Free Republic

Inflation, a driving force behind many of the challenges businesses face today, has caused one restaurant owner to charge nearly $16 for a BLT sandwich due to rising costs. Will Restaurants Investment Group founder and CEO Brian Will broke down his monthly expenses during an appearance on “Varney & Co.” after a friend confronted him about the price of his $16 BLT sandwich. The wholesale cost for the popular sandwich is only $5 according to Will, but the need to cover operational expenses is what caused the meal that was once $12.99 three years ago, to become $15.99 today. Will...

She’s Jill “The Jokester” Biden. The wife of former Vice President-turned-presidential hopeful Joe Biden can’t resist a good gag — which once led to her cramming herself into the overhead bin on Air Force Two, The Hill reported Wednesday. “The White House is a serious place, with serious people, doing serious work. If you’re not careful, it can grind you down,” Biden, a college English professor, wrote in her just-released memoir, “Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself.” She hatched the idea to pop out of the overhead compartment ahead of a scheduled flight to California during President...

President Donald Trump on Friday delivered an infrastructure speech in which he displayed what he said was a $29 million, 70-pound environmental report that state officials paid for to get an 18-mile roadway approved, highlighting the hurdles and paperwork that builders face to start major projects. Trump spoke at the Department of Transportation to conclude a weeklong promotion for his $1 trillion infrastructure plan. The president argued that Americans face bureaucratic challenges and burdensome regulations to get projects approved, arguing for a simpler, streamlined process. To illustrate his point, Trump said he met with state officials responsible for managing infrastructure...

During the past few days the legacy media and the internet have been flooded with news articles, editorials and blog posts with titles like “Overhead costs exploding under ObamaCare.” This all-too-predictable phenomenon has been breathlessly reported by outlets as different in their ideological perspectives as the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Kos. Sadly, when liberal and conservative publications are equally enthusiastic about breaking a story, it usually means the latter have been duped into promoting progressive propaganda. This case is no exception. The basis for these reports is a “study” produced by a couple of notorious lefty data diddlers....

Last August, officials in the nation's capital decided to spend $6.4 million hiring 150 "trained experts," or navigators, to help uninsured residents of Washington, D.C., to sign up for ObamaCare. By mid-April, just 10,714 people had signed up for a private ObamaCare plan through the D.C. exchange. Nobody knows how many of them previously went uninsured. But even if every one had insurance — and paid their premiums — the cost still works out to $597 in spending per enrollee. While ObamaCare was sold on the premise that it could cut health costs, the results of the first open enrollment...

Sometimes you never know who's listening - even if you're the President of the United States. In what he presumably thought was a private conversation Thursday's night, President Obama candidly told campaign donors that the GOP tried to "sneak" its plan to kill his signature health care law in a recent budget proposal. "I said, 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it,'" Obama said. "'We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?'"

Angry mum Natalie Williamson with her son Riley. Source: Herald Sun VIRGIN Blue has sacked a male flight attendant and offered an angry mother free flights after her toddler was put in an overhead locker. Natalie Williamson claims she, her 17-month-old son, Riley, and her now estranged husband were on a Virgin flight from Fiji to Sydney, when the flight attendant picked up Riley, placed him in the locker and closed the latch. Virgin has admitted an incident did take place, but claims Ms Williamson's husband was playing a peek-a-boo game with Riley involving the overhead compartment when the flight...

Now that Thompson has finally declared his candidacy, albeit on the Jay Leno show, many are pinning their hopes on him as a later-day Ronald Reagan. But he’s no Ronald Reagan and he’s never going to be viable. Here’s why:He’s A Political Light Weight and He’s Not Ready For The National Stage In his first week of campaigning, Thompson has shown that he has neither the substance nor the experience that is essential for a serious presidential candidate. One wonders what makes him — and his supporters — think that he is, in any way, up to the job. He...

The Red Cross had initially promised the checks would be sent out within 48 hours of a family being contacted. But more than six weeks after the horrific tragedy, thousands of families have not been contacted and have not received any assistance. Red Cross officials now admit the Falls Church call center is overwhelmed, has a shoddy records-keeping system and is awash in confusion. "I was turned into a widow on Sept. 11 and a single mother and now they're turning me into a beggar," one woman told the New York Times, asking that she not be named for fear...