Free Republic

Bored Boston government workers are goofing off on Facebook and other popular social networking sites on taxpayer time, boasting of napping during meetings, playing “Mafia Wars,” creating anagrams of their names and planning Halloween costumes. The poster girl for the on-the-clock cyber-slacking is Amy Derjue, who earns $39,000 a year as Boston City Council President Michael Ross’ communications director. The former Boston magazine blogger regularly updates her personal status on Facebook and Twitter throughout the work day, brazenly joking to her online pals about snoozing at a hearing, writing snarky comments about the reality TV show “Jon & Kate Plus...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH, 2009 AT 5:59 AM Streaming at 12:30: PERAB Meeting on Tax Reform Posted by Austan Goolsbee Today, the tax subgroup of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) will hold a meeting to gather ideas on tax reform. It will be the first of several such meetings. The meeting will center on tax simplification and will be live streamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live. I wanted to take the opportunity to explain why we assembled this subgroup, what areas the PERAB tax reform subgroup will focus on...

As ACORN grapples with a scandal that in recent days has led the Census Bureau to sever ties and the Senate to block housing funding , other groups with similar stated goals are left to wonder how the fallout might affect them. But the group is on its heels after conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos .... The Senate voted 83-7 Monday to block Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN. ....Housing and Urban Development Department ... provides funding to 25 groups that, like ACORN, have a national profile and similar...

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has once again come under fire for issuing grants that help fund pornographic and obscene “art”. The NEA was given $80 million from the federal government’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill to give as grants to a number of organizations it deemed worthy of financial support. But true to form the NEA has shown itself incapable of distinguishing between art and garbage. Consider the following grants the NEA awarded, according to Fox News, using the $80 million it received courtesy of our tax dollars: • $50,000 to Framline, a “gay and lesbian” film...

Note: The following text SNIPPET is a quote: News Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, July 6, 2009 Secretary Sebelius Announces Availability of $40 Million in Grants to Help Insure More Children HHS Secretary, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Encourage Community Organizations, State and Local Governments to Apply HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the availability of up to $40 million in grants to help reach families whose children qualify but are not yet enrolled in state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP). Sebelius was joined for the announcement by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. Colorado has been a leader in the...

State agency's new logo has an anarchist ring to it By Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel Posted: July 2, 2009 Madison — As the state agency charged with running elections, the Government Accountability Board can't show favor for Republicans or Democrats. But is it biased toward anarchists? The board recently launched a new logo - an A inside a circle - that looks similar to the traditional symbol for anarchy. "It being an anarchy sign and the government - there's definitely irony there," said Madison's Ear Wax Record Shop owner Rob Cleveland, who is familiar with the anarchy symbol...

Government researchers are spending more than $400,000 in taxpayer money to hit the bars in Argentina. The National Institutes of Health are paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk -- and just what can be done about it. Doctors and specialists from the New York Psychiatric Institute are using the generous grant from NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to help tailor HIV prevention programs to work at bars and clubs. Though public health officials say that HIV/AIDS rates are higher in Washington,...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life women's group says Americans have another reason to be upset today other than having to spend countless hours and money making sure their tax returns are properly completed. The Susan B. Anthony List says President Barack Obama is sending more of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars to promote the abortion agenda than ever before. "Despite his promises to find 'common ground' on abortion, President Obama's policy decisions are already impacting and alienating American taxpayers," SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser told LifeNews.com on Wednesday. "What a difference a year makes," Dannenfelser added and pointed to Obama's...

Hey,it's free money! Isn't that what they always say - they being state and local officials, and the money being federal grants? We, as in We the People, aren't supposed to notice the strings attached to federal funds, or the unintended consequences that may result from taking them. Maybe every federal grant should come with a warning label: Taking this money could have deleterious effects on your fiscal health. Consider the offer of increased federal funding for states that agree to expand their unemployment benefits. A state can't lose on a deal like that, right? Wrong. Because the states would...

March 5, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1236280325302.shtm Secretaries Donovan and Napolitano Announce Hurricane Recovery Funding for Louisiana New Orleans – On day one of U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano’s listening tour throughout New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the secretaries announced hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Louisiana to stimulate long-term recovery in the wake of last year’s devastating hurricane season and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “Today, we turn the page and start a new chapter in the federal partnership...

Just how massive is President Barack Obama's proposed $3.6 trillion budget? The current federal budget consumes 20 percent of America's gross domestic product. Obama's proposed budget consumes 22 percent. That's an extra 2 percent of a more than $14 trillion economy -- in just one budget. Obama's budget is so large that it has succeeded in uniting Republicans and Democrats -- against it. Politico.com reported on Wednesday that a group of 14 "moderate" Democrats, including New Hampshire's Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, is working behind the scenes to cut a significant amount of spending out of the President's proposals -- both the...

Moderate senators from Barack Obama's Democratic Party are forming a bloc to argue against his high spending plans to revive the economy, as the administration is increasingly forced on the defensive. As senior members of his economic team have been grilled by Congressional committees about the $3.6 trillion (£2.5 trillion) budget unveiled last week, a meeting of 14 Democrats was convened by Evan Bayh, senator for Indiana, to discuss how the president be might reined in. "I do think that before we raise revenue, we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut back on spending,"...

For many Minnesota Muslims, it's been virtually impossible to buy a home, because Islamic law forbids the paying or charging of interest. The African Development Center, with support from the state's housing agency, is now offering Islamic mortgages as a way to help close the home ownership gap among Muslim immigrants. Minneapolis, Minn. — Islamic law does make exceptions to the ban on interest, if one's family is at stake. But the exceptions are open to interpretation and for many observant Muslims, conventional mortgages are strictly taboo. Nawawi Sheikh is one of them. The Somali-American says he and his wife...

President Obama issued his budget proposal last week, and I haven't yet been able to clean up all the coffee that I spit all over my keyboard when I saw that he presented it as a model of fiscal responsibility. Never in my life have I ever seen responsibility defined to include tripling an annual budget deficit. But I digress. One thing that jumps out of the budget are the numbers associated with the President's Health Care plan. Over the ten year period, the President identifies over $600 billion in revenue to fund his health care priorities by repealing the...

As we dig into the President's budget, more emerges: 1) Remember the President stating his budget "identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade?" It actually increases spending by $1 trillion. But he classifies as "savings" $1.4 trillion in tax increases (apparently savings for the government, not for you) and $1.5 trillion "saved" in Iraq relative to a fantasy baseline that otherwise assumes current spending levels forever. The Iraq gimmick is the equivalent of a family deciding to "save" $10,000 by first assuming an expensive vacation and then not taking it. 2) Real federal spending per household — $24,000...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Obama administration is considering a plan to purchase bad loans and other distressed assets by creating multiple investments funds, according to The Wall Street Journal, quoting people familiar with the matter. The funds would be part of what the administration is calling a private-public financing partnership that would take distressed assets off banks' books.

Yesterday,  just days after President Barack Obama signed his economic stimulus measure, the White House released a statement claiming credit for the reopening of a window and door factory in Chicago. Vice President Joe Biden said, “The reopening of this factory and the rehiring of these workers provide an excellent example of how the money in the Recovery Act is targeted to spur job creation quickly.” If the Obama Administration is going to claim credit for every job created since  Obama and Biden were elected, then if they are honest, they should also take the blame for every job lost....

Passing off the Carbon Tax as "climate revenues," Obama hides largest tax increase in bloated big-government budget CHESAPEAKE, Va., March 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While some media outlets are reporting more than $1 trillion in new taxes in the Obama budget, Grassfire.org has identified more than $1.6 trillion, and possibly as much as $2.2 trillion. "The President's 'carbon tax' is the single biggest tax-increasing item in his budget, and the largest in history," says Steve Elliott, President of Grassfire.org. According to Grassfire.org researchers examining the official published documents on the budget, the $645 billion in carbon taxes pushes the total tax...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/02/28/Keeping-Promises/ THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 5:43 am Keeping Promises In the Weekly Address this morning, President Obama explains how the budget he sent to Congress will fulfill the promises he made as a candidate. On fiscal responsibility, a fair tax code, a clean energy economy, real health care reform, and education, this budget sets out a new vision for our country. But having put his priorities on paper and having stood behind them, the President recognizes that there are those who will fight against change every...

The government is on the verge of closing a deal to significantly boost its ownership stake in Citigroup. In return, it will demand changes be made on the troubled banking giant's board and other conditions, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. The increased stake in Citigroup Inc. will not require additional money from taxpayers and the bank will still have to undergo a "stress test," such as those that banking regulators started conducting this week on the nation's biggest banks, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a deal hasn't been officially announced.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/02/18/Setting-the-bar-high/ THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 3:28 pm Setting the bar high Just looking at Recovery.gov, it might not be immediately clear what an enormous undertaking it will be to ensure that the transparency and accountability that the President expects will be upheld. It's going to require an unprecedented level of vigilance, a fundamental shift in the way the federal government spends your tax dollars, from the Oval Office down to every department and agency awarding funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That's why Peter...

<p>The White House on Friday threw its support behind a plan to speed release of $25 billion in existing loans to the Big Three automakers but rejected a Democratic proposal to use money from a financial bailout to help the troubled industry.</p>

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee unveiled a health-care reform plan Wednesday that incorporates many of the provisions of President-elect Barack Obama’s plan, but goes one step further -- it would require everyone to eventually buy insurance coverage. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) proposes that medical insurance cover pre-existing conditions, as Obama’s plan does, and would set up an insurance exchange to help people and businesses find insurance if they need -- but don’t have -- coverage. “Americans are acutely aware of problems in the country’s health care system and they are ready for change,” Baucus said at a...

Video shows Obama admitting his lack of experience in his won words, Also Obama traveled more than any freshman senator in history on the tax payers dime.

An Inver Grove Heights charter school has received harassing and threatening calls in the wake of accusations that it blurs the line between religion and state by promoting Islam, the school's director said Friday. The city's police are investigating and will put extra patrols in the area as a precaution, said Police Chief Chuck Kleckner. He said the school's director contacted the department Friday morning. Asad Zaman, the director and founder of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), said that he and the school received several derogatory phone messages and e-mails. The school came under fire last month after Star Tribune...

A Twin Cities charter school is making changes after accusations that it endorsed Islamic studies at taxpayer expense. Since 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS investigated TIZA Academy in Inver Grove Heights on Wednesday, the school's attorney has said several changes would be made. The most noticeable -- an American flag now flies over the school for the first time since the academy was founded in 2003. The attorney told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that it was a difficult day for staff and parents, as people from across the country inundated the school with threats and messages of hate after hearing what substitute Amanda...

FIRE Press Release NEWARK, Del., October 30, 2007—The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a “treatment” for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs. The Orwellian program requires the approximately 7,000 students in Delaware’s residence halls to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is calling for the total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of students’ rights to freedom...

Primary Navigation * Home * U.S. * Business * World * Entertainment * Sports * Tech * Politics * Elections * Science * Health * Most Popular Secondary Navigation * U.S. Video * Local News * Education * Religion * Politics * Crimes and Trials Search: Advanced AP More schools offer gay studies classes By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 7, 2:43 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO - Before he transferred to San Francisco State University, Emo Loredo knew only a few other openly gay students. ADVERTISEMENT Yahoo! Shopping MP3 Players Laptops Cell Phones Desktops Digital Cameras PDAs Get...

There's a job opening in Santa Cruz for the newly created position of global warming czar. The pay: $80,000 a year. The global warming coordinator will help prevent climate change, guide the city in transportation and land-use decisions and get the community involved in the effort. "We think this position will help address possible sea level rise, whether that's at our bluffs, at our beaches or maybe even in our downtown," city planning director Greg Larson said. The City Council approved the Planning Department position for one year. "The preponderance of scientific evidence globally and locally shows that global warming...

FAIRMONT — The children of three Morgantown developers pulled away tarps to reveal giant renderings of an $87-million development proposed at the site of a former coke plant Monday afternoon. The brainchild of developers Michael Vecchio, Mark Tampoya and David Rees, who make up The Water Works LLC, Volcano Island Indoor Waterpark Resort is only the first phase of a redevelopment plan for the 107-acre property on the site of the former Sharon Steel plant on the East Side of Fairmont. The children will probably be among the first to experience the 12 water slides, surf machine, water roller coaster,...

For some time now I have wanted to tell you about James Stengel. And now I will since he has just been named Managing Editor of “Time” magazine. I interviewed Stengel when he was still the boss at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Here’s a slightly edited version of that interview: JL: Why don’t you begin by telling us a little bit about yourself. RS: Well, I am now president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, this fabulous institution on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. I came directly here from TIME magazine, where I was the national editor in...

The Lincoln County School District's Indian Education Program is honoring graduating Indian seniors with an eagle feather at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 12 at the Siletz Tribal Community Center on Government Hill in Siletz. The feathers are obtained legally from the U.S. Department of Wildlife, through the Siletz Tribal representative, Mike Darcy. Only students registered with the Indian Education Program (now Title VII) and graduating from a Lincoln County school are eligible to receive an eagle feather. The public is invited to the ceremony, no tickets or reservations are necessary.

Getting on the right government list can make you wealthy. That's the gist of what Alphonso Jackson, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told a group of influential minority business leaders in Dallas on April 28. During that talk Jackson warned HUD contractors against criticizing President Bush. A Dallas Business Journal report on his comments has led to a political firestorm, calls for his resignation, a formal probe by the HUD Inspector General and an apology from Jackson. Because of intense interest in that April 28 talk, here are additional details of Jackson's comments, which included the story of...

Step onto a college campus these days and you might hear the remark, “That's so gay.” For many students, the words seem like a harmless way to poke fun at something. But for University of California San Diego senior Peper Anan, it's a personal attack on her sexual identity. Anan, who considers herself bisexual, says she hears the sentence about once a month and always tries to educate the person about how offensive it is. It's this sort of comment that she hopes will disappear with the creation of UCSD's first permanent Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center. The center...

S.F. using text messages to get sex advice to teens SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Call it shorthand sex ed for the text message generation. San Francisco health officials have started using text messaging this week to direct safe sex advice to teenagers. Teens text the phrase "sexinfo" to one of two health department phone numbers. Within seconds, they get a reply asking them to desribe their question. The automated responses include how to handle a condom breaking and responding to peer pressure about sex. Messages are written in the shorthand style teens prefer for texting, and most end with the...

NYC Kindergarteners To Be Taught About AIDS Image Kerri Lyon Reporting Save It Email this Article Email It Print this Article Print It (CBS) GLENDALE HIV and AIDS have been taught in New York City classrooms since 1987 with the lessons mandated by the state. But this year, the city has revamped the curriculum, and parents said that it was without their input. Parents have now seen what their kids will be learning, and they have a lot of questions about whether its appropriate in the classroom. Susan Petschauer's third grade son Andrew is getting his first lesson in the...

A traditional-values organization in California is warning the state's residents that a bill pending in the Legislature, if approved, could remove all references to gender in public schools – threatening even references to "mom" or "dad" in textbooks. If the bill, SB 1437, were to become law, warns the Capitol Resource Institute, "it could potentially require gender-neutral bathrooms in our schools and all references to 'husband' and 'wife' or 'mom and dad' removed from school textbooks as the norm." Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl – a lesbian actress best known for playing Zelda in "The Many Loves of Dobie...

(Critics say it could gut larger program...) As an intern with the city of Milwaukee in 2002, Stephanie Montgomery earned $1,300 a month through a university fellowship. Without health insurance, Montgomery found herself scrambling for low-cost medical care. Because she was enrolled in an out-of-state graduate school, she could not qualify for campus health services. She also wasn't eligible for BadgerCare, Wisconsin's health care plan for low-income families, because she didn't have children. She turned to Planned Parenthood, where she paid a sliding fee for preventative reproductive health care and contraception. Then, in January 2003, she learned of a new...

Students are paying an average $21,000 in annual tuition to attend the nation's colleges, which teach subjects such as the "unbearable whiteness" of Barbie dolls and "same-sex eroticism" in Renaissance Europe. Those courses -- at Occidental College in Los Angeles and Princeton University, respectively -- were among the "most bizarre and troubling instances of leftist activism supplanting traditional scholarship" at U.S. colleges and universities named this year to the "Dirty Dozen" list by Young America's Foundation. The Herndon-based conservative youth group also singled out for criticism courses such as "Lesbian Novels Since World War II" (Swarthmore), "Marxist Concepts of Racism"...

CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978 Professor David Halperin 734-647-5884 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, brings back “How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality & Initiation” family group renews criticism of tax-funded college class “How to be Gay” U-M catalogue calls class “an experiment in the very process of initiation it hopes to understand.” ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A statewide family values group Monday renewed its criticism of a controversial University of Michigan class — offered this fall for the first time since 2003 — again calling on state lawmakers to pressure university officials to drop the course altogether. The American Family Association...

Thanks to a congressional earmark, an open-borders advocacy group that pushes for driver’s licenses, free in-state tuition and healthcare for illegal aliens and bilingual requirements for state agencies and ballots is slated to get $4 million in new taxpayer money to add to the more than $30 million it has received from various federal agencies since 1996. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Spanish for “the race,” will get its latest grant through an appropriations bill passed by Congress on November 18. The Joint Explanatory Statement of HR 3058, available on the House’s Rules Committee website lists 1,100 plus...

Tory MPP Bob Runciman brandished crack cocaine paraphernalia in the legislature yesterday, demanding to know whether taxpayers are paying for a "harm reduction kit." He asked Premier Dalton McGuinty whether government funds go to a Toronto Health Clinic for these kits. "Do you think it's appropriate that taxpayer dollars are being spent to distribute crack cocaine kits in Toronto, given that half of all homicides in the city, according to Toronto police, are due to gangs fighting over this illegal drug?" Runciman said. McGuinty said the decision rests with the City. The Liberals later handed out a release that said...

Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 · I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire? So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to...

EUGENE, Ore. — In an effort to promote diversity at the University of Oregon, a plan has been developed that would hire, fire and promote professors not just on the quality of their teaching and research, but on their so-called “cultural competency." Freshmen would take a class on the subject and faculty would be trained in it. The problem is that nowhere in the 22-page diversity draft plan is “cultural competency” defined. "I can imagine huge amounts of time that should be going to research and teaching being tied up with this sort of thing — and making life extremely...

A far-left social organization which this past summer hosted a forum on 'how to defeat the right wing' that referred to conservatism as 'legalized hate' and conservative Republicans, and especially Christian conservatives, as 'racist, sexist, homophobes' is in line this week to receive $97,000 in tax money from San Antonio taxpayers, 1200 WOAI news reported today. City Cultural Arts Director Felix Padron says the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center has applied for the money, and will receive it. "The Esperanza has given us already a menu of activities that will be supported by this $97,000," Padron said. The city does...

U.S. officials promote programs for Mexican immigrantsBY EDWIN GARCIAKnight Ridder Newspapers SAN JOSE, Calif. - (KRT) - U.S. government officials convened Monday in San Francisco to promote programs, services and benefits available to Mexican immigrants in this country, including those who are undocumented, under a binational effort aimed at protecting workers' rights and improving the health of families.The officials from the Department of Labor and Department of Agriculture spoke to dozens of representatives of Mexican consulates from throughout the Western United States in a daylong training seminar aimed at jointly promoting immigrant rights."We are interested in making sure that all...

Fri. 8pm / 11pm A "Factor" Investigation - How far will George Soros go to control the White House? Plus, are your tax dollars funding his campaign?

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is asking about 7,300 people whose homes were damaged by last season's four hurricanes to pay back money they shouldn't have received. The agency has begun mailing letters to residents in effort to recoup the overpayments, which make up about 1 percent of the more than 600,000 people who received aid from the federal agency after Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, FEMA federal coordinating officer Bill Carwile said Monday. "We're trying to do that difficult balance between quickly delivering aid to those who need it and being good stewards of taxpayers...

The city opens a $17 million shelter Monday amid controversy that funds would have been better spent on affordable housing. LOS ANGELES - The modernist concrete-and-steel structure rises in the shadow of gleaming downtown skyscrapers, looking like a new museum or corporate headquarters. Yet its identity is given away by where it stands: in the heart of a 55-square block area of aging single-room-occupancy hotels, where homeless men, women, and children crouch in cardboard boxes, push shopping carts, or lean in doorways. Opening Monday and trumpeted proudly by city officials is the Midnight Mission - and one of the nation's...