Free Republic

When the Education Department approved a proposal by Dream Center, a Christian nonprofit with no experience in higher education, to buy a troubled chain of for-profit colleges, skeptics warned that the charity was unlikely to pull off the turnaround it promised. What they didn’t foresee was just how quickly and catastrophically it would fail. Barely a year after the takeover, dozens of Dream Center campuses are nearly out of money and may close as soon as Friday. More than a dozen others have been sold in the hope they can survive. The affected schools — Argosy University, South University and...

Las Vegas, NV – Nevada Senator Harry Reid today announced a $4,650,523 million grant for three electric buses in Reno that will travel from the Riverwalk District to the University of Nevada, Reno.  The Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County will receive the funding for three 35-foot composite-body electric buses that will replace three diesel buses. “These clean buses will extend the life of Reno’s downtown bus system for years to come, which is good news for tourists, college students and Nevadans commuting to and from work,” Reid said.  “The electric buses are designed for efficiency in Northern Nevada’s high...

President Barack Obama’s aunt, who has been living illegally in the U.S. for years, can stay in the United States until next year while her effort to fight deportation makes its way through the court system, according to a spokesman for her attorney. Zeituni Onyango, 56, the half-sister of Obama’s late father, was ordered to leave the country in 2004, but instead made a quiet life for herself in the South Boston housing projects. ...

THE AWFUL ORDEAL OF CPO SWEENEY WHISTLEBLOWER DESERVES “JUSTICE” WHY IS CAPTAIN RUTH COOPER STILL IN THE NAVY? – FORMER COMMANDER OF NAVAL STATION, NEWPORT, R.I. RELIEVED OF COMMAND IN 2003 – “SHE MADE MY LIFE A LIVING HELL,” CHIEF SAYS. “THIS OFFICER SHOULD BE A CIVILIAN BY NOW, NOT COLLECTING $130,000 A YEAR RIDING A DESK AT THE PENTAGON.” © 2005 MilitaryCorruption.com We get to see evidence of military corruption and abuse so often here, it’s easy to get “jaded” when IG investigation reports routinely cross our desk. But the files on Navy Capt. Ruth Cooper, “relieved of command”...

AP Exclusive: Taxpayers Taken for Ride on Power Wheelchairs, a Growing Medicare ScamBy Larry Margasak Associated Press WriterPublished: Nov 11, 2003 WASHINGTON (AP) - After walking unassisted from the back of a Los Angeles courtroom, 85-year-old Euralda Clodomar refused the hand of a deputy and climbed into the witness chair. Let the record show, the prosecutor told jurors, she didn't use a wheelchair. Clodomar doesn't own a wheelchair, let alone the motorized model that was charged to Medicare at a cost of $3,840. An equipment supplier had obtained her Medicare identification number and taken her and the taxpayers for a...

Irresponsibly, Congress is treating the lack of prescription-drug insurance among some seniors as if it were as common to old age as gray hair. In reality — a state of existence from which Capitol Hill and the White House routinely depart — 76 percent of seniors currently have pharmaceutical coverage. Rather than target assistance to the remaining 24 percent of seniors, the GOP Congress is crafting a Medicare reform package that President Bush is desperate to sign. This brand-new entitlement — estimated ten-year cost: $400 billion — looks frighteningly like something hammered together by another Texas politician: Lyndon Baines Johnson....

<p>Less than three hours after the San Francisco Civil Service Commission reinstated deposed elections chief Tammy Haygood on Monday night, a judge issued a temporary order blocking her return.</p> <p>As the controversy over the city's first African American elections director hit a new high, Haygood's bosses on the Elections Commission won three days worth of breathing room to prepare for the next big battle -- a court fight over the Elections Commission's right to fire Haygood.</p>