Free Republic

An increasing number of air travellers are faking disabilities to skip queues at security, check-in and departure gates, according to airport and airline staff. Passengers with reduced mobility (PRM) are entitled to free assistance, and are permitted to cut queues at the airport. Support can be requested at the time of booking, or during check-in, but passengers are not required to present proof of disability, prompting unscrupulous able-bodied travellers to exploit the policy. The practice is becoming so common that airline staff have coined the phrase “miracle flights” to describe how some travellers require a wheelchair to board the aircraft,...

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ (DWS) reelection campaign may be sagging under the weight of Barack Obama’s slide in popularity among American Jews. The most recent poll data from Florida’s 23rd Congressional District shows DWS is leading Republican Karen Harrington by 4.5% which is just inside the margin of error. A Gravis Marketing poll conducted on October 1 and 2 (before Wednesday night’s debate) found DWS receiving 44.2% to Harrington’s 39.7% with a very significant 16.1% of potential voters calling themselves “undecided.” Being under 45% with a month to go is a precipitous drop in support for DWS who beat Harrington 60/39...

Generations of Valerie Magee's family, from her grandparents to her children, have deepened their roots in the black middle class, finding a pathway to prosperity through college education and the support of family members.

Barack Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago purely for political reasons, according to long-term member of the congregation who knew the Obamas. “Obama may say he’s a Christian, but he’s not,” said the member, identified for this story as “Rose.” “Joining Trinity for Obama was a political decision, not a religious one.” Rose pointed out that when Obama came to Chicago after graduating from Columbia University, he was an outsider, albeit with important contacts in Chicago’s African-American power structure. She noted Obama’s mentor in Hawaii was Frank Marshall Davis, the Communist Party USA member and activist who...

There is no such group as the Palestinian people. They have never existed, do not exist now, and will not exist in the future. They are the only people in all history that came into existence in a single day! This was admitted by Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist: “Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?” He added that he did not mind Jordanian rule. He and his compatriots were Jordanians “until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians.” Shoebat was saying...

I have had enough of being thought of as stupid.  I’m sick and tired of the media, the administration and the spin doctors putting statistics and information out that is so cock-eyed, it is laughable.  It has been going on for a long time but this week the unemployment numbers were so ridiculous I thought I was watching an SNL comedy routine. How in the world do they think that they can get away with something so ludicrous?  If they wanted to manipulate the numbers to make Obama look good, they should have at least lowered the number to 8%...

"Outspoken 2008 VP candidate claims prez trying to 'silence critics'"The former Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate who has claimed Barack Obama was unknown to him and his fellow Columbia University classmates charges the president is using the Internal Revenue Service to punish and silence him. Wayne Allyn Root – a pre-law and political science major in the class of 1983, like the president – told WND that despite a spotless tax record, he became the target of an audit in January 2011 when he received an “unsettling” call from an IRS agent who called himself a fan of his and...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – One man suffered a heart attack and later died and three people were arrested for their alleged involvement in a wedding reception brawl at the Sheraton in the Society Hill section of Philadelphia early Sunday morning. Police said at least two separate wedding parties got into a fight that began inside the hotel located at 1 Dock Street. One group of guests fought with another group, who had just returned to the hotel after an off-site reception. It spilled out into the street and police were called in around 1:30 a.m. Eyewitnesses say the fight began in...

What one can also see is that the public cost of "normalization", aka the Trade Off of the new normal is an additional $4.25 trilion in debt over and above where the previous historic trendline would put total US debt, just under $12 trillion. Instead total debt is now $16.2 trillion. Oddly enough, this translates to precisely $1,000,000 per job gained or saved from the first (and certainly not last) post-crisis trough: yet another fact that will not be mentioned in either the mainstream press or any presidential debate, as sadly trading off record amounts of public debt for new...

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ (DWS) reelection campaign may be sagging under the weight of Barack Obama’s slide in popularity among American Jews. The most recent poll data from Florida’s 23rd Congressional District shows DWS is leading Republican Karen Harrington by 4.5% which is just inside the margin of error. A Gravis Marketing poll conducted on October 1 and 2 (before Wednesday night’s debate) found DWS receiving 44.2% to Harrington’s 39.7% with a very significant 16.1% of potential voters calling themselves “undecided.” Being under 45% with a month to go is a precipitous drop in support for DWS who beat Harrington 60/39...

Last night, the Obama campaign blasted out another email claiming that Mitt Romney's tax plan would either require raising taxes on the middle class or blowing a hole in the deficit. "Even the studies that Romney has cited to claim his plan adds up still show he would need to raise middle-class taxes," said the Obama campaign press release. "In fact, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and Princeton economist Harvey Rosen both concede that paying for Romney’s tax cuts would require large tax increases on families making between $100,000 and $200,000."

It isn't hard to see the thin red line that connects the nakedly tribal appeals of the Democratic National Convention with the bloody chaos in the Middle East. Despite Occupy Wall Street's best efforts our kind of tribalism does not involve mobs and gunmen violently attacking other groups, at least not in the formal sense, just representatives of the tribes getting up on the floor of a convention hall and promising that tribal priorities will be upheld through affirmative action and other redistributive schemes that will move more members of the oppressed tribes up the political and economic ladder. We...

President Obama had a terrible debate last week. Supporters and opponents were shocked that he could be so off his game. They shouldn't have been. That they were indicates that they don't understand Obama's serious, likely insurmountable re-election problem. Obama supporters and detractors expect the old Obama to show better form in the next debate. But that is not going to happen! It cannot, because Obama's critical problem is not correctable. Obama's Real Problem The media seemed more surprised by Obama's performance than Romney's. It was Romney who was the surprise and exposed Obama's Achilles heel. Daniel Henninger observed (my...

John B. Gurdon of the U.K. and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan shared this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in so-called cellular reprogramming, which has unleashed a wave of advances in everything from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using stem cells.... It also allows scientists to create human embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos, sidestepping an approach that has long been fraught with ethical controversies. Most important, perhaps, it has significantly advanced the prospect of using a patient's own mature cells to create fresh tissue and treat disease.

s Mitt Romney delivers a foreign policy address Monday in Virginia, he'll be met with a new television ad by his opponent's re-election campaign that highlights the GOP nominee as "reckless" and "amateurish" on international affairs. President Barack Obama's team released a new commercial that they say will run on Virginia airwaves, which criticizes Romney over his recent forays into foreign policy, including his foreign trip and comments on the Libya consulate attack. The 30-second spot features critical news clips of what the commercial calls Romney's "gaffe-filled" trip to England, Israel and Poland. During his tour, the Republican was accused...

After watching the first debate, I refuse to believe that American voters will choose an encore for Obama's version of "hope and change." Regardless of his new campaign promises, Romney reminded us of Obama's failed trickle-down-government and his string of broken promises. Here are ten reasons that it's time for a change in Washington. 1. He said, "I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office." Instead the deficit has increased by over $5.3 trillion and keeps on growing! 2. He said, "Transparency and the rule of law will...

In an explosive report set to send shockwaves through official Washington, the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) released a 108-page GAI investigation into the threat of foreign and fraudulent Internet campaign donations in U.S. federal elections

Predictable elements are uneasy that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s tough speech at the UN represents a shift away from Canada’s usual tiptoeing around sensitive issues. Baird scolded the UN for its inability to resolve crises (e.g., Syria), and its reluctance to take decisive action when rogue regimes run amok or defy international opinion. That sort of thing. In taking a tough stand, Baird undoubtedly reflected Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s attitude — and Baird was filling in for Harper who, instead of addressing the General Assembly along with other heads of state, was accepting a “Statesman of the Year” award....

This was no ordinary rubber chicken affair. That was my reaction to the extraordinary keynoter at Tuesday’s Better Government Association annual luncheon. Lara Logan, a correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes,” delivered a provocative speech to about 1,100 influentials from government, politics, media, and the legal and corporate arenas. Such downtown gatherings are a regular on Chicago’s networking circuit. (I am a member of the BGA’s Civic Leadership Committee, and the Chicago Sun-Times was a sponsor). Her ominous and frightening message was gleaned from years of covering our wars in the Middle East. She arrived in Chicago on the heels of...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Jerusalem In The Scriptures The Book of Nehemiah Starts and Finishes with prayer. This is from Chapter 13. The Intervening Chapters contain lists of names, and the re-implementation of the Law of Moses. 14 Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services. 15 In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of...