Free Republic

Usually at this time of year, San Francisco’s luxury stores are decked with holiday garlands. Instead, they’re boarded up after widespread “flash mob” looting turned Union Square — the city’s most fashionable shopping district — into an area resembling a blighted neighborhood in Detroit. “It’s a ghost town,” said Michelle Tandler, a San Francisco native and high-tech entrepreneur, whose photos of the stores barricaded in plywood went viral on social media this week. “Every store has a security guard. People are going to lose their jobs. And these things have a ripple effect.” Two weeks ago, San Francisco was the...

Residents of 16 states and the District of Columbia gave President Obama approval ratings of 50% or higher during the first half of 2011, led by the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware. Idaho residents had the least positive appraisal of his performance, with 27% approving. These results are based on aggregated Gallup Daily tracking data from January through June, consisting of nearly 90,000 interviews nationally. Obama averaged 47% approval on a nationwide basis during this time. Each state's data is weighted so it is demographically representative of the state's population. The full data for each state can be...