Free Republic

OBAMA & CONGRESS BLAST CITI OVER JET By JENNIFER GOULD KEIL and CHUCK BENNETT January 27, 2009 -- High-flying Citigroup executives, trying desperately to hang on to their new, $50 million luxury jet, took heavy flak yesterday from the White House and Congress after The Post revealed how the beleaguerred bank is blowing taxpayers' rescue funds. EDITORIAL: CITIBOOBS The Financial behemoth, being kept afloat by $45 billion in public life support, should not be spending its precious greenbacks on frivolous luxuries, said President Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs. Obama "doesn't believe" business jets are the "best use of money," said Gibbs....

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's_______. You fill in the blank. These are the words that much of western civilization's legal and financial systems have been founded upon for centuries. You are expected to go out and toil for what you desire, not expect to have it taken from someone else and given to you. The idea is that it is fundamentally immoral to desire to take what your neighbor owns for yourself. The problem is that once envy and jealously take over, one's own initiative and industry wither away, leaving one vulnerable to snake oil salesmen who tell you...

"Sometimes the leak is so bad that even a plumber can't fix it." This was the concise summation of a cable political strategist the other day, after the third and final presidential debate. That sounds about right, and yet the race in its final days retains a feeling of dynamism. I think it is going to burst open or tighten, not just mosey along. (snip) But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for,...

It sounds like the rabid rantings of some poor demented shlub posting at the Democratic Underground. Instead, it is Al Gore's former fashion adviser, Naomi Wolf, indulging in sanity-challenged fantasies on her Huffington Post blog. The target of Wolf's derangement is Sarah Palin and it is so over the top that one might suspect Wolf is an agent provocateur working for conservatives in order to discredit the left. Think I'm kidding? Check out this sampling of Wolf's plunge off the political deep end (emphasis mine): Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You...

Drill, Drill, Drill I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears. I don’t like raging at...

Police say it was a jealous rage that led to the attack. She was dragged into the street away from her house.

AMMAN -- A jealous Jordanian man has been charged with murder for stabbing his teenage cousin to death during her wedding to another man, a security official said. "The 26-year-old suspect stabbed his 16-year-old cousin with a dagger five times in the chest and stomach inside the court as she and another male relative were being married by a judge," the official told Agence France-Presse. "She was rushed to hospital but died there. The man, who apparently killed her because she refused to marry him, was arrested immediately." If convicted, the man could face the death penalty over the incident...

Your height dictates how jealousy strikes 12 March 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition.Bram Buunk JEALOUS lovers will wish they could adjust the height of their heels, for the power of the green-eyed monster depends on how tall you are. So say researchers from the Universities of Groningen and Valencia who asked 549 men and women in the Netherlands and Spain to rate how jealous they felt and to identify the qualities in a romantic competitor that were most likely bug them. Men, who generally felt most nervous about attractive, rich and strong rivals, were increasingly relaxed, the taller they...

PHOENIX - A member of the New England Patriots' video staff taped the St. Louis Rams' last walkthrough before the 2002 Super Bowl, a Boston newspaper reported Saturday. The NFL, however, said it was satisfied this was not another Spygate. New England Patriots chairman and owner Robert Kraft, center, is seen as the team gets ready for a team photo at University of Phoenix Stadium on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008 in Glendale, Ariz. The Patriots will play the New York Giants in the Super Bowl XLII football game on Sunday, Feb. 3 "We were aware of the rumor months ago...

An unnamed source has claimed a New England Patriots employee secretly videotaped the St. Louis Rams' pre-game walkthrough the day before Super Bowl XXXVI, the Boston Herald reported Saturday.

Political observers are falling over themselves trying to determine the cladistics of a newly-emergent population of political animal, the Rudy booster. This appears to be the first new species of Republican to emerge in over two decades in the Family Republicanae (the last being Conservatisi reagani), and displays a particularly odd range of behaviors that call into question the long-term political viability of the new species, as well as that of Republicanae in general if they assume a position of dominance. Some observers have proposed classifying the new population as a subspecies of Rinous rockefelleri, whereas others have made a...

At 2029 French time on Wednesday evening, France's latest bid to shore up its influence on the world stage goes live on the internet, with the launch of the country's first international TV news channel France24. France24 will have some 170 journalists working for it Its debut on satellite and cable TV follows on Thursday evening. The irony is that in order to communicate France's view of world events, at least one of the channel's streams will be reaching its audience across the globe in English. France24 was born out of French President Jacques Chirac's intense frustration that France's...

   by Fr. James Farfaglia Other Articles by Fr. James FarfagliaContact this Author Envy — It’s a Killer 11/04/06 Quick — what do Cain, Satan, and Claudias (Uncle of Hamlet) have in common? And do you have it in common with them? In This Article...Bad CompanyThe Envy Trap Be Transformed Bad Company I’m talking here about envy, one of the seven deadly sins. They all had it — Satan still has it — and if you have it, well, suffice it to say you may not want to be in their company. To diagnose whether you have envy — or whether...

MESA, Ariz. --A 22-year-old woman was arrested after authorities say she tried to hire someone to kill another woman whose photo appeared on her boyfriend's MySpace.com Web page. Heather Michelle Kane was booked Tuesday for investigation of conspiracy to commit murder, Mesa Detective Jerry Gissel said. She was arrested after she met an undercover Mesa police detective at a grocery store, gave the officer $400 and offered to pay an additional $100 once the woman had been killed, according to court records. The records say Kane gave the undercover officer photographs taken from her boyfriend's social networking Web page of...

The publication of cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish daily earlier this year inflamed the pious and mobilized the militant across the Muslim world. The American casting of Chinese actresses in "Memoirs of a Geisha" stirred the considerable ire of Japanese nationalists when it was released. At a recent Rolling Stones concert in Shanghai, the Chinese government prohibited the aging rockers from singing "Let's Spend the Night Together." Indonesian Muslim activists are in an uproar over the launch of a local version of Playboy magazine - even though there is no nudity. These are but the latest...

SCHENECTADY -- A transient's anger over his girlfriend's relationships with other men may explain why he targeted the woman's 4-year-old daughter for abuse that left the youngster with broken bones and possible blindness, authorities said.Jose Munoz allegedly broke bones in Xctasy Garcia's arm and shoulder and then held a bleach-soaked rag to her eyes as punishment for urinating in her pants Saturday. Her body was covered with bruises and cigarette burns that police believe were inflicted earlier.Munoz administered stern discipline to the girl and her 7- and 8-year-old brothers, but authorities said the girl took the brunt of the...

I have for many years now, been warning of the age old battle between the super rich and the middle class. Only in the usa during the 19th and 20th century, did the middle class win that battle. During the 19th and 20th century in the usa the power of the super wealthy was curtailed. Government enacted laws that protected the middle class and encouraged exspandsion of the middle class. Anti-trust laws prevented the super rich from gaining control over entire industries. Today these laws are ignored. Labor laws enabled workers to bargain for a living wage. Today these laws...

by Mark Finkelstein April 20, 2006 On the heels of MSM outrage at the retirement package granted to Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, Good Morning America was back at the class-warfare ramparts this morning with a new target in its sights, Dr. William McGuire, head of United Health Group. As the result of share prices that have increased over 7,000 percent, stock options granted McGuire are currently worth in excess of $1 billion. ABC reporter Dan Harris narrated the segment, and GMA set the tone with its title - "You Must be Kidding!" But there was no joking about the class-warfare...

WASHINGTON - Almost as certain as death and taxes is the public's feeling that the U.S. income tax system is not fair. An Ipsos Poll released this week found almost six of 10 people, 58 percent, say the system is unjust, a number that is virtually unchanged from two decades ago. ADVERTISEMENT People think the middle class, the self-employed and small businesses pay too much in taxes, the poll found. And they think those with high incomes and big businesses don't pay enough. The survey was conducted in the days before the mid-April deadline for filing income tax returns. Dissatisfaction...