Free Republic

It doesn’t matter whether you know the government is specifically spying on you. It’s damaging enough to believe that it might be. “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” Writing in 1928, John Shedd wasn’t really talking about ships. He was talking about life. And in American life, we no longer feel safe even in the harbor. Years ago, my girlfriend and I went to see a movie. What we saw, I’ve no idea, but I do know we had a terrible time, and it had nothing to do with what was on the...

A new book on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts offers new details of his negotiation with liberal justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer to save ObamaCare ahead of the court's landmark ruling in 2012, according to excerpts released on CNN. In Joan Biskupic's "The Chief" which is scheduled to release next Thursday, she writes that Roberts originally opposed upholding the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate that required people to buy insurance, and cast his initial vote to strike it down, but he did join the liberal justices in voting to uphold Medicaid expansion, according to the book. He later...

The construction of a massive new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security, billed as critical for national security and the revitalization of Southeast Washington, is running more than $1.5 billion over budget, is 11 years behind schedule and may never be completed, according to planning documents and federal officials. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the George W. Bush administration called for a new, centralized headquarters to strengthen the department’s ability to coordinate the fight against terrorism and respond to natural disasters. More than 50 historic buildings would be renovated and new ones erected on the...

A Transportation Security Administration supervisor has been arrested for allegedly stealing thousands of dollars in cash from passengers going through an airport checkpoint. As passengers -- mostly foreigners heading home -- came through the checkpoint at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport, the supervisor and another TSA agent would subject them to secondary searches and allegedly take cash from their carry-on bags. The supervisor, Michael Arato, 41, of Ewing, N.J., was changed with one count of accepting bribes, one count of conspiring to commit theft and three counts of theft by a government employee. The other TSA worker is now...

Although you have to dig into the statistics to know it, unemployment in the United States is now worse than at any time since the end of the Great Depression.

An illegal immigrant who led police on a pursuit and was charged in a fatal Rowan County wreck last week had been arrested at least three times in North Carolina. But he was not deported after those arrests, authorities said Thursday. The man, Carlos Alfonso Guillen Martinez, will be deported as soon as state officials release him, federal authorities said. If convicted, he would likely serve prison time before being deported. It won't be the first time Guillen Martinez is thrown out of the country after committing a crime, investigators said: • In 1997, he was deported from Los Angeles,...

AMID shocking howling, emanating from quack-stricken vicinities of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, the US President George W. Bush has proved himself as a true friend of Pakistan by all perceptions as he is the first apex leader of the world who has extended an all-out help and assistance to provide instant relief to the ill-fated populous—which is still being counted—and the digit of the affected-ones may step-up close to a million. Not only that President Bush has dispatched a number of helicopters to Pakistan for emergency rescue operations in remote devastated areas, he has also announced initial monetary help to...

PHOENIX -- An Arizona ranch that once served as the headquarters for a civilian group watching for illegal immigrants has been turned over to two people caught trying to enter the United States illegally. The ranch was conveyed to satisfy a judgment against its owner, Casey Nethercott, a member of a self-styled border-watch group that seeks to protect private property from illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico. Nethercott had been accused of terrorizing the immigrants when he and others caught them in Texas. Morris Dees Jr., co-founder and chief trial counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented...

The June payroll jobs report did not receive much attention due to the July 4 holiday, but the depressing 21st century job performance of the U.S. economy continues unabated. Only 144,000 private sector jobs were created, each one of which was in domestic services. Fifty-six thousand jobs were created in professional and business services, about half of which are in administrative and waste services. Thirty-eight thousand jobs were created in education and health services, almost all of which are in health care and social assistance. Nineteen thousand jobs were created in leisure and hospitality, almost all of which are waitresses...

After decades of attempting to dam the flow of Mexican immigrants crossing into the United States illegally, federal agents say a new crisis is emerging along the southern border and they are helpless to stop it. Non-Mexicans are spilling over the border in record numbers - some from countries with terrorist ties - and most are set free soon after being captured. Already this year, the number of non-Mexican apprehensions has far outpaced last year's total in just eight months. And while they are still a relatively small percentage compared with the number of illegal Mexicans, critics say the federal...