Free Republic

<p>Mr. New York is movin’ out of his beloved Long Island home of over 20 years.</p><p>In the village of Centre Island, roughly 40 miles east of Midtown Manhattan, Billy Joel’s 26-acre estate has hit the market for $49 million.</p>

Los Angeles has experienced a 16% increase in the homeless population over the last year, the latest sign of severe income inequality and a worsening housing crisis plaguing California. There are now more than 36,000 homeless people in the city of LA, and nearly 59,000 across LA county, a 16% and 12% uptick respectively, according to an annual LA county report released on Tuesday. The county “point-in-time count”, conducted by thousands of volunteers in January each year, is an estimate of the number of people living on the street, in tents, in cars and in shelters. The sharp increases paint...

RUSH: More on the California Democrat convention and the booing of John Hickenlooper. The former governor of Colorado gets booed off the stage, practically, for simply saying heading in the direction of socialism is not… Not “heading in the direction.” Socialism is not the answer. The people in California didn’t want to hear that. California’s Democrats… California, politically, is a socialist state now — and I say that in the meaning of the term ideologically. Of course, that encompasses attitudinal and behavioral and everything else. From all intents and purposes, California is a socialist state. So let’s examine just some...

President Barack Obama is likely hoping that the sixth time is the charm as far as vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard for a sixth time during his presidency. Obviously, each vacation has been crowded with news reporters, those trusty photographers camping out to catch him with a fork or ice cream cone in his mouth, ....[snip]

President Obama leaves Washington, D.C., this afternoon for a 16-day vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, staying at a luxurious rental home in Chilmark. Obama’s schedule was updated Friday, allowing him to leave a day earlier than expected. According to the Vineyard Gazette, the President is again renting the multi-million dollar home owned by Joanne Hubschman as he did in 2014. The house has seven bedrooms, a pool, a basketball court, a tennis court, and a private workout room, the entire propriety estimated at about $12 million.

In the latest blow to New Jersey, which is still staggering from the recession, Mercedes-Benz USA said on Tuesday that it would move its headquarters to Georgia from Montvale, N.J.

Aloha, Obama! First Family Arrives in Hawaii for 16-Day Vacation Dec 19, 2014, DEVIN DWYER U.S. President Barack Obama boards Air Force One at Whiteman Air Force Base, July 24, 2013, in Missouri. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Aloha, Obama family! The president and first family have arrived in Hawaii, for a 16-day tropical vacation that’s become their annual tradition over the Christmas and New Year holidays. "My presidency is entering the fourth quarter," President Obama said at his final press conference of the year on Friday. "Going into the fourth quarter, you usually get a time-out. I am now looking forward...

President Barack Obama will remain at the White House on both Monday and Tuesday as voters head to the polls to determine whether to oust his political party from power in the Senate. A copy of his public schedule reveals that the president will return to Washington, D.C. tonight after campaign events in Connecticut and Pennsylvania and stay there through Election Day. Tomorrow Obama will sit down with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. The following day he'll take other meetings at the White House instead of barnstorming the country, campaigning for endangered Democrats. While the president will be out of...

Ex-U.S. President Carter plans to visit North Korea - report July 29, 2013 - 05:15 SEOUL (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is planning to visit North Korea soon to try to win the release of a U.S. citizen held for committing crimes against the reclusive state, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Monday. Carter has made contact with the North to arrange for the visit, and he is likely to make the trip in a personal capacity to secure the release of Kenneth Bae, the U.S. citizen, a source in Washington was quoted as saying by Yonhap....

As the White House first announced in March, Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Mexico and Costa Rica later this week. The trip is billed as "an important opportunity to reinforce the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America." And at yesterday’s White House press conference, the president stated that he is "very much looking forward to taking the trip down to Mexico" this week. But the trip won’t exactly be cheap for taxpayers, assuming the costs mirror those incurred by the American taxpayers for President Obama's last trip to Mexico,...

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama departed Friday morning for Southeast Asia, where they will spend the next ten days.

Friday, Nov. 5—Obama leaves Washington. Saturday, Nov. 6—Arrives Mumbai, India; holds meetings with business leaders, others. Sunday, Nov. 7—Travels to New Delhi. Monday, Nov. 8—Meetings with Indian government officials in New Delhi. Tuesday, Nov. 9—Travels to Jakarta, Indonesia. Wednesday, Nov. 10—Speech in Indonesia; travels to Seoul, South Korea. Thursday, Nov. 11—In Seoul, speaks to U.S. troops for Veterans Day; Opening ceremonies for Group of 20 economic summit. Friday, Nov. 12—G20 working sessions, news conference; Departs Seoul for Yokohama, Japan. Saturday, Nov. 13—Attends meetings for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Yokohama, Japan. Sunday, Nov. 14—Visits Great Buddha statue before departing Japan...

All you need is ubuntu You and me, me and you, lots and lots, for us to do By Sean Coughlan BBC News Magazine Bill Clinton told the Labour conference to get into ubuntu. Eh? Ubuntu. That was what Bill Clinton told the Labour party conference it needed to remember this week. "Society is important because of Ubuntu." But what is it? Left-leaning sudoku? U2's latest album? Fish-friendly sushi? No, it's a word describing an African worldview, which translates as "I am because you are," and which means that individuals need other people to be fulfilled. The former president, husky-voiced...

Bill Clinton Blasts Bush in Britain Former U.S. President Bill Clinton waded into the debate on the future of Britain's ruling Labour Party on Wednesday, warning that its achievements could be swept away if it lost the next election. "I think your biggest problem right now is that people take your achievements and your ideas for the future for granted," Clinton told the Labour Party's annual conference. Prime Minister Tony Blair, a close friend of Clinton, gave an emotional farewell speech to the conference on Tuesday after announcing he would leave office within a year. The party, in power for...

SEOUL (Reuters) - A former U.S. cabinet member who has held discussions with North Korean officials in the past over the North's nuclear ambitions may be planning a fresh trip to Pyongyang, Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday. Richardson had been in discussions with the North Korean mission to the United Nations in New York about the visit, Yonhap cited the source as saying.Richardson was unlikely to travel as an official U.S. envoy, the source said, but added that he had acted as a conduit for the Bush administration before.

You're John Kerry, and this is the worst weekend of your life. This is the moment when you should be preparing to take the oath of office, trying to figure out how to say, ``So help me God,'' without choking on that last word the way all good Massachusetts liberals do. You've been globe-trotting for weeks now, bad-mouthing your own country in Third World hellholes, but now you know Joe Louis was right. You can run but you can't hide. As Hosni Mubarak told you in Cairo, ``You don't have to go home, Senator, but you can't stay here.'' You're...