Free Republic

SIERRA VISTA — Residents living on Paseo del Rico got an interesting wake up call Monday morning after a bear found its way into the neighborhood. Sierra Vista police responded first got a report of a bear in the area of Foothills Drive and Camino del Norte “running through the streets and jumping over fences” at 5:47 a.m., said Cpl. Scott Borgstadt, public information officer for the department. Eventually, the bear climbed into a tree in the yard of Robert Czzowitz’s neighbor in the 4600 block of Paseo del Rico. “When I first came out, it was about, maybe 15...

Obamacare: Day 35America Held HostageRoundup of News & ViewsNo. 5.  Nov 4, 2013   At Least 3.5 Million Policies Canceled Article at Breitbart   Obamacare enrollment by paper and phone held up by failed websitePhone and paper options pushed by Obama no better than website Article at NY Post Article at Washington Times   Obamacare User Sent Other People's 'Eligibility Letters'Article at Weekly Standard   Regularly scheduled call with press canceled due to crashed siteUnscheduled Outage “a natural part of the process” Article at The Hill Article at Politico   Canadian officials fired IT firm behind troubled Obamacare websiteArticle at Washington...

COLUMBIA, SC — Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is reaching out Monday to the same audience of S.C. pastors that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich visited twice before his surprise victory in the state’s 2012 presidential primary. Cruz, an expected White House hopeful who was the lightning rod during last month’s 16-day partial federal government shutdown, will speak at a Columbia hotel. It is one of many events that evangelical political operative David Lane has organized in key battleground states since 2005. Lane’s American Renewal Project is financed by the American Family Association, the Mississippi-based Christian organization that...

Heavy shooting from guns and anti-aircraft weapons could be heard early on Tuesday in the Libyan capital Tripoli, Reuters witnesses said.

Despite Community Protests, Vietnam Sentences Christians to Prison ICC Note: As one of the five remaining Communist nations on earth, Vietnam continues to pursue a policy of tight control over the spread of religion, and especially Christianity. Only a few denominations are recognized as legal, and anyone that chooses to worship in their home or a church not a part of one of those denominations can be arrested and imprisoned. In this case, despite being a part of a recognized church, two Catholic parishioners were arrested for unclear reasons. Their arrest sparked protests which were brutally crushed by Vietnamese security...

The presidential election of 2016 will be a defining moment for the nation and for the Republican Party. Not so for the Democratic Party. There's no controversy among Democrats about what America should be and what their party is about: big government, welfare state socialism and secular humanism. The only question about the Democratic presidential ticket is which welfare state socialist, secular humanist the party will nominate. The picture for Republicans is more complex, and this makes Democrats happy. They see Republican Party dissension as division and weakness, which, in their view, can only help Democrats. Key issues divide Republicans...

The reclusive pensioner behind the secret trove of paintings worth nearly £1billion, seized by the Nazis in the 1930s, and revealed this weekend, was a man of mystery in many aspects of his life. Cornelius Gurlitt, 80, son of art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, did not have an official bank account, pension or insurance - he simply lived off the extensive collection, selling them when his money dipped. The pensioner, who had never worked, was not even registered with the police - mandatory in Germany - and was not known to the tax authorities or social services. The story which begins...

For years, President Barack Obama's personal favorability ratings served as a political firewall that sustained him through an economic recession, grueling fights with congressional Republicans, and the grind of a re-election campaign. But after a rough start to Obama's second term, Americans increasingly view the president unfavorably. And perhaps most concerning for the White House: an Associated Press analysis of public polling shows it has become more difficult over time for Obama to fully rebound from dents in his favorability ratings. "It's a slow cumulative effect," Republican pollster David Winston said, adding that personal favorability "is a much harder number...

The health care website went down again Monday for an hour and a half, and no one is sure why. As HealthCare.gov was being developed, crucial tests to ensure the security and privacy of customer information fell behind schedule. CBS News analysis found that the deadline for final security plans slipped three times from May 6 to July 16. Security assessments to be finished June 7 slid to August 16 and then August 23. The final, required top-to-bottom security tests never got done. The House Oversight Committee released an Obama administration memo that shows four days before the launch, the...

The number of drug users in Afghanistan is estimated to be as high as 1.6 million, or about 5.3 percent of the population, among the highest rates in the world. Nationwide, 1 in 10 urban households has at least one drug user, according to a recent report from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. In the city of Herat, it is 1 in 5. From 2005 to 2009, the use of opiates doubled, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, putting Afghanistan on par with Russia and Iran, and the number of heroin users jumped...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed. So we wrote into the Affordable Care Act, you're grandfathered in on that plan. But if the insurance company changes it, then what we're saying is they've got to change it to a higher standard. They've got to make it better, they've got to improve the quality of the plan they are selling. That's part of the promise...

<p>WASHINGTON -- A beaming President Barack Obama saluted the Stanley Cup winning Chicago Blackhawks at the White House on Monday — a rare moment for a president hungry to see more victorious teams from his hometown.</p> <p>The Blackhawks have been the only Chicago team to win championships during Obama's presidency. They also won in 2010.</p>

It is appears that BO has sailed a boat that he knew was full of holes. AHCA. I know that is giving him way to much credit, but I feel sorry for those who are writing checks for policy that OB wants to fail. Single payer is his goal. The only way I can sleep is knowing those cutting the checks are the ones who voted for him.

A doctor shortage is threatening to make the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act even more difficult — and it could create lines for care and services. New Yorkers are notorious for wanting things immediately, and that includes medical care. But even doctors who support Obamacare say there could be delays due to more patients and fewer doctors, CBS 2’s Dick Brennan reported Monday.

PARIS — There was nothing extraordinary about the casually dressed businessman waiting on a Paris train platform except, it turned out, for the envelopes he carried — stuffed with 350,000 euros in cash, and seized by French customs agents as he prepared to depart for Belgium.

Democratic senators have a warning for the White House: Fix Obamacare’s problems or put Senate seats at risk next year. In interviews, Democratic senators running in 2014, party elders and Senate leaders said the Obama administration must rescue the law from its rocky start before it emerges as a bigger political liability next year. Democratic senators from red states — the most vulnerable incumbents up for reelection next year — voted for Obamacare and have been among the law’s biggest champions, believing that voters would embrace it once they experienced its benefits. They could end up being some of the...

If Republican Ken Cuccinelli does not defeat Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s race for governor Tuesday, there is a strong possibility the GOP establishment will actually be happy, according to talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh. “‘You’re losing elections for us!’ I think that’s what they want to say,” Limbaugh said Monday. “I don’t know this, but I’m telling you that I don’t think there would be that much disappointment if Cuccinelli lost.” “If that’s right, if that happens to be true, stop and think about what that means: that you actually have the Republican establishment with a chance to win another...

In the two years since we launched We the People, more than 10 million users have signed nearly 300,000 petitions. Those are impressive numbers, but we know that even more people want to reach us on other sites across the internet. One of the things we've heard from the beginning is a strong desire from our users to be able to submit signatures and petitions from other sites -- and still receive an official response.  Up to this point, we haven't had a way to accept signatures submitted from other sites, but that is about to change. We're developing a Write...

Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole enjoy offering gratuitous advice to the party they each led to presidential defeat. It's time for these three losers to button their lips. Romney '12, McCain '08, Dole '96 — these campaigns were failures. The voters rejected the men who led them. Romney's and McCain's opponent, moreover, was a leftist community organizer whose extremism should have assured he never got within a mile of the White House. Yet the media attention these three receive would make you think they had wisdom to impart to the party they took down in flames.

One of the fundamental flaws of the Affordable Care Act is that, despite its name, it makes health insurance more expensive. Today, the Manhattan Institute released the most comprehensive analysis yet conducted of premiums under Obamacare for people who shop for coverage on their own. Here’s what we learned. In the average state, Obamacare will increase underlying premiums by 41 percent. As we have long expected, the steepest hikes will be imposed on the healthy, the young, and the male. And Obamacare’s taxpayer-funded subsidies will primarily benefit those nearing retirement—people who, unlike the young, have had their whole lives to...