Free Republic

Official campaign ad is consistent with ageist hate speech hosted at My.Barackobama.comThis official advertisement, "Paid for by Obama for America" and approved by Barack Obama, continues his campaign's proud tradition of mocking and ridiculing senior citizens, and indeed people over 50. The ad opens with a mirror ball from a disco under the caption 1982, and then shows a clumsy portable phone and a Rubik's cube. Then it derides McCain for not knowing how to use a computer or send E-mail. It says, "Things have changed since then, but McCain hasn't." This ad was approved by Barack Obama, and it...

Employers are increasingly recognizing they may be able to avoid certain penalties under the federal health law by offering very limited plans that can lack key benefits such as hospital coverage. Benefits advisers and insurance brokers—bucking a commonly held expectation that the law would broadly enrich benefits—are pitching these low-benefit plans around the country. They cover minimal requirements such as preventive services, but often little more. Some of the plans wouldn't cover surgery, X-rays or prenatal care at all. Others will be paired with limited packages to cover additional services, for instance, $100 a day for a hospital visit. Federal...

A few weeks back, the Tea Party was little more than a relic of political history, and its former superstars such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann were lost in a sea of irrelevance. Now the Obama administration has gotten the Tea Party started again. The trio of scandals that are rocking Washington smack of the exact kind of government overreach and abuse of power that fueled the movement in the beginning. Suddenly, Tea Party darling and likely presidential hopeful Rand Paul is selling out speaking events from Iowa to New Hampshire, and PalinÂ’s tweets are making headlines again. The...

The federal Affordable Care Act, better known as “ObamaCare,” may provide activists and government a little-known wedge to advance their obesity agendas through regulated health-care providers — specifically America’s nearly 3,000 non-profit hospitals. One organization, The STOP Obesity Alliance, recently identified this wedge as a way to have such hospitals embrace its core convictions, including one principle which questions the role of personal responsibility as a cause and a solution to obesity.Community Health Needs Assessments. Section 9007 of the Act requires non-profit hospitals, as a condition of maintaining their tax-exempt status, to conduct Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs). These documents, which...

As gratifying as it was to see the “news” media actually do its job last week when the IRS scandal broke, it was also odd that the coverage focused exclusively on abuses of power relating to various Tea Party and anti-abortion groups. A much scarier IRS story has been virtually ignored by the establishment press. On Wednesday, it was reported that a class-action lawsuit had been filed against a group of IRS agents who, according to the complaint filed by “John Doe Company” in the Southern District of California, “stole more than 60,000,000 medical records of more than 10,000,000 Americans,...

The White House may invoke it in its peculiar way, but its occupants only show contempt for the rule of law. Last Thursday, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) started a Twitter prairie fire with his call for people to describe #ObamacareInThreeWords. (My contribution was “Sorry, Doctor retired.”) Other gems included “Max Baucus regrets,” “A massive failure,” “Rammed down throats” and the extremely uncomfortable proof of Godwin’s Law, “Arbeit. Macht. Frei.” Liberal participation brought “Win for kids,” “Republicans suck balls,” “Republicans hate me”... --snip-- House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) hit the nail on the head in his opening...

According to recent polls, younger Americans are increasingly disillusioned with government and cynical about the political process. Maybe they will finally realize that they are being played for patsies by the Obama administration. After all, on issue after issue, President Obama has fed younger voters a steady diet of high-minded rhetoric and then delivered policies that leave them holding the bag. The most recent example is Obamacare. For one, in order for the president’s health-care law to work properly, large numbers of young people will have to buy insurance. Those young and healthy individuals, with their low claims costs, are...

The Wall Street Journal reports that the part-time Florida Legislature has adjourned for the year without approving the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which Gov. Rick Scott famously flip-flopped into supporting earlier this year. Here's how the Journal's editorial described the outcome: The nine Republican governors who decided earlier this year to pump some helium into the Obamacare balloon and expand Medicaid forgot about that saving grace of American politics: the separation of powers. On Friday, Florida became the latest state to reject the expansion, as Gov. Rick Scott failed to convince the GOP-controlled legislature to approve his Medicaid flip. Republicans in...

Government Overreach: The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of tax-exempt organizations when the unit targeted Tea Party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for enforcing ObamaCare. As bad as the IRS scandal was, with the taxing body of government using its unequaled authority to intimidate and harass the president's political opposition to aid his re-election, it got worse with the news that the IRS official, Sarah Hall Ingram, who served as commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division from 2009 to 2012, is now serving as director of the IRS' Affordable Care Act division. Ingram was so...

From deep within the bowels of America’s most beloved bureaucracy: The good news: free colonoscopies for everybody! The bad news: they’re part of the new airport screening protocol. Here’s one that didn’t make the cut: 6. Someone once said: “The nine most dangerous words are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” Do you know who said it, and do you think it’s humorous?

Republicans seek to establish paranoid 'culture of cover-ups' at IRS hearingblares the headline of allvoices. During a heated grilling on Capitol Hill by congressional lawmakers, resigned IRS Commissioner Steve Miller gave his best effort to describe what happened at the Cincinnati office by examiners, who were accused of “targeting” conservative groups for extra scrutiny on tax-exempt applications. It was not nefarious activity meant to be politically targeted, said Miller. Apparently, it was a shortcut system designed to handle the flood of applications for 501(c)(4) status that doubled after Citizens United was allowed by the Supreme Court to deluge political campaigns...

On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The bill passed 229-195, with two Democrats voting for repeal and no Republicans voting against the bill. The bill has no expectations of actually moving forward in the Senate, and of course the President would veto any such legislation that came to his desk. Democrats to claim the House is simply wasting time. However, Tea Party Patriots Legislative Advisor Bill Pascoe has a different view. Speaking to Local Coordinators last week, he pointed out that while the House is voting for the 37th time to repeal the...

With so many White House scandals—and new ones popping up every day—how are average citizens supposed to keep track? Wouldn't it be nice if Obama went on ESPN and mapped them all on a bracket?Why wait for next year's March Madness when you can start May Madness today? Introducing the Obama Scandal Bracket! Click here for a full-size version and vote for the scandal you think will bring down the president.

From The White House web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/ "There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov." Yes, you read that correctly. The Orwellian White House wants to silence the opposition...

At a dinner not long ago someone described the wonders of a new product which uploaded your vital signs to the Cloud, a process that was so much more accurate than having to take it yourself and write it down on a piece of paper. It’s a great idea and there are an increasing number of such services which plan to offer that feature such as this, which proclaims “doctors can now establish online CarePods™ to assemble extended care teams, share medical records, collect and analyze real-time clinical information, and coordinate treatment plans with patients, their families and health providers.”...

Leaving aside the seriousness of lawlessness, and the corruption of our civic culture by the professionally pious, this past week has been amusing. There was the spectacle of advocates of an ever-larger regulatory government expressing shock about such government’s large capacity for misbehavior. And, entertainingly, the answer to the question “Will Barack Obama’s scandals derail his second-term agenda?” was a question: What agenda? The scandals are interlocking and overlapping in ways that drain his authority. Everything he advocates requires Americans to lavish on government something his administration, and big government generally, undermines – trust. [emphasis added] Liberalism’s agenda has been...

<p>CEOs of large organizations all face the same problem – driving their agendas in organizations too diverse and geographically dispersed to manage directly.</p> <p>They hire competent managers for their units, set goals and establish clear metrics for evaluating performance. As in politics, competition in business is tough, and CEOs must set ethical boundaries for their managers’ conduct.</p>

(Read the whole article) Things will probably have to get a whole lot worse before a critical mass of voters choose the path of despair that the National Journal warns against: the point where they exit the game. The difficulty is that the restraint does not so far seem symmetric. What is perhaps most disturbing is the sheer effrontery of the administration. They seem unabashed and oblivious to the damage they are causing. They are telling lies that nobody can be expected to believe, almost as if the stranger hiding under the marital bed explains that he’s looking for change...

Wh should we thank god for Obamcare?

New York City, N.Y., May 18, 2013 / 06:02 am (CNA).- Bill Donohue of the Catholic League said he was “stunned” that the IRS investigated his organization in 2008, charging that the Democrat-leaning group Catholics United filed the complaint and used it to argue that CNN should drop him as a commentator. “This was a fishing expedition meant to intimidate me and create a chilling effect on my freedom of speech,” Donohue said. “I still couldn’t believe that a couple of weeks after the election, I was being asked to spend my entire Thanksgiving trying to defend the Catholic League...

Following the national outrage over Kermit Gosnell and his late-term abortions that were essentially infanticide, a pro-life Republican member of Congress is pushing legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy nationwide. Congressman Trent Franks informed LifeNews today that he will advance legislation to provide protection nationwide for unborn children who have the capacity to experience pain while being aborted, a capacity defined in the bill as existing by 20 weeks fetal age. Franks is the prime sponsor of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The current version of the bill, which garnered a majority vote in the...

As I read it, Obungacare is en route to collapse from its own dead weight. They're basically talking about illegals actually buying those policies and the typical American family spending 20,000 usd which doesn't exist in the world, i.e. they're talking about mandating a physical impossibility. The first and best story about anybody mandating something which was physically impossible involved King Canute. Unlike Obunga, Canute's motivation was entirely decent and honorable, i.e. to demonstrate to the sycophants and idiots of his own time the realities of the universe and the limitations which those realities placed on ALL men, including kings...

Coach is Right published this article well before the current IRS scandals had broken. We thought readers might be interested in taking another look at this slight infraction committed by our “voluntary” taxing authorities. In September of 2011, 60 million health records involving 10 million Americans were illegally confiscated by members of the IRS. The theft took place at an unidentified place of business in California. Referring to itself as the John Doe Company in a lawsuit filed last week against the 15 IRS agents who took part, plaintiffs claim that...

Higher-than-expected premiums, combined with the scandal-ridden IRS, are putting a shadow over Obamacare, with House Republicans vowing to keep up the fight against President Barack Obama's key agenda item. On Thursday, the House voted once again to repeal Obamacare. This time around, two Democrats, Reps. Jim Matheson (Utah) and Mike McIntyre (N.C.)., sided with Republicans on the vote. All GOP members voted to repeal the health care issue. In Saturday's weekly GOP address, Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris vowed his party will keep up the fight, discussing a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that detailed how insurance...

A Northwestern University student was rejected for a “diversity and inclusion post” in student government because he is a white, heterosexual male, resulting in a sharp rebuke from the university’s student newspaper. Northwestern University’s Associated Student Government rejected the nomination of Stephen Piotrkowski for associate vice president of diversity and inclusion last week. The student-run committee “oversees diversity initiatives that stem from the undergraduate student body.” …

In an email to supporters of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi encouraged readers to sign a petition to "declare your support" for Obamacare ahead of the House plan to hold a vote on repealing the unpopular health care law. The email, which had the subject line "this has gotten out of control,"claims that the vote to repeal is "worthless," particularly because "a real repeal would actually COST money rather than save it." Read the whole email from Pelosi below:

President Obama’s most recent budget request would reduce borrowing by $1.1 trillion over the next decade compared with current law -- almost entirely through higher taxes on the rich, large estates and smokers, congressional budget analysts said Friday. In addition to raising nearly $1 trillion in new taxes, the president’s blueprint would also cut spending modestly, according to the analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. However, those savings include money the government never intended to spend anyway, such as a contingency fund for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and nearly $300 billion in unneeded disaster relief. Obama also...

Speaking at Ohio State University earlier this month, Barack Obama urged students to pay no attention to those paranoid types who “incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity.” Oddly enough, in recent days the most compelling testimony for this view of government has come from the president himself, who insists with a straight face that he had no idea that the Internal Revenue Service had spent two years targeting his political enemies until he “learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.” Like you, all he knows...

Michigan House Republicans unveiled legislation Thursday that would expand Medicaid, but the measure includes conditions the federal government might reject. Medicaid expansion is the No 1 issue states are facing regarding Obamacare this year. President Barack Obama's administration wants states to expand Medicaid, which would lock them into participating in Obamacare. Under the House Republican plan, Michigan would go along with Medicaid expansion only if the federal government pays for 100 percent of it and allows the state to implement major reforms to the program. Key elements of House Bill 4714 are "cancellation clauses" under which the program would be...

WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. With implementation of Obamacare set to begin later this year, the vote is largely symbolic. The Senate is highly unlikely to even take up a vote on repeal. The House voted for repeal 229-195, with votes cast almost entirely down party lines. Two Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of repeal: Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah and Rep. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina. This is the third time the House has voted to fully repeal Obamacare, and there have been a number of other...

Just got my monthly prescriptions refilled, 97 bucks more than last month, 200 bucks more than last December, same stuff, same amounts.I'm helping someone get their sex change operation, thanks, OBAMACARE!

The woman who ran the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt organizations division has been promoted, and now heads the agency's health-care office, ABC News reported. Sarah Hall Ingram was commissioner of the embattled IRS office from 2009 to 2012, roughly the period that the agency is accused of singling out Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, based on nothing but their political bent. As a firestorm grows around the IRS, Ms. Ingram quietly left the tax-exempt office and was made director of IRS Affordable Care Act Division...

If at first you don't succeed... The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law on Thursday in a symbolic move aimed as much at healing internal Republican rifts as demonstrating dogged party opposition to "Obamacare." "No matter what, Americans will not want a politicized agency to have access to their most personal, intimate health care information or be in charge of important health care decisions," Bachmann said. The 229-195 vote occurred largely along party lines and marked the 37th time the House has voted to repeal or defund the 2010 Patient Protection and...

Did the HHS secretary illegally encourage donations from health-industry firms? By Katrina Trinko Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is under fire from congressional Republicans after reports last week that she called health-industry officials and insinuated they should donate to efforts promoting Obamacare.

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today. Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part...

House Republicans voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety,

When I add up the following DHS bullet purchases + IRS lists + rampant deficit spending + sluggish economy + pending impact of Obamacare... It all adds up to something a little frightening. I would have never thought the IRS could be so heavily political and blatantly partisan and now I guess I'm starting really give credence to the idea that this president and government are radically and dangerously out of control.

So how do you feel about turning over access to sensitive healthcare information to the Internal Revenue Service? In the wake of running disclosures of the agency’s nefarious snooping and political targeting, its new role as chief health insurance enforcer should give us heartburn. Under Obamacare, responsibility for verifying eligibility for the healthcare program, and monitoring whether you carry “qualifying” health coverage (and are exempt from the law’s penalties) falls principally to the IRS. The IRS was given expansive, new powers to execute these goals. That includes more authority to share your personal information — not only about your income,...

Boston - Noted Indian American surgeon Mukesh Hariawala will discuss the business implications of President Barack Obama's second term on the Indian healthcare system at a leadership conclave in Mumbai in June. A Harvard trained cardiac surgeon, who is also a healthcare economist, Hariawala will deliver the keynote address at the 4th annual India leadership Conclave & Indian Affairs Business Leadership Awards 2013 June 21. More than 300 businessmen, diplomats, politicians, social reformers and delegates from Middle East and Europe are expected to attend the conclave with the theme of "New India, Agenda for Change" organised by Network 7 Media...

Inspired by ABC News, a drama in three acts. April 25, 2009: IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman has selected Sarah Hall Ingram to succeed Steven T. Miller (who will become Commissioner, LMSB, which oversees tax administrations for the largest corporations and partnerships in the U.S.) as the commissioner of the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division of the IRS. From May 14, 2013: Joseph Grant, the acting commissioner of tax exempt and government entities, wrote in response to the report that the decisions were made in an attempt to increase efficiency, not to target groups with a particular political view. "The mistakes outlined...

ABC News is reporting that the woman who was the head of the tax-exempt organizations division of the IRS during the time conservative groups were targeted is now director of the IRS' ObamaCare office . You can't make this stuff up. So who is Sarah Hall Ingram? Well, she was appointed as Commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entitles Division of the IRS in 2009 . Before that, she was the deputy commissioner, and before that, she was Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel for that division. She began her career with the IRS in 1982, in the Tax Litigation Division. She...

In fairness to people weary of the current GOP leadership Mitch McConnell probably did NOT come up with this on his own.

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

The White House and congressional Republicans are finally talking to each other. Or at least fighting on Twitter.As House Republicans gear up for a 37th vote to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) put out a call for pithy descriptions of the law: Hey folks, #ObamaCareInThreeWords — go!— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 16, 2013 Both conservatives and liberals weighed in. Then the White House got involved: It’s. The. Law. #ObamaCareInThreeWords, twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…

IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. ... Ingram ... is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office...

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

In an embarrassing effort to squelch the growing IRS scandal, the White House unleashed their master apologist, David Axlerod to defend the President Obama’s role in the intimidation of American citizens. Breaking from their tired playbook of duck and blame, Axlerod adopted the strategy of selective knowledge to explain to MSNBC’s host Joe Scarborough that Obama couldn’t possibly know everything happening in his administration. “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast,” Axlerod tried to explain. No doubt Axlerod extended the same leniency to President Bush over the...

In about 9 months, Americans will come face to face with ObamaCare. It will happen when they sit down to fill out their tax returns. My guess is that most people will be angry. ObamaCare and the IRS will work hand in hand in the implementation of the law, as Byron York points out today: "A look at the text of the health care law reveals that much of it consists of amending the Internal Revenue Code to give the IRS more power. When Obamacare goes fully into effect in January, every American will have to prove to the IRS...

Franklin Graham calls IRS probe of ministry finances ‘un-American’ Adelle M. Banks | May 15, 2013 (RNS) Evangelist Franklin Graham blasted the Internal Revenue Service probe of conservative nonprofit groups as “un-American,” saying both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the relief group Samaritan’s Purse were audited by the IRS. In a Tuesday (May 14) letter to President Obama, Graham said the two organizations he leads were notified last September that the IRS would review their records for the 2010 tax year. The IRS inquiry, he noted, occurred months after the BGEA ran ads in April 2012 supporting a North...

Thursday, May 16, 2013 May 16, 2013 Another IRS scandal: agents illegally seized 60 million medical records Image009And as if there's not already an abundance of problems at the IRS, another one erupts, involving 60 million private medical records of 10 million patients - including all California state judges - from Healthcare IT News: The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in...