Free Republic

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job. Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions,and one person to do time studies. Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and...

(CNSNews.com) – The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction told lawmakers on Wednesday that his office has issued 11 reports and 600 audits since its creation in 2008, but that despite “all of the reports we’ve done, no one in the government has been held accountable.” “I always joke that the only person who’s ever going to get fired over Afghanistan is probably going to be me,” John Sopko told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that deals with international development. “Nobody else,” he said. “Not the generals who came up [to the Hill] and spun and spun and spun, and...

There is currently a lot of attention being paid to new Democrat-proposed gun control laws, particularly House Bill 127, which would require national registration and licensing of all firearms, would ban broad categories of semi-automatic weapons, ban most ammunition magazines, and so on. One of the most frequent replies to these proposed laws is that there are not enough local or federal SWAT Team door-kickers to go house to house on gun confiscation raids, and if they tried, they would 1. soon run out of door-kickers and 2. instigate Civil War Two. But in the modern digital era, I...

A Long Island Rail Road worker who raked in more than $280,000 in pay last year — more than half from overtime — was busted hanging out at home while on the clock, according to a report obtained by The Post. But he was allowed to retire before he could be punished — and collect his full pension on the public dime. Raymond Murphy, a foreman with the LIRR’s Buildings and Bridges department who’d been at the agency since 1996, was caught by the MTA’s Inspector General at or near his home on 10 occasions when he was on duty...

How do you get the liberals at the New York Times to embrace America’s internal surveillance agencies? Get President Trump and Republicans to criticize them. Saturday’s off-lead story by Adam Goldman and Maggie Haberman, “Hurdle Facing F.B.I. Chief? The President – Politics hard to Avoid as Trump Weighs In.” The Republicans in Congress are hurting morale at FBI, an agency the Times suddenly adores. The jump-page headline: “F.B.I. Director Wants To Move Agency Ahead, But Trump is in the Way.” The text box: “Constant criticisms have damaged morale at the bureau.”That’s pretty bold, since it’s pretty much the paper’s raison...

On January 26, 2006, former Vice President, current climate alarmist and centimillionaire Al Gore told the Associated Press's David Germain that "unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return." . Tuesday, as DC and much of the Northeast finishes digging out from a serious and possibly historic weekend snowstorm, will be the tenth anniversary of Gore's "planetary emergency" warning. The "global warming" true believers in the establishment press will never hold Gore accountable for his nonsense, which is why going to alternative sources such as...

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a one-paragraph order in Little Sisters of the Poor et al v. Sebeluis et al. It told the Sisters that for the case to continue with no enforcement of the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate, they need only to inform the government in writing "that they are non-profit organizations that hold themselves out as religious and have religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services." That's easy, because that's what they are, and that's their position. As a result, the government has been "enjoined from enforcing against the applicants the challenged provisions of the...

Maybe the folks running the HealthCare.gov call centers don't have an enemies list. Instead, based on the experience of Fox News's Jim Angle, it might be an enemies directory, with anyone they're aware of in the media and perhaps other organizations included therein. That's what one almost has to think based on the experience Angle relayed via Twitter Friday (HT Twitchy; individual Angle tweets are here, here, and here): The body of Angle's report was also important, because it showed how another aspect of President Obama's core promise to the Americans people — this time, it was "If you like...

As hard as the establishment press has worked over the years to make certain politicians appear to be somehow out of touch with the situation of average Americans, you might think that two legislative leaders complaining about cuts in their Congressional offices' allowance might be news. One whined that her aides, some of whom "earn" in excess of $100,000 per year, are being "priced out" of a good lunch on Capitol Hill. Don't be silly. The press only cares about making Republicans and conservatives appear out of touch. The complainers in question are Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also...

According to the first paragraph of Alicia's Caldwell's report today at the Associated Press, aka the Adminstration's Press, Homeland Security Secretary Janey Napolitano told attendees at a Politico breakfast this morning (Politico's coverage is here) that, in Caldwell's words, "U.S. airports, including Los Angeles International and O'Hare International in Chicago, are already experiencing delays as a result of automatic federal spending cuts." Additionally, again in Caldwell's words, "she expects a cascading effect during the week, with wait times expected to double in worst cases." Well, either someone forgot to tell airport spokesperson and the travel industry to fall in line,...

First of all, Lance Armstrong is a good man. There’s nothing that I can learn about him short of murder that would alter my opinion on that. Second, I don’t know if he’s telling the truth when he insists he didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs in the Tour de France — never have known. I do know that he beat cancer fair and square, that he’s not the mastermind criminal the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency makes him out to be, and that the process of stripping him of his titles reeks. A federal judge wrote last week, “USADA’s conduct raises serious questions...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to add the Internet to its portfolio of regulated industries. The agency's chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced Wednesday that he circulated draft rules he says will "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." No statement could better reflect the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of Obama administration policies. With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the "freedom" of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web. Ordinarily, it would be appropriate at this point to supply an...

Washington insiders expose own agencies From EPA to Park Service, whistleblowers raise policy questions in a tense election year. By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor As the election approaches, insiders and former insiders at government agencies are raising issues, revealing data, and making charges that are creating pointed disputes about the Bush administration at a crucial time in the election campaign. Some observers believe the closeness of the presidential race may be a factor prompting the disgruntled to speak out on a wide variety of issues from environmental regulations to homeland security to civil rights....