Free Republic

Five companies, thus far, have communicated their intention not to sell to any police or government agencies in New York State. LaRue Tactical Olympic Arms Extreme Firepower Inc, LLC Templar Custom York Arms Guns Save Life is joining with Grass Roots North Carolina in calling for all American gun owners to pressure Sig Sauer, Smith and Wesson and Glock to shut off sales to government agencies in New York State. If you know executives in any of these companies, email them directly. If not, we’ve got some email addresses below for you. Keep it short and sweet. Long missives will...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department said Monday that it would sell its remaining ownership stake in insurance giant American International Group, effectively ending one of the largest bailouts of the financial crisis and turning a profit for taxpayers.</p> <p>The sale of the Treasury's remaining 234 million shares -- 15.9% of the company -- would add to the $15.1 billion in profit the government already has made on the bailout. The Treasury would still hold warrants in AIG after the stock sale.</p>

If the U.S. was a company, would you buy, hold, or sell the stock? A voluminous report put out last year by Mary Meeker sought to answer that very question. Since we’re in the thick of the presidential elections, why not review the important financial state of our great nation.For those of you who may not know who she is, Mary Meeker is the well-known partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who is also affectionately known as the “Queen of Internet.” Apparently, beyond her renowned expertise in analyzing and valuing tech companies and start-ups, she also has the knack...

Okay, I am selling my house in NJ because the property taxes, income taxes and insurance are out of control. Overall we'll be saving $6000-$10000 per year if we move. My wife's drive to work will be about the same my drive will be 10 minutes further. The main reason wanting to leave NJ are for the obvious reasons as I think this state will never change and possibly continue its downward spiral. Anyone that lives in PA that lived in NJ...is there anything to warn me of? Am I going from the frying pan to the frying pan or...

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp is selling about half its stake in China Construction Bank for $8.3 billion, in its latest effort to shed assets and boost capital. A group of investors is buying 13.1 billion CCB shares from Bank of America, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter. The U.S. bank declined to name the investors but two sources said Singapore state fund Temasek was among the buyers. Bank of America needs to boost capital by some $50 billion in the coming years to meet new global rules, according to multiple analyst estimates. CCB is...

Boomer retirement could slow U.S. recovery CNNMoney 12:02 PM CDT, August 22, 2011 The aging of the U.S. baby boom generation may slow an already weak recovery as boomers sell stocks to pay for retirement, according to research released Monday from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. Many baby boomers have already sold some assets in preparation for retirement, research adviser Zheng Liu and Mark Spiegel, vice president of economic research, said in the latest San Francisco Fed Economic Letter.

SEATTLE - He ruled Russia almost a century ago, and yet, somehow, a statue of communist leader Vladimir Lenin found its way to Seattle. It's not one of the city's more famous landmarks - like the Space Needle or Pike Place Market. Instead, the 16-foot-tall statue of the divisive dictator is tucked away in a more residential spot in Seattle's Fremont district. He is as controversial today as he was decades ago. "Why do we have a statue of him?" asked Erin Derring, as she walked by. "We couldn't imagine such a statue in America - you understand why," added...

pre-market data.

A mother walks into a Taco Bell...and what does she do? No, she doesn't order a Beefy 5 Layer Burrito. She peddles her three-day old to a customer. Some people just shouldn't have children. Heidi Lynn Knowles, 36, of Vancouver, Wash., reportedly stumbled into the restaurant and started taking bids from customers for her newborn son. The asking price ranged from $500 to $5,000. The cops were later called and showed up at a motel where Knowles was crashed. She was charged with attempted child selling-buying, a Class C felony, and was held on $50,000 bail. Some customers reported that...

Aircraft carriers gain clout in naval power By SLOBODAN LEKIC The Associated Press 6:01 a.m. Sunday, May 8, 2011 ABOARD THE CHARLES DE GAULLE — Despite growing controversy about the cost and relevance of aircraft carriers, navies around the world are adding new ones to their inventories at a pace unseen since World War II. The U.S. — with more carriers than all other nations combined — and established naval powers such as Britain, France and Russia are doing it. So are Brazil, India and China — which with Russia form the BRIC grouping of emerging economic giants. "The whole...

I’ve often wondered if the early Web pioneers had it all to do over again if Web companies would have put less of an emphasis on free. People have been conditioned against paying for services or content on the Web, and the Web elite only have each other to blame. For all the talk of Web companies getting users first and “figuring out” how to make money later, the only two jaw-droppingly, multi-billion-dollar, innovative new ways to advertise online have been Google’s paid search ads and Groupon’s solution to unlocking local ad dollars on a mass scale. Those who win...

It's not nearly as bad as it sounds. Actually, it's quite good—for your family, and for our troops overseas. This, of course, is the weekend for costumed kids to go door to door collecting candy—probably way more than any child could or should eat. What to do with the excess haul? Check out the Halloween Candy Buy Back program. To participate, you bring your candy tonnage to a dentist's office, where they'll pay you $1 per pound no matter if you've got lollipops or Snickers, M&Ms or Smarties, or any other candy collected during Trick or Treat raids. The dentists...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block. A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbour Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants."Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving," said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. "We have no alternative. They have us cornered."The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix...

CHICAGO — In a deal intended to help keep the invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, a Chinese meat packing company will buy fish taken from Illinois rivers to send to China where it is a delicacy. Big River Fisheries in Pearl, Ill., will catch, process and ship at least 30 million pounds of fish by the end of next year and sell it to Beijing Zhuochen Animal Husbandry Company, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced Tuesday. "The high quality and taste of the wild Asian carp from Big River Fish far exceeded our expectations. We see a tremendous...

Hey jet-setters, listen up: Greece might have a killer deal for you – the opportunity to own some of its world-renowned islands. And you can get some serious deals (well, at least as far as private islands go!). As the cash-strapped country struggles to repay its debt, it is putting big swaths of land on some its 6,000 islands up for sale or long-term lease, The Guardian reports. Greece denies these allegations, saying it has "no involvement" in the sale of the islands and calling the report "insulting" and "untrue," the Wall Street Journal says. With these conflicting reports, it's...

With an enormous circle of flames shooting up Thursday from a steel mill furnace in Memphis, 57 crime guns melted away. "Those guns aren't coming back," said Thad Solomon, general manager of the Nucor Steel facility neighboring a power plant in Southwest Memphis. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has about 285 more confiscated guns collected from a Criminal Court Clerk's evidence room that would have met the same fiery end since 2006. However, a new state law requires that law enforcement agencies sell or trade the guns unless they are unsafe or inoperable. Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell met with...

White House officials eager to sell the most popular aspects of the health reform law are focusing on four areas to gain votes and popularity for key lawmakers ahead of November's midterm elections. Politico: "Top administration officials, who meet regularly with outside special interest groups to coordinate the public relations effort, have so far focused on expediting and amplifying four key areas of the new law: expanding coverage to young adults, covering sick people with pre-existing conditions or high medical costs, providing tax breaks to small businesses and helping a select group of seniors pay for prescription drugs." Politico reports...

My advice, if you are heavily invested sell everything tommorrow. Obama is attacking the Health Care industry, the dollar is collapsing, the budget deficit was nearly $1.5 TRillion for FY 09. Buy Gold or preserve principle in a money market.

British victims of the credit crunch are offering to sell their kidneys for £25,000 or more to help pay debts, an investigation by The Sunday Times has revealed. At least a dozen adverts have appeared on the internet offering kidneys for sale from British “donors”. Five of the sellers corresponded with undercover journalists, who posed as friends and relatives of sick patients to negotiate sales. One person willing to sell a kidney is a 26-year-old mental health nurse who said he needed the money to pay debts after a business he set up went bankrupt. Another is a 43-year-old taxi...

FARMERS in north India are selling their wives to survive, it has been revealed. Left without money due to failing crops, farmers in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, have reportedly sold their wives to money lenders for 4,000-12,000 rupees (€55-€170). The more beautiful the woman, the higher the price, it was claimed. The deals are allegedly being settled on a legal stamp paper under the heading Vivaha Anubandh (marriage contract). Most of the women are illiterate and cannot read the "contract".

The City Council is considering a program to let the Police Department sell confiscated guns to licensed dealers. Sales could net $10,000 a year. Reporting from Colorado Springs, Colo. - This conservative city is taking an unusual, some might say extreme, step to try to stem its fiscal woes: It's entering the gun business.

Key Points: Impact on cost: A top selling point by the administration for the Democrat bills in Congress is that their legislation will reduce costs. People aren’t buying it. · By two to one (34-18) Americans believe the cost of their health care will go up. · 45 percent believe costs will go up nationally and only 14 percent see a reduction in costs nationally Impact on care: While respondents are more optimistic about the impact nationally, more Americans believe the health care legislation will worsen their own medical care than improve it. · 34 percent believe their own health...

GARY – Gary officials are seeking nearly $25 million in federal money to tear down more than 900 abandoned houses and 200 empty commercial buildings.......

Washington, DC -- A new report indicates that Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business, has increased the number of centers that do abortions. The report indicates Planned Parenthood is increasingly relying on the dangerous mifepristone (RU 486) abortion drug.

States Consider Selling Off Roads, Parks to Confront Financial Meltdown Saturday, New York Gov. David Paterson is considering selling assets like the Tappan Zee Bridge, seen above, which connects two New York counties. New York Gov. David Paterson is considering selling assets like the Tappan Zee Bridge, seen above, which connects two New York counties. ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota is deep in the hole financially, but the state still owns a premier golf resort, a sprawling amateur sports complex, a big airport, a major zoo and land holdings the size of the Central American country of Belize. Valuables like...

(IsraelNN.com) Following a meeting last week between leading Lebanese legislator Sa'ad Hariri and Russian leaders, Hariri was quoted by Russian media this weekend as saying Russia will sell heavy weaponry to Lebanon. Previously, Hariri Hariri said that he hoped Russia would help Lebanon claim Mt. Dov from Israel. said that he hoped Russia would help Lebanon claim Mt. Dov from Israel. Russia is expecting Lebanon to recognize the independence of the breakaway Georgian districts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Hariri, the son of the assassinated popular former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, represents the Western-backed majority in the Lebanese parliament. Russia...

ALBANY - Warning of an approaching economic calamity, Gov. Paterson yesterday called an emergency session of the state Legislature - and raised the specter that New York may have to sell off roads, bridges and tunnels to close a massive budget deficit.

CHICAGO (AP) — A new kind of gold rush is unfolding at jewelry store and pawn shop counters — featuring not prospectors, but consumers. White-collar workers, retirees and many others have been digging through jewelry boxes and safety deposit boxes to cash in as gold prices flirt with $1,000 an ounce. Coins, old wedding rings, necklaces given by ex-boyfriends, hand-me-down gold pieces — everything is fair game when it brings this kind of profit. Shop owners across the country are marveling about the phenomenon they say began in the latter part of 2007 and accelerated through the winter, reflecting torrid...

By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writer Fri Jan 25, 4:15 PM ET FRESNO, Calif. - With water becoming increasingly precious in California, a rising number of farmers figure they can make more money by selling their water than by actually growing something. Because farmers get their water at subsidized rates, some of them see financial opportunity this year in selling their allotments to Los Angeles and other desperately thirsty cities across Southern California, as well as to other farms. "It just makes dollars and sense right now," said Bruce Rolen, a third-generation farmer who grows rice, wheat and other crops...

DETROIT (AP) - Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is proposing the sale of dozens of the city's 367 parks as part of an effort to raise money.

Why Did Russia Sell Us Alaska So Cheap?By John Steele Gordon The check, dated August 1, 1868, that was used to pay the purchase price for Alaska to Eduard de Stoeckl on behalf of the emperor of Russia. (National Archives) A hundred and forty years ago today, sovereignty over Alaska was transferred from the Russian Empire to the United States. The transfer completed the national territory on the North American continent. It was one of the great bargains of all time. For a price of $7.2 million, this country got 365 million acres of land and another 13 million of...

Three Philadelphia-Area Funeral Directors Nabbed in Scheme Selling Body Parts Thursday, October 04, 2007 PHILADELPHIA — Three funeral directors sold hundreds of bodies to a former oral surgeon who allegedly collected the bones, tissue and skin from the corpses to be used in transplants, a grand jury charged Thursday after a 16-month investigation. The 244 bodies fetched about $1,000 each, the grand jury found, with the body parts being transplanted in unsuspecting medical patients worldwide. Michael Mastromarino, who operated the now-defunct Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., ran the scheme with help from a team of "cutters" who stole...

U.S. stocks are at record levels. Earnings season is under way, with many expecting a modest rise in corporate profits. Unemployment is very low. So far problems with housing haven't infected the rest of the economy, which seems poised to bounce back from slow growth in the first quarter. So what is there to worry about? Plenty. No matter how wonderful things look, the good times won't last forever. Even as most market observers remain bullish, we asked them what could derail this bull market. Stocks could keep setting records for months or even years, but it pays for investors...

Anger as hostages sell stories to highest bidders Amelia Hill and Jamie Doward Sunday April 8, 2007 The Observer (UK) The 15 British military hostages released by Iran were accused last night of cashing in on the ordeal by selling their stories in a string of lucrative media deals. The sailors, who spent 13 days in captivity and at times feared for their lives, have been given permission by the Ministry of Defence to give exclusive interviews. The MoD justified lifting the ban on military personnel selling their stories while in service because of the 'exceptional circumstances' involved. The former...

Stocks tumbled Tuesday as investors fretted about the resiliency of the consumer, amid further concerns about the subprime lending industry, disappointing retail-sales data and weakness in the tech sector. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 242.66, or 2%, to 12075.96. Year-to-date, it is now down 3.1%. The S&P 500 lost 28.65, also a 2% drop, to 1377.95, off 2.8% year to date. The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 51.72, or 2.2%, to 2350.57. It is 2.7% lower on the year. Each of the three indexes suffered its second-biggest decline of the year. The indexes started off moderately lower as a...

Any equity selloff as large as yesterday's will produce a multitude of explanations. Among other culprits, we heard about "overbought" Chinese stocks that were due for a correction, a weak durable goods report, the Kabul explosion aimed at Vice President Dick Cheney (see below), and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan for declaring Monday that a "recession" was possible later this year. Our own "whodunit" contribution would point to the mortgage-related markets, which sold off nearly as much as stocks. This reflects the cracks appearing in the housing credit markets, especially in subprime loans but with some damage up the...

WASHINGTON - Rudy Giuliani's star has hardly dimmed in the five years since terrorists attacked his city on Sept. 11, 2001, and he became a national hero _ the face of U.S. resolve at a time of tragedy. The Republican dubbed "America's Mayor" hopes to ride that celebrity and his record at City Hall to the White House by emphasizing his leadership skills and embracing the strong-on-security, limited-government tenets of the GOP. "If he can handle the scrutiny, and if events break his way, sure, he can win," said Fred Siegel, who wrote a Giuliani biography, "The Prince of the...

Alamance dealer plans to sell 13th Amendment originalThe Associated Press BURLINGTON, N.C. Published on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 An Alamance County dealer plans to auction one of 13 known original versions of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States, at the end of the month. The document will be displayed at the Times-News building this week and will be in an online auction March 30, according to Raynors Historical Collectible Auctions. Bob Raynor, president of the company, said the document has a potential value of $750,000 to $1 million. The amendment was approved Feb. 1, 1865, by...

ORLANDO -- It wasn't Halloween, so what was Michael Garibay thinking early today? The Orlando man is accused of offering to sell crack cocaine to a uniform Orange County deputy sitting in a marked patrol car.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A man who tried to sell fighter jet parts to China and falsely certified the quality of other aircraft parts was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison by a judge who called him "a menace to worldwide air safety." Amanullah Khan was sentenced Monday to 15 years and eight months by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who also ordered him to pay $5.4 million in restitution. The sentence came two years after Khan, 56, interrupted his jury trial to plead guilty to 12 felony counts of conspiracy and aircraft parts fraud. Authorities...

I need help to find out if there is a way of testing toys/clothes/ect. for hazardous residue,chemicals,meth,how do i know if its safe to buy or sell used items?Or how do you clean?Then are they safe?who knows where it came from?Goodwill,sale,or,a tweaker,garbage,store?how do i know its safe? help me?Im in recovery,Life getting better I hope!

London 26.08.05 | One of the perks of having acquaintances in London's oil trading circles is that one can check whether the BS spitted by the MSM has got any relation with reality. As it often happens nowadays with issues such as oil, Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, PDVSA, China and so on the findings are shocking. Venezuela is reportedly selling 68.000 BPD to China -or a 2.000.000 barrels-tanker/month, however the Bolivarian revolutionaries fail to say that the cargos aren't reaching China but the Gulf Coast. Hugo Chavez offered Ecuador, illegally as ever, some 500.000 barrels of Boscan oil. However the Ecuadorans,...

John McWhorter is right to say that we ought to pause and remember the Watts riots of 40 years ago and ponder their implication for America's present and future ["Burned, Baby, Burned..." FR post here]. I take strong issue, however, with the conclusions he draws from his review of the events in Watts and South Central Los Angeles in 1965. I think the difference between McWhorter and me arises in large measure from our profoundly different perspectives on the event. He writes that he was born two months after the riots occurred and that his conclusions are based on his...

'Two-faced French sell out Cuban dissidents' By David Rennie, in Brussels (Filed: 26/07/2005) A leading Cuban dissident yesterday accused a "two-faced" French government of putting trade ahead of the suffering of the Cuban people. The comments by Marta Beatriz Roque, a 60-year-old economist who was arrested during a protest outside the French embassy in Havana on Bastille Day, came after Paris unilaterally ended a European Union diplomatic embargo against the regime of President Fidel Castro, and normalised relations with his government. Apparently emboldened by the French overture, Cuban authorities responded by launching the largest wave of dissident arrests since 2003,...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Former Black Panthers are hoping the phrase "Burn Baby Burn" will help their nonprofit organization market a new product - hot sauce. The Huey P. Newton Foundation, named for the co-founder of the 1960s militant group, is seeking to trademark the phrase that for many brings to mind the racially charged 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles that left more than 30 people dead, at least 1,000 wounded and hundreds of buildings in ashes. The new line of hot sauce, called "Burn Baby Burn: A Taste of the Sixties Revolutionary Hot Sauce," is aimed at "anyone...

Gov. Richard J. Codey is working on a plan to bolster the state's Transportation Trust Fund with a temporary increase in the gasoline tax and additional money generated by privatizing the New Jersey Turnpike or Garden State Parkway, according to a published report. The Record of Bergen County, citing an unnamed administration source, reported in Thursday's editions that the plan calls for a small gas tax increase to be pushed through shortly after the Nov. 8 election. The increase would be rescinded or phased out after the lease deal is signed and begins to generate cash. The Transportation Trust Fund...

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most striking. Blogger Miguel Octavio in Caracas, Venezuela, has suggested the best way for Venezuela to draw some earnings from its Citgo refineries here in the U.S. is to sell shares. Houston-based Citgo has been in the news lately, with Hugo Chavez "threatening" to sell its eight U.S.-based refineries. Chavez says he doesn't get enough money out of them, and the U.S. markets suspect he'd like to sell to more easily cut off oil to the U.S. There are a lot of horse laughs in Houston, of course, given how much money he'd lose...

Ms Anderson, who hails from Hobart, Indiana, said the unexpected attention generated by her whimsical eBay sale had "left her a nervous wreck" and that she had cancelled some of the more "outrageous bids". She reiterated that the purpose of the exercise was simply to reassure her five year-old-son who was uneasy about living in a house that he felt was haunted by his "mean" grandfather.

If you consider yourself even remotely taken by capitalism, you've got to love online auction house eBay. It's a free market proponent's dream, placing every possible sort of item, from the ridiculous (like a vintage 1996 McDonald's Happy Meal Rapunzel Barbie) to the sublime (Waterford crystal toasting flutes), in the hands of the person (or should I say bidder) who values it most. I've always thought the Left must dislike eBay because it collapses so many of their myths. For example, the Left's (and particularly the Ralph Nader Left's) favorite chorus is that we need more laws to protect consumers...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT - news) will sell its midtown Manhattan headquarters building to a partnership led by Tishman Speyer Properties for $175 million, the companies said. The sale is expected to close before the end of the year, although N.Y. Times Co. will remain in the building as a tenant until its new headquarters are ready in 2007, according to the announcement made on Monday. After the N.Y. Times Co. moves out, Tishman Speyer said it plans to convert the facility into an office building. N.Y. Times Co., publisher of the flagship New York...