Free Republic

MakerBot® Desktop 3D Printers empower innovators to turn their ideas into physical objects every day, but it’s not often that those creations reach outer space. That day is coming. When the James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018, it will carry parts made with the help of a MakerBot® Replicator® 2 Desktop 3D Printer. That’s one small step for MakerBot, and one giant leap for mankind.A New Generation of Space Telescope  In 1993, four years after the launch of the Hubble Telescope, NASA began contemplating the next generation of space observatory. Twenty years later, the James Webb Space Telescope has...

In response to the curious statement in Obamacare website source code: "You Have No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" one reader wondered if that was just "standard disclosure practice". If so, then why didn't Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI Federal Inc., the company that built the Obamacare health care exchange website, simply say so? The reason is now apparent. The website design is a clear breach of privacy. Clear Breach of Privacy The Foundry reports HealthCare.gov Users Warn of Security Risk, Breach of Privacy. Justin Hadley logged on to HealthCare.gov to evaluate his insurance options after his health plan...

A former Transportation Security Administration employee pleaded guilty Monday to felony stealing in relation to an April incident in which he stole a wallet at Columbia Regional Airport.

Photo of JoEllen Brothers and Lee Hammack via ProPublica. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Loyal Democrats thought they could simply elect their progressive messiah and social justice would flood the land as sea levels dropped. Everyone knew that the U.S. healthcare system was imperfect, so just let Obama make a few quick changes and, voilà, better care for less money! Sure the guy had never run so much as a county fair’s funnel cake concession, but how tough could healthcare reform be? The president’s most ardent fans are now learning that magical thinking and good intentions don’t amount...

Let's clear up some foggy prevarications polluting President Obama's ongoing snow job for ObamaCare: If you tell a spouse you're going to Sam's Club when you really mean Costco, that's no big deal. Those membership stores are the same, except one peddles better hot dogs. That's called misspeaking. However, if you're president of the United States peddling a legislative tumor like ObamaCare, one that you know will drastically change almost one-fifth of the nation's economy, one that openly claims to help a few million uninsured Americans while secretly disrupting the lives, families, finances and medical care of more than 100...

SACRAMENTO — Having faith in freedom, Igor Birman is hoping voters “hire” him for Congress. “I’m here on a job interview asking you to hire me,” Birman tells voters he meets. Birman, a Russian Jewish Immigrant and Republican, announced in September he is running for Congress against Rep. Ami Bera, a Democrat from Congressional District 7. At 32, Birman has a unique ability to reach young and ethnic voters who historically have been wooed by Democrats. At a Sacramento coffee shop, he sat down to talk to me. “I was defined by freedom,” Birman said when we met this week....

Will Obamacare Cancel Corporate Health Care Insurance Policies? Obama delayed the corporate mandate but did not delay the individual mandate. Obama explained that they were not ready to handle the corporate mandate but assured the people they were prepared to handle the individual mandate. We have now learned that Obama lied to us. The government is not ready to handle the individual mandated policies. Obama had also assured the people that they would not lose their existing plans or doctors because of Obamacare. We have now learned that Obama deliberately lied to gain support for Obamacare. People are receiving cancellation...

There are more than 1.5 million Americans under the supervision of state and federal correctional facilities, at a cost of more than $30,000 per prisoner every year. While some criminal laws and sanctions are necessary to protect safety and ensure justice, criminalized actions now include many normal, everyday activities that average Americans and business owners have little way of knowing are crimes. As a result, well-meaning, law-abiding American citizens and business owners spend innumerable hours and dollars fending off criminal prosecution for actions they never suspected were illegal, and states spend millions incarcerating nonthreatening individuals. States cannot afford the budgetary...

If Israel and the Palestinians do not agree on a “two state solution” by the end of this year, the Obama administration plans to propose its own solution and force it on the two sides in early 2014. For Obama, the goal is to have this agreement in place in time to influence the November 2014 mid-term elections. Unfortunately for Israel, the Palestinians have absolutely no incentive to move off of their current demands because Obama has been promising them a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital since very early in his presidency....

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been the subject of numerous technical studies since 1751 and extensive scientific investigations in recent years, and none of the result offered any sound scientific explanation which, up to this very day, defies science and all human reasoning as it continuous to baffle scientists and even skeptics. Below are only some of the findings that were drawn from the scientific investigations conducted on the image and the fabric itself which were commissioned by the authorized custodians of the Tilma in the Basilica, and in every case the investigators had direct and...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu apparently believes the greatest threat the country now faces is an escalated European trade war. He's wrong. The greatest threat we are now facing is a national leadership that cannot get its arms around changing strategic realities. Over the weekend, Yediot Aharonot reported that during Secretary of State John Kerry's seven-hour meeting in Rome last week with Netanyahu, Kerry warned that the price for walking away from the talks with the PLO will be European economic strangulation of Israel. According to the newspaper, "[T]he secretary of state told the prime minister that he heard from his...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi put her foot in her mouth again today during a press conference, calling the battle to keep late-term abortions legal sacred ground. “As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this,” Pelosi said about efforts to stop late-term abortions. “This shouldn’t have anything to do with politics.” During the press conference, in response to a reporter’s question, Pelosi was upset to be asked about the gruesome abortions and infanticides done by Kermit Gosnell and indicated she opposes a bill a committee approved yesterday to ban abortions after...

A proposal to impose hefty taxes on recreational marijuana, whose use was okayed by Colorado voters in last year’s election, was an easy sell in the state Tuesday. About two-thirds of those casting ballots approved a 15 percent excise tax plus a 10 percent sales tax on pot sales that begin next year. The taxes are projected to bring in $70 million a year. The money will be used for school construction and regulating pot sales. … Also in Colorado, ten rural counties refused to approve secession from the state in an effort to form a 51st state called North...

Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, says the Texas Secretary of State’s office believes that turnout for Tuesday’s election will be double that of the 2011 constitutional election, based on tracking early voting turnout, and he credited the law he passed requiring voters to show photo identification. “I’m incredibly pleased with the initial rollout of voter ID,” said Fraser. “While there were rumblings that this law would disenfranchise voters, it turns out those claims were based on politics, not practicality,” he added. Fraser said the new law was intended to increase public confidence in elections. “I’m confident that we accomplished just...

Dish Network said on Wednesday it will close all 300 or so retail locations of the Blockbuster video rental chain by January, closing a chapter on a brand that failed to compete in the digital world. Dish plans to lay off as many as 2,800 employees. Dish, the second-largest U.S. satellite TV company, bought the failed Blockbuster LLC video rental chain in a bankruptcy auction in 2011 for $320 million, a dramatic fall for a brand that at its peak in 2002 had a market value of $5 billion.

In his whole re-election campaign, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) has invited only one sitting out-of-state officeholder to campaign with him: New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez (R), who joined Christie at eight campaign events Monday, including a rally in heavily Hispanic Union City. In many ways, Martinez is the perfect complement to Christie, amplifying his strengths as a politician. She is relatively young (54) and a moderate who maintains strong popularity in a blue state. She has worked closely with a legislature held by Democrats and bucked her party by taking the Medicaid expansion in Obamacare. Perhaps most importantly, she's almost...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today acknowledged that long-awaited enrollment figures for the rocky first month of Obamacare will be “very low.” “We intend to give you as much information as we can validate,” Sebelius told a Senate Finance Committee hearing where lawmakers from both parties harshly criticized the rollout and her agency’s lack of foresight about the massive problems. She said the initial batch of enrollment figures being released next week cover “the first month of enrollment” and will include both Medicaid and health plan numbers in the new insurance exchanges.

PPP's newest Texas poll finds that John Cornyn is in grave danger of losing a primary next year if a serious campaign is run against him. Cornyn's approval with Republican primary voters is only 46%, with 33% of voters disapproving of him. And 49% say they would like their candidate next year to be someone more conservative, compared to only 33% who say they support Cornyn. Ted Cruz's star in Texas Republican politics is making Cornyn's life a lot harder. 62% of GOP voters say they have a higher opinion of Cruz than they do of Cornyn, and among voters...

OBAMA LIES AS A MARXIST Terry Jeffrey 11/6/2013 A week after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama went on a road trip to Portland, Maine, to boast and prevaricate about what he had just done. "So now that this bill is finally law and all the folks who have been playing politics will finally have to confront the reality of what this reform is, they're also going to have to confront the reality of what it isn't," said Obama, introducing a lie that has gotten belated, but much-deserved, attention in recent days. "They'll have...

There’s an off-year election today in the United States. There are no contests for the White House or Congress, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any important choices being made. I say that notwithstanding the fact that the big races between politicians at the state and local level aren’t expected to be close. Governor Christie in New Jersey is poised for a landslide victory in his race for a second term. The only interesting aspect of this race is whether he will use his reelection as a springboard for a run at the White House in 2016. That my please...