Free Republic

The cost of providing free taxpayer-funded coverage to Bay Staters unable to sign up for Obamacare because of Massachusetts’ disastrous website problems has soared to $173 million, according to a new Patrick administration report. Some 251,280 Bay Staters are now on the free transitional coverage — basically Medicaid — marking an increase of about 50,000 people since April that one watchdog found alarming. “There should be a red siren going off for state budget writers and taxpayers about the cost of this, and yet there seems to be very little alarm,” said Joshua Archambault of the Pioneer Institute. “There will...

On July 25 Breitbart News reported that Massachusetts police chiefs wanted "sole discretion" over who can purchase a long gun, be it a rifle or a shotgun. On August 1 state lawmakers passed a bill that gives police chiefs such discretion. According to Reuters, police chiefs already had final say on would-be handgun purchasers, and the new law would extend that by providing them with "the authority to turn down a resident's request to buy a rifle or shotgun." House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D) commented on the law: "We seek not to be the safest state in the nation but...

STURBRIDGE, Mass. — Sarah Blanchard was sorry she skipped a worship service. Sarah Wood apologized for denouncing infant baptisms. And as for the Cheneys, Joseph and Abigail? Well, “with shame, humiliation and sorrow,” they acknowledged having had sex before marriage. More than 250 years ago, their confessions of sin were dutifully logged by the minister of the church here, alongside records of baptisms, marriages and deaths, notes about meetings heated and routine, accounts of finances, texts of sermons, and, in some cases, personal accounts of conversion experiences from young adults. Now, in a regionwide scavenger hunt, a pair of historians...

Emotions remain high over Gov. Deval Patrick’s offer to temporarily house unaccompanied immigrant children in Massachusetts. No final decision has been made about where the children would stay, if federal authorities accept the offer. Gov. Patrick said comments to his office are running as high as three-to-one in favor of his offer to shelter some of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who have streamed across the country’s southern border this year. Patrick said he had received no new information from the federal government since he made the offer on July 18th. Patrick proposed Westover Air Force Reserve Base...

BOSTON, (State House News Service) – Emotions continue to run high over Gov. Deval Patrick’s offer to temporarily house children who illegally crossed the border into the U.S., but Massachusetts is no closer to getting an answer from the Obama administration on whether the federal government plans to take the state up on its offer. “We don’t have very much information about when, if at all, there will be a shelter for the kids here,” Patrick told reporters on Monday. At times spilling into Beacon Street, hundreds attended a “Stop the Invasion Rally” over the weekend at the State House...

Massachusetts Republicans have amped up their criticism of Gov. Deval Patrick’s approach to potentially sheltering immigrant children in federal custody within Massachusetts, while the administration is seeking to quell the concerns of local officials. ... Federal facilities for detained children who crossed the border illegally and unaccompanied by a guardian have been overwhelmed, and Patrick has offered Joint Base Cape Cod in Bourne and Westover Air Reserve Base as potential sites to house the children. The federal government has not yet responded. Patrick sent a representative - Homeland Security Undersecretary Kurt Schwartz - to a select board meeting in Bourne...

In Massachusetts and across the country, residents have balked at the prospect of hundreds of immigrant children coming to their towns, angry that public money is being spent on illegal immigrants and worried that the influx would burden local schools and social services. Yet the federal government insists the impact would be minimal, and many immigration lawyers and advocates describe the emergency shelters established in other states as worlds apart, secure, secluded facilities that quietly serve as way stations for thousands of young migrants. The US Department of Health and Human Services, which operates the shelters, says it “pays for...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Forty-six music fans were treated for mostly alcohol-related medical problems at Australian country singer Keith Urban's concert outside Boston on Saturday night, local officials said. Fire and emergency medical personnel dealt with dozens of ill fans during the show at an outdoor arena in Mansfield, Massachusetts, about 25 miles (40 km) south of Boston, the town's police and fire departments said in a joint statement on Sunday. Some 22 people were transported to area hospitals, mostly for alcohol-related illness, and more than 50 people were taken into protective custody by police, who noted that the large number...

Israeli anger at US envoy for his attempt to forge a ceasefire with Hamas sponsors Turkey, Qatar, in Paris talks. An Israeli minister accused U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of “digging a tunnel under the the Egyptian ceasefire proposal” by accepting Hamas's conditions for a ceasefire in Paris talks Saturday, Channel 2 reported. The minister's identity was not revealed. Kerry and top diplomats from Europe and the Middle East who gathered in Paris Saturday called for an extension to a temporary truce declared Saturday between Israel and Hamas. However, neither Israel, nor Egypt, nor the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud...

Emotions ran high Saturday as opponents of Governor Deval Patrick’s plan to house undocumented immigrant children in Massachusetts rallied outside the State House. Protesters and politicians lingering after the rally expressed their anger over the plan to bring these children into a state that they believe is ill-equipped to support its own children, homeless people, and veterans. “The state can’t take care of the children in its own care, yet these immigrants are coming in and skipping the line,” said Mark Fisher, a Tea Party-backed gubernatorial candidate seeking the Republican nomination.

Unguarded Comments Suggest Kerry Frustration At Civilian Toll In Gaza • 'It's a hell of a pinpoint operation' captured on open microphone Dominic Rushe in New York 20 July 2014 The secretary of state, John Kerry, on Sunday appeared to criticise Israel’s claims about the targeted scope of its attacks on Gaza, as a open microphone caught him talking to an aide ahead of a TV interview. “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” Kerry, who was appearing on Fox News Sunday as part of a tour of all five main US talkshows,...

As my colleague, senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak pointed out, Friday afternoon, CNN made a huge deal of Israel rejecting a "cease-fire deal" based on CNN's made-up premise that there was some sort of a deal. Pollak writes quite correctly that "there was no deal, but a mere proposal" and "there was no indication Hamas would agree to the terms." This deal CNN speaks of never existed. CNN is making it up because CNN knows that inaccurately reporting news of Israel walking away from a "deal" will make Israel look unreasonable and villainous. To make matters much, much worse for Israel,...

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, calls out CNN’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza as irresponsible and one-sided.

12-hour humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas went into force on Saturday morning, as top diplomats pressed efforts to secure a longer-term ceasefire. The fragile ceasefire began at 8:00 am (0500 GMT). Hamas said it and other groups in Gaza had reached “national consensus on a humanitarian truce”, and Israel later confirmed it would observe “a humanitarian window in the Gaza Strip”. The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza advised people not to approach bombed-out buildings and militant bases for fear of “explosive objects”. The Israeli military warned Gaza residents who had been told to evacuate their homes not to return...

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of Great Britain and France all are rushing to achieve a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Their motive — to end civilian suffering and restore stability to the area — is noble. The images of the wounded and dead resulting from the conflict are indeed agonizing. However, these senior statesmen can be most helpful now by doing nothing. To preserve the values they cherish and to send an unequivocal message to terrorist organizations and their state sponsors everywhere, Israel must be permitted to crush Hamas in...

Egypt's Air Sinai has continued its scheduled flights to Israel, despite the cancellation of flights by numerous American and European airlines, according to Calcalist. The Egyptian carrier runs four weekly flights to Ben-Gurion International Airport. The decision to continue flying to Israel must have been made at the highest echelons, and is meant to send a message to Hamas, which Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi regards with disdain, Calcalist reported. The Egyptian decision has prompted harsh criticism by many Arab web users on social networks.

At least 10,000 Palestinian protesters have rallied and are clashing with Israeli military forces in and around Jerusalem following an attack on a UN school. The main clash site is at Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, though there are now reports of uprisings in the Old City portion of Jerusalem itself. […] Israeli army officials have told AFP news agency that “riot dispersal means” were being used to control the protest. […] Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said several officers were injured by rocks thrown at them in Jerusalem and that about 20 protesters were arrested. …

Israel on Thursday called out a United Nations aid agency for falsely claiming that the Israeli Defense Forces did not permit civilians to evacuate a Gaza school where 15 people were killed in an Israeli attack, reports the Washington Free Beacon. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) laid blame for the civilian deaths on the IDF, claiming it never received approval from the IDF for an evacuation from the facility. UNRWA released a statement claiming, “UNRWA had been attempting to negotiate with the [IDF] a pause in the fighting during which they would guarantee a safe corridor to relocate...

Today at least 15 people were killed and many wounded when Israeli forces shelled a UN-run school in northern Gaza. UN Chief Ban Ki Moon condemned the attack. The IDF said it was looking into the matter. Last night the IDF told the Red Cross to evacuate civilians from the UNRWA shelter in Beit Hanoun. But Hamas refused to let the civilians leave the area.

Vilification of Hamas in Cairo has only increased since Operation Protective Edge erupted. CAIRO (AP) — In the Gaza war now in its third bloody week, Hamas’ battle isn’t only with Israel, even though that’s the country it is firing rockets at. The terrorist group that rules Gaza is demanding Egypt open its border with the tiny, blockaded strip of territory Even as it presents itself as a mediator in the conflict, Egypt is taking a hard line, refusing any opening that would strengthen Hamas, a group it accuses of fueling militancy on its soil. And so far, the Egyptian...