Free Republic

There are two models of modern murder that are used in the debate about how to deal with crime.   The assumptions about reality that the models are based on are significantly different, which results in consistently different prescriptions for public policy. The first model, which I call the "Progressive Elite" model, has these basic assumptions about criminal homicide and its causes: 1.  The majority of people, except for the exceptional elite, are just moments away from committing a criminal homicide.  They have poor impulse control and fly into rages which escalate into homicidal rages if a weapon happens to be...

It looks like General Motors is going through an identity crisis as its marketing strategy has flip-flopped by changing its targeted audience. The new General Motors' truck ad, "Strong," targets conservatives by honoring a heroic and manly GM truck buyer with lyrics that describe him as a "love one woman for all his life" type of guy who arrived at work on time for twenty straight years. The rugged, heterosexual identity of today's GM differs greatly from last year's politically correct version when the company won praise for running a "gay" Chevy Volt ad and for flying rainbow banners to...

"..........Tanner’s report, “SNAP Failure: The Food Stamp Program Needs Reform,” finds that in 2000 the cost of the food stamp program was just $17 billion. It has risen in cost to $78 billion today. Spending on advertising and outreach for food stamps by federal and state governments has also increased, now amounting to $41.3 million a year. States like Florida have hired “food stamp recruiters,” who have a quota of signing up 150 new recipients each month. Rhode Island hosts “SNAP-themed bingo games,” and the USDA tells its field offices to throw parties to get more people on their rolls......"

ELLISVILLE – Second-term state Sen. Chris McDaniel says he’s running for the U.S. Senate in 2014, a decision that likely pits him against longtime incumbent Thad Cochran in the Republican primary. Cochran turns 76 in December and is expected to announce late this year whether he’ll seek re-election to the Senate seat he first won in 1978. He has been raising campaign cash. The 41-year-old McDaniel announced his intentions Thursday in his hometown of Ellisville. Cochran served six years in the U.S. House before becoming the first Republican since Reconstruction to win a statewide office in Mississippi when he was...

WASHINGTON - Will Cory Booker be another Ted Cruz? The next Hillary Clinton? Or something entirely different? After winning a Senate seat Wednesday, will Booker, a rising political star, follow Clinton's example and try to blend in to the slow-moving Senate, sticking with the tradition of freshmen quietly earning their place? Or will he join the ranks of lawmakers who use the Senate as a platform to build their profiles and shape the national debate, seniority be damned? "He is somebody who does like to make a splash, but I would hope that he would be a little more cautious...

Social security numbers allegedly passed around in clear sight. Page after page of unworkable code. And no clarity on when it will all be fixed. Just another day of trying to log in to healthcare.gov. Those glitches could take months -- or even years -- to fix, according to reports. But there's a key deadline looming: Jan. 1, 2014, when the ACA's individual mandate takes effect. Under the mandate, millions of Americans who were expected to use the exchanges to obtain health insurance will face fines if they haven't purchased coverage by Feb. 15, raising the question of whether the...

A Chinese ratings agency downgraded its US sovereign credit rating Thursday despite Washington's resolution of the debt ceiling deadlock, warning that fundamentals for a potential default remained "unchanged". Dagong lowered its ratings for US local and foreign currency credit from A to A-, maintaining a negative outlook, the agency said in a statement.

Protections for people who entered the country illegally but don’t have documentation and for LGBT foster youth are among the bills California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law. Most of the bills are effective January 1. Among the pieces of legislation that Brown approved before the October 13 deadline was Assembly Bill 4, the Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools Act - more commonly known as the TRUST Act. The bill, authored by gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), addresses issues with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Secure Communities program, widely known as S-Comm. According to Ammiano,...

Officials from MNsure provided the first public glimpse into how many Minnesotans have not only created accounts on the new health insurance site, but also committed to choosing a plan and paying for coverage. MNsure officials say about 3,700 visitors to the site are in the enrollment process — they’ve taken the step of selecting coverage through MNsure and are in the payment process if their plans require payment. That’s about 30 percent of the total number of accounts opened. The majority of those in the enrollment process are qualified for government programs such as Medicaid or MinnesotaCare, the state’s...

A House of Representatives stenographer was dragged off the floor during the vote to end the partial government shutdown and raise the U.S. debt ceiling after a bizarre protest in which she began ranting at members.

<p>CEDAR PARK, Texas, Oct. 16, 2013 -- /PRNewswire/ -- EEStor, Inc. has received multiple certifications results from TesCom Calibration Services of Austin, Texas.</p>

<p>A state lawmaker from Mississippi is set to announce Thursday whether he will challenge Sen. Thad Cochran in a Republican primary next year.</p> <p>State Sen. Chris McDaniel has scheduled a noon announcement at the Ellisville Courthouse in the Mississippi town of the same name.</p>

...But with tonight’s vote done and the government open once again, I want to return to...and stress once more the essential absurdity of the specific populist gambit we’ve just witnessed unfold, drag on, and now finally collapse. However you slice and dice the history, the strategery, and the underlying issues, the decision to live with a government shutdown for an extended period of time — inflicting modest-but-real harm on the economy, needlessly disrupting the lives and paychecks of many thousands of hardworking people, and further tarnishing the Republican Party’s already not-exactly-shiny image — in pursuit of obviously, obviously unattainable goals...

The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) criticized U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Wednesday for allowing a $2 billion Kentucky earmark to be added to the debt deal he negotiated with U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV). SCF Executive Director Matt Hoskins made the following statement: "Americans are familiar with the 'Cornhusker Kickback' that Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson was given in exchange for his vote on Obamacare. Well now Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell has an Obamacare earmark of his own. "The McConnell-Reid deal not only funds Obamacare and suspends the debt limit, it also includes a provision in Section 123 that increases funding...

I am looking to replace the salt shaker in my house with a "Salt Grinder" type salt shaker and would like any freeper suggestions on what brands or types of sea salt may be the best as well as any warnings on what I may want to avoid. Here is are some of the per-requisites that i would like with my salt grinder. 1. The Sea salt Must contain Iodine 2. The Sea salt Must contain Selenium 3. The Sea Salt MUST be free of any heavy metals or toxic metals. I have heard good things about Himalayan sea salt...

video satire (3:19)

The White House is standing by pro-abortion HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, saying there are no plans to fire her despite the abject failure that is Obamacare. A campaign to fire Sebelius has been growing since the abortive launch of the Obamacare exchange web sites. From a report in The Hill: The White House stood by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday, as Republicans called for her resignation over the botched rollout of ObamaCare. The primary website for consumers to sign up for insurance is still not functioning as promised, two weeks since its launch. White House press...

Authorities say two men convicted on murder charges were mistakenly released from a Florida prison with forged documents.The Orange County Sheriff's Office says Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker were released separately from a prison in the Panhandle in late September and early October. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement learned about the mistake Tuesday. Walker was serving a life sentence on a second-degree murder conviction. Jenkins was serving a life sentence for a 1998 first-degree murder conviction. According to the sheriff's office, both convictions stemmed from crimes committed in Orlando. The Florida Department of Corrections says the men were released...

Fannie Mae Risk-sharing Notes are trading tighter, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. Mid-market spreads for Fannie Mae risk-sharing CAS securities tighter than pricing levels on Oct. 15, Credit Suisse analysts say in report today. • M1 at +167bps vs. +200 • M2 at +482bps vs. +525 • Both had priced “significantly tighter than initial guidance” • CS, BofAML were joint leads • Freddie Mac STACR indicative levels at +210, +535, CS says • Priced at +340, +715 in July • NOTE: ~75 investors participated in $675m Fannie deal, ~50 in $500m Freddie deal, meaning typically only small blocks trade,...

A Dear Abby column this week featured a concerned mom who had learned that the condoms she was buying for her 17-year-old daughter were being given to her daughter’s friends. The mom, who was proud that her daughter felt comfortable enough to confide in her, was concerned about the price of supplying multiple sexually-active teenagers with condoms, but alas, she considered that perhaps this expense was worthwhile “if I can help to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.” The question, from “Safe Sex Advocate in Iliinois,” went like this: DEAR ABBY: My 17-year-old daughter confided that she has become sexually involved with...

Tony Wells Jr., 32, said the alligator had already been in his house when he moved in, Indian River County Sheriff's Office said.A Florida man was arrested after he illegally kept an alligator in his outdoor hot tub and fed it chicken for over a year, authorities said. Tony Wells Jr., 32, said the alligator had already been in his Vero Beach house when he moved in, the Indian River County Sheriff's Office said. After moving into the home, Wells said he “was just feeding the alligator,” his arrest report said. When deputies asked what he was feeding the alligator,...

Deidre Romine said she’s unemployed and about to lose her apartment. She said she took the change from the fountain to buy food. She only wished to buy a meal. An Ohio woman was collared for petty theft after she was caught swiping $2.87 in change from a fountain last week. Deidre Romine said she had just fished the coins out of the Logan County Courthouse fountain in Bellefontaine to buy food when a cop approached her on Oct. 7. “The cop asked me what I was doing and I was afraid to tell him,” Romine told WBNS-10TV. “The money...

RACINE COUNTY, WI — National numbers on the federally run insurance marketplace aren’t out until mid-November, but locally the question “How many have enrolled online?” is easy to answer — none. At least, that’s how many the county knows of. Racine County officials said continued technical issues with the Affordable Care Act’s healthcare.gov site are to blame. Meanwhile, organizations seeking federal certification to assist with enrollment are seeing progress, albeit slowly. Halfway through the marketplace’s first month, “It’s just been kind of anti-climactic,” said Hope Otto, who heads in-person enrollment for the Racine County Health and Human Services Department.

Old and busted: Community organizing. New hotness: Listen to your elders! Barack Obama took the opportunity today to lay blame for Washington dysfunction squarely on where it most belongs … outside the Beltway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUbWzkwGfgA Sorry, wrong video:

Someone commented on a different thread that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) ought "fall on his sword." ... I suppose that is one way to phrase the sentiment. I have different idea as to what should be done with this man, and his traitorous cohorts - but then again, I do not want to get kicked off this forum, so I shall constrain my remarks to the following opinions ... Will somebody here on FR please provide a rational argument as to why I should remain a Republican? I will always be a conservative - both fiscal AND social; however,...

I wasn’t aware that Maverick, whose pronouncements now carry roughly the same weight with tea partiers as Obama’s, is in a position to be guaranteeing anything about how House Republicans might behave. In fact, here’s what one GOP congressman said last night after the final conference huddle: As Republican lawmakers left the closed meeting Wednesday, some were already thinking of the next fight.“I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.” If by “guarantee” McCain...

If you believe Bigfoot roams the Pacific Northwest, you might be gullible enough to believe Barack Obama’s claim that the United States will default on its creditors if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling. But if you can see the President’s propaganda for the scare tactic it is, you know there was never any chance the United States would default on its creditors. The administration and the lamestream media have recklessly repeated the mantra that if the government can’t continue to irresponsibly spend more than it takes in, this must end in “default,” as if living within their means wasn’t...

A) This is his breakfast, every day. B) Mini-muffins are the only thing that can cheer up John Boehner in times like these. C) He's bringing the mini-muffins to un-furloughed EPA workers as an extremely modest reward for not getting paid for two weeks. D) Some kind of 9/11 tribute. E) There was a four for $4 sale at the end of the aisle and he was stoned so he had no choice. And the answer is ...

Regulation: From lost jobs to fewer hours to premium hikes that would make a loan shark drool, Barack Obama's home state is a case study in why the first rule in health care reform, as in medicine, should be to do no harm. The president and his cohorts in the media have long accused Republicans of being out of touch with ordinary people. Remember the concocted story about President Bush the elder being so out of touch he was unfamiliar with supermarket bar-code scanners? But it's President Obama who's out of touch with ordinary people and the damage his Affordable...

That’s why Bullard says he refiled a bill that aims to, in his words, “tie up any loose ends that most Floridians are concerned about.” That includes explicitly defining that an aggressor is someone engaged in an overt act of violence, such as brandishing a weapon… “...but, it would also again switch up that aggressor language so that one could not be provoked and then upon provocation, choose to defend themselves. And, then the person who did the provoking is able to use deadly force—that little loophole is what led to the unfortunate acquittal of George Zimmerman,” he added. The...

The Year of Living Carlos Dangerously

Betty Reid Soskin couldn't be more delighted to be dressing for work and getting ready to head into the office.Betty Reid Soskin couldn't be more delighted to be dressing for work and getting ready to head into the office. For Soskin, the "office" is the the visitor's center at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historic Park in Richmond, Calif., which has been shuttered since Oct. 1 because of the partial government shutdown. "I'm absolutely delighted," she told NBC Bay Area on Thursday morning, after Congress voted to end the shutdown late Wednesday night. "Right now, I'm...

The professoriate, as seen through the eyes of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), thinks that Obamacare is wildly popular despite GOP efforts to make it unpopular. “Likewise, it seems not to have been enough that the Far Right extremists in the House have voted forty-one times to repeal the ACA [Affordable Care Act),” Martin Kich writes on the Academe blog maintained by the AAUP. “In addition, they have publicly campaigned to convince GOP-dominated states to decline to establish insurance exchanges and to convince young Americans to refuse to sign up for the insurance coverage newly available through such...

... Obama lectured members of Congress on Thursday on their responsibility to serve the country, urging them to negotiate with him on the budget and immigration reform instead of endangering the country with games of "brinkmanship." Decrying the "pressure from extremes" he blamed for the 16-day government shutdown that ended Thursday morning, Obama said political opponents should instead try to affect government at the ballot box.

Republicans never expected to get a fair shake in the Big Three networks' coverage of the 16-day government shutdown, but the final tally of stories blaming the GOP is stunning: 41 stories blamed Republicans and zero blamed Democrats. Nightly, 20 million Americans heard “a version of the shutdown story that could easily have emanated from Barack Obama's own White House,” said the new report from the Media Research Center.

That rumor has been flying around, in part due to the natural opacity of last-minute deals struck at the eleventh hour of a “crisis.”  The legislative branch controls the debt ceiling, but Democrats have occasionally proposed to either eliminate it altogether or allow the executive to set it — at least when a Democrat is President.  So what exactly did the Reid-McConnell bill do to the debt ceiling?  Politico has the source of some confusion on this at the bottom of their story: The legislation also includes a McConnell-written proposal that would allow Congress to disapprove of the debt-ceiling increase....

GQ has the depressing campaign post-mortem/autopsy with fallen angel Anthony Weiner ("The Year of Living Carlos Dangerously," heh), and it's what we've come to expect from a man who can talk forever and say almost nothing. Weiner, though — his candidacy and likely his political career dead and buried — did seem to let his guard down a bit when discussing his relationship. It gets dark. Asked if he and Huma will stay together, Weiner responded: “One thing I’m grateful for is that now I’m under no obligation to answer anything like this,” he said. “But we’ve had a very...

"Who's out of touch now?" — Mayor Bloomberg, who at least has enough pop-culture knowledge to actively hate graffiti.

Despite presiding over a chamber that nearly drove the country to a debt default, John A. Boehner still has the enduring support of a group that would’ve been most harmed by that event: the business community. Rather than revisit their strategy of supporting Republicans after this week’s near-disaster, influential organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are standing behind Boehner. More importantly, Boehner’s friends in the business community are getting ready to take sides in a few Republican primary races against tea party candidates in Michigan, Idaho and Alabama who could cause the House speaker more trouble.

It's been clear to anyone paying attention that the October "rollout" of Obamacare has been a turbulent, confusing disaster. Sloppy IT systems and technological failures combined to cripple Obamacare's sign-up systems. Security flaws put Americans at risk for identity theft. In an almost comical understatement, President Obama summarized these massive failures as "a few glitches." I think that Luke Chung, IT expert and president of database solutions firm FMS, explained the situation much more accurately: "What should clearly be an enterprise quality, highly scalable software application felt like it wouldn't pass a basic code review. It appears the people who...

Summation of Rant: It's bad for America but great for President Obama & Co.  The End the Slowdown and Raise the Debt Ceiling Bill is now "the law of the land." The Senate passed the bill (81 to 18 with more than half of the Republicans voting "yes"). Then the House of Boehner passed it (286 to 144 with 81 Republicans voting "yes" but more than 60% of House Republicans opposed). The Government slowdown is finished, "we" have financed additional Governmental waste by multiple agencies through January 15th and raised the debt limit from sixteen trillion, six hundred and sixty-nine billion dollars to an...

Democrats did everything they could to portray yesterday’s special election for a Senate seat in New Jersey as a referendum on Republicans and the Tea Party. They clearly fell short of their expectations as Democrat Cory Booker underperformed his showing in almost all the polls, and wound up winning by only 10.3 points. By contrast, President Obama won New Jersey by 18 points just last November. At the same time, Democratic senator Robert Menendez cruised to a 19-point victory over a veteran moderate Republican state senator. In a video released on Monday, President Obama had urged people to vote for...

A bomb in a mosque killed a provincial governor Tuesday in the highest profile assassination in recent months, part of an intensified campaign to intimidate Afghanistan’s administration as it prepares for elections and the withdrawal of foreign troops after 12 years of war. The bomb killed Gov. Arsallah Jamal of eastern Logar province as he delivered a speech at the main mosque in the provincial capital of Puli Alam to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. The attack also wounded 15 people, five of them critically, said his spokesman, Din Mohammad Darwesh.

C. Edmund Wright, columnist for Breitbart and American Thinker and author of: WTF? How Karl Rove and the Establishment Lost. Again., joins David to discuss the government shutdown and America's economic woes

Rep. Trey Goudy compares Occupy camping for 100 days vs. Shutdown blocking access to Veteran Monuments.

Ok everyone how about this, in ALL furure Election Cycles we WORK OUR A$$ES OFF to get Tea Party/9-12ers elected and if the "GOP-e/Rinos/Backstabbers" come against us then we WORK OUR A$$ES off to get the Dem elected.

Why is no one in Congress pointing out the illegal way by which Harry Reid and his cohorts rammed through the very punitive Obamacare bill in the first place? Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) delivered an outstanding one hour exposition of the skullduggery these partisans used to shove this socialistic atrocity down the throats, “into the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the kitchens” of we ordinary US citizens. No one else has the courage to point out that Harry Reid and company rewrote out of whole cloth a unanimously passed H.Res 3509 called “Sevice Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009.” This bill’s...

CGI Federal is the Canadian IT company charged with putting together and maintaining the “excruciatingly embarrassing” Healthcare.gov site. And evidently, it genuinely sucks to be them: The healthcare.gov debacle has taken its toll on the working environment at CGI Federal’s 10-story complex in Fairfax, Va., according to a staffer working on a related project who asked not to be named. “There’s been a lot of agitation and anger, because CGI really prides itself on having family flexibility,” he said, noting the firm’s liberal telework policy. Instead, the Obamacare contract has sucked more and more staff off other projects, and people...

'smORFs': Functional Little Genome Gems Confront Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Until recently, thousands of tiny, potential protein-coding regions in the genome called "small open reading frames" or "smORFs" have been difficult to identify. They are now getting well-deserved attention for the important biochemical functions they play in the cell—like making your heart beat.1 In the present study published in Science, researchers found two smORF-encoded proteins in fruit fly genomes that were 28 to 29 amino acids in length and involved in regulating calcium transport and calcium intake in muscle and heart cells.1 And based on these proteins' 3-D...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell denied slipping a special provision into a deal he co-engineered to end the 16-day government shutdown and end a showdown over raising the nation's debt ceiling. And the longtime Republican Senator from Kentucky had an admonishment for Republicans whose sole focus is the "impossible dream" of ending Obamacare.