Free Republic

The IRS reported this week that 6.6 million people paid the ObamaCare mandate penalty for not having insurance last year, which the administration says is 10% higher than they'd expected. This isn't exactly good news, given that the entire point of the mandate penalty tax is to encourage everyone to buy coverage. Even if it were, the number comes with two big caveats.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is expected to make a big announcement Monday, but it seems he gave away the surprise last week in a tweet. On Friday, Walker tweeted a black-and-white photo of himself waving on a stage with the words "Scott Walker is running for president," according to Politico. The tweet has since been taken down, but Walker sent a few more presidential-sounding messages afterward, including one showing "the official campaign logo." Walker is set to make the announcement at 5 p.m. Monday in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha. Campaign aides revealed to the Associated Press in early July...

Miss Oklahoma, Olivia Jordan, was crowned the 64th Miss USA on Sunday night but that wasn’t the most entertaining part of the night. Rather it was a very interesting answer from Miss Nevada, Brittany McGowan, during the Q&A portion of the pageant. McGowan -- who had already tripped over her dress during the evening gown competition -- was asked by a judge what she would do to improve race relations in the United States. She appeared taken aback by the question but still tried to reply saying: “What I would do to improve race relations in the U.S. is get...

On June 10, USA Today quoted FBI director James Comey saying an FBI “mistake” allowed Dylann Roof to pass a background check for the .45 caliber handgun he allegedly used to attack innocents at Charleston’s Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The New York Times excused this “mistake,” positing instead that Roof passed the background check because of a system “flaw.”The best case scenario for gun control proponents would have been that Roof did not even bother with a background check; that he instead bought the firearm at a gun show or from a crazy friend or that–as many gun control advocates posited...

Google says it is "appalled" that its new Photos app mistakenly labelled a black couple as being "gorillas". Its product automatically tags uploaded pictures using its own artificial intelligence software. The error was brought to its attention by a New York-based software developer who was one of the people pictured in the photos involved. Google was later criticised on social media because of the label's racist connotations. "This is 100% not OK," acknowledged Google executive Yonatan Zunger after being contacted by Jacky Alcine via Twitter. "[It was] high on my list of bugs you 'never' want to see happen."

UC Santa Barbara geologist Jim Boles has found evidence of helium leakage from the Earth’s mantle along a 30-mile stretch of the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone in the Los Angeles Basin. Using samples of casing gas from two dozen oil wells ranging from LA’s Westside to Newport Beach in Orange County, Boles discovered that more than one-third of the sites — some of the deepest ones — show evidence of high levels of helium-3 (3He).Considered primordial, 3He is a vestige of the Big Bang. Its only terrestrial source is the mantle. Leakage of 3He suggests that the Newport-Inglewood fault is deeper...

A confrontation described as heated but non-violent thwarted a planned burning of the Confederate flag by demonstrators Saturday in Brooksville. A few hundred counter-protesters — many carrying Confederate and American flags — showed up at the steps of the Hernando County courthouse to cut short a rally in which organizers denounced “rampant white racist violence.” Organizers of the protest included the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, a St. Petersburg group of white people under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, which seeks reparations for black Americans. As about a dozen people protested, they became greatly outnumbered by a pro-Confederate flag...

WASHINGTON (AP) — IRS employees erased computer backup tapes a month after officials discovered that thousands of emails related to the tax agency's tea party scandal had been lost, according to government investigators. The investigators, however, concluded that employees erased the tapes by mistake, not as part of an attempt to destroy evidence. As many as 24,000 emails were lost because 422 backup tapes were erased, according to J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. The revelation is likely to fuel conspiracy theories among conservatives who say the IRS has obstructed congressional investigations into the scandal. George...

Government investigators say IRS employees erased computer backup tapes a month after officials discovered that thousands of emails related to the tax agency’s tea party scandal had been lost. The investigators, however, concluded that employees erased the tapes by mistake, not as part of an attempt to destroy evidence.The report is likely to fuel conspiracy theories among conservatives who say the IRS has obstructed congressional investigations into the scandal. …

A Palestinian terrorist died in clashes with the IDF near Ramallah Sunday morning, after his attack on an army jeep backfired quite spectacularly. Abdallah Ghanayem, 21, died after being struck by the vehicle during clashes that erupted in the village of Kfar Malik following a dawn Israeli army raid, the Palestinian Authority sources said. An IDF spokesman confirmed to AFP that a Palestinian had died - after he threw an incendiary device at a jeep and the vehicle overturned on him. It was the second Palestinian terrorist killed in the past week,....

A crane hauling an air conditioner into the top floor of a 30-story building dropped the heavy load Sunday morning, smashing parts of the building and injuring 10 people. Workers were loading the shipping container-sized machine into 261 Madison Ave. when a rigging strap holding the air conditioner broke, a city official familiar with the ongoing investigation told the Daily News. The chiller sheered the building as it fell. Debris rained down on Madison Ave. around E. 38th St. Part of the 30-story building's facade near the roof was bashed open.

In the past two days, malfunctions in the network of sensors that detect earthquakes in Northern California have issued three false alarms, forcing the U.S. Geological Survey to make a series of embarrassing retractions.. Just after midnight Friday morning, a magnitude 6.7 quake struck off the coast of Alaska. When its waves reached sensors operated by the Northern California Seismic Network, they were mistakenly interpreted as a 5.1 temblor near the Oregon border in Lewiston, officials say. ... The error occurred again Saturday morning after a magnitude 7.8 quake struck off the coast of Japan and the same Northern California...

Seventy years ago, Soviet tanks made it all the way to Berlin, but this week one of the newest Russian tanks struggled to make it all the way across Red Square. The next-generation tank appeared to stall during the final rehearsal for a major military parade in Moscow to mark the 70th anniversary of victory in the second world war. The Armata tank, which is on display for the first time, ground to a halt during the rehearsal, in an incident later claimed to have been a deliberate test. President Vladimir Putin will welcome the leaders of India, China and...

Immediately after takeoff from Sea-Tac, the pilot “reported hearing banging from beneath the aircraft,” according to the airline. “The captain immediately returned to Seattle, declaring an emergency for priority landing,” the statement said. “The aircraft was in the air for 14 minutes. After landing, a ramp agent was found inside the front cargo hold, which is pressurized and temperature controlled.”

In moments like this you just have to laugh to keep from crying. Memories Pizza was threatened by the liberal mob and was forced to closed their doors for safety reasons. A GoFundMe page was started for the restaurant and raised $842,592. Naturally, the Left started losing their minds. The comments section is funny, this has to be the best. This has to be a troll, right? How do you arrive $29,000 a person? I guess the same way you arrive at Obama being the right person to lead this county. #Insanity There are just so many gems in her...

Oops! So Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is a "bigot," eh? That's the word from Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, who has banned state-funded travel to Indiana because the latter just passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act - just like 19 other states. In a minute, I'll tell you what one of those states is, but first, here is more about what Malloy said: “The governor’s not a stupid man, but he’s done stupid things,” said Malloy to Mika Brzezinski, “and signing this law, and, quite frankly, promoting this law, knowing exactly what it was going to do, was an incredibly stupid...

Obama nearly slips getting off Air Force One VIDEO AT LINK

A celebrated sea otter who survived a natural oil slick and was tracked by researchers for six years has been killed by a shark. The seven-year-old marine mammal named Olive was found dead by a beachgoer on March 22 near Sunset State Beach in California. Wildlife biologists retrieved a large, serrated tooth fragment from white shark in a wound on the mother-of-three's body, indicating the cause of death.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has been hospitalized following a horse-riding accident over the Christmas holidays in Africa that left him with seven broken ribs and fluid around his lungs, a spokesman said Monday. Spokesman Brian Coy said doctors had expected the weeks-old injury to heal on its own, but after identifying increased fluid around the governor’s lungs, they admitted him around noon Monday for a procedure. McAuliffe (D), who attended a Martin Luther King Jr. event in Norfolk on Monday morning and was interviewed by local media there, was admitted hours later to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond....

A syphilis outbreak of "astronomical" proportions has been unleashed in Canada's easternmost province, according to the healthcare authority of eastern NewfoundlandAlready this year — in less than three months — 15 cases of syphilis have been reported, according to Eastern Health. That's more than half the total number of cases (26) confirmed by the region's health authority all of last year. Most of the 41 syphilis infections were identified in homosexual men between 20 and 49 years of age, with 10 of the cases also being diagnosed with HIV, according to Eastern Health. Rising concerns This substantial increase is raising...