Free Republic

A new bill under consideration by Florida lawmakers would stop insurance companies from dodging workers compensation payouts by aiding in the arrest and deportation of unauthorized immigrants who are injured on the job. Legislators and advocates have been pushing for the measure since last summer, when ProPublica and NPR documented more than 130 cases in which immigrants who had suffered legitimate workplace injuries were flagged to law enforcement agencies by their employers' insurers. The workers faced felony fraud charges for using a fake ID when they sought medical care. Meanwhile, the insurers often avoided paying the workers' compensation benefits legally...

James Clapper said to have frequent communication with military official who is said to be implicated in a Pentagon inquiry into manipulated intelligence Barack Obama’s intelligence chief is said to be in frequent and unusual contact with a military intelligence officer at the center of a growing scandal over rosy portrayals of the war against the Islamic State, the Guardian has learned. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is said to talk nearly every day with the head of US Central Command’s intelligence wing, Army Major General Steven Grove – “which is highly, highly unusual”, according to a former...

While the world’s attention is focused on the Islamic State, and its jihadis tell Americans that they will “drown all of you in blood,” jihad activity continues in the United States – although hardly anyone notices through the fog of mainstream media obfuscation. Here are some recent acts of jihad on American soil that you may have missed – all from this spring and summer:1. Seattle Muslim “on a jihad to kill Americans” prime suspect in four murder casesSeattle Muslim Ali Muhammad Brown, reported KING 5 News last Tuesday, is “currently in jail on $5 million bail for the alleged...

Protestors carrying signs and U.S. flags blocked three buses carrying undocumented children and families to an immigration processing facility in Southern California. More than 100 undocumented immigrants were stopped from reaching the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's processing facility in Murrieta. ICE officials turned the caravan around and headed southbound on Interstate 15 back to San Diego County. Some Murrieta residents have criticized the transfer of the women and children to Riverside County from Texas where conditions have been described as overwhelming and overcrowded due to a recent influx of unaccompanied minors along the U.S.-Mexico border. Federal officials transported the...

Sacrificing the Military to Entitlements Vladimir Putin, playing geopolitical chess while our president plays tiddlywinks, has effectively taken over Crimea. Armed men, looking suspiciously like Russian military personnel, have seized both airports and established border checkpoints decorated with Kalashnikovs and Russian flags. This comes after other armed men seized two government buildings and raised Russian flags, as the legislature appointed a pro-Russian regional leader. Meanwhile Russian military forces are gathering on the border, with Russia’s parliament unanimously voting to approve deploying troops in Ukraine.

For years, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was generally considered an example of “moderate Islamism”, a loose label that was generally based on a comparison with other Islamist dictatorships, like Iran, or with the various semi-secular autocratic regimes that dot the Arab and Muslim world. There was never a comparison with a liberal Muslim democracy, simply because none existed. In other words, Erdogan earned his credential as the moderate, Islamist democrat in the Middle East, partly because of his success in Turkey, but also due to the lack of any democratic competitors. Admittedly, it was not just the west that...

~SNIP~ For example, among the formula of budget sequestration’s across-the-board cuts, split 50-50 between military and non-military spending, AmeriCorps will likely lose out. This core program, supported and used by many nonprofits, will likely lose member slots—in the thousands—and in all likelihood there will be a reduction in the level of federal commitment to each AmeriCorps member. Young Invincibles and the National Priorities Project reported that the likely cut in the AmeriCorps program itself would be $38 million. Remember that AmeriCorps is actually a suite of programs, including AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps VISTA, and the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community...

Election Day was a drubbing for marriage. The ballot initiatives to protect marriage lost by over 4% in Maine, Minnesota, Washington State, and Maryland. Those who support same-sex “marriage” reportedly spent over $33 million, while those who defend marriage spent just over $10 million. Many friends have said that same-sex marriage is inevitable. It is not. I have confidence that fence-sitters will enter the fray in support of traditional marriage. As we continue to debate this issue, three important forces can shift the outcome in favor of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Consider first, public...

MOSCOW -- The mass shooting last week at an elementary school in Connecticut sparked calls for stricter gun control laws in the United States. But thousands of kilometers away, the fledgling gun lobby in Moscow drew a different lesson: Gun laws in Russia should be liberalized. And while the powerful U.S. gun lobby group, the National Rifle Association, waited four days before issuing a public statement on the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults, the Moscow-based Right To Bear Arms made its voice heard within hours with an announcement on its website calling for increased...

The Fiscal Cliff. It all comes down to principles. And leverage. Not to mention an abrupt campaign to depose Speaker John Boehner, as now reported last night by the Daily Caller. An idea discussed in this very space only days ago. Grover Norquist understands this. Brent Bozell understands this. The Heritage Foundation understands this. Ditto Rush, Sean and Mark. And in truth -- millions of conservatives get it in their bones. John Boehner does not understand this. -SNIP- And let's not forget the leverage that is the debt ceiling. Let's see the House GOP start talking relentlessly, in Reagan-style, about...

Romney Seeks the Endorsement of Zelig “I’M PRETTY GOOD AT CHANGING MY POSITIONS, BUT I FIGURED IF THIS ZELIG FELLOW CAN BECOME A NEGRO AND AN INDIAN CHIEF, PERHAPS HE CAN TEACH ME HOW TO ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE 99.9% OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”

WASHINGTON — Rick Santorum wants to ensure the GOP's policy platform represents conservatives' interests. Newt Gingrich wants help retiring his campaign debt and repairing his reputation.Both Republicans are expected to endorse their former rival Mitt Romney — and signal to their backers to fall in line behind the party's presumptive nominee — but each wants assurances that Romney will deliver for them. Neither is rushing toward the task.Meanwhile, it doesn't appear that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is going to go that way. Paul is still in the race and hasn't yet recognized Romney as the party's nominee. The tea...

The subversive network taking over America The time has long passed when we could afford to look the other way on the extent to which subversive influences — communist and jihad-oriented Islamists — have for years been worming their way into the high councils of our government.So let's say this again: When the Cold War ended, the enemies of America did not just go away. America is under attack from Communists (with both a large and small "c") and Jihadists.These two threats to America (by violent means if necessary) have philosophical differences, but they are bound together by an identical...

The former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, who resigned last week amid allegations of sexual harassment in the organization, is now facing a startling new accusation from an ex-girlfriend. Rebecca Burgin says Jay Parmley infected her with HIV several years ago. “And after Jay and I broke up, the biggest concern that I had was, ‘what if this happened to somebody else? Would he do this to someone else?’ … My biggest concern is for anybody else that has had a relationship with him that he did not tell,” Rebecca Burgin, 29, told The Daily Caller. Burgin...

Supreme Court justices strongly suggested Wednesday that they are ready to allow Arizona to enforce part of a controversial state law requiring police officers to check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.Liberal and conservative justices reacted skeptically to the Obama administration's argument that the state exceeded its authority when it made the records check, and another provision allowing suspected illegal immigrants to be arrested without a warrant, part of Arizona law aimed at driving illegal immigrants elsewhere."You can see it's not selling very well," Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Obama administration Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.It...

IF he is the nominee, and picks a running mate, I have a feeling the GOPe poster boy will be running an ambiguously gay duo politically correct progressive campaign like Kerry and Edwards did. As such, who do YOU think will be the Edwards like VP?

Romney on DADT (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) Question: How do you feel about gays serving openly in the military. Romney: That’s already occurred and I’m not planning on reversing that at this stage. < Question: But you’re comfortable with it? Romney: I was not comfortable making the change during a period of conflict, by virtue of the complicating the features of a new program in the middle of two wars going on, but those wars are winding down and moving to that direction at this stage no longer presents that problem. November 9, 2011: Romney meeting with the editorial board...

A quarter-century after her debut as a regular on TV's "Saturday Night Live," Victoria Jackson is back entertaining audiences in South Florida. The crowds are minuscule compared with the millions who saw her, often portraying a ditsy blonde, during six seasons on SNL. But this is entertainment with a purpose. With a small American flag stuck in her pulled-back hair at one event, playing a ukulele and singing at the next, Jackson is out to spread her conservative worldview and alert the uninformed to the threats she sees facing America. "There's an urgency in the air," she said during a...

The 2012 presidential campaign has become a dog-eat-dog contest. For months, Obama campaign operatives sought to make an issue of Mitt Romney carrying his Irish setter Seamus in a rooftop dog carrier during a family vacation in 1983. Some major media outlets picked up the non-story, and the Obama campaign buttressed it with an endless series of snarky tweets and barbs. The liberals are chasing their tails with this tale.On Tuesday, the Daily Caller’s Jim Treacher juxtaposed the Seamus story with a passage from President Obama’s book “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” in which he...

Brown: Is Progressivism the new Communism? In politics, truth-telling can get you into trouble, even if you stumble upon it by accident. Just ask Rep. Allen West (R-FL). West is feeling the heat for a pregnant pause he took during a town hall meeting after he was asked "What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or International Socialists?" "It's a good question," West responded, "I believe there's [sic] about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. (Long pause) "They don't actually hide. It's called the Congressional Progressive...