Free Republic

The Obama administration is famous for its crony capitalism. It’s famous for wasting money on disastrous investments like Solyndra to pay off its political allies. It now appears, however, that they go a step further: they put public funds in bad investment loans, then double down on their bad loans with free cash grants.

WASHINGTON -- Commerce Secretary John Bryson has resigned, saying the seizure that he suffered on June 9 that led to two San Gabriel Valley hit-and-run accidents could be a distraction in the job. "I have concluded that the seizure I suffered on June 9th could be a distraction from my performance as Secretary and that our country would be better served by a change in leadership of the Department," Bryson wrote to President Obama in a letter dated Wednesday.

Simpson lawyer answers critics F. Lee Bailey: "So many people said, 'You are the reason he got off.' It is very frustrating, a terribly raw deal. ... It is the most sustained assault on my credibility that I have ever experienced. Why -- if I knew he was guilty -- why go around taking this abuse?" By J. Hemmerdinger jhemmerdinger@pressherald.comStaff Writer YARMOUTH - Former O.J. Simpson defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey is out to set his record straight. click image to enlarge F. Lee Bailey click image to enlarge O.J. Simpson reacts, Oct. 3, 1995, as he is found not guilty...

Local News Website Says You Need To Pay To Read Its Stories, Says It's Collecting Visitor IPs To Sue from the that'll-go-over-well dept Well, here's a fun one. Apparently, there's a local news site known as The North Country Gazette (don't click that just yet...) covering parts of upstate New York via a blog format. Rather than putting in place an actual technical paywall, the site has apparently decided to go with a paywall-by-threat model. If you visit a story on the site, it tells you that you're only allowed to view one page for free, and then they expect...

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipherJust a day after U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed increasing U.S. contributions to his former employer, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by $100 billion, he offered another plan to increase funding for NASA space probes to search for life, and sources of bail-out cash, on other planets. "Let's face it," said an unnamed Treasury source, "Earth is too big to fail. We can all boost funding to the IMF, but at some point that's like scooping water out of a bucket to fill the same bucket. The fundamental problem is that Earth is...

The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party is in critical condition after being shot by a man who is now in police custody. Still developing...

LGF reader “Shiplord Kirel” points out a blog post from July with a comment by a Somali with the same name as the man found dead in Denver with a large amount of possible cyanide: Somali Christian Blog Abandoned. « Zot Media Inc. Please don’t talk sh*t , that man deserves what happened to him , simply because having the bible in one hand , and a bread in the other hand , is not a correct thing ,! Kill Them , Kill them , Kill them , that is my massage,!Comment by Abdirahman Dirie — July 11, 2008 @...

My oh my, what a firestorm I appear to have started with my remarks two days ago on Obama’s background! It was wholly expected, of course, but nevertheless the posters’ comments are so revealing. They graphically illustrate the way in which Obamania has quite obviously destroyed the capacity for reason.First, it is quite clear that any questioning at all of Obama’s background is entirely off-limits. Next, the posters fail totally to grasp that the real point isn’t what faith he professed or was brought up in as a child – it is the fact that he has not told...

New York - At a hastily scheduled morning press conference at the headquarters of New York's exclusive Emperors Club prostitution ring, high priced call girl "Kristen" announced that she would  temporarily step aside in the wake of charges that she had engaged in sex with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. "I made a serious mistake and betrayed the trust of my co-workers, my many clients, and my pimps," she said in a quiet voice cracking with emotion. "I will be taking a leave of absence to earn their forgiveness, and redeem myself in the eyes of the entire expensive whore...

A Scott Beauchamp Update Since our last statement on “Shock Troops,” a Diarist by Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp that we published in our July 23 issue, we have continued our investigation into the article’s veracity. On Wednesday, for a brief period, The Drudge Report posted several documents from the Army’s own investigation into Beauchamp’s claims. Among those documents was a transcript of a phone conversation that TNR Editor Franklin Foer and TNR Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic had with Beauchamp on September 6—the first time the Army had granted TNR permission to speak with Beauchamp since it cut off...

As CNN's Howard Kurtz accurately pointed out on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," few media outlets seemed at all interested in giving much attention to the great news out of Iraq last week regarding September's sharp decline in casualties. To Kurtz's obvious frustration, his guests - Robin Wright of the Washington Post and Barbara Starr of CNN - both supported the press burying this extremely positive announcement.I kid you not.After introducing the subject, Kurtz asked, "Robin Wright, should that decline in Iraq casualties have gotten more media attention?"This was Wright's amazing answer: Not necessarily. The fact is we're at the beginning of...

So long, Halloween parade. Farewell, Santa's gift shop. The holiday traditions are facing elimination in some Oak Lawn schools this year after complaints that the activities are offensive, particularly to Muslim students. Final decisions on which of the festivities will be axed will fall to the principals at each of Ridgeland School District 122's five schools, Supt. Tom Smyth said. Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since officials agreed earlier this month to change the lunch menu to exclude items containing pork to accommodate Muslim students. News that Jell-O was...

News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic. The images were reproduced around the world - including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited - alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week. Titanic error: Reuters issued this film still with a story about the Russian flag being planted beneath the North Pole. Photograph: Reuters

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Syria has positioned on its border with Israel thousands of medium and long-range rockets capable of striking major towns across northern Israel, military and government sources told AFP. This deployment, coupled with other recent reports of Syrian troop mobilisation, is seen in Israel as an indication that Damascus may be preparing for future "low intensity warfare," they said. The report comes only two weeks after Israel held war games on the occupied Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, in a bid to learn the lessons of last summer's conflict in neighbouring south Lebanon. The Syrian army...

Repent, Sinners! Earn Eco-Salvation the Quick and Easy Iowahawk Way Are you concerned that your profligate personal lifestyle is harming the environment? Losing sleep over the long-term ecological damage resulting from those greenhouse gases constantly emitted by your family, your cars, your pets, and your shrubbery? Do you want to become carbon-neutral, but just don't know how? Well rejoice, sinner! Carbon atonement is no longer the exclusive preserve of the Malibu set -- with the Iowahawk EcoPals Network! This unique new system lets you, the average Joe planet rapist, cleanse your tortured psyche of the stain of enviro-guilt for...

In the back yard of scientific researchings behind the Great Storage Shed of the People, Iowahawk scientists successfully conducted above-ground nuclear missile test explosions under secure and many malt liquor conditions on early hours of October 10, 2006, at a stirring time when alarm clocks of the neighborhood have yet to clangle. To the impotent yappings of the neighboring gangster devils, Iowahawk responds: howl away, bourgeois traitors of Lakewood Mobile Home Court! Your pitious lamentations and cowardly 911-callings will never stop Iowahawk from the great leap forward into great and powerful prosperity, using his mighty quiver of nuclear-tipped cherry bombs...

JERUSALEM — Israeli troops and armored vehicles began a massive push toward the Lebanon border late Wednesday, marking the start of a new ground offensive aimed at neutralizing Hezbollah's rocket-launching capabilities, FOX News has learned. Israel also launched an airstrike on Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, killing at least two people. The camp is home to about 75,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

A Russian web designer went on a trip to North Korea, and shot a number of photographs, some of forbidden subjects. Here is a translation of the Russian comments, together with the pictures.http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82755.http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82755&page=2. The original site (in Russian), is http://www.tema.ru/travel/choson-1/. It looks like the original site has some photos that the translated one does not. BEWARE: LOTS OF PHOTOS - HIGH-BANDWIDTH CONNECTION SUGGESTED.