Free Republic

amika Capone thought she was making a smart call by traveling to Mexico for bariatric surgery. Her doctor had urged her to have the procedure to reduce her out-of-control weight and blood pressure. But her husband's health insurance would not cover the $17,500 bill. After a friend got the surgery in Tijuana for $4,000, Capone decided to do the same.

You may have to go all the way back to the late 20th century to recall an article in Harper’s magazine that was worth reading, but the current issue features an article from the controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq that defends Donald Trump (“Donald Trump Is a Good President“) in ways that will drive just about everybody out of their minds But what’s most remarkable about the new American policies is certainly the country’s position on trade, and there Trump has been like a healthy breath of fresh air; you’ve really done well to elect a president with origins in...

Our young people are not the first Americans to admire tyrants and cutthroats. W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the National Guardian in 1953, said, "Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature." Walter Duranty called Stalin "the greatest living statesman" and "a quiet, unobtrusive man." There was even leftist admiration for Hitler and fellow fascist Benito Mussolini. When Hitler came to power in January 1933, George Bernard Shaw described him as "a very remarkable man, a very able man." President Franklin Roosevelt called Mussolini "admirable," and he was "deeply impressed by what he...

Students at an Ohio middle school were asked to decide who they would leave behind if the world was about to end, using age, religion and other descriptions as markers for their decisions. The assignment sparked widespread uproar. “Whom to Leave Behind” asked students at Roberts Middle School in Cuyahoga Falls to choose eight out of 12 people to put into a space ship and take to a different planet because the world was ending, according to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. Choices included a homosexual pro athlete, a militant African-American medical student and a female movie star who was a victim...

President Trump said Thursday, “Twitter 'SHADOW BANNING' prominent Republicans. Not good," Trump tweeted. "We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints.” Shadow banning, also known as ghost banning, is when a user and their content visibility is limited from the online viewers in a way that does not make it clear to the user that they have been banned. For example, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Mark Meadows, R-N.C., Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel all failed to appear on Twitter’s autofill search box when users typed in their names, Vice News reported...

Companies kept up the hiring pace in March, adding 241,000 positions as employment in construction and manufacturing surged, according to a report Wednesday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics. Economists surveyed by Reuters had been expecting the report to show that private payrolls had gained by 205,000. This was the fifth straight month that the ADP/Moody’s count showed private payrolls up by at least 200,000, though March saw a slight decline from the upwardly revised 246,000 in February. On a year-over-year basis, March 2018 nearly doubled the 122,000 total from the previous year. “The job market is rip-roaring,” Mark Zandi, Moody’s...

The PBS NewsHour, which I love for telling me what to think and when to think it, had a piece yesterday about a black lesbian woman who claimed she couldn't get a mortgage because racist banks wouldn't lend to a black person.  When her Japanese lesbian partner applied for a loan, however, she quickly got it. Fifty years after the federal Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in lending, African Americans and Latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts. It found a pattern of troubling denials for people of color...

Roscosmos, is considering offering future space tourists the chance to do their own spacewalk for $100 million price tag.

Looking for something to be thankful for? Try this. You have it better than billionaire John Rockefeller (1839-1937) ever did. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Co. and became one of the richest men in American history. When he died, he had a fortune worth around $1.4 billion, or $25 billion in today’s dollars. He had more money. You have better stuff. How many lights did you turn on today? Thomas Edison didn’t patent the incandescent light bulb until Rockefeller was in his 40s. There wasn’t an electrical grid, so small generators powered the first light bulbs. Today, electricity is an...

We took a look at Macron’s character; does he mean what he says?... What kind of a leader will he be? We analyzed many of his speeches, including his recent 2-hour address to the parliament on opening day, and we’ve found his rhetoric to be similar to that of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Now, all politicians give great speeches. What’s notable about Macron’s is his brazen criticism of the state and its socialist policies; his gentle admonitions to his countrymen about the poor state of affairs that they’ve allowed their country to end up in. Here’s a sample of his...

This may come as a surprise, but support for the free market is reaching record highs in Latin America. And what’s even more amazing, capitalism is most popular in countries where leftist leaders lash out against it on a daily basis. In theory, this could pave the way for a golden era for foreign and domestic investors in the region. The startling information about the rise of pro-capitalist sentiment in Latin America is part of soon-to-be-released figures from Latinobarómetro, an annual regional survey. According to the data, the percentage of people in the region who agree with the premise that...

Medicare’s trust fund will run out of money in just over 10 years, according to a new report from the program’s trustees. Once that happens, the federal government won’t collect enough in payroll taxes to cover beneficiaries’ hospital bills. Congress could hike taxes to cover the shortfall. Or it could ration care to save money. Or it could modernize and restructure Medicare — by giving beneficiaries means-tested vouchers to buy private insurance. Doing so would protect taxpayers now, preserve the program for future generations and even provide higher-quality care to seniors. Medicare‘s spending isn’t sustainable. Congress can stave off massive...

Last week, a dear friend of Accuracy in Academia, author M. Stanton Evans (1934-2015), would have turned 83. Although he focused most of his energies in his later years on researching and writing about the history of espionage and internal security in the United States, he had quite a background in economics as well, much to the benefit of his readers over the course of his career. Indeed, he studied under the noted Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. On at least half a dozen occasions, I heard him outline what he saw as five essentials for a functioning economy. They...

When the governor called, Sherry Japhet answered. Japhet is a freelance makeup artist from Boise, Idaho. She's worked in the business for more than 20 years, but without a license. That's never been a problem for her. She's landed gigs from coast-to-coast, working on television sets and for fashion magazines. Some of those calls came from Idaho Gov. Butch Otter. Japhet has helped Otter and his wife, Lori, look their best for televised public service announcements and political ads. No more, she says.

Speaking to workers and business people in Italy’s port city of Genoa Saturday, Pope Francis surprised his hearers by praising entrepreneurship and touting the importance of healthy businesses for the economy. “There can’t be a good economy without good businessmen, without their capacity to create and to produce,” he said, shattering his reputation as an enemy of the free market economy. The Pope recognized that the essential value of work and employment is only possible when companies are sound and successful. Without denouncing unemployment benefits, Francis insisted that state intervention wasn’t a real solution. “A monthly check from the state...

Dr. Josh of Atlas MD says NO to ObamaCare. Working directly with his patients, and cutting out the insurance and government bureaucrats, lowers costs for the patients and increases the quality of care they receive.

I believe we may be on the cusp of a new global prosperity led by the United States in a fashion that more resembles a free market, than that of a collective cooperative like we've seen the statists trying to put into place for a few generations Moderation, is the key. For example, food can be a good thing, but if you go to any extreme, be it eating too much, or eating too little, you run the risk of being overweight, or starving yourself to death. Moderation is an important concept in pretty much everything. In politics, the term...

Common Sense Medicine: Restoring the Patient/Physician Relationship Common Sense Medicine, hot off the press, is a powerful, easy-to-read, and entertaining exposé of the root problems plaguing American medicine and the simple solutions to increase access to high-quality, low-cost medical care!We are offering bulk discounts on this POWERFUL new book.Buy copies to give to patients, friends, and family!...A Kindle version is available...Read PDF version: http://aapsonline.org/CommonSenseMedicine.pdfCommon Sense Medicine: Restoring the Patient/Physician Relationship by Association of American Physicians and Surgeons on Scribd ...Meet the Author: Jeff DanbyJeff received a Bachelor of Arts in History with Honors from DePaul University in 1985, and...

The first sentence of Congress’ Obamacare repeal should read: “There shall be a free market in health insurance.” Right there, I’ve solved the health insurance crisis for 90 percent of Americans. Unfortunately, no one can imagine what a free market in health care looks like because we haven’t had one for nearly a century. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” this weekend, for example, Chuck Todd told Sen. Tom Cotton that his proposal to create affordable health care that would be widely available, “sounds good,” but “do you understand why some people think that’s an impossible promise to keep?” (The “do...

The Index of Economic Freedom is my favorite annual publication from the Heritage Foundation. It’s a rich source of information, using dozens of data sources, about economic liberty around the world. I first wrote about the Index back in 2010 and shared the bad news that the U.S. score dropped dramatically in Obama’s first year. Well, the new Index lets us see the net effect of Obama’s entire tenure. The worse news is that the U.S. score has dropped to 75.1 on a 0-100 scale. And the worst news is that this represents America’s lowest score in the twenty-plus years...