Free Republic

This story is actually a couple of days old but I wanted to write about it because it portrays a bureaucratic mindset that we would have to deal with if health care reform passes. The Bush era Congress passed the "Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act" in August of 2008. It was, as most legislation, an overreaction to the Chinese toy scare. It was designed to "require extensive testing of any toy, book, or item of clothing intended for kids under the age of 12." But ambitious bureaucrats have taken the bill and interpreted it to mean "used" toys as well....

July 04, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Ground Zero of National ParalysisRebuild the Towers, privately. By Deroy Murdock In olden days, Americans needed just 13 and a half months to erect the Empire State Building, four and a half years to build Hoover Dam, and six years, four months to install the Transcontinental Railroad. And yet this Independence Day, six years, nine months, and three weeks have elapsed since September 11, and Ground Zero remains an 80-foot-deep international embarrassment for the United States. The government functionaries who fathered this fiasco should yield immediately and assign private developer Larry Silverstein to arrange...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal government must allow meatpackers to test their animals for mad cow disease, a federal judge ruled Thursday. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a meatpacker based in Arkansas City, Kan., wants to test all of its cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. Larger meat companies feared that move because if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too. The Agriculture Department currently regulates the test and administers it to less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows. The department...

3/22/2007 Florida: City to Seize Homes Over a $5 Parking Ticket Brooksville, Florida proposes to foreclose homes and seize cars over less than $20 in parking tickets. The city council in Brooksville, Florida voted this week to advance a proposal granting city officials the authority to place liens and foreclose on the homes of motorists accused of failing to pay a single $5 parking ticket. Non-homeowners face having their vehicles seized if accused of not paying three parking offenses. According to the proposed ordinance, a vehicle owner must pay a parking fine within 72 hours if a meter maid claims...

A bipartisan group of Michigan lawmakers wants all sixth-grade girls to be vaccinated against cervical cancer. A Republican state senator who is the lead sponsor said it's the first legislation of its kind in the U.S. The vaccine was approved by federal regulators this summer and hailed as a breakthrough in cancer prevention. The shots prevent infections from strains of a sexually transmitted virus -- human papilloma virus, or HPV -- that can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. At the time, conservatives expressed concern that schools would require the vaccine for enrollment. They argue that such mandates infringe on...