Free Republic

A magazine in Tokyo is reporting that President Obama's summit with Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama was a frosty disaster, precipitated by incompetence on both sides and an entirely avoidable diplomatic slight to the Japanese side by Obama. The visit was abruptly re-scheduled, seriously inconveniencing the Emperor of Japan, as well as the Prime Minister, whose intricate schedules require meticulous planning and coordination. Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun cites an unnamed insider at the Foreign Ministry, who delivers a devastating account of not merely a failure to agree, but figurative slaps in the face of the rude president, delivered in retaliation....

The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural — casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a “massive and unsustainable debt.” McConnell: It’s a ‘Monstrosity of a Bill’

In the last weeks, two recommendations have come from government sponsored panels that suggest the current standards for mammograms and pap smears, those supported but the American Cancer Society, encourage women to get these screenings too frequently and too early. There has been significant push back from the public and various organizations, but the government is downplaying the recommendations as mere suggestions based upon scientific inquiry. However, if you care about the women in your life and their ability to get these important cancer screenings you need to be very concerned because the Health Care Bill proposes to incorporate these...

A 60-39 vote moved the monstrous Reid health care take-over bill to the next phase. The rare Saturday session was a first round fight to pass the bill in the full Senate. This spells trouble for freedom-loving Americans, as bills that make it to debate ultimately pass the full Senate 90 percent of the time. All Democrats and Independents Joe Lieberman (CT) and Bernie Sanders (VT) voted for the measure, and all Republicans voted no, except for George Voinovich (OH) Read more ...

Since the Health Care debate began a couple of months ago, we realised that Democrats have a lot of talent and imagination when it comes to creating new taxes. Currently, the top federal tax rate is 35%. In addition, the House of Representatives’ version of health care reform includes a 5.4 percent surtax on incomes over $500,000 a year. All these increases, combined with state and local income taxes, would raise the average top marginal rate in the U.S. to over 52 percent. This would be higher than traditionally high-tax countries such as Italy, Spain, and even France. Let’s keep...

Sarah Palin understands the power of ordinary people, the diversity which makes up America, and the arrogance of paternalism. Because Sarah Palin is an individual not made in Washington D.C. and not approved by the D.C. power players, she must be destroyed. It has nothing to do with the individual -- Sarah Palin -- it has to do with the image -- Sarah Palin -- that the power players perceive as dangerous. Any one of these power players who met Sarah Palin at some social event, if Palin was not the image she is now, would have no problem with...

This is the third article to appear on these pages from an IBD subscriber who lived in the Soviet Union until 1980. Click here to read the previous two articles. Whenever I speak about my experiences living in the USSR, my American friends respond that such things can never happen in a democracy like the United States. They don't understand why I am repulsed when I hear the president talk about "sacrificing for the collective good," which sounds so compassionate, as opposed to greedy capitalism. "Sacrifice for the collective good" is one of the founding principles of socialism, where the...

In direct contradiction to accusations that it is “dithering” or “wishy-washy,” the Obama Administration has acted forcefully to counter what it calls “the most serious and credible threat we face at this time.” It turns out that it is the rising popularity of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, as evidenced in record-breaking sales of her autobiographical book and the massive crowds that have attended her book-signing appearances, that has spurred a concerted effort at countermeasures from the Obama Administration. While Ms. Palin will still be permitted to go through with an appearance at the Army’s Fort Bragg in North Carolina,...

During the U.S president campaign of 2008, then Alaska Governor Sarah Palin disclosed that she had given birth to a child with Down syndrome.

The Senate is set to vote Saturday night, right before the holiday, on a motion to proceed on its latest health care government take-over bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing for yet another weekend vote (commonplace now for the party of “transparency”) because he knows that the American people will be none too happy about the Democrats’ proposal the longer they have to look it over. A vote against the Democrats’ motion will help stop Obamacare before it gets any closer to becoming a reality. While this Saturday night vote might seem like a procedural matter, at the...

Yesterday afternoon I went to one of the statewide protests outside Mary Landrieu's offices. In Shreveport, under drizzling skies, about sixty people showed up in front of the Federal building where Landrieu's office is. Additionally, there were counter protesters, in support of Obamacare, also there; I'd say there were at most about 15 of them...A couple of folks from our side, the Kill the Bill side, went up to Landrieu's office to register an opinion. One lady, Janet, was told, "Well, you know Senator Landrieu is a huge supporter of small business!" and Janet replied, "Then I KNOW she's going...

Republican genius, Peter Schiff talks about the Dumbocrats' stupid ideas for the economy. America is simply printing more money hoping that that will make people richer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pqQWzxMo2M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHE6LBJjksg He is running for Senate in Connecticut, vote him IN, people. On healthcare: http://www.youtube.com/user/SchiffReport#p/a/u/1/LfGjqmG47cU

This sentence hit me like a ton of bricks, just because of the wording: Women of any age should not be taught to do breast self-exams, but BSE is not forbidden. Are you kidding me? “BSE” stands for breast self examination. And this government death panel is telling women they shouldn’t learn how to do them, but are not “forbidden” from learning how and doing them. How generous of them.

In case you missed it, here is video of Part two of Sarah Palin's interview with Bill O'Reilly. Tonight, they focus on policy issues. Below is the first segment of tonight's Part 2 Interview. In the second part, not yet posted, Palin says bluntly that Obama's foreign policy is weak, citing the fact that Obama is "bowing to other world leaders." We'll post the rest of it once it is available . . . (VIDEO)

Beauty and the beast.....

Pure evil. As if the parents of special needs children don’t suffer enough. Dems will increase taxes on the parents of special needs children in their nationalized health care bill. LifeSite News reported: The statistics are scary when it comes to the percentage of unborn children born with special needs who become victims of abortion. One fiscal conservative group says the task for parents raising such children is made more difficult by extra taxes found in Harry Reid’s new Senate health care bill. The measure has already been condemned by pro-life groups and the Catholic bishops for its abortion funding...

The Senate is set to vote Saturday night, right before the holiday, on a motion to proceed on its latest health care government take-over bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing for yet another weekend vote (commonplace now for the party of “transparency”) because he knows that the American people will be none too happy about the Democrats’ proposal the longer they have to look it over. A vote against the Democrats’ motion will help stop Obamacare before it gets any closer to becoming a reality. While this Saturday night vote might seem like a procedural matter, at the...

JUST ONCE in a lifetime are we all called to stand and be counted for what is right. This is our time. LET US stand tall and never assent to our TAX DOLLARS being used to KILL BABIES. LET US record our names FOR ALL, INCLUDING GOD to see and pledge to GO TO JAIL before we let one cent of our money be used to finance the blood sport of killing babies and fill the God forsaken coffers of Planned Parenthood and their ilk. THROW ME IN JAIL. I WILL NOT PAY THE GOVERNMENT TO KILL BABIES.

Alberto Hodari performs abortions as casually as others pick their teeth, and with just as much thought. He has bragged about being involved in tens of thousands of abortions. Tens of thousands! He has wiped out literally several small towns in terms of population. And he's proud of it. But Hodari's past doesn't just include tens of thousands of dead babies. Probably due to his proclivity of lying to his potential patients to steer them towards an abortion, something he freely admitted to college students at Wayne State University, saying that he has a "license to lie, he's killed 4...

If it's the right thing to do why do you need a $100 million payoff?The $100 Million Health Care Vote? By Jonathon Karl ABC News November 19, 2009 3:03 PM What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform? Here’s a case study. On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been...

The entire segment from tonight's Hardball has Chris Matthews analyzing what's going wrong with the Obama administration. He hits on several points including the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York, the group is too intellectual (too much Ivy League) and my personal favorite, he's missing the magical touch as witnessed by his bow to the Emperor in Japan. If you don't have time to watch the whole clip skip to 4:15 to pick up on Matthews rant about the bow, but he's surprisingly on target for the most part on where Obama is failing:

Any good parent, or teacher, will tell you that repetition is one of the best teaching tools at our disposal when it comes to getting children to learn something. This process also works on adults. Hearing something repeated often enough would undoubtedly embed whatever it is that is being said into our thick little skulls. For example, this simple repeat strategy is why everyone between the ages of forty to sixty can immediately join in singing, “There she was just a walkin’ down the street singin’ do wa ditty, ditty dum ditty do.”

Republican activist and free market think-tanker Grant Bosse formally declared his candidacy today in New Hampshire’s 00th Congressional District after news that the Obama administration has attributed a majority of the state’s stimulus jobs to that non-existent district. Bosse is in New Hampshire has only two congressional districts, neither of which are numbered “00.” “Even a fake district needs real leadership,” said Bosse while appearing on WGIR’s Charlie Sherman show on Friday morning. “The people overseeing the stimulus actually found more fake congressional districts than there are real congressional districts. So if we run in all 440 phantom congressional seats...

DISGUSTING: Despite legislation passed by Congress to make it possible to sue foreign governments that sponsor terrorism, in a filing in federal court, the Justice Department is arguing that giving the money to the victims "can have significant, detrimental impact on our foreign relations, as well as the reciprocal treatment of the United States and its extensive overseas property holdings."

This hurts: The federal government is "doing everything in [its] manpower [and] capability to destroy U.S. manufacturing," says David Farr, chairman and CEO of Emerson Electric Co. Farr added that companies will continue adding jobs in China and India because they are "places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something. I am not going to hire anybody in the United States. I'm moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs."

Another Saturday health care vote appears to be in the works, this time in the Senate. While the Senate may be may be taking its cue from the "success" of the House in its' Saturday vote, there are a few differences between the two bills that could push any resolution of the health care debate well into next year. Still conventional wisdom has it that if Reid is able to pull together the 60 votes he needs in this important opening vote, some 2000 page piece of legislation will eventually make its'way to the President's desk. Holdouts can be bought...

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the crucial years Barack Obama spent growing up in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 1967 to 1971, ages 6 to 10 in his life. These formative years, when a child first spends significant time in the wider world beyond his family environment, must have taught him many lessons about America, some of them very unpleasant, given the particular situation of his family. It would have been brutally difficult for any child, including young Barry Soetoro as he was then known, to have been uprooted from Honolulu, where his mother raised him as a single mom...

Group suggests new guidelines for cervical cancer screenings. Alisyn is cute!

Take My Medicare Malcolm A. Kline, November 20, 2009 In the usual manner in which bad ideas become even worse reality, good chunks of what policy wonks here are calling “health care reform” are flowing out of academia. Arguably, the most pernicious of these is the notion that “the federal government can build on the success of Medicare.” Lawmakers from both parties would have winced at such a brain wave ten years ago when both President Clinton and the Republican Congress, albeit using markedly different approaches, attempted to reform Medicare. What a difference a decade makes. That the federal government’s...

It was a breath of fresh air to finally hear the Democrats admit to their health care bill as “a lot of show and tell and razzmatazz,” (see Democrat talking points, in reference to my book). At least now we’re all on the same page when discussing the problems with their monstrous government health care “reform” plan. Now, tonight, more disconcerting news – the New York Times reports of new guidelines to scale back cervical cancer screenings. The recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes on the heels of another recommendation to limit breast cancer screenings with...

Look back to Social Security and Medicare. The government is incapable of "accumulating" money. It spends what it has, and then it runs a tab of what it "owes" whatever special interest the money was originally collected for. This isn't just some one-time gimmick used for Social Security and Medicare -- it's how the government actually does its accounting. So when you think you see through Harry Reid's scam by noticing that he intends to collect a half trillion dollars before his healthcare plan even goes into effect, you're only seeing part of the fraud. The real theft is about...

November 20, 2009 Dear Senator Bayh, I tried to call your Washington and Indianapolis offices, but the voice mail boxes were full. I am writing this email to you to plead with you not to vote to bring this health care bill up for senate vote. NOTE: A vote for it now IS a vote to allow it to eventually pass because, as you know, it is quite possible you can vote against its final version knowing full-well that there will be enough votes for it's final passage because the vote requirements are fewer. There are many reasons why you...

It’s easy to fall into a pattern of negative thinking and adopt a woe-is-me attitude when you’re balancing caregiving with the other demands of life. So it might be helpful to honestly assess where you fall on a positive/negative continuum. Often our attitudes, actions, and reactions need a little refurbishing. While an extreme make-over might not be in order, following are some areas to consider:

You hurt all over, and you frequently feel exhausted. Even after numerous tests, your doctor can't find anything specifically wrong with you. If this sounds familiar, you may have fibromyalgia according to the Mayo Clinic.

When Sarah Palin said Obama’s healthcare plan would result in “death panels” that would see bureaucrats making subjective judgements on life and death, she was furiously howled down by Obama supporters. So how should we describe the expert panel of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which decided that patients will be denied a new cancer drug on the NHS under draft guidelines, because it is too expensive? Charities are outraged people with advanced liver cancer are to be refused life-extending Nexavar. Andrew Dillon, of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said: “The drug does not...

Skip the first seconds with Letterman - after that I LOVED it! PASS IT ON to your friends and your email list.

Several weeks ago I wrote two posts dealing with the constitutionality of Obamacare based upon the remarks of Mr. Hoyer (D. Md.) and Ms. Pelosi (D. Ca.). Mr. Hoyer insisted that the mandate that all have insurance was clearly constitutional based upon Congress’s power to tax, while Ms. Pelosi insisted the mandate was constitutional based upon Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. But, I have now found the definitive treatise on the subject. Not only have I found it, but, I have found it in a most unusual place…the bill itself! The Senate Bill released by Sen. Reid (D.Nv.) yesterday...

The American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP) has challenged opponents of electronic cigarettes to justify their condemnation of this product given that the FDA's study of these devices found that they contain only miniscule levels of carcinogens, compared to the high levels present in traditional cigarettes. According to a press release issued earlier this week: "In July of this year, the Food and Drug Administration released a study that condemned electronic cigarettes as an unsafe alternative for smokers, but not all physicians are convinced that the study was accurate or even completely transparent to the tax payers that fund...

For the past couple of months I have worried about the risks of a failed presidency. No one should want this, regardless of party affiliation. It is harmful and dangerous to our economy and country. However, it appears obvious to me that the royal regime known as Obama has ended. Seth Leibsohn writing in the National Review summarized it this way: "This is reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter years - the last time the U.S. was seen as weak - unable to move and coax other countries, unable to reassure dependent allies, unable to have the respect of the world...

ObamaCare is so clearly unconstitutional that it's embarrassing, disgusting, shameful, and dangerous that 215 Congressmen would even consider proposing it. It's almost even more atrocious that the American people can so nonchalantly allow their Constitutional rights to be stolen from them.

It's a conspiracy, for goodness sake. Imagine if they tried to pull this fascist garbage with Bush (remember the call of the Democrats? Buck Fush!). Army fears anti-Obama politics at Palin event Yahoo.com hat tip Pamela RALEIGH, N.C. – The U.S. Army plans to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg, fearing the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama, officials said Thursday. Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum told The Associated Press that the military post's garrison commander and other Army officials had decided to keep media away from Palin's book signing, which will...

Thursday, November 19, 2009 The gazoomba tax, and a new bumper sticker opportunity  By TigerHawk at 11/19/2009 02:52:00 PM Harry Reid's health care bill includes a dancing plethora of new taxes, forcing the Obama administration to consider the important distinctions between broken promises, predictions that happen not to come true, and bare-faced lies. Among them is a new federal tax on comestic surgery, not simply the products used therein but the surgeon's fees for the procedure itself. This report from Oppenheimer addresses the various questions around the tax, including its impact on various of the public companies in the field....

It’s time to put a few things together. It’s something that I have been thinking about for some time. But, in light of the new health care bill, it seems like a good time to take a look at how state and federal laws don’t sync up very well when it comes to health care. I’m talking about the laws governing minors in consideration of abortion and health care. Boy with cancer doesn’t seek medical treatment = CRIME Boy (or anyone else) knowingly/or unknowingly terminates fetus = CRIME Mother of unborn fetus knowingly terminates unborn fetus = OKAY So, before...

Yesterday Harry Reid Proudly announced CBO had scored the Senate’s bill and that claimed that the bill would save $109 Billion during the first ten years years of the plan's Today the CBO released a letter showing that Reid's information is wrong. The Majority leader "forgot to include the "doctor’s fix“, in his scoring. Once that is done the effect of the Senate Bill is to INCREASE the the deficit by $89 billion in the first 10 years.

Posted by GOP Leader (John Boehner) Press Office on November 19th, 2009 Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.

Either today or later this week, Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev) wants the Senate to vote on a "motion to proceed" on the Senate's version of the healthcare bill. That wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that it has barely been seen by anyone in the Senate. At least not as far as most Senators are concerned. Why is that? Because the bill has not been shown to them with sufficient time to study it, that's why. What Reid wants is for the Senate to vote to proceed on a bill that has not been seen,...

Fat Studies On Display Bethany Stotts, November 19, 2009 Political correctness has run amok in the ivory tower. If some academics have their way, college students soon will be forced to vet themselves for not only subconscious racist, sexist and classist thoughts, but fatist ones as well. “In the tradition of critical race studies, queer studies, and women’s studies, fat studies is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship marked by an aggressive, consistent, rigorous critique of the negative assumptions, stereotypes, and stigmas placed on fat and the fat body,” write Sondra Solovay and Esther Rothblum in their most recent Chronicle Review...

Jesse "the pimp(he gets paid, you get screwed)" Jackson says: "You Can't Vote Against Health Care And Call Yourself A Black Man." Well, I thought we were supposed to call ourselves African-American men anyway. Jackson is irrelevant but I had to mention this because I ran into this kind of thinking recently in my personal life. Black people have to end their self-imposed stay on the Democrats intellectual, political and ideological plantation. Do all white people agree? Then, why the hell should all black people agree? Mindless puppets like Jackson do not own blackness. They don't possess some special credentials...

Here's the audio of Governor Palin on the Laura Ingraham Show today:

Abstaining from Accuracy Malcolm A. Kline, November 19, 2009 In a classic case of missing the point, public health officials and their stenographers in the media are blaming the spread of sexually transmitted diseases on sex education that promotes abstinence. “American squeamishness about talking about sex has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday,” Maggie Fox wrote in an article that Reuters distributed on November 16, 2009. “Latest statistics on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis show the three highly treatable infections continue to spread in the United States.” Outside of activities...