Free Republic

The goal of government healthcare to expand coverage for uninsured people is a noble goal. But like all liberal utopian schemes it ultimately hurts more than it helps. Remember these facts about government involvement in healthcare: 1.It doesn’t reduce the cost. (The only way it could do so is to set prices arbitrarily lower than market prices. Such action always has severe negative consequences by reducing incentives for businesses to provide services. Just like in real estate, if you impose rent controls, developers won’t build apartments.) RomneyCare in Massachusetts proves that interference into healthcare by government greatly increases cost! 2.It...

Los Angeles police are aiming to beat suspects to the scene of a crime by using computers to predict where trouble might occur. The Los Angeles Police Department is the largest agency to embrace an experiment known as “predictive policing,” which crunches data to determine where to send officers to thwart would-be thieves and burglars. Time Magazine called it one of the best inventions of 2011. Early successes could serve as a model for other cash-strapped law enforcement agencies, but some legal observers are concerned it could lead to unlawful stops and searches that violate Fourth Amendment protections. In the...

Calling Obamacare a massive tax increase, Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Sunday he is going to wait before implementing health-insurance exchanges in his state. “We’re going to wait,” Walker said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “For people here in Wisconsin and plenty of other states across the country, we want to put the power back in the hands of the people at the state and the local level, not be driven by a federal mandate.” He said he believes in a free-market alternative to the government-funded health-insurance program upheld last week by the Supreme Court. …

ASHLAND, Ky. (AP) - Whatever may be prowling around Ashland doesn't appear to be a typical Kentucky Wildcat. Ashland Police Maj. Todd Kelley said two people have called in reports of seeing a mountain lion or cougar around the city in the last several days. Kelley told The Independent that the sightings haven't been confirmed by animal control officers or police, but people should not approach any unfamiliar large animal.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Democratic Chair, Dr. Howard Dean debated on Meet The Press, on Sunday morning, the recently-determined constitutional healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act.. Jindal had announced last week after the Supreme Court ruling that he would not implement the healthcare law, he derisively calls Obamacare, in Louisiana and would prefer to work towards electing Mitt Romney as President and a Republican Congress to repeal the legislation. Here is the transcript of their Meet The Press discussion.

(Sketch of the Supreme Court justices hearing the health care reform case in March by Bill Hennessy.)By Mr. CurmudgeonRecently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the power to do just about anything it desires provided it's called a tax. It's hard not to notice that the Progressive march toward totalitarianism in America has a decidedly bipartisan feel. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the high court's majority opinion, is an appointee of "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush.This ruling positions the Tea Party as the only alternative to our broken two-party system.At the center of the controversy, stands...

Instead of letting the free market decide, two Bay Area companies are going to court to settle a long-standing dispute about whether both can be named after the self-made Hank Rearden, a central character in Ayn Rand's opus Atlas Shrugged. Steve Perlman founded Rearden LLC, a San Francisco tech incubator, in 1999, naming the company after his favorite Rand character. Rearden Commerce, a web-based concierge service that offers customers the "Rearden Personal Assistant," helps organize travel plans and links to many travel vendors. According to the lawsuit, the company's owner, Patrick Grady, "also has an affinity for Rand's 'Hank Rearden'...

Whats shall we lable the new mandate? ObamaTax? ObamaCare Tax?

Third, it takes roughly as much fossil fuel energy to produce ethanol (transportation, cultivation, fertilizers, pesticides, refining) as it releases. So in terms of energy inputs and outputs, you’re essentially running in place. How does that contribute to energy independence?

Jenna Jameson, the “Queen of Porn” according to those in the know, is as fast as they come, and she’s proving it in an entirely new way. Maserati Financial Services is chasing her down with a lawsuit because Jameson leased a Maserati Quattroporte S for $2,299 a month in 2011 but Jameson hasn’t paid her bills in 2012. MFS can’t catch her, so they’re going after Jameson with the lawsuit, and suing her for $107,000 in damages.

Listen to the Kingdom and the words from the throne , Hebrews 12:25-26 25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: 26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. Where you are Never alone , Hebrews 12:22-23 22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the...

On CNN's State of the Union this morning, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew was asked why President Obama asserted executive privilege for Attorney General Eric Holder over Fast and Furious documents when he railed against the use of executive privilege in 2007. Remember, President Obama campaigned on his administration being the "most transparent administration in history." White House Chief Of Staff Jacob Lew: “Candy, let’s go back to the facts. The facts are that this was a bad plan, this Fast and Furious. It’s something that started in the Bush Administration and the Attorney General did not know...

As I discussed at the American Action Forum with Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Jared Bernstein and Jason Gold, there are 14 Administration mortgage modification programs (including the Attorneys General Settlement). And the Administration keeps insisting on MORE programs such as principal reductions and HARP 2.0 Supersized! The Administration is even ADVERTISING their refinancing programs. Of course, the last line is absolutely false. SOMEONE pays for loan modifications and principal reductions and those people are investors such as banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, pension funds (yes, even Clark Griswold will have to pay for Cousin Eddie’s loan modification and principal reduction). In order...

Turkish Col. Ali Çakmakkaya, a judge, describes the headscarf as a “symbol of terrorism” in a voice recording, in which he also uses profanity while referring to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife, Emine Erdoğan. According to Today’s Zaman, the voice recording was released on Twitter on Tuesday, June 26, although the date of the recording remains unknown. A caption provided with the recording says Çakmakkaya made the statements in an official military setting. Criticizing Erdoğan for not wearing a tie during his meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Çakmakkaya says Erdoğan had put an end to state...

Three months ago, I quoted George Jonas on the 30th anniversary of Canada's ghastly "Charter of Rights and Freedoms": "There seems to be an inverse relationship between written instruments of freedom, such as a Charter, and freedom itself," he wrote. "It's as if freedom were too fragile to be put into words: If you write down your rights and freedoms, you lose them." For longer than one might have expected, the U.S. Constitution was a happy exception to that general rule — until, that is, the contortions required to reconcile a republic of limited government with the ambitions of statism...

This is what our troops fought and died for. This is what we expended billions for: a Jew-hating, rapidly Islamizing client state of Iran. "Baghdad welcomes all relations but rejects ties with Israel: Iraqi PM," from Al Arabiya, July 1 (thanks to Kenneth): Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday that Baghdad does not discriminate against countries but said he rejected forming any ties with Israel. Maliki was giving a speech on Political Prisoner Day in Baghdad, when he said that other countries should respect his government and political process. “Our non-partisan approach with other countries in the world...

Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations. Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Did you know that President Obama has been incommunicado with Colorado's governor for more than two weeks as the nation's worst wildfires rage across the state? Maybe he thought we were all "doing fine." After an embarrassing Beltway press briefing revelation about our out-of-touch White House, the administration finally decided to divert the campaigner in chief from his nationwide fundraising frenzy for a quick look-see at our devastated city on Friday. It's "leadership from behind" you can count on. On Wednesday, press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that Obama hadn't talked to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper in...

Some years ago, a faithful and dedicated priest decided to leave the Diocese of Worcester and become a Chaplain for the United States Army. During a conversation back in 2000, this priest-friend told me that he had had enough of the nonsense within the diocese. This was after he presided over a graveside service for my father. This same faithful priest has a letter in this week's "Catholic" [when they feel like it] Free Press. As usual, it is an excellent letter. But then, this priest reads the life of Jesus Christ. The letter is entitled "Choose life and love,...

....Under the health care law, by 2014, states must implement a health insurance exchange, or a Web-based marketplace where people can shop for insurance, or defer to a federal program. States need to submit plans to the federal government by Nov. 16 that demonstrate their readiness to launch health exchanges. ....."We care about having a health care safety net for the vulnerable Floridians," Scott said on Fox. "But this is an expansion that just doesn't make any sense." ....."Hopefully we won't have to worry about it because by November we're going to have a new president-elect who is going to...