Free Republic

In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. asked a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill. The Oklahoma City-based arts-and-crafts chain argued that businesses — not just the currently exempted religious groups — should be allowed to seek exception from that section of the health law if it violates their religious beliefs.

As gratifying as it was to see the “news” media actually do its job last week when the IRS scandal broke, it was also odd that the coverage focused exclusively on abuses of power relating to various Tea Party and anti-abortion groups. A much scarier IRS story has been virtually ignored by the establishment press. On Wednesday, it was reported that a class-action lawsuit had been filed against a group of IRS agents who, according to the complaint filed by “John Doe Company” in the Southern District of California, “stole more than 60,000,000 medical records of more than 10,000,000 Americans,...

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week. From next year, olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in prepackaged factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in...

[Video] BREAKING: NJ State Senators Caught on Open Mic Saying They Need a Bill to CONFISCATE Guns.. You will need to turn speakers way up around the 0:15 mark to hear as they aren’t speaking directly into the mic. In the above vido we hear remarks by several NJ State Senators talking about guns after a session had ended. We can assume they didn’t know the mic was still recording. The discussion is as follows: “We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.” “They [gun owners] want to keep the guns out of the hands of the...

Wrigley temporarily halted production of its new Alert Energy Caffeine Gum in response to concerns expressed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the impact of caffeine on children and adolescents. The company said it had paused the production, sale and marketing of Alert to give the FDA time to develop a new regulatory framework for the addition of caffeine to food and drinks. The recently launched gum has about 40 milligrams of caffeine, as much as a half a cup of coffee, in each piece. …

For a long time conservatives have warned that the heavy propaganda and regulatory hands of the Obama administration were not going to change the exercise or eating habits of 315 million Americans... Now comes early statistical proof that after reelecting Obama with fewer votes the second time and 1,567 days of his reign of government intervention and stimulation, many Americans are deciding that maybe the Obamas' plans for their lives do not fit their plans for their own lives.

Where are today’s rebels?  Where is the counterculture? Ear-budded hipsters, with their sheep-like devotion to Apple products and the Obama administration, sit in on the April 20 “Day of Pot” in Denver, content and satisfied with their free birth control and legalized maryjane.  Meanwhile SWAT teams descend on Watertown, Massachusetts, trampling Fourth Amendment rights in search of a “person of interest”– while a Saudi National is quietly sent back to his homeland.These hipsters champion the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado while the war on Big Tobacco rages on.  Since 1997 the FDA inherited control over the $365.5 billion global...

The owner of a small business in New York City is facing a $60,000 fine, thousands in legal fees, and the potential loss of his business — all because he carried a dozen three-inch, gun-shaped lighters which caught the eye of a city inspector. “When you hear something like this, you’re going to have a couple of nightmares,” Fred Shayes tells me, leaning across the counter of his midtown Manhattan shop, US Camera & Computer Inc. Nervous, he won’t let me photograph him or tape-record the interview. Shayes, who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran, founded the business in 2006,...

Trail mix. Potato chips. And now gum. With a growing number of foods boasting added caffeine for an energy boost, the Food and Drug Administration says it's time to investigate their safety. The FDA's new look at added caffeine and its effects on children and adolescents is in response to a caffeinated gum introduced this week by Wrigley.

New York City police officials intend to expand the already extensive use of surveillance cameras throughout town. The plan, unveiled Thursday, comes as part of a drive for increased security around the US following the Boston Marathon attack. New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly announced the plan during a press conference with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in which the two announced that the suspected Boston Marathon bombers were planning to attack New York next. The pair said they hope to discourage criminals by using so-called “smart cameras” that will aggregate data from 911 alerts, arrest records, mapped crime patterns,...

Speaking on April 22, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the Boston Marathon bombing forces us to change our interpretation of the constitution. He cited the left's success to date in eroding the 2nd Amendment as giving him confidence such re-interpretation is possible.Bloomberg focused on how reinterpretation will allow us to trade more of our privacy for "a level of security greater than [we] did back in the olden days." This means more surveillance measures on buildings and cross streets, or, as Bloomberg put it, "more cameras and that kind of stuff."...

California Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, proposes a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks. KGO-TVreports that his controversial bill is currently on its way to the senate's Health Committee for discussion. How much more expensive would a can of soda be if the tax goes into effect? The price of each can of sweetened soda would increase by 12 cents. Which types of beverages will this law affect? As noted in SB-622, this tax affects all "bottled sweetened beverages" as well as concentrates if they contain more than 25 calories for every 12 ounces of content. Fruit and vegetable juices may also...

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks. “The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

For the record, I tend to think that a cigarette ban for minors may be appropriate. While I oppose prohibition for adults, I think it makes sense to say that adults shouldn’t be permitted to entice children into certain unhealthy choices. Of course, if such a prohibition is put in place, it needs to be justified by banning a substance that is clearly dangerous, not just “unhealthy” by some statistic that we know doesn’t apply to all people. If the evidence qualifies tobacco as such a substance, then I can see restricting it from children.But recent news about a new...

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks. “The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex word where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.” Mr. Bloomberg, who...

Republican Reps. Steve King of Iowa and Tim Huelskamp of Kansas continued their fight against the Agriculture Department’s recent public school meal regulation overhaul on Friday. The congressmen have argued that the new regulations imposed by the USDA, as required by the Michelle Obama-backed Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act, are overly restrictive for growing and active children, largely due to calorie caps on meals. “The voluminous menu that’s good enough for the federal bureaucrats’ cafeteria should be good enough for our children’s school lunchroom,” Huelskamp said in a statement Friday. “If USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack thinks the federal government...

President's Obama's call for a 94-cent-a-pack hike on federal cigarette taxes to fund early childhood education programs is controversial. Anti-smoking groups applaud the proposal, but some tax experts and tobacco companies are against it. The case for the tax. The tax is being presented as way to fund education and reduce smoking rates. It would raise roughly $78 billion over 10 years. "The proposed tobacco tax increase would have substantial public health benefits, particularly for young Americans," the president's budget read. "Researchers have found that raising taxes on cigarettes significantly reduces consumption, with especially large effects on youth smoking." After...

So, all of a sudden the left in America is concerned with anti-Semitism. That’s a riot. Is this the same left that constantly sides with the Muslim Brotherhood and goes out of their way to support Islam? That left? It just goes to show, when pundits on the left want to accomplish something — there is no end to the lengths they will go. I’m speaking, in this case, of gun control and the fascist mayor Michael Bloomberg’s one-man crusade for their confiscation. And don’t think for a moment that it’s not his endgame. As with everything Bloomberg involves himself...

A state bill proposes a ban on smoking tobacco inside condos, duplexes and apartment units occupied by either renters or owners. If passed, California would be the first state that would regulate smoking inside people’s homes. Poll here

New York City is asking appeals judges to reinstate a ban on supersized sodas and other sugary drinks, which was struck down by a Manhattan judge the day before it was to go into effect. The city had vowed an appeal and said Thursday that lawyers had filed it late Monday. In his decision on March 11, State Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling said the 16-ounce limit on sodas and other sweet drinks arbitrarily applies to only some sugary beverages and some places that sell them.