Free Republic

Testing a re-election theme, President Barack Obama is telling donors during a fundraising rich tour of three western states that the country is suffering from an economic crisis and from a political crisis. "People are crying out for action," he says. Pointing to elements of his $447 billion jobs plan rejected by Republican lawmakers, Obama said they would likely linger as campaign issues in 2012. "This is the fight that we're going to have right now, and I suspect this is the fight that we're going to have to have over the next year," Obama told about 240 donors at...

Documents obtained under a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch detail costs incurred during the First Lady's trip to South Africa and Botswana in June - with the cost of firing up 'Air Force 2' alone amounting to $424,142. The White House earlier professed the purpose of the trip was to help 'youth leadership, education, health and wellness' in south Africa.

Politics: The hippie horde attempting to mob and "occupy" Wall Street this week has a method to its madness. It's all about getting President Obama re-elected by employing classic Alinskyite tactics. At first glance, the latest protests staged by left-wing rent-a-mobs in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and elsewhere don't look terribly different from the World Trade Organization and global debt-amnesty spectaculars of a decade ago. Radicals swarm against some hated totem, chant, break a few Starbucks windows and leave scads of garbage for someone else to clean up. But the "Occupy Wall Street" mob that shut down the Brooklyn...

A state lawmaker and a group of Democratic political donors with ties to Gov. Beverly Perdue are poised to sell land at a handsome profit for a tire plant that's being lured with $100 million in state and local incentives, according to public records reviewed by The Associated Press. As North Carolina's chief executive, the governor is a key decision maker in large incentives deals involving state money. She also helps appoint the board members of a foundation that's been asked to provide part of the tire plant's package. Perdue's campaign has received more than $52,000 from five men with...

Advocates for the unemployed have cheered a push by the Obama administration to ban discrimination against the jobless. But business groups and their allies are calling the effort unnecessary and counterproductive. The job creation bill that President Obama sent to Congress earlier this month includes a provision that would allow unsuccessful job applicants to sue if they think a company of 15 more employees denied them a job because they were unemployed. The provision would ban employment ads that explicitly declare the unemployed ineligible, with phrases like "Jobless need not apply." As The Lookout has reported, such ads appear to...

I don't know about the political ethics or math skills of the UC Berkeley students who came up with the idea for an Increase Diversity Bake Sale, but they certainly know how to draw a crowd. The student Republican group that sponsored a race-based bake sale set to be held on the campus today must have been counting on raising more than just the cookie dough. There are few places in America more reactionary than a college campus, and among them, UC Berkeley is a leader. A bake sale flyer posted on Facebook last week linked the price of pastries...