Free Republic

Reuters) - More than 80 percent of health departments in the United States that treat tuberculosis resistant to standard treatment have trouble obtaining the drugs they need to cure the disease, according to a national survey released on Thursday.

In his second inaugural address, Obama makes clear that it’s fight night in America. snip Indeed, Obama’s second inaugural address was a liberal wet dream: It pressed all of the Left’s erogenous zones: • Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Obama vowed not to change or reform them — even though they are driving us toward financial insolvency, and even though they provide workers with a relatively lousy return on their investment. • “Climate change”? It is real, and it must be addressed — now! • “Sustainable (read: green) energy”? “America cannot resist this transition. We must lead it” — now!...

On Inauguration Day there was lots of talk about laying aside partisan differences and coming together as a nation. However, during the inaugural luncheon Michelle Obama's body language indicated that if she has anything to say about it over the next four years, laying aside and coming together will include rolling her eyes. [SNIP] Then the President 'laid aside' and 'came together' by accusing political adversaries who were genuinely wishing him well of being those who trade "absolutism for principle...substitute spectacle for politics...[and] treat name-calling as reasoned debate." Part of the ceremony included freshly-tanned Republican Speaker of the House John...

I know this is a major vanity. However, I want to know what's the best Seniors Organization out there. I turned 50 last June, and I'm thinking about retiring from my teaching job. The Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage goes up dramatically for retirees, and I'd like something that might be more affordable. I definitely want something opposing AARP, which is the Seniors Political Arm of the Obama Administration. However, in doing research there's several to choose from. AMAC, American Seniors Association, Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), the National Active Retirement Association, etc. Which one to choose? Which one's best?...

Prenatal screening won't tell us anything about what each individual will do with the life God has given them. That is up to each individual. It's time for American to trust in the power of our potential. It's time for America to trust in the power of life.

Dear Dave, Recently, my husband had to quit his job due to an old back injury. We have $25,000 in debt, but I’ll be receiving a $38,000 inheritance in a couple of weeks. Should we use the money to pay off our debt, or hold on to it in case he needs surgery?KristenDear Kristen,Now is the time to keep the cash piled high. You’re in the middle of an emergency, and that means you push the pause button on your Total Money Makeover and stop paying extra on debt. Surgery is a possibility at this point, plus you may need...

"First they came for the local radio hosts...." If you want a glimpse into the real, practical mechanisms whereby unprincipled political power diminishes and silences opposing voices, look not to the nationally-publicized attacks on Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. Look to what happens at the local level, to people who do not have a national microphone and millions of defenders. Consider the example of Brainerd, Minnesota's (population 13,613) local conservative radio show. For almost two years, Guy Green and his partner Tony Bauer have hosted The Speakeasy with Guy Green, a two-hour political talk show airing five nights a week...

Perhaps I'm the only one that can appreciate true culture. Perhaps I'm the only one that can appreciate the 'shovel ready' jobs being created by the thousands right as I type this. Maybe it's the time that the American economy has finally roared back to life with massive growth and tumbling unemployment. Yes, I expect unemployment to be down near 3% by the end of the year with GDP growth near 20%. Why? Well, Michelle Obama saved it all herself. Don't believe me? Well, she has personally (well, I mean through taxpayer money) injected tens of thousands of dollars into...

For some years now, we have been told about a major division within American conservatism: fiscal conservatives vs. social conservatives. This division is hurting conservatism and hurting America, because the survival of American values depends on both fiscal and social conservatism. Furthermore, the division is logically and morally untenable. A conservative conserves all American values, not just economic ones. By social conservatism I am referring to the second and third components of what I call the American Trinity — Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum. It is worth noting that a similar bifurcation does not exist on...

<p>World unemployment could top record levels this year and continue rising until 2017, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Tuesday in its annual employment report.</p> <p>2009 currently stands as the worst recorded year for world unemployment, with 198 million people across the globe without work.</p>

In the libertarian sci-fi classic, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," Robert A. Heinlein describes a successful revolution of the individualistic, free-market-oriented residents of the Moon against the Earth's tyrannical big government. The ins and outs of agitating and organizing the masses to fight the oppressive Authority feel just as realistic as the finer points of everyday life in the underground Lunar cities of the future. The proposed revolutionary scenario could even serve as a workable model for similar real-life endeavors, if only the renowned futurist author hadn't neglected to factor in the immanent function of any oppressive regime: systemic...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Gareth Morgan has a simple dream: a New Zealand free of pet cats that threaten native birds. But the environmental advocate has triggered a claws-out backlash with his new anti-feline campaign.

Cable from Chris Stevens was chock full of reports on regional violence, concerns about local security capabilitiesJust hours before he died in a terrorist attack at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent a cable to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton painting a chaotic, violent portrait of the eastern Libya city and warning that local militias were threatening to pull the security they afforded U.S. officials.... [snip] Militia leaders told U.S. officials just two days before the attack that they were angered by U.S. support of a particular candidate for Libyan prime minister and warned “they would not...

President Obama’s response to the mass murder in Newtown, Connecticut, reeks of opportunism and hypocrisy. It was, is, a callous, coldblooded, heartless effort to take advantage of a horrific event for political gain. Prior to the mass murder in Newtown, Obama and the Democrats paid lip service to the issue of gun control in the U.S. and basically ignored it and stayed as far away from it as possible because there was no political advantage in taking it on and because taking it on could have hurt them substantially politically. Virtually as soon as the first shot was fired Obama...

In 2010, when Scott Brown ran for Senate in the special election that followed Ted Kennedy’s death, his campaign attracted sensational attention and an outpouring of financial support from Republicans across the United States. In 2012, Brown failed to defend his seat against Elizabeth Warren, in the most expensive congressional race in the nation (and the most expensive contest in Massachusetts history). Now Brown has a chance to run yet another senatorial campaign — this time, it seems, against his most formidable foe yet: 20-term congressman Ed Markey. If the Republican Party has any sense, any esteem for fiscal conservatism,...

<p>BRUSSELS (AP) — A group of 11 European Union countries was given the go-ahead Tuesday to work on the introduction of a tax on financial transactions.</p> <p>The tax is designed to help pay for the rescue of Europe's banks and discourage risky trading. It would apply to anyone in the 11 countries who makes a bond or share trade or bets on the market using complex financial products called derivatives.</p>

JOHNSON COUNTY, Mo (KMOX) – As President Barack Obama continues to push gun control proposals in Washington D.C., Sheriff Charles M. Heiss, R-Johnson County is asking fellow law enforcers to sign and send this letter to the president. The letter expresses concern with the Obama administration and the president’s gun control laws he laid out before Congress last week. “It appears to me and many Americans that there is a genuine desire on the part of your administration to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law abiding American citizens in the interest of curbing gun violence in our nation,” Heiss...

Ever the provocateur, Rob was on Twitter ripping on Obama’s inaugural comments in real time, only to draw a rebuke from a member of the MSM who said that today he should “give it a rest” and “celebrate that we can do this peacefully.” That got me thinking: Do what peacefully? Throw a huge, expensive party (regardless of who paid for it) so that official Washington can celebrate itself?

You know what would really improve the quality of journalism, at least in the opinion of the EU? Give bureaucrats the power to fire reporters for, er,abuses. The European Union scolded the UK for not establishing a government “council” to oversee its media industry, and called for “councils” in every member state with the power to fire reporters that they deem outside the pale: And don’t fall under the misapprehension that these “media councils” will operate independently, either. They will be under the jurisdiction of Brussels at all times: