Free Republic

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be awarded unprecedented new powers under the proposal, including the authority to decide what medical care should be covered by insurers as well as the terms and conditions of coverage and who should receive it. The HHS secretary would also have the power to decide where abortion is allowed under a government-run plan, which has drawn opposition from Republicans and some moderate Democrats. And the bill even empowers the department to establish a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation that would have the authority to make cost-saving cuts without having to get...

President Barack Obama will announce a $3.4 billion investment of stimulus funds to modernize the electric grid at an event in Arcadia, Fla., Tuesday, administration officials said. One-hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and others will receive grants of between $400,000 and $200 million to help build a nationwide "smart energy grid" that will cut costs for consumers and make the nation's electrical system more reliable. The grants are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs - the administration did not say exactly how many - and also lay down the infrastructure to create a new renewable energy industry,...

Hitler and his Nazi party were sub-human mass murderers, they were also Fascist. While all fascist governments are authoritarian, and by definition severely limit the freedoms of its people have, not all fascists are Nazis. Fascism is a subset of socialism just like Communism, Maoism, and Marxism. Fascism is seen as the medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism , with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism. Democrats and other Obama supporters have a tough time differentiating between Nazis and Fascists, so for propaganda's sake they brandish anyone who uses the "f" word on the POTUS...

Nine months into the Obama Administration, the White House communications strategy is coming into clear focus. Demonize, harass and ultimately aim to silence opposition, while endlessly repeating the administration line, with the full cooperation of the old media. Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, along with Senior White Advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff lead the attack. Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel continues to pile on. This administration has seemingly adopted the Joseph Goebbels' (the infamous Nazi Minister of Propaganda under Adolph Hitler) strategy that history has labeled ‘the big lie.' Hitler was a master of manipulating large numbers...

Moderate Democrats — always courted and often feared in big roll call votes in the House — have backed down from a key fight over financial reform. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has persuaded a bloc of moderates to withdraw an amendment that would have watered down a consumer protection agency bill and shield banks from tougher state laws. Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) agreed to pull her amendment with a promise that Frank would continue to work with her to change the bill, though when that change would be made remains uncertain. This amendment, which would have...

In his weekly column and recent New York Times Magazine story, “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” Paul Krugman blasts economic theory, argues against free markets and says that the country needs more taxpayer-funded “stimulus,” not less. He also faults economists for not predicting the crisis. In an essay on his web site, John H. Cochrane, finance professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, wonders “How did Paul Krugman get it so wrong?” An excerpt: It’s fun to say we didn’t see the crisis coming, but the central prediction of the efficient markets hypothesis is precisely...

Course, this is IMHO>>>>>Watch out! If this "merger" goes through, Comcast is huge, as big as say BofA. Economy gets worse, Comcast needs bailout, Gov bails them out and Wah Lah, Government now owns what we watch on TV.

While Americans are under the illusion that the government cannot take away their right to use the Internet, an effort by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-VA) is underway that appears to permit President Obama to seize control of the private-sector during whatever he deems to be a cybersecurity emergency

How do we trim health care costs? Weighing in on the national debate, a new study in the journal Health Affairs urges: Fight fat by fighting fat. An obese person spends $1,400 more in medical expense per year than normal-weight people, and obesity-related diseases cost this nation anywhere from $86 billion to $147 billion per year. "Real (health care) savings are more likely to be achieved through reforms that reduce the prevalence of obesity and related risk factors," the study's scholars conclude. Addressing "poor diet and inactivity," they say, will require "policy and environmental changes that extend far beyond what...

18. Your discipline is planned……. If you are fired from your job it’s apt to be by firing squad. What used to be an error is now a crime against the State. Thus ends the road to serfdom. http://mises.org/books/TRTS/

     ABC's token contrarian John Stossel appeared on Friday's Good Morning America to promote his new 20/20 special on some very politically incorrect subjects. In the process, he got into a bit of a dust-up with GMA news anchor Chris Cuomo, telling the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo: "And I know in law school and in your political family, you believe good things only happen because government passes laws."      Stossel appeared on the morning show to discuss one of the topics on his special, which aired Friday night at 10pm on ABC. Among other subjects, he...

President Obama’s top antitrust official this week plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share. The new enforcement policy would reverse the Bush administration’s approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims. It would restore a policy that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s. The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, is to announce the policy reversal in a speech she will give on Monday before the Center for American Progress,...

Wall Street is not going to play as dominant a role in the economy as regulations reduce "some of the massive leveraging and the massive risk-taking that had become so common," President Barack Obama says. The changes in the role of Wall Street and the huge profits that came from that risk-taking could mean other adjustments as well, Obama said in an interview in this week's New York Times Magazine. "That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy," he said. "I actually think that's healthy. We don't want every single college grad...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government needs to be able to take over and wind down a broad range of economically important non-bank financial institutions, top economic officials told Congress Tuesday, though who will get that authority was left as an open question. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told House lawmakers the government's experience with American International Group Inc. highlights the need to deal with increasingly complex and systemically important institutions.

Don’t know if you and your readers have seen this one yet. I'm sure that you are aware, since you seem to spend so much time researching, but here goes: This HR45 was written by Rebecca Peters. Probably written a couple years ago.The only point of the law is the name, thumb print and creating the database. It's exactly how she did it in Australia. It only took a couple years! http://www.resistnet.com/group/californiapatriots/forum/topics/kiss-the-2nd-goodbye-hr45-was

Buried in the bowels of the stimulus plan the Senate passed Tuesday are key healthcare provisions that will set America on the road to socialized medicine, involve the government in your choice of a doctor, and inevitably trigger another funding crisis that will be used to justify still greater federal intervention in America’s healthcare industry, experts tell Newsmax. Among the most controversial parts of the bill are new federal guidelines that will require the government, rather than a doctor, to decide whether a patient should get medical care. Ironically, the stimulus bill that will cost more than $1 trillion will...

"The whole concept of what constitutes the membership of the national security community -- which, historically has been, let's face it, the Defense Department, the NSC itself and a little bit of the State Department, to the exclusion perhaps of the Energy Department, Commerce Department and Treasury, all the law enforcement agencies, the Drug Enforcement Administration, all of those things -- especially in the moment we're currently in, has got to embrace a broader membership," he said. New NSC directorates will deal with such department-spanning 21st-century issues as cybersecurity, energy, climate change, nation-building and infrastructure. Many of the functions of...

OnStar, the unit behind General Motors' GPS-based in-vehicle security system, offers Stolen Vehicle Slowdown technology: An OnStar operator can send a signal to a vehicle, restricting its fuel and slowing it to 3-5 mph. The technology is available on about 1 million 2009 GM vehicles, OnStar spokesman Jim Kobus says. Another company, Virginia Beach-based StarChase, is field-testing its Pursuit Management System. It's a launcher on the front of a police car that fires projectiles that stick on a fleeing vehicle targeted by laser, enabling police to track it by GPS. The system, which has been tested by police in Columbus,...

Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, the fourth largest coal company in the country, blasted politics and the press, comparing Charleston Gazette Editor James. A. Haught to Osama Bin Laden Thursday evening when he addressed the Tug Valley Mining Institute in Williamson. “It is as great a pleasure for me to be criticized by the communists and the atheists of the Charleston Gazette as to be applauded by my best friends,” he said. “Because I know they are wrong. People are cowering away from being criticized by people that are our enemies. Would we be upset if Osama Bin Laden...

Governor: John? It's the Governor here. Say, you guys there at the Bristol Press are doing a great job. Top notch. But there is that one reporter of yours making a big stink over our proposal to increase the state income tax. He really doesn't get what we're trying to do to help our state move forward. And you know, that bill to renew your paper's subsidy is coming up next week. I'd hate to see it get bogged down in the fuss over this. Know what I mean? Editor: Um, yes, I know, sir. The conversation is imaginary but...

In early November a six-year-old boy from Derby was taken into care by social workers for being overweight. This is the first time that obesity has been listed by social workers as one of the reasons for taking a child away from its family. But behind the scenes more and more families are targeted by social services. Last month it was reported that seven obese children have been put into care and that obesity was a factor in at least 20 child protection cases last year. In recent years public officials and child protection experts have taken upon themselves to...

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants. Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist...

Despite its health-crazy reputation, parts of Los Angeles are plagued by obesity rates that rival any city in America. Now, the city may join a growing roster of local governments aiming to put their residents on diets by cracking down on the fast-food industry, says the Wall Street Journal. The Los Angeles city council is considering legislation that would ban new fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC from opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of the city. The targeted area is already home to some 400 fast-food restaurants, possibly contributing to high obesity rates there -- 30 percent of adults, compared...

Prime Minister Brown tells families: 'Stop wasting food' Yes, you read it right... the head of a prosperous, democratic government scolded his subjects about food wasting. People are starving in China! Of course, as children we all wanted to sass to our mothers, "Then let's put the leftovers in a box and mail it to them!" Which would have gotten us a now-illegal spanking. And that is what this is all about... governments that treat us like children. A nanny state mentality. Could it be that when government takes over raising children through public schooling, provides a safety net wherever...

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism). Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted...

House and Senate lawmakers of both parties introduced sweeping legislation Thursday to subject tobacco to the kind of safety regulation that applies to medicines and food, and said prospects for action were the most favorable in years. "This bill is long overdue, and this is the year, I believe, that regulation of tobacco by the Food and Drug Administration is going to become law," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), a longtime nemesis of the tobacco industry who heads the Government Reform Committee. "If this gets to the House floor, [its passage] will be [by] a very large margin,"...

Over the weekend, the National Conference for Media Reform was held in Memphis, TN, with a number of notable speakers on hand for the event. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) made an surprise appearance at the convention to announce that he would be heading up a new House subcommittee which will focus on issues surrounding the Federal Communications CommissionThe Presidential candidate said that the committee would be holding "hearings to push media reform right at the center of Washington.” The Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee was to be officially announced this week in Washington, D.C., but Kucinich...

Congress approves Internet gambling ban bill By Peter Kaplan Reuters Saturday, September 30, 2006; 12:52 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most forms of Internet gambling would be banned under a bill that received final U.S. congressional approval early Saturday. The House of Representatives and Senate approved the measure and sent it to President George W. Bush to sign into law. The bill, a compromise between earlier versions passed by the two chambers, would make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites. Democrats had accused Republicans of pushing the bill to placate its conservative...

Fat cup of trouble By Edward Hudgins Published June 26, 2006 Starbucks, of all enterprises, is the latest victim of food fascists. It is ironic that the Center for Science in the Public Interest is attacking the politically correct, rainforest-friendly, self-styled socially responsible Seattle-based corporation for clogging the arteries of Americans. Starbucks, of course, is famous for offering its customers many choices. It's impossible to order just "a cup of coffee." There are two or three coffees of the day chosen from some three-dozen blends from around the world. You can get them in regular, decaf or half-caf and three...

Russia is growing, and so are the shadows that are cast over the business proceedings there. The bureaucracy is still extremely burdensome and growing. And laws are a matter of convenience and seemingly circumvented at will -- or at least when you have the right connections. Corruption and middlemen are a matter of course, and bribes are expected and given. Confiscation of private goods -- i.e., Motorola's ongoing fiasco -- and resale for profit is old news. Legitimate dealings are called smuggling. And smuggling is called smuggling. Russian law allows confiscated material in criminal investigations to be sold or destroyed...

While a growing majority of Americans favor smoking restrictions in public places, many adults still expose their children to significant health risks by puffing tobacco at home, a Mississippi State University researcher reports. In a scientific paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in San Francisco, Robert McMillen, MD cites changes in adult attitudes and behaviors over the past six years regarding secondhand smoke. McMillen’s report, “Changes from 2000 to 2005 in U.S. Adult Attitudes and Practices Regarding Children’s Exposure to Secondhand Smoke,” stems from his comprehensive 2000 National Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control....

Values There was a time in the United States when ordinary citizens took responsibility for not only their own actions, but also the pitfalls that would occur in their lives and communities. Little by little as life became more "urbanized", we have asked the federal government to pick up more of the load. In fact, we now have reached the point where the government has a hand in most issues that confront us, from smoking in public places to storm relief, and everything in between. In short, we follow closely behind our friends in the United Kingdom, whose "Nanny State"...

KIEV, April 29 (Itar-Tass) - Foodstuff prices are skyrocketing in Ukraine on the eve of May holidays. Odessa residents were the first to respond to this situation: they staged a “foodstuff” protest rally in front of the townhall, Tass learnt on Friday at the police department of the Odessa Region. Residents expressed indignation at doubled prices for meat and milk. A drop for meat prices, promised by the Ukrainian government in mid-March, has remained so far “an Easter fairy tale”. Meat producers refused to sell their goods at depressed prices, as the government demanded. Inspections of Ukrainian markets showed that...

AUTOMATED PAYMENT TRANSACTION (APT) TAX Taxation technology for the 21st century Dr. Edgar L. Feige, Professor Emeritus of Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the originator of the APT Tax concept, has just produced new estimates suggesting that a broad-based transaction tax as low as six tenths of one percent could replace the entire Federal and State 2005 budget revenue requirements of the United States of America. The APT concept is elegant in its simplicity - potentially replacing the entire federal and state tax system - including income, corporate profits, excise and estate taxes - in favor of a...

H.R.4520 is the most anti-competitive piece of legislation Congress has considered in decades!! If Adopted: * ALL RETAILERS WILL NOT BE TREATED EQUALLY, since the bill does not adequately address loopholes such as the Internet, tax-free smoke shops, mail order and adult-only revenues. * NEW MANUFACTURER TAXES WILL LIKELY BE PASSED ON TO RETAILERS, giving their customers more incentive to go to the Internet or tax-free smoke shops. * If a clerk mistakenly sells tobacco products to a minor, the retailers will be open to civil and criminal liability. * THE FDA COULD POTENTIALLY BE IN THE RETAIL STORES creating...

The Government is to establish a national speed limits database that will pave the way for all cars to be fitted with devices that prevent speeding. The digital speed map of Britain is an essential first step towards introducing Intelligent Speed Adaptation, known as ISA, which automatically applies the brakes or blocks acceleration. An on-board computer linked to a satellite positioning system will use the digital map to identify the local speed limit. If drivers attempt to exceed the limit, they hear a series of bleeps and the accelerator pedal starts vibrating. The device will be offered initially as an...

Health Policy Matters We were awash in bad news this week on the health care front: • The Medicare Trustees' report raised alarms across the nation about the accelerating insolvency of the program. • The feud between former CMS administrator Tom Scully and chief actuary Rick Foster became front-page news over Foster being told to withhold his higher cost estimates of the Medicare bill from Congress. • The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday on a study by Families USA saying that drug prices have surged and will erode savings from the new Medicare drug discount cards that will be...

U.S. administrators in Baghdad have ordered Iraqis to turn over their weapons by mid-June, as part of an effort to return public security to cities under American occupation. Unauthorized people found trading, selling or concealing automatic or heavy weapons will face criminal charges. The U.S. civil administration ordered a two-week amnesty period, beginning June 1st, for the surrender of unauthorized firearms. Weapons turned in will be destroyed, or set aside for use by police or soldiers in a future army. Possession of small arms will be allowed for some Iraqis for self-defense. Lieutenant General David McKiernan, the commander of U.S....

The problem with ‘post-modern’ society is there are too many people with nothing meaningful to do, building ‘careers’ around controlling the lives of others and generally making social nuisances of themselves. They justify their meddling by discovering social ‘problems’ and getting the media to magnify them out of all proportion. The latest example in Queensland, Australia, concerns the ‘discovery’ that schoolchildren are in danger from their own lunchboxes. While millions of members of former generations ate lunch out of lunchboxes and lived to tell about it, it seems today’s mummy-chauffeured generation is at risk. A recent lunchbox survey (sic)...

By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The man who videotaped a police beating near Los Angeles that enraged black leaders and then dodged a grand jury inquiry into the matter was arrested on Thursday as he prepared to grant a television interview. Photos Reuters Photo Slideshows Audio/Video (AP) Mitchell Crooks was taken into custody on warrants issued in northern California for petty theft and drunken driving. Authorities also served him with a subpoena to testify before the Los Angeles County grand jury. Crooks' arrest was videotaped and broadcast on local KCAL-TV, showing undercover officers hustling him into a sports...

Election season is near, and as crisp autumn winds sweep across our blessed land, one thing is certain: the hot air on political talk shows will heat up even more. Even though aging 1960´s liberal brats and their successors control the major media — television remains the best forum for conservatives to present their case and win the hearts and minds of the American electorate. Sadly, it´s always an uphill battle when the other side controls the sources of propaganda. Americans who have watched talk shows the last few elections have probably come away with at least one observation: conservatives...