Free Republic

Sloppy gets people killed. We’re learning that in Dallas. In the nation that invented modern health care, we’re learning that our own carelessness and incompetence is losing us its benefits. If you aren’t conscientious, if you don’t pay attention to detail, if you grow lazy and haphazard in the doing of your daily duty, it doesn’t take long for you and your society to slip back into the gutter. The Secret Service has shown us that. So has Texas Health Presbyterian. We killed the African guy, and now we’re about to kill one of our own. Basic incompetence is proving...

Americans should be "deeply skeptical" of government power, says FBI Director James Comey, adding that law enforcement should be able to access someone's telephone only with a court order, "I believe that Americans should be deeply skeptical of government power," Comey told CBS News' Scott Pelley in an interview for "60 Minutes" that will air on Sunday. "You cannot trust people in power. "The Founders knew that," he said. "That’s why they divided power among three branches, to set interest against interest." Comey, 53, who became FBI chief in September 2013, cautioned that courts must grant law-enforcement agencies permission to...

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Is the U.S. Ebola screening effort really just a public-relations ploy? Health officials say beefed-up defenses in five U.S. airports mean they will screen 94% of passengers flying in from Ebola-hit countries. But a check of airlines schedules shows that even if that figure is correct, a significant number of flights will bypass that extra security. Dr. Joseph McCormick, professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health and former CDC official specializing in viral diseases, says the efforts seem to be the result of public pressure. “I think that the screening program is, to...

Moak Casey & Associates released their newest version of “Tracking the Education Dollar in Texas Public Schools” on behalf of the Texas Association of School Administrators and Texas Association of School Boards. Contrary to public school critics, the 2013 school expenditures reflected 60.8 percent of the $52.4 billion in state funds were spent on direct instruction for the 4.9 million children in Texas public schools. Direct instruction includes teacher salaries and benefits, instructional materials, teacher aides and librarians. Add another 21.4 percent for instructional support, which includes principals, counselors, and nurses. Approximately 14.9 percent of a district’s funds provide transportation,...

LANGUAGE matters and every day our lives are governed by things we are told. And language means the use of words. That is why propaganda is the first weapon of the dictator - the power to bend the real meaning of words in order to bend the listener/reader's mind. The two weapons of the propagandist are the misnomer (the wrong word with the wrong meaning) and the euphemism (the wimp that dare not say what it really means.) Way out in the lead for both categories is the BBC. Listen to the news and you'll see what I mean. The...

Democrat Charlie Crist holds a sizable 53-29 percent lead over Gov. Rick Scott among Hispanic voters, according to a new poll that indicates this fastest growing segment of the electorate doesn’t like Republican positions on immigration, Medicaid and the minimum wage.

For decades, free high-school education helped strengthen the middle class and generate prosperity. So isn’t it time to extend the same thinking to college? The idea might seem impractical, since college costs more than high school and higher education isn’t for everybody in the first place. Yet it’s also obvious that a high school education alone isn’t nearly as valuable as it used to be, which is why some researchers and policymakers are now studying ways to make college as accessible as high school for those who want it. College is free in Scandinavian countries and highly subsidized in much...

This last weekend the Sunday shows had a “trust in government” theme. Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press" asked Obama advisor Dan Pfeiffer why the government of the email-losing IRS, of no strategy on ISIS, of border mayhem could be trusted on Ebola. On Fox News Sunday Chris Wallace threw a slow hanging pitch to George Will so he could hit it out of the ball park. Said Wallace: [W]ith growing concerns over Ebola, the Secret Service and the VA and IRS scandals, can we trust the federal government to do its job?

Dawn Lafreeda began working at Denny’s when she was 16, making her way up from hostess to waitress. In 1984, at the age of 23, she bought her first store. She now owns over 70. “When I was a kid, I told myself that I was going to be self-employed when I grew up and have a better life and have the things I’d never had,” she told Entrepreneur magazine this past summer. Franchising was Dawn’s ticket to a better life. She’s not alone. Franchising has been a successful business model for Americans wanting to own their own businesses and...

“COMPOUND INTEREST is the eighth wonder of the world.” Did Albert Einstein say this? He should have. It’s true. Few grasp compounding’s power. Or they do, but the need for quick gratification overwhelms their good sense. On the radio someone asks Dave Ramsey, the money guru with an avid following among the heartland’s middle class, whether it’s okay to take out a payday loan for special occasions. “Like what?” asks Ramsey. “Um, tickets to the state fair,” the caller answers. Now, understand that Ramsey is a debt hawk who hates credit cards. The idiocy of taking out a usurious payday...

<p>Two years ago this week, the nation’s unemployment dipped below 8% for the first time since the start of the Great Recession. Almost immediately, Republicans were outraged – the good news couldn’t be real, they said, but rather must be the result of an elaborate conspiracy.</p>

If you think the Obama administration has been characterized by a big expansion of government employment, you're wrong.Bill McBride at Calculated Risk has updated his charts of public sector payrolls under President Barack Obama and his recent predecessors.Calculated Risk As you can see, it's not even close.Obama in the dark blue line has seen a sustained and violent slump in public sector employment since he became president, and we're not even close to closing the gap.Reagan had a brief decline in public sector employment, but it came back fast. All the other presidents saw only gains on this measure.

Okay...I have been reading many of the Ebola-related threads. This crap scares me, as I'm sure it scares many of you. I have seen posts that say this is going to spread due to the administration's incompetence. I have also seen posts that say it will spread due to the desire for the country's destruction by the same administration. This thread is to find out what you think the outcome is going to be. Martial law? Death on a massive scale? Suspension of elections and/or the Constitution? Will there be a public backlash? Or do you think it's going to...

Well, that didn’t take long. Adding Ebola to his list of evil white plots against blacks, including AIDS, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has claimed it was an invention to kill blacks.Warner Todd Huston writes at Breitbart: In a new missive, Farrakhan wrote that Henry Kissinger created a plan in 1974 to kill black people and now Ebola and AIDS are weapons being used to fulfill that policy. Farrakhan told followers that Kissinger said in 1974: "Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the Third World." Farrakhan went on to claim that "bio-weapons such as Ebola and AIDS"...

A former detention assistant contends she was fired by the Clark County Department of Juvenile Justice Services for complaining about excessive force against a juvenile inmate. Kisha Norman of Las Vegas filed an employment discrimination lawsuit Thursday against the department and its assistant manager of detention, Patrick Schreiber, who fired her in April 2013. “Norman was not wanted because she was not part of the racist culture inside DJJS that accepted, condoned and ratified excessive force against juveniles,” the federal lawsuit alleges. In an email Thursday, spokesman Erik Pappa said the county does not comment on pending litigation. According to...

Health Canada apparently changing the facts about the nature of the Ebola virus.

Former President Jimmy Carter marked his 90th birthday Wednesday with a lengthy interview on CNBC Meets where he discussed his one term in office and the one thing he would have handled differently — the Iran Hostage Crisis. Carter suggested Operation Eagle Claw, a failed 1980 attempt to rescue the hostages taken by Iranian revolutionaries at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, could have been successful if he committed one more helicopter to the mission. "I think I would have been re-elected easily if I had been able to rescue our hostages from the Iranians," said Carter. "And everybody asks me...

The White House says it wants to work with Syria’s moderate rebels. But warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition came awfully close to striking one of their HQs. Last week, an airstrike from the American-led coalition nearly hit a command-and-control facility affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, the moderate rebels the Obama administration says are America’s “boots on the ground,” according to two opposition leaders. They are asking the Obama administration to please coordinate with them in the future before America bombs its only allies in Syria. Since U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria began on Sept. 22, there has been...

A knife-wielding intruder allowed to run rampant through the first floor of the White House. Bullets that struck the window of Barack Obama's private residence but went unnoticed for days. A presidential bodyguard so drunk he passed out in hallway of a hotel. These are just some of the recent incidents that have shaken confidence in the Secret Service, the elite agency assigned to protect Mr Obama, his family and the White House. On Tuesday, Julia Pierson, the Secret Service's director, will face a grilling from members of Congress and a battle to convince them that her agents are up...

Larry and Linda Gray were surprised to get the letters from their bank asking for additional information about their financial affairs. They were offended when they saw what information was requested. So, they went to see their local BofA branch, toting the letter with them. The Assistant Manager Lucas Flood said he had not ever seen a letter like this, but after he made a few phone calls, he told the Grays that yes, it was legitimate. The accompanying letter explains, "Due to the prominent nature of your occupation or position held currently or in the past, we now require...