Free Republic

From Abortion and keeping your present plan,to Illegals and being deficit neutral, President Obama's Wednesday night speech was full of holes. As it turns out even the "personal stories" only had a small measure of truth. By personal stories I mean those real life examples that politicians use to try to prove their point. Bill Clinton was a master of this technique, the way he used bite his lip when he would tell the story would make people think that he really felt for the people he was describing. Barack Obama doesn't project the same emotion as Clinton he always...

House lawmakers are poised to introduce legislation that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The law, which was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, defines marriage as between a man and a woman, and prevents same-sex married couples from receiving the same federal benefits as heterosexual married couples. Reps. Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) -- who is the first openly gay member elected to the House -- plan to introduce a bill this week that would scrap DOMA. Baldwin is also gay. In the 13 years since the bill was signed into...

In an interview with Steve Croft this evening, Obama said the following about tort reform: KROFT: If it came down to getting this plan passed, would you be willing to do more in the area of tort reform and malpractice insurance? Would you be willing to agree to caps, for example, on malpractice judgments? PRESIDENT OBAMA: What I would be willing to do is to consider any ideas out there that would actually work in terms of reducing costs, improving the quality of patient care. So far the evidence I've seen is that caps will not do that. Obama missed...

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says that the demonstrations in Washington, D.C., Saturday do not represent the views of the broader public when it comes to health care reform.

SUSAN Boyle experiences Life Thru A Lens - just like Robbie Williams on his famous 1997 album cover. The Britain's Got Talent runner-up, 48, was mobbed by paparazzi as she flew into Los Angeles. She is in the States to belt out her version of The Rolling Stones' Wild Horses on American Idol, which you can see by clicking below. (in the article)

I spent an hour in an alternate reality on Thursday. In this grim place of long shadows and short tempers, paranoia is the coin of the realm. Fear trumps fact. Anger is virtue. Grievance is universal. Rage is a commodity. Dissent is throatily endorsed, so long as it conforms to majority opinion. The Mob rules here, fella. In this alternate reality, history is malleable. If the record doesn't match the Mob's memory or support its agenda, it must be hammered into shape. Nothing is what it seems, anyway, except of course those things that really are what they seem. In...

(CNSNews.com) - Despite a still-lagging U.S. economy and rising unemployment rate, House Democrats announced late yesterday that they will seek a massive increase in federal income taxes to help pay for the national health-care reform proposal that President Obama is urging Congress to enact this summer. House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D.-N.Y.)revealed late Friday afternoon that House Democrats will seek to increase income taxes by $540 billion. The move, which had been discussed earlier in the week by House Democrats, broke in an Associated Press story that was published at 4:14 PM Eastern Daylight time on Friday afternoon...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said he is confident Congress will pass "a good health care bill," as months of rancor over reforming the nation's health care system seemed to be easing Sunday, with the White House playing down an immediate role for a government insurance option.

* GM offers a 60-day money back guarantee—if your car is under 4,000 miles and be current on payment * Government approved chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. puts GM’s future on the line * Flashback: Edward E. Whitacre has no experience in the automotive industry Vote in poll: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=118409

50 Million New Patients? Expect Doc Shortages Revamped health care system could swamp primary care physicians BOSTON - Among the many hurdles facing President Barack Obama's plan to revamp the nation's health care system is a shortage of primary care physicians — those legions of overworked doctors who provide the front line of medical care for both the sick and those hoping to stay healthy. As Massachusetts' experience shows, extending health care to 50 million uninsured Americans will only further stress the system and could force many of those newly insured back into costly emergency rooms for routine care if...

President Obama is right: This nation shouldn't allow tens of millions of its citizens to be left without health care. Those Americans suffer physically and financially, and the country is diminished because of it. He is also right that it is time for our leaders to act. As the economic downturn leaves more and more people without health insurance, the well-being of thousands of families is eroding week to week. The president made that case persuasively in his address to Congress and the nation Wednesday. It was high time that he stepped in. After a fractious August, during which both...

Barack Obama offered this "olive brancn" to Republicans during his health care overhaul speech to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday. After spending most of the speech deriding his opposition, Obama finally got to the subject of tort reform which the White Nouse had promised Obama would pursue to get Republicans on board.

Ever since Glenn Beck took to the Fox television airwaves recently to offer a bizarre reading of the art commissioned 70 years ago for New York's Rockefeller Center, I've been puzzled by the graphic design element of his 9-12 Project. The logo (pictured) for his affiliated groups' rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend derives from century-old communist, socialist and other left-wing designs. Those were the motifs he railed against in his Rockefeller rant. For the logo, three raised and clenched red fists are superimposed over the U.S. Capitol. Obviously the bloody fist represents the tea-baggers' themes of unity and resistance....

<p>A hospital in northwestern North Dakota is investigating how the mother of a newborn went home with the wrong baby.</p> <p>Officials with the Mercy Medical Center in Williston say the mistake was discovered within an hour and the mother was quickly reunited with her own child.</p>

Mario Monti, the European Union's former Competition tsar, says abandonment of free market principles is deadly. The global financial crisis has inflicted such damage to free market principles that it risks undermining the core function of Brussels and triggering the disintegration of the European Union, according to the EU's most revered economic figure. "The EU faces a quasi-existential crisis," said Mario Monti, who ran the EU's market and competition directorates for a decade. "The special role played by the Commission in EU integration is based on the market, and this crisis has brought the market economy itself into crisis. It...

HONG KONG – A construction platform inside an elevator shaft collapsed Sunday, sending six workers falling about 20 stories to their deaths inside a Hong Kong skyscraper, officials said. The accident occurred at the International Commerce Center, which will be 118 stories high when completed next year, making it one of the world's tallest buildings and the highest in Hong Kong. Speaking at the scene in the Kowloon district, Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang told reporters the men fell after the platform they were working on collapsed in the elevator shaft. All six workers died, police spokesman Michael Kwan said....

Police are investigating the death of the former chief fundraiser for ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a "death-suicide," an Illinois mayor said Sunday. Christopher Kelly, 51, was former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's chief fundraiser. Financier Christopher Kelly told police shortly before he died Saturday that he took an "overdose of drugs," said Dwight Welch, mayor of Country Club Hills, Illinois. Country Club Hills police found several drugs in Kelly's black 2007 Cadillac Escalade, but they were not sure yet whether they were prescribed, Welch said. Country Club Hills is about 27 miles south of Chicago. Kelly had recently undergone surgery...

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. “In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

CARACAS (Reuters) – Russia has agreed to lend Venezuela over $2 billion to finance the purchase of weapons including tanks and advanced anti-aircraft missiles, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday. Chavez said the purchases agreed on a trip to Moscow last week included 92 tanks and the S-300 missile system, which is capable of shooting down fighter jets and cruise missiles. "We have to thank the Russian government, which approved a $2.2 billion loan for arms spending," Chavez said on his weekly television show. He did not say how much the new weapons cost. A major oil exporter, Venezuela's...

The vitriolic debate in Congress is likely to intensify this week, when Democrats seek to reprimand a Republican lawmaker for refusing to apologize before the chamber for shouting "You lie!" during President Barack Obama's joint address to Congress last week. "I've apologized one time," Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) told "Fox News Sunday." "The apology was accepted by the president, by the vice president, who I know. I am not apologizing again." House Democratic leaders last week urged Mr. Wilson to formally and publicly apologize from the House floor, on the grounds that his outburst during Mr. Obama's address on...