Free Republic

Late on February 15, JotForm lost access to jotform.com. The company soon discovered the U.S. government had seized the domain by lodging a request with the site’s domain registrar GoDaddy. Soon after, it had been taken down. Aytekin Tank, co-founder of Interlogy Internet Technologies, and owner of JotForm, later confirmed that he’d been in contact with the agent assigned to his case at the Secret Service. She was busy and couldn’t look at the site for a few days. So millions of web forms and thousands of customers were left without a service and no reason as to why this...

Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more. Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans. The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if...

The US Government continues actions that will result in its own demise. That might seem fitting, except that its failure will seriously harm the citizenry. Government decisions and actions have assured an economic collapse that will result in another depression. Federal debts and promises are too large to be honored, a conclusion based not on economics but on simple arithmetic. The government collapse will likely trigger the economic collapse, although the order could be reversed. Arguably, we are already in a depression which has been disguised by juicing GDP via excessive government spending. This spending has been funded increased government...

DES MOINES — Legislative Republicans proposed Thursday to spend $182 million less than Gov. Terry Branstad’s $6.242 billion budget plan for next fiscal year and about $119 million under majority Senate Democrats’ targets by providing less money to education, human services and economic incentives and requiring state employees and elected officials to pay $200 a month for their health insurance coverage. All three competing and contrasting fiscal 2013 budget approaches offered by the governor and leaders of the split-control Legislature would fully fund spending commitments already approved last session, including a 2 percent “allowable growth” increase for K-12 public schools...

The European Commission has claimed it has secret information about the positive state of EU countries' finances, following a shock downgrade of core member states. Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly made the statement at a regular press briefing in Brussels on Monday (16 January), two days after US-based agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgraded nine EU countries, including France. "We have more information than the ratings agencies and we think there are elements missing in their analysis ... We have monthly updates from member states. We share this information on a confidential basis. The ratings agencies do not have this information,"...

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Newt Gingrich signaled Wednesday that he believes his criticism of Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is a mistake — and that he’s created an impression that he was echoing Democratic rhetoric. Gingrich conceded the problem when pressed by a Rick Santorum supporter at a book-signing here Wednesday. “I’m here to implore one thing of you. I think you’ve missed the target on the way you’re addressing Romney’s weaknesses. I want to beg you to redirect and go after his obvious disingenuous about his conservatism and lay off the corporatist versus the free market. I think it’s...

As 2011 draws to a close, I wonder: Is freedom winning? Did America become freer this year? Less free? How about the rest of the world? I'm a pessimist. I fear Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." That's what's happened. Bush and Obama doubled spending and increased regulation. Government's intrusiveness is always more, never less. The state grows, and freedom declines. But there were bright spots. We don't yet know what will become of what people call the Arab Spring. But this year, for...

PHOENIX — A cancer survivor and former hospice nurse’s assistant is suing the Arizona Board of Cosmetology over rules she says unconstitutionally deny her the right to earn an honest living – while at the same time needlessly denying services to homebound, elderly and bedridden individuals across the state. Lauren Boice opened Angels on Earth Home Beauty, which connects the elderly, sick, and terminally ill with licensed cosmetologists. Homebound individuals desiring a haircut, manicure, or massage call Lauren, who matches them with a cosmetologist who will visit the client’s home or assisted living center. But while Lauren’s clients see her...

Nigel Farage needs no introduction: the famous Euroskeptic is one of very few men who has had the temerity to question, often in an abnormally high decibel fashion, the stupidity of the Eurozone leaders from day one. Now that he has been proven correct, he has every right to gloat, which he does to everyone's delightful amusement in the European parliament. The look on the unelected von Rompuy's face, especially as he watches his decade-long bureaucratic nirvana crash and burn every single day, is quite priceless.

John Scalzi, discussing the outrageous behavior of the adults in the football program at Pennsylvania State University, sets the tone for today's piece. He describes the cowardice of all those who knew of the abuse of the young boys taking place and failed to take the appropriate steps to stop it: I'm a science fiction writer, and one of the great stories of science fiction is "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," which was written by Ursula K. LeGuin. The story posits a fantastic utopian city, where everything is beautiful, with one catch: In order for all this...

(NaturalNews) It is the latest case of extreme government food tyranny, and one that is sure to have you reeling in anger and disgust. Health department officials recently conducted a raid of Quail Hollow Farm, an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in southern Nevada, during its special "farm to fork" picnic dinner put on for guests -- and the agent who arrived on the scene ordered that all the fresh, local produce and pasture-based meat that was intended for the meal be destroyed with bleach. For about five years now, Quail Hollow Farm has been growing organic produce and...

Commission on Security Cooperation in Europe (CSCE):  Also known as the Helsinki Commission, their job is to monitor European compliance with the Helsinki Final Act, which served to dilute Cold War tensions. Maybe somebody needs to tell them that the USSR ceased to exist over 20 years ago... and that Obama's already abandoned Eastern Europe to current Russian regime anyway. Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC):  Visitors to the FCIC website can find useful info on topics ranging from how to purchase a new car to how to save $ for college... and all the same as you can find on zillions...

The federal government has lost another 72 million of your tax dollars. Here we go again. The feds have gambled with your money again, and they've lost it again; this time with a company called Beacon Power. You've probably never heard of this company. Candidly, before the announcement of its bankruptcy filing this week, neither had I. Just as you probably had never heard of Solyndra before its bankruptcy, neither had I. But your government has heard of both. Solyndra and Beacon received loans the government guaranteed -- $535 million and $72 million respectively. In each case, your tax dollars...

I was listening to Neil Boortz last night and he was talking about this new Carbon EPA stuff. He said that the EPA was hiring, get this, 230,000 new employees whose sole responsibility was to process this new paper work. He said that it was going to cost (I think) 1.4 million jobs right out of the box and companies will have to fold, and that some powerplants that we desparate need will be shut down, electricity is going to go through the roof. C02, a natural occuring Gas, is now pollution. He did say that Hermain Cain said the...

The president has found a way to add jobs, after all — 230,000 of ‘em, all within the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s the number of new bureaucrats the federal government will need to hire to implement new proposed greenhouse gas regulations, according to a report by The Daily Caller: The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion...

Neighborhood lemonade stands have for generations served as a training ground for budding young capitalists. Boys and girls eager for their first taste of success have recently watched their dreams dissolve as rulebook-toting authoritarians demand little Timmy and Sally show their permits and papers or face the wrath of the state. Americans are fed up with this nonsense. It’s time for a little lemonade liberation. On Aug. 20, over a hundred people have so far pledged to gather on the Capitol’s west lawn to protest the petty bureaucracy that thinks threatening children with fines is a proper use of taxpayer...

(Excerpt: Full article at link above) You have the right to remain stupid, and what you say and do can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, the court of public opinion is expanding into a stupid-is-as-stupid-does joke. And it has a president and gang of thieves in the United States government to represent it. So goes the sheeping of America. Welcome to Euro II. With the level of dishonesty, fraud, abuse of power, corruption, rampant irresponsibility, downright criminal behavior and vehement refusal to be accountable, our government has clearly lost its collective mind...

While 22-year-old Rory McIlroy was teeing up on June 16 during the first round of his historic victory at the U.S. Open, another drama was unfolding outside Congressional Country Club in Bethesda. A Montgomery County inspector busted some kids for running a lemonade stand at which they were setting aside half the proceeds for pediatric cancer victims. The charge? No permit. One of the dads involved got a $500 fine. After a TV station’s tape of the bust went viral, the county backed off, canceled the fine and let the kids set up on a side street. The children decided...

Almost nine months after a Missouri dairy was ordered to stop selling cheese made from raw milk, I share details of another hare-raising story from the Show-Me State: John Dollarhite and his wife Judy of tiny Nixa, Mo., have been told by the USDA that, by Monday, they must pay a fine exceeding $90,000. If they don’t pay that fine, they could face additional fines of almost $4 million. Why? Because they sold more than $500 worth of bunnies — $4,600 worth to be exact — in a single calendar year.

While the possible government shutdown means most federal employees, from the National Park Service workers to those handling your tax returns at the IRS, won't be coming into work, some bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are going to keep punching the clock. At the department's website, HHS has posted its shutdown contingency plan for its employees. Here's the relevant part for the department's Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight: Operations of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight could continue as funding was provided through the Affordable Care Act. This includes insurance rate...