Free Republic

I am 25 years old. That is pretty young, in the grand scheme of things. Still, I am an adult--I am married, I am a voter, I am a taxpayer...in short, I am a grown up. But the recent news stories have reduced me to a cowering five-year-old, wanting to hide in my father's lap. But, I am a grown up now, and there is nobody's lap to hide in. Watching the news stories, I keep thinking of my history classes. I remember being shocked at some of the things that happened in history, being offended by them, being glad...

First it was a penalty. Then it was a tax. Now it's a penalty again. The war of words over what to call the fine attached to the federal health care overhaul's most controversial provision continued Friday, as the White House took issue with the Supreme Court's argument -- even though that argument alone spared President Obama's law. The five-justice majority argued that, while the fine imposed by the law for not buying health insurance would otherwise be unconstitutional, the fine is actually legal under Congress' authority to tax. Ergo, the fine is officially a "tax" in the eyes of...

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.

Social media is a great innovation. But even great things can be used for nefarious purposes and social media is no exception. Take the images below for example. They were downloaded from a Twitter account belonging to a Saudi national who has pledged to join the jihad against the Assad regime. The flag in each of these three pictures is that of Al Qaeda. The Jihadis are using social media, such as Twitter, to communicate, recruit and spread their propaganda. This brings us to the conflict in Syria. Many in the West seem to want America and its allies to...

Cognitive skills such as learning and memory diminish with age in everyone, and the drop-off is steepest in Alzheimer's disease. Texas scientists seeking a way to prevent this decline reported exciting results this week with a drug that has Polynesian roots. Rapamycin, a bacterial product first isolated from soil on Easter Island, enhanced learning and memory in young mice and improved these faculties in old mice, the study showed.

Governor Palin Interview on Hannity tonight and she said it so seriously too: “Nancy Pelosi is a dingbat and the perfect spokesman for this whole agenda of the far left.”

Dear Friends, The Supreme Court yesterday upheld ObamaCare’s individual mandate on the grounds that it functions as a tax. This flatly contradicts the vows President Obama and his supporters repeatedly made to the American people that the mandate is not a tax. The ruling means it’s now up to Congress to defund and repeal ObamaCare and to replace it with affordable healthcare reform that works. My new proposal, the Choice in Healthcare Act, would test this kind of reform through a voluntary pilot program designed to improve healthcare delivery and medical care access for Medicare and Medicaid participants in the...

As debate about whether ObamaCare is a good idea continues, rejecting four major misconceptions about healthcare is crucial to any chance of our eventually emerging with a better system. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare decision, we must refocus. The Court’s decision was never about whether ObamaCare was a good idea, only about whether it was constitutional. The Court found a convoluted way to uphold the law.That’s done, but the debate on whether ObamaCare’s provisions are good ideas will continue. To date, this debate has been unable to shake off a lot of mythology—things believed about healthcare and...

Here's the question asked in my September 2000 column titled "It's Time To Part Company": "If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?" The problem that our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows....

Egypt's president-elect Mohamed Morsi has vowed to free the blind sheikh jailed in the US for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks. In his first public speech, addressing tens of thousands of people in Tahrir Square on Friday, Morsi promised to work to free Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also promised to free detained Egyptian protesters facing military tribunals. New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, responded on Friday night to Morsi's pledge, saying he would oppose any effort to "undermine" Abdel-Rahman serving a life sentence. He said...

I believe that Obama will conduct a military operation on American soil, complete with ground assault troops and air support on multiple "militia" compounds throughout the country. He will have reams of emails and phone taps documenting an imminent attack that was thwarted in the nick of time. He will reluctantly postpone the national elections until order is restored. In the meantime, the Internet will go dark, in the interests of national security.

House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley are asking the Department of Justice’s internal investigator to hold accountable anyone who retaliated against or threatened to retaliate against Operation Fast and Furious whistleblowers. In a Friday letter to the DOJ’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Grassley and Issa said they’re now concerned retaliation is much more likely following Thursday’s votes to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal and civil contempt of Congress. “We just learned that ATF senior management placed two of the main whistleblowers who have testified before Congress about Fast and Furious under...

The Tea Part Patriots of El Dorado Hills is looking for interested patriots to start a new chapter in Folsom, Ca. We are having a regular El Dorado Hills meeting on Wed July 18th and am inviting citizens of our neighbor city of Folsom to attend and meet like minded people. Now is the time to act! We already have some interested people from Folsom attending and would like to extend the invitation to other Freepers on here.

The first official identified by name in the Fast and Furious gunwalking investigation has been tied to a similar Minnestoa operation in 1996 where “more than 150 guns flow[ed] into the Twin Cities underworld,” Kevin Diaz of the Star Tribune reported yesterday. Identifying supervisor George Gillett, Jr., who is now a cooperating witness in House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigations, Diaz reveals “Gillett was a street agent tracking gun store sales to ‘straw buyers’ working for suspected gang members. Some of those guns turned up in drug busts and crime scenes, including one that was found at the...

IT’S midnight in Manila, and the capital is just waking up to the start of another working day. At the Worldwide Corporate Centre office block, thousands of young Filipinos are crowding into endless open-plan offices. Once seated, they quickly start answering the questions and calming the frustrations of vexed American consumers beginning their own day on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. These Filipinos are call-centre workers. To outsiders it is hardly a glamorous profession, yet despite the antisocial hours these men and women have every reason to be as well-motivated and cheerful as they seem. They are well...

In the blink of a shocking Supreme Court ruling Thursday, the President's signature piece of legislation went from ObamaCare to OTaxaCare. Not surprisingly, the Obama-loving media didn't mind that despite promises from their hero his healthcare reform wasn't a tax, according to the highest court in the land, it is. I guess many of these folks forget that it was imperative to the President and his party that his healthcare reform proposal wasn't a tax, for they knew Americans including many Democrats wouldn't support such a thing. Such was made infinitely clear in a in a September 2009

The papers of record continue to whistle in the dark. The day after Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, still doggedly refer to Fast and Furious as a "botched" operation. snip We don't refer to 9/11 as a botched attempt by Muslims to land planes at JFK and Dulles. Let's work on getting the MSM to retire this word.

NEW YORK (AP) — A flight attendant on a weather-delayed plane yelled at passengers and challenged them to leave the plane if they dared before he was removed and the flight was canceled. The incident, involving American Eagle flight attendant Jose Serrano, was caught on video. Flight 4607, from LaGuardia Airport to Raleigh-Durham, N.C., was delayed for more than seven hours on Monday before being canceled. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police, who help keep the region's major airports secure, were called to the plane, but there were no arrests, unlike a similar incident in 2010, when...

MILWAUKEE — The city of Milwaukee has been declared a “Let’s Move” city by the Department of Health and Human Services. “Let’s Move” is First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to fight childhood obesity — and it looks like Milwaukee is putting some muscle behind its movement.

"...fine a 'tax,' the White House still claims it's only a 'penalty.'http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/29/health-care-mandate-is-tax-will-negatively-affect-middle-lower-class-some-say/">(Obamacare a Tax)