Free Republic

The reporter-source relationship can blossom into something more intimate and more troubling, as evidenced by the Suzy Wetlaufer-Jack Welch affair. But other types of close ties between journalists and newsmakers can also pose nettlesome problems. It was a cozy reporter-source relationship in the extreme, a clear conflict of interest and a deliciously scandalous affair that produced gasps and gossiping among journalists. The editor--not just a lowly reporter--but the top editor of the Harvard Business Review had become romantically involved with the married former General Electric chairman, Jack Welch, after she interviewed him for a story. Now, Suzy Wetlaufer did what...

Ronald Kessler of Newsmax has more details on the Petraeus affair. They are rather sordid, and raise more questions about the timing of his resignation: [A]n FBI source says the investigation began when American intelligence mistook an email Petraeus had sent to his girlfriend as a reference to corruption. Petraeus was commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan from July 4, 2010 until July 18, 2011. The investigation began last spring, but the FBI then pored over his emails when he was stationed in Afghanistan. … Given his top secret clearance and the fact that Petraeus is married, the FBI continued...

One of Microsoft’s latest patent applications is a humdinger. It proposes to turn the Kinect camera into a snitch for movie studios, reporting back just how many friends you’ve got in your living room and what they’re watching. Think that sounds alarmist? Here’s what it actually says: “The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.” It’s that blatant – a system to spy on private viewing habits. If put into practice, Microsoft’s plan could mean that the film you’re watching suddenly stops...

On Tuesday only one precinct had less than 113% turnout. “The Unofficial vote count is 175,554 registered voters 247,713 vote cards cast (141.10% ). The National SEAL Museum, a St. Lucie county polling place, had 158.85% voter turn out, the highest in the county.” The Supervisor of Elections, Gertrude Walker, had this to say concerning the 141% voter turnout: “They may have had something like that in Palm Beach County, but we’ve never seen that here.” So maybe Allen West wasn’t crazy to ask for a lock-down on the ballot boxes and machines in this county. According to the report...

Frustration with continuing power outages, travel chaos, and long lines for gasoline grew on Saturday as residents of Long Island, hit hard by Superstorm Sandy, planned to a protest outside the headquarters of the local utility company. Residents said they would take to the streets for a second day outside the Long Island Power Authority in Hicksville. There are still over 400,000 customers without power nearly two weeks after the storm, and more than 170,000 are on Long Island. Meanwhile, New Yorkers faced their second day of gasoline rationing. Under the system, which was introduced in New Jersey last week,...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.(AP) — Firebrand GOP Rep. Allen West, whose made-for-TV rhetoric made him a prized voice of extreme conservatives, has been ousted by political newcomer Patrick Murphy, according to the state's vote count Saturday, but the incumbent was not planning to concede. In complete but unofficial numbers, Murphy held a 2,442-vote lead in the District 18 race. His 50.4 percent of the vote was above the threshold for a recount, but West's campaign said they would press forward. "We're simply not going to just walk away from the race until we see that the numbers add up," West...

Even by the standards of the friday afternoon news dump tradition, yesterday's news that Gen. David Petraeus had resigned from the CIA was a stunner. The most heralded military officer of his generation fell from grace after it was revealed he'd had an affair with his biographer. The affair was discovered earlier this year soon after the FBI began monitoring his email. This raises a very serious question. Who authorized the FBI to monitor the e-mail of the Director of the CIA?

Hispanics To Obama: We Helped You, Now You Help Us By James Eng Hispanic voters, who were instrumental in putting Barack Obama back in the White House, now hope the president will work diligently in his second term to cross some big to-dos off their legislative wish list: jobs, affordable education, health care access and immigration reform. Hispanics voted for Obama over Mitt Romney by a resounding 71 percent to 27 percent and may have put him over the top in several key swing states. The total number of potential Hispanic voters this year reached a record 23.7 million –...

House Speaker John Boehner is about to begin another attempt at a grand bargain deficit reduction deal with President Obama, a high wire act in which he will be buffeted by demands from the White House as well as from House Republicans. The difficulty of keeping in step with the hard line approach of his fellow Republicans has been on view since the presidential election. On Thursday, Boehner told ABC News' Diane Sawyer that repealing Obamacare was no longer his party's strategy saying, "Obamacare is the law of the land" and the election settled the dispute over repeal. Shortly after...

Nancy Pelosi mum about future after Republicans keep HouseBy JOHN BRESNAHAN | 11/9/12 3:48 PM EST With her political future on the line, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is keeping out of sight. Pelosi sent a memo to her Democratic colleagues on Friday thanking them “for your enthusiasm for electing more Democrats to the House.” **SNIP** “Next week we will be welcoming a very large Democratic freshman class. The Democratic Caucus will bring to the 113th Congress the first caucus where the majority is women and minorities,” Pelosi said in her memo Friday. “Our new Caucus will celebrate the great...

Britain has invaded all but 22 countries in the world in its long and colourful history, new research has found. Every schoolboy used to know that at the height of the empire, almost a quarter of the atlas was coloured pink, showing the extent of British rule. But that oft recited fact dramatically understates the remarkable global reach achieved by this country. A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe. The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only...

About That Chart That Says There's A '100% Chance' Of A Recession... Calculated RiskBill McBrideuNov. 10, 2012, 11:36 AM One of the most frequent questions I receive via email is: "Is another recession starting?" There are quite a few people who have been calling a recession recently (ECRI has called several recessions since August 2011 or so). They still have time on their most recent calls, but their earlier calls were wrong. Part of the problem in forecasting right now is the sluggish recovery has ups and downs, and each down looks like the start of a recession to some...

Denmark to scrap world's first fat tax Save this story to read later AAP November 11, 2012 4:02AM DENMARK'S government will scrap a fat tax it introduced a little over a year ago in a world first. "The fat tax and the extension of the chocolate tax -- the so-called sugar tax -- has been criticised for increasing prices for consumers, increasing companies' administrative costs and putting Danish jobs at risk," the Danish tax ministry said in a statement on Saturday. "At the same time it is believed that the fat tax has, to a lesser extent, contributed to Danes...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- President Barack Obama was declared the winner of Florida's 29 electoral votes Saturday, ending a four-day count with a razor-thin margin that narrowly avoided an automatic recount that would have brought back memories of 2000. No matter the outcome, Obama had already clinched re-election and now has 332 electoral votes to Romney's 206. The Florida Secretary of State's Office said that with almost 100 percent of the vote counted, Obama led Republican challenger Mitt Romney 50 percent to 49.1 percent, a difference of about 74,000 votes. That was over the half-percent margin where a computer...

Here is what I wonder. Did David Petraeus allow himself to be blackmailed by the minions of Barack Obama? The testimony Petraeus gave Congress on Benghazi shortly after the assassination of our ambassador to Libya was a restatement of the patently false narrative foisted on the country by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and their underlings -- to wit, that the assault on the American consulate was a spontaneous demonstration in reaction to the Coptic Christian's Youtube video. Petraeus had to know better. The Benghazi bungle took place on the anniversary of 9/11. There was plenty of intelligence available to Petraeus...

Labor: Tax The Rich, Don't Touch Safety Nets By SAM HANANEL After two years of getting pummeled in Wisconsin, Indiana and other battleground states, leaders of the nation's big labor unions were beaming on election night. Labor's massive voter turnout effort played a major role in helping President Barack Obama win Ohio, Nevada and Wisconsin, according to exit polls, and its leaders are now looking for a more liberal, pro-union agenda from the White House. "There are things the president can do, and we'll be expecting that leadership from President Obama," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters after the election....

Republicans need to make Hispanics identify with their party based on common values. [...] And there is common ground on the issue of family and several social conservative values. According to the Pew Research Center, while more Hispanic voters describe their values as “liberal” than the general public, they are more socially conservative on abortion and religious observance than the overall population. For even greater self-identification, a high-profile Hispanic candidate on the presidential ticket next time around wouldn’t hurt either. As columnist George Will put it, the real winner in 2012 may be the Republican senator from Florida, Cuban-American Marco...

Many have called the 2012 election the most important in their lifetime. But in citing the economy, unemployment, foreign affairs, gas prices, healthcare and the burgeoning corruption of the American judiciary, political pundits may have universally ignored the real threat to the American public and the reason it was imperative to remove the Obama Regime from power. It happened back in March. Republican representative Tom Graves of Georgia asked FBI Director Robert Mueller whether the Administration’s “…policy of extra-judicial killings of American citizens abroad could also apply in the United States.” Incredibly, Mueller responded “I have to go back. Uh,...

Israeli tank shells killed at least four Palestinians and wounded 25 in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after an apparent attack on an Israeli army patrol in the border area, Palestinian medics and local witnesses said. The casualty toll was one of the highest in a single incident in Gaza in recent months. Residents said a crowded mourning tent in the Shijaia neighborhood near Gaza City was full of people paying respects to a bereaved family man when a shell struck. Ambulances, private vehicles and motorbikes rushed the wounded to hospital, eyewitnesses said. Among those killed was an 18-year-old man.