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Failure to buy health insurance in the just-passed health care bill could get you five years in jail with a $250,000 fine. How can violating a law that's unconstitutional be a felony, asks Investor's Business Daily (IBD)? The passage last Saturday night of the House health care measure by a fragile 220-215 margin may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. In polls, townhall meetings and tea parties, Americans have shown they don't want a "reform" that costs a staggering $1.2 trillion yet fails to meet the left's desire of insuring all the uninsured. And they certainly don't want a...

Health Care Reform: Failure to buy health insurance in the just-passed health care bill could get you five years in jail with a $250,000 fine. How can violating a law that's unconstitutional be a felony? The passage last Saturday night of the House health care measure by a fragile 220-215 margin may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. In polls, townhall meetings and tea parties, Americans have shown they don't want a "reform" that costs a staggering $1.2 trillion yet fails to meet the left's desire of insuring all the uninsured. And they certainly don't want a bill that...

<p>Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday’s elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.</p>

It was January 28th 2009 a mire 8 days after Obama was inaugurated. With a stroke of the pen he landed a commanding blow to the bio-fuel companies of America. What a surprise!! Everyone thought Obama was going to be a green president;

First-century believers could have offered tangible evidence that there was little chance for the gospel to have an impact on the status quo of religious and civil oppression in their day. How could a small band of men—led by a fisherman (Peter) and a tentmaker (Paul)—living under Roman occupation ever conceive that their circumstances would change enough so that the gospel message would lead to the transformation of the world? To add to the improbability of a world-wide impact, soon after the victorious ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on His disciples, one of their own...

Health Reform: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says it's constitutional to mandate insurance coverage. Congress, he insists, has "broad authority" to make us buy things to provide for the "general welfare." Democrats' Alice In Wonderland interpretation of what they consider to be a "living Constitution," where words mean what they say they mean based on political considerations, gets more bizarre by the minute. (snip) We've been down this road before. In 1994, Hillary Clinton's secretive health care task force was trying to nationalize health care. "A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of...

Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?A key part of the administration's plan to reform health care is what is called the "individual mandate" — a requirement that everyone must have health insurance either through his or her employer or purchased individually. A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point...

Health care workers in New York will no longer be forced to get the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, CBS 2 has learned. A state Supreme Court judge issued a restraining order Friday against the state from enforcing the controversial mandatory vaccination. The order came as the Public Employees Federation sued to reverse a policy requiring vaccination against the seasonal and swine flu viruses, arguing that state Health Commissioner Richard Daines overstepped his authority. Three parties – the Public Employees Federaion, New York State United Teachers, and an attorney representing four Albany nurses – challenged the order and for now the...

And perhaps even more. The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel points out that well-placed senators are getting special favors in the bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid gets the feds to pick up Nevada's extra Medicaid spending. Charles Schumer gets many high-cost insurance plans in New York exempted from tax. How long before other members seek similar breaks for their states?

New York (CBS) -- The first doses of the H1N1 vaccine are expected to be released this week. While that is bringing relief to some Americans, it's also helping to ignite a controversy for one group, as CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports. Outside New York 's capitol building, health care workers - shouting "Give me liberty!" - vowed to fight an unprecedented order from state health officials: a requirement for every health care worker to get seasonal and H1N1 flu shots or face the possibility of being fired.

That's the question Byron York asks, based on Gallup poll results indicating that most Americans are back to wanting the government to promote "traditional values" rather than "not favoring any particular set of values." That preference has generally existed over the last 20 years, but the balance swung away from "traditional values"--which means whatever the poll respondent has in mind--beginning in 2005. Byron argues that this is more evidence that the Democrats have badly misread their mandate: [T]hat period of revulsion at Bush and Republicans from 2005 to 2008 left a legacy: a Democrat in the White House and large...

So failure to pay the mandate would be enforced like tax evasion, but Mr. Obama still claims it isn't a tax. "You can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase," Mr. Obama insisted last week to ABC interviewer George Stephanopoulos. Accusing critics of dishonesty is becoming this President's default argument, but is Mr. Barthold also part of the plot?

ObamaCare is bleeding support; Rasmussen shows approval at its lowest level to date. Because senior citizens are the age group paying closest attention, they are the age group showing greatest intensity of opposition to health care reform. Guess which age group is paying the least attention and yet shows strongest support for ObamaCare? If you clicked on the links you already know the answer, 18-29 year olds. Unfortunately for young adults, they are also the group most likely to bear the greatest costs of Obama's health care reform and obstensively Obamanomics in general.

After a rough week for health care reform, Democratic leaders appear to be pulling back on their demand for a public option. It remains to be seen whether liberal Democrats, especially in the House where they are more numerous, will go along with this. But this is still a step in the right direction to get something passed this year. The public option was an overreach. The White House's erroneous belief that it could get it through the legislature - or at least that it could let four out of five congressional committees push it - was a misinterpretation of...

(Obama):"I was opposed to this idea because my general attitude was, the reason people don't have health insurance is not because they don't want it, but because they can't afford it. And if you make it affordable, then they will come," he said in a recent interview with CBS. "I've been persuaded that there are enough young, uninsured people who are cheap to cover, but are opting out. To make sure that those folks are part of the overall pool is the best way to make sure that all of our premiums go down."

So today the minimum wage goes up by government mandate. What a time for celebration, right? What wonderful compassion is being show by our government, right? We have no idea whether any workers will actually make more money as a result. But consider what is really happening today that we know for sure: A: Small business owners just took a pay cut. B: Some hourly workers will get less hours. C: Some hourly workers will get laid off. D: Some union contracts just got raised. E: None of the businesses affected will have one more penny in sales volume as...

New regulations and bureaucracy are limiting consumer choice and adding to health care costs. Program costs have skyrocketed. Despite tax increases, the program faces huge deficits. The state is considering caps on insurance premiums, cuts in reimbursements to providers, and even the possibility of a "global budget" on health care spending-with its attendant rationing. A shortage of providers, combined with an increased demand, is increasing waiting times to see a physician. When the Massachusetts reforms first became law (2006), they were projected to cost about $1.56 billion per year in total. The entire reform act was projected to cost more...

Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs at workplaces and community centers. He wants more time in the school day for physical fitness, more nutritious school lunches and more bike paths, walking paths and grocery stores in underserved areas. The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie. Even Congress is getting into the act, giving...

Springfield MO, 200+ people arrived in 35 degree weather to show their support to the nationwide "tea party" movement, and the disgust at the obscene expansion of wasteful government spending.

Talk about mandate, do remember what the liberals said about George Bush's mandate and political capital he claimed to have after the 2004 election ? Let me refresh your memory: "What mandate, he won the narrowest re-election of a president since 1916." "Bush only earned barely over half the vote, and just 286 electoral votes" "half of us didn’t trust him, didn’t like him, and didn’t want him in office." So there you have it, clearly liberals have setup the ground game for what defines enough votes for a mandate. So would you spin the Obama win as a landslide...

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - An effort to delay the Feb. 17 deadline for a nationwide switch to digital television failed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday after Republicans blocked the move. The legislation is backed by President Barack Obama and already passed the U.S. Senate. However, it failed to gain the required two-thirds support in the House under special rules adopted for the vote.

According to the official Statement of the Vote released by the Secretary of State. Proposition 8 passed by a margin of 52.3% to 47.7%. Here are some additional facts: # Prop. 8 received 2,150,000 more votes than did Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was reelected in 2006 # Prop. 8 received nearly 2 million more votes than Dianne Feinstein did when she was reelected to the US Senate in 2006 # Prop. 8 received 250,000 more votes than did John Kerry when he carried California in 2004 # Prop. 8 received 45,000 more votes than did Barbara Boxer in her landslide...

Until recently, the post-election conventional wisdom had been that Barack Obama was off to a “great start” in his quest to unite the country, clean up its politics and prepare it for a presidency that would inevitably become the hinge of recent American history. Since then, however, events have intervened. In recent weeks, the Obama transition has been most notable for being marred by scandal, humbled by losses at the ballot box and conspicuous in its lack of leadership. Most recent, of course, was the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat with strong ties to Obama and his...

Chief Justice William Rehnquist liked to take small groups of Supreme Court law clerks to lunch at the Monocle, an old Capitol Hill watering hole near the Senate. He ordered the same meal every time, a hamburger and a beer. Just as predictably, one of the young clerks would ask the chief justice of the United States for career advice. "Go home," he would say. It was only the mischievous twinkle in Rehnquist's eye that persuaded the listeners not to immediately clean out their desks right after lunch. As the chief justice would explain, the states, not Washington, presented the...

"Universal" government-run health care proved too ambitious even for FDR, who stripped it out of the Social Security Act of 1935. Lyndon Johnson settled for Medicare and Medicaid. Now liberals think the political moment has finally arrived to achieve what has eluded every other Democratic President from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton. First, Democrats want the government to create a national insurance exchange, or marketplace, in which all comers could buy into a range of heavily regulated private policies at group rates. These private plans would then "compete" with a new public insurance option, i.e., a program managed by the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26, 2008 – Though “significant Russian movements” have taken place in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Russia still is not living up to the terms of the cease-fire agreement, a senior Defense Department official said here today. “There is still a sizeable Russian presence in Georgia. … They’ve established some self-declared security zones, observation posts and checkpoints and the like,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a meeting with reporters. “All are a reflection that they are not living up to the agreement.” The mission of the U.S. military in the country now is to provide humanitarian...

California will need to spend an additional $3.1 billion to implement the aggressive plan that calls for every student to take algebra in the eighth grade within three years, state Superintendent Jack O'Connell said today. The money is needed to reduce class sizes in middle school, recruit additional math teachers and add increase the amount of time spent teaching math. But lawmakers are still dealing with an enormous state deficit, and there's no sense of where an additional $3.1 billion would come from. The new algebra requirement has enormous support from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and many in the business community,...

Yesterday Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, announced in London that Pope Benedict wishes to introduce the "Gregorian Rite" – meaning the former Tridentine Rite – to every parish in the Western Church.

The traditional Latin Mass – effectively banned by Rome for 40 years – is to be reintroduced into every Roman Catholic parish in England and Wales, the senior Vatican cardinal in charge of Latin liturgy said at a press conference in London today. In addition, all seminaries will be required to teach trainee priests how to say the old Mass so that they can celebrate it in all parishes. Catholic congregations throughout the world will receive special instruction on how to appreciate the old services, formerly known as the Tridentine Rite.

Many policy makers at the weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank agreed that the problem is severe. Among other targets, they singled out U.S. policies pushing corn-based ethanol and other biofuels as deepening the woes."When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," said India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview. Turkey's finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, said the use of food for biofuels is "appalling."

The administration can keep troops in Iraq into next year even after the current U.N. mandate governing operations there expires and without Congress' permission, a senior State Department official told a Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday. In a letter to Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., David Satterfield said military operations can continue "beyond the end of this year under the laws passed by Congress and the president's authority as commander in chief." Satterfield's statement reaffirms the administration's position that it does not need international or congressional approval to conduct military operations around the world, particularly when going after terrorists. Democrats counter that...

I am not much of a policy wonk. Rarely do I don my pointy hat and delve into the mysteries of exactly how government tries to run our lives. Usually it is enough for me to spout generalities while railing against bureaucrats, liberals, and eager beaver do gooders who often act as surrogates for government policy in lieu of direct intervention by agencies. No, I have eschewed covering policy for the most part. I am not smart enough and fear if I cram  my head with too much of that stuff, other more important things will dribble out of my...

Penalties for Massachusetts residents who can afford health insurance but do not purchase it in 2008 could quadruple compared with the maximum penalty in 2007, according to draft regulations released by the Department of Revenue yesterday. The maximum penalty for those who flout the law and do not buy health insurance would be $912 a year, compared to $219 in 2007. The higher penalty is intended to get those who are on the fence to buy health insurance. For those wavering, it could make more sense to pay for insurance than to pay the penalty.

The White House says the President wants to sign this today. This is not Republican Government to mandate private business you can't produce legal products that the public wants. Call now and let the President know you are sick of this garbage all for the PC Global Warming crowd.

To bring about universal coverage in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says people must start thinking about health insurance the way they do auto insurance - as a responsibility everyone must shoulder to make the system work. The idea polls well, and Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards are pushing it in their presidential campaigns. But a look at how mandatory insurance has fared in other places, from Switzerland to Massachusetts, shows it will not be easy to put into practice in California. The reason is mainly the cost. Health care is a lot cheaper in the countries that have...

PARIS, May 27, 2007 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Sunday confirmed the release of three Afghan hostages who were abducted by the Taliban militia along with two French aid-workers. "It is with great joy that I have learned of the freeing of the three Afghan hostages working for the aid organisation Terre d'Enfance (A World For Our Children)," Kouchner said in a statement. The three were kidnapped with Celine Cordelier and Eric Damfreville on April 3. Cordelier was freed on April 28 and Damfreville on May 11. President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a statement expressing his delight at...

TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey would become the first state to require both pregnant women and newborns to be tested for HIV under a proposal introduced by the Senate president. The bill would require all pregnant women be tested for HIV twice, once early in the pregnancy and a second time in the third trimester. Every birthing facility in the state would have to test all newborns in their care. Senate President Richard J. Codey introduced the legislation on Thursday, which he described as a "no brainer." The Associated Press first reported on Codey's plan in March. "The key in...

In a few weeks the US Congress is likely to vote to phase out the standard incandescent lightbulb within a decade. The frantic race to see who can best appease the global warming alarmists will claim another victim, the friendly glow of the direct descendant of Thomas Edison's filament-based light bulb.   Why would the humble lightbulb, a staple commodity that has raised the standard of living throughout the world, be in the bullseye?  It was the incandescent electric light bulb that abolished the tyranny of the night. Our 19th and 20th century ancestors believed it one of the greatest...

RICHMOND, Va. - NASCAR will mandate a change in the design of the Car of Tomorrow in an attempt to alleviate the heat that caused foam to melt in several cars last weekend at Martinsville. About 50 Nextel Cup series teams were at Richmond International Raceway on Tuesday to begin two days of testing the Car of Tomorrow on a larger track. Nextel Cup director John Darby said in an interview that before the next COT race at Phoenix on April 21, NASCAR will require teams remove a 23 inch by 8 inch block of foam above where the exhaust...

Unions spent more than $100 million getting out the vote, knocked on millions of doors and delivered Election Day support to Democrats running for the House by a more than 2-to-1 ratio. Now organized labor is spelling out what it wants from the new Democratic Congress. The priorities include raising the minimum wage, expanding health care and improving pension protections. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney sees the elections as a "mandate for a union agenda." Likewise, says Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO, "we have an opportunity to push our agenda... The AFL-CIO executive council is scheduled to meet Tuesday...

Update for Condi: Who is Humiliating Whom? On October 11, 2006 in a Keynote Address to the American Task Force on Palestine,1 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claimed that Palestinian Arabs feel "daily humiliation of occupation." Palestinians say they feel humiliated and harassed when Israeli authorities search them and their belongings; when they are prevented from "travel[ing] more freely" because of checkpoints, roadblocks, closures, curfews and security concerns. "Student of International History" Dr. Rice, you maintain that you are "a student of international history." International law, the UN Charter and Article 80 of the UN Charter implicitly recognize the Mandate...

Big power diplomacy to stop the fighting in Lebanon ground into gear yesterday as Britain and other European states pushed hard for the deployment of an international intervention force on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Tony Blair appeared to admit that he had become a mere adjunct of American diplomacy As Israel bombarded Lebanon for the sixth day, seeking to weaken the pro-Iranian Hizbollah movement and stop it from firing rockets into Israeli territory, American officials said that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, would travel to the Middle East "soon". Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, was already in Beirut...

Tech Stuff: Ethanol Promises   1   2   3   4   5   6   7 Farm-raising our own energy independence: Could it happen? BY PATRICK BEDARD July 2006 You will be hosing ethanol into your gas tank. You will. It’s the law. The 551-page Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed last August, includes many sops to a blur of special interests, but one single provision rang the bell for automakers, greenies, and farmers, and for a broad coalition of ordinary motorists who were hoping for something, anything, to bring down gasoline prices; starting in 2006, the average gallon of “gas” will contain 2.78-percent...

Palestinian militants preparing for an expected Israeli armoured assault on Gaza have vowed to deploy suicide bombers against advancing tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Militant leaders are activating volunteers who have lain dormant because security measures make it all but impossible for Palestinian bombers to attack Israel from fenced-off Gaza. Only a handful of suicide bombers have emerged from Gaza, including a British national who exploded a bomb outside a bar in Tel Aviv in April 2003, killing three. A militant from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades But in the warren of streets just off the main north-south road through Gaza,...

The poll found that 63% of all Britons had a favourable opinion of Muslims, down slightly from 67% in 2004 . . . Attitudes in Britain were more positive than in the US, Germany and Spain (where the popularity of Muslims has plummeted to 29%), and about the same as in France. Less than a third of British non-Muslims said they viewed Muslims as violent, significantly fewer than non-Muslims in Spain (60%), Germany (52%), the US (45%) and France (41%) . . . only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French...

BRITISH Muslims are more radicalised than those in several other major western European nations, according to the authors of a new global poll. The Pew Global Attitudes Report found Muslims in Britain were more likely than their counterparts in France, Germany and Spain to feel there was a conflict between being devout and living in modern society. They were also the most likely of the groups in the three countries to say Arabs did not carry out the September 11 attacks. Their opinion of Westerners was lower and more of them described relations between Westerners and Muslims as bad. Almost...

New York legislators, not satisfied with having the second highest tax burden in the nation, are pondering what some call "the biggest tax increase in the history" of the state, in order to force businesses to provide employee health care.The Syracuse Post-Standard reports that legislators are considering the potential $ 8.4 billion tax increase as part of the "Fair Share for Health Care" bill: The bill would levy an additional tax on companies with more than 100 employees if they fail to spend at least $3 per hour on health insurance for each worker. According to the article, the measure...

PHOENIX — Oh, say, can you see the flag in the classroom? You definitely should be able to no later than July 1, 2007. That's the date by which, state senators declared Tuesday, every public school, community college and university classroom must have an American flag. Oh, and it must be at least 2 by 3 feet and U.S.-made only, thank you. The measure is not likely to have a major impact on public schools, where most classrooms already have flags so students can recite the Pledge of Allegiance each day. The real effect will be at state universities and...

PHOENIX -- State lawmakers voted Tuesday to tell every public school, community college and state university to put an American flag in every classroom. But who is going to pay for it remains unclear. The legislation given preliminary Senate approval on a voice vote requires each governing board to seek donations of two-by-three foot flags -- made in the U.S. only -- or seek cash to put one in every room. They also would have to obtain flagpoles and other hardware. HB 2583 also says, though, that if the boards can't get the required number of flags by July 1,...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - If the state's convenience stores have their way, anyone wanting a six-pack of beer in Tennessee soon will have to prove they are old enough to buy it, even if they look well over 21. The state House approved legislation Thursday that would require all beer sellers but restaurants to check all IDs. The bill also would create a voluntary training regimen for sellers and all their employees called the "responsible vendors program," and that is where the legislation has drawn opposition. Businesses that participate in the program would face lower fines if found guilty of selling...