Free Republic

People sometimes think I’m strange for being so focused on the economic harm that results from third-party payer. But bear with me and we’ll see why it’s a very important issue.If you’re not already familiar with the term, third-party payer exists when someone other than the consumer is paying for something. And it’s a problem because people aren’t careful shoppers when they have (proverbially) someone else’s credit card.Moreover, sellers have ample incentive to jack up prices, waste resources on featherbedding, and engage in inefficient practices when they know consumers are insensitive to price.I’ve specifically addressed the problem of third-party payer...

One hundred years ago, on Sept. 21, 1914, Louis Olasky signed a Declaration of Intention “to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, and particularly to Nicholas II, Emperor of All the Russias.”He also declared in writing, “I am not an anarchist; I am not a polygamist nor a believer in the practice of polygamy; and it is my intention in good faith to become a citizen of the United States of America and to permanently reside therein SO HELP ME GOD.” Five years later, as soon as he legally could, Louis Olasky...

In August 2011 Gov. Rick Scott first made it plain he likes toll lanes on major highways and wants more of them. They speed up traffic, he said. In October 2011, PolitiFact Florida checked out his assessment, rated it "mostly true." So it was a little surprising to see the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR), whose stated purpose is "to expose corruption, waste and miscarriages of justice," expose Scott's commitment to toll lanes. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great this news is well and truly in front of the public again. And shame on all of us...

WASHINGTON - Here are the dreary details on what's been happening in our nation's capital this week, but be forewarned, it isn't a pretty picture. The House has passed President Obama's unspecified plan to arm and train the moderate Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State terrorists. But no sooner had the clerk of the House tallied the vote, Senate critics on both sides of the aisle were complaining that he doesn't have a battle plan or any strategy. And there were new, growing suggestions within his own administration that his pledge not to send ground troops back into Iraq is...

No, it's not the full moon, that's an election rising on the horizon. Lock your doors. As the witching hour approaches, the paranoids start coming out of the woods on the lookout for easy prey, so we can all be afraid, be terribly afraid, together. In uncertain times -- but I repeat myself, for when have the times ever been certain? -- a new crop of true believers is waiting to be cultivated by the kind of demagogues who always have the simplest explanation for any and all of the uncertainties out there: It's a conspiracy! Election time is when...

I'm trying to look on the bright side of what passed for debate over another doomed effort to secure U.S. interests by embarking on the fruitless pursuit, cultivation and empowerment of Islamic "moderates," this time in Syria. We would get better results sending an expeditionary force after the Loch Ness sea monster. No matter. In deliberations resembling a stampede, we heard: The ISIL is coming, the ISIL is coming! Quick, leave our own borders undefended and save Saudi Arabia! That seemed be the subtext, anyhow, to much talk of Syria. There were odd glimmers of light as when House Appropriations...

Remember when the media freaked out for three days over Sarah Palin's completely innocuous use of the term "blood libel"? Nearly every major media outlet took a deep dive on this critical outrage. Millions of Americans learned more about how Jews in the Middle Ages were sometimes falsely accused of kidnapping and murdering Christian children so they could use the blood for ritualistic baking. But more significantly: What did Palin mean? Was she sending a veiled message to evangelical voters? Was it just anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head again? There will be no such national conversation over Vice President Joe...

Angela Merkel is the stand-up lady of Europe. The German chancellor is forthright in calling anti-Semites to account. She spoke this week to a rally of 6,000 Germans at the Brandenburg Gate, denouncing the documented increase of anti-Semitism in their country. The evil of the Nazi regime, which killed 6 million Jews in Europe 80 years ago, is marked everywhere, with bronze plaques on sidewalks where Jews were taken from their homes and dispatched to death camps, to the five acres dedicated to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in the very center of Berlin. And yet, as the chancellor...

"Congress must now vote to support the first steps of what will be a long march toward victory," said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Following this clarion call, 71 House Republicans bolted to join 85 Democrats in voting no to U.S. funds to train and arm Syrian rebels. Why the hesitation? Because our strategy in Syria is to rely on a Free Syrian Army that has been the least effective force in that civil war, and untrustworthy to boot. Units of the FSA have handed their U.S. weapons over to ISIS. Yet these "feckless" rebels, says Sen. Bob Corker, constitute "our...

Congress has returned to Washington after a 5 week hiatus to deal pressing problems facing the nation both here at home and abroad. Unfortunately, the definition of what constitutes a pressing issue is often different in Washington’s marbled halls than in Main Street America. In no case is that more clear than with the last minute extension of the controversial Export-Import Bank. The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) is an 80 year old New Deal relic that could only have been dreamed up in Washington. The banks sole purpose is to provide taxpayer backed government loans to foreign companies in the hopes...

Domestic violence just doesn't happen on elevators. And it's not just committed by former NFL running backs. But don't tell that to the people who've been calling for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to quit over his fumbling of the Ray Rice case. Based on what's been on TV all week, you'd think pro football and its nearly 3,000 well-paid athletes have the monopoly on domestic violence in America. The U.S. Justice Department disagrees. According to its web site, "Domestic violence can happen to anyone regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender. Domestic violence affects people of all socioeconomic...

When a witness for the prosecution provides the testimony that affirms the innocence of the defendant—when a witness is turned—there can be no more dramatic and powerful exoneration for the accused. And amongst the many gifts that David Limbaugh brings to bring to his latest best-selling book, Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel, it is Limbaugh’s gift of disbelief, his prior agnosticism toward “the God of the Bible,” that provides the gripping testimony necessary to turn an ordinary apologetics book into an extraordinary defense of, not just the Bible, but of belief in general. What...

-excerpt- On September 9, as reported by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI), seven young Iranians went on trial. Their supposed crime? Producing a dance video of the Pharrell Williams’s pop hit “Happy” and uploading it to YouTube. You might think Iran’s rulers would be pleased at expressions of felicity by their citizens. In Tehran, however, cheerful enthusiasm outside a narrow religious context is illegal. -excerpt- ...(they) were detained on May 19 of this year and held for two days at the Vozara Complex of the Tehran Morality Police, until they posted bail of $10,000-$16,600 each. "While...

In my new book, "Jesus on Trial," I explain how the Bible itself serves as its own apologetic. Holy Scripture, if we'll give it a chance, can bring us to faith. So one of the main goals I have with my book is to encourage people to crack open this amazing book and give it a chance to work in their lives. They may be surprised. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). "From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in...

John Kerry was speaking about ISIS. And he’s wrong. As usual. 1. Mohammed practiced slavery 2. The Islamic campaigns were carried out for loot. Including the human kind. Many of Mohammed’s first Muslims were out for slaves. Including female slaves. 3. Mohammed enslaved and raped women These are all facts that are not seriously in dispute. ... Mohammed’s armies looted and killed the men and enslaved the women. It’s elementary Islamic history. The only thing Kerry got right is that there’s nothing in the Koran about shooting the men. Guns didn’t exist then. That’s why they chopped off their heads...

On Thursday, Australian authorities claimed they thwarted a plot by supporters of the Islamic State to grab random people off the street and then behead the captured citizens on videotape. Australia's attorney general said that the massive raid, the largest counterterrorism operation in the nation's history, involving more than 800 police officers and raids of at least 12 properties, was necessary because, "If the ... police had not acted today, there is a likelihood that this would have happened." Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirmed that the raids were prompted by intercepted phone calls, from an Australian of Afghan descent...

One of the Bard’s often-quoted lines is Dick the Butcher’s admonition in Henry VI, Part 2, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” That idea, argues lawyer David Epstein, is mistakenly thought to mean that Shakespeare was antagonistic toward the legal profession. Instead, as we read in this Wall Street Journal piece, Shakespeare actually meant “to portray lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law who stand in the way of a fanatical mob.” Whether you agree with Epstein’s interpretation or not, more than four centuries after Shakespeare’s time, we should do something about lawyers, something...

Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove sounded the alarm. Republicans are not doing as well as they should given the election dynamic. According to Rove, “Republican candidates and groups must step up if they are to substantially reduce that gap . . . . [R]educing the Democratic cash advantage will tip the needle in the GOP’s direction. That will only happen if Republicans open their wallets to candidates whom they may have never met, and, if they live in a battleground state, they clear their calendars to volunteer to identify and get out the vote.” A few hours...

Scandal: The California Democrat who suggested that his party boycott the Benghazi Select Committee as a waste of time now accuses those who fought on the CIA annex roof of lying "to promote a new book." The last we heard from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, was in May. That's when he told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" he thought the planned select committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi attack was a "colossal waste of time." Calling the yet-to-be-approved committee a "tremendous red herring," Schiff said: "I don't think it makes sense, really,...

Indian-American actress Mindy Kaling not only stars in her own sitcom on Fox called "The Mindy Project," she's in charge of it. You might think that feminists would celebrate that achievement, but that would show that you don't know about feminists. Apparently, nothing satisfies them. Instead, they are demanding she use her program to sell feminism, and its crowning joy, abortion. Kaling committed a gaffe among the Hollywood left by telling a Flare magazine interviewer she had no plans to address what the magazine called "the American right's current war on abortion." Kaling said "It would be demeaning to the...