Free Republic

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Michael Jackson's father is seeking an allowance from his son's estate to help cover expenses that exceed $15,000 a month, according to court documents filed Friday.</p> <p>The request seeking an unspecified amount for Joe Jackson was filed by lawyer Brian Oxman, who said there was no apparent reason for the administrators of the estate to not seek an allowance for the 81-year-old Jackson family patriarch.</p>

The left avers that many Americans are poverty-stricken, that we need to do more to alleviate their plight, and that the primary role of government is to help them. Let us examine these claims. 'Poverty' may be viewed as harsh deprivation, such as in Biafra or the Congo. Yet nobody in America starves to death. It is true that the standard of living of illegals from Mexico is far below ours, yet even they are far better off than the inhabitants of third-world countries. Nor do the poor in America suffer as did those during the Great Depression. Consider the...

Trillion dollar+ budget deficit for the fiscal year 2009 and the money keeps flowing! Must be ultra income redistribution!

PORTLAND, Ore. - With many families suddenly struggling to feed themselves, the big warehouse clubs known for king-size packages of steak and jumbo boxes of Cheerios are increasingly competing with grocery stores for the 36 million Americans now on food stamps. Costco Wholesale Corp. said Wednesday that it would start accepting food stamps at its warehouse clubs nationwide after testing them at stores in New York. That is a big about-face for a chain that has catered to the bargain-hunting affluent with its gourmet foods, and a reflection of the fact food-stamp use has hit new highs.

Sharon in her Section 8 home! Sharon Jasper has spent 57 of her 58 years dedicated to one cause and one cause only, and has nothing to show for her dedicated servitude... She has lived in Section 8 housing all but 1 of her 58 years.. It was a legacy passed down from her parents who moved into Section 8 housing in 1949 when she was six months old. She has passed the legacy down to her children, but fears they may have to get jobs to pay for the utilities and deposits. She laments about her one year hiatus...

I wish I was making this up:Lifeline BenefitsLifeline Assistance is part of a program that was created by the government to provide discounted or free telephone service to income-eligible consumers. To help bring you this important benefit, SafeLink Wireless is proud to offer Lifeline Service. Through our Lifeline Service you will receive FREE cellular service, a FREE cell phone, and FREE Minutes every month! SafeLink Wireless Service does not cost anything – there are no contracts, no recurring fees and no monthly charges. Any Minutes you do not use will roll-over. Features such as caller ID, call waiting and voicemail...

Costs and the political calendar are catching up with health care reform. Having bet the farm, President Barack Obama needs a win and is willing to settle for a cheaper bill and a weaker public insurance option. Democrats in Congress, increasingly worried about the 2010 elections, want stronger medicine for fear the reforms will prove to be a house of cards if working-class voters can’t afford the coverage promised.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) rebutted claims that a government mandate compelling everyone to buy health insurance would be unconstitutional. “As I read the Constitution, the government has the right to enact any requirement it deems serves the general welfare of the nation,” Hoyer asserted. “If we feel that the nation’s general welfare would be served by requiring everyone to purchase health insurance, we will do so. If we feel that the general welfare would be served by forcing everyone to get a flu shot, then everyone will have to get a shot.” Hoyer maintained that “the idea that...

Great video...this needs to go viral. By Zo! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhPqmJynQPU

Hennepin County has been highly successful in winning federal stimulus money, receiving $40 million for a dozen projects such as rebuilding the Lowry Avenue Bridge, adding crime lab scientists to process DNA and retraining laid-off workers for new jobs. Now the county is hoping for federal money to stem the tide of burger joints and to subsidize bike helmets and sneakers for commuters. As part of its campaign to fight obesity, the board last week directed staffers to seek $10 million in stimulus money from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve nutrition and encourage biking...

When a society has been told for years it can have something for nothing the damage is not just physical, but psychological; an entire mentality is crippled. A former British official who is now a director at the London School of Economics says that Britain is in deep trouble. Years of entitlement have convinced people that government is an endless source of wealth. With the economic crisis in full swing, the government has to cut back for national survival. The problem is that no one wants the music to stop. Even the intellectual class, according to Sir Howard Davies, has...

Minnesota and other states are worried that emerging plans to overhaul the nation's health care system could leave them facing a expensive new obligation to cover the poor without the money to pay for it. As the health care debate speeds toward a climax in Congress, cash-strapped state officials are running the numbers to gauge the impact on their budgets, which are already bleeding red ink from hard economic times. Minnesota's two U.S. senators, both Democrats, are taking notice. In a letter last week to Senate Democratic leaders, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken expressed general support for health care...

This month reveals how deeply we have descended into an anti-human kind of Dante's Hell.  From Newsweek, which told us a month ago that "We Are All Socialists Now," last week's cover story was: The Case for Pulling the Plug on Granny. , written by Evan Thomas, the grandson of famous socialist  Norman Thomas, a six-time Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. But now that we're all socialists, Evan Thomas can confess that he's just a Democrat. The fundamental delusion of Socialism is that there's a free lunch, plus free health care, free national defense (by decimating the...

UTICA, N.Y. -- Twelve Utica residents face federal charges for approximately $2 million in food stamp fraud. These charges come after an 18 month state and federal investigation. Police say those indicted were accepting food stamp benefits in exchange for cash, which is a violation because these benefits are only to be used for eligible food products. A federal grand jury indicted the 12 Tuesday. Only eight were actually arrested and charged Tuesday with defrauding the USDA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. They include: · Muteea Alfahdd, 41 · Najeeb Abdullah, 44 · Hamoud...

Wealthy people are leaving the tax-hell of New York, while 45% of doctors would consider quitting if Obama Care were enacted. Scary prospects for New York’s looter class and the nation as a whole, respectfully, when those who produce, create, innovate and do the hard work at the top are abused to the point of giving up or leaving. The class-warfare stresses are there: “They’re rich and greedy; they deserve to be taxed more than the rest of us.“ “Those selfish, greedy doctors – willing to leave the poor, sick people of America because of their own greed.”

Former hotels, nursing homes and other sites would be used to hold immigrants who are not criminals or violent as part of a larger plan to reform immigration detention proposed by the homeland security secretary, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press. Janet Napolitano is proposing that illegal immigrants awaiting deportation be confined according to the risk they may pose and will detail her plan on Tuesday. The reforms were previewed by the agency in August without as much detail. The alternative sites are intended to cut the costs of detaining immigrants, which reached nearly $2 billion in...

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder Wade Rathke wants to use the Internet to overthrow the capitalist system. He said so in his new book, Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which he serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing. Rathke’s currently on a cross-country book tour. Rathke, a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare, devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls “The ‘Maximum Eligible Participation’ Solution.” It is a strategy for...

Most people think they pay too much to Uncle Sam, but for some people it simply is not true. In 2009, roughly 47% of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Welfare Revisited by: Allie Winegar Duzett, September 30, 2009 Senior Research Fellow on Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation Robert Rector said at the September 22, 2009 Conservative Bloggers Briefing that while some blame military expenses for bankrupting the United States, 2.5 times more money has been spent on the “war on poverty” than has been spent on the military in all of United States history. Rector went on to explain that Americans spend about $8 billion a year on the war on poverty; if there are 40 million poor in America, this means we spend about $20,000 per person...

I am haunted by the specter of the people on that overpass during hurricane Katrina. They stood there and waited for help. It never occurred to them to help themselves by walking north. When no help was forthcoming, they began to chant, “We want help. We want help. We want help.” It was very clear to ME that they perceived that the way to get help was to “demonstrate” and demand it—to create a disturbance until someone took notice of them and helped them so they would be silent. It was so similar to a child throwing a tantrum that...

Vote of Confidence A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape—and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. By Gretchen Reynolds A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape-and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. In the final, climactic buildup to November's general election, with George Bush gaining ground on Bill Clinton in Illinois and the once-unstoppable campaign of senatorial candidate Carol Moseley Braun embroiled in allegations about her mother's Medicare liability, one of the most important local stories managed to go virtually unreported: The...

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy, but Obama’s proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush’s war spending by more than $260 billion. “Because of the Bush-McCain policies, our debt has ballooned,” then-Sen. Barack Obama told a Charleston, W.V., crowd in March 2008. “This is creating problems in our fragile economy. And that kind of debt also places an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay it.” During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a...

President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year--2010--more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January.

A pair of local child care workers are suing the state over their mandatory inclusion into a union. Following a December 2008 notification letter from the state, child care workers began paying union dues to the Child Care Providers Together Michigan, an arm under the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and United Auto Workers, because they receive subsidy checks from the Michigan Department of Human Services for caring for children of low income families. But Petoskey residents Sherry Loar and Dawn Ives said they never asked to be part of a union and contacted the Mackinaw Center...

I bought a bird feeder. I hung It on my back porch and filled It with seed. What a beauty of A bird feeder it was, as I filled it Lovingly with seed.. Within a Week we had hundreds of birds Taking advantage of the Continuous flow of free and Easily accessible food. But then the birds started Building nests in the boards Of the patio, above the table, And next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was Everywhere: on the patio tile, The chairs, the table .. Everywhere! Then some of the birds Turned mean. They would...

[On Sept. 16th Heritage scholar Robert Rector appeared on the Lou Dobbs Show and outlined the shocking results of his latest research about how Obama is rushing us into the complete welfare state.] Welfare or aid to poor and low-income persons is now the third most expensive government function. Its costs rank above spending on national defense. Welfare spending has grown enormously since Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty. In his first two years in office, Obama will increase annual welfare spending by ONE-THIRD from $522 billion to $697 billion. After adjusting for inflation, this increase is two and...

Those ticket taxes you pay when you fly can really cause the price to jump, but now a new report reveals some of that money is going to airports that only service private planes. An investigation by USA Today reveals millions of dollars in taxes collected from commercial passengers are going to little used airports that only service private planes, including over 50 airports in Kansas....

The end of welfare reform as we knew it. By Stephen Spruiell When Barack Obama said he wanted to “spread the wealth around,” he meant it. A new study from Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation estimates that Obama’s policies would spend $10.3 trillion on welfare programs over the next decade. Obama started increasing welfare spending immediately after assuming office. The stimulus bill included $220 billion in new means-tested spending, including a little-noticed provision that repealed one of the key welfare reforms of the Clinton era. The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act capped welfare dollars to states, ending...

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D) has postponed balancing his state’s budget until after the February 2010 primary election. The Governor’s action contradicts the state’s constitution and threatens the availability of funding for the state’s vast network of social subsidies to targeted beneficiaries. Quinn called the breach of the state’s constitution “tolerable.” “Obviously, we’ll need a tax increase to cover the hole in the state budget,” Quinn alleged. “But I don’t need to be hammered by my political enemies for advocating that before the election. There’ll be time enough to take that stand after I’m reelected.” The Governor also discounted the...

You owe your life — and everything else — to the sovereign. The rights of subjects are not natural rights, but merely grants from the sovereign. There is no right even to complain about the actions of the sovereign, except insofar as the sovereign allows the subject to complain. These are the principles of unlimited, arbitrary, and absolute power, the principles of such rulers as Louis XIV. Intellectuals have assiduously promoted them; think of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes. A new intellectual champion of absolutism has now emerged. Mild-mannered University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein has been advancing the...

Hundreds line up outside a Chase Bank in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y., to take advantage of the free funds aimed at helping underprivileged children. Every child between 3 and 17 was eligible for $200. (John Taggart/New York Daily News) Word of the money spread quickly. New York state had put hundreds of dollars in federal stimulus money into food stamp accounts, and if it wasn’t withdrawn by 4 p.m., 9 p.m., midnight—depending on the version of the rumor—it would disappear. So on a sultry August day, lines stretched at ATMs all over the state, a literal run on the bank....

Anticipating hundreds of millions of dollars a year in greenhouse gas fees collected from California businesses, the Legislature is planning to redistribute much of the bounty to the state's "most impacted and disadvantaged communities." Perhaps a bill pending in the state Senate reveals the motive of feel-good legislative efforts to fight global warming: a massive redistribution of wealth. Assembly Bill 1405 calls for 30 percent of new fees raised under global warming regulations yet to be drafted to go to a Community Benefits Fund to be used in specially selected communities, based on specific criteria also yet to be drafted....

In an interview with Philadelphia-based radio host Michael Smerconish, President Obama said the following about critics who called his healthcare proposal “socialist:” “FDR was called a socialist when he passed Social Security. JFK and Lyndon Johnson - they were both accused of a government takeover of health care when they passed Medicare. This is the process that we go through, because understandably the American people have a long tradition of being suspicious of government until the government actually does something that helps them.” Obama is right. What we often call “socialism” is simply the same old welfare state most Americans...

Sometimes, 18 kids is simply not enough, so Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of Tonitown, Ark., are expecting a new addition to their household this spring. That's right, at that point they will have five more children than Nadya "Octomom" Suleman and 11 more children than Jon and Kate Gosselin. Wow. "We are so thrilled," says Michelle, 42. "We just can't believe it is happening." You can't, Michelle? Not after the previous 18 times you were pregnant? Her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, 44, agrees: "I never gets old. We are so grateful for each child. We look forward to our...

Courtesy of the unfailingly brilliant Jim Treacher:

TODAY'S election in the African nation of Gabon will make Inge Bongo -- who's living on welfare with her two kids in California and collecting food stamps -- the first lady of that oil-rich African country. But she's afraid to even visit. Inge, the lovely wife of fabulously wealthy Ali Bongo -- whose father, Omar Bongo, died in June after ruling for more than four decades -- still has the scars from the beatings she endured, and voodoo exorcisms carried out by witch doctors who slashed her and put black-magic medicine in her wounds. SNIP "It's shameful to me that...

Radical environmentalists have occasionally argued that the life of one member of an endangered species is worth more than the life of one member of the human race. Judging by the money it is spending on the Mexican wolf reintroduction program, federal and state governments seem to agree with this extremist viewpoint. $400,000 per Wolf Since the Mexican wolf reintroduction program was launched more than a decade ago, millions of dollars have been spent by the United States, Arizona and New Mexico governments. The goal was to reestablish a target population of 100 wolves in the mountainous areas of southwestern...

I’m sitting in a waiting room. I’m waiting for my auditioning squad to execute me. I’m wearing my black and red plaid, $1400 St. John audition outfit. I’ve worn it to every audition for six years. It has a small hole in it. I hope they don’t notice. I have time to kill so I’m trying to crawl inside the head of a liberal. The people auditioning me will all be liberals. Should I hide my recent, passionate Tea-Bagging activities, if the topic comes up? Why should they hate me? I only want the best for everyone. My beliefs in...

The number of jobless households has risen at its fastest rate since Labour came to power with almost five million people now living in homes where no one works. New figures reveal a massive 4.8million people of working age now live in a home where no one holds down a job. The data for April to June this year shows an increase of 500,000 on a year ago before the recession took a crippling grip on Britain. The percentage of households where no adults work is now 16.9 per cent, up 1.1 per cent on 2008, according to the data...

The number of jobless households has risen at its fastest rate since Labour came to power with almost five million people now living in homes where no one works. New figures reveal a massive 4.8million people of working age now live in a home where no one holds down a job. The data for April to June this year shows an increase of 500,000 on a year ago before the recession took a crippling grip on Britain. The percentage of households where no adults work is now 16.9 per cent, up 1.1 per cent on 2008, according to the data...

Many days, Jamal King stands at South Vermont Avenue and West 46th Street in South Los Angeles, his muscled arms covered with tattoos flaunting his membership in the Rolling 40s, a drug-running criminal gang. His former foster father often drives past slowly, wagging his finger. "I know people look at me and just see a gangbanger," King said. "It's not really who I am. It's just temporary." But King's hope for a better life is hobbled by more than poverty and his surroundings -- he lacks a birth certificate.

According to the CDC, 66% of adults over the age of 20 are overweight or obese. That is approximately 140 million adults. Somewhere between 15 and 20 million Americans can be classified as alcoholics. As many as 50% of those on welfare are alcoholics. There are 225 million people over 18 years old and 32 million of them do not have a high school degree. There are 32 million adults or 14% who are illiterate (23% in California, 22% in New York, 20% in Florida, 17% in New Jersey). The United States’ spending per pupil in public schools at $9,266...

Admitting for the first time what critics have claimed for years, state child-welfare authorities say caregivers for children in state custody frequently use powerful mind-altering drugs to manage unruly kids, rather than treat their anger and sadness. A panel of child-welfare experts, including two top administrators from the state Department of Children & Families, examined the death of a 7-year-old Broward foster child who was on psychotropic medications — without the required consent — when he hanged himself in a Margate home. The panel's report, expected to be released publicly later this month, says child welfare authorities too often rely...

The American debate on comprehensive health coverage is instructive both because it illustrates the extremes of welfare society—Israel’s as well as America’s—and because it shows how socialists take some very questionable propositions for granted. The American health problem is the overregulation of the medical profession which has led to spiraling costs and cartel prices. Filling a tooth costs upwards of $200 in America, but as little as $10 in Russia, and the quality of the work is comparable. Absurdly long medical education drastically increases doctors’ wage requirements. Plenty of medical operations can be performed proficiently enough by less skilled personnel;...

Americans are angry at Wall Street, and rightly so. First the financial industry plunged us into economic crisis, then it was bailed out at taxpayer expense. And now, with the economy still deeply depressed, the industry is paying itself gigantic bonuses. If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention. But crashing the economy and fleecing the taxpayer aren’t Wall Street’s only sins. Even before the crisis and the bailouts, many financial-industry high-fliers made fortunes through activities that were worthless if not destructive from a social point of view. And they’re still at it. Consider two recent news stories. One...

A small parish (församling) in the Östermalm neighbourhood of Stockholm has more money to spend than it has people to spend it on. The parish has now petitioned government authorities to allow it to amend its regulations so that money can used to help poor people living in other Stockholm parishes. Fewer than 100 individuals in the Hedvig Eleonora parish in Östermalm receive social assistance. As a result, the parish has now sought permission from the Swedish Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency (Kammarkollegiet) to amend its regulations in order to be able to direct its resources towards those in...

Rathke is a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare. He devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls "The 'Maximum Eligible Participation' Solution." It is a strategy for orchestrated crisis that savvy leftist groups across America are likely to embrace. Rathke confirms ... that he is pursuing this strategy that calls for all Americans eligible for welfare payments to pursue every penny the law "entitles" them to. He urges people to "make sure that other people in the community" are actually getting their due from the government. The Maximum...

<p>Octuplet mother Nadya Suleman has signed agreements for each of her 14 children to earn $250 a day to star in a reality television show.</p> <p>The contracts filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court guarantee the children will collectively earn about $250,000 over three years. The contracts require a judge's approval.</p>

Nearly two-out-of-three California voters (64%) say illegal immigrants put a significant strain on the state budget as lawmakers struggle to close a $26 billion deficit. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of California voters shows that just 25% say illegal immigrants are not a major strain on the state budget. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure. Adults under 30 are less likely to believe illegal immigrants are a budget strain than those who are older. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Republicans and 67% of voters not affiliated with either major party see illegal immigrants as a serious budget strain. Democrats are...

Of the 167 candidates running for the Detroit City Council, 19 owe a combined $2.4 million in taxes, one in seven has filed for bankruptcy and three are felons, according to an investigation by The Detroit News. Many of the candidates are running on reform platforms, arguing their past problems make them stronger candidates. It's important to note that the majority of council candidates have clean records, but in a field this large and from a city with Detroit's recent history, notable exceptions abound. The highlights:.......