Free Republic

Okay, it’s time to finally admit it: Barack Obama hates businessmen. Not just certain businessmen, mind you, but the entire profession. Of course President Obama will deny this. He told Businessweek magazine in a recent interview that he is not anti-business and that he believes in the private sector. But the evidence is overwhelming, and it helps explain why he is pursuing kamakazi-like economic policies that will damage the private sector in America. Obama has demonized just about every business sector in America. Through the 2008 campaign to the present, he has gone after credit card companies, the coal industry,...

EATONTON, Ga. -- Authorities say an Augusta businessman killed himself after being chased by police in Putnam County. Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills says a deputy tried to pull Jay Weinberger over early Saturday morning because he was towing a trailer with an expired tag. Sills says Weinberger eventually pulled over but took off when the deputy approached his car. The car left the road after a short distance, where the deputy found Weinberger dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Sills says the trailer was stolen and police later found several other stolen trailers in Weinberger's possession. Excerpt - more...

RIVERSIDE, California: The Jordanian business partner of a prominent Florida businessman, who has raised more than $500,000 for Senator John McCain, appears to be at the center of a cluster of questionable donations to his Republican presidential campaign. Campaign finance records show that McCain collected a little more than $50,000 in March from members of a single extended family, the Abdullahs, in California and several of their friends. Amid a sea of contributions to the McCain campaign, the Abdullahs stand out. The checks come not from the usual well-off coastal addresses, but from lower-income inland California towns like Downey and...

The family of Ameriquest Mortgage founder Roland Arnall says he has died at UCLA Medical Center. He was 68. The billionaire helped create and later emerged as a symbol of the struggling sub-prime mortgage industry. A family statement said Arnall died Monday morning but did not give the cause of death. Arnall was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands in March 2006 after an approval process that was slowed by unsettled issues regarding Ameriquest. the California-based lending company he founded in 1979. A major Republican financier, Arnall's fortune was estimated at $1.5 billion by Forbes magazine last year.

A former Navy captain and prisoner of war in Vietnam was one of three who died Friday when a small two-engine plane crashed in California's Central Valley. Cole Black of Escondido was aboard the twin-engine plane that crashed in an orange grove in a rural area near Delano, his wife, Karen Black, told The Associated Press. Black, a Navy pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam and was jailed in a prison nicknamed "Hanoi Hilton" for nearly seven years, was heading home after speaking to students in Oregon about his experience as a POW. In 1993 article, Black told...

(Fortune Magazine) -- Willard Mitt Romney looks great in a suit. Which is good for him, because all day "Matinee Mitt" has been wearing a crisp, gray number. Speeches, grip-and-grin events, a veterans hall - no venue-appropriate costume changes, just pure Brooks Brothers. Even now, when it's 85 degrees and he's surrounded by people in shorts, the man won't so much as loosen his tie. It's Memorial Day, we're standing around waiting for a photo shoot to begin in front of his summerhouse on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, and he's refusing his handlers' pleas to at least take his jacket...

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2007 – A New York State-based business owner made a seven-figure donation in frequent-flyer miles to the Fisher House Foundation as part of a Memorial Day-weekend promotion sponsored by CNN, a Fisher House official reported. Advertising and public relations executive Eric Mower donated 1 million frequent flyer miles that he’d accumulated during business travel with Delta Airlines over the past few years, said Pam Lea-Maida, program manager for Fisher House’s “Hero Miles” program at the organization’s headquarters in Rockville, Md. Air mileage donated as part of the program is used to provide transportation for family members...

A businessman was sentenced Monday to 4 1/2 years in federal prison for a pair of schemes, including one that authorities said involved wiretapping by Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano. Daniel Nicherie, 46, pleaded guilty in December to one count of aiding and abetting, admitting in federal court that he authorized Pellicano to intercept phone conversations pertaining to a business dispute. Prosecutors said Nicherie paid Pellicano $160,000 and listened to the intercepted conversations at the detective's office. Nicherie also pleaded guilty to wire fraud, pension fraud and money laundering charges in a separate case in which he was accused of...

A businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to aiding and abetting charges linked to the wiretapping case against one-time private eye to the stars Anthony Pellicano. Daniel Nicherie, 46, was the seventh defendant to plead guilty in connection with sweeping allegations of a conspiracy involving wiretapping and digging up dirt on people, including celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone. Nicherie admitted in federal court that he authorized Pellicano to intercept the telephone conversations of a man he was in a business dispute with. Prosecutors alleged that Nicherie listened to the intercepted conversations and translated those talks at Pellicano's office. Under a deal with...

An Orange County businessman was sentenced to serve 50 years to life in prison for the videotaped molestation of a preschool girl during a two-year period. David Hwang, 35, agreed to plead guilty to all charges under a deal that Superior Court Judge Gary Paer said would spare the girl and her family from reliving "the nightmare." Hwang admitted to 60 counts of kidnapping for child molestation, lewd acts on a child under 14, oral copulation on a person under 14, anal or genital penetration with a foreign object of a child under 14, using a minor for sex acts...

Ky. businessman gets 7 years for bribe to JeffersonBy MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer A Kentucky telecommunications executive who admitted paying more than $400,000 in bribes to Rep. William Jefferson was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison. Vernon Jackson, 54, of Louisville, is a key figure in the federal investigation of Jefferson, D-La., who has not been charged. But in court papers, prosecutors have alleged that they caught Jefferson on videotape taking a $100,000 cash bribe. Most of that money later turned up in a freezer in Jefferson's home. Jefferson was never mentioned by name in Friday's...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Kentucky businessman has pleaded guilty to bribing a member of the US House of Representatives in exchange for help exporting telecommunications equipment to Africa, the Justice Department said. Vernon Jackson, 53, admitted to paying an unnamed Representative more than 400,000 dollars through a shell consulting company set up in the names of the politician's spouse and children. CNN, citing government sources, reported that the unnamed lawmaker was Democratic Louisiana congressman William Jefferson. In the plea, Jackson said the politician first helped him get his company's equipment on the US Army's list of approved products in 2000....

SEATAC, Wash. - As the sun dipped low in the sky last Sunday and his plane began its descent, Eugene Nelson had a sinking feeling that something was wrong. He'd been in the air for hours, much longer than his business flight from Hong Kong to Taiwan should have taken. Then the airliner flashed a map of his flight's path on a video screen, and it hit him. Instead of descending toward the island off China's eastern coast, the next stop on the Intel Corp. engineer's itinerary would be the remote city of Taiyuan, an industrial center deep within China....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2006 – A senior member of New York City's business community who's also a strong advocate of the U.S. military helped arrange a recent summit bringing together groups that support America's troops. Joyce Rumsfeld, wife of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, talks with John O'Connor, chief executive officer at the J.H. Whitney investment firm, at the Council on Foreign Relations building in New York City Feb. 17. O'Connor endorses America Supports You and facilitated a summit meeting of groups that support the military. Photo by Gerry J. Gilmore   The "America Supports You" summit meeting was held...

FBI arrests businessman in UN oil-for-food scandal Philip Sherwell in Washington (Filed: 08/01/2006) A South Korean businessman accused of receiving millions of dollars from Saddam Hussein's regime to bribe top United Nations officials over the controversial oil-for-food programme has been arrested by FBI agents in Houston, Texas. Tongsun Park is expected to co-operate with the US authorities in a deal that could throw fresh light on rampant corruption surrounding the UN-administered programme. The indictment, released on Friday, refers to attempts to buy the influence of two unnamed UN officials. A separate investigation - led by Paul Volcker, a former Federal...

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) - A businessman with ties to Los Angeles police testified Monday he tried frantically to alert authorities to an alternate theory of who killed Robert Blake's wife but his story apparently was discounted. Brian Allan Fiebelkorn was called to the stand by Blake's defense in his civil wrongful death trial. The witness, who manages one of the nation's largest luxury car dealerships, provided jurors with a complex story that sounded like the stuff of a movie script. It featured a homeless, toothless man, two suicides and a group tied to Marlon Brando's son, Christian. Fiebelkorn, who described...

WASHINGTON, July 8, 2005 – With his family in tow, Phil Randazzo came here over the Fourth of July weekend to pay respect to wounded servicemembers and to hand out a few tokens of his appreciation. Along with his wife and three children, Randazzo visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center here and donated 13 mini DVD players and 50 DVDs to the institution so that wounded troops can enjoy a variety of movies and television programs during their recovery, Randazzo said. "These are the people who make our country great," he said. "My wife and I could not have felt...

CHICAGO (AP) - A politically connected businessman who admitted lying to get $120 million in city contracts set aside for companies operated by women and minorities was sentenced Wednesday to almost 10 years in federal prison. James Duff, 46, whose family has been prominent among Mayor Richard M. Daley's supporters, sat expressionless as Judge Elaine E. Bucklo described him as a bully who contributed to an impression that corruption is widespread in Chicago. "The public needs to know that corruption and fraud against the city will not be dealt with by a slap on the wrist," Bucklo said in imposing...

SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger filled a four-month-old vacancy on the influential California Public Utilities Commission on Monday by appointing John Bohn, a fellow Republican with a diverse background in finance, law, technology, public relations and the government. Bohn, 67, is expected to be sworn in before the PUC's Thursday meeting, giving the state's top energy and telecommunications regulator a full slate of five commissioners for the first time this year. Schwarzenegger picked Bohn after a previous appointment of another Republican businessman, Steve Poizner, fell through. Poizner was never sworn in to the PUC because he held telecommunications investments...

Canadian businessman and UN envoy Maurice Strong is one weird dude. Weird in his sidekicks. Mikhail Gorbachev, for one. The former Soviet leader and the Canuck really believe they can replace the Ten Commandments with their overstated Earth Charter, Weird in his handpicked protégés. Try Canada’s Prime Minister Paul Martin, the career politician whose one and only trip to the election polls as Canadian PM reduced the powerful Liberal Party to minority status. This, after assuming the mantle left by the departure of Jean Chrétien in pomp and splendour Indian smudging ceremonies, addressed by Irish rock star, Bono. Martin’s surrealistic...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - An American businessman installed a restricted U.S. satellite system on an Iranian oil tanker and helped smuggle computer equipment to Iran's nuclear weapons program, federal prosecutors said. Mohammad Farahbakhsh, 43, already faces smuggling charges for allegedly funneling pressure sensors to Iran. He was indicted Wednesday on new charges spelling out a scheme to sell prohibited equipment to his native country. Between 1998 and 2000, Farahbakhsh sold computer parts from National Instruments, based in Austin, Texas, to the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, a branch of the Iranian government "involved in developing and producing ballistic and cruise...

"I am a Catholic businessman but I don't let the Church influence what I do at the office or in the boardroom;" but Jesus says (Mt 7:21), "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." "I am a Catholic politician but I don't let my Catholicism impact on how I vote or what legislation I promote;" but Jesus says (Mt 7:26-27), "Everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who...

A London accountant has described how Pakistan's disgraced nuclear hero Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan visited the West African state of Mali on three occasions between 1998 and 2000. Abdul Ma'bood Siddiqui accompanied A.Q. Khan on three mystery trips  between 1998 and 2000. Their final destination was Timbuktu, a remote outpost in the desert that has always been a magnet for explorers and adventurers from around the world. The mystery behind the visits has deepened following recent revelations that Khan is also the owner of a small hotel in the town that he has named after Hendrina, his Dutch-born wife and...

Pakistani Businessman Held in Nuke Probe Monday February 16, 2004 2:16 AM By SADAQAT JAN Associated Press Writer ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - A Pakistani businessman has been detained for questioning about his suspected links to the disgraced father of the country's nuclear program, officials said Sunday. It was unclear exactly when Aizaz Jaffery was detained or what ties he is suspected of having to Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist. Khan has acknowledged giving weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. The government has said he was motivated by money. Jaffery ``is under detention and under investigation,'' said...

Jefferson Area Libertarians in Virginia "rallied around the flag" for a local businessman who was dragged into court for flying a company flag. On February 22, about three dozen Libertarians and other activists held a demonstration of support for Tom Dulaney Slonaker, owner of an Arby's restaurant on Route 29 in Charlottesville. In freezing rain, participants waved miniature American flags "to show their support of Mr. Slonaker's constitutional rights," said J.A.L. member John Munchmeyer, who helped coordinate the event. In December, Slonaker was fined almost $4,000 by the Albemarle County government for flying an Arby's flag from his flagpole and...

Porn shows up in businessman's slide show Associated Press FORT WORTH -- A North Texas businessman has been jailed after co-workers reported an image of child pornography showed up on a screen as he gave a computer slide presentation recently. James Andrew Smith of Denton was in the Mansfield Jail under $300,000 bond after he was charged with two counts of possessing child pornography and one charge of promoting child pornography. Exel Inc. co-workers told police Smith had just completed a PowerPoint presentation on Sept. 4 when he tried to open another document on his laptop computer. The co-workers said...

<p>Ken Lay and Martha Stewart aren't running for office in California this year. So it's not really fair to hold Bill Simon responsible for their sins. But now that the voters' love affair with corporate America has hit the rocks, any business leader currently running for political office is encountering much different types of questions than in years past.</p>