Free Republic

A new analysis by a leading MIT economist provides new ammunition for Democrats as the Senate begins formally debating the historic health-reform bill being pushed by President Barack Obama. The report concludes that under the Senate’s health-reform bill, Americans buying individual coverage will pay less than they do for today's typical individual market coverage, and would be protected from high out-of-pocket costs. So Democrats will argue that under the Senate bill, Americans would pay less for more.

Central Asia faces a broad range of security challenges. Due to the region’s position at the crossroads between Russia, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea it is confronted with a range of trans-national issues such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, organised crime and terrorism. Central Asia also encounters specific regional threats including scarcity of water resources for generating power and irrigation purposes, which is currently causing tension. On a national level the five Central Asian republics face the threat of instability due to bad governance and the harsh impact of the economic crisis.

For NATO combat troops, Iraq and Afghanistan differ in several important ways. For one thing, nearly all the fighting is out in the countryside. In Iraq, most of the combat was in urban areas. Moreover, Afghanistan has many very different rural environments. There are heavily populated (by farmers living in villages or clan compounds) river valleys, deserts (often not far from the river valleys), and mountains (both barren and forested.) Some of the mountains are very high, but most are similar to the American Rockies. The other big difference is that the Pushtun tribesmen, that comprise most of the Taliban,...

The Democrats did not lose a 2-1 squeaker last night. They lost two huge races, saw an overall evaporation of 25 basis points of support -- and lost by nearly 500,000 cumulative votes in the three high-profile elections. Or put another way, Republicans won two races decided by millions of voters -- and Democrats won a small race dominated by party operatives. In addition, the GOP made some historic gains in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington state special elections to boot. In the context of Bob McDonnell's huge win in Virginia and Chris Christie's surprisingly comfortable win in New Jersey, of...

What Is It? Macroeconomics is the study of the behavior of the economy as a whole. Macroeconomic analysis broadly focuses on three things: national output (measured by gross domestic product (GDP)), unemployment and inflation. (For background reading, see The Importance Of Inflation And GDP.) National Output: GDP Output, the most important concept of macroeconomics, refers to the total amount of goods and services a country produces, commonly known as the gross domestic product. The figure is like a snapshot of the economy at a certain point in time. When referring to GDP, macroeconomists tend to use real GDP, which takes...

WASHINGTON – Vitriol and invective stain American political history, but falsehoods, half-truths and innuendo now spread with the speed of light across partisan airwaves and the Internet — the din drowning out the country's moderate political center. Countless Internet blogs have taken on the administration of the first African-American president, claiming — falsely — that Barack Obama isn't an American citizen, is a secret Muslim, is a socialist, wants to establish death panels to decide when elderly Americans would no longer receive medical care and be allowed to die. The list is long. Most recently, a partisan furor blew up...

Team Sarah is a diverse coalition of Americans dedicated to advancing the values that Sarah Palin represents in the political process. The Team is setting up a process whereby people volunteer to review specific pages of health care bills and provide anaylsis of the implication of the language in those pages in real time. The review team and process is being set up so that any bill presented can be analyzed by Team Sarah reviewers in its entirety in a matter of a couple hours! End Stalinism Now! Step up!

NEW YORK — The New York Police Department revised a highly touted report on the threat of homegrown terrorism in response to complaints that it was an insult to law-abiding, observant Muslims. A coalition of Muslim groups on Wednesday applauded the two-page clarification tucked into "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat" — a study first circulated in law enforcement circles and on the Internet in 2007. The new wording says the NYPD "understands that it is a tiny minority of Muslims who subscribe to al-Qaida's ideology of war and terror." The clarification also calls the city's Muslim community "our...

. . . Much of the admiring conservative literature about Reagan, like that written by liberals, also focuses chiefly and too narrowly on the Cold War story. . . . The difficulties Reagan had controlling spending and the growth of government were not lost on conservatives during and immediately after his presidency. The case for disappointment, verging at times on betrayal, was made often while Reagan was in office. For example, the Winter 1984 issue of Policy Review contained a symposium called “What Conservatives Think of Reagan.” .Terry Dolan, head of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, complained: “There has...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former President Clinton Visits CIA July 27, 2009 Former President Bill Clinton visited the Central Intelligence Agency today to thank the men and women of CIA for their essential work in protecting the United States from foreign threats. Welcoming the former President back to CIA, Director Leon E. Panetta said: “President Clinton understood very well the role of intelligence and its vital importance in the post-Cold War era. He relied on this Agency for information and insight, as he and his team confronted an array of foreign challenges.” In remarks to hundreds of...

Politico: “Stimulus tour” “52 of the 66 events were in states that backed Obama.” The other 14 events were in states that Obama lost only narrowly. A new study released by USA Today also finds that counties that voted for Obama received about twice as much stimulus money per capita as those that voted for McCain. "The stimulus bill is designed to help those who have been hurt by the economic downturn.... Do you see disparity out there in where the money is going? Certainly," a Democratic congressional staffer knowledgeable about the process told FOXNews.com. "The people to talk to...

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her resignation two weeks ago it was after a series of strange, petty bouts with her detractors. Many "frivolous ethics violations" had been alleged against her, she noted. David Letterman had told an ugly joke about her daughter. A blogger had posted something that was probably not true. Someone had photoshopped a radio talker's face onto a picture of her baby -- a "malicious desecration" of the image, in the words of Ms. Palin's spokeswoman. Team Palin got duly indignant at each of these. They took special, detailed offense. They issued statements magnifying their...

WASHINGTON – Congress has taken its first step toward an energy revolution, with the prospect of profound change for every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead. It was late Friday when the House passed legislation that would, for the first time, require limits on pollution blamed for global warming — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Now the Senate has the chance to change the way Americans produce and use energy. What would the country look like a decade from now if the House-passed bill — or, more likely, a water-down version — were to become...

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan says it is close to beating the Taliban in the Swat Valley, but battlefield success alone does not equal victory: Militant commanders are still on the run, local governments and police forces have been decimated and millions of residents are displaced from their homes. Even if Pakistan succeeds in eliminating insurgents in one of its most intense operations yet, the northwestern valley is just one of several militant strongholds in the U.S.-allied country — and not even the most important. Already, fighting is flaring in the semiautonomous tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where al-Qaida and the Taliban are...

WASHINGTON – On both economic and national-security fronts, President Barack Obama is giving ground and crossing swords with political allies. Caught in the worst economic downturn in generations, Obama has had to temper his stance on trade and lower his expectations for trimming charitable tax breaks for the wealthy and for taxing greenhouse-gas polluters. He's not the first president to be pulled toward the political center after being elected. But the recession and two wars abroad put him in a particularly tough spot — with smaller margins for error. With the deficit mushrooming, lawmakers in both parties are worrying more...

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama warned Democrats in Congress against making a partisan cause out of the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ignoring him — loudly — and the party,.. So far, it's Pelosi who's suffered the greatest harm. It may never be resolved exactly when she first learned that waterboarding had been used against terror suspects .. But the Democrats' claim to the moral high ground on the issue has been blemished by her explanation this week that in early 2003 she shifted her attention to winning political control of the House and didn't wage...

WASHINGTON – The fuse that could ignite an explosion of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is burning so fast that the Obama administration is scrambling to keep pace. As Pakistan's army finally opened a belated offensive against the advance of extremist Taliban fighters, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his key security ministers huddled Wednesday with their Afghan and U.S. counterparts in all-day meetings in Washington. Afghan President Hamid Karzai started the day on a solemn note, acknowledging Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's expressions of regret for the deaths of dozens of Afghan civilians killed during Monday's battle...

For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned. One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah,...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama went for the defining television shot in Iraq and got it — pictures of hundreds of U.S. troops cheering wildly as he told them it was time for the Iraqis to take charge of their own future. The war zone photo opportunity produced a stunning show of appreciation for Obama from military men and women who have made great sacrifices, many serving repeated tours in a highly unpopular war. And the televised outpouring of affection likely will prove critical to the credibility of a new and liberal commander in chief as he tries to sell...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's startling call Friday for a "world without nuclear weapons" brings to mind Ronald Reagan's idealistic, unfulfilled dream of eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation. ... Few experts think it's possible to completely eradicate nuclear weapons, and many say it wouldn't be a good idea even if it could be done... "This idea of a nuclear weapons-free world isn't sort of pie in the sky," said Peter Crail, a nonproliferation analyst at the private Arms Control Association...

WASHINGTON – Capitalism can't always be trusted. If you're too big to fail, you're too big to make all your own decisions, according to the emerging view in Washington. Three decades after Ronald Reagan launched a determined campaign to ease government regulations on business, the pendulum is swinging the other way. "Too big to fail is the right size to regulate," declares Rep. Al Green, D-Texas. Riding a wave of public anger over Wall Street greed and government bailouts, the Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a far-reaching plan for "better, tougher, smarter" rules over big financial companies. The plan would...

Today, the U.S. Government is completely BROKE and we have current spending plans that will double total U.S. debt in 5 years and triple it in 10 years. Does this make sense? Obama's proposed spending on a Global Warming Cap & Trade system + federal government managed Universal Healthcare + Dept. of Education run Universal Pre-k to College Entitlement for all will cost more than 7 TRILLION dollars and all three of these federal spending categories are brand new budget items, having nothing to do with mortgage defaults, Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae fraud, AIG, Credit Default Swaps, Karl Rove, George W....

WASHINGTON – For the first time since last fall's election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG. Republicans, struggling to regain their political footing, are content to let Democrats try to dig their way out of this mess on their own. Professing shock at the bonus payments, Democrats have embarked on a hurry-up effort to impose what amounts to confiscatory taxes on the bonuses, .. ... But the mood is less charitable among congressional Democrats.

The Obama-Netanyahu question: Can they get along? Clarifying the complicated situation is Israeli political expert Keith Davies, who joins us tonight at 9 ET to help us sort it out. Link to listen. Keith puts the Israeli elections in perspective and what the likely impact of the new coalition government will have on the United States, the Middle East, terrorism and in particular the currently volatile relations with Iran. The Jerusalem Post reports that how a government led by Binyamin Netanyahu would get along with the Obama was one of the many issues on the minds of attendees at the...

WASHINGTON – In sheer size, the economic measures announced by President Barack Obama to address "a crisis unlike we've ever known" are remarkable, rivaling and in many cases dwarfing the New Deal programs that Franklin D. Roosevelt famously created to battle the Great Depression. Winning approval was a political tour-de-force for the new administration. Yet gloom and uncertainty persist about the plan's ability to deliver a cure for the economy's severe ailments. Stocks plunged to six-year lows after the burst of bill signings, bailout announcements and presidential pledges.

I am 3-0 against the pointspread in my short time picking spreads here at Publius' Pub Sports Bar, having absolutely nailed the two conference championship games. I have also watched all 19 Arizona Cardinals games and all 18 Pittsburgh Steelers games this year, and know these two teams from the outside in. I've spent all week watching more NFL Network coverage than should be humanly possible. The only thing I fear in trying to get on the right side of this game is information overload. Turnovers Will Decide this Game I already know who will win this game - the...

The Congressional Budget Office has released their analysis of the House version of the stimulus bill (H.R. 1). You can read the full analysis in PDF form here, but we thought it would be useful to take some of the budget numbers in the analysis and present them in chart format. Shown below are several different views of the how the dollars for H.R. 1 would be spent over time. Most striking is that in total, the CBO estimates that less than 21% of the funds would be spent in 2009. Apparently, it is a huge crisis which requires swift...

When members of the Los Angeles City Council agreed last month to put an ambitious solar energy plan on the March 3 ballot, they talked effusively about their desire for cleaner air and "green" technology jobs -- the kind that could boost the economy during a recession. What they didn't discuss was an analysis by a city-hired consulting firm that called the solar plan "extremely risky" and considerably more expensive than was being portrayed by the Department of Water and Power. Measure B, which calls for unionized DWP workers to install solar panels on rooftops and parking lots across the...

Genetic Expression: Same Genes Can Produce Different Results by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Genes could be thought of as brick molds, used to construct materials for building the physical structures of living organisms. They carry the codes to help make proteins, which then make up different cells that are combined together to form mega-structures called tissues. New research has shed more light on how genes are used by cells to build the different tissues needed by complex living creatures. Genes—which make up a very small fraction of DNA—were thought to be the central genetic features that drive cell function and embryonic...

I was politely challenged by a Democrat and left-leaning to the point of toppling over friend on my assertion that Barack Obama’s proposals, aside from being socialist and thus by definition un-American, were a series of slow motion train wrecks. My alleged friend allowed me to monologue on any single topic. Given that I’m sick of this long presidential race, healthcare seemed like an appropriate subject. Obama’s proposals (shifting as they do like the sands of the Sahara) are semi-permanently documented on his campaign web site. Ignoring for the moment that there is nearly zero Constitutional authority for any of...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said. Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John Brennan, president of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said. Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

Today's Polls, 9/20 Barack Obama continues to move upward slightly in our electoral projections on the strength of strong national tracking polls. Rasmussen attributes him with a lead -- though it's just one point -- for the first time in ten days, while Gallup has him hitting the 50-percent barrier for just the second time all year, and expanding his lead over John McCain to 6 points overall. Our model has now more or less fully caught up with Obama's "Lehman Leap", and so he cannot expect too many more gains from inertia alone. The state polling out today, however,...

It is fair to say that one or two cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court stand out each term. I think it is evident that this term’s most salient case is District of Columbia v. Heller. In that 5-4 decision, the Court struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on the possession of privately owned handguns within District limits. In so doing, the Court clarified the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in almost 70 years by endorsing an individual right to keep and bear arms. Aside from its significance in partially resolving the meaning of...

If the United States had planned to draw Al Qaeda and its adherents out of Pakistan and into Iraq for a battle in the heart of the Islamic region, it is very unlikely that any official would acknowledge that in public; neither verbally nor in writing. In setting the stage for battling Al Qaeda and invading Iraq, to separate the region and the people from supporting either out of any sense of ethnic or religious loyalty, the United States had spoken deliberately. In both cases, insisting that the United States was not interested in making war on Islam, Arabs or...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton is smart and forceful, John McCain is proud but has a volatile temper, and Barack Obama is a diplomat who deals well with different people and situations. At least, that's what graphologists say their handwriting reveals about them. "Handwriting is a reflection of the inner personality. It shows a person's ego strength, how good they feel about themselves, their intellectual, communication and working styles," graphologist Sheila Lowe, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis", told AFP. Graphology -- the study of how we loop our Ls and cross our Ts -- is not...

WASHINGTON - John McCain's latest campaign angst, this time over his ties to lobbyists, is putting the Republican in conflict with his carefully honed, decades-old reformer image. It's also giving Democratic rival Barack Obama an opening to paint him as nothing more than a creature of Washington. "The fact is, John McCain's campaign is being run by Washington lobbyists and paid for by their money," Obama argued Monday in Billings, Mont. — far from the Beltway. "I'm not in this race to continue the special interest-driven politics of the last eight years, I'm in this race to end it." McCain,...

An analysis of recent temperature data by two scientists at the Australia Bureau of Meteorology. Waiting for Global Cooling (PDF)

Study says near extinction threatened people By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP WriterApril 24,2008 (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. "This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics...

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's faltering crackdown on Shiite militants has won the backing of Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that fear both the powerful sectarian militias and the effects of failure on Iraq's fragile government. The emergence of a common cause could help bridge Iraq's political rifts. The head of the Kurdish self-ruled region, Massoud Barzani, has offered Kurdish troops to help fight anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. More significantly, Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi signed off on a statement by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and the Shiite vice president, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, expressing support...

Because critical thinking is so important to a free mind, I thought I would add a little bit of a fun challenge to break up your weekend and divert you from the frustrations of our election process. What can you tell me about this photo?

Because critical thinking is so important to a free mind, I thought I would add a little bit of a fun challenge to break up your weekend and divert you from the frustrations of our election process. What can you tell me about this photo? Whoever can tell me the most accurate details about this photo, including where it was taken and why I was there wins . . . Bragging rights for being the fastest and most accurate at photo analysis. Depending on the interest level this generates I'll post others. This photo is probably fairly easy to do.

WASHINGTON - John McCain sought to minimize damage to his man-of-character image and his presidential hopes Thursday, vigorously denying and denouncing a newspaper report suggesting an improper relationship with a female lobbyist. "It's not true," the likely Republican nominee said of the report that implied a romantic link with telecommunications lobbyist Vicki Iseman and suggested McCain pushed legislation that would have benefited her clients. "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust," said McCain, a four-term Arizona senator and a hero of the Vietnam War. He described the lobbyist as a friend. McCain and...

WASHINGTON - Florida's presidential primary is the first test of how Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney might fare in a large and hugely diverse battleground state. The outcome sets the stage for the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries, a nationwide contest just one week away in which more than 20 states hold elections. The Republican race so far has been a muddle, with McCain winning New Hampshire and South Carolina, Romney winning his home state of Michigan and Mike Huckabee winning Iowa. Florida will do one of two things — thrust McCain into position as the front-runner, or allow...

FLORISSANT, Mo. - Political momentum now shifted her way, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Missouri, a key Feb. 5 battleground state, while rival Barack Obama hoped to rejuvenate his candidacy with the help of black voters in the South. "Now we're back here in the Midwest, where I'm from. I'm so happy to see all of you," Clinton, a Chicago native, said to cheers at a campaign rally late Saturday in this St. Louis suburb. Nevada's presidential caucuses gave Clinton a big boost, powering her to a second straight win over Obama in the first Western contest of the...

WASHINGTON - In a race against herself in Michigan's renegade primary, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton attracted 55 percent of the vote and strong support from whites, Democrats and women. Blacks and independents were among the 40 percent who said they wanted an alternative. A contest without personal campaigning or television advertising is hardly a leading indicator of future contests. But it offers hints about the primaries and caucuses ahead, when Barack Obama as well as John Edwards will share the ballot with the former first lady in a race morphing from single-state contests to a grind-it-out, marathon competition for convention...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the luxury of being polite along with the Iowa caucuses. On the ropes after a third-place finish, Clinton is coming out swinging against new Democratic front-runner Barack Obama with a vigor she hasn't shown before in the contest she used to lead. She says she is the candidate who deserves the mantle of change, not this newcomer Obama. Sunday morning, with the New Hampshire primary in sight, she told supporters here, "There's a big difference between talking and acting, between promising and performing. Over the next three days, I'm going to be making...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Rudy Giuliani has never had a problem getting attention — until now. "We are in good shape," the Republican presidential candidate insists even though he was largely missing in action in Iowa and is struggling in New Hampshire, the two states that are the epicenters of the race. His unconventional road map to the nomination carried this very risk from the start. It called for playing down those states that opened the primary season in favor of spending more time and resources in the delegate-rich ones that vote later this month and on Feb. 5 such as...

WASHINGTON - It wasn't long ago that Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign scoffed at the notion that young voters would deliver an election. How quickly things can change. Just seconds into her speech Friday morning, Clinton was declaring herself the candidate for America's youth — stealing a page from the new Democratic presidential front-runner, Barack Obama. The night before, the under-30 crowd came out in larger numbers than ever in Iowa caucuses normally dominated by the AARP-card set, delivering victory for the Illinois senator who promised to bring change to Washington. That's why after her third-place finish in Iowa, Clinton got...