Free Republic

The bullying of the nation’s physicians continues apace, now turning to penalizing doctors who don’t meet the administration’s one-size-fits-all approach to medical records. Bruce Japsen of Forbes reports: More than 250,000 physicians and other health professionals are being notified as early as today that their payments from Medicare and Medicaid will be cut because they aren’t adequately using electronic health records in their practices, the Obama administration confirmed. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, known as CMS, is telling about 257,000 eligible medical care providers who are largely physicians that they will be paid 1 percent less in reimbursement...

BERLIN – Germany has launched a war crimes investigation against an 87-year-old Philadelphia man it accuses of serving as an SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp, The Associated Press has learned, following years of failed U.S. Justice Department efforts to have the man stripped of his American citizenship and deported. Johann "Hans" Breyer, a retired toolmaker, admits he was a guard at Auschwitz during World War II, but told the AP he was stationed outside the facility and had nothing to do with the wholesale slaughter of some 1.5 million Jews and others behind the gates. The special German...

A second Vermonter has died from the eastern equine encephalitis, a rare and potentially fatal brain infection spread by mosquitoes, Health Department officials confirmed on Tuesday. Scott Sgorbati, 49, of Sudbury, died within the last few days after fighting the virus for several weeks. Two weeks ago, Richard Hollis Breen, 87, of Brandon died of EEE, after being sick with the disease for five days. Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Harry Chen on Tuesday offered condolences to the families of both men and reminded Vermonters that EEE is a very rare virus. On average there are only six cases a year...

President Barack Obama is so wedded to his liberal policies that he can’t comprehend the meaning of the attacks against us in Libya and Egypt — radical Islam is at war with us, says former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. The president and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the “senseless” violence, he notes on Politico. “This concept of ‘senseless violence’ is at the heart of the left’s refusal to confront the reality of radical Islamists,” the former House speaker says. “These are not acts of senseless violence. These are acts of war. . . . It is tragic...

Medical insurance premiums in the United States are on the rise, the chief architect of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul has told The Daily Caller.Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber, who also devised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s statewide health care reforms, is backtracking on an analysis he provided the White House in support of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, informing officials in three states that the price of insurance premiums will dramatically increase under the reforms. In an email to The Daily Caller, Gruber framed this new reality in terms of the same human self-interest that some...

After a long day of supposed "accommodation" and discussion, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops took a close look at the supposed adjustment of the HHS mandate yesterday. Their conclusion? It represents no change at all, and the bishops will press for a “legislative solution” to Barack Obama’s mandate: These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and...

Memo to the Republican Establishment, Part II. First of all, let me apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I realize it's been 15 days since I've penned (as the Mittster would say) my last memo to you. . . . Good manners dictate that I convey my most heartfelt congratulations to you for what you did to old Newt in your aggressive ad campaign. I mean, you guys really did him in. As we say in Louisiana, you made minced meat out of that boy. You rounded up a bunch of Wall Street money and turned it over...

Top Department of Justice officials had extensive knowledge of and involvement in Operation Fast and Furious, claims a new report released Thursday, hours before Attorney General Eric Holder's scheduled testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The report released by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, top lawmakers investigating the botched gunrunning operation, claims Justice Department officials in Washington and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were involved in the coordination in the early stages of the operation. Justice headquarters "had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it...

BASTROP, Texas — Gov. Rick Perry did not show up as expected Saturday at a news conference convened by his office to brief reporters on the Texas wildfires. Perry aides, citing “logistical issues,” said the governor initially had been scheduled to appear at a location with restricted access. The location was changed to an accessible spot, which was a burned-out home and chocolate shop along the main highway, and local officials briefed the media on the fire situation without him. "He's in Austin," said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for the governor, in response to a flurry of questions about Perry's...

The indignation of Americans is growing rapidly about the U.S. Air Force granting a French company a $35 billion tanker-aircraft contract that could eventually grow to $100 billion and is estimated to create 100,000 jobs in Europe. French government subsidies are one of the factors that enabled the lucky company (known as EADS) to underbid Boeing. Rep. Duncan Hunter (CA), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, is leading the battle in Congress to overturn this decision. He thinks it is outrageous that U.S. taxpayers should be paying to create jobs in foreign countries. It is bad enough...

WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the economy may shrink over the first half of this year, saying "a recession is possible." Yet, he didn't offer any assurances of further interest rate cuts. Bernanke's testimony to the Joint Economic Committee was a much more pessistic assessment of the economy's immediate prospects amid a trio of crises — housing, credit and financial. It now appears likely that gross domestic product (GDP) will not grow much, if at all, over the first half of 2008 and could even contract slightly," Bernanke told lawmakers. GDP measures the...

An open letter to Mr Ben Bernanke, chairman, US Federal Reserve: Sir, Decades back, one of your predecessors splendidly captured the post-gold standard and the consequent free float of the US dollar scenario rather succinctly when he termed the US dollar as 'our currency, others' responsibility.' It is this responsibility cast on outsiders like me that compels me to write this open letter to you. As I write this, I am fully conscious of the fact that we are living in exceptionally troubled times. I am equally conscious of the fact that being the chairman of the US Federal Reserve,...

Ambac Financial Group, the embattled bond insurance company, plans to split itself in two in a bid to safeguard its top credit ratings and avert losses on securities that it guarantees for big banks. The company also hopes to raise $3 billion to bolster its finances, a person who has seen Ambac’s plans said Friday. An announcement could come as early as Monday, assuming credit ratings agencies approve the measures.

Several months ago when the news broke about poisonous pet food and lead-laden toys from China, I asked my local pharmacy to give me a letter stating it is not selling me any prescription drugs imported from China. The reply was, "We don't buy any drugs from China." I said, "I know you don't, but I want you to check with your suppliers and verify that they don't buy from China." That request was met by thunderous silence. Now we know why. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 80 percent of the drug substances used by U.S. manufacturers to...

LOS ANGELES — A judge issued an arrest warrant for Daniel Baldwin on Friday when the actor didn't show up to court to give a progress report on his drug rehabilitation. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Millington issued the no-bail bench warrant and revoked Baldwin's probation after he failed to appear "without sufficient excuse" and without his lawyer, according to court documents. An after-hours call to Baldwin's attorney, Grant Hoagland, was not immediately returned. Baldwin, brother of actors William, Stephen and Alec Baldwin, was required to meet with the judge in connection with a cocaine-possession case.

SAN DIEGO - The NFL stadium where thousands of displaced residents sought refuge is closing as an evacuation center, a symbolic show of progress against wildfires still menacing Southern California. Once sheltering more than 10,000 people, Qualcomm Stadium was home to just 350 on Friday morning. It was to close later in the day.

I was on Mr. Kerry's boat in Vietnam. He doesn't deserve to be commander in chief.

Clearwater, Florida-AP -- Another legal wrinkle involving Terri Schiavo (SHY'-voh), the severely brain-damaged woman at the center of a Florida right-to-die case. Governor Jeb Bush is asking an appeals court to disqualify a judge in the case, saying he's biased. The judge, W. Douglas Baird, refused to take himself off the case yesterday. Baird is presiding over a challenge to a hastily-passed law that allowed Bush to order Schiavo's feeding tubes reinserted. At a hearing last week, Baird said the new law intruded on Schiavo's privacy rights and was "presumptively unconstitutional." Schiavo's husband, Michael, says his wife never wanted to...

In case the rest of you are living in a cave, there are fires raging out of control in the Los Angeles/San Diego Area. They are so serious that many of us here in Southern Nevada are checking bed space and hotel rooms in case of major evacuations from the Los Angeles basin. As of the time of this writing, over 50,000 homes are threatened, and the situation is changing by the minute. At least 17 people are dead and it has consumed more than 800,000 acres stretching from the Mexican border to the suburbs northeast of Los Angeles. And...

Your Social Democrat Party wants to thank our troops for winning the war against Saddam Hussein so quickly. Their victory has taken another weapon from George Bush's bag of tricks for the next election. Now that Iraq has been conquered in the very unequal war with the United States, your Social Democrat Party leaders want to make sure that the new government of Iraq will be established according to "their" proper guidelines. Described below are some of the items that they will demand to be inserted into the new proposal of government for Iraq. Senator Ted Kennedy wants to make...