Free Republic

BACKSTORY 11-08-2002 Dateline: PARIS American billionaire investor George Soros, on trial in a 14-year-old insider trading case, told a court Friday that he didn't have privileged information when he bought shares in French bank Societe Generale. Soros and two other businessmen are on trial at the Paris Criminal Court, accused of benefiting from insider knowledge when they bought the bank's stock in 1988 before a failed takeover that pushed up the price. "I have been in business all my life and I think I know what is insider trading and what isn't," said the president of Soros Fund Management, in...

The Education of Alexandra Polier Falsely accused of having an affair with John Kerry, the “intern” sifts through the mud and the people who threw it. On the evening of Thursday, February 12, as John Kerry had just chalked up his twelfth state-primary win in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, I was at a dinner party in Nairobi, hosted by my friend Matthew Rosenberg, an Associated Press reporter based in East Africa. The male guests were discussing a recent poker game, while the women sat around trading recipes to give to their cooks. It promised to be your...

Dutch Prince Gives Up Throne for Love By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Prince Johan Friso, the second son of Queen Beatrix, married human rights activist Mabel Wisse Smit Saturday without the approval of the Dutch government, giving up his claim to the throne for love. AP Photo Johan Friso, 35, had been third in line for the Dutch monarchy after his elder brother, Crown Prince Willem Alexander, and Willem Alexander's infant daughter Amalia. After the civil ceremony performed by the mayor of Delft at City Hall, the pair headed to the city's Oude Kerk, or Old...

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the Little Rock native and former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, has resigned as managing director of merchant banking for the Stephens Group Inc. of Little Rock effective Friday, a company spokesman confirmed. "He told several of us that his first assignment would be to Kuwait City for CNN," Stephens spokesman Frank Thomas said. "It was a very amicable parting, very comfortable." Clark couldn't be reached for comment Friday morning. He joined Stephens in July 2000, the same month he retired from the Army. He serves on the boards of directors of Acxiom...

""Who tried to negotiate a pipeline deal with the Taliban AFTER they blew up the buddhas and forced jews to wear stars of David? Who goes and works for Halliburton and the Carlyle Group when they leave office (or continue working for them while in office)? …Who has blocked and prevented any After Action Review as to what happened on 9/11? Who tried to block the creation of a Department of Homeland Security? Who has not fired or brought to accountability a SINGLE PERSON for the intelligence failure that led to 9/11? But the most important question of all -...