Free Republic

Cavuto talking about this on FOX Biz network right now. Just broke. He's trying to get more info. Huge, huge news.Here's a Bloomberg story on it. Link only per FR policy:STORY

~ EXCERPT ~ USAA, the financial services company catering to military members, is preparing to give some members an advance loan on their paychecks if the debt ceiling negotiations disrupt their pay. USAA said it would provide the interest-free advances to military members on active duty who already have their military pay directly deposited in a USAA account. The one-time loan would be for eligible members' Aug. 15 paycheck. Several Republican lawmakers had introduced a bill into Congress looking to make military pay the top priority in the event a deal isn't reached. A spokesman for Sen. Pat Toomey (R.,...

Just a headline so far. Anyone know about anything Rep. Jordan? Is he a conservative?

A new report released today by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business advocacy group whose membership consists of 350,000 small business owners nationwide, provides further evidence that the Democrats’ health care law is adding higher costs, new taxes and increased deficits. The key findings from the report provide a stark contrast to the promises of lower costs that were repeated over and over again by the President and other supporters of the Democrats’ health care law.In reality: 75 percent of small businesses that offer health insurance do not believe the law will slow the...

Even when he's got a drink he STILL doesn't look happy!

Just a headline so far. The war against Murdoch and FOX News continues. Hinton is the latest casualty.

Link only, per FR policy. STORY

Anybody else hear this (what I think is huge) news today? Oddly, it was only a blurb on my local news, in NW Ohio. The link to the story below is two months old, but at that time, just 60 days ago, estimated "only" 2,000-3,000 jobs would be cut. Now Cisco has apparently confirmed to jettison 11,000. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/13/us-cisco-idUSTRE74A78K20110513

Al Qaeda's online communications disrupted by electronic attack on its sites - NBC News Just a headline for now. More to follow.

Just a headline for now. AP: The Taliban claim responsibility for the attack at the Intercontinental Hotel in telephone call to the AP. Gunshots heard from inside hotel.

Source is link only.STORY

The original WH transcript found at whitehouse.gov (I grabbed a cached version from yahoo.com; see my red brackets below) says the DNC participants LAUGHED after Obama said "we've created 2.1 million new private sector jobs in the past 15 months. Now, whitehouse.gov has changed the word "laughter" to "applause." Original version (yahoo cache):http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Fthe-press-office%2F2011%2F06%2F20%2Fremarks-president-dnc-event-0&fr=yfp-t-701&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=http%3a%2f%2fwww.whitehouse.gov%2fthe-press-office%2f2011%2f06%2f20%2fremarks-president-dnc-event-0&d=207206940761&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=3f176b25,cd268517&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=YwoTaKsztkXVtdKV0ajhPQ-- Changed "doctored" version:http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/20/remarks-president-dnc-event-0

How amusing to watch Democrats wring their hands over what they can do to get businesses to create jobs, when one of the biggest job killers is the minimum wage they keep hiking. Recall that it was Democrats who raised the federal wage floor a whopping $2.10 an hour in the middle of the recession. The record 41% increase has led to record unemployment among young people, especially black teens. Congress started ratcheting up the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour in mid-2007, arguing it would help abate poverty. But retailers looking to slash costs eliminated low-skilled, entry-level jobs rather...

The head of the Democratic National Committee says the administration has turned the economy around. So let us give discredit where discredit is due. Joe Biden should sue DNC chief and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for copyright infringement based on her statement at a Politico breakfast. We thought the vice president had a monopoly on statements completely detached from reality. "We own the economy," Schultz said. "We own the beginning of the turnaround, and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery, not go back to the policies of the past under the Bush administration...

NEW YORK – Visitors to the museum at the national 9/11 memorial could be required to pay an entrance fee of about $20, though victims' relatives will always be able to enter for free, the president and CEO of the memorial foundation said Thursday. Joe Daniels, the president and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, told City Council members at a hearing that once the museum opens in September 2012, it must generate enough income to maintain itself and the memorial. Daniels has said that he'd prefer that visitors not be asked to pay an entrance fee,...

As the recession gripped America, thousands more people in rural and suburban areas turned to homeless shelters for help. The number of people using shelters or transitional housing in suburban and rural areas increased 57 percent from 2007 to 2010, with more than 500,000 people from smaller communities seeking help in 2010, according to a report by the Housing and Urban Development Department. During the same time there was a decrease in the use of shelters in urban areas. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters that about 40 percent of those who served in...

An exhaustive report by Standard Chartered predicts that gold will more than triple to $5,000 an ounce because of a lack of supply, not just because of a surge in demand that most bullion bugs cite in their bullish calls. “There are very few large gold mines set to commence operation in the next five years,” said Standard’s analyst Yan Chen in a report Monday. “The limited new supply comes at a time when central banks have turned from being net sellers to significant net buyers of gold. The result, in our view, will be a gold market in deficit,...

Rumor is he will step down.

~ EXCERPT ~ Friends and former colleagues say Lawrence S. Eagleburger, the only career foreign service officer to rise to the position of secretary of state, has died. Word of Eagleburger's death Saturday came from representatives of former President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State James Baker. No other details were immediately available. Eagleburger, who was 80, was a straightforward diplomat whose exuberant style masked a hard-driving commitment to solving foreign policy problems.

~ EXCERPT ~ TRENTON – A Trenton barber was arrested Thursday afternoon after allegedly biting a customer’s ear in half following a dispute over how long a haircut was taking, police said. James Dillard, 40, was at work inside the Beauty and the Beast Barber Shop on the 700 block of Chambers Street around 5:30 p.m. In his barber chair was a 24-year-old city man. Dillard and his client began arguing about how fast Dillard was cutting the hair, and the client decided to get up and leave the shop, police said. The client slammed the barbershop’s front door behind...