Free Republic

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is prepared to jail any American who does not buy a qualifying health insurance plan if the healthcare bill she sponsored (H.R. 3962, as amended) is passed into law. On November 6, Congressman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, released a letter he received from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) in response to his inquiry as to potential penalties for failing to comply with mandates set forth in the so-called “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” The information set out in the response should be shocking,...

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000...

While roaming the grounds of the US Capitol yesterday, Kristinn Taylor obtained a list of possible democrat defectors of the now infamous “Healthcare” bill. Kristinn was asked to post this list of wobbly democrats on FreeRepublic in an effort to mobilize our forces and overwhelm these members with phone calls and e-mails asking them to vote NO on the socialization of our healthcare. We also learned that Nancy Pelosi had just scheduled the vote for tomorrow; Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 6:00 PM. For all those who were unable to answer the call to surround the Capitol yesterday, here is...

RADFEST 2004: MIDWEST SOCIAL FORUM FRIDAY, JUNE 44:00-5:15 REGISTRATION Education Center5:15-6:30 DINNER Dining Hall6:45-9:00 PLENARY PANEL Education "LATINOS/AS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC ABC JUSTICE" Christine Neumann-Ortiz , Voces de la Frontera, Milwaukee Teofilo Reyes, Labor Notes, Transnationals Information Exchange, Chicago Graciela Sánchez, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio Renée Saucedo, La Raza Centro Legal, San Francisco9:15-? Musical Entertainment Outdoor AmphitheatreThroughout "CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION VS. GLOBAL JUSTICE GUERRILLA PHOTO Conference EXHIBIT" Education Orin Langelle, Global Justice Ecology Project Building An evolving exhibit of photographs from the most recent mobilizations against corporate globalization. The exhibit includes photographs documenting...

Darwin’s bulldog—Thomas H. Huxley --snip-- Huxley, although an unbeliever, was thoroughly familiar with the gospel, and had little time for Christians who compromised their position by supporting the anti-biblical belief of evolutionary naturalism. He wrote: ...

Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state: Texas. Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so. William Voegeli draws the sad but instructive comparison in the Los Angeles Times: In America's federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a "package deal" that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with...

The conservative wahoo suggests: Here are ... the defining characteristics of "Neo-socialism". 1. A belief in the concept that capitalism has failed, but can be resuscitated by a new partnership between government and business. This new partnership will be inherently more fair to more people. 2. A belief that competition isn't necessarily bad, and that government can and should be permitted to compete with private industry. 3. A belief that big government isn't necessarily bad; what is bad is BAD big government. Big, effective government is desirable. 4. A belief in the transcendent quality of the world community while de-valuing...

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

IOWA CITY — Wendell Potter refers to the health insurance industry as “masters of deceit.” It’s not a slam from an outsider. Potter, 58, of Philadelphia, was once one of them. After a 20-year career in public relations that ended as chief corporate spokesman of CIGNA Corp., one of the nation’s largest health insurers, Potter left last year. “I told them I just didn’t want to do it anymore,” he said in a phone interview with The Gazette. At the time, he didn’t plan on speaking out against the industry where he had honed a successful career. But after seeing...

Well, these videos certainly are igniting the fire within me. How broken and out-of-control can our “government” get? Apparently, the elite have forgotten (or more likely, have never known) about the meaning of the First Amendment to our Constitution, where it clearly states:

The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent bailout might have more to do with financial jihad and Shari’ah Financing than Americans would ever imagine or dare to suggest, and the 2009 Stimulus Plan may be a plan to keep American’s in dhimmitude for generations. Though it sounds very poignant, it is a possibility that should be explored because questions are still unanswered and Americans are still confused and bewildered over the astronomical amounts of money that they will owe for generations. This chapter takes the liberty of thinking outside the facade of unsatisfactory explanations that have been given.

The Berlin Wall that came down 20 years ago this month was an apt symbol of communism. It represented a historically unprecedented effort to prevent people from "voting with their feet" and leaving a society they rejected.

It seems that lately most of my critics have been Jews associated with the paleoconservative right: Paul Gottfried, Robert Weissberg (see my reply after Weissberg's comment), and Lawrence Auster. Takuan Seiyo’s critique rehashes familiar arguments in a particularly nasty way, speaking, for example, of my "malice and brain-dead stupidity." Such characterizations must be understood as nothing more or less than attempts to draw boundaries of acceptable political discourse in a way that is acceptable to Jewish interests. It's exactly the sort of thing that Jewish neoconservatives did to vitiate the American conservative movement by excluding people like Pat Buchanan and...

The first time I became aware of leftist Jews was when, as a reporter for The Daily Cardinal, the student newspaper, at the University of Wisconsin, I was assigned to cover a meeting of the Committee Against the War in Vietnam. This was around 1965” — reminisced the evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald in “Memories Of Madison — My Life In The New Left”. Professor MacDonald has won fame and a following on the far right for having “explained the Jews,” particularly in his book The Culture of Critique (pdf). And one has to respect him for the courage and sheer...

A new video of Jeremiah Wright has surfaced, showing Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years praising Marxism and discussing his ties to communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Libyan government. Equally important, Wright is being introduced in the video by Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, an organization which has come under scrutiny for its links to the Obama Administration and dedication to the transformation and control of the private media in the U.S. In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, "Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle," McChesney declared, "Our job is to make media reform part...

House Minority Leader John Boehner appears with a copy of the Democrats’ version of the health care bill during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg) Washington - The health care overhaul bill produced by House Democrats would impose an array of new taxes, fees and government mandates on major players in the health industry, including insurers, doctors and drugs and medical devices makers. In most cases, the pain has been meted out with an eye toward raising the money needed to finance President Barack Obama's plan for reshaping the health system but...

Clips of Savage talking about Communism and the Obama administration from youtube. Obama's Communism and Universal HealthHow Communism Thrives on Destroying ReligionMichael Savage Explains Obama Marxism to LiberalCommunist Revolution has landed in AmericaChairman Maobama and extremismObama the Marxist Obama and The Media

It has always been understood, sometimes whispered, that Geroge Soros, the great beneficiary of markets, hates them. The truth is now out in the open. John Stossel reports, via FT, that Soros will give $50 million to start a new think-tank to counter "the unwavering belief in unchecked free markets, which remains pervasive in universities." Soros says: "The ideologists in the free markets are still in command and I think they'll be very difficult to remove because they have tenure." If anything proves that one has to question Soros' analytical ability, it is this statement. The leading economic textbook in...

Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack Wednesday of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. The group, among the fiercest critics of the measure, said the proposal could add 77 cents a gallon, or around 30 percent above today’s prices. Democrats on a key Senate panel shot back, saying the industry’s estimate is based on an inflated projection of the price of permits companies will have to hold to cover their carbon emissions. A...

The war on conservative speech has moved from the White House to your neighborhood pews. Left-wing church leaders want the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on "hate speech" over cable TV and right-leaning talk-radio airwaves. President Obama's speech-stifling bureaucrats seem all too happy to oblige. Over the last week, an outfit called "So We Might See" has conducted a nationwide fast to protest "media violence" -- specifically, "anti-immigrant hate speech, which employs flawed arguments to appeal to fears rather than facts." Their ire is currently aimed at Fox News and conservative talk-show giants. But how long before they target...

Freaked Out Over SuperFreakonomics Global warming might be solved with a helium balloon and a few miles of garden hose. By BRET STEPHENS Suppose for a minute—which is about 59 seconds too long, but that's for another column—that global warming poses an imminent threat to the survival of our species. Suppose, too, that the best solution involves a helium balloon, several miles of garden hose and a harmless stream of sulfur dioxide being pumped into the upper atmosphere, all at a cost of a single F-22 fighter jet. Good news, right? Maybe, but not if you're Al Gore or one...

Herb Denenberg, once Pennsylvania's Commissioner of Insurance and a Professor at the Wharton School, describes in The Bulletin, how the whiff of fascism in this Administration is turning into the stench of fascism. He starts with a reminder of the many ways Obama has acted to stifle opposition views and manipulate public opinion and concludes: I've emphasized one aspect of fascism -- its objective of the forcible suppression of opposition. But it also qualifies under the other elements, including the suppression of private enterprise and putting it under centralized government control. That is one hallmark of the Obama Administration, it...

Link to video.Note to mods: not promoting what DCCC has to say. Merely providing link in the spirit of "know your enemy".It is has a well-deserved "Barf Alert" and hoping the thread would stay as a motivator for many to stay tuned into to and engaged in the (Doug) Hoffman vs. "The Establishment" hot race in New York state, voting scheduled for next Tuesday.

Ever notice how many Islamic or Marxist terrorist organizations have the word "Liberation" as part of their terror group's name?A commenter over at Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch has posted a long list of Islamic terrorist organizations that span the globe. The number of these groups that have the word "Liberation" as a part of their terror group's name is astounding. It constitutes word-hijacking as part of their propaganda.According to Islam the world is divided between the "House of War", [that part of the world already in submission and subject to Islamic rule], and the "House of War [ the non-Muslim world].From...

Government regulators threatened to remove top Bank of America executives if they backed out of a buyout of failing brokerage giant Merrill Lynch, and offered to provide taxpayer funds to compensate for Merrill's poor performance, according to company records obtained by The Washington Times. The documents - e-mails between bank executives and their outside attorneys as well as board meeting "talking points" prepared for then-Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis - offer new insight into the hardball tactics that produced one of the biggest deals negotiated during the late 2008 global financial crisis, one that is still reverberating on...

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people. True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the...

BILLIONAIRE investor George Soros at the weekend became the latest high-profile financier to wade into the bonus debate as he claimed the backlash against banking fat cats on lucrative pay deals is justified. Speaking in an interview about large profits reported in recent weeks by Wall Street’s biggest banks, Soros said: “Those earnings are not the achievement of risk-takers. These are gifts, hidden gifts from the government, so I don’t think that those monies should be used to pay bonuses.” He added: “There’s a resentment which I think is justified.” Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, also said in the...

Francis Cianfrocca joins Ben Domenech for the Monday, October 26th edition of Coffee & Markets, a series of brief morning podcasts on politics and the marketplace, now appearing as well on WashingtonTimes.com. Today’s podcast focuses on Neil Barofsky’s IG report covering the uncontrolled ramifications of the TARP program, its lack of anti-fraud measures, and how much the taxpayers will end up paying for it all. Items discussed include this DC Examiner editorial: Congress put American taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion last year when it approved the massive bailout to paper over the imprudent lending decisions of nine Wall...

Obama declares swine flu emergency 9 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama has declared swine flu a "national emergency," the White House said Saturday, as the United States reels from millions of cases of infection and over 1,000 deaths.

*snip* When the Constitution of the United States was framed it placed the exclusive legislative authority in the hands of Congress and with the President. Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution is concise in its language: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” That is no longer true. The Bill of Rights protected Americans against loss of freedoms. That is no longer true. The Constitution provided for a balanced separation of powers. That is no longer applicable. Perhaps it...

The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel headline for Sunday, October 25th screams:  "Swine flu a national emergency." Oh, really. Looks like President Obama has gone ahead and declared that the swine flu outbreak is indeed a national emergency.  And we know that Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel,  has stated in the past that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."   Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now has more power and authority to bypass federal rules regarding the operations of hospitals and alternative care sites.   And the government has taken another step towards grabbing more power in controlling the population of America because of Obama's...

Legislation to be introduced in Congress will make it easier for the US government to seize control of troubled financial institutions that are considered too big to be allowed to fail, The New York Times says. The bill will be introduced in Congress by a key ally of President Barack Obama - Representative Barney Frank - who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, the Times said, citing a senior administration official. The legislation would make it easier for the government to throw out the financial company's management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by...

A report on funding 'accountable' reporting recommends a mix of philanthropy and familiar ideas on leviesTHE SKIES grow heavy with portent when a former editor of the Washington Post and a distinguished professor join forces to write aColumbia University report on "The Reconstruction of American Journalism". And the same skies weep, perhaps, over Len Downie and Michael Schudson's complex prescription for funding "accountability" reporting, interwoven with foundations and philanthropists, rather as though exposing corruption in City Hall were the same as subsidising a symphony orchestra. It's a very American, very particular approach.

Poring over the details of the 1,501-page health care bill that came out of Sen. Max Baucus' Finance Committee, it's clear that the financing is so full of smoke and mirrors that one has to wear a respirator and hard hat to get through it. But by the time one gets to the end of the bill, estimated to cost $829 billion over 10 years, clarity emerges — the Democrats plan to finance their expanded government care on the backs of America's middle-class taxpayers. Baucus and company have decided to tax what the press calls "Cadillac" health plans. Prior to...

I was just teaching Plato's "The Republic" in school and a terrifying thought occurred to me

A cartoon predicts the future of this Country. I guess there is something to say that "there is nothing new under the sun."

CNSNews.com) – When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Pelosi's press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. The exchange with Speaker Pelosi...

How many times have you heard Barack Obama talk about "the fierce urgency of now"? The president has used the quote, from Martin Luther King Jr., to call for quick action on the war in Iraq, on global warming, on homelessness, on education -- you name it. Now, Obama and his fellow Democrats are trying to convince the nation of the fiercely urgent need to enact national health care reform this very instant. "We have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt," Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in September. "We cannot wait any longer....

By drastically increasing demand while doing little to increase primary care physician supply, ObamaCare will turn health care into a consumer nightmare: longer wait times, shorter visits, higher prices, and decreased customer satisfaction. The U.S. will have to rely increasingly on nurse practitioners and physician assistants to meet patient demand. According to the WHO, the nurse-to-physician ratio in Canada and the U.K. are 5.3 and 5.6, respectively, compared to 3.6 in the U.S. And as fewer bright young people pursue medicine due to the profession's general malaise and oppressive bureaucratic regulations, we're likely to see an even greater physician shortage---not...

Health Reform: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says it's constitutional to mandate insurance coverage. Congress, he insists, has "broad authority" to make us buy things to provide for the "general welfare." Democrats' Alice In Wonderland interpretation of what they consider to be a "living Constitution," where words mean what they say they mean based on political considerations, gets more bizarre by the minute. (snip) We've been down this road before. In 1994, Hillary Clinton's secretive health care task force was trying to nationalize health care. "A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of...

President Obama and his administration do not want you watching Fox News. According to them, Fox News is not really a news organization. But, they feel CNN, MSNBC, and Univision are real news organizations, so you are allowed to watch them.

COPAN RUINAS, Honduras (CNS) -- Oscar Garcia used to sell 100 pounds of tomatoes every day in the municipal market of this colonial town near the Guatemalan border. Since the June 28 ouster of President Manuel Zeyala, Garcia sells just 40 pounds of tomatoes and has to moonlight as a hotel security guard to support his family. "I'm working day and night and it's barely enough," said Garcia, the father of four. "There are people here starving to death because of the political crisis." The June 28 coup plunged Honduras into a political crisis, but also deepened long-standing economic problems...

"Propaganda is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. If the means achieves the end then the means is good.........the new Ministry has no other aim than to unite the nation behind the ideal of the national revolution." Joseph Goebbels President Obama is a bully, he doesn't like being questioned or crossed. Like most of the bullying kind, if you disagree with him he will go after you with personal attacks full guns blaring. Just look at some examples of the people who have crossed the President and got smack down by the Bully-in-Chief or his...

Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance Wednesday, October 21, 2009 By Matt Cover (CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the individual health insurance mandates included in every health reform bill, which require Americans to have insurance, were “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.” The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would...

If Americans want a glimpse of all of the good that can be done for children if our Senate decides to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), we need look no further than 90 miles off the coast of Florida. For a shining example of the success of internationalism, Cuba is the United Nation’s latest poster child. In articles released this week by official Cuban news agencies, UNICEF representative José Juan Ortiz praised Cuba for being “able to apply the UN Convention on Children’s Rights in a way which is truly a model.” Cuba? --...

Anita Dunn: How We Created Obama's Cult of Personality By Candance Moore Created 2009-10-20 10:45 For months NewsBusters has been reporting [0] how the media aided and abetted the creation of Barack Obama's Cult of Personality leading to his eventual election as the 44th President of the United States. Eight days before his inauguration, Obama's Fox News-hating [0] communications director Anita Dunn and his digital strategist Ben Self, while at a conference in the Dominican Republic hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, confirmed the allegation in a tutorial they gave to President Leonel Fernandez and other government...

Advocates of imposing "network neutrality" say it's necessary to ensure a "free" and "open" Internet and rescue the public from nefarious corporations that "control" technology. Few proposals in Washington have been sold employing such deceptive language -- and that's saying something. But few public policy ideas can boast the unashamedly socialist pedigree of net neutrality. The modern Internet is a creation of the free market, which has brought about a revolution in communication, free speech, education, and commerce. New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski apparently doesn't like that. He stated last month the way Internet service providers manage their...

A lovely couple singing a duet together!

Bill McKibben '82 has founded 350.org, a worldwide action group that this weekend (Oct. 23-25) will promote demonstrations on every continent. McKibben was at Harvard's Memorial Church for a 90-minute "climate convocation" sponsored by 17 groups. Author and climate activist Bill McKibben '82 ascended into the pulpit of the Memorial Church at Harvard University on Oct. 18, a stage so grand that legend puts it "10 feet above contradiction." McKibben's message is that the Earth is warming rapidly, that climate change is too late to stop, but that it is not too late to act. Acting means getting humankind, with...

The latest in Commie Chic: “Oba Mao” t-shirts! Nope, not manufactured by RAAAACIST Tea Party protesters. Manufactured in China and sold by the Chinese for the rest of the Citizens of the World. Mao-cheerleading White House communication director Anita Dunn has already put in a special order (via Breitbart TV): (see link for video) On a related note, Bill Gertz reported last week: President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department — a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile...