Free Republic

MADISON — Federal employees in Wisconsin apparently cannot have their cake and eat it, too. What could be more than 2,000 furloughed workers who received back pay related to the 16-day partial government shutdown will have to reimburse any unemployment benefits that were applied for or collected during that time, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development spokesman John Dipko said. That total could be in excess of $245,000. According to Dipko, nearly 2,070 federal employees in the Badger State filed claims for unemployment between Sept. 30 and Oct. 12. The number of claims made last week were not available at the...

EUGENE, Ore. - Vicki Walker and 27,000 other federal workers in Oregon effectively lost their jobs during the government shutdown. Walker didn't apply for unemployment benefits, however, because state law requires applicants to seek other work. "I like what I do so I deferred not to take those benefits and wait and hope that Congress would repay the funding," she said. The budget bill approved by Congress on Wednesday states that all federal employees will receive back pay for the time they didn’t working during the partial government shut down. But Oregon state law mandates that the 1,300 Oregon federal...

WASHINGTON —The federal government announced on Monday that it would reimburse American hospitals who treat Haitian earthquake victims with life-threatening injuries, making it possible for more hospitals in states outside Florida to consider taking those patients. The announcement came as a C-130 cargo plane was being sent to carry at least 10 Haitians seriously injured in the earthquake from Port-au-Prince to Palm Beach, Fla., the first military airlift of wounded Haitians since a controversial suspension of the flights last week.

Has anyone else noticed that the silent majority seems to be involved in a silent boycott of all the biased news outlets that have been attacking President Bush, our military and the nation's Christian heritage this past year? If we believe a new report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations[1], which collects and monitors circulation data for newspapers and magazines, the liberal press is in deep doo-doo. Some of the nation's largest daily newspapers reported steep circulation declines and overall circulation is down across the industry. The top 20 papers suffered the biggest weekday and Sunday declines, among them the...

Picking up Bill's tab: Former President Bill Clinton is seeking more than $1 million from the federal government to compensate him for legal fees he incurred to protect himself from the Whitewater investigation. He may be legally entitled to the money. There is, however, a better and fairer way of compensation. There's a precedent for federal subsidy. President Ronald Reagan got money for fees he incurrred during the Iran-contra probe, as did President George Bush the elder. The Clinton claim is only for the original Whitewater probe, not for paying his lawyers for their work during the Monica Lewinsky investigation...