Free Republic

A pair of well-worn 19th-century Levi’s jeans — featuring a racist slogan — has sold at an auction for $76,000. Kyle Hauper, a 23-year-old vintage clothing collector from San Diego, snapped up the rare jeans dating from the 1880s at the Durango Vintage Festivus auction in New Mexico on Oct. 1. The second-hand jeans — hailed as “the holy grail of vintage denim collecting” — were discovered inside an abandoned mineshaft several years ago and are believed to be one of the oldest known Levi’s from that era.

MSNBC obliterated the notion of separating cable-news hosts and their political activism when the network brass gave Rev. Al Sharpton a nightly show two years ago. It was just another day at the office when Sharpton held a rabble-rousing rally for Trayvon Martin in the afternoon and then covered it on his show hours later. But Saturday's rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial celebrating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington was the most dramatic conflict of interest yet. Sharpton organized the rally (with Martin Luther King III), and MSNBC aired huge chunks of it...

Oakland -- A majority of the Oakland City Council indicated late Thursday that they would like an end to the Occupy Oakland encampment in front of City Hall, but they did not vote on any proposals. The statements came at the end of a five-hour meeting during which hundreds of people crammed into the council chambers for an emotionally charged discussion about whether to allow the encampment to remain at Frank Ogawa Plaza with city support. Several times, the rowdy crowd shouted down city officials as they tried to speak. But after hearing from speakers who support the camp and...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who enthused activists and unnerved business leaders with many of his early appointments to top environmental slots, is increasingly favoring industry officials for key jobs protecting California's forests, air and water. Schwarzenegger's effort to be a green Republican has been one of the principal ways the governor has depicted himself as being above Sacramento's traditional partisan divides. But in a reversal from the beginning of his tenure, it is now environmentalists who are objecting that Schwarzenegger has bent too far to one side. --snip-- "We have seen a change in the wrong direction," said Bill...