Free Republic

In the end, nothing hurt George HW Bush's chances for re-election than the rallying cry he made during his acceptance speech at is first nomination convention. And I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent, my opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll...

Cartoonist David Donar of Political Graffiti seems to have come up with a solution to two issues at the center of heated debates -- health care reform and airport security.

TRICARE, the insurance company through which our military members receive benefits, is slated to increase premiums on the dental plans for 1.9 million members of all branches of our armed forces. The increase is going to take effect on February 1. From military.com: The monthly premium for an active duty family member single plan will increase from $12.12 to $12.69 and the monthly family plan premium will increase from $30.29 to $31.72. The National Guard and Reserve monthly sponsor premium will increase from $12.12 to $12.69. The monthly single premium rate for an Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) sponsor plan and...

CNN'S Jack Cafferty ripped into President Obama on Wednesday’s Situation Room, Quoting President Obama's promise to hold open negotiations on C-Span, in contrast with the secret negotiations being conducted to reconcile the House and Senate versions of health care “reform” legislation, Cafferty chided...

Author of “Sunshine Resolution” Demands Transparency Washington, DC -- U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (FL-13), the author of the Sunshine Resolution, today called on House and Senate Leaders to accept C-SPAN’s offer to publicly broadcast final health care negotiations. Buchanan said Congress should not engage in secret, backroom deals when it comes to writing the most sweeping health reform bill in decades. Buchanan’s resolution, H. Res. 847, has 151 cosponsors and requires that all final negotiations on the health care reform bill be conducted under the watchful eye of the American people. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not allowed a vote yet...

"Sarah Palin, do you guys really like her?" My dad's doctor asked me this a couple of weeks ago. His smile seemed to shout, "Are you guys crazy?" I had taken my 94-year-old Republican father to see him several times, but politics never came up. Did the doc really want to go there? It went something like this: "What's the problem with her?" I said. "Well, she's, she's --" "Stupid?" "All right." "Really? Why, because she isn't as glib or articulate as you elites like? She didn't answer Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson the way President Obama would have?" "Yes...

In a study published in January 7, 2010 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from four Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers and two non-VA hospitals found preoperative cleansing of patients’ skin with chlorhexidine-alcohol is superior to cleansing with povidone-iodine for preventing surgical-site infection.

Besides the occasional Republican either voting for socialized medicine or preventing a filibuster of it, the guilt of the association with the proposal that passed the Senate and the GOP is very deep. In fact the recent bill, without the public option (but will force people into public care) looks increasingly like the failed experiment of Massachusetts.

Every week we are seeing another Democrat deciding not to run for re-election or one that is switching parties to the GOP all due to the wild, left-wing overreach indulged in by the Obama Administration and its cohorts in Congress. Connecticut's Senator Chris Dodd is only the latest heavy hitter Democrat that is looking for an "exit strategy," if you will. And with all these pols looking to jump ship, the infamous 60th vote on healthcare, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, suddenly finds that bringing healthcare to a vote so soon was a bit of a mistake! On Wednesday, Nelson,...

In short, what you have written into your legislation is a combination of Senate Rule Changes and changes in how The Constitution of the United States works. And that takes a 2/3rds majority of Congress. Any attempt to bypass the Constitution in any manner is to break the oath of office you took and would officially reduce you to what the vast majority of us already know you to be: A traitor to your own country.

Conservatives want Thermopylae. Congressional Republican leaders instead imitate the Confederate defense of Atlanta -- the one that led a local editor to write that General Joseph E. Johnston's reputation had "grown with every backward step."

During one of Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress last year, he was met at one point with an emphatic outburst of “You lie!” by Congressman Joe Wilson. At the time Wilson’s outburst was deemed to be disrespectful, demeaning, unprofessional and/or even just stupid. In retrospect though, Wilson should be commended for pointing out what is the absolute truth about Obama, which is that he is indeed a liar. When Bill Clinton was serving as president, it became very evident that he was a pathological liar. However, Clinton’s lies were more of a personal nature which for...

From The Hill: House and Senate leaders have formally agreed to bypass a bicameral conference committee to merge two healthcare bills, and have opted to instead “ping-pong” the Senate bill over to the House and back again…the House will take up the Senate bill and amend it, then send it back to the Senate for final approval. The decision was made to scrap a conference committee out of concern that Republicans in both the House and the Senate would employ a series of procedural delaying tactics, only serving to delay the inevitable and frustrate the majority, aides said. The poor,...

The traditional “Top Ten Breakthroughs of the Decade” lists have been appearing in science-related publications. One breakthrough, however, is conspicuously missing from every list I’ve seen so far. I’m talking about the new understanding of the role and proper dosage of the sunshine vitamin D. The “scientific consensus” that has held sway for four decades regarding both exposure to the sun and vitamin D has collapsed. What has emerged in place of the old “settled science” is the knowledge that most people in America are seriously vitamin D deficient or insufficient. The same is true for Canada and Europe, and...

The U.S. Citizens Association is attempting to do the impossible by petitioning to recall Senators who voted for Obamacare. Although recalling those members of Congress who want to wreck the health care system might be desirable, it isn't authorized by the Constitution. The best voters can do is to sign symbolic petitions that would authorize recall of Senators or Representatives if such a option were available. States have the authority to authorize the recall of state officials because state constitutions determine the method of removing those holding offices defined by state constitutions. However, the U.S. Constitution defines the selection procedures...

<p>Explosive outrage as Dec. 7 remembers Muslims instead of Japan attack on U.S.- FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Explosive outrage is being unleashed on a popular supermarket chain after it published a 2010 calendar marking the date of Dec. 7 with the Islamic New Year, while eliminating any mention of Pearl Harbor Day, commemorating the 1941 attack on the U.S. by Japan.</p>

In this week's issue of Defense News , Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, warns, "Stagnation threatens U.S. arms superiority." After noting recent tests by Russia and China of new nuclear-armed missiles, Berman writes, Indeed, practically every declared nuclear weapon state is engaged in a serious modernization of its strategic arsenal. The United States, by contrast, has allowed its strategic infrastructure to atrophy since the end of the Cold War. The results of this neglect are striking, as scholars Bradley Thayer and Thomas Skypek have detailed in a pair of studies. America's ICBM force is aging...

The level of infiltration is surpassed only by the silence of the lambs. Why are Americans standing for this? Radical Fundraiser Becomes Illinois Police Chaplain Previously on the IPT blog we stressed the need for the Defense Department's Islamic Chaplaincy program to adopt a stricter vetting process, citing historically radical imams who have served in the program. Now the same can be said for the chaplaincy program for the Illinois State Police. The Mosque Foundation website reports that Sheikh Kifah Mustapha recently completed a four day training session in Springfield, Illinois to become the first certified Muslim chaplain for the...

When Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) emerged from a closed-door meeting with top House Democratic leaders yesterday, the press asked her about C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb’s request that she permit cameras to televise the final health care negotiations between the House and Senate. After Pelosi first demurred, a reporter reminded Pelosi about President Barack Obama’s frequent promises to the American people throughout 2008 that he would ensure C-SPAN was allowed to televise exactly such negotiations, to which Nancy Pelosi quipped: “There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail.”

At least eight times during the campaign President Obama promised that the heath care negotiations will be open, transparent, and on C-Span. Both the president and the congress have been Ignoring that promise, transparency is the last thing they want. If the debate was transparent it would be hard to load the bill with those provisions that would make the American people's ears start to bleed if they knew what was in it. Those earmarks and bribes, or the provision that the bill cannot be changed are just a few examples of what was put into the senate bill at...

In case you missed it, courtesy of the irreplaceable Sheya:

Rove blasts Baghdad Bob Rove: "Robert Gibbs is basically telling the American people 'you want and answer to that' drop dead, I'm not gonna give you an answer, the insulting nature, the dismissive tone. There's gonna be alot more Democrats around America, whether this thing passes or not, who are gonna suffer because of the arrongance of this Administration and the arrogance of the leadership in Congress which is basically saying you're too stupid, you're too unimportant?

"You've heard of a bridge to nowhere. This is health care to nowhere. California's congressional delegation should either vote against this bill..or get in and fight for the same sweetheart deal that Senator Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State. He got the corn, we got the husk.'' The Governator gave his final State-of-the-State speech today and made a surprising 180 degree turn on Obamacare. Schwarzenegger was a big supporter of the bill, but finally realized that it will drive California deeper in debt, with the higher state costs for Medicare. In his speech he laid down a challenge...

Voodoo Anyone? lauded in U.S. Senate Malcolm A. Kline, January 6, 2010 Last month U. S. Senator Michael Enzi, R-Wyoming, recommended Accuracy in Academia’s new textbook to his colleagues in remarks on the Senate floor. “I think this book was delivered to every office,” he noted. “I got one in my office.” “It is called Voodoo Anyone? It is How to understand economics without really trying. I do hope every Senator finds their copy of this book and takes a look at it because it talks about prices, how prices are set, what affects prices, what happens when you fix...

Anyone with any rational thought knew it was a joke: then candidate Obama promising to have all major debates in front of cameras for the whole world to see. Well, now, you can officially proclaim the era of Obama transparency dead...dead as a doornail.

This Letter to the Editor appeared in the August 23, 2009 edition of the Jackson (MS) Clarion Ledger.

When CNSNews.com asked Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) where the Constitution authorizes Congress to force Americans to buy health insurance, Leahy would not directly answer the question he claimed that "nobody" questioned Congress's authority to do this. Obviously he hasn't been listening. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was equally dismissive of the question of where the Constitution authorized Congress to force Americans to buy health insurance. When reporter Matt Cover asked her the question, she said: “Are you serious? Are you serious?” White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs similarly dismissed the issue without directly saying where the Constitution authorized the federal government...

The patriotic and traditionalist fervor that breathed life into a new Tea Party movement in America now wanes with the eminent passage of a so-called healthcare reform bill. I warned anyone who would listen from the very beginning of this fight that no manner of protesting would avert this outcome, but most wouldn’t listen. Not only did We The People who do not want this government takeover of our health fail to “kill the bill,” but we did not even succeed in removing the greatest offense within it, which is taxpayer funding for abortion. Rest assured, this will not be...

The best hope we have to defeat Obamacare is to help elect Scott Brown for Senate in Massachusetts in the special election being held there on January 19th! Get more information Here, Here, Here, and Here This morning he came out and said, "I endorse the use of waterboarding and. . send Abdulmutallab to Gitmo." Sounds like my kind of dude. Pass this on. Wouldn't this be something if. . .

REP. JOHN BOEHNER: “Hard-working families won’t stand for having the future of their health care decided behind closed doors. Too much is at stake to have a final bill built on payoffs and pork-barrel spending.”

> "It was surprising to me how potent leptin was in treating diabetes," said Jeffrey Friedman of Rockefeller University. "It had a highly significant impact at plasma levels that were undetectable." >

Washington—In what could be the final nail in the coffin of the Senate healthcare bill, Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, has threatened to strip in front of any member that is unwilling to vote for the public option. After bribing, threatening and extorting from various members of Congress, Pelosi has reached her wits end, and will take it all off to get what she wants.

In our justifiable zeal in attacking His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First’s irresponsible attempt to reform our nation’s healthcare system, I think that sometimes our attacks fail to hit the mark due to their overly technical and detailed nature. Perhaps it would be wise to step back from tearing to shreds the various aspects of the King’s plan and instead ask a few simple questions. In this way maybe those members of the public who might not be following this issue as closely as we are might come to realize why the King’s healthcare reform is so wrong for...

Former High Ranking Soviet Spy Warns of Dem’s Marxist Reshaping of America Tuesday, January 5, 2010, 11:44 AM Red Horizons Ion Mihai Pacepa, who wrote about the brutal Romanian Marxist Nicolae Ceausescus, fears the Marxism invading our shores.As democrats continue their backroom deals and billion dollar buyoffs to reshape the American economy and culture a former high-ranking Soviet spy sent out a warning this week on the dangerous Marxist policies of the majority party. Christian News Wire reported, via Transsylvania Phoenix: The highest-ranking Soviet and Eastern Bloc Intelligence Official ever to defect to America (in 1978) — who went on...

C-SPAN wrote a letter to congressional leaders asking that TV cameras be allowed to film negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform legislation. Today Nancy Pelosi said that she has passed the letter on but "There has never been a more open process for any legislation," (See Video Below) Pelosi hinted that holding informal negotiations--likely without TV cameras--might be the most practical way to push the legislation through. And then she accidentally explained the reason for all of the bribes and earmarks: "We will do what is necessary to pass the bill," Rep. Chris Van Hollen...

Firing shock-waves into the body could be a radical new way to boost the love lives of men with erection problems. The pain-free therapy boosts performance by stimulating the growth of new blood vessels in the genital area. A small trial involving 20 men who were taking Viagra or similar drugs for impotence problems was so successful that, by the end of the experiment, 15 of them were able to throw their pills away.

In November 2007, President Obama promised that the reform of health care including the negotiations will be open in a public setting, and not behind closed doors. He even suggested that they would be broadcast live on CSPAN and streamed live over the net. In fact he said they needed to be open because that's why Hillarycare was defeated. Both the president and the congress have been Ignoring that promise, because transparency is the last thing they want. Throughout the Health Care debate, preferring instead to Ram a bill down out throats, with provisions that would make the American People's...

First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress's powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the...

Move over Psychic Friends Network. Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson just became the latest contender for the infomercial throne. He’s pitching his own brand of healthcare snake oil. And, he’s sealing the sale in truest infomercial pitchman form, with the bogus guarantee: “Remember, folks, it’s not run by government.” Even the infamous PFN was never so shameless. At least they always added the caveat: “For entertainment purposes only.” Ben Nelson, of course, can’t do that – because his infomercial is no more entertaining that it is honest. After having voted to saddle every citizen of Nebraska (as well as the nation...

10. Canadian health boards wanted four more years of having somewhere to send their citizens to get medical care. 9. The benefits were supposed to start sooner but Senator Baucus had a few too many before writing the bill. 8. Harry Reid doesn’t care that 20.5 million people will lose health insurance between now and then. 7. To ensure Obama can run for reelection before the health care disaster hits (oh wait…not a joke). 6. To give the Democrats time to reinstall the inheritance tax before the death panels get going.

If there were any doubts that we are under one-party rule, the Democrats just made it perfectly clear by deciding that Obamacare will be pushed over the final legislative hurdle without a formal House-Senate conference committee. Instead, according to Democratic aides, the final compromise talks will be a three-way negotiation involving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and the White House. Three individuals all of one party and one far left ideological mind making the final decisions on a compromise between the Senate and House versions of so-called health care reform. continued

There has been a notable absence of public polling in the January 19 special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. That will begin to change tomorrow, when Scott Rasmussen releases the results of a poll that he's conducting tonight. But THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained the results of a private poll conducted last week by a reputable non-partisan firm. In that survey, Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley led Republican state senator Scott Brown in the ballot test by 50% to 39%--not bad for Brown in a state Obama carried by 23 points. More interesting, perhaps, is that...

Does Obama know anyone who isn't wacky, radical, militant, judeophobic, socialist, marxist, pedophilic? ...... Does he chill with anyone who is normal? Isn't there one Marilyn Munster in the family? What a freak show this presidency is. I guess this is better than teaching fist f**king to our children. Now there's a positive spin. President Obama recently named Amanda Simpson to be a Senior Technical Advisor to the Commerce Department. ABC News In a statement, Simpson, a member of the National Center for Transgender Equality's board of directors, said that "as one of the first transgender presidential appointees to the...

Flipping through the channels the other evening, I came across Frank Capra’s 1939 classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Most may remember the story of a naive guy, played by the great Jimmy Stewart, who goes to Washington only to find how terribly corrupt it is, including Mr. Smith’s co-Senator and childhood hero. That it was on, I found peculiar, because I was surfing the channels so as to briefly get away from the deluge of information about the horse trading going on in our Senate. President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid, the “Three Whoresman of...

NPR Teaches You How to Speak "Tea Bag" Why am I linking? Because you paid for this -- you might as well enjoy the fruits of your labor. You ponied up good hard cash, that could have gone to your retirement, or a kid's braces, or a new plasma tv, so that NPR could insult you as stupid and crazy. And a "teabagger." NPR -- time for them to go. Definitely click -- you are paying for their servers, after all. Thanks to EdwardR. and others.

page 18. Firearms - This is where feathers get ruffled and wounds opened. Everyone has their own idea of what the "perfect" survival firearm is or should be. Survival Guns Below I’ll outline five groups of firearms covering a broad range of tasks, needs and budgets. If nothing else my suggestions should generate discourse. I work at Wal-Mart Group 1. Mosin Nagant 91 rifle 2. Single Shot .12 gauge 3. Smith&Wesson model 10 The Government Welfare group 1. Short Magazine Lee-Enfield 2. Mossberg Maverick 88 12 gauge pump 3. Smith&Wesson model 10 4. Ruger 10/22 I have a full time...

Enter Stage Right and author Steve Martinovich has awarded Sarah Palin Person of the Year for 2009 for a 2nd year. Top two finishers: former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Fox News star Glenn Beck. The winner was decided by narrowest of margins: Sarah Palin

All of our current political debate, when reduced to its essence, is centered on answering a single question: Is the Reagan Revolution permanent? By this time next year, after the 2010 midterm election results are in, we will know. I predict that We the People will affirm the election of 1980 as a political realignment with a resounding "yes!" And for enabling us to finally answer that question -- and for the answer itself -- one man will deserve our special thanks: John McCain. Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your eyes. I write to praise John McCain, not to bury...

As many of you know, I'm the mom of two autistic kids. While I've been blessed that they are high-functioning, it has been and continues to be something we struggle with. It can be exhausting. The last statistics I had read about the prevelance of autism spectrum disorders placed the number at 1 in every 100 kids. That's staggering. Could you imagine the outcry from the gay community if this was AIDS we were talking about? But yet the Washington DC voices remain silent.

PLAINS, GA (WALB) – A doll found hanging off of a building in Plains is causing controversy.Controversial enough to get the United States Secret Service involved. Witnesses say it was an image of President Barack Obama with a rope around his neck and the display was found hanging in one of the city's most recognizable sites dedicated to former President Jimmy Carter.A few people were able to snap pictures of the black doll before it was taken down. The doll was hanging on a building on Main Street in Plains."I saw this stuffed thing hanging up," said Alonzo Davis, Plains...