Free Republic

Full header: Medicare For All Rally Organizers Blame American Medical Association As ‘Major Reason’ People Aren’t Covered Doctors, nurses and others who support Medicare for all protested the American Medical Association’s stance against a single-payer health care system at the association’s annual meeting in Chicago Saturday. “The AMA is a major reason why 28 million Americans still don’t have health insurance. … By deploying powerful lobbying and misleading media campaigns, the AMA has opposed or hijacked nearly every health reform proposal of the last century, from Social Security to Medicare to the Affordable Care Act,” rally organizers wrote in an...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia has canned an annual craft beer festival after an Islamist party warned it would turn the city into “the biggest centre of vice in Asia”. Drinking alcohol is common among the large ethnic minorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia but there have been a growing number of protests against activities and events seen as un-Islamic by politicians and hardliners. The Better Beer Festival, billed as Malaysia’s biggest craft beer festival, was due to take place on October 6 and 7 at a shopping mall on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. But last week the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party...

The secular progressive tactic of advocating death in the name of liberty continues, this time in the state of California, where Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide in that state. This makes California the fourth state to embrace the practice, after Oregon, Washington, and Vermont. Commenting on his decision to sign the bill, Governor Brown remarked that were he afflicted with a painful terminal illness he would not want to suffer in his final days of life, the implication being that physician-assisted suicide is a means for individuals to free themselves from the physical suffering and...

PONTIAC (WWJ) – An Oakland County judge has sent three children to a juvenile detention facility for failing to have a relationship with their father, saying it’s one of the worst cases of parental alienation she’s ever seen — even comparing the children to the Charles Manson cult. Circuit Judge Lisa Gorcyca declared the children — ages 9, 10 and 15 — in civil contempt of court during a hearing on June 24. The children were taken into custody and hauled off to Children’s Village after declining to have lunch with their father. “It’s a very troubling case, no doubt,”...

Join the Movement – Help us Oppose Physician Assisted Suicide Msgr. Charles Pope • July 8, 2015 • 1 Comment Here in Washington D.C., the City Council has before it a bill modeled after Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law. Listed as the “Death with Dignity Act of 2015,” a public hearing will take place this Friday, July 10th at 11:00 AM in the District building.Experience thus far with legalized assisted suicide should alarm anyone who looks seriously into how it has played out. The “safeguards” of the Oregon law, so highly praised by its supporters, seem to be mere window dressings than actual safeguards. In Oregon,...

There is unprecedented demand for physician assistants as insurance payment and the Affordable Care Act encourage a team-based approach to managing the care of patient populations. A snapshot of this trend can be seen in a new report by The Medicus Firm, a national physician recruiter, which said physician assistants (PAs) rose to No. 5 among its top 10 most frequently placed medical care providers in 2014, outstripping several categories of medical doctors. Primary care doctors continue to hold the top three spots with family physicians at No. 1, followed by hospitalist doctors and internists at No. 3. Just a...

Kedah's new fatwa ruling anti-democratic Front APRIL 19 - The Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) reads reports of Kedah's new fatwa ruling with alarm.According to The Star, the ruling enacted by the Kedah State Assembly on Tuesday will ensure that a fatwa decided by the mufti and fatwa committee "cannot be challenged, appealed, reviewed, denied or questioned in any civil court or syariah court."This ban against any challenge to all of Kedah's fatwas practically grants the mufti and fatwa committee absolute say in matters concerning religion - a clear breach of democracy.What took place on Tuesday, in other words, was nothing...

Guang Eng labels Umno Penang 'racist' over mosque land allegations By Anisah Shukry April 04, 2012 [The Malaysian Insider] KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 - Lim Guan Eng accused Umno Penang today of racism for choosing only to highlight the alleged disposal of land earmarked for mosques in the Bayan Mutiara project. The Penang chief minister said that if Umno's claims were true and that the land been reclassified in the 102.6-acre sale of Bayan Mutiara to Ivory Property Group Bhd (IPGB), then issue affects both Muslim and non-Muslims. "Why then is Umno not highlighting that non-Muslim land for religious worship...

Parental Alienation Awareness Day - April 25, 2008 Did You Know That Parental Alienation Is a Form of Child Abuse? MIAMI, April 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Parental Alienation Awareness Day will occur on April 25, 2008. Parental Alienation (PA) is a form of child abuse that involves the systematic persuasion and manipulation of children both overtly, and with subtle behaviors that results in the destruction of a loving relationship they once shared with a parent. The child can suffer "collateral" damage through simple exposure to the conflict or if used as a weapon against the other parent. PA is a case...

Jul. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - AsiaNews is reporting that in northern Malaysia, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party has stiffened penalties for conversion from Islam. In a country where Muslims account for more than half of the population, conversion is punished with a 5-year prison sentence and a $3,000 fine. A Malaysian Muslim who marries a non-Muslim and who converts the non-Muslim to Islam is rewarded with an apartment, a car, a one-time payment of $2,700, and a monthly stipend of $270.

Lethal barbiturate produced by members of Australian right-to-die association TORONTO -- An Australian physician attending a global conference in Toronto of right-to-die organizations intends to display this weekend what he says is the first do-it-yourself suicide pill -- made by a group of Australians with degenerative and terminal illnesses. Group members, ranging in age from 55 to 94, have taught themselves the chemistry to make a lethal barbiturate whose main component is amylobarbitone, said Dr. Philip Nitschke, executive director of Australia's national dying with dignity organization, Exit International. After a year of trials, they have synthesized the barbiturate into crystalline...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s opposition Islamic party has accused a top judge of insulting Islam by ruling that a Muslim boy need not wear a turban — as the Prophet Muhammad did — to prove his faith. The case began when three Muslim boys sued the government because their state school expelled them for refusing to remove their turbans. The boys lost their case, and appealed — but a Federal Court dismissed the appeal. Judge Abdul Hamid Mohamed said in the ruling last week that it isn’t necessary for Muslims to do exactly as the Prophet Muhammad did....

PENGKALAN PASIR, Malaysia (Reuters) - Malaysia's ruling coalition sought to push the nation's fundamentalist Islamic party further into the political wilderness on Sunday with the start of its campaign for a crucial state by-election. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Barisan Nasional coalition is contesting the Dec. 6 poll in northeastern Kelantan state, the last stronghold of Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), which rules the state legislature with a two-seat majority. The poll in the rural state seat of Pengkalan Pasir is the first since Abdullah won a thumping general election victory in early 2004 on a pledge to clean up corruption...

Women who undergo abortions suffer serious psychological problems more frequently than was previously thought, according to a new study. Published yesterday in the Medical Science Monitor, the study surveyed 331 Russian women and 217 American women who had undergone one or more induced abortions, but who hadn't experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. Among the study's major findings were: Of American women, 53.9 percent felt badly after their abortion while only 13.8 percent felt relief. Some 36.4 percent of the American women had suicidal thoughts and 26.7 percent increased their use of alcohol or drugs. Only 10.8 percent of the American...

SPRINGFIELD, IL, November 17, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Post-traumatic reactions to induced abortion may be far more common than previously thought, according to a new study published in the Medical Science Monitor. Sixty-five percent of American women studied experienced multiple symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which they attributed to their abortions. Slightly over 14 percent reported all the symptoms necessary for a clinical diagnosis of abortion induced PTSD. Researchers gathered data from women seeking general health care treatment at clinics and hospitals in both the United States and Russia. Women with a history of pregnancy loss, including miscarriage or abortion,...

The Elliot Institute of Springfield is one of the leading research organizations in the U.S. on the impact of abortion on women. The Institute reported yesterday that a recent national opinion poll it commissioned (+/- 4 percentage points) found that 86 percent of American adults believe significant emotional problems after an abortion are common or very common. Only 16 percent of those polled believed that abortion generally makes women's lives better. About half stated that it is common or very common for women to feel pressured into unwanted abortions. Results from the poll are included in the Political Resource Kit...

A POLITICIAN soon to be elected in Indonesia has been linked to extremist Islamic organisations, including Bali bombing group Jemaah Islamiah. As the vote count continued in Indonesia's huge elections, Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle held a slight edge over its main rival Golkar party yesterday, with 20.77 per cent of the vote to Golkar's 19.96 per cent. With more than a third of the ballot counted, Tamsil Linrung looks certain to take a place in Indonesia's national parliament as the member for south Sulawesi of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). Mr Linrung, a Makassar businessman, was arrested...

Malaysia's 'Gentler' Leader Gets Strong Mandate, Trounces Islamists By Patrick Goodenough/ CNSNews.com Pacific Rim Bureau Chief March 22, 2004 Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - A resounding victory for Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Malaysian elections has dealt a significant blow to the country's radical Islamic party. By drawing a line under the Mahathir Mohamad era, it also clears the way for a less prickly relationship between Kuala Lumpur and Washington. Unofficial results in Sunday's election gave the ruling coalition, dominated by Abdullah's United Malays National Organization (UMNO), a healthy majority in the federal parliament, and also ended opposition Parti...

The party will focus on winning the votes of Malay Muslims, who make up 55% of the population, says acting president PARTI Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) will implement its version of an Islamic state if it comes to power even though non-Muslims are unlikely to support its goals, says the party's acting president Abdul Hadi Awang. 'If non-Muslims can see that Islam is not just about Hudud but about the economy, about land and other laws, I believe that they will accept Islam as a national policy.' - PAS acting president Abdul Hadi Awang -- Malaysia's plural society would remain but...

The second front in America's war on terror is yielding limited results THE arrival in January of 1,200 American soldiers in sleepy Basilan island in the southern Philippines drew attention to a wider threat of international terrorism in South-East Asia. Abu Sayyaf, a militant group the Americans have been helping to fight, is just one of many in the region, after all. Its founder, Abubakar Janjalani, trained with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Two of the September 11th hijackers had spent time in Malaysia. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first bombing of the World Trade Centre, in 1993, used...