Free Republic

State and local governments across the US are grappling with a growing problem: Expensive drugs to treat diabetes and obesity are threatening to drain their health-care budgets. State health plans and Medicaid offices are seeing eye-popping bills for Novo Nordisk A/S’s Ozempic, its sister drug Wegovy and similar medications known as GLP-1s. They’re a breakthrough for treating two of the most complex chronic health conditions. But with list prices stretching above $1,000 a month, the costs threaten to empty government coffers. “It’s not sustainable,” North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell, who oversees state workers’ health insurance, lamented at a recent board...

A handful of states saw key primary contests on Tuesday, teeing up November matchups in closely watched House races and underscoring voter frustration with both President Biden and former President Trump. Biden and Trump sailed to wins in their respective presidential primaries in Oregon and Kentucky, but both White House hopefuls saw new iterations of protest votes that have cropped up throughout this cycle. In Kentucky, roughly 6 percent of the GOP primary vote went to Trump’s former rival Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race weeks ago. She’s pulled in sizeable figures in several states as some Republicans...

It's not just Joe Scarborough's phone buddy Joe Biden with troubling issues of memory loss. It's also 61-year-old Scarborough himself. Concerns continue to mount over the Morning Joe host's apparently failing memory. [snip] Now, more troubling evidence has emerged of Scarborough's apparent memory loss and declining mental acuity. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough mocked Rudy Giuliani for creating his own eponymously-named brand of coffee. It obviously escaped poor Scarborough's memory that Rudy is not the only one in the political/media world to have his own coffee brand. There's also . . . you, Joe! Perhaps the image here will refresh...

I am trying to decide between Visible (Not the + one) and Mint cell phone services. My needs are simple; I don't do gaming, streaming, watch movies on the phone, etc. I call people; I receive calls (not from foreign countries), I make and receive texts and I research stuff on line (like price comparisons between stores). Do any FReepers have experience with Visible or Mint? I'd appreciate their input.

Voters in Oregon were on the brink Wednesday of ousting progressive Portland DA Mike Schmidt and replacing him with one of his deputies who was once a Republican and has vowed to crack down on rampant crime and drug abuse. As of Wednesday morning, with about 63% of the vote counted, Schmidt was trailing Nathan Vasquez by 11.9 percentage points — a difference of more than 117,000 votes, according to the latest tally. “I am committed to fulfilling those campaign promises. I’m committed to ending the open-air drug use, to ending the open-air drug dealing that we have suffered from...

Illinois Democratic state lawmakers are aiming to change the word "offender" to "justice-impacted individual" with a new bill.

Sources close to the discussions in Oman tell MEE that the delegations spoke about ending Israel's war and a shared desire for a change in Israeli government Secret talks between Iran and the United States in Oman were making good progress, but have now been jeopardised by the sudden death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister. Brett McGurk, US President Joe Biden's senior Middle East adviser, held indirect negotiations earlier this month with Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s point man for negotiations with the West, according to three Iranian sources close to the talks. The talks took place...

As the sun set on a shattered Europe in the aftermath of the First World War, the birth pangs of a nightmarish reality were felt across Germany. From these turbulent times emerged the National Socialist German Workers' Party, colloquially known as the Nazis. Rising to full power in 1933 under the malevolent leadership of Adolf Hitler and his cadre of ruthless lieutenants like Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany erected an edifice of tyranny, intolerance, and unparalleled cruelty. Picture this: the year is 1939, and you are a resident of Berlin. Kristallnacht, the infamous "Night of Broken Glass," occurred...

The studied Psittacosaurus under natural (upper half) and UV light (lower half). (Zixiao Yang, Author provided) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Strong but light, beautiful and precisely structured, feathers are the most complex skin appendage that ever evolved in vertebrates. Despite the fact humans have been playing with feathers since prehistory, there's still a lot we don't understand about them. Our new study found that some of the first animals with feathers also had scaly skin like reptiles. Following the debut of the first feathered dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx prima, in 1996, a surge of discoveries has painted an ever more interesting picture of feather evolution....

Sorry, no link as it was just announced on Human Events Jack Posobiec that the Ohio SOS has instructed the Democrat party to announce their candidate by Aug 5th. If they don't, then whoever that candidate is will not be on the ballot

It’s no secret crime in California has gone out of control in many areas. One of the worst is Oakland where the city has been struggling with abandoned, stripped, stolen cars dumped on city streets, among other pervasive criminal activity. But the latest sign of this trend is the elimination of some traffic lights. According to a report from KPIX, residents near one street intersection which now has stop signs instead of traffic lights blames the whole thing on a nearby homeless encampment. They claim the city’s refusal to do something about the criminal activity centered in that encampment has...

Who the heck made this bad decision? And how does it differ from something an embedded Cuban operative in the U.S. might do? After the arrest of Ambassador Manuel Rochas on espionage charges for Cuba, a logical question was whether there were one, two, many, Manuel Rochases (and Kendall Myerses) over at the State Department? What else can one conclude with whoever it was at State who made a decision like this? According to the Washington Times: Homeland Security gave a delegation from Cuba a look behind the curtain at airport operations at Miami International Airport, in a move critics...

Souo's first motorcycle has a 4-valve, DOHC, 8-cylinder, 2000cc engine - that's two 1000cc four-cylinder engines joined together. All the liter sports bikes now produce more than 200 horsepower, so we expect that 400 hp would be relatively easily achievable should Souo desire to make a further splash when the horsepower figures are announced.Souo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We love an adventurous startup, but GWM's new "clean sheet" motorcycle company announced last Friday really does look ominous in its potential to disrupt the established motorcycle industry order. The privately-owned Chinese "Great Wall Motor Company" (GWM) started making cars in 1984, yet it has...

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik filed an ethics complaint against Judge Juan Merchan for an alleged conflict of interest pertaining to his daughter’s role at a firm known for representing Democratic politicians. Merchan, an acting Supreme Court justice in New York, is presiding over the unprecedented criminal trial against former President Trump stemming from charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Stefanik, R-N.Y., filed the complaint with the New York State Commission on Judiciary Conduct, warning that Trump, who pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records, faces "a maximum of 136 years’ imprisonment" if...

Millions of people in the U.S. report using marijuana daily or nearly every day, according to an analysis of national survey data, and those people now outnumber those who say they are daily or nearly-daily drinkers of alcohol. Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. “A good 40% of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical...

(May 22, 2024 / JNS) The Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Wednesday evening released a video of Hamas terrorists abducting female Israel Defense Forces spotters on Oct. 7. Footage taken by body cameras of the terrorists reveals the violence and trauma experienced by five of the seven spotters captured alive from the Nahal Oz base. Another 15 field observers serving there were murdered during the attack. The video running time is three minutes and 10 seconds. It was edited and censored to exclude the most disturbing scenes, including the corpses of those murdered at Nahal Oz and inside the...

A stunt to shift blame to the GOP for the border...Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to bring a border bill...negotiated in secret by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Krysten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)...to the floor for a vote...It would expand parole...Worse, it would codify the administration's mass release...

For those who are looking to slim down and achieve an all-around healthier lifestyle, Ozempic and other popular weight-loss drugs are currently all the rage. But as with any weight-loss method, it's essential to make some serious life changes to support the journey and healthily maintain your new goal weight. This includes implementing necessary diet tweaks. Get excited, because Nestlé is making the entire task a whole lot simpler with their new food line, "Vital Pursuit," for Ozempic users, which will launch in the latter part of 2024.

Fast food is no longer healthy for your wallet. Common fast food favorites increased in price under President Joe Biden’s so-called Bidenomics. Fast food inflation has a disparate impact across racial and ethnic groups due to different levels of fast food consumption. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 42.4 percent of non-Hispanic black adults consume fast food, compared with 37.6 percent of non-Hispanic white adults, 35.5 percent of Hispanic adults, and 30.6 percent of Asian adults. The higher price tag of popular foods may be creating political problems for Biden. Thirty percent of black men and...

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is very upset that former President Donald Trump will be campaigning on her turf. When speaking to the press on Tuesday, the House Representative for New York’s 14th Congressional district accidentally admitted that the trial is de facto election interference by hobbling one candidate’s presidential campaign. She actually compared it to wearing an ankle bracelet. Watch: VIDEO AT LINK................... “…the legal version of an ankle bracelet…” @AOC is so astonishingly stupid, she probably does not appreciate the ramifications of what she just admitted out loud. Congratulations, Alexandria. You just admitted to strategic and deliberate election interference....