Free Republic

[T]oday let's focus on the damage the [Senate health care] bill would do to consumer-driven health plans—the kind that give individuals more control over their health dollars and insurance choices. The 2,074-page bill crushes them with malice-aforethought. ... Start with its attack on flexible spending accounts that are an important part of many employer plans. Flex accounts let employees set aside some portion of their pre-tax pay for out-of-pocket costs or medical services that their insurance plan doesn't cover, such as a child's orthodontics or testing supplies for diabetics. The Reid bill caps these now-unlimited accounts at $2,500 per year...

Read the full billRead the tax revenue score from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) Read the budget and tax score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) PDF of this DocumentIndividual Mandate Tax (Page 324/Sec. 1501/$8 bil): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the following schedule (capped at 8 percent of income): ==============> Check out this important piece, at ATR.org...

Some pro-life Catholics reacted with shock to the news that the Vatican warmly greeted the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama, who is pro-abortion. They don't seem to understand that the Vatican and Obama agree on most major international issues. This is the untold story-how Obama and the Vatican accept major ingredients of what has been called a New World Order. Another untold story is how, despite a disagreement over abortion, the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Obama Administration agree on major aspects of so-called health care reform. These topics are mostly taboo in the liberal and...

ACORN and its affiliates received $200,000 in Justice Department grants between 2002 and 2009, according a report issued today by the department's Inspector General. No DOJ grants went directly to ACORN, but a handful of grants were awarded either to ACORN affiliates or to other organizations that sub-contracted with ACORN. The report, requested by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), also found a few instances of ACORN mismanagement of federally contracted work. For example, ACORN received a $20,000 sub-contract to do community outreach on crime prevention in New York. The organization that contracted with ACORN has not...

The National Football League has become an arm of the Obama administration with its partnership with Obama's "United We Serve" program.A video posted by the Obama administration to YouTube this week that is planned to air during broadcasts of the NFL's Thanksgiving Day games shows Barack Obama playing football on the White House lawn.The one-minute-thirty-second propaganda video is entitled, President Obama, United We Serve, and the NFL Team Up for Fitness and Service and is described by the administration on the site:In support of his United We Serve initiative, President Obama and NFL stars Drew Brees, DeMarcus Ware, and Troy...

Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman have been working overtime to craft a climate bill that can attract significant GOP support. But they aren’t exactly scoring points with their mutual best friend in the Senate, John McCain. “Their start has been horrendous,” McCain said Thursday. “Obviously, they’re going nowhere.” McCain has emerged as a vocal opponent of the climate bill — a major reversal for the self-proclaimed maverick who once made defying his party on global warming a signature issue of his career. (snip) Former aides are mystified by what they see as a retreat on the issue, given McCain’s...

The Senate voted 59 to 39 to confirm Judge David F. Hamilton to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Judge Hamilton, who sits on the Federal District Court in Indiana, was President Obama’s first judicial nominee. Republicans opposed the nomination, announced March 19, because of decisions Judge Hamilton made relating to abortion and prayers in the Indiana Legislature. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana was the only Republican to vote for his confirmation.

President Obama was in the Sunshine State today to announce a $3.4 billion federal investment in a so-called Smart Grid, which amounts to a complete overhaul of the country's energy transmission system. (VIDEO AT LINK) The president chose the town of Arcadia, Fla., to make the announcement because it is home to the country's largest solar power production facility, which was one of the 100 projects awarded federal stimulus money through the Smart Grid grants. Standing before a giant field, lined with close to 100,000 solar panels, President Obama addressed a small crowd of invited guests. "We're on the cusp...

Senate Confirms David Hamilton, Obama's First Pro-Abortion Judicial Pick Washington, DC -- The Senate voted today 59-39 to confirm a pro-abortion federal judge President Barack Obama appointed to become a new appeals court justice. David Hamilton, of Indiana, is the first pro-abortion judge Obama selected, but he was held up for months because of his extreme views. Story, votes and action alert at http://www.lifenews.com/nat5689.htm

Reform: Only a Bernie Madoff could believe the Senate's health care bill will extend coverage to 31 million Americans while cutting deficits by $127 billion over 10 years. It would be the first profitable entitlement. But that's what Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, tells us the 2,074-page bill — said to cost only $849 billion over a decade — would do. Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he seems to be following Vice President Joe Biden's admonition at an AARP town hall meeting that "we've got to spend money to keep from going bankrupt." We suspect Reid's...

Army officials plan to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg on Monday, saying they fear the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama. Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum told The Associated Press on Thursday that Army officials had decided to keep media away from Palin's book promotion at the North Carolina base. SNIP McCollum said the Army did not want the event to become a platform for Palin supporters to express political opinions "directed against the commander in chief."

The Senate is headed for a rare Saturday vote to advance its major healthcare reform bill without a guarantee of success, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated Thursday. At a rally with supporters of the healthcare reform bill, Reid would not say he had secured commitments from all 60 members of the Democratic Conference to vote for the legislation — an absolute necessity given unanimous opposition from the 40 Senate Republicans. "We'll find out when the votes are taken," Reid said. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), one of three Democratic holdouts, said Thursday that he would announce his intentions prior to...

This girl is probably around 15 years old, and MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell starts hammering her on Sarah Palin supporting the bailout...This is a sight to behold..(Video)...

Ever heard of "Doctors Without Pay?" Believe it or not, the liberal democrat politicians in the House and the Senate have forgotten about paying doctors in their health care takeover plans. By forgetting about paying doctors, these politicized health plans pretend to cost slightly less than a trillion dollars. And then you remember they've forgotten to pay the doctors!!! Do they really expect doctors to work for nothing? I've heard of lawyers doing an occasional pro bono case, and doctors might do the same on occasion. But, can you imagine case after case after case without pay? That isn't likely...

He may have promised to change Washington, but President Barack Obama is continuing one of its most renowned patronage traditions: bestowing prized ambassadorships on big donors. Of the nearly 80 ambassadorship nominations or confirmations since Obama’s Inauguration, 56 percent were given to political appointees and 44 percent have gone to career diplomats, according to records kept by the American Foreign Service Association. The latest nomination came this week, when Beatrice Wilkinson Welters was nominated to serve as ambassador to the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. Welters, a longtime advocate for underprivileged children, and her husband, Anthony,...

WASHINGTON – More than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted, much of it on questionable claims for tax credits and Medicare benefits, representing an increase of $26 billion from the previous year. In all, about 5 percent of spending in federal programs in fiscal year 2009 was improper, according to new details of a government financial report that were released Tuesday. Saying the overall error rate was similar in 2008, officials attributed the $26 billion jump to some changes in how to define improper spending as well as an increase in overall spending due to...

Supporters of President Obama's Amnesty plans attacked Tea Party Against Amnesty & Illegal Immigration demonstrators in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Sat. November 14, 2009. One of the men attacked is 62 years old. Dave Caulkett of FLIMEN (Floridians for Immigration Enforcement) is assaulted and then kicked in the face while he is down. The other camera man from the Tea Party is hit with several signs. Those attacking the Americans that oppose Amnesty for illegal aliens were organized by ANSWER Florida.

Federal agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and local police today seized wood, guitars, computers and boxes of files from Gibson Guitar's Massman Road manufacturing facility. Sources say the Nashville-based guitar manufacturer is being investigated for violating the Lacey Act, a key piece of environmental law, for importing endangered species of rosewood from Madagascar. Rosewood is widely used in the construction of guitars and sells for $5,000 per cubic meter, more than double the price of mahogany. The island nation off Africa's east coast is a key producer of the hardwood, the export of which has links to...

the White House made up its mind about this six months ago--that would be in May, roughly four months after President Obama's inauguration....why did it wait until last week to make the announcement? That it was the week after an election is bound to raise suspicions that the timing was politically motivated.

Left-wing media matters Cliff Kincaid, November 17, 2009 A professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Robert W. McChesney has said that “media reform” should be part of the march toward socialism in America and that capitalism has to be dismantled “brick by brick.” Van Jones, the ousted communist “Green Jobs Czar” of the Obama Administration, served with McChesney on the board of Free Press, a George Soros-funded organization, in 2007 and 2008. Despite its socialist orientation, Free Press is financially supported by extremely wealthy individuals such as George Soros, the leftist billionaire, and Marcy Carsey, one of the creators...

17-year-old Kevin Anderson wanted to add another Eagle Scout badge to his well-earned collection and so spent some 200 hours over several weeks to clear a walking path along the river in east Allentown park in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Little did young Mr. Anderson know it but he was about to prove once again that unions have a pernicious influence on governments everywhere. After Kevin's good deed the city's public employees union went gunning for the poor kid with threats and gyrations meant to shake down the city and scare off any citizen that might dare to imagine that they could...

Officials: Anita Dunn may be leaving with her little red book, but her husband enters as the next White House counsel, bringing experience in suppressing dissent, assaulting the First Amendment and limiting speech. Dunn, whose favorite philosophers include mass murderer Mao Zedong, was expected to leave after a short stint. She rose to fame as chief strategist for former Senate majority leader, now national health care guru, Tom Daschle. While serving as White House communications director, she was the commanding general of the administration "war" on Fox News. Like her philosophical mentor, Mao, and her colleague, FCC diversity czar Mark...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans in Congress are working together to craft an immigration reform bill that could become law as early as next year, a senior White House adviser said on Sunday. That legislation could create a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, David Axelrod, senior advisory to President Barak Obama, told CNN's State of the Union with John King. "I think some good work is being done on both sides of the aisle to achieve that," Axelrod said, referring to the partisan divide on Capitol Hill.

Buried in this Friday story on Obama's future plans is a curious statement, attributed to White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, which didn't get nearly enough attention: Orszag has said the spending blueprint, for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, 2010, would put the nation "back on a fiscally sustainable path" and suggested it would include a mix of spending cuts and new revenue-producing measures. "New revenue-producing measures." In other words, more tax increases -- increases beyond the dozen or so that are already planned in the health care reform package. President Obama's advisors understand that they have to...

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the website set up by the Obama Administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says. There's one problem, though: There is no 9th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight Congressional Districts. There's no 86th Congressional District in Arizona either, but the government's recovery.gov Web site says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent there.

Thankfully non-Muslims of the world are slowly waking up to the threat that Islam brings to freedom loving nations. While most of the readers of this site are obviously happy with this, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is not. They are now pushing forward in attempt to try and make it against international law to criticize Islam. As they know that if we cannot name our enemy, we cannot defeat it. In the past the OIC was able to get the United Nations to ban all criticism of Islam in regards to human rights. Will they be able...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - An energy advocacy group is launching another television ad in South Carolina taking aim at Sen. Lindsey Graham for his support of energy legislation that would include a cap-and-trade program. The 30-second spot is the latest salvo in an ongoing campaign against the Republican by the American Energy Alliance, a group funded in part by oil and gas companies that has spent roughly $375,000 over the last month knocking Graham on South Carolina's radio and TV airwaves. The newest ad comes one week after Graham was censured by the Charleston County Republican Party for supporting the legislation,...

Planned Parenthood Sets December 2 Pro-Abortion Funding Lobbying Day Washington, DC -- Top pro-abortion groups are planning a national lobbying day for December 2nd that will see thousands of angry abortion activists filling the halls of the House and Senate asking lawmakers to force Americans to pay for abortions under the government-run health care bills. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5658.html

Obama's senior advisor said today that a plan to grant citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is in the works and could be made law as early as next year. On CNN's "State of the Union" with John King, the White House's David Axelrod dodged a question asking him to commit to pushing immigration reform regardless of the political climate, but nonetheless confirmed earlier hints by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano that Democrats and Republicans are working behind the scenes to pass major new legislation. "I think some good work is being done on both sides...

One hundred of the worst terrorists in the world are coming to Barack Obama's two favorite states, Illinois and Iowa. Obama is from Illinois. His victory in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses provided Obama the springboard to the Presidency. How will he reward those states?

Obama Proposes Federal Takeover Of Mass Transit White House Hopes For Federal Oversight Of Safety Regulations On All Local Subways, Light Rails In US Reporting Hazel Sanchez Who should run mass transportation? If the White House has its way, New York and other subway systems nationwide could be in for a federal safety takeover. It comes as a surprise to many straphangers. Unlike airplanes and highways, the nation's subways systems operate with no federal oversight. "That makes me uncomfortable to hear that," subway rider Rhonda Jordan said. "I do take the subway quite often." One City College transportation expert says...

Don't Fool Yourself: America Is Now A Communist Nation Politics / US Politics Nov 12, 2009 - 01:39 AM By: DailyWealth At last year's Alliance Conference, I urged folks to buy stocks – vehemently... It was the most bullish I've been in my entire life. But now I feel the opposite way. When the facts change, I change my mind. I never thought we'd see the government running $2 trillion deficits, taking over health care, owning all the banks... The stock market seems to believe the government can solve all of our problems with paper money and bureaucratic mandates. My...

The tactics of the Left are predictable and to date, they win the battle of the media more often than common sense. Recently, offering up Ms. Pregean as a target has provided the Left with no end of lively entertainment. It sounds a little like this; Ms. Prejean has publicly said “no” to homosexual marriage yet there seems to be pictures and film, from her past, that makes her a hypocrite. Conservatives either bow their head as though they lost another round or ignore the “tempest in a teapot” as it offers little interest to them. Isn’t everyone a little...

Holder vows Gitmo defendants will not be released in the U.S. By Susan Crabtree - 11/13/09 04:31 PM ET Attorney General Eric Holder has pledged not to allow the release of dangerous detainees in the United States if they are found not guilty in federal court or if their case is thrown out on a technicality. Holder made the assurances in a written response to a question posed by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) obtained by The Hill. The 55-page document provided answers to questions from several senators on the Judiciary Committee in advance of a Wednesday oversight hearing on Justice...

President Obama was in Japan Friday as Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the self-proclaimed architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will stand trial in a federal civilian courtroom down the street from the site where the World Trade Center's twin towers once stood. The Obama administration's decision to prosecute five Sept. 11 terror suspects in New York rather than in a military tribunal has sparked furor among those who say the White House is wearing blinders when it comes to the ongoing War on Terror. "America is still at...

 Obama's Forty Second Week in OfficeLatest Additions to "The List""The List" for 11/13/2009 Fort Hood murderer, Nidal Hasan listed on page 29 of Janet Napoitano's Homeland Security Policy Institute's presidental task force report.  4 days late, the Obama administration releases photo of Obama-Netanyahu meetingThe United States does not accept continued Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, a senior U.S. state department official has said, adding that Jerusalem's commitment to restrain settlement activity is not enough. In an address to the Middle East Institute, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William J. Burns on Tuesday said that the Obama...

On the Friday edition of Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan featured fake photos of Sarah Palin during a mocking segment on why Americans are fascinated with the former vice presidential candidate. While listing the show’s top ten reasons, Ratigan showed a doctored photo of Palin’s head on the bikini-clad body of a woman holding a weapon.

Holder's Hidden Agenda, cont'd . . . Andy McCarthy-November 13, 2009 This summer, I theorized that Attorney General Eric Holder -- and his boss -- had a hidden agenda in ordering a re-investigation of the CIA for six-year-old alleged interrogation excesses that had already been scrutinized by non-partisan DOJ prosecutors who had found no basis for prosecution. The continuing investigations of Bush-era counterterrorism policies (i.e., the policies that kept us safe from more domestic terror attacks), coupled with the Holder Justice Department's obsession to disclose classified national-defense information from that period, enable Holder to give the hard Left the "reckoning"...

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in legislation to overhaul the immigration system that it will begin to push early next year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday. In an address at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano sought to dispel any notion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — might postpone the most contentious piece of an immigration overhaul until after midterm elections next November. Laying out the administration’s...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law Oct. 28. It expands the 1969 hate-crimes law to include crimes against people committed because of gender, sexual orientation or disability. The president said the law would “help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray.”Religious leaders, in particular, objected to the bill’s original language because they worried that it would not protect First Amendment rights and religious freedom. Some felt that the law might restrict clergy and others’ ability to speak out on issues of morality, such...

In the Washington Examiner Mark Tapscott is decrying the Obama Administration's bold new directive to rid government of anyone that was hired during the Bush years so that Obama can replace them with his loyal operatives.Tapscott is saying that this violates the spirit of civil service and brings back the spoils system instituting a "partisan political factor" to civil service jobs. Well I say it's about time. Unlike Tapscott, I say bring back the spoils system and do away with the professional civil servant. Let Obama fire every Bush appointee and put in his place political hacks, buddies, and friends....

EC goes inside the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit and the proposed treaty, with the help of legal analysis by John Charlton. The more you dig into this proposed document and its implications on our economy, our culture, and our sovereignty, the more you realize that the grand scheme is to bring the United States, and our prosperity, under the thumb of an autocratic, tyrannical, world government.

The NEA’s (National Education Association’s, a.k.a. Nefarious Elitist A****’) recommended reading list includes two books by Brother O mentor and communist community organizer Saul Alinsky that advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. The Democrat-controlled teachers’ union praises Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals as “an inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!” The following book quotations are from the NEA website: “The Radical does not sit frozen by cold objectivity. He sees injustice and strikes at it with hot passion. He is a man of decision and action. “Society has good...

Geert Wilders, Controversial MP The Netherlands (a country with extremely liberal policies towards Muslims) warns Americans of the draconian effects of attempting to pacify Islamists. Geert Wilders reveals 10 step plan of eliminating Islamic extremism from western culture.

Last April, The Heritage Foundation released a WebMemo titled "The Dirty Dozen: 12 New Policies That Undermine Civil Society."[1] Seven months later, many of these policies being advocated by Congress and the President have moved closer to becoming law. In addition, several new issues have emerged that deserve illumination. Taken as a whole, these policies serve to undermine traditional families, devalue life and human dignity, and weaken civil society in American life. National PolicyMassive Expansion of the Welfare State. Within his first two years in office, President Obama will have increased spending on means-tested programs for the poor by 30...

Given the recent announcement that the government's measure of unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, and given that the official House version of Obama's healthcare plan, HR 3962, has now passed, a close examination of the effects of "Obamacare" on the labor market is important. It will be no surprise to readers of this site to learn that the Democrats' bill will seriously harm precisely those poor and uninsured citizens it is ostensibly designed to help. The harm will come by compounding mass unemployment and depriving these citizens of consumption choices. Obamacare as Labor Tax According to pages 269–273 of the...

Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a "climate emergency." As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the "trigger" placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee. As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points...

Via Instapundit comes word that the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) intends to purge the federal government of Republican civil servants all in the name of purify the federal bureaucracy.

Obama's First Six Months accomplishments: I am so sorry for those of you who may be disappointed in the performance of the man you thought was going to make things better---or perhaps you think things are better. I believe the changes we now have are for real, with more to come -- sort of like ignoring a yellow jacket wasp in your underwear. Should any of you feel offended, that is regrettable ---as is the decline of our nation. Obama's First Six Months' Accomplishments: 1. Offended the Queen of England . 2. Bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia ....

In surveying the cultural carnage in the wake of the worst terrorist attack on a military installation in US history, it bears noting that there have been seismic shifts in America. When America was free of the shackles of Islam, say, fifty years ago, the current response to such an attack by an enemy faction would have been unthinkable. I have watched in abject horror the stunning reaction of elites in this country to this act of war. The denial, the submission, the excuses, the dodging, the self-flagellation, the shame, the deceiving of the American people by the media, the...