Free Republic

The presidential election could have a profound effect on health care, who gets it, and who pays for it. There are 45.7 million uninsured people in the United States [including all of "God's children"...or are they going to be counted as insured because they have access to the ER?], according to Census figures released late last month. That figure includes 2.8 million in New York state. Americans—primarily businesses—pay $15 billion a year in taxes to care for these individuals. Both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, have offered “universal care” plans to address the issue and rein in skyrocketing...

August 27, 2008 The Four Horsemen of Economic Apocalypse By Dick Armey Like most conservatives, I look at the looming November election with a certain sense of gloom. While Senator McCain has a good shot at taking the White House, Democrats look certain to expand their majorities in both the House and Senate by considerable margins. As the Democratic Party gathers in Denver this week, it will lay out an aggressive policy agenda worthy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The 111th Congress has the potential to pass legislation of the magnitude of the New Deal and Great Society; indeed, we may...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. immigration agents have arrested 595 people at a Mississippi factory in what was the largest workplace enforcement raid in the United States to date, an immigration official said on Tuesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said federal agents arrested the workers in a raid at the Howard Industries Inc. factory in Laurel, Miss, on Monday, "This is the largest targeted workplace enforcement operation we have carried out in the United States to date," Gonzalez told Reuters by telephone. The swoop at the plant, which makes electrical equipment including transformers, was part of an ongoing...

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in an important shift, said on Friday he backs a plan for the federal government to provide low- interest loans to struggling U.S. auto makers. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said the loans are needed to help auto makers build the next generation of cars and become financially stable. "Our auto companies are rising to the challenge of building the next generation of American cars, but are doing so in times when credit conditions cripple the funding for the facilities and technologies to take the steps to the future," McCain said in a...

No, even more so.Remember that nifty "Foreclosure prevention and relief" law that was sponsored by Sen. Chistopher Dodd, written by Bank of America and Countrywide Credit, and signed into law by the president recently? Remember how it carried a mandatory -- yet rather tangential -- provision for federal government monitoring of all automatic payment transactions? You probably thought, "hmm." And maybe then you thought, "why'd they do that?" And then, "well, they must know what they're doin'." But some of us thought, "OK, what are the pickpockets (with the full force of the federal government) up to now?" And some...

Here is John McCain's New Radio Ad "Millions". It hammers Obama for his plans for huge tax increases and for increasing the size of Government.

Late Sunday night, my wife and I drove from Sacramento, Calif., to Los Angeles. We figured that it would be wise to leave Sacramento in the early evening to avoid traffic. At 7 p.m., we climbed into the car and headed for Interstate 5, the major highway connecting Northern California and Southern California. For the first five hours of the drive, things went as planned. The highway was relatively clear, and we sailed along happily at 80 mph. Then we saw it. A sign. A large orange sign reading: Freeway Closed Ahead, 11 p.m.-4 a.m. It was too late to...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Child welfare authorities have decided court supervision is no longer needed for 34 more children taken in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch. Texas Child Protective Services filed papers here Thursday seeking to "non-suit" 10 cases involving 34 children, said agency spokesman Patrick Crimmins. That is in addition to 32 children non-suited earlier this month.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) said he welcomed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed 1-cent sales tax hike as “a start,” but feared it wouldn’t be enough to meet the government’s needs. “I’m glad the governor has come around to saying publicly what we’ve known all along--that people aren’t doing enough to support us here at the state,” Perata said. “But we have to take even bolder steps to ensure we have sufficient resources to fund our programs.” Perata said that the Democratic caucus was “looking at the vast hoard of money stashed away in savings accounts, mutual funds, and...

After more than two decades on the books, a little-known yet strictly enforced federal law barring foreigners with HIV or AIDS from entering the country is on its way out. Tucked in a bill pledging $48 billion to combat the disease, signed into law by President Bush last week, was language stripping the provision from federal immigration law. But that change didn't fully lift the entry ban on visitors with HIV or AIDS, which applies whether they're on tourist jaunts or seeking longer stays. The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services still needs to delete HIV from...

It may surprise some folks on the west coast to learn that California may not be the most liberal state in America when it comes to mandating socialism and political correctness. Yes there may be certain things where California out ranks Maine such as the outrageous ruling banning homeschooling and the coddling of illegal immigrants but in most cases, IE: taxes, BIG government, restriction, the environment, Maine outranks California as being one of the most backward socialist states in the country along with Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode island and a few other states and it shows greatly. Maine has the highest...

Lawmakers Pressure Lenders to Pitch In To Curb ForeclosuresWASHINGTON -- The housing rescue bill passed by the Senate Saturday hasn't been signed into law, but top Democrats already are putting pressure on regulators and bankers to make sure a major program to prevent foreclosures doesn't fall flat. For struggling U.S. homeowners, the success or failure of the program -- which would let roughly 400,000 owners refinance into affordable, government-backed loans -- depends largely on bankers' willingness to take a partial loss on the loans and to reduce the amount of money borrowers owe. Bankers say they will do it, but...

GOVERNMENT'S unceasing recourse to one economic destruction measure after another belatedly forces an inevitable conclusion that, albeit for some inexplicable motive, it is resolutely determined to destroy the Zimbabwean economy in its entirety. No one can be that stupid as to resort to one catastrophic economic policy after another to the extent that the Zimbabwean Government has done over the last 11 years, unless it is with the deliberate intent to achieve a total implosion of the entirety of the economy. With actions ranging from extreme profligacy, governmental spending being continuously at astronomic levels beyond the nation's means, to the...

Here's a great example of Unvarnished Liberal Crap, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times: Working Without a Net, by Peter Gosselin. This good man bleeds his heart out for the American family who, despite historic prosperity, still must cope with *Gasp!* risk. My fiskers are out, so let's break it down.Working Americans and their families arrived on the doorstep of the current economic crisis uniquely ill-equipped to cope with its consequences. Rather than having gained a financial protective coating during the period of growth that preceded it, working families up and down the income spectrum were actually nudged further out...

WASHINGTON -- The competing tax plans laid out by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain would both add trillions of dollars to the national debt and could add to the tax system's complexity, a nonpartisan tax research group concluded Wednesday in a newly released report. Both campaigns have asserted that their plans to continue many Bush-era tax cuts and offer new reductions would aid the economy without requiring massive new spending. But the Washington-based Tax Policy Center warned that under either candidate, "the debt would likely continue to rise as it has over the past eight years." Obama's plan --...

A number of polls in diverse locations indicate that mental illness may be far more pervasive than most experts have thought. A poll conducted by Time magazine and the Rockefeller Foundation claims to have found that 88 percent of people support bigger government. “People are scared,” said Time magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel. “Personal responsibility is too big of a burden for the average guy. He needs the comfort of a ‘big brother’ who’ll be there to tuck him in at night, so to speak.” “It’s the government’s job to take care of the people,” declared poll respondent, Melissa Pewler....

His campaign already has by far the largest full-time paid staff in presidential campaign history, and unlike Republican rival John McCain's, continues to grow by the day. National polls show the race remains close between Obama and McCain, but the Obama campaign is paying closer attention to polls in more than a dozen states that show Obama has a chance of winning in November. The states were won four years ago by President Bush, in many cases by huge margins. In theory, at least, Obama's effort could nudge states such as Virginia, Indiana, and North Dakota into the Democratic column...

Time magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel told the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on July 17 that “there’s incredible despair out there and there’s a sense that, that something needs to be done and people have kind of an appetite for big government in a way” in America. Stengel was citing a new poll, but the interview did not discuss the fact that the poll also found 80 percent of respondents said they should be responsible for carrying their own financial burdens.

NEW YORK -- "The era of big government is over." So said President Bill Clinton more than 12 years ago in a statement that was never accurate. The government stayed big. And after the recent -- and justified -- interventions to prop up some big U.S. financial institutions, it's appropriate to say the era of government is now bigger than ever. It's going to stay that way for a long while, regardless of who becomes the next president. Neither of the presumptive major candidates -- Barack Obama and John McCain -- is a traditional, hands-off economic conservative. That's a...

California state Sen. Jack Scott says he didn't intend to "be a party pooper." It's just that helium-filled foil balloons -- like those found at hospital gift shops and office parties -- are dangerous. They float into electric lines and cause power outages, more than 800 in California last year, utilities say. He drafted a bill to ban foil balloons; it sailed through the state Senate and now awaits a vote in the Assembly. ***** The pro-balloon people are hoping that even if the bill does pass, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will veto it. At a recent news conference, the governor...

As we fight the slide to Socialism and goodies giveaways by our elected "leaders" it is useful to return to the words of Ronald Reagan. I get frustrated arguing with those who think liberal government policies will solve our problems. Liberalism is easy: Every problem can be solved by government. Can't pay for health care? Uncle Sam will pick up the tab. Poor? Here, have this money Uncle Sugar shook out of somebody else's pockets. Confused by too many choices in the marketplace? Bureaucrats will make those decisions for you. Protectionism, paternalism, leveling the playing field. It all sounds so...

NEWS    It's a 26ft Jaws and it sucks... Big sucker ... the shark   By VIRGINIA WHEELER Published: Today   A MASSIVE Arctic shark that sucks up seals whole and may live for 200 years is being studied by boffins for the first time. The mysterious Greenland shark’s mouth with hundreds of teeth is UNDER its body — so it cruises along the ocean bed scooping up prey. Baffled boffins say whole reindeer and polar bear heads have also been found in stomachs of the deep-sea monsters, which can be 26ft long. They are cannibalistic but their flesh...

WASHINGTON, July 9 (UPI) -- Healthcare experts are questioning the feasibility of likely Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain's plan to subsidize high-risk insurance pools. Such state-run, high-risk pools are used by 35 states as stop-gap measures to provide health insurance for about 207,000 people who otherwise cannot obtain coverage from private insurers. In April, McCain, R-Ariz., announced that if elected president he would expand federal support for state high-risk pools or create a structure modeled after them, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) reported Wednesday. But skeptics say it would take far more than the $10 billion McCain foresees the program...

John McCain opened the door for a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should the mortgage giants fail. “Those institutions, Fannie and Freddie, have been responsible for millions of Americans to be able to own their own homes, and they will not fail, we will not allow them to fail,” McCain said Thursday to reporters during an unannounced stop at the Senate Coney Island restaurant in Livonia, Mich.

"Congress has hit a new low. They have entered The Abyss. According to Rasmussen Reports, the Big Government Democrat Congress has charted the lowest approval ratings ever in U.S. history. Only 9 percent—that’s right, just 9 people out of every 100 Americans—approve of the job that the House of Representatives and the Senate are doing. Which, of course, is not surprising. Congress has proven itself completely inadequate to address the massive problems Americans are facing everyday at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and in their own homes. In fact, Congress’ only “solution” seems to be to find a...

A prominent journalist doesn't just want our air conditioners turned down. He wants them off. This is the sort of nonsense we're getting from the anti-energy, global-warming-is-making-us-sick left. Time's Joe Klein probably thought he was being clever when he wrote his late June essay on the evils of cooling headlined "Kill Your Air Conditioner." Instead, he wrote yet another chapter in the left's book of environmental silliness. "The unnecessary refrigeration of America has become a chronic disease," said Klein. "Air conditioning is bad for the planet, and for national security, and for our balance-of-payments deficit."

BIG SUR -- As flames swirled toward their family homestead, the Curtis brothers figured they'd get no help and had no choice: The only way to hold on to their 55-acre compound would be to fight fire with fire. In the end, the controlled burn they set helped save the homes on their beloved Apple Pie Ridge -- but not without major consequences.

The Prince George's County Revenue Authority, its tax receipts sputtering as home prices plunge, has adopted a novel way to brake the slide. By cracking down on front lawns that resemble used-car lots and on trucks parked in residential areas, the authority reckons it can collect some of the $15 million in unpaid tickets and make neighborhoods more attractive to potential home buyers and prospective businesses. "A lot of the enforcement is for aesthetics because things are disorderly looking, but we also want to increase property values and make the community more livable," said Troy Thompson, director of parking operations...

Sadly enough, this is what life looks like here in grim old Thule: "State environmental protection officials plan to forbid all new development of large shopping centers located outside established retail districts within Norway's cities and towns. The goal is to discourage driving...

An illegal immigrant dishwasher who lost $49,000 to the U.S. government as he tried to take it home to Guatemala will get some of the money back, his attorney told CNN Wednesday. Pedro Zapeta, an illegal immigrant, managed to save $59,000 while working as a dishwasher for 11 years. Pedro Zapeta was "very, very happy" when he learned about a federal appeals court ruling that says he is entitled to recover some of the money, said attorney Robert Gershman, who handled the financial end of Zapeta's case. Zapeta was carrying $59,000 in cash when he was stopped at a security...

Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of Americas small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government. "This is a provision with astonishing reach, and that was slipped into the bill.Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like...

CorridorWatch, a Fayette County-based group that has been active in opposing the Trans-Texas Corridor plan, wants to go beyond the Sunset Advisory Commission’s recommended shakeup of state transportation leadership. The group, led by David and Linda Stall, recommends that TxDOT answer to an elected six-member board led by a chairman appointed by the governor. CorridorWatch makes it recommendation, along with various other reactions to the Sunset commission staff’s recent report on TxDOT, in written comments submitted as part of the sunset process. TxDOT, like all state agencies, “sunsets” after 12 years unless the Legislature acts to keep it alive. As...

As the presidential campaign drones on, Barack Obama and the Democrats are fleshing out the promise of "change" with some specific, big-government policy proposals. Many are familiar, perhaps because they already have been tried – in Argentina. That country has gone from South American breadbasket to world-class basket case. For the long version of how it happened and why Americans might not want to try it, hop on a flight to Buenos Aires.

We must hold our leaders accountable for the facts on happiness and refuse to take it lightly when politicians abridge the values of faith, work, family, charity, and freedom. -- Arthur C. Brooks

June 19, 2008 Senate Housing Bill Requires eBay, Amazon, Google, and All Credit Card Companies to Report Transactions to the Government Broad, invasive provision touches nearly every aspect of American commerce. Contact:  Adam Brandon Phone:   (202) 942-7698 Email: abrandon@freedomworks.org Washington, D.C. -  Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to...

Happy Days are Here Again! by Lisa Fabrizio After Obama takes office, happy days will be here again. Although much of the country dreads it like the plague, there is a chance that if Barack Obama wins the White House, Democrats would control the Legislative and Executive branches of our government, as did the Republicans during half of President Bush’s two terms. But there is also the chilling prospect that they will reach the magic number of 60 votes in the Senate, which would give them the filibuster-proof power that the GOP could only dream about. But there is, as...

Last week’s Senate debate over Lieberman-Warner – the America’s Climate Security Act – brought to national attention an under-recognized yet rising threat to liberty and limited government: corporate America. Several of the largest corporations worked with environmental special interest groups and left-wing politicians to pass so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation to address global warming concerns. By pushing for the legislation, these companies hoped to get revenue in the form of government subsidies plus accolades from the media for taking measures to “save the planet.” Never mind the impact on the everyday citizen, who pays for it all with higher taxes and increased...

Costly cleanup Comments 3 | Recommend 0 Local landowner says he shouldn't have to pay for contaminants June 7, 2008 - 3:49PM BY CHRISTINE STANLEY All Ronnie Lewis wanted to do was put up a billboard. So he bought a 50-by-100 foot piece of land north of 48th Street on the west side of Andrews Highway, a prime location to call attention to Dos Amigos, the club he used to own. That was back in 1999. He spent about $4,500. Nearly 10 years later, his little purchase has turned into a big mess. Lewis said he didn't know it at...

Vallejo, Calif., took the extreme step of filing for bankruptcy to get out of generous obligations to public employees. Other cities and states are watchingThe jig is up. For years, politicians have been playing what amounts to a multi-trillion-dollar shell game with state and local pensions. They've doled out lush retiree benefits to their heavily unionized workforces, knowing that they could shove the cost for those benefits onto future generations of taxpayers. But a recent financial bombshell dropped by a San Francisco suburb shows why that shell game is now starting to unravel in a nasty way. And it's a...

ONE OF THE BIGGEST SHORTCOMINGS of the conservative mind is that conservatives generally have moderate intellectual temperaments and therefore don't really grasp the radicalism of the opposition. When the opposition says something that would be absurd if taken to its logical conclusion, we tend to assume that they won't take it there, simply because we wouldn't if we were in their position. Nowhere is this clearer than on the issue of sexual mores. I must caution the reader that the content of this article is shocking and absurd, (not to mention unsuitable for children) but I regrettably cannot say that...

SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children. Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators. The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not...

. . . Democrats will control Congress. If they also control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. . . . The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic decline. The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and tax, spend...

The 50 U.S. states are holding more than $32 billion worth of unclaimed property that they're supposed to safeguard for their citizens. But a "Good Morning America" investigation found some states aggressively seize property that isn't really unclaimed and then use the money -- your money -- to balance their budgets. Unclaimed property consists of things like forgotten apartment security deposits, uncashed dividend checks and safe-deposit boxes abandoned when an elderly relative dies. Banks and other businesses are required to turn that property over to the state for safekeeping. The problem is that the states return less than a quarter...

Lately I've been thinking of four left wing incidents that happened in Maine over the course of two years. I feel I should get them off my chest I think some of them would be interesting and I think others should know about them. The first one involves an incident that took place in the Bangor metro area two years ago. This freind of mine and his family were having trouble. He had difficulty getting by and he worked at Edwards Shop'n'save in Hampden outside Bangor. He was on food stamps and his wife was laid off and couldn't get...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional leaders are racing to push through an array of election-year housing measures that already have stirred up much political wrangling and the White House is examining its own plan to further help homeowners caught in the mortgage meltdown. With foreclosure signs prevalent and a Wall Street rescue reverberating, majority Democrats want the government to step in and back up to $400 billion in troubled loans. The goal is to help strapped borrowers and thaw a credit market plagued by uncertainty about the value of subprime mortgages made to people with spotty credit or low incomes. As...

RFFM.org Commentary Most of us who fall within the category of baby boomers can explain why small government and low taxation served our nation very well. At least we should be able to. A little more than a quarter century ago, the norm included one parent who brought home an income which supported an entire family. Of course, government programs, including the GI Bill, made it possible for millions of families to join the middle class after World War II. But, all the same, jobs in manufacturing were sufficient to bring reality to the well-turned phrase, "a rising tide lifts...

I have a feeling that this Presidential election is about a lot more than whether we have the first woman president, or the first black president, or the first prisoner of war president. I think it's about whether whoever we elect has the strategic ability to understand that the era of big government is over, that tax cuts are better than tax raises, that there are no more family farms and nobody cares except the people in Iowa who are trying to convert them to ethanol ranches anyway, and that there are asymmetric threats to the peace of the world...

He may be down and finally out but Mike Huckabee's longevity in the presidential race has been the surprise of campaign season. He was the favorite of evangelicals, finished with a much higher than expected delegate count, and outlasted such better-funded rivals as Mitt Romney. Huckabee lost because he never connected with non-evangelical Republicans, particularly economic conservatives who doubted his commitment to limited government. On the campaign trail, Huckabee mused about fighting poverty and signing a national smoking ban. In Arkansas, he approved tax increases. But these weren't just the candidate's personal tics. Hucakbee was following his evangelical flock. Supportive...

Historical facts clearly prove the murderous evils of atheism and big government At a minimum, atheist dictators in the Soviet Union, Red China, Cambodia, North Korea, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia murdered 105 million people in the 20th Century, more than 60% of the mass murders, genocide and political murders in that time. In comparison, only about 2% of the 169 million examples of democide in the 20th Century were due to religious conflict. Also in comparison, the Crusades murdered only 1 million people over several centuries, the Spanish Inquisition only murdered 350,000 people over several centuries, and the witch hunts added...

LOS ANGELES - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday signed one of the nation's toughest laws on pet sterilization, requiring most dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered by the time they are 4 months old. The ordinance is aimed at reducing and eventually eliminating the thousands of euthanizations conducted in Los Angeles' animal shelters every year. "We will, sooner rather than later, become a no-kill city and this is the greatest step in that direction," Councilman Tony Cardenas said as he held a kitten at a City Hall news conference. The ordinance does exempt some animals, including those that...