Free Republic

Question: If Obamacare officials cannot prevent accused embezzlers from infiltrating their offices, how can they protect enrollees from grifters, con artists and thieves in the federal health insurance exchange system? Here in my home state, a director of Connect for Health Colorado -- the state-sponsored Obamacare health insurance exchange -- was just put on administrative leave. No, Christa Ann McClure did not go on leave over the chronic problems plaguing the cursed Connect for Health website. She's on leave because she has been indicted for filching funds from her last employer in Montana. No, the guardians of Obamacare didn't smoke...

A pimp is suing Nike for $100 million -- and says that its Air Jordan shoes failed to include a warning on them that they could be used as dangerous weapons after he used his own pair to beat a man.Sirgiorgiro Clardy, 26, alleges Nike is partially responsible for Clardy's 100-year prison sentence for beating a man in 2012, The Oregonian reports. Clardy, a Portland-based pimp, was wearing a pair of Jordans when he stomped on the face of a man who was attempting to leave a hotel without paying Clardy's prostitute, the paper adds. Clardy was found guilty of second-degree assault by...

Above: Illegal aliens made out like banditos thanks to Harry Reid and Senate Democrats. Disabled vets? Not so much.- They actually did it. They are on the record. Senate Democrats, led by their filibuster-slaying dictator Harry Reid, actually put the interests of illegal aliens above those of our disabled military veterans.Let that sink in for a moment. Now the details: The two-year budget deal brokered by Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, would cut military pensions by $6 billion over ten years. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, joined by several others in his party, tried...

Is it possible to predict who is most likely to die at the hands of a gun? Not shootings like those at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., or the Washington Navy Yard, but the all-too-common shootings that occur in neighborhoods across the country. The idea is not far-fetched if one drills down into the nature of gun violence, which, in the way it is transmitted, bears striking similarities to public health epidemics such as cholera in Haiti or HIV/AIDS in the United States. Epidemics of any kind are not random... More than 40 percent...

Local sheriffs will wait for more clear direction before implementing a Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandate to sign up all inmates into Medicaid plans via the federal health insurance exchange. Bureau County Sheriff John Thompson said he received notification from 13th Judicial Chief Judge H. Chris Ryan Jr. through his Circuit Judge Marc Bernabei that all sheriffs within the judicial district are “obligated” to enroll inmates into health care plans offered on the federal exchange as mandated by Obamacare. The judicial district includes La Salle, Bureau and Grundy counties. Thompson said he has contacted an ACA specialist but...

A large U.S. county is taking illegal immigration sanctuary to an extreme, officially adopting a measure that protects even those with serious and violent criminal records from the feds. It’s a sanctuary county on steroids and, not surprisingly, it’s in California. Nevertheless, it’s preposterous even for a liberal local government that aims to make all immigrants part of its big, happy family. The story comes from Santa Clara County, located in the San Francisco area with a population of nearly 2 million, according to census figures. The Santa Clara Board of Supervisors rejected a proposal this month to turn over...

Two days after a dog bit off a woman's hand and her other arm, sources said her hands were likely eaten. And police said they had been to her home in the past for problems with the same dog. Wilton's animal control officer had been called to the home of 65-year-old Anne Murray twice, both times on complaints that the pit bull had roamed off the property, police Lt. Don Wakeman said Wednesday. Police have also come to Murray's home several times to arrest her 26-year-old son, Ian, according to state court records. Ian Murray was given a five-year suspended...

Delaware Right to Life has erected six billboards this autumn, one directly across the street from the Wilmington Planned Parenthood (in photo above). The billboards give a simple but sobering message to abortion clinic workers: “Don’t let your job put you in prison.” This message is ripe in a state where two former Planned Parenthood employees testified earlier this year about health violations and inappropriate behavior by an abortionist they observed at their clinics. clinic-worker-packThe billboards are part of a larger campaign that includes posters, postcards, a radio ad, the ClinicWorker.com website, and a Facebook page – all the brainchild...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Court documents released Monday outlined a Tuesday home invasion on the north side. It paints a picture of a nightmarish home invasion, repeated rape, gunshots and robbery. It was early morning on Oct. 29 when, according to police, six suspects entered the family's home. Detectives said during the investigation it was discovered there was no forced entry but alluded to unsecured back doors that had structural issues. The suspects started in the parent's bedroom, yelling to give them money. That woke up the daughter and began a long, gruesome period of crime. Eventually suspects drove the mother to...

SAN JOSE -- After listening Tuesday to more than 60 impassioned activists, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to stick to the status quo on immigration, rejecting a proposal to turn over jailed illegal immigrants with a history of serious or violent crime to federal agents for possible deportation. The proposal by Supervisor Joe Simitian to change the current policy and hold "the worst of the worst" inmates for 24 hours past their release date failed on a 3-2 vote. Only Supervisor Mike Wasserman, who opposed the no-holds policy two years ago on the grounds that public safety...

Authorities say two men convicted on murder charges were mistakenly released from a Florida prison with forged documents. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office says Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker were released separately from a prison in the Florida Panhandle in late September and early October. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement learned about the mistake Tuesday. Walker was serving a life sentence on a second-degree murder conviction. Jenkins was serving a prison sentence for a 1998 first-degree murder conviction. According to the sheriff’s office, both convictions stemmed from crimes committed in Orange County.

Certain prisoners to get health coverage under ObamaCare Prisons could relocate medical costs to the federal government LOS ANGELES — Soon certain prisoners who need medical treatment could get it through Obamacare. Watch the video (go to link) for more information.

More than 200 people marched through Miami Beach on Sunday, clogging tourist-filled sidewalks to demand the arrest of a policeman who fired a stun gun at a graffiti artist who died in police custody. The protesters alleged that Officer Jorge Mercado used excessive force when he used a Taser on Israel Hernandez-Llach, 18, during an arrest attempt in August.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told a rally in Omaha last week that illegal immigration has killed more Americans than the attacks on September 11th. King spoke an event Friday held for victims of crimes committed by people who are in the U.S. illegally. Recalling a conversation he had with a former INS agent, Mike Cutler, during a congressional hearing, King said he asked Cutler, “How many Americans have died at the hands of [illegal immigrants] who did make it into America? What’s the price Americans are paying for an open door policy?” King claims that Cutler responded, “‘I don’t know...

An illegal alien brutally murdered Laura Wilkerson's 18-year-old son in Texas, tied his body up, and then doused him with gasoline before burning him. Wilkerson recalled the harrowing details on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125, yet her story has gone unheard in the broader press. Maria Espinoza, the director of the Remembrance project that memorializes Americans who were killed by illegal immigrants, told host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that such crimes "happen every day" in America, even in states far from the border. But the mainstream media, Espinoza said, often do not...

Leadership: President Obama's approval numbers are now hitting record lows, yet his critics are often written off as simple-minded "Obama haters." It doesn't wash. The problem is a pattern of presidential lawlessness. Last time we checked, the Constitution requires the president to "faithfully execute the law." That's no editorial opinion, but Article 2, Section 3, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "(The President) shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Our founders conceived and established in that document three co-equal branches of government to preserve our individual liberty and restrain the unlimited power of government....

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was sentenced to two and a half years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to scheming to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on TV's, restaurant dinners, an expensive watch and other costly personal items. His wife received a sentence of one year.</p>

Fourteen people in need of kidney and liver transplants, along with family and friends, have been on a weeklong hunger strike, demanding a spot on a transplant waiting list, which they say they've been denied. The men and women protested Monday outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital, some taking long breaks for dialysis. They said they've been denied a spot on the list because of their illegal residency in the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to let California delay the release of thousands of inmates from state prisons to relieve crowding. In June, a lower court ordered California to release about 10,000 inmates — nearly 8 percent of all state prisoners — by the end of the year to improve to improve medical and mental health treatment. Gov. Jerry Brown last month asked the Supreme Court to delay the order, arguing that it would jeopardize public safety. Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, strongly dissented with the high court's 6-3 one-sentence order Friday, predicting a wave of...

Gloria Steinem, Jesse Jackson, Bonnie Raitt and Jay Leno have joined prison hunger strikers in calling for an end to California's use of solitary confinement to control prison gang violence. The civil rights crusaders, singer and late-night comedian are among those who signed a letter sent Monday to Gov. Jerry Brown. The letter calls isolation units "extensions of the same inhumanity practiced at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay." The letter to Brown, to be followed by a demonstration Tuesday at the Capitol, was arranged by the National Religion Campaign Against Torture and local supporters of the prison protesters. The organization,...