Free Republic

**SNIP** The website remains unfinished. Politico reported last week that the back end of Healthcare.gov “still isn’t properly wired to the health insurance companies.” Problems persist with subsidy payments, and information verification, resulting in roughly 800,000 enrollees receiving inaccurate subsidy information. “Even though consumers had a largely smooth enrollment experience this year, the fact that these gaps persist behind the scenes 18 months after HealthCare.gov launched shows that the system is still not working as intended,” Politico said. “Instead of a swift process, health plans use clunky workarounds and manual spreadsheets. It takes time and it costs money.” Kevin Counihan,...

Lithuanian president urges West to help Ukraine Lithuanian leader appeals for Western allies to use 'all means necessary' to help Ukraine Amid a heated discussion on whether to provide Ukraine with lethal aid during the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, US Vice President Joe Biden delivered a balanced message while Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite urged the West to use ‘all means necessary' to help Ukraine. In a panel discussion with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko the Lithuanian leader delivered a powerful message saying that 'if we betray Ukraine we betray ourselves, after Ukraine, we will be next'.

The National Weather Service in Detroit/Pontiac has issued a winter storm warning that includes Monroe County for the time frame of 1 a.m. Sunday Feb. 1 to 7 a.m. Monday Feb. 2. RELATED: Pre-Groundhog Day snowstorm to sweep from Chicago to NYC The forecast is for "moderate to occasionally heavy snow," beginning late tonight and persisting through sunrise Monday. Accumulations of more than 8 inches of snow are likely "with the potential of up to 12 inches near the Ohio border," the warning that was issued at 4 p.m. today said. There also is the likelihood of blowing and drifting...

While Western newspapers were debating whether or not to reprint the Mohammed cartoons, in Nigeria as many as 2,000 people were massacred by the Islamic State in Nigeria, also known as Boko Haram, in what is being called the deadliest attack by the Muslim group to date. Survivors described the Islamic State setting up efficient killing teams and massacring everyone while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. “For five kilometers (three miles), I kept stepping on dead bodies until I reached Malam Karanti village, which was also deserted and burnt,” one survivor said. There’s a word for that. It’s genocide. The Islamic State...

THIS IS ONLY AN MSNBC TEST OF BANNER PLACEMENT, schedule 5-Nov-2014 6:00 AM EST.

Parliament Hill is in under lockdown after reports of shots being fired from inside the halls of the centre block. Nearby, at the National War Memorial, a man believed to be a soldier was shot by an unknown gunman. CTV News' Katie Simpson was at the War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday morning, and witnessed passersby attending to someone who had been shot. Police said a man believed to be a member of the Canadian Forces was shot at the memorial. Police said a man believed to be a member of the Canadian Forces was shot at the memorial. Jason...

I have followed all the Ferguson threads here on FR since the mike brown shooting with intensity; and restrained from comment from the plethora of opportunity, until now. My wife and 3 stepchildren are all from Ferguson, one of which still resides there with her father. I myself lived on Airport & Jackson, right on the border of what's left of Kinloch for quite some time. I'm intimately famaliar with the culture there. We've endured the criminal behaviour, and mob road blocks, and miscellaneous nefarious activities for years and years. The calls for violence against "whitey", law enforcement or civilian,...

Mac Slavo October 16th, 2014 The world’s leading news aggregator always stays on top of the most important stories in the world. With over a billion monthly visitors to his web site at DrudgeReport.com, it’s why thousands of media organizations follow his every post. Though seemingly a private person, there is no doubt that Matt Drudge has the inside scoop on many goings on in Washington and around the country. With contacts in high places, it stands to reason that the man behind the largest news source on the planet might get a heads up about key developments every so...

n Fox News on Saturday, retired Air Force Lt. General Thomas McInerney made a startling claim while speaking to host Uma Pemmaraju about a range of topics, including the situation with ISIS. Answering Pemmaraju's question about what he has been hearing from his contacts, McInerney suddenly warned of a potentially huge threat leading up to September 11th of this year. “ On the seventh of September, a major news network and a major publishing network are gonna put out a book, and it's gonna be earth-shattering of what’s happening and what happened. And the fact is we may even see...

SIERRA VISTA — Residents are urged to be cautious after a local business reported being contacted by a suspected con artist seeking money for an alleged overdue electric bill. The business owner reported being called from a phone line with an 850 area code, originating out of the Florida Panhandle, when a man on the other line said they had only 30 minutes to pay or their electricity would be shut off, according to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office.

SIERRA VISTA — Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative is warning local businesses to be aware of a scam, after two Sierra Vista companies recently reported receiving phone calls demanding payments to prevent their electricity from being shut off. The businesses were both contacted within a week of each other and after normal business hours, while SSVEC does not disconnect accounts outside of those hours, said Wayne Crane, public relations coordinator for SSVEC. When called, the businesses were asked to submit payment to a third party and not the utility co-op. “This money never reaches the cooperative and therefore is never...

Yesterday, moments after Secretary of State John Kerry departed for the Middle East to attempt to broker a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war, the State Department issued a warning recommending that “U.S. citizens consider the deferral of non-essential travel to Israel” due to the threat from “long-range rockets launched from Gaza.” Interesting timing. Long-range rocket fire from Gaza has been dramatically curtailed in recent days by the IDF’s ground operation, and was heaviest at the beginning of the war – some two weeks ago. Despite Hamas and Islamic Jihad barrages of M75 and M302 rockets fired at Tel Aviv and...

A pro-family group in Florida wants to know why Disney doesn't hold its homosexual pride event after hours – the same as an annual Christian music concert. Why does Disney continue to allow the annual observance of 'Gay Day' at the Magic Kingdom? Families are being warned to consider staying away from the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, especially Saturday, when Orlando's annual "Gay Days" includes a visit to the Disney theme park by thousands of homosexuals. David Caton of the Florida Family Association tells OneNewsNow that homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people will be in the park for "Gay Day."...

Trigger warning: I am going to make fun of "trigger warnings." Of course, if you're the sort of person who takes trigger warnings very seriously, you probably don't read this column too often. So maybe my mockery will miss its target, sort of like making fun of the Amish on the Internet -- it's not like they'll find out. In fairness, the Amish are actually very impressive people. Even though some Amish communities are more tolerant of technology than the stereotypes suggest, their Anabaptist puritanical streak leaves me cold. On the whole, I like modernity. I may not love every...

Two teams of scientists say the long-feared collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, kicking off what they say will be a centuries-long, "unstoppable" process that could raise sea levels by as much as 15 feet. "There's been a lot of speculation about the stability of marine ice sheets, and many scientists suspected that this kind of behavior is under way," Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a news release about one of the studies published Monday. "This study provides a more qualitative idea of the rates at which the collapse...

Just announced on the Weather Channel

MISSOURI — A military sound weapon called the LRAD is trickling its way into domestic agencies across the country. Its latest application will be for use against drivers on Missouri’s highways. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) has purchased two Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) with the intent of deploying them near work zones. The idea is to penetrate nearby vehicles with an overwhelmingly shrill sound to supposedly get them to slow down. Called a “safety device” by the local media, the LRAD is most famous for use against civilians overseas during military operations. Its 153 dB sound waves are...

Nato has warned Russia that further intervention in Ukraine would be a "historic mistake" with grave consequences.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against moving "overtly or covertly" into eastern Ukraine and said there was strong evidence that pro-Russian demonstrators in the region were being paid.

On April 3rd, the Florida senate passed warning shot legislation by a vote of 32-7. The state house had already passed the measure, so it now goes to Gov. Rick Scott (R) for his signature. If signed, this legislation will make it legal to fire a warning shot as a last step before shooting an attacker who has launched an assault.

  Or he would if here to witness this debacle...       The price of apathy in public affairs is to be ruled by evil men   Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men   Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment   Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws   Only the dead have seen the end of war   Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns   Ignorance, the root and...

Since the 1950s, geological reports on the hill that buckled during the weekend in Snohomish County have included pessimistic analyses and the occasional dire prediction. But no language seems more prescient than what appears in a 1999 report filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, warning of “the potential for a large catastrophic failure.”

PEOGA -- Charges have been filed against three people involved in a gun-pointing incident outside a home in northern Brown County. On Feb. 19, the Brown County Prosecutor’s Office charged 20-year-old Jacob C. Phillips of Brown County, 25-year-old John Jacob Miller of Freetown and 18-year-old Samantha D. Artis of Columbus with Class D felony receiving stolen property. The three showed up at the home Phillips lives in at 4011 Locust Grove Drive sometime before 10:42 a.m. Feb. 18. Phillips had sent his father text messages that Miller and Artis had kidnapped him, and they were bringing him to the Phillips’...

President Shimon Peres addressed the escalation in the south on Tuesday evening. "If Gaza wants peace and quiet they had better act accordingly...."

Khar, 15 December, 2013. Some journalists start blaming the Taliban to get the visa & immigration in the west especially to leave the country and go to USA and UK, but they remember that it’s not the way. This is the latest statement of Tehreek Taliban Pakistan Ex Spokesman Ihsan Ullah Ihsan (Sajjad Momand) , which he released through social media. In Urdu statement Ihsan Ullah Ihsan also informed that some a journalist sends letter him about Taliban threat, which is fake letter , because Taliban nor interested to on that journalist nor in the past nor will b in...

"We are a partnership of peoples and a partnership of interests, and the key interest is fighting terrorism,” Netanyahu said. “I know, Mr. President, that you have been plagued by this scourge. I want you to know that Israel has been on the front lines of fighting terrorism for many years and we’ve done so successfully, and we stand ready to help all responsible nations fight terrorism.” “I can say that the foremost sponsor of terrorism in the world is Iran, and this same Iran is now on a quest to preserve its program to achieve nuclear weapons,” said Netanyahu....

The Obama administration was given stark warnings just one month before that the federal healthcare site was not ready to go live, according to a confidential report obtained by CNN. The caution, from the main contractor CGI, warned of a number of open risks and issues for the HealthCare.gov web site even as company executives were testifying publicly that the project had achieved key milestones. The CGI document, which describes "outstanding issues currently being mitigated" says the testing timeframes are "not adequate to complete full functional, system, and integration testing activities" and lists the impact of the problems as "significant."...

An email sent through a Marine's personal email account warning of a threat may end his 13-year career.

The phone rings. The caller says he's a rep from a government agency. "We need to verify some information to make sure you get the coverage you're entitled to under the Affordable Care Act," the caller says. You know big insurance changes are coming, but they’re not coming like this. **SNIP** “(The fake sites) may contain the actual seal of the real insurance exchanges, but likely simply exist to load malware onto your computer or collect your personal information,” said Emily Peters of Practice Fusion, a San Francisco-based electronic health records company.

WASHINGTON — Bottles of Tylenol sold in the U.S. will soon bear red warnings alerting users to the potentially fatal risks of taking too much of the popular pain reliever. The unusual step, disclosed by the company that makes Tylenol, comes amid a growing number of lawsuits and pressure from the federal government that could have widespread ramifications for a medicine taken by millions of people every day. [snip]The new cap is designed to grab the attention of people who don't read warnings that already appear in the fine print on the product's label, according to company executives. [snip] Overdoses...

Burglars are not "fair game" to be shot at indiscriminately.  In this case, the citizen used deadly force in an inappropriate way that resulted in the death of the burglar.  The penalties are that he has been convicted as a felon, has lost the right to vote and to own firearms, must pay $1,000 for funeral costs, and be under supervision for five years.  From  athensnews.com: A Jacksonville area man who last month fatally shot an alleged burglar as he left a neighbor's home pleaded no contest Tuesday morning in Athens County Common Pleas Court.  According to an account...

They even rejected the Boston Marathon terrorist's  app for a visa to visit Mecca in 2011- and told us so Rather than heed unsettling warnings from Saudi Arabia (in addition to intelligence separately obtained by the Kremlin), the FBI -after interviewing him- mysteriously lost any interest in Tamerlan Tsaraev while the disgruntled pugilist and the rest of his devil-spawn kin soaked the US welfare system, posted fun jihadi stuff online, attended a radical mosque, and learned how to make bombs.  Elder brother Tamerlan was even thrown out of that mosque for bizarre outbursts, and then traveled to Dagestan/Chechnya for six months- only to come...

Apparently, granny will still be getting the full pat down experience at the airport instead of young Muslim men returning home from volatile, Jihad ridden regions of the world like Dagestan. Attorney General Eric Holder is warning Americans not to discriminate against Muslims in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. Attorney General Eric Holder declared Monday that the Justice Department is on the lookout for acts of violence or discrimination that signal a backlash to the Boston Marathon bombings earlier this month in which three people were killed and scores wounded. "Our investigation into this matter remains ongoing –...

Only in Israel: a new app for android phones lets drivers know if they are about to drive into a mob of Arabs armed with firebombs and rocks. Such ambushes have killed and maimed many Israelis over the years, including a baby girl, Adelle Biton, who has been barely clinging to life in the Schneider Children's Hospital since last month. As reported exclusively on the Tamar Yonah Show, .....

North Korea greeted the weekend by stating through its KCNA news agency that it is entering a "state of war" with South Korea. This seems like much more serious news than an earlier KCNA story about using nutritious leeks in seasonal dishes, but there's reason to be skeptical that NoKo's latest declaration means anything at all. The statement wasn't accompanied by an actual attack, which would have been the most obvious sign that North Korea was serious about this. Instead, it's just more chest-beating, this time in response to the "provocation" of the U.S. flying stealth bombers over South Korea....

(Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi threatened on Sunday to take unspecified steps to "protect this nation" after violent demonstrations against his Muslim Brotherhood, using vague but severe language that the opposition said heralded a crackdown. In remarks following clashes outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters on Friday, Mursi warned that "necessary measures" would be taken against any politicians shown to be involved in what he described as violence and rioting. "If I am forced to do what is required to protect this nation, then I will do it. And I fear that I might be on the verge of doing...

A former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, Numan Bin Uthman, has written a letter to al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri telling him that Jihadi groups in Arab countries have failed and that the strategy of using nonconventional WMD to deter an invasion of Afghanistan was a misguided and failed strategy. The letter needs to be understood in the context of the fact that the microbiologist that Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef used to infiltrate US biodefense, Ali Al-Timimi, had a stern warning not to invade Iraq hand-delivered to every member of Congress on October 6, 2002...

Bob Woodward called a senior White House official last week to tell him that in a piece in that weekend’s Washington Post, he was going to question President Barack Obama’s account of how sequestration came about - and got a major-league brushback. The Obama aide “yelled at me for about a half hour,” Woodward told us in an hour-long interview yesterday around the Georgetown dining room table where so many generations of Washington’s powerful have spilled their secrets. Digging into one of his famous folders, Woodward said the tirade was followed by a page-long email from the aide, one of...

The White House official whom Bob Woodward charged had crosssed a line by saying he would "regret" printing his version of a set of Washington negotiations was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, a source familiar with the exchange told BuzzFeed Wednesday. The email from Sperling to Woodward, which Woodward read to Politico Wednesday, has transfixed Washington, with Republicans and some in the press charging that it embodies a White House lording it over a cowed press corps. Woodward, Politico reported, called the top official — identified to BuzzFeed as Sperling — to tell him that...

The FALSE POPE – Saint Hildegard Forewarned is forearmed! Saint HILDEGARD of BINGEN (d. 1179), the newest Doctor of the Church, wrote that when the new Pope is elected immediately before the Antichrist, a cardinal will kill the elected pope before he is crowned through jealousy, he wishing to be Pope himself. Then when the other cardinals elect the next Pope this cardinal will proclaim himself (anti) Pope, and two-thirds of the Christians will go with him. She notes that this Antipope as well as the Antichrist are descendents from the tribe of Dan. If this private revelation of St....

BISBEE — Three reports of a “ransom scam” during the past two weeks has prompted the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office to issue a public warning. “This scam has been in existence for some time and has recently resurfaced in more metropolitan areas,” a press release issued Tuesday morning states. “This scam incorporates a malware virus into your computer and creates significant issues for the victim.” “Ransomware” begins when a message pops up on the computer screen, informing the user that they have a virus and no longer have access to any of the data files on the machine. “According to...

Newt "evolves" on gay marriage

To Chairman Reince Priebus, Thank you for inviting me to present an analysis for the Republican National Committee about the current challenges Republicans face at every level. Our working together goes all the way back to your early years in politics. I enjoyed doing events with you in Wisconsin and admired the work you did in helping Scott Walker become Governor. I was delighted when you became RNC Chairman and I know how much you accomplished in the last two years rebuilding RNC finances and developing a better ground game. Your creation of the Growth and Opportunity Project chaired by...

<p>Newt Gingrich said that conservatives will have to accept marriage equality after three more states this year voted to allow same sex marriage and more will likely do the same in the 2014 election.</p> <p>The former Speaker of the House said he didn’t expect gay rights to become the “wave” issue it has, but that he can accept the difference between a marriage in a church and a legal document, reported Huffington Post.</p>

If I could choose to have my readers learn one and only one thing from what I write, it would be that America's problems are not the result of blind, much less inevitable, forces, but are the consequences of deliberate political action by motivated individuals and groups. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of our ongoing immigration crisis. Let's trace the lines of influence in the open-borders conspiracy, a word I use despite its connotations of grassy knollology because in this case it is factually appropriate. Given who has been pushing mass immigration in America and how open...

Sorry for the vanity; especially the vanity in Breaking News; however, I thought this important enough that it should receive high visibility. I have reason to believe that some Staff Judge Advocates and Special Security Officers are looking into the secession petitions at whitehouse.gov From what I have heard if you are on Active Duty and sign a secession petition, you will be pursued as being in violation of your contract. SSOs are screening the lists too; you can potentially say goodbye to your security clearance. Don't do this to be a smart ass, funny, or cute. Understand the gravity...

IDF spokesman, Brigadier General Yoav (Poly) Mordechai held a press conference Wednesday night and addressed the military operation in Gaza. He said the operation was launched "After a long period of several years of unbearable fire aimed at residents of the south, which has intensified even more in recent weeks, including launches aimed at communities in the South and attacks against IDF forces." Mordechai said that so far, the IDF has attacked dozens of targets, and noted that "the IDF operates with pinpoint accuracy to try to make as clean a hit as possible, but unfortunately some of the weapons...

The IDF fired warning shots into Syrian territory on Sunday after a mortar shell fired from Syria hit an IDF outpost in the Golan Heights. The incident follows a similar spillover from Syria on Thursday, when a shell from Syria exploded in Moshav Alonei Habashan. "Further attacks [from Syria] will illicit a vigorous response," the IDF Spokesman's Office stated. The military also sent a letter to the United Nations warning Syrian forces to be careful in avoiding fire into the Golan. Just hours earlier, Defense Minister Ehud Barak threatened that Israel would respond should stray Syrian ordnance continue to strike...

<p>The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer issued a tsunami warning Saturday evening for Southeast Alaska and the British Columbia coast minutes after a strong earthquake struck the region.</p>

On Thursday, the White House denied that it had advance warning that embassies in the Middle East might be targeted for attacks on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, Politico reported. "We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent,” Shawn Turner, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an email. A report in the Independent said that "the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may...