Free Republic

PITTSBURGH -- Lawsuits were filed against the Centers for Rehab Services by two employees who were fired over an e-mail comparing President Barack Obama to a tar ball washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico. The company said the e-mail was inappropriate, but the employees said they were just expressing their political views and were wrongfully fired. Team 4 investigator Paul Van Osdol reported that the e-mail in question was circulated last summer while the federal government was trying to contain the massive Gulf oil spill. It showed an image of Obama walking along a Gulf beach with the caption,...

When we were kids, our family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, and beginning in 1956 we frequently visited Virginia Beach, building sandcastles and chasing sand fleas in the surf. From time to time we would find tar balls on the beach -- not many, and usually they turned up following a storm. The tar balls of Virginia Beach were relics of the early years of World War II. In 1942, a largely-hidden marine war took place off the shores of the Carolinas and Virginia as German U-boats lay in wait for unprotected merchant shipping northbound from the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama Gets Lesson on Tar Balls President Barack Obama visited Fourchon Beach in Louisiana Friday to view the environmental impact of the BP PLC oil gusher in the Gulf. Touring the beach with the parish president, Charlotte Randolf, and Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, who oversees the government response, the president picked up a few nickel- to quarter-sized tarballs—among the only signs on the beach of the leaking oil. “If you guys want to get a little bit closer and get dirty…you can see these little balls — these are the tar balls that they’re talking about…manually you can...