Free Republic

Florida condo owners are about to get hit by the perfect financial storm. With insurance rates already going up as much as 300% for some buildings along with recent changes to the Florida Condominium Act and new changes going into effect in 2025, many are going to face tough times in the coming months and year.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to Democratic members of Congress in which she called for enactment of gun-control legislation and said she prayed that bipartisan discussions in the Senate will lead to “legislation that can save lives.” “On multiple occasions, the Democratic House has passed strong, commonsense gun violence prevention legislation,” Pelosi wrote to her colleagues. “In the past, similar measures that became law have been proven to reduce the sale of dangerous weapons and save lives. We can and must do so again.

Genius at work  As soon as he figures out how to walk through that gate holding an umbrella, he'll take care of the economy, health care, Wall Street, Iraq , Afghanistan , unemployment and a few things more. But first things first. Be worried, very worried!.

BATON ROUGE -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is having second thoughts about reimbursing Louisiana for more than $25 million in payments to the consulting firm that has been advising Gov. Kathleen Blanco on hurricane recovery. A week after announcing in a news release that the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness could collect up to $26.1 million for the services provided by James Lee Witt Associates, FEMA withdrew the authorization and questioned whether the state acted properly in awarding the contract. In a Dec. 5 letter to Col. Jeff Smith, Blanco's official representative to FEMA, federal officials...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Government engineers performing sonar tests at the site of a major levee failure confirmed that steel reinforcements barely went more than half as deep as they were supposed to, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official said Wednesday. "We've come up with similar results" to those from earlier tests performed by Louisiana State University engineers, said Walter Baumy, the Corps' chief engineer for the New Orleans District. Baumy said the Corps intends to pull out pieces of the remaining wall along each edge of the breach at the 17th Street Canal to verify the sonar test...