Free Republic

With the implementation of Obamacare in full-swing, Americans are worried about the prospects of government-run health care. To see the damage centralized health care can do to patients, Americans need only look “across the pond” to England. There, the British government-run health care system — which pays for abortions with taxpayer funds and has been criticized for pushing euthanasia — is literally leaving patients needing lifesaving medical treatment to die. The London Daily Mail newspaper profiles Stewart Fleming, whose wife Sarah took a picture on her smartphone as he waited six agonizing hours for medical care and attention for a...

The westbound lanes of the San Mateo-Hayward bridge were closed for several hours Saturday night due to a deadly fire involving a limosine. The California Highway Patrol said the fire was first reported around 10 p.m. in the third lane of westbound state Highway 92 at the bridge's decline. As many as ten people were inside the limo and as many as five of them died, according to multiple reports Witnesses at the scene reported people were trapped inside the burning limo. The CHP told NBC Bay Area there were multiple fatalities, but could not confirm a number. Witnesses told...

An IAF aircraft on Gaza Tuesday morning assassinated a senior Salafist terror activist who was reportedly behind an April 17 rocket attack on Eilat from the Sinai. The IDF and Shin Bet security service confirmed that they had targeted Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal, 24, from the Shati refugee camp. The attack marked the first “targeted strike” on a Gaza terror figure by Israel since November’s Operation Pillar of Defense, and came amid a renewal of sporadic rocket fire into Israel that seemed to show the deterrent effect of November’s operation was eroding.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government has authorized the killing of American citizens as part of its controversial drone campaign against al Qaeda even without intelligence that such Americans are actively plotting to attack a U.S. target, according to a Justice Department memo. The unclassified memo, first obtained by NBC News, argues that drone strikes are justified under American law if a targeted U.S. citizen had "recently" been involved in "activities" posing a possible threat and provided that there is no evidence suggesting the individual "renounced or abandoned" such activities. The document was disclosed as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators...

VALLEJO, Calif. (AP) — A California man once sentenced to death for killing two people in the 1960s was under arrest Thursday after police said he led officers to the body of his 89-year-old mother. -- SNIP -- The California Supreme Court reversed his death sentence in 1969 after finding 12 prospective jurors were dismissed because they said they opposed the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a year earlier that such jurors shouldn't be automatically excluded from a death penalty case unless they make clear they can't impose capital punishment under any circumstance. Stanworth was sentenced to death...

In a tragic accident fueled by alcohol and Sunday night football, one man was fatally shot by his friend in the eye in an attempt to scare away the hiccups.

A senator for Mae Hong Son has told police he accidentally shot and killed his personal secretary with a submachine gun in a restaurant in Phrae province, a duty officer at Wang Chin police station said on Monday. Senator Boonsong Kowawisarat The shooting occurred at a restaurant in Wang Chin district of the northern province on Sunday night, Pol Lt Choosak Poonsawat said. Boonsong Kowawisarat, 55, and his personal assistant Chanakarn Detkard, 46, were travelling to Bangkok in the senator's car and stopped for dinner at a restaurant on a local road in moo 2 in tambon Mae Keng, Phrae....

The disgusting ad making the rounds today has already blown up in the faces of Team Obama. The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action lobbed a heavy-duty attack at Mitt Romney this morning, airing an ad that links the closure of a GST Steel plant in Kansas City to the loss of a family’s health insurance — and the death of a woman some time later. The man speaking in the ad, Joe Soptic, says, “Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care and my family lost their health care. And a short time after that...

NEW YORK CITY -- A 12-year-old boy harassed by school bullies about his intelligence, his height and his deceased father killed himself in the New York City apartment he shared with his mother, according to relatives and those who knew him, NBCNewYork.com reported. "I want to remember him as a happy kid," his anguished sister told NBC 4 New York on Thursday. Joel Morales, of East Harlem, moved to a different school after enduring incessant taunting for months, but the bullying persisted, the fifth-grader’s family said. Advertise | AdChoices Kids chased Morales, threw sticks and pipes at him and teased...

The federal goverment is eliminating the $100 commission program aimed at brokers who assist consumers enrolling in the federal Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP).pcip broker GEHA, the insurer administering PCIP for the federal government notified brokers about the change last week via email: "We are writing to thank you for the extraordinary efforts you have made in helping to increase awareness of and enrollment in the PCIP program. We have determined that our outreach efforts have succeeded in significantly raising awareness of PCIP and enrollment in this program. As such, CMS will end the PCIP Broker Referral Payment Program in...

Yesterday the Obama administration announced a delaying tactic which will put off the possibility of new offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic coast for at least five years: The announcement by the Interior Department sets into motion what will be at least a five year environmental survey to determine whether and where oil production might occur. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell notes that a planned lease sale, which the administration cancelled last year, will now be put off until at least 2018. As you might expect, Republicans were not impressed with the decision: "The president's actions have closed an entire new...

A woman who got wind of her husband's intentions to have sex with their daugher took matters into her own hands--literally She cut up her husband in pieces and cooked him. That's according to an ARY News report from Pakistan. 32-year-old Mrs. Zainab Bibi has reportedly confessed to the crime and is being held by Karachi police. Mrs. Bibi's 22-year-old nephew Zaher Ahmen has been accused of being an accomplice to cutting up and cooking her husband Ahmad Abbas. Although the reported plan was to cook his body parts so no one could find the body, something along the way...

A tourist on a bodyboard was killed in a horrific attack by what was believed to have been a great white shark near Bunker Bay, south of Perth in Western Australia.A tourist on a bodyboard was killed in a horrific attack by what was believed to have been a great white shark near a beach on Australia's west coast. The 21-year-old was dead before fellow surfers could drag him ashore at a popular surfing spot called Boneyards, near Bunker Bay, about 3.5 hours south of Perth, the West Australian reports. The shark had pulled the man below the surface and...

Barry Rubin reports on Arab - especially Egyptian - reactions to Thursday's terror attacks and their aftermath. At one point, either confused or after the terrorists hid among a group of Egyptian soldiers dressed the same way, Israeli soldiers fired and reportedly killed three real Egyptian soldiers. Israel has apologized in line with international norms. Amr Moussa, the man most likely to be Egypt’s next president and known for his hatred of Israel and strong dislike of the United States (a radical nationalist who opposes Islamism but might make a deal with the Brotherhood to get into power and to...

Stage rigging collapsed after a storm gust Saturday night, trapping and injuring at least a dozen people at a concert at the Indiana State Fair, NBC station WTHR reported. The outdoor stage was set up for the Sugarland concert at the state fairgrounds. Medics and rescue crews throughout Indianapolis were converging on the State Fairgrounds after Hoosier Lottery Grandstand stage rigging fell. Dave Lindquist, music journalist for The Indianapolis Star, reported on Twitter, "Tragedy at fair concert. Entire stage collapses on track." He also wrote that "perhaps a dozen injured people have been removed from track on stretcher-type boards."

ScienceDaily (June 1, 2011) — Gay young men in serious relationships are six times more likely to have unprotected sex than those who hook up with casual partners, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. The findings provide a new direction for prevention efforts in this population who account for nearly 70 percent of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in adolescents and young adults in the United States and who also have the highest increase in new infections. "Being in a serious relationship provides a number of mental and physical health benefits, but it also increases behaviors that put you at risk...

The Israeli military said on Saturday a top militant killed in a predawn raid was “directly and physically involved” in the 2006 capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier Israel believes is still being held in the Gaza Strip. Tayser Abu Snima, who Palestinian medics said was killed in an air strike on a vehicle along the Gaza-Egyptian border, was a key figure in the Hamas Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip. The Israeli statement called Abu Snima a senior Hamas operative in Gaza and said he was “directly and physically involved in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit,”...

In my previous column for JWR, I predicted that our military was on the verge of enduring its worst scandal since Abu Ghraib. I stick by the scandal assessment, but it is not the one regarding the existence of a "kill team" of American soldiers deliberately murdering Afghan civilians in the Kandahar province. It is about the collective existence of a mainstream media kill team which has seen fit to murder this story into obscurity, despite a guilty plea by one of the twelves soldiers involved in the atrocity.

An American official in the Pakistani city of Lahore has shot and killed a Pakistani motorcycle rider and his pillion passenger, police say. They say that the consular employee fired his pistol in self-defence. US embassy officials confirmed that an American was involved. The men were pursuing the American in his car when the incident happened. A pedestrian was also killed by a speeding car from the US consulate which came to help, police say. Bullet holes They are investigating whether the two men on the motorcycle were robbers. Onlookers surrounding the motor bike of a commuter who was killed...

A Clayton County mother of six said the family dog did what he always did when he saw someone. He barked. But when "Boomer" started barking and running toward a police officer Saturday morning, the officer shot the dog and killed it, Lawrene King told the AJC Sunday night. “He’s a golden retriever," King said. "He barks, but he’s never bitten anyone.” A Clayton County police officer was on foot patrol on North Shore Drive when the dog jumped off a porch and started barking and running toward the officer, Capt. Tina Daniel said. The officer ordered the dog to...