Free Republic

A national shortage of baby formula brought on by pandemic-related supply-chain issues has forced US retailers such as Walgreens to ration the all-important product. The company - the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS - said Friday that amid the supply-chain crunch, it is limiting customers to three infant and toddler formula product purchases at a time, at its 9,021 US locations. A company spokesperson told DailyMail.com that the restrictions, already in effect, stem from an 'increased demand and various supplier issues,' as it was revealed that 29 percent of all top-selling formulas are out of...

Now that Moscow has doubled down on its demands that its European “partners” pay for its oil and gas in rubles instead of euros (which, as the bloc already demonstrated, can be easily confiscated in the name of “sanctions”), the German government is digging in its heels as the payment dispute threatens to precipitate problematic energy shortages in Europe’s largest economy. The FT reported Wednesday that German Energy Minister Robert Habeck has activated the “early warning phase” of Germany’s gas emergency law, which was adopted to help ration supplies in the face of a severe shortage. Too bad President Biden...

Europe is to crack down on fast fashion through proposals to make the clothing made and worn there more durable, reusable, repairable and recyclable. The sustainable textiles strategy, due to be unveiled on Wednesday, will target clothes at every stage of use, including design, repair and recycling. The initiative aims to boost the market for sustainably made garments. Manufacturers will have to ensure their clothes are eco-friendly and hard-wearing. It's estimated that less than 1% of all clothing worldwide is recycled. According to the European Environment Agency, clothes use in Europe has on average the fourth highest impact on the...

A shortage of certain alcohol brands is leaving some drinkers in low spirits; the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) announced this week it would begin rationing a list of popular liquor labels. Due to sustained supply chain disruptions and product shortages, purchase limits of two bottles, per customer, per day were applied to certain items beginning Friday, Sept. 17, and will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. The two-bottle limit applies to all consumers and liquor license holders such as bars and restaurants, and includes 43 well-known labels including Hennessy Cognac, Don Julio 1942 Tequila, Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, Moët...

Have you experienced water faucets that spray tiny jets of water onto your hands? You know, those eight tiny jets of water, each about 1.0 millimeter in diameter, that are emitted with so much pressure that the paltry quantity of water bounces off your skin before you can get it wet enough to apply soap, and makes rinsing the soap off nearly impossible? You can find these water faucets in airports and other public places, where they constitute a minor annoyance. But wait. Thanks to California’s state legislature, they’re on their way into your home.

I remember our daily food always coming from a long, long line at the end of which was a loaf of bread, a liter of milk, a stick of butter, a bottle of murky cooking oil, or a kilo of bones with traces of meat and fat on them. [...] If we wanted to eat, we learned at a very young age that we had to stand in long lines every day, often in bitter cold at 4 a.m. in hopes that the store would not run out of bread or milk by the time we made it to the...

Detainees’ diets at Guantanamo Bay have been a controversial issue for some time and now the U.S. prison is said to be rationing ice cream. The frozen dessert is allegedly being tightly measured, with only one ice cream allowed for each of its 147 detainees. Journalist for The Miami Herald, Carol Rosenberg, photographed a refrigerator at Guantanamo, with two signs reading ‘DETAINEE FOOD ONLY’ and ‘Only 1 Ice Cream For each detainee!’

Meg Whitman and the Delta Smelt Meg Whitman’s charitable foundation, established ostensibly for charitable purposes, inexplicably gave at least $300,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund’s Center For Rivers and Deltas. In 2007, Meg Whitman’s foundation gave $100,000 to EDF. Not content with that amount, Meg Whitman doubled down in 2008 by donating $200,000. The water crisis is affecting jobs in the Central Valley, with most cities and towns hovering near a 15% unemployment rate. The EDF has continually sided with the fish over the farmers and Meg Whitman’s $300,000 donation helped fund these efforts. Over the past few years, EDF...

If you are not aware of it yet, ObamaCare as it's being called "Part One" was actually buried in the phony stimulus bill. That massive rape was signed into law by the usurper president in February. As Dr. Dave Janda writes, what is being debated now is Part Two. What, you say? Yes, your member of Congress (and mine) pulled another fast one and deceived all of us. Again. tthe link to the draconian 'American Investment and Recovery Act of 2009 is in the article; the same failure as all the wasteful government programs implemented by FDR that prolonged the...

Page 425 Lines 4-12 - Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consults. Think Senior Citizens end of life. Every five years, the elderly will have to attend a mandatory “advanced care planning consultation” for an “explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end of life services.” The consultation will be conducted more frequently if a significant change in health condition; including diagnosis of a chronic, progressive, life limiting disease, terminal diagnosis, life threatening injury or upon admission to a skilled nursing or long term care facility. In other words, if you are old, you will be consulted about what your...

Page 29:4-16 - Your Health Care is RATIONED. (A) ANNUAL LIMITATION.—The cost-sharing incurred under the essential benefits package for a year does not exceed the applicable level specified in subparagraph (B). APPLICABLE LEVEL.—applicable level specified in this subparagraph is $5,000 per individual and $10,000 per. Page 30 Sec 123 - There will be a Government COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get. Page 42 - Health Choices Commissioner will choose your Health Care Benefits for you. (no choice.) Page 268 Sec 1141 - Gov regulates rental and purchase of power driven wheelchairs. Page 272 Sec. 1145 – Treatment at certain...

Page 29 lines 4-16 - Your Health Care is RATIONED. lines 4-12 (A) ANNUAL LIMITATION.—The cost-sharing incurred under the essential benefits package with respect to an individual (or family) for a year does not exceed the applicable level specified in subparagraph (B). (B) APPLICABLE LEVEL.—The applicable level specified in this subparagraph for Y1 is $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family. Page 30 Section 123 - There will be a Government COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get. Page 42 - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your Health Care Benefits for you. (You have no choice.) Page...

Rationed health care is already hereBy Clarence Page Published online 8/7/2009 10:15 PM "Rationing" is one of the scariest words in the current health care debate. It conjures up apocalyptic nightmare images from "Soylent Green," the sci-fi thriller about a future in which the old and weak are quietly lured into early extinction for the sake of future generations. What the scaremongers don't like to talk about is how much our private insurers ration now - mostly for the sake of their own profits. They're clever enough to avoid using the R-word. They use other words, like "Read the fine...

Newsweek Managing Editor Daniel Klaidman explains that his magazine decided to ask Sen. Ted Kennedy to author a cover piece on health care, because "his absence during this historic debate had been so palpable, yet here was a way for this respected voice on health care to weigh in and be part of the national conversation at a critical moment." Well, Sen. Kennedy has weighed in, and he may have helped doom Obamacare. For Kennedy and his co-author, Bob Shrum, have let the rationing cat out of the bag. And that's a problem for President Obama and the Democrats. Make...

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much? If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone...

Why We Must Ration Health Care PETER SINGER July 15, 2009 You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much? If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius defended the government-run program favored by President Obama against arguments that it would ration care. “I don’t think there’s anything about the public option that would ration care. Unfortunately care is being rationed each and everyday right now. Often private insurance companies stand between a patient and a doctor deciding what treatment can be provided,” she said on Fox News Sunday. “We also have a situation where a lot of people are told that hey can’t have insurance because they have a preexisting condition.”

I found in my inbox a “Dear Jennifer” missive from Obama’s Organizing for America outfit (the successor to the campaign): Jennifer – Partisan voices and special interests are showing real resistance to President Obama’s call for making the necessary reforms and investments in energy, health care, and education. That’s why we need to bring the conversation back into homes and communities across America. Last week, thousands of you pledged your support for the President’s economic plan and encouraged your friends and family to join you in a national display of support. Now I need you to take the next step....

/begin my translation Kim Jong-il's Reappearance to Calm Things down 2008-10-04 If it is true that Kim Jong-il resurfaced after 51 days of absence to watch the soccer match of Kim Il-sung University as KCNA reported, this could have been an attempt to quiet down disaffected residents in Pyongyang, according to a high-ranking Chinese official who recently visited N. Korea and met Kim Young-nam, the Chairman of Standing Committee. After his Pyongyang visit, he met Chinese businessmen in a city next to Sino-N. Korean border, in which he said that general mood in Pyongyang is the worst (he has seen,)...

While American politicians mull a carbon cap-and-trade system for industry, our British cousins are already contemplating the next step: personal CO2 rations ...The global warmists want you to sacrifice for their cause. And the duration of their war on carbon will make the decade-and-a-half of British rationing during and after World War II seem like a fleeting moment. The pending climate-change bill calls for a 60% cut in carbon emissions from their 1990 levels by 2050. Once 2050 rolls around, who exactly will declare the end of hostilities? The prospect of personal CO2 rations should debunk the idea that the...