Free Republic

To The Press, The Pols, And The Rest Let me say this just one more time: That someone is a Neo-Nazi, a White Supremacist, KKK member or racist does not render them bereft of the First Amendment. Just as being a member of BLM or the Antifa does not render them bereft of the First Amendment. It is not acceptable, legal or excusable to meet speech by any such person with violence. Period. To suggest, state, or advocate that such is the case, or to promote the premise that violence is an appropriate remedy for speech you find vile and...

The Politics of Theft, Medical System Style This column demands a response, so here you go."There is nothing more we can do here. We tried everything else, and now it's time to do the right thing (ed: Single Payer). It's the American way."Well, let's see. I count three lies in three sentences, four if you call "Single Payer" the American Way. Let's start with the first: There is nothing we can do here. Sure there is. We could start with my one sentence extortion-stopping bill.. We could then follow up with the linked bill outline from that article, which you...

Read this one folks. More evidence-based options have emerged for secondary prevention. The Improved Reduction of Outcomes: Vytorin Efficacy International Trial (IMPROVE-IT)4 reported that adding ezetimibe to effective statin therapy in stable patients who experienced an acute coronary syndrome reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) from 70 mg/dL to 54 mg/dL (to convert LDL-C from mg/dL to mmol/L, multiply by 0.0259), and reduced risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease outcome at 7 years from 34.7% to 32.7%. The Further Cardiovascular Outcomes Research with PCSK9 Inhibition in Subjects with Elevated Risk (FOURIER) trial5 reported that the addition of evolocumab, a proprotein convertase subtilisin–kexin...

Jail Them All There is no greater scam in the world today than the blatant and outrageous lies told to everyone from school age onward over the last 40+ years when it comes to diet, exercise, health and various risk factors associated with same. The root of the scam goes back even further, but it really became evident with the so-called "food pyramid" which emphasized refined starches (breads and "white vegetables") and claimed that fats were bad for you and should be limited. Then, the scam evolved. Only saturated fats were bad, so it was claimed. The rest weren't so...

Jail. Now. Not Bailouts The latest Senate attempt to pass Obamacare Lite is now out. It contains a number of provisions that are interesting but exactly zero of them address cost. Notably, it does not include my one-sentence bill that would instantly destroy health insurance extortion rackets which are destroying the middle class and, if ended, would immediately force down costs for everyone in the system. Nor does it include any of the other provisions that I have in my larger model legislative proposal that would force price transparency and end collusion -- the very essence of which violates 100+...

Illinois is Collapsing: It's Coming Everywhere The blame game is in full force, including in Crain's. Like in a good Agatha Christie mystery, there's a whole train-full (or, in this instance, Capitol-full) of suspects in the case of Who Killed Illinois? Just like on the Orient Express, they're all guilty to one degree or another. .... Here's who's at the top of my list: Gov. Bruce Rauner and House Speaker Michael Madigan, in that order. Other folks had their hands on the knife, but these two are the ones who really drove it in. Uh huh. Sure. Maybe you can...

Cut The Crap -- Islamic Terrorism There is this ugly and pervasive "political" view that Islamic Terrorism is some "new thing." It usually comes with some line of crap about how we've "created" these monsters by invading their nations and displacing "their" people, and that "we" (the western world generally) are responsible. This is a bald lie. Islamic terrorism dates back centuries. It was a problem in the form of piracy and slavery in the early days of our Republic -- long before we had a military that could invade anything. The "big lie" is proved again in the present...

Go Ahead And Cheer The Fraud The lies are ridiculous. "Obamacare" has not been repealed, nor replaced. Deductibles and premiums will not come down, because exactly nothing has been done to address the underlying cost of medical care, and that is, of course, what drives the cost of "health insurance." It also probably won't pass the Senate, so that The House has done so is immaterial. But heh, go ahead and take a victory lap Mr. Trump for something that hasn't passed the Senate yet, and by the way, may I remind you that the Executive, which you head, can...

Maybe The Snowflakes Are Right? What if "Pajama Boy" is right? GDP came in pretty punky this morning, and a big part of it was consumption -- consumer spending. Much has been said, including by myself, about millennials and other young people on both sides of the millennial generation being less ambitious, living at home even well into their 20s, working part time or not at all. What if their decision is a purely logical one? What if those folks have decided that they're not into "rocket science" (e.g. high-grade math, computer programming, etc) and are not going to go...

Prognostication: Here It Comes I claim no special power here, nor any inside information. This is simply arithmetic coupled with logic. I'll give you a "decision tree" sort of format with the critical points outlined. Note that if you're going to mitigate any of what I see coming around the bend you need to do it right damn now, not wait. By the time you get to those critical points it's too late. For many people it's already too late, but if you're not in that batch then you need to make your lifestyle changes today. I am operating on...

So I'm 'Negative Nancy' Eh? Stop the inane folks. Seriously, stop it. (Snip) Health Care including VA (which I exclude in my current postings) was $850 billion in 2012. Last fiscal was $1,417 billion or nearly a double in five years. That's the same acceleration in spending that has been going on since the 1980s. This cannot continue. It must stop now. I have been writing on this incessantly since 2007 here in The Market Ticker, been raising hell about this since I was an Internet CEO in the 1990s and been doing presentations on it to so-called Conservative groups...

The Bill To Fix Health Care - Permanently Let's lay out the parameters for a bill, a fairly-modest update to my two previous missives on this point here and here (note the dates) and which can be easily turned into formal legislative language: All providers must post, in their offices and on a public web site without any requirement to sign in or otherwise identify oneself to access it, a full and complete price list which shall apply to every person. This instantly allows customers to compare pricing between providers for services and products in the medical realm. All customers...

Consider good or service "X". The producer has to compute a price to sell at. His computation is comprised of the expense to produce the good or service plus a profit. . . . Two things constrain his profit: 1) The ability for the consumer to refuse to buy at all and 2) competition. Now let's enter the world of drug prices . . . “We think we should always be value-based,” Celgene Inc. Chairman Robert Hugin said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “If the drug doesn’t provide value to the system and to the patient, we shouldn’t have...

Let me make a few observations. First, eight years ago, and again four years ago, America elected a President. Fully half, give or take a couple of percent, disagreed with the outcome. There were exactly zero riots, fires, "mass protests" and similar following that outcome despite the fact that half the population vehemently disagreed with it. This time around, not so much. Now I want you think very carefully about the following. Most of the land mass of this nation is owned and resided upon by people who are in "red" (that is, the winner this time) areas of the...

Last night there was somewhat of a ritualistic dinner held. It was the Al Smith dinner, a white-tie affair, and a ritual that Presidential candidates, very late in the game, have usually taken part in. This year was no different, with both Hillary and Trump sporting their white-tie best. But this is not your usual sort of passe' thing. No, it's a benefit, and as are many benefits in New York it was stuffed with priestly types and an extraordinary price tag -- but, as is frequently the case when there are so many with a priestly bent headlining the...

The latest is called “America is Doomed Without Restoring the Rule of Law-Karl Denninger.” Trader and entrepreneur Karl Denninger has a dire warning. He basically says if there is lawlessness at the top of society, there will be lawlessness at the bottom. Denninger, who is so distraught he has suspended writing on his popular website, explains, “It is illegal for any entity with market power or anybody else to price fix. It is illegal to price commodities of like, mind and quantity in the market place. That is a federal law, and violations of these laws are not civil affairs,...

EmailGate is very, very bad. The mere presence of SAP material on her "private" email server is a federal offense -- and should be. Sometimes described as "above top secret" these programs are no-BS "need to know" and you must be read into each one individually, then you must access whatever material is involved in a secured facility from which that material may not leave. There is no such thing as "having access to them" on a general basis, no matter who you are. These programs typically deal with human intelligence of some form -- an agent on the ground...

That's Google's "doodle" for today. Do you have any idea who that is? That's Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese-American. It's apparently her 95th birthday. Ok. By the way, she's a black separatist -- even though she's not black. That's right, she stands for blatant, in-you-face discrimination by black people against everyone who isn't black. She has been influenced by (and met) Malcolm X. Yes, that Malcolm X. Oh, and she engaged in taking over the Statute of Liberty to demand the release of four extremists who opened fire in the US House of Representatives. (Incidentally, Carter later pardoned them; you see,...

"Donald Trump's Economic Plans Would Destroy the US Economy!" screams the headline in The Atlantic. Of course to go with the headline they find a very unflattering picture.... I do give The Atlantic one bit of credit: They didn't bury the lede. "I've borrowed knowing that you can pay back with discounts," he told CNBC. "I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.” "This policy would be so disastrous that even its suggestion is dangerous." Oh really? The article goes on to say that suggesting that one might haircut the debt would collapse markets...

Oh yes it is. "My parents were just vacationing in Europe (they go often so they're aware of how stuff works). My mom is diabetic and had a shortage of insulin while in France, they went to the drugstore and she showed the bottle of Humalog which is what she uses in the United States and the price in the United States is around $240 a bottle which is charged to her Medicare and insurance and can only be prescribed by her doctor." "The pharmacist recognized the bottle and without having to go to a doctor sold her a bottle...