Free Republic

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its annual National Health Expenditure Accounts report Wednesday. The report contains "the official estimates of total health care spending in the United States." In 2009, health care spending in the U.S. totaled $2.486 trillion, up 4% versus 2008. That equates to 17.6% of our nation's Gross Domestic Product and $8,086 per person. Federal, state and local governments disbursed nearly 44%, or $1.083 trillion, of all health care dollars spent while the amount paid directly by businesses and households was 21% and 28%, respectively. In light of this data, liberals fussing about...

STOCKTON - A gunman attempting to rob a patron in a store parking lot Sunday evening was shot by his own .44 Magnum revolver during a struggle, police said. Officers followed a trail of blood about 11/2 blocks from the store but were unable to find the man, said police Lt. Chuck Flesher. More than two hours after the shooting no one had shown up at a hospital for treatment, he said. The attempted robbery took place about 5:30 p.m. outside a market in the 2000 block of South El Dorado Street. The patron wrestled the gun away from the...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A man tried to rob a video lottery parlor on North Pinch Road in Elkview with a shotgun Wednesday, according to Kanawha County Chief Deputy Johnny Rutherford. Chad Wehrle, 30 of Elkview, walked into Teresa's Café just after midnight wearing dark clothing and a red bandana over his face and ordered everyone onto the floor, Rutherford said. When Wehrle demanded money, store worker Douglas James rose from the floor with a 44-caliber handgun and fired two rounds, Rutherford said. One of the shots hit Wehrle in the arm and upper torso, he said. Wehrle fled the building...

When government officials play the Olympic lottery, taxpayers lose. That has been the disastrous experience of host cities around the world. (Forbes magazine even dubbed the post-Olympic financial burden the "Host City Curse.") So, why are President Obama and his White House entourage headed to Copenhagen, Denmark, this week to push a fiscally doomed Chicago 2016 bid? Political payback. Bringing the games to the Windy City is Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's "vision." The entrenched Democratic powerbroker — in office since 1989 — would like to cap off his graft-haunted tenure with a glorious $4 billion bread-and-circuses production. The influential...

Politico has an extraordinary report on Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, launching a furious broadside against the British press. Here are Gibbs' sneering and condescending remarks: "I want to speak generally about some reports I've witnessed over the past few years in the British media," Gibbs said. "In some ways, I'm surprised it filtered down." "Let's just say if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I'd might open up a British newspaper," he continued. "If I was looking for something that...

No, not that 44 -- the age 44. I am turning (along with Sarah Jessica Parker) the grand age of 44 today. It's a palindrome. It's redundant. It's quadrennial. It's a multiple of lucky 11. It's a cool number.It represents each and every year I have walked upon this earth. Every year I have been blessed to live in the greatest country in history. Every year I have had the great privilege to know my mother and father. Why would I want to deny any single one of them?Each year has had its good and bad -- and when I press...

At a black-tie dinner two nights later at a Hilton in Washington, D.C., Rooney had a little better luck when he handed over a game ball from the AFC Championship Game to the newest member of a now-rapidly expanding Steelers Nation: the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama. "He's a Bears fan first, he admits that," Rooney told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "But he's a Steelers fan. He said it, and all his staff, they're rooting for us [in the Super Bowl]."

The metamorphosis of Condoleezza Rice from the chrysalis of the protégé into the butterfly of the State Department has not been a natural evolution but has demanded self-discipline. She has burnished an image of the ultimate loyalist, yet betrayed her mentor, George H.W. Bush's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft. She is the team player, yet carefully inserted knives in the back of her predecessor, Colin Powell, climbing up them like a ladder of success. She is the person most trusted on foreign policy by the president, yet was an enabler for Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives. Now her public...

Gorge-eous George Sen. Allen's appetite for corporate goodiesis larger than his discretion ALOT OF PEOPLE like money, but only 100 of them are U.S. senators, who help steer the nation's policies. Self-aggrandizement should not factor into shaping those policies, and perhaps in Virginia Sen. George Allen's case it has not. But the necessity for the word "perhaps" stems from the merry indifference Mr. Allen has shown to juxtaposing private gain and public affairs. In early 2005, as Mr. Allen prepared to take a seat on the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources, only the goading of press reports persuaded his wife,...

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU 'Black spinster' label pinned on Condi Rice Palestinian media use racist terms including 'colored dark skin lady' Posted: July 31, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern   By Aaron Klein© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com   Condoleezza Rice depicted in Al Quds as pregnant with a monkey. The image's caption read, "Rice speaks about birth of new Middle East." JERUSALEM – While U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in the Middle East meeting regional alongside Israel's military campaign in Lebanon, media outlets controlled by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party the past few days have been using racist rhetoric...

Time to dust off the whoopee cushions and hand buzzers. April Fools' Day is here and there's no better place for wisecracks and shenanigans than at work. In its annual April Fools' Day survey, CareerBuilder.com found 33 percent of workers have played a practical joke on a co-worker and 17 percent are planning office tricks for this year's holiday. Although it might be thrilling to finally one-up the office funnyman, pranks also help beat something that's no laughing matter: workplace stress. More than half of workers reported working under stress in another CareerBuilder.com survey. Stress and worry on the job...

WASHINGTON — Hillary blew it. That was the instant reaction in the room where I watched Tuesday night's State of the Union address. It was such a simple thing, but the senator from New York missed her cue. It was this: smile and show the nice people that you're a human being and that you have a sense of humor. But no. When President George W. Bush tossed a valentine to her husband, former President Bill Clinton, the senator sat stone-faced, nary a crack in her facade. Catty? Not at all. Shaken, perhaps, but not stirred. Truthfully, I'm pulling for...

"Pres. Bush's penchant for handing out nicknames to those around him strikes again! And while GWB and GHWB lovingly refer to one another as '41' and '43' respectively, White House insiders say GWB is now referring to Condi as '44' ... developing ..." Other Condi Rice 2008 websites: http://www.americansforrice.com/http://condoleezza.blogspot.com/ http://condiforpresident2008.blogspot.com/

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2005 – Iraqi security forces and multinational forces from Task Force Freedom detained 44 suspected terrorists and seized a number of weapons during operations in northern Iraq Sept. 26-30, military officials reported. Iraqi police seized a weapons cache during a cordon-and-search operation in eastern Mosul on Sept. 28. The cache included artillery rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, rockets, and blasting caps. The weapons were confiscated for future destruction. During five operations in Tal Afar between Sept. 26 and 29, soldiers from the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, detained 17 individuals suspected of terrorist activity. Suspects are in custody....

Bush won .. 44 is the NEW number .. we don't have to listen Daschle whine again, and ain't it a kick?? God Bless America, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, all our leaders, the Republic campaigners who worked SO hard, and ESPECIALLY our unbelievably brave troops! Pray pray pray .. and just a little gloat every now and then to realize how incredible this victory was. Thank you, God.

The Bronx Bombers and their big spending boss, George Steinbrenner, are closin in on a deal with city and state officials to build a gleaming new Yankee Stadium in a park next to the House that Ruth Built. The team is in the final sages of planning for a new $700 million "state of the art" stadium, a source close to the Yankees said yesterday. But the team denied a story in Crain's New york Business that an announcement can be expected in the next two weeks.

Putting an energetic young Southerner on his ticket should boost John Kerry's chances in the South, but the region remains a stronghold for President Bush, Florida political leaders said Tuesday. "A presidential race never really plays out on the state where the vice president comes from," said Barney Bishop, a veteran Tallahassee campaign consultant who heads Democrats for Bush this year. "But John Edwards gives Kerry at least a chance to pick up some strength in the South. He's young and popular." Florida's U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who was on Kerry's "short list," thanked him for "the very dignified and...

January 22, 2003 Guy Einer McClure drank whiskey throughout his eight-hour standoff with police and believed he was bleeding to death from a gunshot wound to the face. His fiancee had shot him with a .44-caliber Magnum during a drunken dispute in their Creswell trailer and he wanted to die, he told a 911 dispatcher shortly before 9 p.m. last Friday.http://www.registerguard.com/news/2003/01/22/1d.cr.swatfolo.0122.html