Free Republic

Throughout the summer, Americans for Tax Reform will be highlighting the most outrageous new powers that the IRS will have under the Obamacare law. According to a report from GAO, the IRS is tasked with nearly four dozen new powers under that law. Each day, one will be selected for a brief review. Thanks to Obamacare, you can no longer buy non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines with your health savings account (HSA) or workplace flex account (FSA).

Syria's Islamist rebels say the downfall of Egypt's popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood president has proven that Western nations pushing for democracy will never accept them, and reinforced the view of radicals that a violent power grab is their only resort. Radical Islamist groups, some of them linked to al Qaeda, have lately been in the ascendancy in Syria's two-year conflict as the death toll rises above 100,000. Assad has celebrated President Mohamed Mursi's fall as a symbolic blow to the Islamist-dominated opposition, though on the battlefield, where his troops are already making gains, it is likely to have little impact...

Syrian rebels said on Friday the assassination of one of their top commanders by al Qaeda-linked militants was tantamount to a declaration of war, opening a new front for the Western-backed fighters struggling against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

An Al-Qaeda front group operating in Syria has killed a rebel chief in a firefight in the coastal province of Latakia, a monitoring group said on Friday. The killing comes amid soaring tensions between the mainstream rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its supporters and groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda, mostly made up of non-Syrian fighters. Better known as Abu Bassir al-Jeblawi, rebel chief Kamal Hamami was shot dead Thursday by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), one of the main jihadist groups operating in Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He was killed when ISIS fighters...

You don’t really need more than that headline, do you? Watch McCain’s interview about his Syria trip below and count how many bad arguments there are for intervention. One, at around 2:40, has him arguing that we can “handle” this because, after all, we have the world’s greatest military. That implication, that we should take this challenge on in part to show that we’re equal to it, is both very McCain-esque very unconvincing. If Russian-made Syrian missiles end up shooting down a few American planes, what’s the next step in the challenge that we’re required to accept? If we succeed...

Barack Hussein Obama Financially Supporting a Worldwide Christian Genocide of Women and Children Members of the Free Syrian Army reportedly attacked the Christian-dominated al-Duvair village in Reef on the outskirts of Homs on Monday, where they massacred its citizens, including women and children, before the Syrian Army loyal to Bashar al Assad intervened on behalf of the Christians. This reported attack comes shortly after intense fighting in the city of al-Qusseir over the weekend, in which Bashar Al-Assad’s forces inflicted heavy casualties on the rebels. Assad’s forces launched an offensive in April in an effort to cut off supply lines...

Sen. John McCain Monday became the highest-ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the bloody civil war there began over two years ago, The Daily Beast has learned. McCain, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration’s Syria policy, made the unannounced visit across the Turkey-Syria border with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He stayed in the country for several hours before returning to Turkey. Both in Syria and Turkey, McCain and Idris met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units that traveled from around the country to...

Nancy Pelosi warned us we’d have to pass Obamacare to find out what’s in it. And what we’re finding we don’t like at all. Higher insurance premiums are hitting families hard. Medicare Advantage has been decimated. Millions will be forced into government-run Medicaid where long lines and rationing await. If we like our insurance -- too bad. Beginning January 1, 2011, more than 15,000 over-the-counter (OTC) health care items will require a prescription (and that means a doctor’s visit) for tax-free reimbursement. Under Obamacare, OTC drugs cannot be reimbursed tax-free from Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) or Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)...

Mr Kerry told the meeting in Istanbul that the US would provide Syrian rebels $123m in new, non-lethal aid. He said President Barack Obama was committed to a "democratic, unified, post-Assad Syria". More than 60,000 have died in the two-year uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Mr Kerry also announced that all aid from the 11 countries known as the Friends of Syria would now be channelled through the Turkey-based Free Syrian Army group headed by Gen Salim Idris. The meeting in Istanbul brought together the foreign ministers of countries opposing the government of President Assad. Mr Kerry said the meeting had...

Syrian rebels have acquired shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, NBC News reported late Tuesday night. According to the report, Free Syrian Army rebels claim they now have nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles smuggled from Turkey. The exact type of missile was not mentioned in the report. Such a weapon, however, would offer a significant defense against helicopter gunships that Syrian government forces have deployed against rebel strongholds such as Aleppo, where intense fighting has raged for nearly two weeks.

The impact is from some kind of anti-tank weapon. Can't tell if it's been doctored, but the footage is pretty dramatic:

The Assad regime in Syria is getting weaker by the day as FSA rebels continue to gain ground- they've already pretty much surrounded the capital in preparation for an all-out assault that will finally unseat Bashir Assad. But like most things over there, nothing's simple... With the Free Syrian Army (FSA) infested with Al Qaeda types and Syria deeply divided along sectarian/religious-sect lines, chances of anybody establishing hegemony over the entire country and creating a tolerant, functioning democracy of any sort are not so good. Yet while Assad's now-fading forces are still heavily armed with missiles, fighter aircraft, and even biological...

The Libyan-flagged vessel Al Entisar (The Victory) was on the port of Malta on Ausgust 27 2012. According to a Fox News investigation, shipping records confirmed that the Al Entisar docked at the Turkish port of Iskenderun on September 6. Iskanderun, or 'Alexandrette' on the map below is quite close to Idlib (where the Syrian revolution is raging now). [source] Fox News reported that, according to a report by the Times of London (September 14, 2012), the Al Entisar was carrying 400 tons of cargo when it dock in Iskanderun. Some of it was humanitarian, but also reportedly weapons,...

There is something that I don't get about opponents of greater American action in Syria, such as the freelance reporter Benjamin Hall, who was recently in Aleppo. He points out, as other observers have, that the rebels are disorganized and that various factions are often at odds with one another. They don't have a central, unified leadership... Hall recommends not arming the rebels -- although he is open to the imposition of a no-fly zone. Here's where I don't follow the logic... while the U.S. is not arming the rebels and is not imposing a no-fly zone or helping to...

BEIRUT: Syrian rebels said they have detained 13 Hezbollah members and threatened to take the fight to Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs unless the party ends its support for President Bashar Assad’s regime... They [the Hezbollah detainees] have confessed to killing and slaughtering [people] in Syria,” Masri said, ..

Anti-regime activists say jihadist fighters linked to al-Qaeda fought with rebels to capture a Syrian military air defense base near Aleppo. Videos posted online Friday apparently shot inside the base say Jabhat al-Nusra participated in the overnight battle for the base. The videos show fighters inspecting lines of large missiles.

The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group that is fighting Bashir al Assad's regime in Syria, has seized control of an airbase near Aleppo in a joint operation with the supposedly secular Free Syrian Army. Video of the fighters at the airbase has appeared on the Internet. The Al Nusrah Front and Free Syrian Army captured the airbase in al Ta'aneh near Aleppo yesterday after heavy fighting with the Syrian military. Scud tactical ballistic missiles as well as anti-aircraft missiles were housed at the airbase. "A few hundred fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra,...

If history has taught one certain lesson, it is that the less fettered an economy, the better humankind is able to do what it does best: run from trouble and run toward opportunity. In this way mistakes are quickly resolved and progress assured. Conversely, the deeper the muck of regulation, mandates, taxes, subsidies and other bureaucratic meddling, the slower we humans are in following our natural instincts until the point that progress is slowed or even stopped. It is said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. In the current circumstances, it appears that enough time has passed...

The Oakland County Election Commission unanimously approves the language in one of two recall petitions Thursday afternoon, allowing the effort to recall the controversial mayor to proceed. Recall Janice Daniels, a political action committee comprised of "concerned citizens" leading the effort to recall Troy Mayor Janice Daniels, will soon begin collecting signatures after one of its petitions was approved Thursday afternoon. Daniels first came under fire in December for her anti-gay Facebook comment and has remained the center of controversy after voting against the Troy Transit Center (a scaled-down version was later approved), telling the Troy High School Gay-Straight Alliance...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) makes and guarantees loans to approved socially disadvantaged applicants to buy and operate family-size farms and ranches. A socially disadvantaged (SDA) farmer, rancher, or agricultural producer is one of a group whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice because of his or her identity as a member of the group without regard to his or her individual qualities. SDA groups are women, African Americans, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=fmlp&topic=sfl