Free Republic

POLITICO's top story this morning is on the midnight resignation of embattled environmental adviser Van Jones, whose radical political views and past affiliation with a 9/11 conspiracy group put pressure on the White House in recent weeks. Much of the credit for Jones resigning should go to Fox's Glenn Beck, who as HuffPo's Ryan Grim notes, has his "first scalp." Beck repeatedly called attention to Jones's past comments and affiliations without mentioning that he was also the co-founder of ColorOfChange, the African-American activist group leading a boycott against the Fox host. Even before the boycott, Beck mentioned Jones twice on...

Rush and Malloy’s Gossip column in the New York Daily News reports today that Bill Clinton’s offices are infested with bed bugs, and employees have been evacuated during treatment: "Bedbugs have sent Bill Clinton and his staff fleeing the former President’s offices, a source tells us. No word on whether WJC actually has a bed in his Harlem suite, but the infestation is said to have been so bad that exterminators told Clintonistas to take a few days off." That’s all we know so far. I do not wish bed bugs on anyone, but one positive outcome is that high...

Guess who's not pleased about Van Jones middle-of-the-night-on-a-holiday-weekend resignation? Perhaps you never would have seen this one coming, but no other MSNBC "Countdown" host and provocateur Keith Olbermann himself. Bitter and seeing red? Perhaps. In a post on the Daily Kos dated Sept. 6, Olbermann urged the half-crazed liberal Kos readers to go digging for dirt on Fox News host Glenn Beck, Beck's radio producer Stu Burguiere and Fox News president Roger Ailes. (h/t Morgen of Verum Serum) "I don't know why I've got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and...

Thomas Freidman and Tom Brokaw show that internet journalism simply cannot be trusted if in the end someone on the left is hurt by the news. This video shows what complete disgraces these 2 men are...

EVEN as the economy may be starting to recover, banks across the country are confronting a worsening outlook for their construction loans, an area that boomed for much of the decade. Reports filed by banks with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation indicate that at the end of June about one-sixth of all construction loans were in trouble. With more than half a trillion dollars in such loans outstanding, that represents a source of major losses for banks. Construction loans were highly attractive in recent years for many banks, particularly smaller ones without a national presence. One reason was that other...

An online petition is urging Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie to run for governor now that Jim Douglas says he plans to retire. At the same time, state Auditor Tom Salmon is debating whether to get into the race to support Douglas' fiscal policies. VPR's Bob Kinzel reports. (Kinzel) Joe Sinagra is the executive director of the Vermont Homebuilders Association, and over the past few years, he's been a strong supporter of Lt. Governor Brian Dubie. Sinagra has launched a Facebook page to encourage Vermonters to post their public support for Dubie. The three announced Democratic candidates, state senators Doug Racine...

Sunday, September 06, 2009 The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s policy requiring flood insurance in flood plains is meant to protect life and property. But in East Waco, it may cost a single mom her home. Charrie Rollins, 36, is facing foreclosure on the $81,000 brick home she bought three years ago on Bowers Lane near Interstate 35. She says she has fallen behind on her payments because she can’t afford the flood insurance her lender began requiring after FEMA determined last summer that her home was in a flood plain. FEMA last September reclassified the area east of Hillsboro Drive...

I am planning a cartoon called 10 kinds of Democrats. Its in response to a cartoon by a group of marxist students called 10 kinds of republicans. Its in the theme of little mr and liittle ms. I already have four characters sort of penned out. Mr IRS, MR gun grabber, MR wright, MR Tibbits and need six more. I also need some suggestions for poetry and such. Maybe I'll do 12 instead of 10. Thank you.

Earlier this week one of the world’s biggest publishers of Bibles, Biblica, announced plans to bring out a completely new international version of, er, the New International Version. It comes after a 2005 edition, Today’s New International Version, caused outrage among traditionalists for its politically correct attempt to make the holy text of Christianity “gender accurate”. So out went references to sons of God, the creation of man and brethren, and in came children, humans and brothers and sisters. Mary became pregnant rather than with child, and nobody was “stoned” in case it gave teenagers the giggles. Meanwhile, the excellent...

Over the last few months, there has been a growing movement to bring transparency and new levels of accountability to the US Federal Reserve. Congressman Ron Paul has been leading the fight in the House of Representatives. There’s no champion fighting in the US Senate to bring accountability to the Federal Reserve, but that might change if one Kentucky senatorial candidate gets elected. Currently in the U.S. Senate, there’s a piece of legislation similar to Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207 which would bring new levels of accountability to the Federal Reserve by allowing the GAO to audit the Fed. The legislation,...

I laughed it off as casually as I could, before slipping on the most padded jacket I had. This was a date with a lion after all. Sitting alongside the camera crew and my fellow presenter, here with me to make tourism videos on South Africa, I took solace from the fact that the lion I was going to visit was called Mapimpan, which means “little baby” in Shangaan, and it was little more than a year old. The lion was just a few days old when Arrie, the sanctuary’s resident lion expert, found it wandering the roadside, injured and...

"What is Examiner.com? Launched in April 2008, Examiner.com is the insider source of everything local, offering a rich mix of hyper-local and globally relevant content. Examiner.com covers more than 100 major U.S. cities, thousands of towns and neighborhoods, and is developing a strong presence in international markets including Canada, the U.K., the Philippines and Australia. Website visitors are geo-targeted to their closest market, with over 18 million monthly unique visitors expected by the end of 2009. "Examiner.com is a division of the Clarity Media Group, and is wholly owned by The Anschutz Company, one of the largest media investment companies...

For some reason the usual link isn't working so Mark Steyn's post is below.

If Marco Rubio's appearance in Lakeland on Wednesday is any indication of his support in his campaign for the U.S. Senate then Gov. Charlie Crist had better take notice. Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House and chief challenger to Gov. Charlie Crist for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senator, addressed the Lakeland Republican Club. At the Cleveland Heights Golf Club, Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House and chief challenger to Gov. Charlie Crist for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senator, addressed the Lakeland Republican Club. Rubio, the former speaker of the Florida House who is challenging...

LEBANON, Ohio — A Kentucky man skydiving in Ohio was injured when his parachute failed and his backup chute opened about 50 feet above ground. Fifty-seven-year-old Steve Stoll of Louisville, Ky., was skydiving at the Warren County Airport in Lebanon about 7:15 p.m. Saturday. Dispatchers said the jumper's parachute failed and his backup opened before he hit the ground.

We would like to believe that the economy is going to go roaring right back to steady 3%-4% growth.  But we still haven't seen compelling facts to support that view. The bullish argument is that this is simply the way economies recover.  And the stimulus-fueled rebound of Q2 and Q3 has certainly been v-shaped (see chart --which will continue up and to the right in Q3). But this argument does not explain how consumer spending is going to quickly rev back up to sustainable 3%-4% growth in the face of massive debts, 10% unemployment, huge government deficits, tight credit, and...

One of the goals of proposed regulatory changes of the financial industry is — as President Obama has argued — to create "a 21st century regulatory framework to ensure that a crisis like this can never happen again": Yet can a government — whether run by Republicans or Democrats — really anticipate future bubbles or meltdowns? And if it could, would the government have the political will (or political power) to prevent future meltdowns? The last time that we had a recession as deep as the current one was in 1980-82 when a Federal Reserve induced credit crunch caused short...

(CNN) -- The mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, is asking Mexican federal authorities not to pull military units out of the region for at least another six months. A decision on whether to withdraw the troops is expected before September 15. The troops were sent to the city across from El Paso, Texas, in the spring of 2008 to help quell violence involving warring drug cartels. An additional surge of troops was sent this spring. That surge appeared to work at first, cutting the homicide rate in Juarez drastically. But murders in the city spiked over the summer. Figures provided...

I LOVE the first few seconds of this video when Bernanke is asked to detail where the stimulus money goes, and he stutters and says- uh... no. Some day, we're going to find out that this country could have become a giant Disneyland, with condos on Neptune if it weren't for the Fed's gang of thieves.

This morning on This Week Gibbs gave me the first official response: GEORGE: Does the president believe that he is the victim of a smear campaign or does the president think that Jones actions and words merit resignation? GIBBS: “Well what Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual. The president thanks Van Jones for his service in the first eight months helping to coordinate renewable energy jobs and lay the foundation for our future economic problem...The president accepted his resignation, but Van Jones as he said in his statement he was...