Free Republic

There's only 92 votes thus far so we can turn this one around. What's your reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding the health reform law?I'm happy. I support the law. 48 % I'm unhappy. I don't support the law. 43 % I can't decide; the ruling and law are complex and I'm not sure what this will mean for me. 9 % POLL HERE Scroll down on right.

Faced with a complex, hard-to-solve problem, there is a natural human tendency to solve a much simpler, easier one instead. Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, in his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, dubs this cognitive process “substitution.” We know our political system is broken. The signs are everywhere: knee-jerk partisanship, massive debts and unfunded liabilities, widespread citizen dissatisfaction, trillion-dollar deficits, rampant public and private corruption, and a federal government that has less support than King George III at the time of the American Revolution. But fixing the system is a staggeringly complex undertaking. The causes of its dysfunction are deep and...

The U.S. Su­preme Court up­held the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of Pres­id­ent Obama’s health­care law Thursday, rul­ing the gov­ern­ment may im­pose tax pen­al­ties on per­sons who do not have health in­sur­ance. Supreme Court opinion on Obama’s healthcare law

The Supreme Court’s decision, announced Monday, in Arizona v. United States opens the way for sensible reform of our immigration laws.Barack Obama and his administration have taken heart that the court overturned Arizona’s state penalties for illegal immigrants. The idea is that states can’t pile higher penalties on top of those voted by Congress, just as states can’t deport people whom Congress allowed into the country.But the much more significant part of the case was the unanimous 8–0 (Justice Kagan not voting) ruling upholding the Arizona provision authorizing state and local law-enforcement personnel to help enforce federal law by...

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is facing a probe into his alleged involvement with a prostitution ring in France, and his wife have separated, a source said. Anne Sinclair, a wealthy heiress who recently relaunched her media career as a news editor at the Huffington Post's French edition, and Strauss-Kahn separated about a month ago and they are living in separate residences in Paris, said the source, who is close to Strauss-Kahn. The weekly magazine, Closer, earlier reported in its online edition that Sinclair threw Strauss-Kahn out of their home in central Paris. Strauss-Kahn is under investigation...

TheU.S. Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to uphold all but one part of the 2010 healthcare law produced some strong reactions. Supporters declared victory and opponents vowed to keep fighting. That much was to be expected. But Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s rant against the high court’s ruling was a surprise of sorts. The physician-turned-elected-official appeared to suggest that the court needs a legal lesson or two. “Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional,” Paul said in a statement. “While the court may have...

Two mental health clinicians have determined that Nicolas Dutan Guaman, charged with killing a Milford man with his truck last year, is not competent to stand trial, Guaman’s lawyer told a Worcester Superior Court judge yesterday. Guaman was evaluated Friday by neuropsychologist Paul Spiers who was hired by the defense; and yesterday by court-appointed psychologist Alan Schonberger, said attorney Peter Ettenberg. While neither doctor has filed a report, both claim that he is incompetent, the attorney told Judge Daniel Wrenn. Ettenberg said that his client does not understand the charges against him or how the court and U.S. legal...

The Swedish government, together with the Green Party, on Thursday presented a framework agreement that will allow undocumented immigrants in Sweden to access state subsidized healthcare.

In a move that put local high school teachers back in the student seats, CSU Channel Islands teamed with experts from NASA to educate youths through their teachers. About 15 teachers from schools in the Oxnard Union High School District spent the week of June 18 with science experts in the Promoting Educational Leadership Climate Science Summer Institute. Organizers hope to educate teachers on the issues surrounding climate change and ultimately to reach youths, according to Bill Patzert, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

They took prayer out of the schools. We grumbled, but did nothing. They took George Washington's portrait out of the classrooms. We grumbled, but did nothing. They started teaching collective socialist doctrine to our children. We grumbled, but did nothing .They created a federal bureaucracy answerable to no one, with pay and retirement benefits triple those of the general populace. They created an imperial presidency and made the Congress inconsequential. They fostered the destruction of our manufacturing and agriculture bases. They permitted the invasion of our country by illegal aliens, and chastised anyone who objected. They legalized and promoted the...

This week the Supreme Court delivered one of the most consequential and highly anticipated rulings in history — it upheld President Obama's health care law. In doing so, the court — and this administration — dealt a critical blow to free enterprise and ensured that taxes will go up for middle class working families and small businesses everywhere. This dims prospects for economic growth, while leaving in place the barriers to hiring imposed by the law, like costly, burdensome regulations and pervasive uncertainty. I've always believed that President Obama's health care law was and is bad politics and bad policy...

Justin Bieber is many things: Singer, actor ... Canadian? It's true! And Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) used the Bieb's Canadian ancestry to make a point about the controversial Arizona immigration law. [Related: Arizona implements immigration law as feds push back] Gutierrez, who is against the law that allows Arizona law enforcement officials to ask those deemed suspicious for proof of American citizenship, raised the point on the House floor that judging whether or not somebody is from the U.S. based on appearance is illogical and silly. And, he argues, rather difficult. [Related: Immigration from Mexico plummeted well before Arizona...

Ronald Reagan made secret plans to loan Britain a U.S. warship if she lost an aircraft carrier during the Falklands War, it has emerged. The then-president was prepared to support Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher despite the U.S. being officially neutral during the 1982 conflict. The stunning revelation was made by John Lehman, the former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, to the U.S. Naval Institute on Tuesday. Mr Reagan would have loaned Britain the use of the amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima should harm have come to either HMS Invincible or HMS Hermes, which the Royal Navy had deployed to defend...

DENVER – A 33-year-old man is in custody for allegedly killing a two-year-old girl in a hit-and-run Tuesday evening. Omar Gonzalez faces charges of Felony Hit and Run Resulting in Death and Felony Abuse/Criminal Negligence Resulting in Death.

~Favorite Summer Songs~ Under the boardwalk - The drifters Oh, when the sun beats down And burns the tar up on the roof And your shoes get so hot You wish your tired feet were fireproof Under the boardwalk Down by the sea, yeah On a blanket with my baby Is where I'll be (Under the boardwalk) Out of the sun (Under the boardwalk) We'll be having some fun (Under the boardwalk) People walking above (Under the boardwalk) We'll be falling in love (Under the boardwalk, boardwalk) In the park you hear The happy sound of the carousel You...

A robot populates a room with imaginary human stick figures in order to decide where objects should go to suit the needs of humans.  Courtesy of Personal Robotics Lab If you hire a robot to help you move into your new apartment, you won't have to send out for pizza. But you will have to give the robot a system for figuring out where things go. The best approach, according to Cornell researchers, is to ask "How will humans use this?" Researchers in the Personal Robotics Lab of Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science, have already taught robots...

Glenn Beck made no attempt to hide his feelings. In fact, he launched into an absolutely epic rant, furiously condemning not just the Supreme Court, but also the Republican Party and the entire mainstream conservative movement. Beck promoted the upcoming FreePAC event, saying that today’s result just furthered his frustration with regular conservative groups. He told listeners that he was sick of going to CPAC where he can speak out against progressives, get applause from the crowds, and then be betrayed by the “cowards” in charge who are “won’t come out and tell you what they really are”; “covert progressives.”...

Health Care: Ignoring the Constitution it swore to defend, the Supreme Court has affirmed ObamaCare, making the already important fall elections even more critical. A new president and Congress are needed to rid the country of this meddlesome law. By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that the individual mandate is not allowed under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. But it stunningly decided, right out of the ether, that Congress has the power to impose the mandate as a tax — even though Congress never defined it as a tax. In essence, the Supreme Court's majority rewrote the law for the...

or someone seemingly so bright, Rachel Maddow sure has a short memory. There she was on June 19, talking about a proposed debate between GOP Sen. Scott Brown and Democrat challenger Elizabeth Warren and mocking Brown with her trademark brand of arm-waving, arrested adolescent sarcasm (video after page break) -- Maddow Drops Bogus Claim about MSNBC Not Hosting Proposed Brown-Warren DebateMADDOW: This week, though, Scott Brown said he would agree to a televised debate with Elizabeth Warren, but he had conditions. And he said if his conditions weren't met, he wouldn't do it. His conditions are, first, that the widow...