Free Republic

The Obama administration issued a final rule on Wednesday defining “essential health benefits” that must be offered by most health insurance plans next year, and it said that 32 million people would gain access to coverage of mental health care as a result. The federal rule requires insurers to cover treatment of mental illnesses, behavioral disorders, drug addiction and alcohol abuse, and other conditions. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that in addition to the millions who would gain access to mental health care, 30 million people who already have some mental health coverage will see...

It’s no secret government schools have put President Obama on a pedestal unlike any other national leader. Schools have been named after him long before his retirement or death, which is rather unprecedented. Students have been led in organized chants of his honored name. There are lesson plans comparing him to Abraham Lincoln. But sometimes school employees take the rhetoric a bit too far and wind up in propaganda territory. The latest example comes from DeKalb County, Georgia. For Black History Month, Livsey Elementary School created a cute display with the lines: Rosa sat…so Martin could walk. Martin walked…so Obama...

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s guilty plea to fraud charges raises fresh questions about the Congressional Black Caucus. It's a group with many laudable goals, but why do so many in it succumb to corruption? A disproportionate share of ethics cases have been brought against this exclusive club. According to a 2012 National Journal study, five of the six lawmakers under review by the House Ethics Committee were Black Caucus members. Yet just one in 10 House members belong to the group.

President Obama confidently stated in 2009, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,” …unless you are one of the 7 million people the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is estimating that will lose their employment based health insurance. Fail. Need some more concrete evidence? Check this out: Universal Orlando plans to stop offering medical insurance to part-time employees beginning next year, a move the resort says has been forced by the federal government’s health-care overhaul. The giant theme-park resort, which generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue, began informing employees this month that...

A few months after a rising star in the Chinese Communist Party named Bo Xilai fell spectacularly from the nation’s top political ranks to disgrace and imprisonment, the New York Times reported that one of his crimes — perhaps his greatest — was wiretapping the president. But just as shocking as the revelation that Bo had planted electronic devices to spy on President Hu Jintao was the suggestion, of which there have since been several, that such behavior may be widespread among China’s top leaders. A sweeping story by the Chinese outlet Southern People Weekly chronicles the life and work...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block the deportation of a Chicago woman and thousands of other immigrants who pleaded guilty in the past to serious crimes and were not warned by their lawyers that a criminal record targeted them for removal. The decision highlights the stark consequences for noncitizens of having a criminal record. The current law calls for mandatory deportation for immigrants, including lawful residents, who have an “aggravated felony” on their record. The term can describe a variety of state and federal offenses. Immigration lawyers say tens of thousands of immigrants, many of them...

For two months, reporters and lawmakers have ignored a devastating report from the federal government itself, which warns that the nation's current fiscal policy will lead to economic collapse. The Government Accountability Office (GAO)—the personal auditor of President Obama and the federal government—released its assessment of the federal government on January 17, 2013. The report's findings illuminate just how dire America's spending problem is and, therefore, how little the current cuts debated by Congress do to fix it. The findings of the paper include these excerpts (emphasis added):

Here’s (in part) what he said: “I don’t believe President Obama wants an immigration bill to pass, instead I think he wants a political issue. His objective is to push so much on the table that he forces Republicans [to] walk away from the table because then he wants to use that issue in 2014 and 2016 as a divisive wedge issue.” To be clear, we have no reason to think the president is up to some sort of grand Machiavellian scheme to destroy Republicans’ chances with Hispanics in the medium and long term at the expense of passing a...

Registration by any other name is still unconstitutional The focus in Washington is slowly shifting from legislation banning certain semi-auto firearms and standard capacity magazines to proposals for “universal background checks” – just as we had warned it would. Politicians know that America’s gun owners are beside themselves in opposition to gun and magazine bans. They’ve watched as fearful shoppers have cleared the nation’s entire supply of AR and AK type rifles in just a couple of weeks, leaving manufacturers and importers 8 to 12 months deep in backorders. The politicians remember what happened after the ban was passed in...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Rick Scott announced plans Wednesday to expand Medicaid coverage to roughly 900,000 more people under the federal health overhaul, a surprise decision from the vocal critic of President Barack Obama's plan. Scott said he will ask the Legislature to expand the program under a bill that would expire in three years, after which it would require renewed legislative support. He's the seventh Republican governor so far to propose expanding the taxpayer-funded health insurance program. Scott said he would support the expansion as long as the federal government pays 100 percent of the increased costs, which is...

Evan Todd will never forget the day that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris burst into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., intent on killing. How could he? He was the first student shot in the library during a massacre that claimed 12 students and one teacher and went down as one of the worst school assaults in U.S. history. Since that terrifying day, Todd has been active and open about his views on social and political issues, including gun control. But rather than fight against weapons, he’s been vocal that he doesn’t believe firearms are the culprit. In fact, the...

Oh, let’s not call them searches. Let’s call them inspections, just a small price for gun owners to pay for exercising a right explicitly protected in the Constitution, and without any probable cause apparent for a crime being committed. After all, we know that will convince criminals not to keep weapons, right? Even gun-control activists in Washington are embarrassed by this, er, mistake (via Instapundit): Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside, once a year, to have a look around? As Orwellian as that sounds, it isn’t hypothetical. The notion of police home inspections was...

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Authorities say a shooting spree through Orange County, Calif., has left four people dead, including the shooter, and two others injured before the man stopped and shot himself to death in a stolen car, police said. The shootings began early Tuesday morning when deputies responded to a call in Ladera Ranch, a sleepy inland town about 55 miles southeast of Los Angeles. They found a woman shot multiple times. Police have identified the gunman as Ali Syed, a 20-year-old unemployed part-time student. Police say Syed lived at the Laderaa Ranch residence where the first victim was killed.

Hundreds of LIRR employees have allegedly exploited the overlap between the LIRR pension and the RRB disability program by pre-planning the date on which they would falsely declare themselves disabled so that it would coincide with their projected retirement date.These false statements, made under oath in disability applications, allowed LIRR employees to retire as early as age 50 with an LIRR pension, supplemented by the fraudulently obtained RRB disability annuity. From 1995 through 2011, more than 75 percent of LIRR employees stopped working and began receiving RRB disability benefits.

He's out of office, but former Congressman Allen West is still attracting controversy. This time it's over a speech he's scheduled to give Saturday night to one of the Broward School Board's advisory committees. A civic activist who's tangled before with West is outraged, arguing it's the wrong venue for the defeated one-term congressman, best known for his incendiary attacks on President Barack Obama and other Democrats. "This is somebody who has no problem maligning and marginalizing and showing intolerance toward others," said activist Michael Rajner. "I just don't see Allen West being the kind of person and the character...

The day after a takeover robbery at a Metro PCS store on Folsom Boulevard that left the suspect dead, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department has no one in custody and may never. “We have no evidence that a crime occurred,” Sgt. Jason Ramos told FOX40, “This is a homicide investigation, although it may very well turn out to be a justifiable homicide.” Ramos also said surveillance video inside the store shows the suspect hopping the counter with a gun drawn and getting shot multiple times by an employee. The suspect’s name hasn’t been released at this point, but FOX40 has...

Many continue to ask why the media and lawmakers have not spoken to or brought forth those who survived the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi last September. The truth of the matter is the Americans who survived that attack cannot legally reveal to members of the press or most lawmakers that they were even witnesses to the attack in Benghazi. According to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, immediately following the attack, the FBI, as part of the agency’s investigation, interviewed survivors of the Benghazi attack. Bill Bransford, a Washington, D.C. attorney at Shaw Bransford & Roth P.C....

A family’s run-in with Transportation Security Administration screeners at Missouri's Lambert-St. Louis International Airport as they were heading to Orlando on vacation was caught on camera, and is raising questions about airport security rules. Annie Schulte said it all started when TSA agents asked to pat down her 3-year-old daughter, Lucy, who is disabled and in a wheelchair. The agents also wanted to screen Lucy’s wheelchair. Schulte recorded the incident on her cellphone. In the video, Lucy begins to cry and says, "I don't want to go to Disney World." -snip But the family said the final straw was when...

In some areas of the United States, legislators are hard at work devising new laws to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and use firearms. But, in other areas, the opposite is happening. Take for example Wyoming where lawmakers have made it legal to hunt with suppressors. Here is a short announcement from the American Silencer Association. WYOMING: HUNTING WITH SUPPRESSORS BILL SIGNED INTO LAW New Law Goes Into Effect July 1, 2013 The American Silencer Association is pleased to announce that on February 18, Governor Matt Mead signed SF0132 into law, granting hunters in the state of...