Free Republic

When the mayor of Richmond, Calif., and a gaggle of activists and homeowners showed up at the Wells Fargo Bank headquarters in downtown San Francisco this month, they were on a mission to speak with the bank’s chief executive. They wanted the bank to drop a lawsuit aimed at stopping Richmond’s first-in-the-nation plan to use the government’s constitutional power of eminent domain to “seize” hundreds of mortgages from Wells Fargo and other financial institutions. … Wells Fargo, three other banks and even the Federal Housing Finance Agency think otherwise. The banks have filed two lawsuits alleging that the plan is...

Barack Obama might have as much power to shape a new court as Reagan. Like Reagan, Obama could appoint as many as three justices before Inauguration Day 2013. John Paul Stevens, 88, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75, are of retirement age, and Ginsburg is a colon cancer survivor. David Souter, 69, has reportedly expressed an interest in returning to his home in New Hampshire. (Kennedy, who has twice had minor heart procedures, is 72, as is Scalia.)

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The Debate: The mainstream media were taken aback by some of the questions asked of Barack Obama at the ABC-run debate in Philadelphia. We, on the other hand, were pleasantly surprised.We'll admit we weren't expecting much more of this debate than the earlier puffball affairs sponsored by CNN and MSNBC. And indeed, the first question out of ABC anchorman Charlie Gibson's mouth — about the chances for a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton dream team — had us muttering, "Here we go again." But when that went nowhere (Obama said such talk was "premature"), Gibson got down to business by asking about...

Ex-president Bill Clinton didn't sound particularly enthusiastic yesterday about his party's presidential front-runner, saying only that it wasn't "fair" to call Sen. John Kerry too liberal to win the White House without challenging the accuracy of that perception. "I don't think it's fair to say he can't be elected or that he's too far to the left," Clinton told reporters as he emerged from a Democratic Party strategy session on Capitol Hill. Clinton's failure to mount a stronger defense of Kerry stands in marked contrast to his earlier comments on behalf of Gen. Wesley Clark, whom he called in September...