Free Republic

In one of the more outrageous moves by the Justice Department’s bloated civil rights division, a private college was strong armed into a legal settlement in which it agreed that food allergies are a disability under federal law. The story got little coverage as the Department of Justice (DOJ) quietly persuaded the Massachusetts College, Lesley University, to change its campus menu and serve certain foods to accommodate students with allergies. The preposterous case was brought to Judicial Watch’s attention by Robert Popper, who at the time was a Deputy Chief at the DOJ’s Voting Section. Popper, an esteemed attorney, currently...

The Florida sheriff investigating a girl's suicide allegedly prompted by online bullying said he's considering charging the parents of one of the two girls arrested in the case because they're in "total denial."

"..........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......"

Oct 17 (Reuters) - Community organizations and non-profit groups that were supposed to help millions of Americans sign up for "Obamacare" are trying to manage mounting frustration with a federal website hobbled by technical problems. Dozens of these groups, known as "navigators," received federal grants to guide consumers through the government's Healthcare.gov website serving 36 states, which is meant to help the uninsured determine their eligibility for tax credits toward buying private coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, known as Obamacare. The site is allowing only a trickle of users to advance through the enrollment process since its...

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...

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...

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...

There are literally no comparisons to current rates. That is, [the Department of Health and Human Services] has chosen to dodge the question of whose rates are going up, and how much. Instead they try to distract with a comparison to a hypothetical number that has nothing to do with the actual experience of real people. —Douglas Holtz-Eakin President, American Action Forum[1] Enrollment in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges has proven to be a somewhat difficult process amidst technical glitches and delays. Aside from the issues associated with actually purchasing health care, once an individual gets a quote for health insurance...

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst called for President Barack Obama’s impeachment during a Tarrant County Tea Party candidate forum, The Texas Observer reported first. Dewhurst’s spokesman confirmed to the Texas Tribune that the lieutenant governor said Congress should impeached the president for taking his role too far on issues like immigration and Obamacare, as well as mistakes following the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. “He feels very strongly about the tragedy in Benghazi and has said that Congress should consider impeaching the President over the tragedy,” the spokesman told the Tribune. “David Dewhurst also believes that...

Illegal immigrants, driving legally on the road. Next month, non-visa status people in Illinois can begin the process of obtaining a temporary driver's license. Despite the controversial law being on the books since January, many questions remain. "Public safety." "But they're here illegally." Those are the main arguments for and against a law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain a temporary drivers license for three years. "This means freedom," Claudia Fabian, who came to the U.S. from Argentina, said. "It means being not scared anymore of maybe you are not going to be stopped that day and put in jail...

House Republicans on Wednesday pilloried National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis for his handling of national park and land closures during the government shutdown, raising questions about whether the agency’s reputation has been sullied by images of landmarks being barricaded to keep the American people off their own land. A tense joint hearing of the House oversight and natural-resource committees took place Wednesday following allegations that the NPS and its rangers had allowed themselves to become a political arm of the Obama administration, erecting the barriers to score political points and remind Americans of the primacy of government stewardship.

During a U.S. House hearing concerning the closure of national parks and monuments during the partial government shutdown, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) scolded the director of the National Park Service for treating “pot-smoking” demonstrators in the Occupy movement with more respect than the nation’s war veterans. Gowdy relentlessly challenged National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis to cite the federal regulation that prompted his department to put up barricades to keep veterans out of war memorials on the first day of the shutdown. He also pointed out that the Park Service failed to issue a single citation when Occupiers camped out...

Note: Pelion is 25 miles or so South-Southwest of Columbia, SC. Population is about 500. Pelionians pronounce the name "peel.yen" ________________________________________________ Terry Jones had seen his neighbors, a couple in their early 50s, working in the yard on several occasions this summer.But for the past couple of months, Jones said he had only seen Paul Thomas Rawl Jr., a man he knew in passing but not well.But, according to the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, the Pelion man allegedly had a secret.Rawl, who was arrested Tuesday, is accused of holding a 52-year-old woman hostage at his home outside Pelion for more...

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. The announcement came after the US Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed a bill that extends the nation's borrowing authority and ends a two-week government shutdown. "The fundamental situation that the debt growth rate significantly outpaces that of fiscal income and gross domestic product remains unchanged,"...

Checking up on a doctor is becoming a major snag for Obamacare shoppers in California. Three weeks into open enrollment, the state’s insurance exchange, Covered California, has pulled its online directory of medical providers after acknowledging there are serious problems with the information. The California Medical Assn. says it found mistakes such as obstetricians labeled as ophthalmologists and the wrong doctors described as fluent in Russian and Farsi. Anthem Blue Cross, the state’s largest for-profit health insurer, has shut down a similar physician search tool on its website until it can be updated for new plans for sale now under...

(CBS News) CBS News has learned of a shocking link between a deadly drug cartel shootout with Mexican police last week and a controversial case in the U.S. The link is one of the grenades used in the violent fight, which killed three policemen and four cartel members and was captured on video by residents in the area. According to a Justice Department "Significant Incident Report" filed Tuesday and obtained by CBS News, evidence connects one of the grenades to Jean Baptiste Kingery, an alleged firearms trafficker U.S. officials allowed to operate for years without arresting despite significant evidence that...

John McCain took a swipe at Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams Wednesday night. During the interview, Williams brought up a statement Gohmert made last week at the Values Voter Summit claiming that the Republican Arizona senator supports al Qaida. Speaking at an event at the conservative conference, Gohmert referred to McCain as a “guy who’s been to Syria and supported al Qaida and rebels.” McCain told Williams that it isn’t worth responding to someone who “has no intelligence.” “Sometimes… comments like that are made out of malice, but if someone has no intelligence...

If Rufus McDonald were white, you'd already know his name, and he'd be on the path to pushing George Zimmerman aside as the most hated man in America. But because he is black, you probably have never heard of him, unless you live in Chicago. You see, Mr. McDonald was cleaning out an attic and discovered some papers. As Kim Janssen of the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday: Hidden in a dusty trunk in an abandoned and looted Englewood home, the papers of Harvard's first black graduate, Richard T. Greener, had long been thought lost to history. (snip) Several museums and...

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 Florida 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 prison sentence for a 1998 first-degree murder conviction. According to the sheriff’s office, both convictions stemmed from crimes committed in Orange County.

Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst called for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama during a Tarrant County Tea Party candidate forum on Monday. According to the Texas Observer: The crowd at Monday’s meeting of the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party got more than they bargained for. The event at Concordia Lutheran Church in the Fort Worth suburb of Bedford was originally planned so tea party members could learn about the Muslim Brotherhood’s supposed infiltration of the United States. But the crowd was also treated to a dose of the sniping that’s come to define the Texas lieutenant governor’s race — and...

The effort to enact state preemption law-violating “gun control” measures in Burlington is being advanced in steps as recommended by Rep. Linda Waite-Simpson of Essex and anti-gun activists, the Vermont Federation of Sportmen’s Clubs reported yesterday, citing the latest “Vermont this Week” Public Television panel. The revealed game plan is to settle for incremental gains and then go back later to try for further measures, “[T]he Burlington City Council's charter committee changed its proposed gun control ordinance … in hopes of having it pass at the Burlington Council City Public Hearing,” VFSC told its supporters in an advisory alert. Moderator...

GREEN BAY, Wisc. (WFRV) A Green Bay man credits his handgun for keeping him safe in an attempted burglary overnight. The homeowner in the 600 block of Laura Street told Local 5 that around 3:30am Wednesday, he woke up to loud noises coming from his kitchen. The man quickly grabbed his handgun from underneath his pillow and approached the burglars.

An eye-catching billboard is causing controversy. Many believe it carries a racist message. The person responsible says that wasn't the intent; it's a political statement about free speech. The billboard went up on Harrison's U.S. 62/65 bypass on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, several viewers had contacted the KY3 newsroom, concerned about the message. The billboard reads "Anti-Racist is a Code Word for Anti-White," in plain black and yellow, no other information. For many, the first impression was outrage. "It really made me mad. It just kind of bothers me. Everything about the sign was screaming out racism, and that's something...

American taxpayers have once again been trampled by establishment Republicans – a thundering herd of chicken-hearted Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) galloping to the Left. The debt ceiling deal struck between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a victory for President Obama and Democrats. ObamaCare is still the law of the land. The government is still spending money it does not have. And thousands of government workers just got a two-week vacation courtesy of the taxpayers. I’m sure we will hear establishment apologists calling the events of recent days a compromise. But seeing how...

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first month alone, the Obama administration projected that nearly a half million people would sign up for the new health insurance markets, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. But that was before the markets opened to a cascade of computer problems. If the glitches persist and frustrated consumers give up trying, that initial goal, described as modest in the memo, could slip out of reach. The Sept. 5 memo, for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, lists monthly enrollment targets for each state and Washington, D.C., through March 31, the...

Capitol Hill talk regarding the Senate deal apparently includes a provision that would take away the Congress’ power to increase the debt ceiling. According to Politico, it looks like the buzz appears to be true.: The plan includes a proposal offered by McConnell in the 2011 debt ceiling crisis that allows Congress to disapprove of the debt ceiling increase, which means lawmakers will formally vote on whether to reject a debt ceiling increase until Feb. 7. Obama can veto that legislation if it passes. If Congress fails as expected to gather a two-thirds majority to override the veto, the debt...

Moscow (CNN) -- Edward Snowden's father expressed satisfaction Wednesday with the way his son, the former National Security Agency contractor, has been treated since being granted asylum in August. Lon Snowden spoke to reporters at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport as he prepared to return to the United States after a six-day visit, his first reunion with his son since April. "I felt that this is the best place for him, this is the place where he doesn't have to worry about people rushing across the border to render him," Lon Snowden said. "It's not going to happen here." It may...

PASSAIC — A city man was arrested at his home Wednesday morning and charged with distributing child pornography, Passaic County Sheriff Richard H. Berdnik said in a statement. Alex R. Hernandez-Soto, 31, a Guatemalan citizen who was in the U.S. illegally, was arrested after detectives executed a search warrant at his Henry Street home and found child pornography on a computer, Berdnik said. The arrest came after a month-long investigation that began when authorities received information that child pornography was being distributed from a residence in the county, he said. The suspect was charged with one count of distribution of...

In 2006, then-Governor Phil Bredesen signed CoverTennessee into law giving thousands of people not purged off TennCare access to some type of health care. It not only helped small business owners, but also struggling families and children. Fast forward to today the state says the looming Affordable Care Act means the program has to go away because it doesn't meet new federal guidelines that begin January 1st.

By now you’ve probably heard about the EBT card breakdown during a power outage in which shoppers at a couple of Louisiana Walmarts purposely took advantage of the situation by “buying” a huge number of groceries for amounts that greatly exceeded their EBT limits in normal times. You might say the Walmart managers were stupid not to ban the use of the cards for the duration of the problem, or limit the amount that could be charged on them. And if you said that, perhaps you’d be right. But perhaps they thought that if they did that they would face...

With organizers working to collect the necessary 18,900 signatures to get the recall of Colorado state Senator Evie Hudak (D-Dist. 19) on the ballot, Breitbart News spoke with Mike McAlpine, the man behind the recall effort. When asked how the collection of signatures was going, he said "very, very strong." Moreover, he said 15 percent of the signatories at this point have been Democrats, which "is very encouraging." McAlpine and his fellow volunteers have a 60-day window in which to collect all the needed signatures, which began on October 4 and ends on December 3 at 5 PM. He also...

Palestinians Injured While Torturing Cattle At least 125 Palestinians in Gaza were wounded while torturing and slaughtering cattle in the streets as part of the Muslim holiday of Eid al Adha, Palestinian media reported. Gaza has five official slaughterhouses, but wait times were hours long, so a great many Gazans decided to do their own public butchering for the holiday, which is typically accompanied by much feasting. But, as videos and pictures posted to the Internet revealed, many of the Palestinians did not contend themselves to simply slaughtering the animals, but first engaged in what can only be described as...

n attempted mugging on Capitol Hill was thwarted Monday night by a quick-thinking victim — one who apparently keeps an eye on national security news. The victim was walking home to her Capitol Hill townhouse when she was violently confronted by a man in the dark, grassy area between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Heritage Foundation. The assailant grabbed the victim's arm and demanded her wallet and phone. "I said the first thing I could think of," the victim, who asked to remain nameless, told the Washington Examiner. The victim, who weighs a petite 95 pounds, explained to...

Certain prisoners to get health coverage under ObamaCare Prisons could relocate medical costs to the federal government LOS ANGELES — Soon certain prisoners who need medical treatment could get it through Obamacare. Watch the video (go to link) for more information.

A commission investigation found Christina Ayala falsely registered to vote in July 2009 at a Bridgeport address where she’s not a bona fide resident. She remained registered at that address until January 2013 and voted in nine primaries and elections. She also applied for public campaign financing from that address. A message left with Ayala’s legislative office seeking comment was not immediately returned. House Speaker Brendan Sharkey removed Ayala on Wednesday from her legislative committee assignments.

Veterans hold new protest of partial government shutdown at WWII Memorial

Republican Senator John McCain ripped conservative Senator Ted Cruz tonight before the final senate vote to approve a budget plan. McCain was on with Greta Van Susteren. McCain has a long history of bashing his fellow Republican. [video]

Some 250 people from about a dozen states converged in Arizona late last week for a series of trainings and civil disobedience actions in an attempt to shut down the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Beginning on Friday, activists—many of them undocumented—chained their bodies to deportation buses and blocked the entrance to an immigrant detention facility. The convergence, organized by the Puente Arizona and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), culminated in what was essentially a big party on the driveway of an ICE office building on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Although House Democrats revealed a new comprehensive immigration...

The US Senate has passed a bill to reopen the government and raise the federal debt limit, with hours to spare before the nation risks default. The Democratic-controlled Senate's bipartisan compromise won swift approval by 81 votes to 18. It will now be sent to the House of Representatives, whose Republican leadership has begrudgingly said it will support the measure. It comes hours before the deadline to raise the $16.7tn (£10.5tn) limit. President Barack Obama is set to speak shortly at the White House. The deal would extend the federal borrowing limit until 7 February and fund the government to...

Buried inside the new stopgap spending bill are several pork project goodies, including nearly quadrupling the maximum price of a dam project on the Ohio River that is turning into a boondoggle — up to nearly $3 billion. The bill also includes $174,000 of taxpayer money being sent to the widow of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg. The death gratuity, which has been paid to widows of other lawmakers in the past, raised hackles since Mr. Lautenberg was a multimillionaire, while the government is $16.7 trillion in debt. But lawmakers did nix one provision that was in an early draft...

The legislation released by the Senate late Wednesday to reopen the government contains several surprises. The bill includes extra funds to fix flooded roads in Colorado, a $3 million appropriation for a civil liberties oversight board and a one-time payment to the widow of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who died over the summer. It also includes a more than $2 billion increase in funding for construction on the lower Ohio River in Illinois and Kentucky. Current law authorizes $775 million in spending for related projects, and the bill increases it to $2.918 billion. The Senate Conservatives Fund quickly called that...

A proposal to end the government shutdown and avoid default orchestrated by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Leader Harry Reid includes a $2 billion earmark for a Kentucky project. Language in a draft of the McConnell-Reid deal (see page 13, section 123) provided to WFPL News shows a provision that increases funding for the massive Olmsted Dam Lock in Louisville from $775 million to nearly $2. 9 billion.

A northwest Missouri prosecutor announced Wednesday that he's asking for a special prosecutor to look at the case of a 14-year-old girl who says she was plied with alcohol and raped by a 17-year-old acquaintance. Melinda Coleman, the mother of 14-year-old Daisy Coleman, claims justice was denied when Nodaway County prosecutor Robert Rice dropped felony charges against the 17-year-old boy last March, two months after Coleman found her daughter passed out on the family's front porch in below-freezing temperatures. The county sheriff and Rice have insisted their investigation collapsed after the Colemans became uncooperative with investigators and refused to answer...

In a bizarre and unexpected move, Chase is notifying customers that after November 17th the bank will ban all international wire transfers and place limits on the amount of transfer activity that can occur within a billing cycle. Chase claims this new policy is coming in to play to minimize risks. The letter being sent to customers says the following. Dear Business Customer, Starting November 17, 2013: - You will no longer be able to send international wire transfers. You will still be able to send domestic wires and receive both domestic and international wires. We’ll cancel any international wire...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California officials knew a computer upgrade for the state's unemployment insurance program was vulnerable to problems before it was installed. The Sacramento Bee reports that officials underestimated how many unemployment claims would be affected by a glitch in the $188 million system upgrade.

Breitbart News has obtained a legislative summary of the provisions in the Senate deal to reopen government and extend the debt ceiling. Breitbart News has also obtained a copy of the legislative text. Currently, Senate staff are able to review the summary and legislative text in the Senate cloakroom, but aren't allowed to retain a copy or make it public. In the interest of transparency, we have included the document below. [8 page document] As expected, the deal provides full back-pay for furloughed federal workers who haven't been at work for two weeks. It also provides back-pay, though, for state...

Former President Bill Clinton is weighing in on the government shutdown, saying the problem is that “constant conflict” can be a big advantage for politicians at the ballot box. “Constant conflict is actually often good politics, because the more you can inflame your supporters the more likely they are to show up at Election Day,” Clinton said on Monday, according to CNN. “And if they’re more inflamed than the other side, even if the other side has more people agreeing with it, you’ll win because your crowd will show up.”

House Republicans on Wednesday assailed the National Park Service director for erecting barriers at national monuments during the government shutdown. They accused Jonathan Jarvis of violating federal law by putting up the barricades at 401 national monuments and parks with no apparent imminent threat. In a joint hearing Wednesday, the House Natural Resources, and Oversight and Government Reform committees met to review the actions of the Park Service since the government shutdown took effect Oct. 1. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) charged the NPS with violating the Antideficiency Act in barring visitors from the parks during the shutdown. The law prohibits...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Residents in one Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood had a rude awakening Wednesday morning when they woke up and discovered vulgar graffiti spray-painted on their cars and homes. The vandalism happened on four blocks in the city’s Rhawnhurst section. The streets targeted were Hoffnagle Street, Benson Street, Emerson Street and Solly Avenue. According to investigators, the vandals spray-painted racial epithets, sexual symbols and swastikas on cars, houses and fences. The spray paint vandalism included the saying “Fu* Crakers” and some on the swastikas were backwards.

Consider for a moment what will come next for Obamacare, in the context of Ezra Klein’s five thoughts on the disastrous launch of the program – a bellwether of sorts for obamacare-logo_fullhow the administration failed to live up to the expectations it sold to the law’s supporters and opinion leaders.There are a few different directions it can go from here, but the worst case scenario hasn’t really entered people’s consciences yet, in part because the insurers are staying quiet at the moment. The reality now is that the system is at least a month from actually working, and likelier two...