Free Republic

Big brother has taken it to a new level, outfitting student Ids with tracking devices at Santa Fe Junior High and Santa Fe High School. Minus a few high profile shootings, schools are generally known as a safe environment for our children. Why then are these schools outfitted school ids with tracking devices that must be worn at all times? Are our students going to school or prison? What is the threat that requires such drastic measures? How many more schools plan on implementing these Orwellian “security” measures? Patrick Mann is a senior and said he feels like he’s in...

New York City officials want to take their smoking ban outdoors. City officials announced new legislation on Wednesday that would outlaw smoking in parks, beaches, marinas, boardwalks That means no smoking in Central Park or on the Coney Island boardwalk. Violators could be issued quality-of-life summonses by the parks department and pedestrian plazas throughout the city.

WASHINGTON – First lady Michelle Obama is prodding the nation's restaurants to add more healthy options to menus, label those items more prominently and market nutritious foods to kids. Speaking to the National Restaurant Association on Monday, Mrs. Obama pleaded with restaurants small and large to take a little butter or cream out of their dishes, use low fat milk and provide apple slices or carrots as a default side dish on the kids' menu. Mrs. Obama said that Americans are spending half their food dollars outside the home and eating a third of meals in restaurants. She asked the...

First lady Michelle Obama is challenging the nation's restaurants to add more healthy options to menus, label those items more prominently and market nutritious foods to kids. Speaking at the National Restaurant Association Monday, Mrs. Obama pleaded with restaurants small and large to take a little butter or cream out of their dishes, use low fat milk and provide apple slices or carrots as a default side dish on the kids' menu.

A pro-family leader says despite President Obama's low approval ratings, he shows no sign of detouring from his message promoting big-government solutions. At a rally in Milwaukee on Monday, Obama said rebuilding 150,000 miles of road, working on 4,000 miles of rail track, and restoring 150 miles of runways would create new jobs for Americans. "We want to change the way Washington spends your tax dollars," said the president. "We want to reform the way we fund and maintain our infrastructure to focus less on wasteful earmarks and outdated formulas, and we want competition and innovation that gives us the...

Apparently Barack Obama is not content to make a federal case out of his immigration feud with Arizona; he just made it an international one. The president’s first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council contains a rich vein of offensive material. So far, one aspect has not been reported: our petty president used the situation to bash Arizona’s immigration law — and possibly transfer jurisdiction over the law from Arizona to the UN. Throughout the report, which sounds like an Obama campaign speech, the president discusses “the original flaw” of the U.S. Constitution, America’s tolerance...

Senator Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico democrat, introduced the Automatic IRA Act of 2010 last week. The new legislation would require all firms with 10 or more employees that don't already offer a retirement plan to automatically enroll workers in an IRA. Workers who don't wish to participate would need to take action to opt out or change the default contribution amount and investments. Here's a look at how this bill, if passed, would affect you: Standardized 3 percent savings rate. Employees age 18 and older who have been employed for at least three months would be automatically enrolled in...

Our daily weather reports, cheerfully presented with flashy graphics and state-of-the-art animation, appear to relay more and more information. And yet, no matter how glitzy the presentation, a key fact is invariably omitted. Imagine if, after flashing the words “extreme weather” to grab our attention, the reports flashed “global warming.” Then we would know not only to wear lighter clothes or carry an umbrella, but that we have to do something about climate change.

“Another World Is Possible” is the slogan of the World Social Forum, an event first convened in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001 as a challenge to the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the world’s political and corporate leaders in Davos, Switzerland. The possible world imagined in Brazil (and at subsequent gatherings of the World Social Forum) is based on more cooperative, sustainable, egalitarian and democratic institutions than those favored at Davos. It is designed and implemented from the bottom up rather than the top down, in opposition to both authoritarian state planning and capitalist profit maximization. “Another U.S....

"A coalition of groups is in the very early stages of mapping out a plan to fight fat in Illinois. Sugared beverage consumption has tracked with rising obesity rates – so it's getting some attention. Pop after pop might feel good going down, but it can put on the pounds. That's the case with any higher calorie drink. Illinois Public Health Institute CEO Elissa Bassler said, "Maybe changing the ways we use beverages can be a part of handling obesity." The idea is spreading across the country and here in Illinois, home to the fourth worst rate of childhood obesity....

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said after meeting with President Obama and other senators on Tuesday that he is ready to “scale back” the reach of energy legislation to get Republican support. “We believe we have compromised significantly, but we are prepared to compromise further,” he told reporters outside the White House. “If Republicans can step forward, we can find a place of compromise.” Kerry said that in the meeting with nearly two dozen senators of both parties, Obama was “very clear about putting a price on carbon” and curbing greenhouse gases. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Obama made an “effective...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday. As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

"Government can build the infrastructure that allows products and services to reach customers. Government can create incentives -- in clean energy, for example -- that promote innovation and exports. These things are public goods that no business, no individual is going to provide on their own, but that create a favorable environment in which everybody -- companies across the country -- can open and expand. And that's why as part of this new foundation that we seek to build."

Abandoning all loyalty to the democratic processes this nation holds dear, President Obama has made the decision that getting energy tax legislation through Congress with the approval of the American people is just too much of a pain to bother with. Instead he will have the EPA declare as early as next week that CO2 is a dangerous global warming gas and will start regulating its emissions immediately. Obama’s promise to open up vast stretches of ocean on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico to energy exploration is simply a ruse to soften up the public for soon to...

Yes, we did. Finally, President Obama can use those words. The passage of health care reform provided the first piece of incontestable evidence that Washington has changed. Congress is, indeed, capable of carrying through fundamental social reform. No longer will the United States be the outlier among wealthy nations in leaving so many of its citizens without basic health coverage. In approving the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the mid-1960s, Democrats proved that they can govern, even under challenging circumstances and in the face of significant internal divisions. To understand how large a victory this is, consider what...

WTH? All of this change is good? all of the back doors deals? all of the division? all of the divide in our nation? all of the disregard for the people's will?

A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend. ..

The Internal Revenue Service would gain sweeping new powers under President Obama's healthcare reform proposals, in what Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are calling a "dangerous expansion" of IRS powers. That's according to a nine-page Republican report from the Committee on Ways and Means on Thursday. It's titled "The Wrong Prescription" Democrats' Health Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority." Among the new powers the IRS would assume, the report says: The authority to confiscate tax refunds, to impose fines of over $2,200 per taxpayer, and to verify whether taxpayers' health insurance coverage is "acceptable." One measure of the...

Health-Reform Vote Deserves A Reasonable Process March 16, 2010 WE UNDERSTAND the administration's sense of urgency on health-care reform. But what is intended as a final sprint threatens to turn into something unseemly and, more important, contrary to Democrats' promises of transparency and time for deliberation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday that she is leaning toward a parliamentary maneuver under which the House would vote on a package of changes to the Senate-approved reform bill, and the underlying Senate bill would then be "deemed" to have passed, even though the House had never voted on it. That may...