Free Republic

BNP Paribas, Saddam Hussein’s favourite bank, is in the payday loan shark business, finding many of its customers from within the ranks of American military personal. Keeping it confidential which companies it is involved with on the new business front, the bank is operating with impunity. In its BNP-Paribas Watch, www.innercitypress.org reports that BNP is staying mum on which companies it is involved in on a flourishing new cottage industry in the U.S.: 7-11-style payday loan type operations. As prolific as dandelions in spring, payday loan storefront operations are thick around military bases. An underwear clad Saddam may be lingering...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Republicans say a fundraiser headlined by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger next week may bring in up to $2 million and be one of the state party's biggest paydays since the Ronald Reagan era - if not the biggest ever. Schwarzenegger's election last year marked a turning point for the state party, which for years saw Democrats control the state's top offices. The governor's success has attracted donors who "believe, for the first time in a long time, that the Republican Party can deliver in November," said Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the state party. "People like to...

<p>No wonder the Rev. Al Sharpton - finishing way back in the pack yesterday in South Carolina, just weeks after being handed a hefty $5,500 fine from the Federal Election Commission - is so committed to his presidential campaign.</p> <p>That's where the money is.</p>

They had a glittering client list, dazzling reputations and smarts galore, but as 2002 drew to a close, William A. Ackman and David P. Berkowitz, hedge fund managers at Gotham Partners, were desperate. They had received a mountain of requests from investors asking for their money back and had suffered a devastating setback in one of their biggest investments. The men, who just a few years earlier had been at the top of the hedge fund world, were facing a run on the bank. But Gotham had little in the way of liquid assets. What had begun in 1993 as...