Free Republic

One of the biggest public supporters of the Affordable Care Act has reportedly decided that some of his staff should be exempted from the new law. CNN reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is the only top congressional leader to exempt some of his staff from having to buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. That’s right, even House Majority Leader John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who have voted against the healthcare law dozens of times, have told their staff to sign up for insurance plans through the federal exchange. The news will likely provide...

The clerk recognized that the gun the suspects were using was a fake, so he reached down and brought his own gun up, telling the would be robbers that his gun was “bigger”. The suspects ran out of the store, and quickly left in their getaway car.

ELKHART - Many stores and restaurants will be open this year on Thanksgiving Day, and one local man says he lost his job because of it. Tony Rohr worked at Pizza Hut for more than ten years, but says he was fired recently because he refused to open on Thanksgiving. He says he doesn't think people should have to work on a holiday like Thanksgiving. He started at Pizza Hut as a cook and worked his way up to being a general manager of the Jackson Boulevard Pizza Hut in Elkhart. He was told opening on Thanksgiving this year was...

This is a total bombshell for the financial media world. CNBC's "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo is headed to Fox Business Network, Matt Drudge first reported while she was anchoring "Closing Bell" this afternoon. CNBC has confirmed this for us. "After 20 years of groundbreaking work at CNBC, Maria Bartiromo will be leaving the company as her contract expires on November 24th. Her contributions to CNBC are too numerous to list but we thank her for all of her hard work over the years and wish her the best," CNBC's Brian Steel said in a statement to Business Insider. This summer,...

Philip Chism admitted to police that he followed math teacher Colleen Ritzer, 24, into a second-floor bathroom at Danvers High School — where he attacked her, according to a report. The teen used a recycling bin to bring her body to the wooded area behind the school. The 14-year-old boy accused of killing a beloved Massachusetts teacher has allegedly confessed to slashing her throat with a box cutter in a school bathroom before dumping her body in a nearby patch of woods, according to a report. Philip Chism admitted to police that he followed math teacher Colleen Ritzer into a...

The families of four soldiers and one Marine killed in Afghanistan over the weekend have been told that they will be denied death benefits while the government shutdown continues, leaving at least one mother in despair and disbelief. The families will also be denied travel re-imbursement should they choose to go to Dover Air Force Base, Del., for the solemn return of the caskets of their loved ones, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. "For the sacrifice our kids are making, at the age that they're making them, I don't understand how this can be a benefit that's withheld. I won't ever...

– Some Catholic priests under contract or GS (general schedule) to the military are not allowed to offer the Catholic sacraments--including saying Mass, consecrating marriages, or performing baptisms--on military property during the government shutdown, and if they do, even on a volunteer basis, they risk being arrested, according to the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.

Global Warming: Temperatures have flat-lined for 15 years, the Arctic and Antarctic are gaining record amounts of ice, most computer models have been wrong, yet the networks are buying into the alarmists' narrative. Earth might not have a fever but the media do, judging by their hyperventilating about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's quite fraudulent report (Fifth Assessment Report or 5AR) released Sept. 27. One network — CBS— even turned a blind eye to the truth and claimed that temperatures "could have risen by more than 200 degrees." This fiction came from CBS' Ben Tracy, who said the carbon...

<p>President Barack Obama summoned congressional leaders to the White House on the second day of a partial government shutdown that has furloughed hundreds of thousands of workers and closed military cemeteries as far away as France. Republican leaders welcomed the Wednesday afternoon meeting but questioned whether Democrats were ready to deal.</p>

WASHINGTON — Wheelchair-bound elderly veterans pushed aside barricades to tour the World War II Memorial Tuesday morning, in defiance of the government shutdown which closed all of the memorials in the nation’s capital. The four bus loads of veterans — visiting from Mississippi as part of a once-in-a-lifetime Honor Flight tour — ignored National Park Police instructions not to enter the site as lawmakers and tourists cheered them on. “We didn’t come this far not to get in,” one veteran proclaimed. The scene was both emotional and comical at once. After it was clear they had lost control of the...

A group of World War II veterans in an Honor Flight group Tuesday knocked over barriers imposed during the government shutdown at the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C., to get inside. As part of the federal government shutdown, national parks are closed. But the group of veterans continued to the monument Tuesday, as reported by Stars and Stripes reporter Leo Shane.

MULBERRY, Fla. (AP)— Polk County sheriff’s deputies arrested Pastor Terry Jones, 61, and his associate pastor, Marvin Sapp Jr., 34,..He had said he was heading to a nearby park to burn 2,998 Qurans — one for every victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks... Mulberry’s mayor, along with area elected officials, a sheriff’s deputy and several Polk County residents have talked about the need to express love and tolerance for all faiths on Sept. 11. [snip]

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – The Marine Corps said it will delay the deployment of an Osprey aircraft squadron to Okinawa following (yet another) Air Force "helicopter" crash in a military training area Monday. The fiery crash of an HH-60 Pave Hawk sent plumes of smoke into the air near Camp Hansen in central Okinawa and left one crew member still missing early Tuesday.

FULL TITLE: Shocking Facebook video of white toddler, 3, being 'racially bullied' by her five-year-old black neighbors A shocking video which appears to show the racially motivated bullying of a three-year-old white girl by her five-year-old black neighbors is not what it appears say the father's of the children involved. Two clips uploaded to Facebook and entitled 'When white people pi** black people off', show a heartbreaking scene - a little Minneapolis girl trying to play with another group of girls who are encouraged to hit, push and verbally abuse the toddler at the encouragement of an older boy off...

President Obama is considering a strike on Syrian military targets involving sea-launched cruise missiles or possibly long-range bombers that would last no more than two days, according to senior administration officials and reported by Karen DeYoung and Anne Gearan of The Washington Post. Reuters reports that the West has told the opposition to expect a strike "within days." The limited strike would seemingly be a response to allegations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its own people before dawn on August 21. Hundreds were killed and thousands suffered "neurotoxic symptoms." The design of the potential attack implies sending...

CNN has only part of this story. Three teenage boys - 2 black and one white - apparently targeted an Austrialian citizen who was attending a local college in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship for murder because they were "bored." Chris Lane was walking down the road when the teens came up behind him and shot him in the back: A random act of violence has left a promising 23-year-old college baseball player dead, a family devastated and two countries half a world apart rattled. Christopher Lane, who was from Australia, was gunned down in Duncan, Oklahoma, while he was...

Late last week, U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange in Oklahoma City ruled that a state amendment prohibiting courts from considering Sharia law when ruling in cases was unconstitutional. In her (decision) he judge said that because the amendment discriminated among religions, the state had to demonstrate a compelling state interest to justify it — something Oklahoma failed to do:

Here’s another example of concealed-carry permits being effective in everyday life. A woman in the Houston area experienced a traumatic event in which her concealed carry handgun came to the rescue. A woman whose husband was being accosted by six men in a Houston area Denny's pulled her concealed carry handgun from her purse and opened fire on the robbers. According to Click2Houston.com, the wife was in the restroom, and when she came out she saw her husband lying on the floor, the group of robbers nearby. Police say she then "pulled her gun and shot at them." It appears...

Apparently the First Amendment of the right of free speech no longer applies in America (unless something is being spoken or written by the progressive left, which is then fine and protected speech). There's been a brouhaha over the fact that a rodeo clown wore an Obama mask at the Missouri State Fair rodeo. When the announcer asked if the crowd wanted to see Obama ran over by the bull, the crowd cheered. Since then, the professional grievance industry has been in full swing, frothing at the mouth and wringing their hands on national tv and in print. As usual,...

Burka bandit tries to hold up National City bank, CBS8 San Diego, August 2, 2013 A woman tried to rob a bank in National City, and officials sought the public's help locating her. The attempted robbery occurred at around 6 p.m. Thursday at a Wells Fargo Bank branch at 1199 Highland Ave., according to FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth. "At the time of the robbery, the woman entered the bank and stood in the teller line until summoned by a teller," Foxworth said. "Upon arriving at the teller counter, the woman presented a demand note." The teller read some of...