Free Republic

Gallup finds that 82 percent of Tea Party affiliated voters deem Newt Gingrich an acceptable Republican presidential nominee in 2012. They don't seem to realize that if he wins the nod their movement is doomed, regardless of how the general election goes. The Tea Party cannot support Gingrich without betraying its core principles. But the movement also cannot disclaim him once he is the Republican nominee. Tea Partiers with a better instinct for self-preservation would see that none of the Mitt Romney alternatives still running would be as corrosive to their cause as the former Speaker of the House. Why?...

With the Republican field’s first major test just weeks away, the failed presidential bid of Herman Cain is throwing his support behind the current frontrunner. Sources told Fox 5 Atlanta that Herman Cain will endorse the presidential bid of Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Several sexual harassment allegations and a claim of a long-term affair left the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO’s White House bid all but destroyed.

So now there's video of Newt explicitly recommending an individual mandate. Hard to see this enhancing Newt's appeal as the not-Romney. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcSjLvWLcxE&feature=player_embedded

<p>Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ryan Larsen. I’m a truth lover, chess player and avid political junkie. I co-founded WhyRomney.com, which is dedicated to correcting distortions and inaccuracies perpetrated against Mitt Romney.</p> <p>Before WhyRomney, I wrote for Lyingliar.com. At Lyingliar, we debunked all of Al Franken’s big attacks, from his “Chelsea Clinton is a dog” smear against Rush, to his “Peabody” smear against O’Reilly.</p>

Should energy consumers pay extra taxes to fund government-mandated and subsidized renewable energy technologies? "Absolutely yes," says John Bryson, President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary. He made the remark at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California in 2009 and went on to extol the virtues of hidden rates in California, a state encumbered with some of the nation's highest electricity and unemployment rates. Bryson, retired CEO of the electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company Edison International, excused the practice, saying, "That's been a part of the regulatory environment for the investor-owned utilities for as...

When Congress was debating the Obamacare law last year, I raised many concerns about the size and scope of the law and the outrageous amount of new federal taxes and spending it created. Like many people, I also have grown concerned about the law’s impact on Americans’ personal freedoms. My concern stems not only from its controversial mandate that every American buy health insurance, but also from other federal mandates that could follow. In challenging Obamacare’s individual mandate, the law’s critics have pointed out that if Congress can force Americans to buy health insurance, federal power would be nearly unlimited....

I have had it with the green nazis. They are ruining our standard of living, and I do not understand why we are putting up with it. I hope that if we are willing to stand up and be heard, it might make a difference. Fellow Freepers, I encourage you to join me in an attempt to turn the tide before it is too late. The website of the CEE is www.cee1.org and we all know how to contact our senators and representatives.

Gov. Jerry Brown is expected in coming days to sign a bill requiring that 33 percent of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2020, much more than the present requirement of 20 percent. This is by far the most ambitious plan of any state, spurred by a determination to reduce the emissions that contribute to global warming and to stop sending billions of dollars each year to oil-producing nations with troubling agendas. But on two fronts, there is a quality of make-believe to the legislation. For starters, given the extent of opposition to renewable-energy projects, California was going...

My guess is that Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Fla., is an amateur zoologist. Judge Vinson is the federal judge who ruled Monday that those who confected Obamacare cannot compel the citizenry to buy health insurance. Moreover, he found that the way the 2,700-page law was created, without any “severability clause,” makes the entire law unconstitutional. The authors of Obamacare declared that without mandatory insurance, the whole bill was unworkable. Mandatory insurance is not severable from the law. Hence, Judge Vinson threw out the whole law because of the way it was constructed. Now it...

<p>Long before his administration went into federal court to fight 27 states that are now challenging the constitutionality of the federal government forcing people to buy health insurance, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama told Ellen DeGeneres that—unlike his opponent Hillary Clinton—he opposed forcing the uninsured to buy health insurance, saying that it would be like forcing the homeless to buy homes.</p>

Candidate Obama argues against Mandates!

Candidate Obama argues against Mandates!

Scott joins 32 governors and governors-elect in call to stop "federal health care mandates"JANUARY 07, 2011 Gov. Rick Scott, along with 32 other governors and governors-elect, signed a letter sent to federal leaders today, urging a stop to "excessive constraints placed on us by healthcare-related federal mandates." "It is imperative that we stop federal health care mandates that tie the hands of states," Scott said in a prepared statement. "Florida should get to determine what program is the right fit for our state in terms of a Medicaid program, and the federal mandates are essentially the federal government telling us...

Health Reform Law's Legal, Political Obstacles Continue to MountAIR DATE: Dec. 20, 2010 JEFFREY BROWN: Next: new legal challenges for the landmark health reform law, as this past week marked a major moment in the battle between the Obama administration and a number of states. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) One of the most important and controversial pieces of the health reform law signed by President Obama last March is the so-called individual insurance mandate, under which individuals must buy health insurance beginning in 2014, or pay a penalty. The fines would be phased in, starting at $95 per person that first...

In the second such ruling, a federal judge in Virginia has declared the federal mandate to purchase insurance constitutional. Jude Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee as noted by The Hill, refused Liberty University’s challenge on the basis of ObamaCare funding for abortion, writing that since everyone at some time will seek health care services, the decision whether to buy insurance has a significant impact on interstate commerce and falls under the jurisdiction of Congress: “I hold that there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals’ decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities...

Mandates are the new, hip thing on Capitol Hill these days. Mandates for what health insurance companies must cover. Mandates for what kind of cars should be produced with what material and with what gas mileage. Mandates for banks to lower their lending standards for people wanting to purchase a home was a popular one the past decade. Mandates for how much energy a given company is allowed to use is one mandate that is still up for debate. Have you ever stopped to think about the consequences for this kind of mandate mania? ....go to my blog to read...

Today, six months since Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama will be celebrating the signature achievement of his administration. It's apt to be a lonely celebration: Few Democratic candidates are willing to talk about the health-care bill -- except the ones running ads to remind the electorate that they voted against it. Still, the president will speak today before a group of state insurance regulators, while a coalition of labor unions and liberal activist groups organize rallies around the country. They'll undoubtedly focus on some of the new law's more popular provisions, many of which...

All across the United States, health insurance companies like Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut are meeting with state insurance regulators about premiums. During the past couple of weeks, Anthem proved to Connecticut state regulators an average 18 percent premium increase reflected the requirements of federal health care mandates and increased provider costs. Of course, liberals and Senate candidate Attorney General Dick Blumenthal pull the "they are screwing us" card once again.

The recent health-care reform legislation carries a controversial mandate that all Americans obtain health insurance, but careful study of the passed law reveals there are some groups – the Amish, for example – that can obtain an exemption. For devout Muslims, however, whose religious beliefs forbid purchasing insurance...

The Economist wants to ease Americans’ concerns about Donald Berwick’s recess appointment : “Every health system rations in some way or other; the demand for health care is always greater than the resources available. The question is whether rationing is done openly and as sensibly as possible—or done implicitly, through murky pricing, bureaucratic fiat or denial of care. “Even Paul Ryan, a leading Republican congressman, has acknowledged this. ‘Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?’ he asks. The most objectionable aspect of Dr Berwick’s recess appointment is that...