Free Republic

While the shutdown is needless, the Democrats are rightly concerned about healthcare cost coverage. MEDICAID EXPANSION FAIRNESS What I’m thinking of is to slightly and generally increase the state Medicaid expansion share to 5% plus the highest rate of state income tax. Right now, California pays for Medicaid expansion at 10% and rakes in 13% income tax from doctors. That would make Medicaid expansion cheaper for no income tax red states like Florida and Texas. To help fund likely Medicaid expansion to states like Texas and Florida, the state Medicaid shares (traditional & expansion) would increase annually starting in 2028...

This ruling is part of a series of cases in which the Court is scaling back Congress's efforts to control the presidency in the wake of Watergate. An entire structural edifice of government was created to constrain the executive. And the Roberts Court is now dismantling those structures. I was not alive at the time, but I imagine that Watergate felt something like the resistance to the Trump Presidency. I agree with that Trump is completing Nixon’s aborted second term “by attempting to gain control of the executive branch and tame the Administrative State.” But unlike Nixon, Trump is supported...

President Trump will announce the launch of a new website Tuesday giving Americans the chance to buy drugs directly from the government rather than going through insurance, a White House source told The Post. The direct-to-consumer website — “TrumpRx” — will be coupled with an announcement that Pfizer plans to lower its prices on some medications distributed in the US, press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on X. “I think it’s one of the biggest things that we’ll do. We’ll be reducing drug prices by 100% in some cases, 300% or more,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the...

I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly “Inaccurate,” Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election. We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED. WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE...

We’re having a News Conference tomorrow in the White House. I’m going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before. The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong. It’s all going to happen very fast, just like the Border. We went from millions pouring in, to ZERO in the last few months. This will be easier — Be prepared! There will be no “MR. NICE GUY.”...

Republican-led states are leading the charge to ban soda and candy from their food stamp programs, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement flips traditional partisanship on its head. Colorado is the only blue state to seek and have a soda ban waiver approved, and the only waiver state to propose expanding SNAP benefits in conjunction with limiting its scope. Both parties at times have expressed interest in eliminating soda from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but the Trump administration is the first to encourage states to do so.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi promptly fired Alina Habba’s replacement after a group of district court judges voted to oust Habba as interim US Attorney of New Jersey. A group of federal judges on Tuesday declined to extend Alina Habba’s term as interim US Attorney of New Jersey after Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries launched a pressure campaign to oust her. Alina Habba’s term as interim US Attorney expires on Friday at 11:59 pm. Hakeem Jeffries called on federal district court judges appointed by Obama and Biden to remove Alina Habba over her decision to indict Rep. LaMonica McIver. On...

Donald Trump has been applying his negotiating skills to get sugar back in U.S.-produced Coke, the president wrote on his Truth Social site Wednesday. If his intervention pans out, soon Americans could be swigging something that tastes much more like Mexican Coke. Trump famously installed a red button on his desk that allows him to quickly summon a Diet Coke, his favorite drink. Trump championed the recipe change as a 'good move' by the Coca-Cola Company, which was founded in 1892. 'I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they...

China has reacted to the announcement from the Dalai Lama that he will be reincarnated after his death and a successor will be appointed. The Tibetan spiritual leader ended years of speculation by saying Wednesday that the next Dalai Lama should be found and recognized according to past Buddhist traditions, signaling that China should stay away from the process. However, China's foreign ministry was quick to issue a statement, saying that the Dalai Lama's reincarnation "must be approved by the central government." "The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and other great Buddhist figures must be chosen by...

The United Nations and its “human rights” bureaucracy are unhappy with American education — especially President Trump’s policies and proposals.Instead of local or parental control, the UN is pushing for radical changes: more federal power, less educational choice, government oversight of private schools, and the promotion of controversial ideological content — all at taxpayer expense. It also wants education globally redefined as a UN-backed “human right.”UN Investigates U.S.The UN’s latest attack on U.S. education, parental rights, state and national sovereignty, and the Constitution came in the form of an investigation and “country report” to the UN’s dictator-dominated “Human Rights Council.”...

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., together with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Mary Makary, announced a new round of food dye bans on Tuesday afternoon at a press conference here. The agencies shared their intent to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply. "Today, the FDA is taking action to remove petroleum-based food dyes," said Makary as he kicked off the press conference. "For the last 50 years, American children have increasingly been living in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals. The scientific community has conducted...

Do you want your taxpayer dollars funding studies on preventing pregnancy in “transgender boys” or HIV stigma in Thailand? Fortunately, Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary also considers that a waste, so he’s cutting numerous idiotic woke studies. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Trump’s new agency heads have uncovered billions of dollars of egregious fraud and waste, including the previously unknown agency whose employees lived “like kings” and the Social Security funding for 150+ year olds. Now HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is looking to streamline the massive, unwieldy, unconstitutional, and harmful federal healthcare agencies. It’s time...

President Donald Trump is using every tool he has to challenge woke practices in America — and he has a lot of them. Notably, none of the mechanisms that the president is using were put in place by conservatives for leverage against progressive institutions. No, Trump is simply availing himself of the vast federal apparatus created by liberals on the assumption that an ever-more powerful and extensive federal government was synonymous with righteousness. Now that someone is in charge who doesn’t agree with them and who is willing to use all the influence that the progressive state affords him, they...

Environmental lawyers would argue that part of the American dream is the right to live in a clean environment – a freedom from worry that the air you breathe, the food you eat and the water you drink are without pollutants and toxins that could make you sick. But several of the environmental freedoms Americans experience today – clean air, clean water and clean rain among them – could soon be in jeopardy from the Environmental Protection Agency's deregulation plans, several experts told ABC News. The EPA, with its mission to protect human health and the environment, is fundamentally a...

… Oregon transportation officials say that without more funding, residents like (Timothy) Taylor could see further declines in the quality of roads, highways and bridges starting this year. But revenues from gas taxes paid by drivers at the pump are projected to decrease as more people adopt electric and fuel-efficient cars, forcing officials to look for new ways to fund transportation infrastructure. States with aggressive climate goals like Oregon are facing a conundrum: EVs can help reduce emissions in the transportation sector, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, but they also mean less gas tax revenue in government...

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order issued on Tuesday to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), pro-life organizations and advocates are expressing concerns over the destruction of embryonic human life that the process involves, highlighting alternative fertility treatments that are more effective, and encouraging guardrails to be put in place regulating the IVF industry and ensuring that conscience protections are established. Trump’s executive order, entitled “Expanding Access to In Vitro Fertilization,” argues that “Americans need reliable access to IVF and more affordable treatment options, as the cost per cycle can range from $12,000 to $25,000. Providing...

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday prohibiting federal funding of K-12 schools that promote Critical Race Theory or radical gender ideology.

Meet historical fascism’s true heirs.In the famous anecdote usually attributed to Bertrand Russel, a scientist lecturing on the earth’s position in the solar system is corrected an old lady who says the earth is actually supported by a giant turtle. When the scientist asked what supports the turtle, she triumphally answered, “It’s turtles all the way down!”Since the Twenties and the rise of Italian Fascism and German Nazism––which eventually become the main referent of the word––the term has become an all-purpose question-begging epithet so promiscuously abused in the Thirties that, as George Orwell said in 1944, “The word Fascism has...

Life is good in America as long as you’re able to keep sleep-walking through life, cocooning yourself in political fantasies that depict a world in which your party is always right and everyone else is wrong, and distracting yourself with bread-and-circus entertainment that bears no resemblance to reality. Life is good in America as long as you don’t mind being made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to...

POTTERVILLE, Mich. — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Thursday that if he is elected, his administration would not only protect access to in-vitro fertilization but would also have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of the expensive service for American women who need it. "We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump said before adding, "We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay." Asked to clarify whether the government would pay for IVF services or whether insurance...