Free Republic

Not A Tax Increase? Video ad A conservative advocacy group closely aligned with the Tea Party announced a $9 million swing-state push against President Obama and the healthcare law. The announcement by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which is largely funded by the conservative Koch brothers, comes one day after the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the vast majority of the law in a major coup for Obama. "While we are deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court ruling," AFP President Tim Phillips said in a statement, "this is far from over." The group's push is worth $9 million, according to a...

The Justice Department moved Friday to shield Attorney General Eric Holder from prosecution after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress. The contempt vote technically opens the door for the House to call on the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to bring the case against Holder before a grand jury. But because U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen works for Holder and because President Obama has already asserted executive privilege over the documents in question, it was expected Holder's Justice Department would not take that step. Deputy Attorney General James Cole confirmed in a letter to House...

The Department of Justice is asserting that the governor of Texas, as well as state legislators, have no executive or deliberative process privilege to shield documents -- even as Eric Holder and President Obama assert executive and deliberative process privilege to shield documents from Congress in its investigation of Fast & Furious. That refusal has already resulted in Holder being held in contempt by the House of Representatives in a 255-to-67 vote that was joined by 17 Democratic representatives.

I woke up this morning asking God if I could make a trade. Similar to the NBA, when you have one player on the team who isn’t performing at the level you’d hoped, you try to get someone else who fits the criteria necessary to help the team find victory. In this case, we are playing for Team Black America. Of course I know that America is not the kind of country that would elect someone like Father Michael Pfleger as its president. Father Pfleger is the kind of pastor that becomes the nightmare of anyone who chooses to live...

The Justice Department has declared that Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to withhold information about a bungled gun-tracking operation from Congress does not constitute a crime and he won't be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.

Washington (CNN) — Republicans are seizing on the individual mandate’s penalty in the newly upheld health care law as proof President Obama broke his promise not to raise taxes on middle class Americans. [.....] As it turns out the tax penalty in the president’s health care law was modeled after the reform plan passed in Massachusetts under then governor Mitt Romney. In a 2009 interview with CNN, Romney explained how the Massachusetts health care mandate worked. If the state’s residents decided to forgo health insurance when they could afford it, Romney said they would face the loss of a tax...

“A physician shortage was already expected before ACA was signed into law in March 2010, and now that gap could worsen. According to projections released last fall by the AAMC Center for Workforce Studies, there will be a shortage of about 63,000 doctors by 2015, with greater shortages on the horizon—91,500 and 130,600 for 2020 and 2025, respectively.” 1. How will this actually affect the number of practicing Physicians? The outlook is not good. Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan... and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if...

Border Patrol agents in Arizona are blasting their bosses for telling them, along with all other Department of Homeland Security employees, to run and hide if they encounter an "active shooter." It's one thing to tell civilian employees to cower under a desk if a gunman starts spraying fire in a confined area, say members of Tucson Local 2544/National Border Patrol Council, but to give armed law enforcement professionals the same advice is downright insulting. The instructions from DHS come in the form of pamphlets and a mandatory computer tutorial. “We are now taught in an ‘Active Shooter’ course that...

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS ET AL. v. SEBELIUS, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT No. 11–393. Argued March 26, 27, 28, 2012—Decided June 28, 2012* In 2010, Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable CareAct in order to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance and decrease the cost of health care. One key provision isthe individual mandate, which requires most Americans to maintain“minimum essential” health insurance coverage. 26 U. S. C. §5000A.For individuals who are...

A subsidiary of U.S. defence giant Textron has won the competition to provide the Canadian Forces with 500 new tactical armoured patrol vehicles. The contract for the acquisition of the vehicles, known by its military acronym TAPV, is worth a little more than $600 million. The sustainment contract for the vehicles is worth a little more than $100 million. Textron Systems Canada Inc. opened its Ottawa office in January on Sparks Street and will manage its role as prime contractor for the project from there. The Canadian Textron TAPV team includes Kongsberg Protech Systems Canada, London, ON, Rheinmetall Canada, St....

"Obamacare is just a new tax, folks. A series of new taxes. That's all it is. It is not a health care bill."- Rush

By a 50–45 margin, voters disapprove of the court’s decision, a Newsweek/Daily Beast poll finds. Voters are reacting in broadly negative ways to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the legislation known as Obamacare, a new Newsweek/Daily Beast poll finds, with a majority disapproving of the ruling, fearing health-care costs and taxes will rise, and preferring Mitt Romney to President Obama on the issue. At the same time, voters scored the ruling a short-term political win for the president by a huge margin. Overall, 50 percent of those polled said they disapprove of the court’s 5–4 decision, while 45 percent...

In the current recession, the ranks of the unemployed in California have swelled by nearly 1.2 million. Still, one industry seems to be thriving in America’s nation-state: the California “reform industry.” The key organizations in the Golden State’s world of reform are California Forward and Think Long, each with high-profile board members (including Hoover’s George Shultz and Condoleezza Rice, former California Gov. Gray Davis and ex-Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, as well as leaders from business and labor organizations), a cadre of political and policy consultants, and enthusiastic funders. I’m unaffiliated with either group. My perspective on state government was honed...

With shortages of power and rising costs of fuels, Embu prison in Kenya has turned to human excrement to generate power. Bio-gas now fuels three boilers in the prison kitchen, and firewood costs have been cut down by more than half. Many hope the innovative form of recycling and generating power could be applied in not only all prisons across the country but also in other institutions to significantly reduce energy bills. Waste not, want not To generate power, human waste is put into a machine called the "digester" and bio-gas is produced by bacteria during a 30-day fermentation...

Congress on Friday signed off on a deal to halt an increase in student loan interest rates that could affect more than 7 million people – clearing the way for President Barack Obama’s signature.

President Barack Obama’s big win with the Supreme Court could come back to bite him at the election, political guru Dick Morris told Newsmax within minutes of the court decision being announced. Now that the only way to get rid of Obama’s healthcare overhaul is via the ballot box, it could persuade more people to turn out and vote against him in November, Morris said in an exclusive interview. Read more on Newsmax.com: Dick Morris to Newsmax: Court Decision Could Come Back to Haunt Obama Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Okay, folks. I now know what happened yesterday. I've had time to dig into this. Time that I did not have prior to yesterday's program and did not have during the program. And I can't tell you how sick I am. I am literally sick over what happened yesterday. I don't know how else to describe it. Literally sick. And now, from sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday! Open line Friday. That's the day of the week where you get to choose what it is we talk about when we go to the phones. Monday through...

The first, and best known, of these seven taxes that will hit all Americans as a result of Obamacare is the Individual Mandate Tax (no longer concealed as a penalty). This provision will require a couple to pay the higher of a base tax of $1,360 per year, or 2.5% of adjusted growth income starting with lower base tax and rising to this level by 2016. Individuals will see a base tax of $695 and families a base tax of $2,085 per year by 2016. Next up is the Medicine Cabinet Tax that took effect in 2011. The Flexible Spending...

Rep. Darrell Issa managed to push the details of a secret wiretap application from the botched “Fast and Furious” gunwalking operation into the public domain this week when he entered summaries into the Congressional Record, apparently using Congress‘ protection under the speech and debate clause to get around legal boundaries. The summary of a March 2010 wiretap application shows that federal agents repeatedly lost track of guns they knew were being trafficked back to cartels in Mexico — a violation of Justice Department policy that should have raised red flags with top department officials who signed off on the wiretaps,...

The Obama administration on Friday threatened to veto a defense appropriations bill in part because it does not include higher health care fees for members of the military. “The Administration is disappointed that the Congress did not incorporate the requested TRICARE fee initiatives into either the appropriation or authorization legislation,” the White House wrote in an official policy statement expressing opposition to the bill, which the House approved in May. President Obama’s most recent budget proposal includes billions of dollars in higher fees for members of TRICARE, the military health care system, and is part of the administration’s plan to...