Free Republic

Late last month the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a Postal Service Reform Primer purportedly to explain to policymakers how the Postal Service works and why it needs reform. Strangely though the GAO report doesn’t provide great guidance. Known as the “congressional watchdog,” the GAO is a 100-year-old legislative agency created to provide audit, evaluation and investigative services for the U.S. Congress. However, their latest report doesn’t offer much in terms of auditing and evaluation but instead seems more like a progressive Postal Service wish list. At present, 49% of all mail on planet earth is delivered by the...

Texas has joined other, mostly Democrat run, states in requiring face masks in most public places, including retail, services, and restaurants, except when eating or drinking. This is despite the fact that the GOP holds all statewide offices, as well as both houses of the Legislature, both Senate seats, and a majority of the U.S. House seats. Our rulers understand one thing above others: the almighty dollar. They also respect the voices of major financial donors. Texans and residents of all mask mandatory states should not buy anything other than food or items absolutely necessary, like a needed car repair...

When I read that the Obama Administration wants to regulate the Internet by having the Federal Communications Commission impose “net neutrality” rules, my immediate response is to be opposed.Does my opposition to more regulation and red tape make me a knee-jerk ideologue?I suppose so, though I think it’s simply a common-sense instinct.After all, it’s very difficult to come up with a list of successful interventions by government. So I think my automatic aversion to regulation is akin to my automatic aversion to touching a hot stove. Simply stated, I can’t imagine a positive outcome.But let’s be “open minded” and consider...

In 2009, Sarah Palin was the first to coin the phrase “death panel” in a Facebook post about the future of government-run healthcare. “Government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost,” Palin wrote. “And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.” Palin’s comments were, not surprisingly, widely mocked by the media and America’s liberal elite. However, recent revelations about the deadly incompetence at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities across the country illustrate just how right Palin was. (This, of course,...

The Profound Rush Limbaugh: ”Have you ever noticed how under capitalism the rich become powerful, and under socialism the powerful become rich? Love him or hate him, there is no debate about the fact that Rush Limbaugh is a genius. Last week he said the following: ”Have you ever noticed how under capitalism the rich become powerful, and under socialism the powerful become rich? It’s amazing when you look at it that way. Under capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under socialism, the powerful get rich. They exploit others. They get rich by taking from others, by using their power. In...

The disastrous rollout of ObamaCare’s insurance exchanges has brought into sharp focus the GOP charge that President Obama is better at campaigning than governing. Republicans have long needled the president as unable to convert adoring crowds and electoral momentum into inside-the-Beltway success, and the failures of the ObamaCare website has given them new ammunition. “It’s very clear that the president is much better at talking the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk of governing, he falls short,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean. Obama ran as a candidate who would bring professionalism back to Washington after former President...

A 12-year old Rhode Island boy named Joseph Lyssikato was suspended for three days and barred from going on a school trip to Salem, Massachusetts after a gun-shaped key chain a bit larger than a quarter fell out of his backpack at school. According to WPBF.com, the key chain fell out of Lyssikato's backpack while he was at Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School in Coventry. "Another boy then picked it up and began showing it off." Lyssikato's mother said, "The [other] boy was the one waving it or showing it to other kids. Not Joseph. Joseph wasn't doing that." She...

This afternoon, the "May 12 Coalition" will take to the streets of Lower Manhattan with a demand for Mayor Bloomberg: "Make Big Banks and Millionaires Pay." But we'd all pay: The coalition's plan centers on a massive tax hike that would send jobs and wealth away from the five boroughs. The group comprises the usual suspects -- the United Federation of Teachers, the Transport Workers Union, the big health-care unions, the Coalition for the Homeless, etc. No surprise: People who depend on big government want bigger government. The $49.7 billion that Bloomberg will spend next year -- up 11.2 percent...

June 15, 2008 Highly Taxed and Fed Up, Rebels Won’t Just Eat Cake By JOSEPH BERGER GREENBURGH THE revolution has begun. On June 2 — remember that date; you may someday celebrate it with fireworks and barbecues — 70 sons and daughters of Westchester gathered in Town Hall here to overthrow the county government. These Minutemen wannabes were not violent sorts, broke no laws we know of. The most aggressive thing they did was come up with a funny name for a Web site they plan to create: Wastechester.org. But make no bones about it: They did vigorously and harmoniously...

HAMLIN, W.Va. — No question, John Johnson is a doctor’s nightmare. “I guess I’ll have to sign it,” she said of the pilot agreement. Speaking from the easy chair where he spends his days in a small wooden house near this small Appalachian town, his left trouser leg folded by a safety pin where a limb was lost to diabetes, he lighted another cigarette. Mr. Johnson, 61 and a former garbage collector, takes insulin and goes to a clinic once a month for diabetes checkups. Taxpayers foot the bill through Medicaid, the federal-state health coverage program for the poor. But...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A Senate committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would require drivers and all passengers to wear seat belts in trucks, SUVs and cars. After hearing emotional testimony from family members of those killed in crashes, the Senate's public policy committee voted 10-0 to endorse the bill. It now moves to the full Senate, which approved similar legislation last year before it was blocked in a House committee. The bill requires people in front and back seats to buckle up in all vehicles with seat belts, with exceptions for trucks used on farms. People who cannot wear seat...

Earlier this year the Food and Drug Administration's Obesity Working Group issued its "Calories Count" report urging the FDA to work with restaurants to disclose the number of calories in the products they sell," according to an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal. "But that's not good enough for some grinches in Congress. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) and Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D) plan to re-introduce bills requiring chain restaurants with more than 20 outlets to list calorie counts either on menu boards or printed menus." In "Government Gets Fat Fighting Obesity," Cato policy analyst Radley Balko writes: "The...

George W. Bush, PreservativeHas government become the answer? AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following G-File is a version of a talk I gave Tuesday night to the Conservative Party of New York State. It was delivered before the State of the Union. It's good to be here in New York. And it'll be good to be in New Hampshire, and in South Carolina! And Oklahoma! And Secaucus! Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!! Sorry, I had to do that. So, President Bush is giving his State of the Union tonight. Considering the inconvenient timing of having him speak the same night as me, I figured I might...