Free Republic

(WSB Radio) -- Despite the freezing temperatures, hundreds fought for a place in line in Marietta to apply for federal aid to help pay their heat and power bills this winter. Only 30 people were being let in at a time at the assistance center in Marietta. "It was freezing," applicant Linda Benefield told WSB-TV. "I was in line for three hours and 15 minutes, but I needed the help." Some needed even more help just to deal with the cold. Ambulances were cold in and took at least two people to the hospital because of the freezing temperatures ....

WASHINGTON — Cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and an exclusive group of senior U.S. officials are exempt from toughened new airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-sanctioned security details. New heightened security procedures by the Transportation Security Administration, which require either a scan by a full-body detector or an intimate personal pat-down, have spurred passenger outrage in the lead-up to the Thanksgiving holiday airport crush. The senior government officials can opt out of such measures if they fly accompanied by government security guards approved by the TSA. The agency would not explain why it makes these exceptions, but...

The Lansing State Journal reported last week that the federal stimulus has been working. The White House projects the spending act created or saved between 2.5 and 3.6 million jobs. Experts at some limited government public policy think tanks give their opinions of the White House report. Brian Riedl: Research Fellow for Federal Budget Policy at the Heritage Foundation Of course the stimulus is a failure. Since it has been passed we have lost 3 million more jobs. If that is success, what does failure look like? 'Jobs saved' is impossible to measure. We can point out that the White...

I'm from the government and I'm here to help you! Yeah!!!! Wal-Mart 1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day. 2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute! 3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year. 4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined. 5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English. 6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world. 7. Wal-Mart now sells...

What are the worst government programs? To qualify for an award the nominee must be government run, backed or financed, and fail a "Yellow Book" test, meaning that if a private company found in the Yellow Pages can do the work, the government should get out. The nominees are, in reverse order: Veterans Hospitals, Post Office, General Motors, Public Schools and Freddie Mae/Fannie Mac To see why, please click the article.

A letter was sent to Reuters chief Tom Glocer on Monday expressing the "grave concern of the government of Israel" over the cropping of photographs taken from the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship last week by Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs MK Yuli Edelstein. The photos, which were published on Sunday in the Turkish Hurriyet daily, showed images of the commandos, their fatigues stained with blood, subdued by passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara ship but excluded the knives held by the aid activists.

Hague promises to act speedily on matter, says Conservative party finds it "completely unacceptable that someone such as Livni feels she cannot visit the UK." LONDON - British Foreign Minister William Hague said on Thursday that it is absolutely his intention to act speedily to change the universal jurisdiction law and that this is agreed and understood in the coalition government. Speaking at a briefing at the Foreign Office on Thursday, Hague was asked by The Jerusalem Post if he has a timetable for a change to the law, which allows private complaints of war crimes to be lodged against...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is warning the health insurance industry that it will block mergers that threaten to stifle competition. Justice Department antitrust chief Christine Varney said Monday that vigorous enforcement of anti-monopoly laws is essential to the success of the new health care law, particularly when it comes to reining in premiums. Big insurers have been getting bigger, and in many states one or two large carriers dominate the market.

Says Iranian deal is a maneuver to prevent agreement on sanctions. The Israeli government described the latest Iranian nuclear deal as a trick designed to prevent the imposition of UN Security Council sanctions. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with the "Septet" of seven key ministers on Tuesday, to discuss Israel's response to the Iranian nuclear fuel reprocessing agreement, brokered by Brazil and Turkey. Netanyahu instructed ministers not to make any public pronouncements before they had agreed a united response. Ministers concluded that the latest agreement is a maneuver to prevent the UN Security Council from agreeing on sanctions. They concluded...

WASHINGTON — The number of homeowners dropping out of the Obama administration's main mortgage assistance plan is growing, and is now almost equal to the number who have received permanent relief. The Treasury Department's report on Monday was the latest evidence of problems in the administration's $75 billion program. While officials insist the program is helping the housing market turn around, critics say it is merely delaying an inevitable surge in foreclosures. More than 299,000 homeowners had received permanent loan modifications as of last month, Treasury said. That's about 25 percent of the 1.2 million who started the program since...

Jose Alvarez first asked about a bricklaying job with M&D Masonry at the Atlanta airport in March, and the foreman assured him that being an illegal immigrant wouldn’t be a problem. Enlarge photo John Spink, jspink@ajc.com Workers continue their steady pace on the Maynard Jackson International Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport Tuesday, April 27, 2010. Enlarge photo John Spink, AJC Dave Weldon, co-owner of M&D Masonry, and foreman Bob Beaty say that their hiring practice is to have workers that are properly documented at the construction site of the Maynard Jackson International Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Related Hartsfield-Jackson eyes growth Hartsfield-Jackson...

he average state employee compensation package costs approximately $93,039. Inflation-adjusted wages and benefits have increased 25 percent since fiscal 1999. The figures include the value of all benefits from state-paid retirement contributions to dry cleaning allowances. The largest cost increases came from retirement benefits (which increased from $309 million in fiscal 1999 to $772 million in fiscal 2008) and health insurance (which increased from $273 million in fiscal 1999 to $554 million in fiscal 1999). The wages and benefits of Michigan's over 50,000 state employees cost taxpayers $4.7 billion in fiscal 2008. This is up from $3.2 billion in fiscal...

My party challenges the whole basis of the Progressivist vision of this country's future. We challenge their attack on American exceptionalism. We challenge their claim that bureaucratic centralization is the only way the US can meet the economic and social challenges of our time.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded that man-made greenhouse gas emissions — including carbon dioxide — are harmful pollutants and must be regulated. The lawsuit I filed challenging that finding does not address the disputed science surrounding global warming. Instead, it focuses on the indisputable fact that the EPA relied on information that has been discredited,

The average federal salary (including benefits) is set to grow from $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 in 2010, CBS reported. But the real action isn’t in what government employees are being paid today; it’s in what they’re being promised for tomorrow. Public pensions have swollen to unrecognizable proportions during the last decade. In June 2005, BusinessWeek reported that “more than 14 million public servants and 6 million retirees are owed $2.37 trillion by more than 2,000 different states, cities and agencies,” numbers that have risen since then. State and local pension payouts, the magazine found, had increased 50 percent in...

PHOENIX -- The state sold more than 20 properties Thursday, including prisons, the state Capitol and both legislative chambers, for $735.4 million at a targeted interest rate at just over 4 percent.

I have become aware of a county program that is totally disfunctional and I want something done about it! This has to do with a county misappropriating federal funds. The county is Snohomish in Washington state. Supposedly the feds leave it up to the local govt's to audit their own programs. Can someone help me find out what department I can contact to try to get some interest in my story (I won't share it here...yet). Thanks for any help!!

n the just-so story of the evolution of our economy, our old manufacturing based economy has been replaced by an innovative knowledge economy. That's not quite true. In fact, the decline of the jobs in goods producing sectors of the economy--construction, manufacturing, mining and agriculture--has largely been met with an increase in jobs on the government payroll. We've gone from providing jobs in profit-making private industry to providing jobs in profit-eating government work. Toward the end of 2007, the total number of government jobs exceeded the total number of goods producing jobs. Welcome to the government payroll economy.

Good news for homebuyers... bad news for taxpayers. As everyone knows there has been a massive government effort to support house prices. Some of this has been aimed at limiting supply (modification programs, various foreclosure moratoria), and some has been aimed at increasing demand (tax credit, lower mortgage rates, loose lending standards). Here is a quote from Secretary Geithner from a recent Newsweek interview by Daniel Gross: "We were very careful from the beginning ... to say that we are going to focus the bulk of the financial force on bringing interest rates and mortgage rates down to cushion the...

There has always been speculation among economists who apply a verbal deductive methodology to the science of economics as to why econometricians adopt a worshipful posture towards using equations when attempting to explain the economy. One theory holds that it provides cover to bring about more intervention in the economy. A current proposal by Yale economist Robert Shiller provides an object lesson in how phony equations are created to advance government intervention. In today's NYT, Shiller writes: Corporations raise money by issuing both debt and equity, the latter giving investors an implicit share in future profits. Governments should do something...