Free Republic

Dear Sir: I am a physician in Denton, Texas. This morning, I sat and read your article in The Dallas Morning News titled “Your Doctor’s Big Fat Paycheck.” Frankly, I am in awe of the breadth of your ignorance. Fact: Of the health care dollars spent in this country, physician salaries make up about 8.5 percent. That is one of the lowest percentages in the industrialized world. Germany, by contrast, is at 15 percent. Fact: The graduate level course of study for nurse practitioners (NPs) and nurses is not even close to that of physicians — we have a little...

This remarkable video was presented at the UAB General Surgery Grand Rounds on April 29, 2010. Pass it on.

From Walt - Commenting on The Belmont Club at PJM: IF, by Rudyard Crippling If you can lose your jobs but hope your exports be increased If you can hope your plans for windmills breed success If you can tax them more and yet the downsizing be ceased If you can raise the debt and still survive the mess If you can hold your head up high despite the polls If you can throw your friends and allies ‘neath the bus If you can ram the healthcare through to meet your goals If you can crash and burn and blame...

Twas the eve of state health care, and all through the House The bill was unread, even by the head louse. The statists hung ’round with a faux-festive air, Hoping their awful “dream” would indeed soon be there. The USA’s children were snug in their beds, Unaware of the pain being laid on their heads. Everyday people opposed to this crap, Wondered when or if D.C.’s hypnosis would snap. When out from O’s House there arose such a clatter, ‘Twas the President’s flacks and their usual chatter. They showed docs in white coats supporting this trash, Using children as props...

Obviously the maniacs in Iran vow to wipe Israel off the map, but who knew a major American retail chain has already done so? The folks at Target have some explaining to do, because their mealy-mouthed excuses offered up just aren't cutting it. It looks as if Iran has found allies in its quest to wipe Israel off the map -- the dopes at your friendly neighborhood Target store. On sale exclusively at Target is this innocent-looking toy globe. Thousands of these trinkets have already moved out of malls, from Queens to Honolulu, and landed in living rooms and kids'...

Speaking of the Christmas Day bombing, Scheuer said: ...it hurts morale even more because one of the officers who got killed had arranged an operation in 1998 that would have killed or captured Osama bin Laden. And Mr. Brennan was instrumental in preventing that operation from occurring. Instead he said the Americans should trust the Saudis to take care of bin Laden.

Health officials on Friday predicted a shortfall in the supply of swine flu vaccine, as the numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths grow to levels unprecedented for this time of year. Flu caused by the H1N1 virus is now widespread in 41 states, and flulike illnesses account for 6.1 percent of all doctor visits. “That’s high for any time, particularly for October,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Forty-three children have died from swine flu since Aug. 30 — about the same number...

Subject: Fishy statements about health care reform The Honorable Linda Douglass Communications Director Health Reform Office The White House Dear Ms. Douglass: I write in response to the request posted on the White house blog, “Facts are stubborn things.” If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov . I call to your attention several fishy statements about health care reform legislation made by a gentleman named Dr. Douglas Elmendorf. He claims to be Director of the “Congressional Budget Office” and has posted frequently about health care...

Laugh Clowns: Nero Fiddled As Rome Burned ... Now America Suffers as Hillary & Co. Laugh It Up

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. . . . Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have...

wo UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years. "Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10-...

Well, no one ever accused Sen. Chuck Schumer of letting any sense of shame hold him back. Ditto for irony. Still, it was a bit surreal to see Schumer - one of the prime apologists for the faulty federally backed mortgages now dealing body-blows to the US financial system - laying the groundwork yesterday for yet more government meddling in the loan business. "We need to build an impermeable wall around the student-loan market to protect our kids from this financial crisis," he said at Stuyvesant HS in Manhattan. It's unclear exactly what such an "impermeable wall" might look like,...

Donald Trump, the flamboyant New York magnate, said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Wednesday night that he is supporting Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president. Trump, never shy with his opinions, went on to say that McCain appears to be winning, and that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) should have chosen Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as his running mate. “I know John McCain, and John McCain's a great guy, a tremendous guy,” Trump told King. “I've known him for a long time. And I'm with him, and I'm with him based on the fact that I have great knowledge...

Charges were dropped against LCpl. Stephen Tatum on Friday, leaving Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, Sgt. Frank Wuterich and Cpl. Andrew Grayson as the remaining three Marines who haven’t had their cases resolved. Eventually, John Murtha will be exposed as a corrupt man who used the Haditha Marines in his attempt to become the House Majority Leader.

You say you are devoted to Reverend Wright because he brought you to Christ. I can only imagine how powerful a relationship that forges. But, my imperfect understanding of the Christian Faith tells me you can do him an equally magnificent service: You can help bring him back to Christ. Show him redemption and salvation lie not in the satisfaction of doing little dances in a pulpit while you slander good and decent people. Teach him that great leadership and Christian love abjures the very filth – and I pick that word deliberately – that he spews on an apparently...

Barack, I didn’t do it for this. Barack, I was a civil rights worker… South Carolina, 1966… 22 yrs old … helping old folks register to vote, teaching kids to read and write, directing Raisin in the Sun… Barack, I didn’t do it for this. Barack, I dream of my kindergarten best friend Andy from Walden School, Manhattan, born one day after me, shot dead in Mississippi 1964. Barack, I idolized Stokley Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Barack, I lost the full use of my left hand for life in South Carolina. Barack, I didn’t do it for...

Before Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was virtually unknown even in his own state. Polls showed fewer than 20 percent of Illinois voters had ever heard of Barack Obama. Jones further helped raise Obama's profile by having him craft legislation addressing the day-to-day tragedies that dominated local news ­headlines. For instance. Obama sponsored a bill banning the use of the diet supplement ephedra, which killed a Northwestern University football player, and another one preventing the use of pepper spray or pyrotechnics in nightclubs in the wake of the deaths of 21 people during a stampede at a...

Make no mistake: some parts of Iraq are still very much a war zone, and American forces still fight. But there is far more to the experience of American forces in Iraq than the dreary recounting of casualties enumerated after infrequently successful enemy attacks. Far more frequent are the mostly unreported stories of Americans and Iraqis defeating terrorist cells, one by one. Another independent reader-supported journalist on the ground in Iraq, Michael Yon, recounts the bravery of one such group of American pilots in his most recent dispatch from Mosul, the city where al Qaeda in Mesopotamia intends to make...

According to a July 2007 report from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, "large and growing numbers of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere [are] rejecting Islamic extremism". The percentage of Muslims saying suicide bombing is justified in the defence of Islam has declined in seven of the eight Arab countries where trend data are available. In Lebanon, for example, 34 per cent of Muslims say such suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified; in 2002, 74 per cent expressed this view. We are also seeing large drops in support for Mr bin Laden. These have occurred since the Iraq...

Out on bail awaiting trial, dual US-Syrian citizen, Antoin ‘Tony' Rezko, was rousted out of bed by police pounding on the doors of his Chicago mansion the morning of Monday, January 28. According to the Associated Press: "U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve jailed Rezko...saying he had disobeyed her order to keep her posted on his financial status. Among other things, he failed to tell her about a $3.5 million loan from London-based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi -- a loan that was later forgiven in exchange for shares in a prime slice of Chicago real estate. Rezko gave $700,000...