Free Republic

Getting paid to sit on the couchWhat a waste of tax money November 24, 2012 Tribune reporters Jared S. Hopkins and Alex Richards recently exposed one of those head-scratching how-Illinois-works stories that will drive you crazy. This state is perpetually broke, yet it allows government employees to get paid for doing no work. Between 2007 and September of this year, 2,033 state workers were placed on paid leave at various times, at a cost of more than $23 million. Employees placed on paid administrative leave are typically being investigated for alleged wrongdoing. Maybe an employee has been accused of stealing,...

GREELEY, Colo. – A woman was arrested and charged with felony robbery after a scuffle during a late-night Thanksgiving sale at a Greeley Walmart. The Greeley Tribune reported that 22-year-old Amino Idris faces felony robbery charges after she allegedly knocked down another shopper and took a laptop out of her hands during a door-buster sale at the Walmart Supercenter located at 3103 S. 23rd Ave., in Greeley.

If I had to choose one word to describe the 2012 presidential election, it would be decline. The results showed a decline in overall turnout, a decline in the GOP coalition relative to its 2004 high, a decline in the Democratic coalition relative to its 2008 high, and in general a stark decline in public confidence that the nation’s leaders can fix its pressing problems. Just look at the results. In 2008, some 131.5 million Americans went to the polls; while the votes are still being tallied, this time around there probably were between 127 and 130 million votes cast....

Word on the political street from GOP consultants and the left is that Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party cost Romney the election. We conservatives are advised to "moderate our tone" and back away from our "extremist ideas." So let me make sure I understand. Obama and company were allowed to go for the jugular, using false narratives (lies) to win votes. They said Romney hates dogs, blacks, women, and the poor. Heck, they even threw in the absurd accusation that Romney was responsible for the death of a working man's wife. Check and mate. Game over. Obama won. Did...

Saudi women's rights activist Manal al-Sherif, who last year urged women to defy a driving ban, said a man had contacted her to say he had received a text from the immigration authorities while at the airport with his wife. "The authorities are using technology to monitor women," said Saudi author and journalist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the "state of slavery under which women are held" in the kingdom. "This is technology used to serve backwardness in order to keep women imprisoned," she added. Under laws influenced by the strict Wahabi interpretation of Islam, women are not allowed to leave...

Rifles, even .22 caliber models many young people receive as their first gun, are “among the greatest threats to the reliability of the nation’s power system,” U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff claimed at a Tuesday Bloomberg Government Breakfast, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Citing “inadequately protected” transformers as easy targets, Wellinghoff told the group that terrorists in "coordinated" actions committed to destroying them “could get 200 yards away with a .22 rifle and take the whole thing out.” His proposed solution, a “couple hundred bucks” of “metal sheeting to block the view of transformers” hardly seems comprehensive, realistic,...

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire for halting the eight-day Israeli Gaza operation Wednesday night, Nov. 21, after President Barack Obama personally pledged to start deploying US troops in Egyptian Sinai next week, debkafile reports. The conversation, which finally tipped the scales for a ceasefire, took place on a secure line Wednesday morning,�just hours before it was announced in Cairo. The US and Israeli leaders spoke at around the time that a terrorist was blowing up a Tel Aviv bus, injuring 27 people.

A fire broke out during routine maintenance at the U.S. State Department on Saturday, injuring four maintenance workers, officials said. The fire began inside ductwork on the building's eighth floor at about 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) as workers were replacing insulation, State Department and fire officials said. Workers doused the fire with hand-held extinguishers before fire department personnel arrived, District of Columbia Battalion Chief Edward Mills said. Mills, who was one of the first responders to the scene, told Reuters TV the cause of the fire remained under investigation but did not immediately appear suspicious.

Congressmen: Jackson Jr. suffering tremendouslyAssociated Press 3:54 p.m. CST, November 24, 2012 **SNIP** After Saturday's service, Davis and Rush said they have not seen Jackson and don't know where he is. But they said they understand why he has not yet spoken publicly about his resignation. "He can't take the pressure," Rush said. Rush said when he and Davis visited with Jackson a few weeks ago, the 47-year-old son of a civil rights icon broke down in tears several times. They said they don't want others to see him that way. "He's suffering under a tremendous, tremendous toil," Rush said....

In many aspects of the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney and the establishment Republicans who were running his campaign just plain got outgunned and outsmarted. Yet, in the aftermath of Romney’s defeat, he said he lost because he couldn’t overcome the effect of Obama’s “gifts” to key demographics: student loan modifications for young voters and amnesty for young and predominantly Hispanic illegal aliens. We think Romney missed the mark with that analysis because conservative ideas have successfully countered the Democrats’ attempts to bribe voters in the past. To avoid the kind of defeat Republicans suffered in 2012, conservatives must learn...

Streaming on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007Q3JT6A/ Taped on Dec 11, 1967 (New York City, NY) Guest: Saul David Alinsky

The first U.S. multi-family condo built of used shipping containers is slated to break ground in Detroit early next year. Strong, durable and portable, shipping containers stack easily and link together like Legos. About 25 million of these 20-by-40 feet multicolored boxes move through U.S. container ports a year, hauling children's toys, flat-screen TVs, computers, car parts, sneakers and sweaters. But so much travel takes its toll, and eventually the containers wear out and are retired. That's when architects and designers, especially those with a "green" bent, step in to turn these cast-off boxes into student housing in Amsterdam, artists'...

So, I am looking at a new car. Perhaps the VW diesel. I drive the car and find that I am staring at computer screens. The car must have a full pc under the hood. I am told now that most do. And I understand that for some reason beyond my understanding the cars now have wifi. When I purchase a computer I get in there and disable, uninstall and delete items I don’t use like games…extra os and tools I won’t use. So how do I turn off the garbage that is extra on a new car? Like Wifi?...

In a series of remarkably candid comments, Prince Charles hinted that he feared his legacy as king would be cut short. During a visit to Dumfries House, the stately home in East Ayrshire which the Prince helped save for the nation, he joked about his reputation for pursuing projects with notorious vigour but made a poignant reference to his mortality. He said: “Impatient? Me? What a thing to suggest! Yes of course I am.” He added: “I’ll run out of time soon. I shall have snuffed it if I’m not careful.” The comments, which were recorded for a film on...

CNN) - Casting aside his typical campaign attire of suits or shirts with rolled up sleeves and well-coiffed hair, a photo appeared on Mitt Romney's Facebook Friday with the 2012 GOP nominee donning a t-shirt and hugging his wife, Ann, in the kitchen. "Hope everyone had a great Thanskgiving! Much to be thankful for this year," the caption read.

[Note: This editorial published on Nov 10, 2012] We are now rushing down a course that is going to create incredible economic hardships for millions of Americans. The increase in the amount of debt that has been added to our economy is astronomical. And there is no end in sight. We now have over $16 trillion of debt, and with Obama’s policies it will be almost impossible to reverse that course. Debt is the problem. Big debt is a big problem. There are only four ways to tackle it: increase taxes to bring in more dollars, reduce spending to save...

The Pentagon is hoping to one day be able to patrol the seas with unmanned submarine drones, according to website RT.com. The website reports that the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract valued at more than $58 million to Science Applications International Corporation of McLean, Va. to perfect similar technology for the sea that has proved so successful in the air. …

WASHINGTON (AP) — When black voters gave President Barack Obama 93 percent support on Election Day in defiance of predictions that they might sit it out this year, black leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief. That encouraged those leaders to try to leverage more attention from both Obama and Congress. Although they waver over how much to demand from the president — particularly in light of defeated GOP challenger Mitt Romney's assertion that Obama gave "gifts" to minorities in exchange for their votes — they are delivering postelection wish lists to the president anyway. snip Blacks made up 13...

A computer hacker connected to the group Anonymous could face life in prison for stealing credit card, email, and other personal information from a private intelligence company, and posting it on the Internet. The compromised information already has cost the company, Strategic Forecasters, several million dollars in a class-action lawsuit with its customers, one of which is the judge overseeing the criminal case against alleged hacker Jeremy Hammond’s, reported RT.com. Hammond, a member of LulzSec, an offshoot of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, is accused of breaking into Strategic Forecasters’ servers and collecting thousands of emails, credit card numbers and pieces...

Data that NASA's discovery wee a sample of Martian dirt could be earth-shattering, but the space agency is taking time to check its work. NASA's not sharing a 'historic' find on Mars... yet Data from a sample of Martian dirt could be earth-shattering, but the space agency is taking time to check its work. SAM, a mobile sample analysis lab, is currently mounted on Curiosity and finding interesting stuff in Martian soil. It seems NASA and the Curiosity rover have found something exciting and nerd-tastic on Mars, but the space agency's scientists are holding back for now, despite how painful...