Free Republic

Everyday Low Benefits Wal-Mart dumps 30,000 part-timers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. Oct. 7, 2014 7:25 p.m. ET Wal-Mart endorsed ObamaCare in 2009 and helped drag the bill through Congress, and so far it hasn’t recanted. By holding back economic growth and incomes, perhaps the law is expanding the retailer’s customer base. Another plus—at least for management—is that Wal-Mart can jettison its employees into the ObamaCare insurance exchanges. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the largest U.S. private employer is dropping health benefits for some 30,000 workers, or about 5% of its part-time workforce. Earlier health-plan eligibility triage in 2011 had...

ATLANTA — Just one week away from the start of early voting, at least 42,000 residents who registered to vote still haven’t been given that right.

Meg Kissinger, a long-time reporter for the politically liberal Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, attempted to cover a Milwaukee campaign speech by First Lady Michelle Obama. She was stunned to discover that she was prohibited from talking to members of the audience. Michelle’s aide Mary Burke explained that “it is important that the message the First Lady is trying to communicate not be confounded by inappropriate crowd comments to any reporters. This is, after all, her event. She has a right to control how it is perceived and reported.” “To say that I was creeped out is an understatement,” Kissinger said. “We...

A 1968 photo taken during a Lunar Orbiter mission to the moon shows what appears to be a spacecraft that is at least 10 miles (16 km) long resting inside the Crater Manlius. The photo was the subject of a Youtube video that was released on October 4 that shows various close ups and light contrasts of the apparent spacecraft. Most of the object is well illuminated by the sun, but the rest is in the shadows of the crater which is approximately 20 miles (34 km) in diameter, What appears to be a spacecraft cockpit is in shadows. According...

Amarillo, TX - Scammers are now taking advantage of people's fear of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and are using the disease to make a profit. While nearly 2,000 people have been infected with the Ebola virus in West Africa, the United States has yet to see any confirmed cases of the disease. However, that isn't stopping some scammers from trying to make a quick buck at a time when the fatal disease is making headlines. Products claiming to either treat or prevent Ebola are popping up online. The FDA said they have received numerous consumer complaints of...

The cable news klieg lights, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson may have moved on, but residents of Ferguson, MO continue to experience nearly nightly unrest stemming from the shooting death of Michael Brown. Eye witnesses have told Breitbart News that pro-Palestinian and other Muslim activist groups are a growing presence in the protests. On October 10th, a number of these groups, named "The Palestine Contingent," are planning to join a "Weekend of Resistance" in Ferguson to highlight the connection between the midwest community and Gaza. From its call to action: "Local groups including the Organization for Black Struggle and the...

Polls of voters consistently show that Americans place global warming (sometimes framed more generally as environmental concerns) at or near the bottom of their list of priorities. Most of the top concerns are almost always directly related to the economy. Yet, there were approximately 125,000 people who turned out for the People’s Climate March in New York City. Why aren’t there even more people marching against the poor economy and unemployment, since those are the biggest concerns? In a way, that really is what they were marching against. Mostly. Let me explain. First, people really can’t get worked up over...

Perry Chiaramonte October 04, 2014 A Texas union’s dirty laundry -- aired out in court when workers charged they were cheated out of overtime pay – also shows the labor organization ripped off taxpayers under a $1.3 million contract to sign people up for ObamaCare, a watchdog group is claiming. Non-profit group Southern United Neighborhoods got a $1.3 million federal grant in 2013 to serve as a "navigator," enrolling people in Affordable Care Act coverage. The group subcontracted with United Labor Unions Local 100, which, according to Cause of Action, paid members less than it billed the government and, in...

Former Housing and Urban Development loan specialist Brian Thompson pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing $843,000 of taxpayer money in a wire fraud scheme. Thompson was responsible for selling properties acquired by the government after borrowers defaulted on their HUD-guaranteed mortgages. Specialists like Thompson were tasked with ensuring the sale of these properties at the best possible price to reimburse the government for taxpayer funds made to mortgage lenders for insured loans. Instead, he funneled portions of the proceeds into bank accounts he controlled, netting himself $843,000 in the process.

(CNSNews.com ) -- Wildfire management employees at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) used government charge cards to by $799,000 worth of gift cards from vendors such as REI, American Express, FredMeyer and Visa, according to a report released Sept. 30 by the Interior Department’s Office of the Inspector General. When investigators requested supporting documentation such as purchase orders, receipts, and authorizing signatures, BLM staff claimed that they were “missing,” according to the report. The inspector general describes widespread misuse of government-issued charge cards at the agency, making the “purchase card program susceptible to fraud, waste, and abuse.” In...

CARSON CITY — An ethics complaint has been filed against Secretary of State Ross Miller on allegations that he used an online election portal to unfairly gain support for his candidacy for attorney general. The Web portal was set up by his office for military and overseas civilian voters to participate in the Nov. 4 general election. The complaint dated Sept. 29 was filed by Kirk Lippold, a retired U.S. Navy commander of the USS Cole who at one point had sought the 2nd Congressional District seat when it became vacant after Dean Heller was appointed to the U.S. Senate....

When it comes to money in politics, U.S. Sen. Al Franken often complains that there is just too much of it. But when Franken called the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that opened the door for corporations, unions and individuals to spend unlimited amounts on candidates a "disaster" earlier this month, his impassioned Senate floor speech disguised a central fact of his campaign, and that of his Republican opponent, businessman Mike McFadden. Both are benefiting from a sophisticated network of donors and committees that have flourished in the wake of the legal decisions Franken and others often criticize. The U.S....

Time and again, we hear from the Democrats that voter fraud is not an important issue. Despite their ardent insistence, we continue to see people getting arrested for voter fraud, usually from their own party! Today’s news continues that trend. Democratic Connecticut State Representative Christina Ayala has been arrested on 19 counts of voter fraud.

When Steven Jones is sitting in prison (and I’m pretty sure the despicable abuse of his judicial powers will persuade a federal judge he’s unworthy of probation), don’t feel too sorry for him. He probably won’t have money woes when he gets out. While he’s pumping iron behind bars, he can rest assured he might be able to get up to 75 percent of his $200,000 a year salary as a judicial pension, at least at some point. That’s the way the system works. A pension is an earned benefit, so you can be a teacher convicted of molesting children...

The three-breasted lady sounded too good to be true, and it now appears she was a hoax all along. The 21-year-old calling herself 'Jasmine Tridevil' and claiming to have undergone plastic surgery to add a third breast, has been connected by internet-rumor site Snopes to a Tampa, Florida massage therapist named Alisha Hessler. Snopes discovered that the website JasmineTridevil.com is registered to a person named Alisha Hessler, and that Tridevil bares striking resemblance to a Tampa masseuse named Alisha Jasmine Hessler . A website for Hessler's business - Alisha's Golden Touch - lists that she is a 'provider of internet...

More than 300,000 people rallied in Manhattan Sunday, calling on world leaders to act on climate change — the largest climate change rally in history, according to reports. And while New York's rally was the largest in the People's Climate March event, rallies also took place in London, Paris, Berlin, Melbourne and more than 2,000 other locations around the globe, according to the BBC. And hundreds more showed up Monday in New York and marched to Wall Street to protest the role they say investments play in financing practices that cause climate change, The New York Times reported. The rallies...

Wisconsin offices that issue driver's licenses aren't open enough hours to issue photo IDs to all the voters who need them before the Nov. 4 election, a liberal group told federal judges in a brief filed Monday. Wisconsin's 2011 law requires voters to show a government-issued ID with a photo to vote. Because of legal challenges, the requirement had not been enforced since the February 2012 primary. But a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said Sept. 12 that the law could be used for the Nov. 4 election and other elections while it considers...

Google is breaking ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a prominent network of conservative state legislators that, among other projects, works to roll back laws that promote solar and wind power, the company's chairman said Monday. The decision marks a major victory for a campaign by environmentalists, union activists and other liberal groups that have pushed companies to drop support for ALEC. Microsoft ended its ties to the group a few weeks ago. “The consensus within the company was that that was some sort of mistake,” Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said, referring to the initial decision to support...

Leaders of a Minneapolis nonprofit that serves low-income residents used taxpayer money to pay for a celebrity cruise and trips to Palm Beach and the Bahamas, according to a recently completed state audit. Along with the trips, the audit by the state Department of Human Services found that the nonprofit’s leaders spent public money on bonuses, golf, spa treatments, furniture, alcohol and even a personal car loan. The audit concluded that the organization’s longtime chief executive, Bill Davis, misspent hundreds of thousands of dollars from 2011 to 2013. “It was deeply concerning how the dollars are being used,” Chuck Johnson,...

Mark Levin really lays into Elizabeth Warren over her comments in response to a question about Israel. Just listen, it’s short and it’s fantastic: