Free Republic

“Death panels” received renewed interest over the Christmas season in a New York Times piece by Robert Pear, “Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir.” The story outlines a new 691-page regulation that to puts into place end-of-life counseling, called “advanced care planning,” via the Medicare program. The regulation is provided for “in the case where an injury or illness causes the individual to be unable to make health care decisions”. This is essentially a living will where the patient and the doctor would come to a determination about what to do if a patient became incapacitated. This provision...

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga ordered a nationwide crackdown on gays this week. The radical Kenyan leader said police should arrest anyone found engaging in such behaviors. Capital News reported: Prime Minister Raila Odinga has ordered a nationwide crackdown on homosexuals in Kenya. Mr Odinga on Sunday said that police should arrest anyone found engaging in such behaviours and take appropriate legal action against them. “We will not tolerate such behaviours in the country. The constitution is very clear on this issue and men or women found engaging in homosexuality will not be spared,” Mr Odinga said. “Any man found...

I blame Drudge! Yes, I blame the Drudge Report for this insane controversy about the use of high-tech body scanners and "pat-downs" at airport security zones. A minor altercation can take place at Genghis Kahn International Airport in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and it is headlines on the Drudge Report. The millions of American travelers who are utterly insouciant to a high-tech scan or even a pat-down are ignored. The other day a CBS News Poll found that fully 81 percent of Americans approve the use of the high-tech machines at the airport, but that means nothing to Drudge. How many...

Pew released a very interesting poll Wednesday that provides a revealing look at American values and a particular demographic group that is out of step with the rest. The topic could hardly be more relevant to the economic crisis that has caused so much suffering: attitudes toward walking away from mortgages - in other words shirking the obligation to pay back the lender for funds received. But for me the most fascinating aspect of the study is that, with one single exception, most demographic segments of the population share roughly the same opinion distribution. While some demographic groups are more...

At the time that 2008 article was written, the entire supply of money in the world (“broad money,” i.e., global M3, meaning cash, consumer-account deposits, checkable accounts, CDs, long-term deposits, travelers’ checks, money-market funds, the whole enchilada) was estimated to be just under $60 trillion. Which is to say: The optimistic view is that our outstanding obligations amount to more than all of the money in the world. Global GDP in 2008? Also about $60 trillion. Meaning that the optimistic view is that our federal obligations outpace the entire annual economic output of human civilization.

The American Justice Partnership revealed the details today: Over the past 10 years, a highly-coordinated, well-funded campaign has been underway to fundamentally alter the composition of America’s state courts. The campaign’s goal: exclude conservative, rule-of-law judges from the bench. This campaign has been bankrolled by George Soros, a hedge fund operator with a net worth of $13 billion, according to the Forbes 400 list of the world’s richest people. This multi-million dollar campaign to reshape our courts encompasses efforts to revise state constitutions, rewrite judicial recusal rules, abolish democratic judicial elections, and impose a judicial selection system that will transfer...

On Friday the White House announced four recess appointees to key positions in the Obama regime, the official press release missed a few important details. Maria del Carmen Aponte (involvement with a Cuban spy) and Richard Sorian (LGBT candidates for the Obama regime.) Tucked in between Aponte and Sorian was Winslow Sargeant the new Chief Counsel of Advocacy for the Small Business Administration. ...research on Winslow Sargeant and discovered a fascinating article by Lloyd Chapman that appeared in the Huffington Post (of all places) on June 11, 2009.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Argentina's government on Friday ordered the closure one of the nation's three leading Internet providers, demanding that Grupo Clarin immediately inform "each and every one" of its more than 1 million customers that they have 90 days to find new ways of getting online. The order says Grupo Clarin—which has grown through mergers to become one of Latin America's leading media companies—illegally absorbed the Fibertel company through its Cablevision subsidiary in January 2009 because it failed to obtain prior approval from the commerce secretary. Cablevision denied that Friday, citing a previous approval obtained in 2003,...

Beloved friends, August 28 is not about Glenn Beck. So many progressives have pointed their ire toward him — but we should point the finger of condemnation at ourselves, rather than at him. Particularly, we who are pastors. When did we let “God’s truth marching on” become a trickle of justice rather than a “flowing mighty stream”? I wonder how much has changed in the 47 years since the March on Washington. August 28, 1963, was not just Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech (which many corporations have misused to their advantage during Black History Month). It was the...

Is the Ground Zero mosque kerfuffle really about general principles applicable to all religions? Does Mayor Michael Bloomberg mean it when he says of the proposed Islamic mosque that is intended to loom over Ground Zero, "Lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here." Oh really? Would that apply to The United Realms of America, the Knights of...

We Americans need to wake up to the fact that World War III is upon us and recognize, as The Great Emancipator said, "Now we are engaged in a great [worldwide] war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived [in the rights of the individual] and so dedicated [to the rights of the individual], can long endure." And the great battle now being waged is not merely at Ground Zero or in Washington, D.C., but over the whole planet and that is the to-the-death struggle between collectivism and individualism, a war in which -- our president's recent collectivist...

If there are only 39,697 African-American farmers grand total in the entire country, then how can over 86,000 of them claim discrimination at the hands of the USDA? Where did the other 46,303 come from? Now, if you’re confused over what the heck I’m even talking about, let’s go back to the beginning of the story: Pigford v. Glickman In 1997, 400 African-American farmers sued the United States Department of Agriculture, alleging that they had been unfairly denied USDA loans due to racial discrimination during the period 1983 to 1997. The farmers won the case, known as Pigford v. Glickman,...

The USDA's Food and Nutrition Service has set up a network of "lactation consultants" and "breastfeeding peer counselors," which is a strange use of the word "peer," since the counselors are paid $50,000-$60,000 a year, plus benefits, to be your peer. A job notice for a lactation consultant in Washington State notes: This position is covered by an "Agency Shop" provision. Therefore as a condition of employment, the incumbent of this position must either join the union and pay union dues, or pay the union a representational or other fee within 30 days of the date you are placed into...

We are not wrong, Hayek concedes, in perceiving that the effects of the individual choices and open processes of a free society are not distributed according to a recognizable principle of justice. The meritorious are sometimes tragically unlucky; the evil prosper; good ideas don’t pan out, and sometimes those who backed them, however noble their vision, lose their shirts. But a system that values both trial–and–error and free choice is in no position to guarantee outcomes in advance. Furthermore, no one individual (and certainly no politburo or congressional committee or political party) can design rules that would treat each person...

That’s the federal government’s latest message to Americans seeking to learn the content of their own DNA. Recent advances in biotechnology have allowed private companies to offer affordable genetic testing directly to consumers, to help them determine their risks of developing problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and various forms of cancer. In response, the U.S. government has told these companies that their tests must be approved by FDA regulators before they can be sold because, in the government’s words, “consumers may make medical decisions in reliance on this information.” These restrictions thus represent a new level of government paternalism...

thought this might be one of those bills where someone has misread the language and interpreted what the legislation is supposed to do incorrectly.

Politicians are ever on the lookout for new sources of revenue for their bloated governments. The new coalition government in the United Kingdom is scrambling to find new and creative ways to increase revenues. A proposal made by Vince Cable, Business Secretary of the current British Government, represents a new and insidious methodology of effective indentured servitude if someone is foolish enough to obtain a university degree in the United Kingdom. In essence this graduate would pay a lifelong tax each year until death emancipates him or her. The tax will be solely based on the fact of obtaining a...

Meteorologist blogger Anthony Watts normally talks about the crumbling science of man-caused global warming, but recently he described an uninvited office guest demanding to know about his alleged "big oil funding." The charge that only the lure of big money causes people to question warmist gospel is old but, as it turns out, of highly questionable origin. Al Gore typifies the central accusation in An Inconvenient Truth, pg 263: The misconception that there is a serious disagreement among scientists about global warming is actually an illusion that has been deliberately fostered by a relatively small but extremely well-funded cadre of...

The War Funding bill that passed the House last night had several additions such as the “Deemed as Passed” budget provision, FEMA funds for disaster assistance, and money to settle pending lawsuits with African-American farmers and Indians: “The U.S. House of Representatives attached a $3.4 billion government settlement with Indian trust beneficiaries to a war- funding bill that it passed just before breaking for the July Fourth holiday. ...snip *** Another $1.15 billion for a discrimination settlement between African-American farmers and the Agriculture Department is also in the war-spending bill.

...snip snip ... Based on the belief that it is people, not policymakers, who know best, we are asking the people of Britain to tell us how you want to see your freedom restored. We are calling for your ideas on how to protect our hard won liberties and repeal unnecessary laws. And we want to know how best to scale back excessive regulation that denies businesses the space to innovate. We’re hoping for virtual mailbags full of suggestions. Every single one will be read, with the best put to Parliament.