Free Republic

The stock market's steep declines have not only produced daily gyrations and heightened volatility, but they have also shocked some of Wall Street's longest-tenured veterans. Chaotic trading has sent major stock indexes down by double-digit percentages in only a matter of weeks, as investors continue to fret about the state of the global economy, European debt troubles and a U.S. debt-ceiling standoff and credit-rating downgrade. Tuesday's action was a microcosm of how nervous markets have become. After the Federal Reserve's newly downbeat assessment of the U.S. economy, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rapidly dropped as much as 206 points. Just...

I was splashing around in Lake Michigan last week when the realization hit me like a wave — I was wrong about Barack Obama. I should have voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary three years ago. At the time of the primary, the decision seemed easy. I saw in Obama the same qualities Jack Kerouac saw in Dean Moriarty in "On the Road." He was 'something new, long prophesied, long a-coming." Hillary was not new. She represented the second act of "Billary," and I had tired of that play long before it ended its eight-year run. So I...

Once again, Michael Nutter is not messin' around. You know he's not playing when he pulls out the black vernacular. And there was a whole lot of it during his 30-minute rant - I mean, sermon - from behind the pulpit to a packed congregation Sunday at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia. Disgusted by the mobs of African American youths who have been terrorizing folks in City Center lately, he gave the black community a good old-fashioned whipping. I could almost hear my grandmother say, "Get me a switch!" He chastised black fathers for being nothing more than...

A St. Louis woman was charged today with statutory rape, child molestation and sodomy after she was accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in her neighborhood. Charged is Levetrea Dione Atkins, 36, of the 5700 block of Theodore Avenue in St. Louis. Court documents describe the boy as developmentally delayed. The boy told authorities Atkins persuaded him to get money from his piggy bank and give it to her on June 24, according to court documents. Then she molested, sodomized and had sex with the boy, the filing says. Neighbors reported what happened to the teen's father after Atkins...

As Democratic disgust with Obama’s debt fumbling spreads, Clinton supporters recall her '3 a.m. phone call' warnings—and angry, frustrated liberals are muttering that she should mount a 2012 challenge. by Leslie Bennetts | August 7, 2011 8:58 PM EDT At a New York political event last week, Republican and Democratic office-holders were all bemoaning President Obama’s handling of the debt-ceiling crisis when someone said, “Hillary would have been a better president.” “Every single person nodded, including the Republicans,” reported one observer. At a luncheon in the members’ dining room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, a 64-year-old African-American...

Gov. Scott Walker has ordered the Wisconsin State Patrol to provide additional law enforcement help at the Wisconsin State Fair after several incidents involving rampaging youths broke out on the fairgrounds and on the streets outside Thursday night. Cullen Werwie, Walker's spokesman, said the governor made the decision after reviewing the events from Thursday night, in which at least 24 people were arrested. "We will continue to evaluate the situation and make any adjustments necessary to ensure a successful and safe event. We will be doing everything in our power to ensure that parents feel that it is safe to...

It was five years ago now that Mitt Romney and the late White House spokesman Tony Snow both spent time in the hot seat for using the term “tar baby.” Romney was referring to the Big Dig highway project in Boston, and Snow to an abstract debate. But there are those who consider the term, originally referring to something difficult to free oneself from once touched, a racial slur. John McCain nevertheless used it the following year in a discussion of divorce law, and this week it’s Representative Doug Lamborn who is being accused of racism for his comments on...

Progressives and other peeved supporters of President Obama who aren’t happy with the all-cuts-no-revenue deal to raise the debt ceiling need to see it as the beginning of a very long (and necessary) process to get the nation’s fiscal house in order. But it also means that the president will have to be more aggressive in his use of presidential power. In short, I want him to use everything the bully pulpit has to offer to get what he wants, including shutting down the government if he must. After what we just went through to avert economic catastrophe, padlocking Washington...

The politics of the debt fight were a drag for President Barack Obama, yanking his popularity to new lows. Here’s an even bigger drag: Obama emerges from the months-long fracas weaker – and facing much deeper and more durable political obstacles – than his own advisers ever imagined. The consensus has been that for all his problems, Obama is so skilled a politician – and the eventual GOP nominee so flawed or hapless — that he’d likely be re-elected. Don’t buy into it. This breezy certitude fails to reckon with how weak his fundamentals are a year out from the...

Taxed-out New Yorkers are voting with their feet, with a staggering 1.6 million residents fleeing the state over the last decade, a new report found. That's as if the entire populations of Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, White Plains and West Babylon combined had packed up and left. For the second consecutive decade, New York led the nation in the percentage of residents leaving for other states, according to the report by the Empire Center for State Policy. The population loss is "the ultimate barometer of New York's attractiveness as a place to work, live and do business," said the report's co-author,...

Rep. David Wu has been accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend, the latest scandal to engulf the troubled Oregon Democrat. The Oregonian reported that the 56-year-old Wu “acknowledged a sexual encounter to his senior aides but insisted it was consensual,” according to sources aware of the incident. The unidentified teenage woman and her family did not file any criminal complaint over the incident, which took place sometime around last Thanksgiving. Calling the episode “very serious,” Wu did not specifically address allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances on a young woman who...

“Call me naïve,” President Obama told reporters during his press conference yesterday, “but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead.” I’m not sure “naïve” is right, but terms like “frivolous” and “vain” did come to mind again and again throughout the press conference. The President came before reporters without any news to make. He seemed to want to vent a kind of unfocused rage at Congress for something — criticizing congressional leaders at various points for taking too many breaks, for failing to take up patent reforms and free trade legislation, and generally ignoring the fiscal crisis (all...

CHARLESTON, S.C.—Michele Bachmann downplayed tensions with Sarah Palin here Wednesday morning. “They want to see two girls come together and have a mud wrestling fight,” the Minnesota congresswoman said. “And I’m not going to give it to ‘em.” The first question at a morning rally came from a woman who wanted to know if media reports of divisions between the two tea party darlings are true. She said she has “great respect” for Palin. “This race is wide open,” Bachmann told the crowd of more than 200. “We can accommodate all the candidates who want to come in. We’re going...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will demand a seat in the table for the final talks on the national debt limit, putting a strong liberal voice in the room. Pelosi and House Democrats were left out of the negotiations between President Obama and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last year that extended nearly all of the Bush tax rates though 2012. Pelosi didn’t participate in the final high-level talks over fiscal 2011 spending levels either. But now she’s demanding her say at a time when many of her House Democratic colleagues are disappointed in Obama’s level of consultation...

A bipartisan team of Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Ron Paul, R-Texas, will introduce federal legislation that would permit states to legalize, regulate, tax and control marijuana without federal interference. The legislation will be unveiled Thursday by Frank, an outspoken liberal Democrat, and the libertarian Paul, who is running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. The bill would limit the U.S. government role in marijuana enforcement to interdiction of cross-border or inter-state smuggling. Citizens would be able to legally grow, use or sell cannabis in states which have legalized the forbidden weed. The legislation is the first bill to be...

Boulder police are looking for a man who hid in the tank of a portable toilet at a yoga festival before running off. A woman at the Hanuman Festival went into the portable toilet Friday and noticed something moving in the tank when she lifted the lid, according to police spokeswoman Kim Kobel. The woman exited and asked a man nearby to look inside the tank. The man told police he saw something moving under a tarp, and when he left the toilet he heard it lock from the inside. A security supervisor then waited outside for the person to...

The choice of the London A-list, St. John’s Wood is a neighborhood of ethereal wealth, its leafy avenues lined with the ample mansions of Paul McCartney, Ewan McGregor and Kate Moss. And yet, they share the most unlikely neighbors — the Kastrati family. Poor immigrants struggling to survive in one of the world’s most expensive cities, the family of four nevertheless lives in a sunny, two-bedroom flat in an enclave of urban privilege. Their benefactor: the British government, which covers 85 percent of their $3,600-a-month rent through welfare benefits giving tens of thousands of low-income earners access to even the...

In the end, Rep. Anthony Weiner stood alone, where he has always wanted to be — in the glare of the national media spotlight. And though he didn’t say it at a Thursday news conference in New York, he hinted he may at some point be back. The night before, away from the crush of the media and the company of colleagues who were partying at the annual White House congressional picnic, Weiner called fellow New York Democrat Steve Israel, who handles campaign politics for House Democrats. Israel, who had attended Weiner’s wedding last July, handed the phone to Minority...

It was supposed to be the White House’s latest make-nice session with corporate America — a visit by Chief of Staff William M. Daley to a meeting with hundreds of manufacturing executives in town to press lawmakers for looser regulations. But the outreach soon turned into a rare public dressing down of the president’s policies with his highest-ranking aide. President Barack Obama is using his weekly media message to ask for patience while the economy recovers. He says the recession didn't happen overnight and won't end that way either. (June 11) President Barack Obama is using his weekly media message...

So, who wants to be a lame-duck freshman? That was the reaction from political insiders on Thursday when asked what would become of Representative Anthony D. Weiner’s Congressional district, which covers Brooklyn and Queens. After all, with New York State set to lose two House seats because of the 2010 census, many believe that Mr. Weiner’s territory, the Ninth Congressional District, will be carved up to benefit Democratic incumbents in adjoining districts. If so, then whoever wins a special election this fall would quite likely get to call himself or herself a member of Congress for a little more than...