Free Republic

House Speaker John Boehner today announced that the House will take votes next week on a one-year delay to both the employer mandate and the individual mandate in the president’s signature health care law. Boehner’s vow was instigated by the Obama administration’s decision last week to postpone implementation of the mandate for businesses. Thursday, the speaker ticked off examples of the types of people who would have to overcome the burden of the mandate – young professionals with student loans, single parents and families – and contrasted their struggle with financial companies, government contractors and big banks who stand to...

I’ve repeatedly explained that Keynesian economics doesn’t work because any money the government spends must first be diverted from the productive sector of the economy, which means either higher taxes or more red ink. So unless one actually thinks that politicians spend money with high levels of effectiveness and efficiency, this certainly suggests that growth will be stronger when the burden of government spending is modest (and if spending is concentrated on “public goods,” which do have a positive “rate of return” for the economy). I’ve also complained (to the point of being a nuisance!) that there are too many...

So it comes to this: After all that has been said about Barack Obama, in the end there is very little to say. You are either willing to overlook Barack Obama’s foibles and foolishness; or you aren’t. There is no middle ground. There is no saying for example “Well he’s kind of new in the job,” or “This is an example of one bad apple in his Cabinet,” or “The president didn’t know about it.” Going into his second term, you either knew what we had in Barack Obama or you didn’t. For myself, I’ve never been willing to overlook...

Here's the big lesson from mega-storm Sandy: Mother Nature sneers at high tech, mocks modern convenience and couldn't care less about what kind of person you are. She will smack you if she wants to. As we have become addicted to machines, many of us have forgotten about nature. We must have gizmos. Sandy laughed and took them away. Power, gone. Internet, dark. Cellphones, not happening. Even your landline phone, not available, because "all circuits are busy." Suddenly, it's 1850 with one exception: battery-operated flashlights and radios. So what is the lesson here? Actually, there are a few. First: No...

Today is an important test of Fox News and “sister companies” like The Wall Street Journal because this is “individual mandate day.” The Supreme Court has been hearing arguments on that isolated issue upon which the entire multi-state lawsuit rests. THEREFORE, Fox News will be focusing mainly on this story (between Trayvon Martin reports). On Fox and Friends this morning the individual mandate was the main topic as expected. There has not been a single mention of the fact that Mitt Romney successfully ADVISED Barack Obama to adopt the individual mandate - but they did manage to slip in another...

Today is an important test of Fox News and “sister companies” like The Wall Street Journal. I have continually pointed out the media malpractice of Fox and their breach of fiduciary responsibility to their viewers and shareholders by engaging in manipulation, distortion and OMMISSION of material facts during this election primary season. Today is “individual mandate day” because the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments today on that isolated issue. THEREFORE, Fox News will be focusing mainly on this story (between Travon Martin stories). I turned on Fox & Friends this morning and the individual mandate has been the main...

Romney is running out of excuses as the layers of lies about his position on socialized medicine peel away like an onion. There's not much -left- to cover up and his last attempt to differentiate from Obamacare begs One Question:

There were two thinkers who were greatly influential in forming philosophies that would affect the future political theories that followed. The greatest thinker of the modern age was John Locke, who provided the framework that would allow for liberal democracy. A thinker who perhaps inadvertently laid down the foundation for totalitarianism was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Both Locke and Rousseau were grand thinkers, but Rousseau was an advocate of his own form of collectivism while Locke believed in individualism, the basis for a truly free society. It is sensible to begin by analyzing Locke, as he preceded Rousseau. John Locke writes in...

DECEMBER 27, 2011 Gingrich Applauded Romney's Health Plan BY BRODY MULLINS AND JANET ADAMY Newt Gingrich voiced enthusiasm for Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health-care law when it was passed five years ago, the same plan he has been denouncing over the past few months as he campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination. "The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," said an April 2006 newsletter published by Mr. Gingrich's former consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation.

Mitt Romney: "I'm for keeping the Bush tax cuts in place and holding down the tax rates. I want to lower our federal tax rates. So across a wide array of issues, I think conservatives in my party will see that I'm a rock solid conservative. Look, you pointed it out a moment ago. Last time around John McCain and Rudy Giuliani were running, I was the conservative choice. Mike Huckabee and I. We were the two guys that were on the conservative side. I have the same views today I had back then."

The radical agenda being pursued across the United States now in support of unlimited abortion is taking its toll on individual rights – and the newest battleground is a New Jersey hospital that is trying to require nurses to help kill the unborn despite both state and federal prohibitions. That's according to Alan Sears, an executive with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has gone to court to obtain an order halting the hospital's plans for now. "Cases like this are increasingly common in the U.S., as the battle over abortion spurs attacks on rights of individual conscience," he penned in...

On his bus tour, President Barack Obama said the federal health care law’s individual mandate, which requires every American to purchase health insurance, “should not be controversial.” To date, 26 states have sued the federal government, arguing that the individual mandate is unconstitutional because the U.S. Constitution does not grant Congress the power to require Americans to purchase a good or service. “Here’s the problem – if an insurance company has to take you, has to insure you, even if you’re sick but you don’t have an individual mandate, then what would everybody do?

White House hopeful Newt Gingrich called the House Republican plan for Medicare "right-wing social engineering," injecting a discordant GOP voice into the party's efforts to reshape both entitlements and the broader budget debate. In the same interview Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, complicating a Republican line of attack on President Barack Obama's health law. The former House speaker's decision to stick with his previous support for an individual mandate comes days after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended the health revamp he championed as governor, which includes a...

Unvetted (i.e., without credentials) individuals such as the Wright brothers and Thomas Edison have had a far more beneficial effect on mankind than have all the vaunted, vetted collectives such as the Service Employees International Union, or Napoleon's Army for that matter. Here are a few unvetted individuals I have in mind: Wright brothers, A. Einstein, H. Ford, Thomas Alva Edison, Moses, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus of Nazareth, John Adams, Benito Juarez, Robert Goddard, Ronald Reagan, Frederick Douglass. Often they were at odds with the Establishment and the power structure. They were likely to be dismissed as unusual or strange. On...

Anthem Blue Cross is committed to offering a broad range of products and services that meet customer needs in the changing health insurance market, and to implementing the new health care reform legislation in a way that benefits our customers and members. We have reviewed the rules regarding the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA) limiting the application of pre-existing condition exclusions for children under 19. Unfortunately, there remains a great deal of uncertainty as to how the rules will be implemented and what the impacts might be on participating insurers. While some carriers may continue...

Yesterday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed a petition to the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of the Commonwealth against the federal mandate imposed by ObamaCare that individuals must purchase or obtain health insurance, whether from a private insurance company or from government. Cuccinelli’s efforts were joined by 13 other states, who separately filed a joint brief in Pensacola, Florida. According to the Virginia brief, the government takeover of health care “contains an individual mandate which will require a majority of Virginians after December 31, 2013 to purchase health insurance for themselves and their...

Press Release: Background Information: Far-Right Attacks on U.S. Law Enforcement The murder last week of 3 Pittsburgh police officers by far-right extremist Richard Poplawski is the most recent incident of violent activity in the United States by a far-right extremist against a police target. Research led by Dr. Joshua D. Freilich (John Jay College, CUNY) and Dr. Steven Chermak (Michigan State University) and funded by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has revealed a violent history of fatal attacks against law enforcement officers in the United States by individuals who adhere to far-right...

In Defense of Individualism March 20, 2009 Listen To It! FREE! WMP | RealPlayer BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Snerdley says -- and this depresses me, because I said in the closing segment of the previous hour that the Democrat Party and the Obama administration are conducting an all-out assault on the individual and liberty and freedom. And that's exactly what it is.Snerdley says,"You better explain why the individual is so important.You know, a lot of people,you got a whole bunch of brand-new tuner-inners out there, Rush, and a lot of these people think the individual is just a greedy SOB,and...

Reporting from Washington -- The Supreme Court opinion that drew the most praise last week from a proudly "progressive" constitutional law group was written by perhaps the court's staunchest conservative, Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas would have gone further than the court's liberals in a decision that allowed injured patients to sue drug makers. In a 24-page concurrence, he said the court should have declared that judges have no authority to void state consumer-protection laws based on "agency musings" from Washington.

For example, Dr Eugenie Scott of the staunchly anticreationist National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed their agenda when she said: “ … I would describe myself as a humanist or a nontheist. I have found that the most effective allies for evolution are people of the faith community. One clergyman with a backward collar is worth two biologists at a school board meeting any day! … What we [such clergy and atheists] have in common is that we want to see evolution taught in the public schools … .”4