Free Republic

Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment"? The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.”This isn’t a benefit – its earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security. If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both your and your employer’s contributions) at...

It’s hard to know whether to cheer their disappointment or commiserate. My natural inclination is to tell them to S*** *** **** ** considering that they have subjected us to four more years. From Michael Goodwin, Obama 2: Even more reckless: People weren’t paying attention. Those are the people now surprised that President Obama is still stridently campaigning instead of doing the real work of governing. Even some who voted for him last month are puzzled as he threatens to take the nation off the fiscal cliff if Republicans don’t give him the tax hikes he demands now and puts...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate has defeated a bill that would have conditioned foreign aid on a country's cooperation in investigating attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities. The bill also would have denied aid to Pakistan unless that country releases Dr. Shakil Afridi. Pakistan arrested the doctor, who allegedly helped the United States track down Osama bin Laden by running a fake vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA. The objective was to verify bin Laden's presence at the compound where the al-Qaida leader was later killed. Afridi was convicted of high treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison....

TAMPA — Here we go again with this business about Barack Obama bringing “Chicago ward politics” to the White House. John McCain pushed that notion to no effect four years ago, and one of my counterparts has never let up. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has now adopted it as part of his standup shtick, as if the Garden State was some sort of oasis of ethical government, though thankfully he dropped the theme from Tuesday’s keynote attack-dog speech. It’s an easy hit. Our city’s politics are dirty, undeniably so. Obama emerged from our political system, therefore, Obama must be...

Planned Parenthood on Monday sued the state of Arizona in an effort to overturn a law that blocks funding for its health clinics because the organization also performs abortions. The law, signed by Governor Jan Brewer in May, is part of a national campaign against Planned Parenthood orchestrated by conservatives Republican lawmakers who oppose abortions. In the past two years, 13 states have taken steps to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, and the organization has filed lawsuits in six of them, including Arizona. Planned Parenthood says abortions account for only 3 percent of its services, which include cancer screening and...

After a lengthy investigation, Wilson was indicted in April on a misdemeanor insurance charge for laundering a total $8,000 in campaign contributions from Missouri Employers Mutual Co., a state-created workers' compensation company based in Columbia, to the Missouri Democratic Party through a St. Louis law firm, Herzog Crebs. Former Herzog Crebs partner Ed Griesedieck III was also indicted.

LARGO, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) -- A U.S. teenager, who was critically injured earlier this week while playing a game of Russian Roulette with friends, has died at a hospital in central Florida, police said on Sunday. The incident happened at approximately 7:30 p.m. local time on Friday when 17-year-old Thorin R. Montgomery was playing a game of Russian Roulette with his friends at his home in Largo, a city about 19 miles (30 kilometers) west of Tampa. First responders found him suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. Detectives said Montgomery was playing the game with three of his...

There aren’t Greek columns tall or wide enough to camouflage Barack Obama’s impending North Carolina catastrophe. In September, the campaigner-in-chief will travel to Charlotte for his party’s presidential nominating convention. For once, the incurable jetsetter may wish he had stayed home. Obama’s stage managers envision a triumphant, unifying coronation reminiscent of their 2008 DNC production in Denver. But the southern swing state is turning into a Democratic disaster zone. Start with the North Carolina Democratic Party. At the state party convention last week, Obama for America was AWOL. The glaring absence of high-level national Obama surrogates was noted “as odd,”...

Stratfor, the US-based private intelligence company, says that Senator John McCain's campaign knew that electoral fraud was going on in 2008 but chose to do nothing. What is going on now as President Obama faces changed circumstances?

Could the Democratic House Member from Illinois with by far the best known name go down to defeat Tuesday night? Could the once-promising career of Jesse Jackson, Jr. be finished—at the hands of fellow Democrats, no less? Along with the Republican presidential primary, one of the biggest political stories of March 20 will certainly be the fate of the young Jackson, who faces a strong primary challenge from former Rep. Debbie Halvorson (lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 20 percent), who lost her Will County-based seat two years ago to Republican Adam Kinzinger. The race between the former congresswoman and the...

An American flag with President Obama's image in place of the stars flew over a Florida county's Democrat headquarters long enough to enrage local veterans who called the altered banner "a disgrace." Lake County Democratic Party officials took down the flag, which flew just below a standard Old Glory on the flagpole outside headquarters in Tavares following complaints by local veterans. But merely taking it down wasn't enough for several local veterans, who said they fought for the flag Betsy Ross made famous, not one with a politician on it. "It's absolutely disrespectful," Jim Bradford, a 71-year-old veteran who participated...

Washington, D.C.— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued the following statement after the Senate defeated a Republican amendment to impose an artificial timeline on the Keystone XL pipeline project:“Today the Senate voted against Republicans’ attempt to impose an artificial timeline and short-circuit the process needed to plan the best route for the Keystone XL pipeline. If Republicans truly want to move ahead with this pipeline, they should stop treating it like a political football.“Half of the pipeline is already being built, and the company building the pipeline is submitting another application for the remainder of the route. This process should...

For the uninitiated, Pinky and the Brain are characters from the Warner Bros. cartoon Animaniacs (I watched it a lot when I was a kid) They're lab mice. Pinky is just a complete moron. Brain is a supposed genius bent on world domination, but fails at everything he sets out to accomplish.

Organizers of Wausau's Labor Day parade say Republican lawmakers aren't welcome in this year's event. The Marathon County Central Labor Council sponsors the September 5th parade. The council includes about 30 local unions from the Marathon County area. Council president Randy Radtke says they choose not to invite elected officials who have "openly attacked worker's rights" or did nothing to intervene.

(Reuters) - Illinois Democratic Governor Pat Quinn signed into law on Friday a new congressional district map that could reverse gains Republicans made in the state in 2010 midterm elections. Democrats were able to leverage their control of the General Assembly and a Democratic governor to approve a new election map for 2012 that analysts said could help Democrats win at least three more congressional seats in the state

(Reuters) - Democrats in the Senate on Wednesday called on Vice President Joe Biden to include new economic stimulus spending in deficit-reduction talks as a way of lowering the 9.1 percent jobless rate that is hobbling the economic recovery.

Talk that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore does not qualify to be president should stop, Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said.

Thousands are expected to protest the governor's pension reform proposal Monday night at a rally organized by Maryland's largest union for state employees, as budget challenges return to the forefront in the General Assembly after weeks of debate on social issues.

Back in June, we reported that California Congressman Brad Sherman (D) was circulating a letter to his fellow Democrats to introduce legislation to repeal “Right-to-Work” laws in 22 states. Now, with less than a month before the mid-term elections and five weeks before a lame-duck session in Congress, Sherman has introduced legislation to eliminate state Right to Work laws all across America. Currently, there are 22 states in the U.S. that have laws where workers who are employed at companies that are unionized have a choice whether or not to join or pay the union. These states are known as...

Well, it's taken a while for our own home-grown, corn-fed Ohioan, John Boehner to get some Lamestream Media coverage, but President Obama has catapulted "our" John to the stage of national attention, mentioning him by name at least eight times in a Cleveland speech last week. Representative and Republican Minority Whip (And, I do mean "whip") Boehner was also diginified in that POTUS was only making a spontaneous speech at a Cleveland University, where local students had to be begged to attend, reportedly, because John Boehner had recently been in Ohio whipping up the masses against Obama's Recovery Summer...