Free Republic

A new set of rules from the Biden administration seeks to rein in private health insurance companies’ use of prior authorization – a byzantine practice that requires people to seek insurance company permission before obtaining medication or having a procedure. The cost-containment strategy often delays care and forces patients, or their doctors, to navigate opaque and labyrinthine appeals. The administration’s newly finalized rules will require insurance companies who work in federal programs to speed up the approval process and make decisions within 72 hours for urgent requests. The regulations will also require companies to give a specific reason as to...

Election denier Stacey Abrams (D-Liar) is already spinning her upcoming gubernatorial loss by denying an election that has yet to conclude. Although we see record turnout in Georgia, Abrams is out there blaming this loss on voter suppression and — get this — the ignorance of black men. In 2018, Abrams lost her race to become Georgia’s governor by a fairly substantial 1.4 percentage points — 50.2 percent for Republican Brian Kemp, compared to 48.8 percent for Abrams. The difference was also a fairly substantial 55,000 votes. Nevertheless, Abrams refused to concede and continued to insist she won. In fact,...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) stated that unless there is societal change after the George Floyd case, “we’re going to be right back here again” and “we can’t be denying the right to vote to black communities when they’re saying, thank God we’re able to vote for somebody like Keith Ellison to be the attorney general.”

Washington (AFP) - The United States pledged its unwavering committment to Israel on Monday, and insisted it will take "whatever steps are necessary" to deny adversary Iran a nuclear bomb. As international negotiators seek a deal with Tehran to rein in its nuclear program, Washington's UN ambassador Samantha Power reiterated President Barack Obama's commitment to prevent the Islamic republic from developing atomic weapons. "He will keep his commitment whether the negotiations collapse or produce a diplomatic solution that meets our bottom line," she told some 16,000 attendees at US pro-Israel lobby AIPAC ahead of a speech by visiting Israeli Prime...

Here is where we’re at: The Republican establishment — the guys who told us that for a trillion dollars and several thousand American casualties, we could build “Islamic democracies” that would be reliable U.S. allies in the War on Terror — say it is Ted Cruz who is “delusional” and the effort to stave off Obamacare that is “unattainable.” These self-appointed sages are, of course, the same guys who told us the way to “stabilize” and “democratize” Libya was to help jihadists topple and kill the resident dictator — who, at the time, was a U.S. ally, providing intelligence about...

Document which sparked strong condemnations from Israel and the US returns on official website of the PA’s news agency Wafa. Only days after it was removed from the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Information website, a “study” denying Jews’ rights to the Western Wall has resurfaced, this time on the official website of the PA’s news agency, Wafa. By publishing the document on Wafa’s website, the official mouthpiece of the PLO and the PA, the authority has sent a message that its has officially endorsed its findings. The “study,” which had sparked strong condemnations from Israel and the US, was written...

On May 20th, Congressman Barney Frank (a promoter of the Community Reinvestment Act, a promoter of increased Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exposure to risky mortgages - in other words, he helped cause the financial crisis) again denied that he pushed for increased home ownership. He did this most recently yesterday on CNBC but has a history over the last couple of years of denying his culpability. Here we go again. Let's read (or listen to) his own words from 2005: Barney Frank June 27, 2005 - House Floor "We have, I think, an excessive degree of concern right now...

ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 26, 2007 – In the long war on terrorism, it takes a network to defeat a network, a senior Defense Department official said today at the 18th annual Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Symposium here. Mark Kimmitt, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near East and South Asian affairs, said al Qaeda and its associates operate within a “full-spectrum network” that extends beyond the physical battlefield into the virtual and financial worlds. “It has the ability to use the virtual and physical network, all tied together in this center of gravity of this radical Islamist ideology,”...

Pentagon denying Israelis security clearances New York Sun reports State Department citing AIPAC leak case as basis for denying employees with dual Israeli-American citizenship security clearances. In one case, government lawyers argued Israel was 'actively spying on United States' to justify withdrawing clearance from worker Ynetnews The Pentagon is citing a leak affair involving Defense Department analyst Lawrence Franklin and two pro-Israel lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, as a basis for stripping security clearances from government contractor employees who have dual Israeli-American citizenship or family in Israel, The New York Sun reported Wednesday. The two former AIPAC officials and...

LISBON - County Sheriff David L. Smith may form a board to review applications of persons he denied permits to carry concealed weapons. The idea was suggested Wednesday by the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court magistrate presiding over the lawsuit filed by a man whose application for a permit to carry a concealed weapon was denied by Smith. "I'm the final word but there is a provision in the law that says I can set up a review board to look at denials," he said. The Mahoning County man, identified in the lawsuit as John Doe, filed a lawsuit against...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in New Jersey: An Islamic Murder of Coptic Christians?.Anyone following the investigation into the mid-January slaughter of the Armanious family (husband, wife, two young daughters), Copts living in Jersey City, N.J., knows who the presumptive suspects are: Islamists furious at a Christian Egyptian immigrant who dares engage in Internet polemics against Islam and who attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity.The authorities, however, have blinded themselves to the extensive circumstantial evidence, insisting that "no facts at this point" substantiate a religious motive for the murders.Somehow, the prosecutor missed that all four members of this...

Senators not coming home anytime soon Denying reports of travel, fugitives say they fear arrest By ARMANDO VILLAFRANCA Aug. 30, 2003, 12:04AM ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Texas Democrats holed up in Albuquerque for more than a month denied a report Friday that some of them were coming home, saying their opponents in a redistricting battle easily could maneuver to arrest them if they did. Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and one of the 11 Democratic senators who fled Texas a month ago, said several senators have left Albuquerque for the Labor Day...