Free Republic

The Obama administration is attempting to persuade U.S. corporations about the benefits of investing in renewable energy in an effort to help the industry after a government grant program expired. The Department of Energy-led effort includes a planned March 13 meeting at which senior financial-firm executives and Energy Secretary Steven Chu would speak. The 79 invitees include some of the largest corporations in the U.S., from Exxon Mobil Corp. to Walt Disney. The idea is to tell companies with big tax bills about the "attractive rates of return and brand benefits" that come with entering the so-called tax equity markets...

As reported yesterday, the cost of terminal abrogation of contractual rights in the US is, drumroll, $26 billion. Bloomberg notes: -$26 BILLION FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT ANNOUNCED IN WASHINGTON -FORECLOSURE ACCORD RESOLVES 16-MONTH ROBO-SIGNING INVESTIGATION -FORECLOSURE ACCORD IS SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY FEDERAL JUDGE -FORECLOSURE DEAL PRESERVES U.S., STATE RIGHTS TO OTHER CLAIMS -FORECLOSURE ACCORD COULD CLIMB TO $40 BLN IF 14 SERVICERS JOIN And a whole lot of corner offices for America's Attorneys General. As for what the market thinks of this "severe" settlement: BAC +1.2%, WFC +0.6%, JPM +0.4%, C -0.1%. For those who don't understand what just happened, US...

Democratic campaign officials on Wednesday happily tried to pour sand into the GOP’s nomination machinery by deriding Gov. Mitt Romney’s electability and his commitment to conservative policies, by commiserating with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and with former Sen. Rick Santorum, and by complimenting Gov. Rick Perry. “People don’t know where Gov. Romney stands today and where he will stand tomorrow, and that’s troubling people in the Republican Party,” said David Axelrod, who has worked as chief political strategist for President Barack Obama since 2008. Romney is heading into the New Hampshire primary without solidifying his lead, so “he’s...

ATLANTA (AP) - An attorney for Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has demanded cell phone records from an Atlanta businesswoman accusing Cain of an extramarital affair. Cain attorney Lin Wood sent a letter Wednesday to a lawyer representing Ginger White asking that Cain's team be provided with cell phone records showing calls and text messages between White and Cain.

Dear MoveOn member, All it takes is one Democrat on the supercommittee caving and Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security could be gutted, and there is a very real chance of that happening right now. If one Democrat out of six total on the supercommittee goes along with the Republican's plan for massive cuts to crucial programs, it passes. Then their proposal gets fast-tracked through Congress, without amendments, filibusters, or other good ways to stop it. That's why we have no choice; we have to pull out all the stops over the next six days to stop a bad deal and...

A majority of American voters think the sexual harassment claims made against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain are motivated by something other than fairness. A minority thinks the allegations are serious enough to disqualify him from the race. Cain has been battling claims that he sexually harassed four women more than a decade ago. Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/herman-cain/2011/11/16/fox-news-poll-americans-think-cain-accusers-are-shady#ixzz1dv0QnTMe

SteveDahlShow: Herman Cain and I have both been accused by Sharon Bialek. Hear my story on today's DahlCast. http://t.co/Wd9w9XnO

When Sharon Bialek said that he was with Herman Cain at the Chicago TEA Party event with Herman Cain I reached out to one of the key voices and leaders of the Chicago TEA Party C. Steven Tucker and he says “I did not recognize her Chuck and I was there all weekend.” I have been reaching out to my other friends in the Chicago TEA Party and so far no one recognizes her. Gloria Allred portrayed Bialek as a TEA Party Republican. Having seen her picture Bialek is not someone who goes unnoticed easily. Tucker comments further: I have...

A couple of caveats are in order when reading this breaking story about a woman coming forward in a press conference to accuse Herman Cain of sexual harassment. First, it’s Radar that is reporting the news, and their track record for accuracy on political stories is … less than spectacular, although not entirely bad. The second caveat? Her representation: A new woman alleging sexual harassment by presidential hopeful Herman Cain will break her silence at a news conference with her powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred Monday afternoon in New York City, RadarOnline.comis exclusively reporting. … The woman, who will be the...

Real-estate and newspaper mogul Mortimer Zuckerman voted for Obama but began seeing trouble as soon as the stimulus went into the pockets of municipal unions. 'It's as if he doesn't like people," says real-estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman ... The Boston Properties CEO is trying to understand why Mr. Obama has made little effort to build relationships on Capitol Hill or negotiate a bipartisan economic plan. A longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, Mr. Zuckerman wrote in these pages two months ago that the entire business community was "pleading for some kind of adult supervision"...

Move over Jimmy Hoffa and Richard “Fifth Amendment” Trumpka union racketeering has just gone Affirmative Action. The Hispanics have staked their claim to shakedown economics in the construction industry and added a twist of racial warfare for flavor. The United Hispanic Construction Workers (UHCW), a criminal cartel that has long masqueraded as a labor union, has once again been charged with engaging in its favorite crimes: labor racketeering and extortion. The UHCW first came to the attention of the New York Police almost 20 years ago. In 1993 when they were just learning the extortion “trade”, they settled for relative...

I’d never heard of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) until five years ago. Likewise, I’d never given environmental groups much thought. Like most Americans, I knew groups like the Sierra Club existed and I assumed they did nature hikes or watched birds—or something.  When I accepted a position at the organization I now head up, my eyes were opened and my view changed. I met Jim Chilton, a rancher and a businessman. He served on the board. His story was one of the first articles I ever wrote. Jim Chilton is a fifth generation rancher—a cowboy. His ranch includes...

The government on Friday sued 17 financial firms, including the largest U.S. banks, for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic when the housing market collapsed. Among those targeted by the lawsuits were Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Large European banks including The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank and Credit Suisse were also sued. The lawsuits were filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. It oversees Fannie and Freddie, the two agencies that buy mortgages loans and mortgage securities...

<p>In a sweeping move that opens a new front on the housing crisis, the U.S. government on Friday sued 17 financial firms, including the largest U.S. banks, for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic when the housing market collapsed.</p>

Gibson Guitar Corp. is claiming the Obama administration wants more of its woodwork done overseas, as a bizarre battle heats up between the government and one of the country's most renowned guitar makers. The dispute started in 2009, when federal agents raided the company over suspect wood shipments from Madagascar. Gibson took that case to court but has denounced the administration with a vengeance after agents returned late last month to raid several Gibson factories -- this time out of concern that Indian export laws had been violated. In an interview earlier this week, CEO Henry Juszkiewicz claimed that the...

Dear Banks, Remember all of that bailout money you received? Sure hope you saved some of it. US authorities are preparing to sue more than a dozen big banks over claims they misrepresented the quality of mortgages sold during the 2006-7 housing bubble.The US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which is overseeing the remains of failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is reportedly planning to argue that America’s biggest banks failed to check the health of mortgages before they sold them on to investors. The collapse of hundreds of thousands of sub-prime mortgages triggered the 2008 credit crisis...

U.S. Set To Sue Big Banks Over Bad Mortgages Agency says B of A, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, others misrepresented securities By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation. The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank...

US Preparing To Sue Banks For Billions Over Misrepresenting Safety Of Mortgage Securities Zeke Miller Sep. 1, 2011, 10:37 PM The New York Times scoops that the federal government is preparing to file suit against a dozen major banks in the coming days for their roles in 2008 financial crisis. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is alleging that the banks misrepresented the quality of mortgages bundled together as securities — billing subprime loans as secure investments. Among the banks set to be slapped with lawsuits according to the Times are: Bank of America,...

The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation. The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter. The suits stem from subpoenas the...

The Gibson Guitar saga has taken a sinister turn. It seems that the Department of Justice wasn’t satisfied with merely raiding the law abiding factories of Gibson Guitar with armed agents, shutting down their operation costing them millions, and leaving the American company in the dark as to how to proceed without going out of business. Now, according to CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, agents of the United States government are bluntly informing them that they’d be better off shipping their manufacturing labor overseas. In an interview with KMJ AM’s “The Chris Daniel Show,” Juszkiewicz revealed some startling information. CHRIS DANIEL: Mr....

At a Town Hall event in Los Angeles, Dem congresswoman Maxine Waters said the president should use the bully pulpit to, "bring the gangstas in, put them around the table and let them know that if they don't come up with loan modifications and keep people in their homes, that they've worked so hard for, we're gonna tax them out of business"

KMJ's own Chris Daniel is stirring the national pot today. On his show last night, Chris interviewed Henry Juszkiewicz, the CEO of the iconic Gibson Guitar Company. The federal government seized wood, guitars and electronic records from Gibson's Nashville warehouses in 2009, and, according to Juszkiewicz, made an unusual request from the American manufacturer. On KMJ airwaves, Juszkiewicz revealed that representatives of the US government told Gibson that their legal issues would disappear if they used Madagascar labor instead of American labor.

In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination, according to court documents reviewed by IBD. [snip] Another Reno protege, Perez has compared bankers to Klansmen. Only difference is, he said, bankers discriminate "with a smile" and "fine print." He said this kind of racism, though more subtle, is "every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood." Perez has put...

MIDI - RAINBOW CONNECTION Why are there so many scandals with Jackson They just never seem to end Tommy R. Bennet has a big bombshell lawsuit We're smiling, we will not pretend He's telling all about Jesse's behavior The reverend's a slimeball, indeed We'll learn more of the Rainbow Coalition The shakedowns, the sex, and the greed Bennet's LBGT and works for Obama He cites propositioning Jesse had asked him for a sexual favor Oh, that makes our hearts sing He's telling all about Jesse's behavior The reverend's a slimeball, indeed We'll learn more of the Rainbow Coalition The...

As oil prices creep back above $100 a barrel, Senate Democrats are dusting off a plan first unveiled in 2008 to take away federal leases from oil companies that rent federal land but don’t use it for drilling and exploration. The revived bill, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Bill Nelson of Florida and Charles Schumer of New York, would charge oil companies an extra fee on every acre they are not using for energy production and would force companies to show that they are actively seeking energy sources in the area.

In Wisconsin, using what’s being called “the nuclear option,” Governor Scott Walker and the state’s Senate Republicans stripped out the financial components of the governor’s unpopular budget repair bill. That allowed them to vote on provisions to eliminate collective bargaining without the presence of the 14 Senate Democrats who had fled to Illinois to prevent its passage. In Idaho, the state legislature passed several bills to overhaul education, including a bill to strip teachers’ rights and end decades of positive collaboration between teachers and their districts. Similar attacks are underway in states across the country. Despite these setbacks, we will...

Last week, as the Wisconsin stalemate was coming to an end, we worried about the potential threat that unionized policemen, in "solidarity" with other unionized government employees, might tolerate or even participate in lawless behavior in order to undermine the workings of republican governance and preserve union privileges. Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes reports that Wisconsin businessmen are now receiving letters importuning them to oppose Gov. Scott Walker's efforts on behalf of Wisconsin's taxpayers: The undersigned groups would like your company to publicly oppose Governor Walker's efforts to virtually eliminate collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. While we appreciate...

Wow, public-sector union members sure have a good deal. Incomes 50-100% above the private-sector average, plus generous benefits .... so, can anyone get in on this? Nope, sorry, membership is limited to just a privileged few. OK, so let's get this straight - only a small percentage of society is on the public-sponsored gravy train, and the rest of the working masses has to pay their bills. Where's the fairness here? President O'bastard, please explain why you are siding with the elitists. And while you're at it, what's your position on legislature members not showing up for work, just because...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Republicans will be forced to vote separately on popular provisions of the Obama administration's healthcare reform law if they introduce a bill to repeal it, a senior Democratic lawmaker said on Sunday. Senator Chuck Schumer, who voted for President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare reform, said Republicans would not be allowed to have an up-or-down vote but instead would be asked to vote on individual components of the new law. "If the Republicans offer an amendment on the floor, then we will require them to vote on the individual protections in the bill that are very popular...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service is making it a bit riskier to cheat on your taxes. The tax agency increased the number of returns it audited by nearly 11 percent this year, statistics released Wednesday show. Wealthy taxpayers and big businesses were most likely to be targeted. The IRS also stepped up audits of charities and other tax-exempt organizations.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Wednesday sued a Southern Nevada auto dealership after a black employee claimed he was subjected to racial slurs and was humiliated when his boss told him to get on his knees and beg for his job. The EEOC lawsuit filed in federal court in Las Vegas names as defendants Shack-Findlay Automotive LLC doing business as Findlay Honda; and Findlay Automotive Group. An attorney for Shack-Findlay today denied the EEOC's allegations and said a company investigation found the racial harassment as alleged never happened.

Don’t expect the democratic-media complex to come near this story...Conservative Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Steve King (R-IA) called on the Attorney General Eric Holder to invest the Pigford Scandal. More than 92,000 blacks have signed up for reparations from the Obama USDA after the Pigford case was extended this past year. That’s five times the number of blacks who were actually farming during the time period in question and would possibly qualify for the reparations. Pigford v. Glickman was a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging racial discrimination in its...

In the midst of a heated governor's race, a high-profile Los Angeles attorney is calling a news conference today with a woman she described as Meg Whitman's housekeeper of nine years to describe her treatment inside the former eBay CEO's home. But the Whitman campaign says the woman was fired nine years after she started working for Whitman because she revealed that she was an illegal immigrant. Gloria Allred's firm declined to release any documents before the 11 a.m. news conference. However, Allred's statement said the woman will tell "how she suffered as a longtime Latina household employee in Meg...

A couple weeks ago, House Member Eleanor Holmes Norton made a fundraising call to a lobbyist. The lobbyist wasn’t available, so Holmes Norton left a voicemail. We have been given a copy of that message. The audio is below. By way of background, with their prospects for November quickly deteriorating, Congressional Democrats are scrambling to assemble the financial resources they hope can stave off their electoral armageddon. Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team are putting a lot of pressure on Democrat members to pony up campaign contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In the article linked above, Politico noted:...

Rev. Jesse Jackson says Michigan needs to get over its anti-Detroit sentiment Published: Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 9:56 PM Ron Cammel | The Grand Rapids Press Ron Cammel | The Grand Rapids Press GRAND RAPIDS -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson had a word for West Michigan: There is an anti-Detroit sentiment in the state, but Detroit is "the largest organ in Michigan's body. ... If Detroit suffers, Michigan suffers." That was just one of the points Jackson made as he gave a pep talk in Grand Rapids Wednesday as part of Rainbow PUSH's campaign "Rebuild America: Jobs Justice Peace." During...

Has anyone ever heard of Tomas de Torquemada, the fanatical leader of the Spanish Inquisition ? Well...he is back. He has been re-incarnated as Thomas Perez, the head of the Civil Rights Division in the Obama-Holder Department of Justice. Not surprisingly, he is a zealot who is stretching the responsibilities of the office to the breaking point. Byron York reports over at the Washington Examiner: Of all the transformations that have taken place in the Obama administration, perhaps none is so radical as that within the Civil Rights Division. Under Perez, it is bigger, richer and more aggressive than ever,...

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Bellevue has paid a member of a Kansas church that protests at soldiers’ funerals $17,000. In exchange, Shirley Phelps-Roper has dropped her lawsuit against the city. The settlement with Westboro Baptist Church, which says troop deaths are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality, was signed last week. The church says it shows that responding to public anger by taking action against it costs taxpayers. City attorney Michael Polk didn’t respond to a message seeking comment. Phelps-Roper was arrested during a 2007 protest in Bellevue after she and her son allegedly mutilated the U.S. flag. The...

In the Wall Street Journal Democrat Senator James Webb attacks both the basis for "diversity" racial preferences and its negative impact, indicating it's time to end these programs. He's proven himself a political opportunist. Talking a conservative game to his constituents but voting lockstep with his party's far left agenda. So, it is clear that he sees himself in some political trouble and recognizes this issue resonates with many voters in his state.

Shirley Sherrod, the now former Georgia Director of Rural Development for the Obama administration, was part of an historic settlement with the U.S. Government recently. Ms. Sherrod is co-founder of a group, New Communities, that took part in a lawsuit that successfully sued the government over the rights of minority farmers. An article at the website www.ruraldevelopment.org discussed the case and the $13 million dollar settlement and Ms. Sherrod’s own $150,000 settlement from Uncle Sam. Ms. Sherrod came under fire yesterday when it was revealed that she made remarks to the NAACP where she talked about withholding help from “white”...

BP kicked off a $10 billion asset sale aimed at raising cash to pay for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, saying on Tuesday it planned to sell gas assets in Pakistan and Vietnam worth around $1.7 billion. A BP spokesman said on Tuesday the company was "exploring divestment options" for its interest in the Nam Con Son gas project, which the London-based company says is one of Vietnam's largest foreign investment projects. ...BP also plans to sell its upstream assets in Pakistan which comprise of a number of producing fields and exploration blocks in the southern Sindh province. The...

The agenda for today's White House meetings between President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron included the war in Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process and cooperation on the global economy. But overshadowing those pressing policy issues were questions over the role that oil company BP had in pushing for the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi last year in order to help secure a lucrative oil exploration deal with Libya. ...Cameron insisted repeatedly today that the decision to release Megrahi was solely that of the Scottish government and he has not seen anything to indicate that they...

That's right. She doesn't know her a$$ from a hole in the ground about agriculture, and she said as much on tape. She's a racial set-aside queen. Read below. Successful and Unsuccessful Claims Must Be "Interrelated" to Recover Attorney Fees for Unsuccessful Claims Shirley Sherrod named Georgia Director of Rural Development Quote: RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen...

CLEVELAND (AP) - Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert got in another word about the messy, heartbreaking split with LeBron James. He promised it's his last one. On Monday, Gilbert said he strongly disagrees with Rev. Jesse Jackson's criticism of his recent comments about James, who announced last week he was leaving Cleveland after seven seasons to join fellow All-Stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. Shortly after James' announcement, Gilbert fired off an incendiary letter to Cavs fans, vilifying the 25-year-old and calling his decision to bolt Cleveland as "narcissistic" and "cowardly behavior." He also guaranteed his team...

Rainbow Coalition Also Wants Comcast/NBCU To Spend 25% Of Ad Budgets On Minority-Owned Firms The Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition wants Comcast to set aside 10% of its basic tier for networks "owned and controlled by people of color." The organization also wants both Comcast and NBC Universal to spend 25% of their ad and marketing budgets and the same percentage of "vendor dollars" on minority-owned firms. "We want to make sure that independently owned and controlled minority cable networks don't find it harder to gain carriage if this deal happens," said Jackson in written testimony for the July 8...

LOS ANGELES — Mel Gibson is being investigated in a possible domestic violence incident involving his ex-girlfriend earlier this year, sheriff's officials said Thursday. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department listed the actor-director as a potential suspect in the alleged attack on Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva at an undisclosed location in Malibu.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – The Obama appointee managing BP's oil spill disaster fund said there's "not enough money in the world" to pay all claims and suggested home owners with plunging property values could lose out. The warning from prominent US lawyer Kenneth Feinberg came as Hurricane Alex disrupted clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico and pushed oil deeper into fragile coastal wetlands and once-pristine beaches. Feinberg, who Obama named to administer the 20-billion-dollar claims fund, insisted that BP will "pay every eligible claim," but cautioned that many perceived damages may not qualify. "I use that famous example...

John Stossel: ‘Thuggish Chicago Shakedown’ Of BP Is ‘Not Democracy’by Frances Martel 7:50 am, June 23rd, 2010 It seems that every time someone in the GOP expresses some radical libertarian idea, the rest of the party scatters as far from the person as possible. And like a brave firefighter to a burning building, John Stossel rushes in to save the embers of his beloved philosophy. He arrived on the O’Reilly Factor tonight with fistfuls of red-hot free market capitalism, calling the $20 billion BP escrow account a “thuggish Chicago shakedown,” by “Vladimir Obama.” While Stossel didn’t defend BP CEO Tony...

When eight British soldiers were indicted in Boston for murder in 1770 after five people were shot to death in a rioting crowd that was pelting the soldiers with projectiles, a young lawyer named John Adams took up the soldiers' case because he had a point to prove: Americans believed in -- and lived by -- the rule of law. "The law, in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations of the passions or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a steady undeviating course; it will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations and wanton tempers of men," Adams said in his summation...

There is no greater injustice than punishment of a man for doing something good, and no more loathsome cowardice than when those responsible for defending good sacrifice their cause to accommodate an uncompromising evil. But this type of betrayal is not uncommon for the Republican leadership, and it happened again last week in Congress. Thursday's House committee hearings with BP CEO Tony Hayward consisted mostly of the empty political grandstanding one would expect from this type of proceedings, characterized by Mark Levin as Soviet-style show trials. There was an exception, however, when Representative Joe Barton spoke out against the Obama...

Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will LOVE him more?” Luke 7:42 The BP shakedown is the perfect example of the brainwashing of America. We have been transformed over the past 70 yrs into believing in an all compassionate gummit over capitalism. We have been taught from baby to grave into believing our govt is the only interest powerful enough to stand up to evil industry so the slaves can get their fair share of the pie when nothing could be farther from the truth....