Free Republic

The Social Security judge who rubber-stamped more than 1,700 bogus disability applications as part of the largest disability fraud ring in American history was sentenced to four years in federal prison Friday. David B. Daugherty left the Kentucky courtroom in handcuffs after Judge Danny C. Reeves rejected the government’s recommendation of a year in home confinement, and instead gave him the maximum time allowed on the charges he pled guilty to. The judge also ordered Daugherty to pay $93 million in restitution to the government, according to witnesses in the courtroom. Daugherty was part of the disability fraud ring orchestrated...

Federal agents spent months tracking down Conn, who cut off his electronic monitor and fled in June. Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge in a more than $500 million Social Security fraud case.

Character development is a process; it is not automatic. When we received Christ, we got all of His character. You have the ability with Christ in you to have all of His character traits coming out of your life. We received this character and then we begin to do what Paul said in Colossians 2:6, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” Or in other words, as you’ve received His character in you, now live out His character in your words, in your deeds, in your actions. We’ve got to go after character by...

WASHINGTON — Already saddled with resolving a looming nuclear showdown with Iran, the Bush administration now faces the possibility that that country's new leader helped take 52 Americans hostage in 1979. Earlier, the White House indicated.... Five Americans who were held for more than a year in the hostage crisis believe that Ahmadinejad was one of their captors.