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Washington (CNN) – There is no daylight between his vote against raising the debt ceiling as a senator in 2006 and his call for Congress to increase the limit in the next 10 days, President Barack Obama said Wednesday. “Nothing has changed,” Obama told WFLA in an interview. “I voted against a debt ceiling increase at the time because I had some concerns about what President (George W.) Bush was doing.” The president said he has “no problem” if members of Congress choose to vote against raising the legal borrowing limit now, but took issue with House Speaker John Boehner’s...

There has been a just degree of criticism directed towards the Guardian over the results of their readers’ poll on the Nobel Peace Prize in which 76% of respondents chose Hassan Rouhani from a list (compiled by their journalists) which included the brave Pakistani girl – shot by the Taliban for advocating on behalf of girls’ education – named Malala Yousafzai. (see charts at website) Rouhani was nominated by Saeed Kamali-Dehghan, who has served as one of the paper’s chief promoters of the lie that the new Iranian president is a “moderate” despite Rouhani’s involvement in terror attacks abroad and...

MRCTV's Dan Joseph had a question on his mind that he couldn't shake: who bears the brunt of the blame for the government shutdown? Who really is responsible for the mess we're in right now? Is it President Obama or former President George W. Bush? He decided to take these questions to the heart of our misery: Washington D.C. Despite the fact that "Dubya" has been out of office for the past five years, most of the respondents said former President George W. Bush is to blame for the shutdown.

It’s been almost a year since Mitt Romney lost seven in ten Hispanic voters to President Obama, sparking Republicans to try and improve the party’s poor reputation with Hispanics. Yet, the GOP has little to show that its “re-brand” is working. On Monday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced that it hired “Hispanic engagement staff” in seven states; California, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Chairman Reince Priebus called the hires “unprecedented” moves that “will ensure our message of ‘opportunity for all’ reaches voters.” The moves are the latest in a string of listening sessions and candidate...

To help you keep track of where both sides stand in the BART contract negotiations, here are our best estimates of current average salaries by bargaining unit based on the 2012 Public Employee Salary Database. This page will be updated as new contracts are proposed. Last updated 5:26 pm Oct. 14 to reflect the latest contract proposal by BART management.

Heavily-armed federal agents have raided a white supremacist family's Arizona compound and seized dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Kirby Kehoe and his son Cheyne, 37, are known for allegedly trying to establish a whites-only nation within the United States. Both men are convicted felons and legally barred from possessing firearms. More than 50 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives geared up on Tuesday and raided the family's 40-acre ranch near Ash Fork, Arizona, about 140 miles north of Phoenix.

The New York Times’ recent 6,000-word major opus, “Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll ,” is the latest installment in the paper’s self-described series on “the gun industry’s influence and the wide availability of firearms in America.” In this article, it took the authors 75 paragraphs before they acknowledged that federal statistics, in fact, show a dramatic 30-year downward trend in accidental deaths involving firearms. But that’s not the impression that the Times wanted to leave with its readers. The article focused dramatically on case vignettes involving the accidental deaths of children from firearms, which we all agree are tragic...

Psst. Anic-Pay! Bloomberg‘s Megan McArdle (who has been on an incredible roll lately**) takes issue with the idea that the Obama administration needn’t panic about Obamacare, as long as it can get its glitch-plagued health care exchanges up and running by the end of the year. Wrong, she suggests. It’s time to panic. Now. Why? Because the exchanges are the way to sign up young, healthy people and prevent the fabled “death spiral,” in which only older, sicker people sign up for insurance, causing rates to rise and healthier people to drop out, causing rates to rise even more, etc....

NASHUA — A store clerk who aimed a handgun at a knife-wielding robber early Monday morning and was later terminated for his actions did the correct thing, according to police. "From the information I have, the store clerk acted appropriately the other night when a man with a deadly weapon was within close proximity. He feared for his life and he took appropriate action," Lt. Denis Linehan said of Shannon "Bear" Cothran who was working at the Shell gas station, 301 Main St., at the time of the attempted robbery. Cothran may have violated a company policy that prohibits workers...

If you've tried to sign up online for health coverage under the problem-plagued Obamacare exchange, our sympathies. Many people have tried to create accounts and shop for insurance under the new law. Few have succeeded. Those that have enrolled have found that the system is prone to mistakes. Some applications have been sent to the wrong insurance company. Wait. It gets worse. Those who have managed to browse the marketplace have often been hit by sticker shock. Take Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner and single father from Carpentersville. He sought the same level of coverage on the exchange as he...

CHARLESTON, SC — The Republican Liberty Caucus today announced its endorsement of Sen. Lee Bright (R-Spartanburg, SC) for US Senate in the seat currently held by US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). This marks the first significant national endorsement in this particular race. “Sen. Lee Bright is a friend of liberty who knows the issues that South Carolinians care about. As a businessman who understands all too well the difficult economic times, Lee Bright stands for economic liberty,” said RLC-SC Chairman Scott Pearson. “As a man of faith, he stands for religious liberty; and as a man of great personal...

Bear Cothran works–or rather, worked–at a Shell station in Nashua, NH. Over the weekend, in the wee hours of the morning, a large guy with a knife entered the store, demanded money and, according to Cothran, threatened to kill him if he didn’t cooperate. Cothran is a lawful New Hampshire gun owner, he had his gun on him, so he drew the gun and the robber left post-haste. Yay, the good guys win! Uh…no. At 11:20 [Monday] morning, Bear received a phone call from his boss, informing him that, in spite of his status as a 10-year employee in good...

Spring Hill TN—Michael Patrick Leahy, co-founder of BEAT LAMAR, announced the ten locations across the state of Tennessee where BEAT LAMAR volunteers will be meeting simultaneously this Saturday, October 19 at 9 am to kick off a day of door-to-door canvassing to encourage Republicans to vote for Joe Carr, the group’s endorsed candidate to beat incumbent Senator Lamar Alexander in the August 2014 primary. BEAT LAMAR Regional coordinators will provide training on the use of Ipads, smartphones, and old fashioned pencil and paper from 9 am to 11 am. Volunteers will be encouraged to walk door-to-door in their own neighborhoods...

Immigration reform advocates plan an aggressive campaign to bring the issue back — and the White House has signaled it’s on board. Can Obama emerge from the fiscal crisis with enough momentum to win the immigration fight? As the fiscal fight roiling Washington nears its end, the White House is already signaling that it plans to use the political momentum it has gained during the shutdown fight to charge back into the immigration debate. And this time, Democratic pollsters and advocates say, they could actually win. The final chapter of the current crisis hasn’t been written yet, but Democrats in...

After months of anguished debate over mass shootings, gun control and Second Amendment rights, the Justice Department finds itself on the defensive after a training manual surfaced that suggests federal agents could face a firing squad for leaking government secrets. The online manual for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — complete with a photo of a turn-of-the-century firing squad — was obtained by The Washington Times from a concerned federal law enforcement official, and it immediately drew protests from watchdogs who said it showed a lack of sensitivity to gun violence and the continuing hostile environment toward...

A New York Times investigative article based on two dozen interviews with industry insiders and confidential Obama Administration documents reveals that the catastrophic $500 million Obamacare rollout "has deeply embarrassed the White House" and has the technology companies involved "publicly distancing themselves" from the Obamacare fiasco. "These are not glitches. The extent of the problems is pretty enormous," an insurance executive who participated in Obamacare conference calls told the Times. "At the end of our calls, people say, 'It's awful, just awful.'"

If Republicans don’t join together with Democrats to pass comprehensive immigration reform, “they will never win another national election,” according to Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). -snip- Gutierrez is an outspoken progressive, but he has still made somewhat unlikely alliances with Republicans in order to push immigration reform. In 2012, the Illinois Democrat praised the immigration reform strategy presented by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), someone he had previously called an “extremist.” Gutierrez also partnered with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) earlier this year, participating in a pair of immigration reform events in Chicago.

The Sheriff did not return phone calls, so details are scarce. At this point, we know two burglars tried to break into a home Saturday just outside Rockport City limits. Sources say the homeowner shot at the burglars, but its not clear if they were hit.

In a much-discussed post titled "Five Thoughts on the ObamaCare Disaster," the Washington Post's Ezra Klein manages to cycle through the first three of Elisabeth Kübler Ross's five stages of grief: • Denial. "In the weeks leading up to the launch I heard some very ugly things about how the system was performing when transferring data to insurers--a necessary step if people are actually going to get insurance. I tried hard to pin the rumors down, but I could never quite nail the story, and there was a wall of official denials from the Obama administration. It was just testing,...

UPDATE 10/15/13 @ 4:50 p.m. PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (WSAZ) -- A man has died after being shot in what police say was a home invasion. Officials at Cabell Huntington Hospital say Keith Richards, 31, of Portsmouth, died Monday evening after being taken off life support. Portsmouth Police say Richards broke into a home in the 1000 block of 23rd Street Sunday night. Family members of the deceased homeowner say the home was also broken into the night before, so they had someone at the house Sunday, keeping an eye on it. They say Richards was crawling through a window at the...

Amidst all the blather about Republicans going over the cliff and taking the world with them, a tantalizing bit of truth was spoken on today's Morning Joe. Doomsaying notwithstanding, the GOP is actually positioned to do OK in 2014. Making the comment particularly surprising was its source: Barack Obama's former senior adviser himself—David Axelrod. View the video here.

Over the past few years, immigration reform has been at the forefront of debates in Congress. In both the Senate and the House of Representatives, members from across the aisle have come together to develop bipartisan bills that would change the lives of over 11 million undocumented immigrants. Some in Congress have worked tirelessly to create a law that would provide a path to citizenship for millions, while others have focused the debate on border security. In an exclusive interview with Latinos Post, National Council of La Raza (NCLR)’s senior immigration legislation analyst Laura Vazquez discussed the future of immigration...

Tulsa, Okla. — A homeowner returns from a walk Saturday evening and finds an intruder inside his home near Skelly and Lewis. Police say they received the call around 6 p.m., but not just for a burglary.

In a move that portends a labor firestorm, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and four other city leaders filed papers on Tuesday aiming to put a public pension measure on the November 2014 statewide ballot. If approved, the measure would change the California Constitution to give state and local government authority to lower current employees’ pension and retiree health benefits prospectively.

(CN) - Concerns that a limitation on concealed-carry permits in Orange County, Calif., amounts to an all-out ban did not seem to resonate with the 9th Circuit. A three-judge panel with the federal appeals court met this week to consider a 2012 lawsuit challenging Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchen's policy of "denying law-abiding, competent adults ... state-required licenses to carry handguns in public for the purpose of self-defense." The policy requires gun owners to prove to the sheriff that they have a valid reason to carry their gun for self defense.

Once the fiscal crisis has been resolved, President Barack Obama is going to push for immigration reform, he told the Los Angeles affiliate of Spanish-language network Univision on Tuesday. Obama, who largely managed to hold on to office on the backs of Hispanic voters, has long looked to easing the plight of the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants, but other issues have kept coming in the way during his second term.

A pit bull attacked at least two children on a neighborhood street, wounding one, before someone fatally shot the dog Sunday afternoon, police said. The dog got loose in the 2400 block of North Genevieve Street (map) and began attacking people about 2:40 p.m., a San Bernardino police lieutenant told NBC4. The pit bull bit a child's thigh. Someone arrived with a gun and fatally shot the dog, the lieutenant said.

Nothing is more important for a startup burning through cash than winning customers and revenue. So problems with the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces, also known as exchanges, aren’t just an inconvenience. They’re a threat. Nobody is pushing the panic button. March 31, the end of enrollment, is several months away. Co-ops are well financed with federal loans. Evergreen holds enough capital to be in good shape even if it doesn’t reach what Beilenson calls “self-sustaining” membership of 15,000 or 20,000 in the first year, he said. But with few confirmed customers so far and no revenue, Evergreen and its...

A new memoir by his ex-girlfriend sheds light on the cult of Steve Jobs. Albert Watson Chrisann Brennan first met Steve Jobs in 1972, while they were both students at Homestead HS in Cupertino, Calif. Over the next five years, they dated off and on throughout their teens and early 20s. The two were living together with their friend Daniel Kottke, a computer engineer and one of the earliest employees of Apple, in 1977, when the company took off. The two finally ended their romantic relationship for good in late 1977, after Brennan became pregnant with their daughter, Lisa. Brennan...

Many people criticize President Obama for spending too much time campaigning, traveling or on the golf course. They are wrong. He spends too much time in a far more removed and unique place: Wonderland. Indeed, he seemingly lives in Wonderland. The problem is that the rest of us live in the real world. Over the last five years it has becoming increasingly clear that Barack Obama and his crew of handpicked officials see America and the rest of the world in ways at variance with reality.

After claiming his innocence for over two decades, William Happ finally confessed to murder as he was put to death by lethal injection in the US state of Florida. News reports said Happ took over 15 minutes to die, as his body repeatedly made convulsive movements, as the state corrections system used a new lethal chemical for the first time. Happ, 51, had spent 24 years on death row for the murder of a young woman named Angela Crowley in 1986. Happ, who had drug and alcohol problems, met Crowley in a parking lot. The woman was strangled and raped,...

Josh Hargis, an Army Ranger severely injured in Afghanistan last week, was thought to be unconscious during his Purple Heart ceremony. He lost both legs and was hooked to a breathing tube at a military hospital in Afghanistan. The bedside ceremony began and, while he still presumed to be unconscious, the Ranger struggled with an attending doctor to raise his heavily bandaged hand to salute a commanding officer presenting him with the medal.

Implementation of the Affordable Care Act eventually could cost the Aiken County School District from $300,000 to $400,000 a year, District Comptroller Tray Traxler told School Board members on Tuesday. Those costs are rough estimates based on the number of employees who may or could average 30 hours of service every week. Each employee formally added to the program could cost the District $3,000 to $6,000 annually as its contribution, depending on whether the employee has a child who qualifies. Probably the biggest headache for Traxler's department is the requirement that the District must provide continuous monitoring of such employees'...

MIDLAND, Texas -— In a faded West Texas town dotted with vacant buildings and potholed streets is a sparkling storefront window and a curious display: rows of diamond-studded Rolex watches, awaiting buyers whose pockets are packed with oil money. The surge in oil drilling has drawn money and men like a magnet to run-down communities that haven't seen a boom since the 1980s. But leaders and residents here are increasingly mindful that the runaway riches tapped by hydraulic fracturing will eventually run out. And they are determined to live by a fondly remembered bumper sticker from the last bust: Please,...

Businesses across the nation, including the Pinellas County school district, are adjusting their health care plans to comply with the Affordable Health Care Act, but one variable may end up costing the school district millions: substitute teachers. By 2015, the act requires the school district to provide health care benefits to all employees who work at least 30 hours a week. Last school year, there were 1,798 part time employees, including substitute teachers, working in instructional and administrative positions, according to the school district. “We have substitutes that work on a regular basis and over a certain period of time...

As the realities of Obamacare continue to sink in, more and more people are getting letters from their health insurance providers telling them that their plans no longer comply with federal requirements under Obamacare. We just brought you the story of “Trick Shot Titus” and his family facing significant increases in the cost of their health care plans. Now, a community blogger on the far-left Daily Kos website has penned a blog post complaining that both he and his wife are facing a nearly 100 percent increase in their monthly premiums. He claims he is canceling his insurance and refuses to pay any “f***ing...

Editor’s note: This is the first in a 10-part series produced by the Alaska Support Industry Alliance to educate the public about liquefied natural gas. Liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is natural gas converted to its liquid form. When natural gas is cooled to minus-259 degrees Fahrenheit, it becomes a clear, colorless, odorless liquid. LNG is produced by taking natural gas from a production field, processing it to remove impurities, and then liquefying the processed gas. LNG isn’t corrosive or toxic. It doesn’t explode or burn as a liquid. Natural gas is primarily methane, with low levels of other hydrocarbons,...

Good morning Free Republic and good morning to the GREAT STATE of NEW JERSEY! Get up and go to you polling place!! VOTE FOR STEVE LONEGAN TODAY!! And with that -- I am off to do my civic duty and to make America proud!! (hope this isn't a repeat thread!)

A 17-year-old North Andover High School student was stripped of her captain's position on the volleyball team and suspended for five games after she went to a party to pick up an intoxicated friend, reports The Boston Herald. Erin Cox received a call from a friend, who was allegedly intoxicated, and asked her to pick her up from a party on Main Street in Boxford. Being a good friend, Erin went to pick her up, but instead met police just as they arrived at the house, the newspaper reports.

President Obama vowed Tuesday that he would pursue an immigration reform vote in the House the "day after" Congress reached an agreement to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. "Once that’s done, you know, the day after -- I’m going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform," Obama told Univision's Los Angeles affiliate. "And if I have to join with other advocates and continue to speak out on that, and keep pushing, I’m going to do so because I think it’s really important for the country. And now is the time to do it."

Prosecutors have dropped a driving under the influence charge against the wife of former Miami Heat superstar Alonzo Mourning.

The Ministry of Defense's weapons development administration (Mafat) is targeting a global market worth $2 billion annually. The Ministry of Defense's Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure (Mafat) has set the next challenge for Israel's defense industry: do for unmanned submarines what it did for unmanned aerial warfare. If the defense industry moves quickly and purposefully in identifying this emerging market, and offers a well-functioning unmanned submarine, it could be riding the right wave in a decade from now: Mafat aeronautics division director Dr. Yuval Cohen estimates that the market will be worth $2 billion a year...

ABERDEEN, MD (WJZ/CNN) – Police in Maryland arrested a suspect who allegedly tried to carjack the mother of baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. The incident occurred on Tuesday outside of a bank in Aberdeen, MD, north of Baltimore. Police say a man with a handgun approached 75-year-old Violet Ripken and demanded her car. Ripken pressed the panic button her key ring, setting off the car's alarm and scaring the man away. He was later captured by police.

US defence firms eye $10.8bn UAE, Saudi sales Defence firms in the US are looking to sell military hardware worth $10.8bn to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The Defence Security Cooperation Agency said it has notified Congress of the possible foreign military sales to the Gulf countries, with Boeing and Raytheon named as suppliers. The proposal includes the first US sales to Middle East allies of new Raytheon and Boeing weapons that can be launched at a distance from Saudi F-15 and UAE F-16 fighters. The Boeing Expanded-Response Standoff Land Attack Missile and Raytheon Joint Standoff Weapon give those nations...

Military authorities here worry about intelligence reports that North Korea is developing a new ground-to-ship ballistic missile with a range of 300 km which would be impossible to intercept with current weapons. "The North is developing a new ground-to-ship ballistic missile with a range of 200-300 km, an improved version of the KN-02 ground-to-ground ballistic missile," whose range is 140 km, a military source said Friday. "We're trying to verify the report." The North already has surface-to-ship cruise missiles like the KN-01 with a range of 160 km and the Silkworm missile with a range of 100 km. But ballistic...

SEOUL, Oct. 16 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean Navy has made a request to build three more Aegis destroyers to bolster defense against its Asian neighbors and North Korea amid increasing military tension due to territorial disputes, a military source said Wednesday. South Korea currently operates three 7,600-ton Aegis warships, but the Navy has sought to increase its fleet to cope with rising regional tension in light of Pyongyang's third nuclear test conducted earlier this year and ongoing territorial disputes between China and Japan. "The Navy made a request for three additional Aegis ships to the Joint Chiefs of Staff...

As the most profitable entertainment enterprise ever, the video game series Grand Theft Auto has completely enthralled players; and in this case, an Auburn football fan who decided it was time to play out his real-life version. As WDSU reports, on Saturday, September 21st around 2:30 AM, 20 year old freshman lacrosse player and Auburn student Zachary Burgess decided it was time for him to take his shot at GTA, for realsies. He stole a truck, kidnapped a woman, and ended up crashing into nine parked cars – a feat that took zero brain cells and cojones the size of...

A father and son who fled their village during the Vietnam War 40 years ago have apparently been discovered living in a treehouse deep in the jungle. Ho Van Lang, 42, and his 82-year-old father had reportedly shunned contact with the outside world after his wife and mother of his two children was killed by a landmine A local newspaper reported that they wore loincloths made of bark and used a homemade axe to chop down trees for firewood. They survived on corn that they had grown, plus fruits and cassava roots from the jungle. Inside their treehouse home, five...

(CNSNews.com) – National Park Service (NPS) rangers removed the handles from some 40 public water pumps and closed restrooms in the 184.5 mile- C&O Canal National Historical Park, but they haven’t been able to keep hikers and bikers off the popular trail known as a “cyclist’s dream.” “It’s full every day,” said Gail Hall, who runs Mountain Side Bikes at the trailhead in Cumberland, Md. “They’re bringing in their own water and utilizing the tree-lined areas [of the park] for restrooms. Some towns like Harper’s Ferry even brought in potties to accommodate them. As long as they can pedal, they...

This heartening news just came in from the Middle Tennessee Chapter of ACT! For America. The anti-Shariah activists of Middle Tennessee managed to persuade the state textbook commission not to approve the purchase of high school textbooks that sanitize the history and doctrines of Islam. The efforts of these dedicated folks in Tennessee demonstrate that pushback can be effective. But you have to fight smart. You have to educate yourself, and join forces with other like-minded activists. You have to show public officials — who, after all, work for you — that you mean business, and you’re not going away....