Free Republic

(NEXSTAR) – Residents of 32 states who rely on federal assistance to buy food are about to see their benefits shrink at the end of the month. An emergency increase to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called the Food Stamp Program) was approved at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. For most recipients, that increase amounted to an extra $95 monthly over the past three years. Starting March 1, those emergency COVID-era benefits will end across all states. Seventeen states already saw those benefits expire as of January 2023. One state, South Carolina, ended the emergency allotment at the...

In what is supposed to be a message to Iran, Israel and the United States plan a joint military drill in the coming months, TIME magazine reported Wednesday. A high-ranking Israeli officer told the magazine that the joint drill will take place in six months, just as the interim agreement signed between Iran and the West on Sunday is due to expire. “The strategic decision is to continue to make noise,” the official, who asked to remain anonymous, told TIME. “In May there’s going to be a joint training exercise with the Americans,” he added. “It’s going to be big.”...

Got a letter from our bank which basically says: Beginning January 1, 2013, noninterest-bearing transaction accounts will no longer be insured separately from depositors’ other accounts at the same IDI. Instead, noninterest-bearing transaction accounts will be added to any of a depositor’s other accounts in the applicable ownership category, and the aggregate balance insured up to at least the Standard Maximum Deposit Insurance Amount (SMDIA) of $250,000, per depositor, at each separately chartered IDI. For example, if after the expiration of the Dodd-Frank Deposit Insurance Provision a depositor under the single ownership category has $500,000 deposited in a noninterest-bearing transaction...

The latest from the Capitol: Earlier in the evening, Senate Republicans and Democrats appeared to be settling on four tax votes: two for each side. The Democratic votes would include one on the House passed bill, and one on Senator Schumer’s (D., N.Y.) bill that would extend current rates for all making up to $1 million a year. But then Republican Leader McConnell phoned Majority Leader Reid to relay that a GOP objection has been raised to bringing up all four bills tomorrow. Without being able to get unanimous consent, Reid will file cloture tonight on just the two Democratic...

<p>NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.</p> <p>In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.</p>

** RALLY FOR ENERGY FREEDOM DAY** ***WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2:30PM*** ***CANNON TERRACE*** Speakers: Sen. Jim DeMint Rep. Jeb Hensarling Rep. John Shadegg Republican Study Committee Members AFP President Tim Phillips ATR President Grover Norquist NTU Vice President Pete Sepp **Others to be announced** Please encourage your staff and members to attend so we can send a strong message to leadership on the Hill and to the media. The rally will make a powerful statement that compromises and half-measures are unacceptable with the clock ticking down to an outright victory for American consumers. It will also give us an opportunity to...

The federal moratorium on offshore drilling has to be renewed every year and, failing that, it expires. President Bush can come out at the beginning of September, welcome Nancy and Harry and all the kids back from their summer vacation, and tell them that October 1, 2008 is America's Energy Independence Day. The president will proclaim that despite months of cajoling, he could not get the Democrats to help the American people through this energy crunch, so he will throw open for careful, environmentally safe drilling, all of America's offshore areas that were previously off limits. Any attempt to extend...

Antiterrorism law may expire; Congress debates Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:48 PM ET By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican leaders on Tuesday appeared ready to let key provisions of a U.S. antiterrorism law expire and blamed Democrats who have blocked a renewal in a bid for more civil-liberties safeguards. If these provisions of the USA Patriot Act expire on December 31, as scheduled, the Republican-led Senate could take another crack at renewing them as soon as Congress begins a new year in January, aides said. Democrats, who are using a procedural maneuver known as a filibuster to block...

A Georgia woman has sued Hewlett-Packard, claiming the ink cartridges for their printers are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date, in some cases rendering them useless before they're even installed in a printer. The suit, filed in Santa Clara Superior Court in Northern California last Thursday, seeks to represent anyone in the United States who purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001. HP, which recently endured the high-profile ouster of former CEO Carly Fiorina, is the world's No. 1 computer printer maker. An HP spokesman said the company does not comment on pending litigation. HP ink cartridges...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the tough conservative liberals love to hate, provoked a mini-furor by declaring that the Republican-controlled House would not renew Congress' 1994 ban on so-called assault weapons. Only reflexive gun banners and the uninformed can have been disconcerted. The 1994 ban proved predictably ineffective. Letting it expire on schedule in 2004 would change, well, almost nothing. The ban, championed by California's formidable Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was sold on a singularly false (if well-intentioned) premise – that the semi-automatic (one shot for each trigger pull), civilian versions of certain military-type rifles were major contributors to crime. These...

September 9, 2002 DO MEDICATIONS REALLY EXPIRE? Try An Experiment With Your Mother-In-Law By Richard Altschuler Does the expiration date on a bottle of a medication mean anything? If a bottle of Tylenol, for example, says something like "Do not use after June 1998," and it is August 2002, should you take the Tylenol? Should you discard it? Can you get hurt if you take it? Will it simply have lost its potency and do you no good?In other words, are drug manufacturers being honest with us when they put an expiration date on their medications, or is the practice...