Free Republic

Covered California board members voted Thursday to become the first state health care exchange in the nation to impose price caps on high-cost specialty drugs to treat conditions such as hepatitis C and HIV. The four board members unanimously agreed to impose $250 monthly limits on out-of-pocket prescription costs for most patients, creating a precedent that other government health exchanges could follow.

Instead of retiring, former test pilot and real estate mogul Art Nalls imported, restored, certified and flew the world’s only private Harrier jump jet. Now he’s a man with a mission, adding to his fleet, he wants to preserve the Harrier’s legacy for decades to come. His amazing story is told in this awesome mini documentary from AARP studios: Art’s Harrier is an ex-Royal Navy Sea Harrier FA2. The Sea Harrier gained fame during the Falklands War, and continued to serve throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when it received the Blue Vixen radar and the ability to fire the AIM-120...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible David New International Version (NIV) 19 [a]Joab was told, “The king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.” 2 And for the whole army the victory that day was turned into mourning, because on that day the troops heard it said, “The king is grieving for his son.” 3 The men stole into the city that day as men steal in who are ashamed when they flee from battle. 4 The king covered his face and cried aloud, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!” 5 Then Joab went into the...

The racialists in power have again called us to an “honest discussion” about race. As they foresee it, this honest discussion will involve those of us who do not practice racism, but are not black, to come forward, confess our inherent racism, and be duly chastised or punished. Dialogue is not going to be part of the process, since non-blacks have already been found guilty, and the president’s jury is not remotely interested in evidence. The trap in the president’s faux invitation is that it focuses our attention on the wrong component. The emphasis on race assumes too much, but...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is referred to as the “public face of the U.S. effort in Libya” in a 2012 memo written by Jake Sullivan, a top Clinton aide at the State Department. The email was written months before the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans. Sullivan’s April 2012 memo detailed Clinton’s role in Libya, framing her as “instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi and his regime.” It notes Clinton’s role in those efforts, including her work lobbying for United Nations sanctions against the dictator and...

EDITED The Blumenthal email story underlines what we already suspected about Hillary’s atrocious tenure as Secy of State and at the Clinton Foundation. The avalanche of ethical controversies were exacerbated by Clinton loyalist Sidney Blumenthal resurfacing. He was banned from govt employment, but from his paid perch at the Clinton Foundation, he sent Secy of State Hillary memos on Libya that she forwarded (unattributed and unquestioned)....even as Blumenthal's agit-prop caused eye-rolling among State Dept pros. Hillary portrays herself as the picture of openness, that she wants her e-mails public as soon as possible. But the Clinton-Blumenthal emails were cleansed until...

I posted this question in another thread but got no response so...Who else has been watching the Barclays Premier League for the last 5 years on "the networks of NBC Universal" (and before that, ESPN)? Anyone else notice that when a player comes off for a sub (or after the game), they applaud their team's fans? Who besides me thinks that looks a little gay?I'm considering stopping watching soccer for that reason (although I'll watch Newcastle try to stave off relegation tomorrow [only recently did I tire of the returned applause gesture (just a wave will do IMO)]).ff

US and Hizballah coordinate spy drone flights over Qalamoun, share US combat intelligence Another strange pair of bedfellows has turned up in one of the most critical Middle East battlefields: the United States is helping Hizballah, Iran’s Lebanese surrogate, in the battle for control of the strategic Qalamoun Mountains. ...a US special operations unit, stationed at the Hamat air base on the coast of northern Lebanon, is directing unarmed Aerosonde MK 4.7 reconnaissance drone intelligence-gathering flights over the Qalamoun Mt arena, 100 km to the west. However, it turns out that the data the US drones pass to Lebanese army...

The May 3 assault on a Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, prompted much discussion about the assailants' connections to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh. Did ISIS run them as agents? Are they part of a new network of terror in the West? There is no domestic policy issue more important than the need to liberate America’s children from monopoly school systems that are not meeting their needs. Sometimes the issue is framed as “school choice.” But that term is misleading. The vast majority of parents are already participating in a system of school choice....

Faced with an increasingly segregated education system, Dutch immigrant children have taken to the streets of their ethnically mixed Amsterdam neighbourhood seeking "white" pupils to attend their schools and help their integration. Around 100 schoolchildren -- Arabs, Turks, Africans, Moroccans -- accompanied by their parents and teachers, wore provocative dazzling white T-shirts emblazoned with "Is this white enough for you?". Dutch native Annelies, 10, and immigrants' daughter Aminata, 11, have been friends since kindergarten and are also wearing the shirts, which have "All children have the right to integrate" written on the back. They "want more white children in the...

Mackenzie Fraiser is 12-years-old. She’s a sixth grader at Somerset Academy, a charter school in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Mackenzie is also a Christian. In February, she was instructed by her technology teacher to create a PowerPoint demonstration about her life. One of the requirements was to include a slide with an inspirational message. So Mackenzie decided to use a Bible verse – specifically John 3:16. That familiar passage reads: “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” But the teacher had a problem...

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“People love the idea of winning an Olympic medal or a world title. But what few people realize is that pretty much every second leading up to the actual win is uncomfortable, painful, and impossibly daunting—physically and mentally. Most people focus on the wrong thing: They focus on the result, not the process. The process is the sacrifice; it is all the hard parts—the sweat, the pain, the tears, the losses. You make the sacrifices anyway. You learn to enjoy them, or at least embrace them. In the end, it is the sacrifices that must fulfill you.” – Ronda Rousey...

A woman testifying for Moms Demand Action has been called on the carpet for misleading the Texas Senate for implying by omission that the tragic killing of her husband by her son resulted from the use of a firearm. In reality, her son killed his father with a pipe wrench and a knife. The fact that her son owned what she called “an arsenal” had no bearing on the murder. Open Carry Texas (OCT) has produced a short video which contrasts the woman’s testimony at the Capitol with newspaper and television reports about the murder, and her son’s trial.

Hundreds of Hillary Clinton‘s emails were released today, something Clinton herself said she wants, but Charles Krauthammer doesn’t really buy this is some great victory for transparency and disclosure. “There isn’t a shred of evidence,” he said, “because she shredded the evidence. This whole release is a farce.” He pointed out that it’s not like every little email Clinton ever sent will be released to the public, only the ones ‘scrubbed and cleansed and decided upon, chosen by her own people, acting in her own interest.” And, Krauthammer added, it’s working, because the media is eagerly looking through “pre-scrubbed material”...

Leaders on both sides of Ireland's gay marriage campaign say advocates of legalization have won a resounding victory with the ballot count still underway. Senior figures from the "no" campaign, who sought to prevent Ireland's constitution from being amended to permit gay marriage, say the only question Saturday is how large the "yes" side's margin of victory will be from Friday's vote.

The German Defense Ministry announced its plans for the "Leo 3" (as it's likely to be nicknamed in Germany) in a report on Friday to the Bundestag, which was obtained by multiple media outlets. "Technologies and concepts will be investigated between 2015 and 2018 in joint studies also involving German industry," Markus Grübel, a deputy minister in the German Defense Ministry told his parliamentary colleagues. He cited the Leopard 2's long years of service as the reason that a new battle tank was required. The Leopard 2's 50-year service life is set to expire in 2030. The tank, which came...

The shootout in Waco that killed nine motorcycle gang members began in the weeks before Christmas with a beating at a Toys for Tots event in Wise County and a murder in Fort Worth, according to law enforcement sources. The backdrop is a growing turf battle between the Bandidos – which has controlled Texas for years – and the Cossacks, a lesser-known biker gang that has been gaining power by aligning itself with Bandido rivals, the sources said. On Dec. 12, 10 Bandidos burst into Gator’s bar in Fort Worth and "without saying a word, started punching and attacking people,"...

Over the last three months, the GOP's Iowa front-runner has become an incredible, shrinking presence on the campaign trail. Sure, he's still touring the country, introducing himself to voters, telling them how unafraid he was to stand up to the unions and liberal protesters he battled in Wisconsin, but he's also ducking out of uncontrolled situations, skipping questions from the press, and spending more time on small or private events, usually packed with friendly crowds. Last week, when he traveled to Israel — usually an occasion to invite reporters or hold a press conference — Walker held no press events....

WASHINGTON—The Senate early Saturday defeated a string of efforts to extend the Patriot Act as lawmakers splintered over its contentious phone surveillance program and left town with no plan in place to prevent the law from lapsing. After next week’s Memorial Day recess, the Senate will resume its debate over the national security law at 4 p.m. on May 31, eight hours before the law expires at midnight. Lawmakers fractured through the evening, rejecting a House bill overhauling the NSA, a two-month Patriot Act extension and then increasingly short extensions of the law. Primarily due to objections from presidential candidate...