Free Republic

American Life LeagueSpecial Issue: STOPP analysis of Planned Parenthood 2011 and 2012 finances Planned Parenthood getting more taxpayer money *excerpt*"The data show that federal and state officials elected by the American taxpayers have increased the millions of dollars going to Planned Parenthood by 11 percent in the last two years. We now provide $542.4 million (over a half-billion dollars) to the nation’s largest abortion chain. That’s $1.5 million per day, each and every day. Since 1964, our government has given Planned Parenthood $6.8 billion of our hard-earned money. Most people know Planned Parenthood gets taxpayer money for its clinic services....

In 2013, the tax increases in Obamacare will increasingly conspire against kitchen-table family healthcare decisions. As just one example, below are some of the taxes that will impact the purchase of dental braces: Obamacare Medical Device Tax: As of Jan.1, Obamacare imposes a new tax of 2.3 percent on medical device manufacturers, including those who make dental braces. The tax is imposed on gross sales -- even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. While the tax will be paid to the IRS by the manufacturer, the tax will be passed along as a higher...

Krauthammer on the Hagel nomination: Message-sending. Obama won reelection. He no longer has to trim, to appear more moderate than his true instincts. He has the “flexibility” to be authentically Obama. Hence the Hagel choice: Under the guise of centrist bipartisanship, it allows the president to leave the constrained first-term Obama behind and follow his natural Hagel-like foreign policy inclinations. ...Hagel himself doesn’t matter. He won’t make foreign policy. Obama will run it out of the White House even more tightly than he did in the first term. Hagel’s importance is the message his nomination sends about where Obama wants...

Three false arguments, pushed hard by the Obama administration and accepted on faith by the media and much of the political establishment, must be laid to rest if the American people are to understand the issues at stake in the federal "debt ceiling" debate. The first is that Congress's failure to raise the debt ceiling—the amount of money the federal government is authorized to borrow at any given time—will cause a default on the national debt. The second is that federal entitlement programs are constitutionally protected from spending cuts. The third is that the president can raise the debt ceiling...

Here is your Friday Gun Survey: (as always, Chicago Rules apply)   I was listening to Geraldo this morning(snip)what really caught my ear was this comment from Geraldo, and I quote: “How could you not trust your own government?”     (snip)Let’s get directly at the heart of the beast: the Second Amendment(snip)an armed citizenry to protect themselves from future tyrannical leaders like the one they had just fought to free themselves from.     Well here, let’s have somebody who knows something explain this: (snip)Consider the words of Supreme Court justice Joseph Story — who was, it bears noting,...

Thought this might be of interest: Gun bans impact our freedoms under search and seizure, due process, confiscated property, states' rights, free speech, right to assemble and more, in addition to the Second Amendment. The Democrats current gun-ban-list proposal may include most of the following firearms: Rifles (or copies or duplicates): M1 Carbine, Sturm Ruger Mini-14, AR-15, Bushmaster XM15, Armalite M15, AR-10, Thompson 1927, Thompson M1; AK, AKM, AKS, AK-47, AK-74, ARM, MAK90, NHM 90, NHM 91, SA 85, SA 93, VEPR; Olympic Arms PCR; AR70, Calico Liberty , Dragunov SVD Sniper Rifle or Dragunov SVU, Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR,...

... American Express delivered a surprise in its fourth quarter earnings report today: the elimination of 5,400 jobs as part of a global reorganization of its business units, with over $400 million in severance and its business travel unit taking a big hit. The company has endured more than a decade of downsizing under CEO Ken Chenault: 7,700 jobs in 2001; 6,500 jobs in 2002; 7,000 jobs (10% of its workforce) in 2008; 4,000 jobs in 2009. This round of cuts, as Wall Street Journal reports, represents "its biggestretrenchmentin a decade," and will shed 8.5% of its workforce.

President Obama's Two Hundred and Seventh Week in Office1/10/2013Obama Ethics, Year 4U.S. Taxpayers are giving Planned Parenthood $1.5 million each and every day - 11% growth in 2 yearsCalifornian women told to have more children as birth rate in most populous state plummetsObama signs bill giving himself lifetime Secret Service protectionJohn Brennan – The CIA - Zbigniew Brzezinski – Columbia University and ObamaChief Justice Of The Supreme Court John Roberts Schedules A Case By Attorney Taitz Regarding Obamas Forged IDs to be Heard in Conference Before the Full Supreme CourtObama's nominees settle it: A more radical, confrontational termEric Holder to...

As a state senator in Illinois, President Obama opposed legislation providing an exception to handgun restrictions if the weapon was used in the defense of one’s home. Obama’s vote would have maintained the status quo, which made it a violation of municipal gun ban law to use a firearm to save your own life in your own home. But the bill was passed anyway without his support. The vote is a sign of how committed Obama may be to strict gun control measures. The Illinois vote is hardly ancient history, having occurred in 2004 as Obama was running for election...

A study [$] published in the winter edition of Political Science Quarterly considers two possible reasons for why the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) failed to sprinkle Uncle Sam’s magic dust onto those areas of the country that were being hardest hit by the recession. Was it because well-positioned politicians were successful in delivering the pork? Or was it because the recession created a “window of opportunity” for politicians to quickly spend a bunch of additional money on pet causes, which had the effect of benefitting certain areas of the country? I’m going to skip right to the...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Wikipedia’s article “Presidency of Barack Obama” is a puff piece which ignores many critical issues. Wikipedia’s article “Presidency of Barack Obama” is a puff piece which ignores many critical issues. These issues have been added to the article multiple times, but they always get erased. Editors who continue to add these things to the article get accused of “edit warring,” and if they continue to put the information into the article, they get blocked from editing for 24 hours. If they continue adding the information after their 24 hour block expires, they get blocked for a...

The Obama administration, among other things, wants to put Benghazi behind it. Periodically the American press, public, and politicians become excited about something going on in Africa. The interest doesn’t last long and neither the United States nor African nations benefit much from the momentary excitement. President Obama recently ordered a small contingent of troops, mainly Army Special Forces, into the African country of Chad to assist in evacuating the U.S. Embassy staff and other American civilians from the neighboring Central African Republic (CAR). That this action reflected a reaction to the recent debacle in Benghazi, there is no doubt....

......As analyst Chris Krueger from Guggenheim Securities’ Washington Research Group explains to the American Enterprise Institute, “There are limits on how much paper money the U.S. can circulate and rules that govern coinage on gold, silver and copper. BUT, the Treasury has broad discretion on coins made from platinum.” “Although the Treasury can't just create money out of thin air to pay its bills, there is a technicality in the law that says the Treasury has special discretion to create platinum coins of any denomination, and the thinking is that [Secretary of the Treasury] Tim Geithner could make the coin...

This might come as a surprise to a lot of you, but I’m not a gun person… never have been, never will be. And you can stop reading right there and be angry, but you know better… so read on. The one thing that I have always been and always will be, is a freedom person. I believe in all of the freedoms and liberties given to us by the Bill of Rights… something that very few Americans currently understand. One group of people who completely understand our rights are the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the...

On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court scheduled a birther case brought on by Orly Taitz which calls into question Barack Hussein Obama's eligibility to be president of the United States. Dr. Taitz, a lawyer from Santa Margarita, Calif., also made the announcement on her website on Jan. 9. As of this writing, major news networks such as ABC, Fox News, CBS, and NBC have yet to report on the high court's decision to review Barack Hussein Obama's eligibility to hold political office in the United States or any of its territories. The case is identified as...

President Obama seems hell-bent upon foisting bad gun control legislation upon America. And why not? He loves this stuff. Just every other stupid liberal. Many conservatives are quick to ascribe malevolent motives, sometimes to a degree that is bluntly ludicrous. Liberalism is above mental dullness, a way of being carried along by sentiment instead of thought. I donÂ’t care how many degrees the President has. His problem is not that heÂ’s evil. His problem is that he just isnÂ’t terribly bright. In this, he is typical. Terribly bright people donÂ’t get to be President. Middling narcissists do. This is a...

Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora said Thursday that the mass shooting of school children in Newtown, Connecticut, last month had raised outrage to the point where previously unfeasible legal changes may be possible. .... Mexico says U.S. guns, particularly assault weapons, help fuel drug cartel-related violence south of the border. Medina Mora says he hopes the Newtown shooting will, in his words, "catalyze the necessary societal support for a change in the regulations that will be more favourable to the interests of our country."

From New York to New Mexico and across the dependent plains, welfare recipients are getting sauced on the public dime. Drunk, besotted, bombed. But while politicians pay lip service to cutting government waste, fraud and abuse, they're doing very little in practice to stop the EBT party excesses. Where's the compassion for taxpayers? You see the signs everywhere: "We accept EBT." Fast-food restaurants do. Clothing retailers do. Auto repair shops, liquor stores and even sushi joints are joining the club. "EBT" stands for the federal government's electronic benefits transfer card, which is intended to provide poor people with food stamps...

Joe Biden and Barack Obama have an assault rifle with a 30 round magazine pointed at the temples of Congress, the Senate, and America. They have decided that, to achieve the same gun control that only twenty years ago required the consent of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, all they need to do is issue some Imperial Decrees. This Emperor Obama has decided to simply NOT CONSULT and NOT INVOLVE both of the Houses of government, the House of Congress and the Senate, and unilaterally impose rules that only 20 years ago required consent of both of...

Hey, folks, remember the good old days when candidate Barack Obama at least pretended to be bipartisan and conciliatory? Now it's as if he's on a mission to prove he was faking it. Obama is behaving like a bitter ex-spouse who knows all our hot buttons and delights in pushing them. He is governing by crisis, fear, alienation, cronyism and anti-constitutional fiat. He is openly flaunting his militant radicalism, as if he's trying to provoke us -- and his second term hasn't even begun. He is horrifying all Americans who have the slightest concern about our deficits and debt, refusing...