Free Republic

Nearly every Target in San Francisco — except for the one at Stonestown — has cut its operating hours to 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. That inflexibility makes it tough for the average nine-to-five, full-time worker to make a Target run on weekdays after work, let alone other individuals affected by constraints of time, access or ability to do some everyday shopping. It's unclear when these cut hours were rolled out. The reduced hours ignited concerns on Reddit over an uptick in retail theft and labor shortages hitting San Francisco Targets. After all, one Target in San Francisco — the...

Law enforcement officers will impound firearms when no crime has been committed. This is driven by a fear of “not doing enough” combined with the demonization of firearms. Law enforcement hesitation and fear of litigation have combined to legalize the theft of firearms.In Florida and many other states, it is a common problem that harms numerous innocent victims.  Often, the victims have no choice. The guns are taken by force. Other victims are asked for permission, but not warned of the consequences of agreeing to the request by law enforcement. Here is an example out of Florida: From wfsu.org:...

Melissa Klein, the owner of the bakery that refused to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding ceremony, has revealed that the state of Oregon seized all of her bank accounts weeks before she planned to pay the settlement from the suit brought against her by the couple. According to Fox News, Klein and her husband were hit with a penalty of over $135,000 in July payable to the lesbian couple who cited "emotional suffering" for the mom-and-pop bakers holding to their Christian beliefs. The state, ignoring the couple's religious liberty, agreed and said the small business, Sweet Cakes by...

Authorities are winding down their criminal investigation of the failed brokarage firm, MF Global, and despite the lack of oversight and the loss of more than $1 billion in customer funds, it now seems unlikely that anyone at the firm will face criminal charges.

Medical costs for enrollees in the health-care law’s high-risk insurance pools are expected to more than double initial predictions, the Obama administration said Thursday in a report on the new program. The health-care law set aside $5 billion for a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, meant to provide health insurance to those who had been declined coverage by private carriers. Since its launch last summer, nearly 50,000 Americans have enrolled in the program. The PCIP program will phase out in 2014, when insurers will be required to accept all applicants regardless of their health-care status.Those who have enrolled in the program...

One aspect of a new and improved federal regulatory scheme is the seizure of 401(k) retirement plans and the subsequent government-administered disbursement of the funds. In Chapter 3 of the Annual Report on the Middle Class released in February by Vice President Biden and the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, the Obama administration calls for enhancing the “retirement options” for the middle class by imposing “new regulations to improve the transparency and adequacy of 401(k) retirement savings.” The plan, as sketched in the 43-page document, calls for the creation of something called “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts” (GRAs). Biden...

Alistair Darling today gambled Labour's future on a highly-political Pre-Budget Report that targets the better-off to help reduce Britain's collossal debt. In what the Tories branded his 'pre-election report', the Chancellor slapped a £560million 50% 'super tax' on bankers' bonuses, affecting any payouts over £25,000. And he sought to draw up the battle lines of the next general election by announcing thousands more high earners would be clobbered by the new top tax rate of 50% which comes in next year. It was due to hit people earning more than £150,000 when it comes into force next April but today...

A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit challenging a state law that allows cities to impound cars for up to 30 days when people are caught driving without a license. U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero said in his ruling Monday that taking a vehicle temporarily is within the spirit of the law and is necessary to protect the health and safety of "Californians from the harm of unlicensed drivers." "The concern for the public interest here requires prompt action," Otero wrote. Immigrant rights activists have criticized strict enforcement of the law because they say it unfairly targets...

(SNIP) Among those following the campaign is Shera Greenwich, a mother of two living at a shelter run by the Henry St. Settlement in New York City. As she waits to move into a subsidized apartment, she says issues including economic security and obtaining quality healthcare are her focus, and she plans to vote Democratic. "I see so much change in the future if Obama is elected President," she said. "I think he can get America back on track." OBSTACLES TO VOTING Advocacy groups campaign each election season to get the homeless to register to vote, noting they often face...

An illegal immigrant dishwasher who lost $49,000 to the U.S. government as he tried to take it home to Guatemala will get some of the money back, his attorney told CNN Wednesday. Pedro Zapeta, an illegal immigrant, managed to save $59,000 while working as a dishwasher for 11 years. Pedro Zapeta was "very, very happy" when he learned about a federal appeals court ruling that says he is entitled to recover some of the money, said attorney Robert Gershman, who handled the financial end of Zapeta's case. Zapeta was carrying $59,000 in cash when he was stopped at a security...

A Fourth-grader at Toy Town Elementary School in Winchendon, MA was suspended for five days for showing his friends an empty shell casing to some friends at lunch. According to the NRA-ILA (http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=3975), Bradley Geslak had been given the casing — from a blank fired during Memorial Day — by a US veteren. He was given two, one of which he gave to his grandfather, also a veteren. He was showing his souvenier off to some friends during lunch when a teacher confiscated the casing and called the boy’s mother to take him home. He’s also been told he won’t...

David Salazar was jailed for not paying child support - for a girl that isn't his biological daughter. The Missouri Supreme Court heard Mr. Salazar's case Tuesday, and its decision could have sweeping impact on child support cases throughout the state. Mr. Salazar, a former Buchanan County resident, was found guilty and jailed for 28 days for failing to pay child support for a 5-year-old girl whom no one argues is his biological daughter. Even the girl's mother, Shannon McClure, says Mr. Salazar isn't the father. But under current Missouri statute none of that matters. If a man is married...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A trucker has sued the Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking to get back nearly $24,000 seized by DEA agents earlier this month at a weigh station on U.S. 54 in New Mexico north of El Paso, Texas. Anastasio Prieto of El Paso gave a state police officer at the weigh station permission to search the truck to see if it contained "needles or cash in excess of $10,000," according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the federal lawsuit Thursday. Prieto told the officer he didn't have any needles but did have $23,700. Officers took the money...

America's Tax Freedom Day® Arrives April 30 in 2007, Two Days Later Than 2006 Tax Freedom Day® will fall on April 30 in 2007, according to the Tax Foundation's annual calculation using the latest government data on income and taxes. "Tax freedom will come two days later in 2007 than it did in 2006," said Tax Foundation President Scott A. Hodge, "and fully 12 days later than in 2003, when tax cuts caused Tax Freedom Day to arrive comparatively early, on April 18." However, 2007's Tax Freedom Day is still slightly earlier than it was in 2000, when the economic...

Two men traveling south on Interstate 85 southwest of Lexington Tuesday told Davidson County sheriff's deputies that the $88,000 in cash they had hidden in their car was to buy a house in Atlanta. Officers with the sheriff office's Interstate Criminal Enforcement unit didn't believe the story after a drug-sniffing dog found a strong odor of narcotics inside the car. No drugs were found, and the two men weren't charged with a crime, but officers did keep the money, citing a federal drug assets seizure and forfeiture law. Deputies first stopped the car for following too closely to another vehicle,...

SACRAMENTO - California voters will decide this fall whether to tax oil companies to fund alternative energy programs. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson announced Wednesday that the oil tax proposal had enough voter signatures to qualify for the November 2006 ballot. The initiative joins 10 other proposals that previously made the ballot, although a bill moving through the Legislature would move one measure, a $9.95 billion high-speed rail bond, to the November 2008 ballot. The oil tax initiative calls for the state to levy a 1.5 percent to 6 percent tax - depending on oil prices - on all oil...

A decade-long drive to permanently repeal the estate tax is about to come to a head, but proponents are finding it surprisingly difficult to get their political football into the end zone. The repeal proposal may be an indirect casualty of Hurricane Katrina, which forced Senate leaders to postpone a vote on the plan in September, when hopes it would pass were high. Now, with the Senate poised to vote as early as this week, even some of the most ardent supporters of estate tax repeal predict they will come up short. Some of them are pushing an alternative that...

Finders Keepers: Couple Get Cash They Found In Ditch Sheriff's Office Wanted To Keep Cash Under Drug Forfeiture Laws OKANOGAN, Wash. -- It's a case of finder-keepers and then some. An Oroville, Wash., couple can keep the more than half million dollars in cash they found along a highway. Jane Gerth spotted a backpack in a ditch not far from her home. When they found $507,000 inside, her husband Dan called deputies. The sheriff's office seized the cash and wanted to keep it under drug forfeiture laws. But a judge has ruled the couple gets the money. Local authorities said...

It's a mystery worthy of Hollywood: In February, $4 million suddenly appeared in the checking account of a suspended Philadelphia lawyer. Who wired it? And why? Is it, as Homeland Security officials in Dallas allege, an effort to launder money? Could it be, as a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia suspects, part of some complex international criminal fraud? Or is it, as the lawyer insists, all quite innocent - simply a surprise investment from an old client who wants to help him make major motion pictures?

A Quincy woman who tried to board a plane at Logan International Airport in February with $46,950 stuffed inside her bra says she was heading to Texas for plastic surgery on her buttocks and breast. But, in a lawsuit filed yesterday, Ileana Valdez said a male Drug Enforcement Administration agent told her she had a ''nice body" and didn't need any surgery -- then seized the cash, claiming it was drug money. Valdez, 26, a single mother who was born in the Dominican Republic and is a US citizen, is petitioning to get the cash back in the suit filed...