DES MOINES, Iowa — Rand Paul said Saturday that Republicans need to nominate a different kind of candidate to win the presidency.

“You guys have a strong force here but frankly the president won Iowa twice so we can’t do the same old same old,” the Kentucky senator told the Iowa Republican state convention here. “The definition of insanity is thinking the same thing will get you different results.”


Paul said he wants Republicans “to be the dominant party again,” and noted that he’s been spending time in African-American areas and on college campuses trying to broaden the base. He said talking about the drug war and his emphasis on privacy resonates.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...#ixzz34hLP7toz

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Two years after a 33-year-old mentally disabled man died at a state institution in Queens, and one year after his sister filed a lawsuit accusing the staff of killing him, New York officials have sent her an $11.67 million bill.

The claim against Rasheen Rose's estate cited his total Medicaid assistance from Aug. 6, 2002, through Aug. 6, 2012, the day he died.

A spokeswoman for the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, which runs the center, said Wednesday officials were following federal Medicaid obligations in seeking reimbursement.

"Not doing so would be a violation and could put federal Medicaid funding at risk," spokeswoman Jennifer O'Sullivan said.

Medicaid, a state and federal program for the poor, doesn't typically demand reimbursement.

But Ilann Maazel, an attorney who has filed lawsuits against the state after others died in state care, said other claim notices recently have been sent to families suing.

"This is something new we're seeing ... and it's problematic," he said Wednesday.


Full story: http://www.newser.com/article/5a7eb4...stitution.html

The inability to make certain the government is paying correct subsidies is a legacy of computer troubles that crippled last fall’s launch of HealthCare.gov and the initial months of the first sign-up period for insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Federal officials and contractors raced to correct most of the technical problems hindering consumers’ ability to choose a health plan. But behind the scenes, important aspects of the Web site remain defective — or simply unfinished.

White House officials recently have begun to focus on the magnitude of income discrepancies. Beyond their concerns regarding overpayments, members of the Obama administration are sensitive because they promised congressional Republicans during budget negotiations last year that a thorough income-verification system would be in place.

Under White House pressure, federal health officials and the contractor, Serco, are this weekend beginning to step up efforts at resolving a variety of inconsistencies that have appeared in applications, including income discrepancies....

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will face his primary challengers in a June debate, as reported by The State newspaper.

South Carolina Educational Television announced Thursday that Graham will participate in the event, set to take place at 7 p.m. on June 7.

Six Republicans are set to challenge Graham in his bid for re-election. It would be Graham’s third term in office.



Graham’s declared opponents are: Det Bowers, a Columbia pastor, Lee Bright, a state senator, Richard Cash, Bill Connor, Benjamin Dunn, and Nancy Mace.

More: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...ry-challengers

An 8-year-old Michigan boy with disabilities has been charged with two felonies following an incident where he allegedly assaulted an officer and damaged a police vehicle.

Police were called after Edward Hart ran away from the Hillside Learning and Behavior Center in Allegan and school officials were unable to bring him back.

“He’s ran away from the school before,” Hart’s stepfather, Robert Bluhm, told Fox 17. “And he’s made it to M- 40 before. But he’s never made it as far as he did this time.”

When Hart was apprehended, he “cursed at and assaulted the officer” and then “broke the police camera in the back of the car.”

In BOYERS, Pa. — The trucks full of paperwork come every day, turning off a country road north of Pittsburgh and descending through a gateway into the earth. Underground, they stop at a metal door decorated with an American flag.

Behind the door, a room opens up as big as a supermarket, full of five-drawer file cabinets and people in business casual. About 230 feet below the surface, there is easy-listening music playing at somebody’s desk.

This is one of the weirdest workplaces in the U.S. government — both for where it is and for what it does.

Here, inside the caverns of an old Pennsylvania limestone mine, there are 600 employees of the Office of Personnel Management. Their task is nothing top-secret. It is to process the retirement papers of the government’s own workers.

But that system has a spectacular flaw. It still must be done entirely by hand, and almost entirely on paper.

The employees here pass thousands of case files from cavern to cavern and then key in retirees’ personal data, one line at a time. They work underground not for secrecy but for space. The old mine’s tunnels have room for more than 28,000 file cabinets of paper records.

This odd place is an example of how hard it is to get a time-wasting bug out of a big bureaucratic system.

Keep reading here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/nat...f-bureaucracy/

In 2008, Indiana father Dan Brewington took to his blog to chronicle the difficulties surrounding his divorce proceedings. Frustrated by the lack of answers he received from the closed case file, he posted documents, along with his musings, online, and ended up serving time in prison as a result.

'The custody evaluator wasn't being consistent in his statements,' he told HuffPost Live host Nancy Redd. 'I started questioning it, raising it with the court. Nobody could provide me with a legitimate answer. So what I wound up doing was making a website and a blog. And I put the information on the internet.'


But it was Brewington's criticism of the judge in his case that ended up landing him in prison.

Attention residents of Colorado, attention residents of Colorado: if you want to recklessly rush into marriage with someone, now’s the time to do it. As KDVR Fox 31 Denver News is reporting, there is currently a push to get an initiative on this coming November’s ballot that would, “require people who want to get married to take pre-wedding marriage classes.”

The Denver Posts reports that the main group behind this is the California-based, Kids Against Divorce (KAD). KAD’s “vision” is to “prevent tomorrow’s victims of divorce by raising awareness on the overall issue including the devastating effects of it, by educating people to be better equipped going into marriage, and by honoring those fully committed to their marriage and therefore providing a stable family foundation for their children.”

How would it work? KDVR writes that “it would require 10 hours of classes if it’s your first marriage. Twenty hours would be required for second marriages and 30 hours for third marriages.” The Denver Post notes that it would be overseen by the Colorado State Board of Marriage and Family Therapist Examiners. After fulfilling the hour requirement, the couple would be issued a “marriage course completion certificate.” They’d also be on the hook to pay for the counseling. Civil unions would not be under the same requirements.

State Senator Pat Steadman (D) doesn’t seem to be a fan of the idea. He told KDVR, “I think it’s putting government in the wrong role, in terms of being involved in people’s personal lives.” Margie Rodgers, who actually did go through premarital counseling through her church, told the Denver Post, “"I don't think it is necessary to mandate in my private life.”

More info: The Denver Post, KDVR

High School and College Seminar

April 11 -- Auburn, Alabama

Attendance is open to homeschool, public, or private high school students and their chaperones or teachers, and college students. Through the generosity of one of our donors this seminar is free to everyone. To attend the live sessions, at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, fill out the registration form at the bottom of this page. In addition, all of the sessions will be broadcast live and can be viewed either from the homepage of Mises.org or through the Mises Academy. on the day of the event. Special thanks to an anonymous donor for making this event possible.

U.S. helicopters descended upon Guam on Sunday with cargo meant to kill, although this $8 million mission was unlike most others — 2,000 mice on cardboard parachutes were released into the forest surrounding Andersen Air Force Base as bait for brown tree snakes.

In the 1950s, it was thought that the snakes inadvertently made their way to the South Pacific island through cargo shipments. Today, the snakes cover the island and are responsible for millions of dollars worth of damage to electrical equipment at Andersen Air Force Base, CNBC reported. In 2005, the reptiles caused failures at 80 electrical substations, according to the Interior Department.

Guam’s population of brown tree snakes hovers around 2 million, with a density of 13,000 per square mile in some areas, CNBC said. However, the snakes are sensitive to Tylenol — 80 milligrams of acetaminophen can kill them. That’s where the mice come in.

The 2,000 rodents that were parachuted into the canopy were all pumped with the painkiller; when the snakes take a big enough bite, they die. Data-transmitting radios embedded within the mice help scientists gauge how well their program is working.

“Every time there is a technique that is tested and shows promise, we jump on that bandwagon and promote it and help out and facilitate its implementation,” Tino Aguon, acting chief of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s wildlife resources office for Guam, told a local television station, CNBC reported.