small business, and provide help with college tuition and health care — even as he accused his opponents of sowing division instead of tackling the economic crisis. Now a University of Illinois professor, Mr. Ayers has served on two community boards in Chicago with Mr. Obama and hosted a meeting in his home for Mr. Obama early in his Chicago political career. "I know my opponent is worried...

TRUMPETS were blar ing when the Plunge Protection Team came to the rescue of the stock market in the final hour yesterday. It was something right out of an old John Ford western. OK, I can't really prove that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson directed the PPT - formally known as the President's Working Group on Financial Markets - to bail out the stock market. But how else do you explain how the Dow Jones industrial average could be down a nerve wracking 800 points just 75 minutes before the close of trading and end with a loss of "just" 369...

Collapsing confidence and buckling financial markets sparked talk Monday that Congress may need to resume work soon on emergency measures to shore up the economy. On the first weekday of recess, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging more than 700 points in intra-day trading, economists and market experts questioned the benefit of the $700 billion rescue package enacted just last Friday. Some economic experts read the House’s failure to pass the bill on its first attempt as evidence that Washington lacked the leadership to restore confidence. Congress is due to return for a brief lame-duck session on Nov. 17,...

Florida carnival-goers made a daring rescue of a toddler Saturday night after it had been dangling from a ride after an apparent malfunction, MyFOXOrlando.com reported. The mother, Sherri Pinkerton, desperately clung to her daughter while suspended about 35 feet in the air on the “Crazy Bus” ride while horrified onlookers watched. When she lost her grip on the child, people standing below the ride were able to catch the toddler, MyFOXOrlando.com reported. Later, firefighters rescued the Pinkerton with a ladder.

Your mortgage is all screwed up, and you're forced to search for sources of cash for a re-fi. The banks have none to loan, so where do you turn? And what's worse than going to the government for cash? Read today's "Geeks On Caffeine" cartoon and find out! NOTE: The author requests that you visit his website and refrain from pasting a copy of the comic within this thread. Thank you!

On RFFM.org you will find a list of those Congressional members who voted "yea" for a nearly $1 trillion rape of the American taxpayer: http://rffm.typepad.com/republicans_for_fair_medi/2008/10/the-bipartisan-boondoggle-which-members-of-congress-voted-yea---putting-the-us-nearly-1-trillion-in-more-debt.html I am not an economist. I am simply an American citizen who knows when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and defecates like a duck, it's a duck. Late last week, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed a bill that will put the U.S. government nearly $1 trillion deeper in debt. Earlier in the week, the House of Reps. found some political backbone and rejected the $700 billion pork-laden bailout...

Funniest thing I have heard about this whole deal. Beck asked DeMint about all the pork thrown into the bailout bill and he said, "that was mainly for the house." "I'm convinced if you took the name off the top that the Senate could pass the Communist Manifesto." How about that boys and girls?

The Saginaw home that hit the housing market at a cut-rate price sold for less than the price of a McDonald's value meal. The abandoned home on 1606 Perkins received eight bids on eBay.com and sold for $1.75 Wednesday evening.

Debate started, vote to be 8:45 eastern time

Kudlow reporter says sources confirm Senate to vote on rescue plan tomorrow evening, details to follow.

RENO, Nev. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday called for Americans to get behind attempts to salvage a $700 billion rescue plan for the financial sector, saying that if Wall Street fails ordinary people will also be hurt. "This is no longer just a Wall Street crisis. It's an American crisis, and it's the American economy that needs this rescue plan," Obama told supporters at a rally at the University of Nevada at Reno. Obama said Congress should put aside politics and act on the legislation quickly. "To the Democrats and Republicans who opposed this plan yesterday,...

In a 228 to 205 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry. What do you think? Take our poll:

A bride saved her new husband's life by stripping down to her undies and using her long wedding dress as a lifeline after he fell into a mud filled canal at the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Bride Julia Sienko, 28, had gone for a romantic walk with groom Oleg after the ceremony when he slipped and fell into the canal. Julia said: "I could not reach him and he could not get to the shore. When he started to sink I realised the only way I could save him was to fling him my dress as there was nothing else...

WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders and the White House agreed Sunday to a $700 billion rescue of the ailing financial industry after lawmakers insisted on sharing spending controls with the Bush administration. The biggest U.S. bailout in history won the tentative support of both presidential candidates and goes to the House for a vote Monday. The plan, bollixed up for days by election-year politics, would give the administration broad power to use taxpayers' money to purchase billions upon billions of home mortgage-related assets held by cash-starved financial firms.

KEEP POLITICIANS AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE FROM ANYTHING REMOTELY RESEMBLING INSURANCE Only to politicians – to whom a promise of future performance requires no current financial or intentional adjustments – would the distinction between the purchase of risky assets and insurance of the risk inherent in the assets be worth the donnybrook we have recently seen in Washington. If we purchase the assets, we will pay a price equal to the best estimates of the ultimate value of the assets minus a deep discount (premium) for the risk associated with the uncertainty of the estimates. If we insure 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...

NEW YORK (AFP) - The US economy is in big trouble but policymakers agree on the need for a rescue, President George W. Bush reassured Friday as deadlock on a vast bank bailout plan slammed stocks and international bank lending. "We've got a big problem...we need a rescue plan," Bush said minutes after Wall Street shares dropped in line with a global trend and central banks again injected tens of billions of dollars to avert seizure on interbank lending markets. After a rescue for US savings giant Washington Mutual in the biggest-ever US banking failure, shock waves hit European financial...

The Treasury plan to buy illiquid financial assets has been widely criticized as being unfair to taxpayers, who will have to bear losses ahead of shareholders of the institutions that will be bailed out. There is a better alternative to stabilize the markets: Invest the $700 billion of taxpayer money in senior preferred stock of the troubled financial institutions that pose systemic risks. Let's call this the "Preferred plan." In fact, it is the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac model -- which the Treasury Department has already endorsed and used in practice. It is also the approach Warren Buffett used...

Billionaire Warren Buffett, calling turmoil in the markets an "economic Pearl Harbor," said his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group is an endorsement of the Treasury's $700 billion bank rescue plan. "I am betting on the Congress doing the right thing for the American public and passing this bill," Buffett said on cable channel CNBC Wednesday. "I certainly have a vote of confidence in Goldman and vote of confidence in Congress." Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are pushing Congress to quickly approve the proposal to remove illiquid assets from the banking system. Buffett is...

Many conservatives, including me, don't think a bailout is needed, but McCain has staked his campaign on the necessity of one. What do you think his rescue package (sounds better than "bailout") should contain, and what had better be kept out?

LAKE CHARLES, La., Sept. 15, 2008 – While more than 7,000 Louisiana National Guardsmen were activated to assist in hurricane recovery operations in Louisiana, an officer with the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team had the great satisfaction of taking part in the rescue of one of his own family members. As the storm surge from Hurricane Ike, the second major hurricane to batter the Gulf Coast in less than two weeks, made its way along the coast, Army Maj. Bryant R. Billiot, chief intelligence officer and a native of Dulac, La., received a call from his worried sister. “She told...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - A father and his 12-year-old son are safe after spending more than 12 hours overnight treading water in the Atlantic miles from the central Florida coast. The Coast Guard said the two were swept away by the tide Saturday and found by rescuers the next morning. The father was found about 8 miles from shore and the boy two hours later and one mile from his father.

When the six Boy Scouts from suburban Maplewood, N.J., went camping in the Grand Canyon, they expected an adventure they would long talk about, but they did not expect to be clinging to treetops and praying to survive a flash flood. The six Scouts and three adult leaders were eventually guided to safety by American Indians who live in the area, and plucked out of the wilderness by a Black Hawk helicopter. By the time they flew away, the 10-yard-wide canyon next to a stream where they had been camping had become a 300-yard-wide raging river. The scouts and their...

UK. Brixham Coastguard rescues intoxicated teenagers by helicopter Thursday, 07 August 2008   At quarter to one this morning Brixham Coastguard received several 999 calls from an 18 year old teenager reporting that he was in some form of distress on a cliff. The boy told the Coastguard in the operations room that he was epileptic and had suffered a fit. He and a friend that was with him could not tell the Coastguard where they were and communications with the two boys was difficult as it became apparent that they were under the influence of alcohol. Teignmouth and...

NGOs: Europe once urged Colombia to pay any price to free hostages. Now it pitches a fit when its own bill comes due. The International Red Cross' fury at Colombia for improper use of its emblem to save 15 lives is out of line.The argument goes that Colombia shouldn't have let an undercover soldier use a Red Cross bib over his Palestinian keffiyeh (a get-up that FARC found perfectly credible) to rescue 15 hostages on July 2, because it might make the FARC and groups like it distrustful of future Red Cross efforts. "If authenticated, these images could clearly establish...

(IsraelNN.com) The Hizbullah terrorist group slammed the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Tuesday night for its intention to rescue any Israel Air Force pilot whose aircraft is shot down over Lebanon. According to a report published by the Lebanese daily newspaper al-Akhbar, Commander Claudio Graziano distributed to his troops a contingency plan in which UNIFIL soldiers would aim to reach the pilot before the terrorists could get to him. Failing that, if the pilot is captured by guerrilla forces, Plan B is an attempt to rescue him from enemy hands. However, if the pilot is being held...

A FOX News cameraman helped save the life of an injured Marine in Afghanistan — and was injured himself — when the armored Humvee convoy he was traveling in was struck by a roadside bomb Sunday night in the Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold. Two U.S. Marines were badly injured when the improvised explosive device detonated near their convoy. Though FOX News cameraman Chris Jackson was injured in the blast, he went back to the burning vehicle to rescue one of the Marines. "The cabin was on fire and I jumped out," said Jackson in a report filed immediately following...

Italian climber seen stumbling down K2 just days after 11 fellow climbers perish on deadliest day of disaster By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 4:15 PM on 04th August 2008 An Italian climber has been seen stumbling down the world's second highest mountain K2 just days after 11 fellow climbers were killed. A frostbitten Marco Confortola was seen slowly climbing down to a height where he could be reached by a rescue helicopter. In the mean time three Pakistani high altitude porters and an American climber are climbing up to him. Retired Brigadier Mohammad Akram, vice president of Pakistan's...

After six years in captivity Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian hostage, was rescued by Colombian special forces. Her first action was to arrange to go to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paris. In an interview earlier this month she spoke to Pèlerin magazine about her faith and how it saw her through her ordeal. Mrs Betancourt's first gesture on being rescued was the sign of the cross. "Why? Because without Him at my side I would never have managed to survive the pain," she said. She went on to say that "being a hostage places you in a situation...

An ice avalanche has killed at least 11 climbers on Pakistan's K-2 mountain, CNN.com reported Sunday. Mountaineer Fredrick Strang said at a K-2 base camp that the climbers were descending the Himalayan mountain, the second highest peak in the world, when the avalanche destroyed a fixed rope that the group was using to get to the summit. K-2 is 28,250 feet tall -- about 785 feet shorter than the world's highest peak, Mount Everest -- but climbers generally regard K-2 as the more difficult to summit. Roughly 22 climbers were in the group trying to summit K-2 on Friday night,...

A 12-year-old girl who fell into a chimney on her Manhattan rooftop and plummeted down the flue for 14 stories survived almost unscathed when she landed in a pile of furnace soot — a moment of amazing grace that matches her name.

Luckily Truman didn't think twice By Amanda Compton-Ortiz/amanda@dctribune.com Thursday, July 24, 2008 2:16 PM CDT A Sunday afternoon drive on his new 1300 Honda may have ended in disaster for 51-year-old Jim Kelder of Olive Branch, but thanks to the bravery of one young man his riding days aren't over yet. "I'm grateful there are people like him in this world," said Jim of 16-year-old Truman Gullett of Byhalia. "If it wasn't for him I don't think I'd still be standing here." As fate would have it, Jim, an employee at FedEx, and Truman, a freshman football player at Lewisburg...

IMF welcomes US rescue plan for Fannie, FreddiePosted: 25 July 2008 0152 hrs WASHINGTON : The International Monetary Fund on Thursday welcomed the US government's plans to aid mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and ease the housing crisis. "The announced measures on Fannie and Freddie go in the right direction and are consistent with approaches that the Fund has supported," IMF spokesman David Hawley said at a news conference. "And we agree that public sector intervention is warranted, accompanied by improved supervision." His comments in response to a question came a day after a wide-ranging housing rescue...

(IsraelNN.com) Everyday, hundreds of Jewish women and girls are being held in captivity by abusive Arab husbands and boyfriends across Israel. Often their only way out is a daring breakout while the abusers are away. This newly released video shows the story of one such rescue. The video shows how “N.” and her eight children were rescued from their “home” in an Arab section of Jerusalem’s Old City, just minutes from their brothers praying at the Kotel(The Western Wall). “N” had used the Yad L’Achim helpline to be in touch with the volunteer rescue squad. The volunteers infiltrated the Arab...

A British soldier and jump instructor participating in a parachute competition in Germany got hung up on the landing gear of his jump aircraft, reportedly a Britten-Norman Islander, and was rescued by the only person left on the aircraft -- its pilot...

A Canadian boy was rescued after being kidnapped, hidden in a car's trunk and forced into an oil drum, officials said. The abduction took place when a man grabbed the 8-year-old boy off a street Tuesday in the Canadian province of Quebec, the Gazette, Montreal reported Thursday. A witness called authorities and other people gave information to police as the abductor drove around Levis with the boy, the newspaper said. One onlooker said they saw the boy in the trunk while stopped at a traffic light, and another said they saw the man remove the boy from the car and...

Will Fannie and Freddie Go to Zero? By Morgan Housel July 16, 2008 Comments (2) If you'd seen the title of this article one year ago -- heck, one week ago -- I'd expect you to laugh at me. But this isn't a joke. Shareholders' faith in the country's two mortgage powerhouses is growing slimmer by the day. And if one high-profile investor gets his way, as he has in the past, current shareholders will be left with nothing but worthless share certificates to line the walls of their homes -- 0.6% of which have already been foreclosed on this...

Leave it to CNN to worry that the Colombian government committed a war crime in its recent rescue of FARC hostages, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe says one Red Cross symbol was used in a daring and successful hostage rescue mission that took place two weeks ago. What seems to be part of a red cross is seen on a bib worn by a man involved in the rescue in this official image. One of the rescuers was wearing the symbol on a bib, Uribe said Wednesday in a nationally televised announcement that was also carried on radio. He described the wearing of the symbol as a slip-up. Such a use of the Red Cross emblem could constitute...

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia misused the symbol of the Red Cross in this month's military rescue of politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other guerrilla-held hostages, the government said on Wednesday, admitting a possible violation of the rules of war. "We regret that this occurred," President Alvaro Uribe said in a speech following reports that the Red Cross emblem was displayed on a vest or T-shirt worn by a Colombian intelligence officer who took part in the rescue mission. Falsely portraying military personnel as Red Cross members is against the Geneva Conventions as it could put humanitarian workers at risk when...

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian military intelligence used the Red Cross emblem in a rescue operation in which leftist guerrillas were duped into handing over 15 hostages, according to unpublished photographs and video viewed by CNN. Photographs of the Colombian military intelligence-led team that spearheaded the rescue, shown to CNN by a confidential military source, show one man wearing a bib with the Red Cross symbol. The military source said the three photos were taken moments before the mission took off to persuade the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels to release the hostages to a supposed international aid group...

Liberated after six years of jungle captivity, Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt exclaimed: "I think only the Israelis can possibly pull off something like this." If only.

Great post at Protein Wisdom pointing out the contrast between the rhetoric of “domestic spying” and the reality of FISA–that tapped phones on international calls can save lives, stop terrorists, and rescue hostages: The stunning rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors owed its success not just to artful deception, but also to a five-year U.S.-Colombian operation that choked their captors’ ability to communicate. Known as “Alliance,” it began with a satellite phone call in 2003, just weeks after the Americans’ surveillance plane crashed in the southern Colombian jungle, according to U.S. and Colombian investigators and court documents....

For months before a group of disguised Colombian soldiers carried out a daring rescue of three U.S. citizens and a prominent Colombian politician from a guerrilla camp, a team of U.S. Special Forces joined elite Colombian troops tracking the hostages across the jungle in the country's southern fringes. The U.S. team was supported by a vast intelligence-gathering operation based in the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, far to the north. There, a special 100-person unit made up of Special Forces planners, hostage negotiators and intelligence analysts worked to keep track of the hostages. They also awaited the moment when the rescue...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez thanking him for the "tireless efforts that helped" release last week several hostages held by the Colombian guerrillas, including Ingrid Betancourt. "As we celebrate the release of Ingrid Betancourt and other 14 hostages, I thank you again for your tireless efforts that helped the hostages of Colombia to come back to freedom and the love of their beloved ones," said the French president, as quoted on Tuesday in a press release from the Venezuelan government. Early this year, Chávez welcome six hostages in Venezuela, who were unilaterally...

Kansas City Chief's star tight-end Tony Gonzalez performed the Heimlich on a choking diner in Huntington Beach Ken Hunter, a long-time San Diego Charger's fan, has a new favorite team. The 45-year-old Huntington Beach resident says he'll now root for the Kansas City Chiefs after the team's star tight-end Tony Gonzalez came to his rescue Thursday night at a local restaurant. "I'm a permanent member of the Tony Gonzalez fan club," Hunter said Monday. It all began after a chunk of filet mignon somehow lodged into Hunter's throat while he was dining at Capone's Italian Restaurante on Beach Boulevard. That's...

AS THE unmarked white helicopter descended into the jungle clearing, Ingrid Betancourt had no reason to believe that her six-year-long ordeal was nearly over. Looking at the crew, some wearing Che Guevara T-shirts, the captive politician reasoned this was just going to be another day as a pawn in the struggle between her tormentors from the Revolutionary Army of Columbia, better known as the Farc guerrilla group, and her country's government. Along with 13 other hostages, her hands were bound with white plastic cuffs as she was shepherded towards the waiting aircraft. Angry and upset, she refused a coat they...

BOGOTA, COLUMBIA - THE daring rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages will be made into a movie by a Colombian director, a Hollywood production company and RCN-TV, the television channel said on Sunday. 'They still have to choose a language for the script ... (and) whether the film will be shot in Colombia or France,' an RCN News said in a report. It said the film will be directed by Colombia's Simon Brand and produced 'jointly by a Hollywood production company and under RCN-Cine supervision.' The report did not say when the shooting might start. A former presidential...

Undercover Officers Got Acting Lessons; 'Crocodile Dundee' BOGOTÁ, Colombia -- New details have emerged about an important supporting role for the U.S. in Colombia's daring rescue of 15 hostages held by the country's Marxist guerrillas. One area where the Americans were directly involved: Giving Hollywood-style acting classes to the Colombian undercover military officers who duped the guerrillas into handing over the hostages. Preparation for the rescue mission, which freed three Americans and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, involved mounting a makeshift studio on an army base and drilling the undercover military officers in their acting roles, according to senior...