Free Republic

ObamaCare may be constitutional but it isn’t the answer. A refundable tax credit is. The Supreme Court has just told us that ObamaCare’s mandate to buy health insurance is constitutional under the government’s taxing authority, but this decision will not settle the debate. Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace ObamaCare—and if Mitt Romney wins the presidency, they just might succeed. But Republicans have been vague about the replacement. Here’s a suggestion: Replace ObamaCare with a refundable tax credit funded by taxing employer-provided health insurance. Each year, some Americans contract a dire illness or suffer a serious injury but can’t...

It looks like Israel is going to be the next Switzerland — at least as far as the Department of Justice’s investigation into offshore tax avoidance is concerned. On June 14, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against three American tax preparers for helping clients avoid taxes by moving money to Israel. The transgressions detailed in the indictment were relatively small-time. The indictment said the father and son duo of David and Nadav Kalai and their colleague David Almog at a firm called United Revenue Service helped several clients duck taxes by moving money to two Israeli banks, identified...

Meet a Republican candidate for Congress unlike any other. (watch the video)

Call it President Obama’s Committee for the Re-Election of the President — a political slush fund at the Health and Human Services Department. Only this isn’t some little fund from shadowy private sources; this is taxpayer money, redirected to help Obama win another term. A massive amount of it, too — $8.3 billion. Yes, that’s billion, with a B. Here is how it works. The most oppressive aspects of the ObamaCare law don’t kick in until after the 2012 election, when the president will no longer be answerable to voters. More “flexibility,” he recently explained to the Russians. But certain...

One morning last February, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker called his staff into his office. “Guys,” he warned, “it’s going to be a tough week.” Walker had recently sent a letter to state employees proposing steps—ranging from restricting collective bargaining to requiring workers to start contributing to their own pension accounts—to eliminate the state’s $3.6 billion deficit. That day in February was when Walker would announce his plan publicly. It turned out to be a tough year. The state immediately erupted into a national spectacle, with tens of thousands of citizens, led by Wisconsin’s public-employee unions, seizing control of the capitol...

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It's the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show. A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump. If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you'd now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you're paying the highest prices ever for March. Political...

A US army officer has accused the American military of painting a misleading picture of progress in the war in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis turned whistleblower and broke ranks with the official portrayal of the Afghan war after he 'witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.' 'How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?' Colonel Davis asked in an article titled 'Truth, Lies and Afghanistan: How Military Leaders Have Let Us Down.' 'No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan,' he said in the article. 'But we...

Catholic leaders upped the ante Monday, threatening to challenge the Obama administration over a provision of the new health care law that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control. As CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reports, it could affect the presidential elections. Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees. “Never before,...

The National Center for Science Education is a wonderful institution dedicated to fighting junk science from entering our Nation’s schools and media. This is a tireless and often thankless job, yet there are so few “think tank” type organizations to promote science standards out there that they really stand out. I had the fortune 2 years ago to visit their offices and was impressed by how passionate the staff were and what they could accomplish out of a tiny office and a garage to store their immense archives. NCSE is best know for fighting creationism in schools and provided crucial...

Over the last 30 years, wealth in the United States has been steadily concentrating in the upper economic echelons. Whereas the top 1 percent used to control a little over 30 percent of the wealth, they now control 40 percent. It’s a trend that was for decades brushed under the rug but is now on the tops of minds and at the tips of tongues. Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updates statistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by...

Fifty-five law firms, including 10 in Chicago, received perfect ratings in the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) 2012 Corporate Equality Index survey. When the HRC — the nation's largest civil rights organization dedicated to achieving equality for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community — first conducted its survey in 2002, neither of the two participating law firms earned 100 percent ratings. The Corporate Equality Index rates major companies and law firms on a scale from zero to 100 percent on various criteria intended to measure their workplace treatment of LGBT employees. Of the 636 businesses that were rated for...

Attorney Terrance B. McGann said the the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will most likely not be able to make rulings or decide cases by the beginning of next year. "If the (NLRB) is not there … the next step is more strikes, more picketing and concerted activity by labor organizations," said McGann, a lawyer who represents unions as a partner at Whitfield, McGann & Ketterman. "No one wins. If we don't get our quorum, no one wins." If President Barack Obama cannot nominate and receive Congressional approval of a new NLRB member by the end of the year, the...

The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said Thursday the Obama administration is fueling speculation about Justice Elena Kagan’s impartiality because it won’t turn over documents detailing her role in crafting the legal strategy to defend the health care law. Rep. Lamar Smith, the committee chairman, told Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that emails show Justice Kagan took an interest in the case in January 2010, when she was solicitor general, and he demanded to know what role she played between then and March 2010, when President Obama tapped her to sit on the high court. “The issue...

The row has broken out only days after James Daunt, the managing director of Waterstone’s, criticised Amazon – calling it a “ruthless, money-making devil”. The new Amazon Price Check app and promotion, which is starting from this Saturday, will allow people to perform a price check on an item in a shop, by scanning in the bar code using the app on their iPhone or Android device. The online retail giant will then offer a $5 discount to shoppers who carry out this market research for it for free, on any item across the site, including the same item they...

The world’s largest ethanol producer is one of Newt Gingrich’s biggest donors, reports USA Today. A long-time supporter of the controversial subsidy, Newt is also the only GOP candidate to unequivocally support ethanol subsidies. The political action committee of ethanol producer Poet and its employees — including CEO Jeff Broin — have donated $20,000 to Gingrich’s campaign. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, this makes Poet and people connected to the company the second largest donor to his campaign. But the ties go deeper. Broin also serves as the chairman of ethanol lobbying firm Growth Energy, the same firm...

The American tradition of public education began in one-room school houses when frontier farm families hired dedicated teachers to teach their children. When I attended public schools in the 1950s, I received an excellent education. American schools were rated the best in the world. Those schools prepared me for Caltech, and Caltech prepared me for a wonderful life in science. I owe my career and accomplishments to the great start I received in the public schools. Those public schools were locally controlled and locally funded. Teachers and parents worked together on the content of curriculum, student discipline, and all aspects...

Barack Obama is a dream. In 2008, the dream was hope and change. In 2012, it will be progress, thwarted by evil partisans and selfish greed. As Gertrude Stein said, "there is no there there." He needs enemies to draw attention from his lack of depth, for he is truly a mile wide and an inch deep. He is an illusion -- always appearing to be more than he is, always, more promise than reality. He is, and always has been, the sum projection of what others want him to be. Barack Obama doesn't exist, except in the hearts and...

Alan S. Mills said apartment-to-rent newspaper ads stating that families with children were not welcome were common when he began practicing law 30 years ago. Local, state and federal laws now prohibit discrimination based on familial status, Mills said. But Mills, the legal director of the Uptown People's Law Center, said the situation has not changed much. "Individual landlords still regularly turn down tenants because, they say, 'We don't want children in the building,'" Mills said. Professor F. Willis Caruso, the co-executive director of The John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Support Center, made the same contention. Caruso said...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska's Cook Inlet beluga whales were correctly listed as endangered, a federal judge ruled earlier this week, rejecting a state lawsuit that claimed the listing will hurt economic development. Judge Royce C. Lambeth of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said the National Marine Fisheries Service properly followed requirements of the Endangered Species Act and used the best science available in making its determination. Cook Inlet beluga whales did not bounce back after a decade, despite a ban on subsistence hunting blamed for depleting their numbers, he said. "When the best available science predicts that a recently...