Free Republic

ALLEN PARK — As Emergency Manager Joyce Parker draws up plans to stop the financial troubles here, a new audit shows the effort will be herculean. The audit, conducted independently by a newly hired accounting firm, states that Allen Park's financial conditions "raise substantial doubt about the City's ability to continue as a going concern." In addition, City Treasurer Carl Johnson sent a memo to city staffers Jan. 24 that the general fund will run out of cash by the beginning of March and that payments to vendors are to be delayed by as many as 60 days. Most city...

SCRANTON – This northeastern Pennsylvania city is charming. You might even consider it gorgeous, if you appreciate the remarkably well-preserved old-world charm that industrial cities carved into their grids at the start of the 20th century. In the past ten years, Scranton has gone through a renaissance that brought new life to the old buildings of its bustling past and a surge in construction of downtown apartments and storefronts, according to Jeff Brauer, a political science professor and city-planning expert at nearby Keystone College. Unfortunately, he said, no one planned for what would happen after the construction ended. “This is...

Who the heck was Obama getting to hawk his books back in the ‘90s when he was doing coke and weed and hanging out with Marxists? Whoever it was, it is now causing quite a bit of consternation for BHO’s camp because they put on his bio that he was born in Kenya. This publication, apparently, even confused Michelle about Barack’s country of origin, as this video points out. Kenya? Now, what kind of crap publishing company gets the nation of origin wrong for a rising star and does not correct it until 16 years later when he begins his...

One afternoon I stopped by the bank to make a few deposits. I was in a rush and needed to get in and out as soon as possible. I had places to go and things I had to do. I picked the worst possible time of day and the worst day of the week to do my banking. But I had been out of town and needed to catch up on errands before the weekend began. There was only one teller working and the line was about fifteen people deep. After waiting patiently, I got close to the front of...

Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly’s message to the city’s residents in the 2011 budget was they’d have to pay higher taxes due to severe budget issues. Yet, a look at gross income shows that the top city administrators saw lucrative pay increases while many lower-paid Dearborn employees took pay cuts in 2011. While Mayor O’Reilly’s salary stayed relatively the same — his gross income increased by $500 in 2011 from the previous year, seven top administrations saw their gross income increase by 8 percent to 12.8 percent from 2010 to 2011. Those pay increases came when the city’s General Fund...

Salem Township employees don’t contribute anything to their health care costs. And they won’t have to contribute up to 20 percent of their health care costs as a new state law mandates after the Salem Township board voted 7-0 to exempt itself from the law. Municipalities need a two-thirds vote from the governing body to be exempt from the law. The Publicly Funded Health Insurance Contribution Act (Public Act 152) states that as of Jan. 1, 2012, “a public employer shall pay not more than 80% of the total annual costs of all of the medical benefit plans it offers...

Archaeologists believe they have found the first pre-Roman planned town discovered in Britain.It has been unearthed beneath the Roman town of Silchester or Calleva Atrebatum near modern Reading. The Romans are often credited with bringing civilisation to Britain - including town planning. But excavations have shown evidence of an Iron Age town built on a grid and signs inhabitants had access to imported wine and olive oil. Prof Mike Fulford, an archaeologist at the University of Reading, said the people of Iron Age Silchester appear to have adopted an urbanised 'Roman' way of living, long before the Romans arrived. "It...

Live stream at link. On now.

Fox Chief White House Correspondent DECORAH, Iowa – President Obama got into a heated back and forth with a Tea Party activist who demanded to know at the end of a town hall meeting here whether or not Vice President Biden had called members of the Tea Party “terrorists” during the debt ceiling debate. In public, Obama did not directly answer the question from Tea Party activist Ryan Rhodes about Biden. But Obama fired back that he knows better than anyone what it’s like to be slammed for his political views and was not about to accept a lecture on...

<p>DECORAH, Iowa – President Obama got into a heated back and forth with a Tea Party activist who demanded to know at the end of a town hall meeting here whether or not Vice President Biden had called members of the Tea Party “terrorists” during the debt ceiling debate.</p>

The Debate is on Twitter now for those who wish to look.

MIDDLETOWN — New Jersey cannot succeed unless it follows fiscal discipline and enacts education, health-care and pension reform, said Gov. Chris Christie to over 200 people who weathered Wednesday’s snowstorm to attend a “town hall-style” meeting in the township. Rather than nibble at smaller problems that will not solve New Jersey’s fiscal woes, Christie told the crowd at VFW Post 2179 that he believes it is important to find a solution to the high cost of benefits for public employees. “Other politicians made you promises they couldn’t keep,” Christie said. “I’m the guy who has to be here when the...

A Democratic lawmaker said Thursday he does not want to encounter any "nuts" at town hall meetings with constituents. Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) made his comments as lawmakers are heading home for the July 4 recess. TimesLeader.com reported: On Thursday, while appearing as a guest on WILK Radio’s “Webster and Nancy Show,” Kanjorski was asked if he was going to hold any public town hall meetings with his constituents.

Several hundred Dallas-area residents gathered Saturday for an all-day brainstorming session about the ballooning national debt. They sweated. They scratched their heads, jotted notes and haggled. They made tough choices and in the end, like Congress itself, many came up short. Frank Reister discussed options with his table Saturday at the AmericaSpeaks town hall meeting on the national debt. Reister thought the choices subtly led people toward protecting entitlement programs. Table 29, for instance, tried earnestly for hours. They got about halfway to the goal of trimming the deficit by $1.2 trillion.

SIERRA VISTA — Promising people some straight talk — a page from Arizona Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain’s campaign style — Jonathan Paton spoke about his credentials and why he should be the GOP candidate to take on incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. While there are four other GOP candidates in the race for the party’s nod to seek Arizona’s 8th Congressional seat, Paton is spending most of his energy running against Giffords’ two-term record. Saturday, he spoke to nearly 30 people — one of them making a video of the event for the Democrats — at a town...

If you had a choice of all the people you wanted to invite, who would you want living and working with you in your town, area, state? I want Mark Steyn to move down the road and open his international newspaper and music store. I want Thomas Sowell to teach at the small but excellent local college, something like Hillsdale. I want Lou Dobbs to run the bank. I want Ann Coulter to teach political science and realities.

AL ASAD AIR BASE – The proud mayor of a small town near here, a location formerly controlled completely by the insurgency, invited a platoon of U.S. Army paratroopers for a tour of his now-peaceful area, May 13. Mayor Myeser Abdol Mohsin Freh hosted 2nd Platoon, Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Advise and Assist Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, on a tour of Barwana, a small town on the eastern shore of the Euphrates River across from larger Haditha in Iraq's Al Anbar province. "I am proud of my city," said Myeser to 1st Lt. Samuel...

One can buy all manner of items on eBay: clothes, cars, jewelry, furniture. Even towns. Wauconda, Wash., is the most recent town to be sold on the auction site. Daphne Fletcher, 42, who once was homeless, sold the place for twice the original 2007 purchase price. But it's not really a huge profit for her. After all the improvements to the property, paid for in part by a loan from her mom, Fletcher figures she'll pocket much less money. The town has a gas pump, a restaurant, a small store and a four-bedroom house. The town has its own ZIP...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2010 – Meetings of influential villagers have outnumbered military engagements over the last few days in Operation Moshtarak in the central portion of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, military officials reported today. At the invitation of Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal, the Nad-e Ali deputy district governor held such a meeting, called a “shura,” in Marja that was attended by 200 residents. Haji Zahir, the deputy district governor, spoke about improving security conditions and said that more Afghan National Police would be posted in Marja. He promised to ensure the opening of shops and clinics, and personally oversaw the distribution...

That's what Rep. Baron Hill (D-IN), the policy leader of the conservative/moderate Blue Dog coalition, explained to a journalism student at a town-hall meeting Wednesday night who asked why she wasn't allowed to videotape the event for a school project. "This is my town hall meeting, and I set the rules, and I've had these rules," Hill responded, in an authoritative tone. "Let me repeat that one more time. This is my town hall meeting for you. And you're not going to tell me how to run my congressional office. Now, the reason why I don't allow filming is that...