Free Republic

On Monday, Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Haslam outlined his plan to expand Obamacare. According to The Tennessean, he has branded the plan Insure Tennessee and dressed it in states’ rights rhetoric, claiming that the plan, which he says qualifies for federal funding under the Affordable Care Act, is an alternative to expanding Medicaid. WATE-TV 6 quoted a press release by Haslam in which he said, “This plan leverages federal dollars to provide health care coverage to more Tennesseans, to give people a choice in their coverage, and to address the cost of health care, better health outcomes and personal responsibility.”...

The victims of a burglary captured their alleged intruders after spotting them in the street - on the way back from another break-in. The Wyatt family's surveillance system filmed the moment a woman and two men took two TVs and numerous Christmas presents from their home in Warrior, Alabama, last Friday. Just two days later, Chris Wyatt spotted the suspects' Ford Ranger pickup truck driving down a road and swerved to block them into a corner.

Rome - Emerging from a a three-hour meeting in Rome with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu´ s first comments related to the siege on the cafe in Sydney Australia that ended shortly before. Netanyahu sent his condolences to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and the Australian people. He said that International Islamic terror does not know borders, and the struggle against it needs to be global. (Snip) Netanyahu then discussed the focus of his meeting with Kerry saying that Israel will “do everything possible” to make sure that the UN Security Council does not impose

Clinton says women across the globe suffer due a lack of knowledge about their health, childbirth conditions and workplace roles. She says data gaps undermine the progress of women and girls. The initiative is called "Data 2x." It's a partnership between Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Clinton Foundation and the United Nations Foundation.

During Saturday´s protests about the lack of indictments in the cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, CUNY adjunct professor and creator of erotic poetry Eric Linsker picked up a trashcan and tried to throw it at police officers. Two police lieutenants were attacked by the crowd when the officers tried to arrest Linsker. Newsday described the incident: They were on the roadway of the [Brooklyn] bridge about 8 p.m. when they heard reports of "debris being thrown on the walkway" at police officers who were walking alongside demonstrators involved in Saturday´s New York City rally against police shootings of...

Here are the rating averages to date. CFG and ACU don't update their numbers till around February so I'll do another update around then. Also, if any new senator served in the House, I added their ratings so we can judge what kind of senator they will be. The new senator from WV is depressing. Right above Collins. Though she's better than Rockefeller!

A St. Louis police officer will face disciplinary action for wearing a nametag that read "Darren Wilson" while he was on the job. Wilson is at the center of the controversial shooting death of Michael Brown back in August. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he "couldn´t be more disappointed" and that he thinks the officer will get "some days off for his actions." The officer´s name has not been released. He wore the nametag in a show of solidarity with Wilson last Friday at City Hall where he was

When the wackiness of the final play was over and one forward pass and three laterals had come up nine yards short for the Titans, two words likely crossed every smart Jets fan’s mind: It figures. Rex Ryan and his players rejoiced over this December win during this lost season, while the legions of team followers cursed a meaningless moment that almost certainly cost the Jets a chance at drafting a franchise quarterback in the coming months.

“When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” – The Quran, Surah 9:5 Islam is anything if not ironic. “A teenaged bomber on Thursday targeted a Kabul auditorium packed with people watching a drama condemning suicide attacks,” reports Reuters. “Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the bomber targeted the event because it was staged ‘to insult Islamic values and spread propaganda about our jihad operations, especially on suicide attacks.’” And so, in defense of “Islamic values” and to dispel “propaganda” about “suicide attacks,” Muhammad Jr....

The Russian ruble tumbled 9.5 percent Monday to new record lows as falling crude prices pulled the rug out from under the currency of the oil exporting nation, with analysts saying the Kremlin needs to act to stop the free fall. The plunge in the ruble came as the central bank warned the low oil price could trigger a contraction of nearly 5 percent next year and tensions surged with the United States over Ukraine. The ruble broke through the level of 64 to the dollar and 78 to the euro for the first time even though the Bank of...

(CNN) - A rare species is closer to extinction. A northern white rhino has died at a San Diego zoo. Angalifu was 44 years old and died of old age Sunday.

Elizabeth Warren’s weekend heroics have endeared her even more to the Democratic base, and it’s time Hillary started getting worried.Are future historians going to look back on the past weekend as the one in which Elizabeth Warren took over the Democratic Party? She didn’t win the fight she led over the weekend to have the provision weakening the Dodd-Frank law stripped out of the spending bill, but she was never going to win that vote. What she did win, though, was the ever-more intense ardor of her growing number of liberal fans. They’d march with her over hot coals. There’s...

- 10:13 AM In a speech delivered on the Senate floor Friday as the Senate was debating a 1,603-page government funding bill that will permit President Obama to spend tax dollars to implement his unilateral amnesty, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) argued that trends in U.S. immigration and employment are depressing the job prospects and income of Americans. "This summer alone the White House met 20 times with business executives, amnesty lobbyists, immigration activists to craft their executive amnesty," Sessions said. "You know who wasn’t invited into that room? You, the American citizen. You don’t get a say. "These super-elites in...

In the US, the land rig count fell 28 units to stand at 1,820 last week. A decline in vertical oil drilling activity took the rig count lower. Horizontal oil drilling (ie activity in the unconventional oil plays) was only down 7 rigs on the week—about in line with normal seasonal trends this time of year. Much of this week's activity decline was due to a slowdown in conventional drilling in the Permian Basin. The number of vertical rigs in the Permian fell by 13 to 188. The Permian horizontal rig count was only down 7 to 360. While...

Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee on Monday morning became the latest Republican governor to announce support of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion —and the third in the nation since Republicans gained more power at the state and federal levels in the November midterm elections. Like most other Republican governors who want to take the health-care law's generous federal funding, Haslam is now offering a plan that deviates from the Medicaid expansion envisioned under the Affordable Care Act. Haslam, who made the announcement almost a month after his re-election, said the Obama administration has verbally approved the approach. The Tennessee plan, which Haslam...

* RTS share index plunges 10 percent to 5-year low * Central bank seen intervening to support rouble * Putin's popularity in part based on stability (Recasts and update prices) MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The rouble plunged almost 10 percent against the dollar on Monday, its sharpest fall since 1998, and Russian assets sold off across markets, testing the firepower of the central bank and posing a major challenge for President Vladimir Putin. Traders said the slump in the rouble, down 49 percent against the dollar this year, forced the central bank to intervene in the market on Monday...

By reviewing tweets from users who publicly mentioned their diagnosis and by looking for language cues linked to certain disorders, the researchers say, they’ve been able to quickly and inexpensively collect new data on post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder. In research presented at three scientific conferences this year, the scholars described how their techniques of mining public data have yielded fresh numbers on cases of these illnesses, allowing for analyses that were previously difficult or expensive to obtain. The scholars emphasized, however, that their findings did not disclose the names of people who publicly tweeted...

The Russian rouble has dropped to a new low against the US dollar, as falling oil prices and Western sanctions continue to weigh on the country. As of Monday afternoon, it takes more than 60 roubles to buy a single dollar. The 60 mark is considered a "psychological barrier" for Russia's national currency, says the BBC's Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg. Since the start of the year, the rouble has lost more than 45% of its value against the dollar. Russia's central bank has tried unsuccessfully to stabilise the currency, buying roubles in the markets and raising its main lending rate...

Uber's low-cost ride ride-hailing service will be banned in France from the start of next year, the government said Monday as hundreds of taxi drivers blocked roads around Paris to protest what they claim are its unfair business practices. A new law tightening regulations for chauffeured rides will effectively ban the UberPop service as of Jan. 1, said Pierre-Henry Brandet, spokesman for France's Interior Ministry.