Free Republic

The state party scrapped its traditional caucus after a conflict with the national Republican Party. BISMARCK, ND — A rule conflict between North Dakota’s Republican party and the national GOP organization has effectively scrapped the state’s caucuses, planned for March 1. Instead, an online straw poll is taking the pulse of North Dakotans. The GOP controls the statehouse and the governor’s office. In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney carried the state in the general election. While the Republican National Committee requires delegates to be pledged on behalf of candidates to the national convention, the Fargo Forum reports the North Dakota...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Take a drive on Florida's toll road. It's not how far you go that determines what you pay. We found it may be the car you drive. "I was mad going on vacation with my wife," explained Steve Pasek. For Pasek, the memories of his Florida vacation are as fresh as the snow back in Ohio. He declined the rental car company's toll service. With the rental car company's automated billing services, you are billed weeks after you return the car. A third party company is used to send you the bill. While Pasek declined...

In a victory for the Obama administration, the spending package released by congressional leaders on Wednesday won't block American financial contributions to an international climate fund for poorer nations. The bill, greens and Democrats say, doesn't explicitly appropriate funding for President Obama's pledged contribution to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). But since the legislation doesn't formally block money for the GCF either, Obama is expected to be able to use current discretionary funding streams to send American money to it. "Based on what we have reviewed so far, there are no restrictions on our ability to make good on the...

TALLAHASSEE Visitors to Florida who rent cars are being shocked by toll charges long after they get home, and enough are complaining that legislators say it could damage the state’s tourist-friendly image. In Florida, a tourist climbs behind the wheel of a rental car and enters a world of 600 miles of toll roads, more than any other state. As cash toll booths are steadily giving way to cashless, all-electronic tolling, car renters are being hit with service fees of $4 to $15 a day on top of unpaid toll charges. The rental car industry calls it a convenience as...

CBS4 News uncovered something every homeowner should know about. Your home can be stolen from you, with the filing of just one fraudulent documentat the County Clerk's office. It's a scam that is spreading across South Florida, and three influential leaders are teaming up to stop it. ....Using a fake notary and forged signatures on a quitclaim deed, the individual illegally transfers the ownership of a home to a third-party, a "straw buyer," who in turn sells the home to an unsuspecting real buyer. The thief then pockets the cash and runs, sometimes getting hundreds of thousands of dollars at...

After years of delays and failed launches, Obamacare has finally taken hold, and with it the economic and financial implications from this mandatory tax are finally being felt. We have extensively covered how Obama's Affordable Care Act will end up being a failure, observing both the economic implications in "In Latest Obamacare Fiasco, Most Low-Income Workers Can't Afford "Affordable Care Act" as well as its operational shortcomings in "Obamacare Is A Disaster: Co-Op Insurers Across America Are Collapsing, And Now There Is Fraud", paradoxically even as Obamacare - a tax - was according to the BEA the single biggest contributor...

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, received $528.4 million in taxpayer funding, according to its 2013-2014 annual report, [1] which runs from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014. The report shows that Planned Parenthood received $528.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements” during a one-year period, the latest figures available. That means it received an average of $1,447,671 in taxpayer funds per day and an average of $60,320 every hour. Several members of Congress [2], as well as some GOP presidential candidates, are calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded after a video surfaced showing Dr....

Since the Pennsylvania police arrested Anthony Kofalt last March for walking out of a Walmart with 21 boxes of Crest White Strips he had not paid for, his wife, Heather, has spent $3,000 — about $60 a week — on phone calls to the prisons and jails where he has been held. The cost of a 15-minute call is $12.95, although Mr. Kofalt is in a prison only a few hours’ drive from his wife’s home in Franklin, Pa. The cost for a similar non-prison call would be about 60 cents. And every time Ms. Kofalt deposits $25 into the...

More than 16,900 federal employees took home in excess of $200,000 in base salary in 2014, according to a partial database of federal salary data. The information, compiled by FedSmith.com using data from the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies, shows the annual compensation for every civilian federal worker, save those at the Defense Department. The number of workers earning more than $200,000 represented about 1.6 percent of employees on the list and is up from about 15,000 who cleared that salary in 2013. It also makes up a slightly higher percentage of the employees on this list. Most...

This is an update to article written a few years ago. Everybody knows that retail and institutional investors are usually late to a trade. When they decide to buy, the wise guys are distributing or selling their shares to them and locking in their gains. When they sell, the wise guys are accumulating or buying their shares from them, again locking in their gains. How do the wise guys pull it off? The answer lies in the combination of reflexive human behavior and the use of high frequency, algorithmic (HFA) trading. With the advance of computer trading on a massive...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday that even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to claim back-refunds once they get Social Security numbers under President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty. The revelation — which contradicts what he told Congress last week — comes as lawmakers also raised concerns Mr. Obama’s amnesty could open a window to illegal immigrants finding ways to vote, despite it being against the law. “While we may disagree about whether your deferred action programs were lawfully created and implemented, we are confident that we can all agree that these programs cannot be...

A Kansas City auto repair shop employee made a snap decision Monday when a woman drove off without paying for repairs. He jumped on the roof of her Cadillac Escalade and held on during a high-speed, three-mile ride that ended outside Kansas City police headquarters. Another auto shop employee followed in another vehicle and told police that he tried to stop the Cadillac by firing shots at its tires. One of the bullets hit the driver’s side door. Police said it was a miracle that no one was injured in the incident that began shortly before 3 p.m. Monday at...

While continuing to collect massive corporate welfare from the Golden State, Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk can look forward to a business environment in Nevada with zero corporate income tax, zero individual income tax, plus lower sales and property taxes. Nevada is ranked 3rd best in the Tax Foundation's State Business Tax Climate Index. The Index compares the states in five areas of taxation that impact business: corporate taxes, individual income taxes, sales taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, and taxes on property, including residential and commercial property.

..., Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been ruled mentally unfit and cannot stop the sale of his NBA team. It was announced late Thursday night that Donald's wife Shelly had reached a deal with former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to sell the Clippers for a record $2 billion. According to ESPN, the papers were signed shortly before midnight.

White House adviser John Podesta told reporters Monday afternoon that Congress could not derail the Obama administration’s efforts to unilaterally enact policies to fight global warming. Podesta said that the president was committed to using executive orders to pass regulations under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon dioxide emissions that they say cause global warming.

On Dec. 7, 2009, New York State Police narcotics investigator Richard O’Brien fell off a ladder while fixing his mother’s roof. He lived for only three more hours after the fall — but in that brief time, fellow troopers tried to have him retired on disability. Now, Stephanie O’Brien, his widow, is fighting in court, saying a faulty fax machine and a measly seven minutes mean she and the couple’s daughter would get a $342,000 death payout — rather than lifetime benefits that could total in the millions. The case is the first involving an officer filing for a disability...

This scam is being reported by Tech Crunch and we wanted to make our readers aware of it.The scam, simplified: They call you, but immediately hang up. You see a missed call. You call back. They charge you for the call, and for each minute they can keep you on the line.According to the BBB, this so-called “One Ring” scam is on the rise.Like many a ruse, this one relies on hitting many, many potential targets at once. The scammer sets up a computer to call thousands of numbers per hour — because for every 99 people who follow their gut...

If you receive a call on your cellphone preceded by just one or two rings, chances are it’s part of the new One Ring phone scam spreading across the U.S. faster than a summer wildfire. Here’s how it works: International scammers have programmed computers to blast out millions of calls to cellphone numbers, ring once or twice, then disconnect. The objective is to make you curious enough to dial that number back. The “gotcha” happens when you return the call. You’ll be charged $19.95 for the international call fee itself and $9 per minute thereafter. “Oftentimes consumers say they hear...

John Dodson, the ATF agent who blew the whistle on the the Justice Department’s blood-soaked gun-trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious, told the Arizona Republic in an interview, Thursday, that the FBI played a key role in events leading to the 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. His comments to the paper, augment what he wrote in his new book, The Unarmed Truth - My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious. Dodson claims that the bandits who killed Terry were working for FBI operatives and were tipped by the DEA to be...

It happens rarely. A taxpayer challenging the constitutional basis for the income tax wins in court, defeating the Internal Revenue Service, such as in the case brought by the late Tom Cryer, who was acquitted on a charge of failing to pay $73,000 to the government. Now three members of Congress want to make that result the norm through a bill that would repeal the 16th Amendment, effectively canceling federal income taxes.