Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Massachusetts officials are closely monitoring an abortion funding ban in the sweeping health care legislation before Congress to make sure that it does not restrict women’s access to abortion coverage in the state. Abortion is a covered service for low-income Massachusetts women enrolled in subsidized insurance plans available since 2006 through the state’s landmark health care law.But the bill that squeaked through the US House late Saturday would prohibit private insurance plans from covering abortion if they accept federal subsidies. It also bans abortion coverage in the new government insurance option. State officials say there are too many...

Throughout the primary campaign last year, Obama consistently said one of the genuine, important policy differences between him and Hillary Clinton was that he did not support an individual mandate to buy health insurance. I know people who voted for him in the primary on this one issue. One example of many: Senator Clinton. . . believes that we have to force people who don't have health insurance to buy it. Otherwise, there will be a lot of people who don't get it. I don't see those folks. And I think that it is important for us to recognize that...

Just had the 218th vote, which is what they need to psas th ebill

WASHINGTON – Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s. The deficits — $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 — won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

Barney Frank wants Cabinet post By Bob Cusack - 09/07/09 05:07 PM ET Rep. Barney Frank is interested in capping his political career as a member of the president’s Cabinet, according to a new biography of the Financial Services Committee chairman. Frank (D-Mass.) told author Stuart Weisberg that he would like to be Housing and Urban Development secretary. However, the 69-year-old lawmaker stresses that his departure from Congress is not imminent. He first wants to pass more legislation on affordable housing, saying, “I want at least two years with President Obama and a solidly Democratic Senate so that we can...

Rep. Barney Frank is interested in capping his political career as a member of the president’s Cabinet, according to a new biography of the Financial Services Committee chairman. Frank (D-Mass.) told author Stuart Weisberg that he would like to be Housing and Urban Development secretary. However, the 69-year-old lawmaker stresses that his departure from Congress is not imminent. He first wants to pass more legislation on affordable housing, saying, “I want at least two years with President Obama and a solidly Democratic Senate so that we can get the federal government back in the housing business.”

Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies released a new poll Thursday suggesting parallels between opposition to former President Bill Clinton’s failed health care plan and the opposition to President Barack Obama’s plan this year. In polls taken by the firm in June 1994 and August 2009, about a quarter of those surveyed supported the reform efforts and more than a third opposed them. “It’s déjà vu all over again,” McInturff told reporters. McInturff, who polled for the effective “Harry and Louise” television commercials that the insurance industry ran during the Clinton-era debate, counts insurance companies, hospitals, doctors and...

Phoenix, AZ – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) will hold a town hall to discuss health care reform Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 5:30 pm PT. Immediately following the town hall, Senator McCain will participate in a media availability. WHO: U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ)WHAT: Town hall on health care reformWHEN: Wednesday, August 26, 2009, (ALL TIMES LOCAL) Press check-in - 4:45 pm Town hall – 5:30 pm Media availability – 6:30 pmWHERE: North Phoenix Baptist Church 5757 North Central Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85012 ***Press attending the event should register with Leah Geach at leah_geach@mccain.senate.gov no later than 3:00 pm...

Below Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck explains the Apollo Alliance on his July 28 show. Beck mentions the Obama administration’s “stimulus” blueprint, “The New Apollo Program: Clean Energy, Good Jobs,” which you can read here.

The Daily Beast's Meghan McCain on why the far-right pundit, who says McCain needs to shut up, won’t be getting her wish—and why telling moderates to get out of the party is bad for the GOP. BY MEGHAN MCCAIN Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and author of the recent book Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, was asked during a live chat on Politico’s The Arena on Friday which conservative political figure or commentator needs to shut up. Guess who her answer was? Yeah, that’s right—yours truly. So Michelle Malkin successfully rounds out...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is working behind the scenes to help Democrats craft a new version of former President Bush's immigration reform bill. Graham also supported the Bush/Kennedy/McCain bill back in 2007. As The Wall Street Journal reports: Wes Hickman, a spokesman for Mr. Graham, said in a statement that "Senator Graham is ready and willing to play a key role in immigration reform. He intends to work with many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle." The new bill will most likely be introduced in September by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Graham has been working with...

(snip) Romney, who ran, in part in 2008 on his ability to forge consensus on health care in the Bay State, has generally avoided engaging Pawlenty on the issue. But, when asked about Pawlenty's repeated jabs at his boss, Romney spokesman Eric Fehnrstrom offered a subtle pushback on the idea that the Massachusetts plan is a recipe for health care disaster. "There's a reason why states and national health care reformers are copying the Massachusetts health care law, and that's because it works," said Fehrnstrom. "Mitt Romney is the only governor in history to get insurance coverage to nearly all...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – As negotiations over a health care reform bill drag on in the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. John McCain says he is not in favor of the approach most likely to be put forward by a bipartisan group of six senators negotiating on the committee. . . . . . McCain does not favor a pure public option run by the federal government and the Arizona Republican says he also does not favor insurance co-operatives – an alternative to government-run, single-payer insurance that has been proposed by North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad who sits on the Senate...

In 2006, the state of Massachusetts required every single one of its residents to get health insurance, and every single one of its businesses to provide it. Otherwise, residents and employers would be fined. Some have asked, as national healthcare reform works its way through Congress, is there anything we can learn from the Massachusetts experiment? Yes, according to the state's treasurer, interviewed today on CNBC: Whatever you do, don't do what we did. In a blisteringly frank interview, treasurer Tim Cahill laid out some jaw-dropping stats, which eviscerated the plan and excited every conservative's worst fears about government getting...

Amid negotiations with leading Democrats over health-care reform, Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, commented, "The federal government is in the process of nationalizing banks, nationalizing General Motors — I'm going to make sure we don't nationalize health insurance, and the 'public option' is the first step to doing that." Grassley is correct, and conservatives are right to oppose Pres. Barack Obama's proposal to create a "Fannie Med." But when it comes to nationalizing health insurance, there is more than one way to skin the consumer. Indeed, there is talk on Capitol Hill that Grassley...

(snip) Since Democrats have enough votes to shove almost anything they want through the Senate, why suddenly all this talk about seeking "bipartisan reform"? Because Democrats can't tell the truth. They know socialized medicine will cost enough billions to lower the standard of living for millions of Americans, but they have to pretend they believe otherwise, that it will somehow "save money." They can't run for re-election in 2010 -- any more than they could run in 2008 -- on an honest platform of, "We'll raise your taxes to the sky and borrow the nation into bankruptcy to get to...

Fund Expected to Be Exhausted in 2037. BY ELLEN E. SCHUTZ The nation's wealth gap is widening amid an uproar about lofty pay packages in the financial world. Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.

How much does the House Democrats’ health care overhaul cost? Is it $1 trillion or $1.6 trillion? Democrats argue the number should be $1 trillion, a number provided by the Congressional Budget Office for the net cost of the portion of the bill affecting health insurance, and they boasted in press releases that the bill actually creates a $6 billion surplus over the coming decade. But the gross cost of the bill is much higher, more than $1.6 trillion, according to a Roll Call analysis of the CBO data. And despite more than $800 billion in tax and fee hikes,...

In 2006, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was hailed as a visionary for signing one of the most expansive health reform bills in the country. "MassCare" aimed to expand health insurance, achieve universal coverage, and bring down costs through a complicated set of government controls and subsidies. Just over three years later, many lawmakers are pointing to the Bay State as a model of success -- and pushing for similar policies at the national level. The reform packages put forward by both the President and Democrats in Congress contain many of the essential elements of MassCare, including an individual mandate requiring...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called on Tuesday for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat. The pope made his call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run in a new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations. Parts of the encyclical, titled "Charity in Truth," seemed bound to upset free marketeers because...

No excerpt allowed from Bloomberg.com, story here .

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key figure in shaping federal health care legislation, said Monday that a government-run plan that would take effect if the private insurance market fails to deliver affordable coverage could bridge the partisan divide that threatens to derail President Barack Obama's efforts to reform the system. Snowe, R-Maine, said she's working with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to establish that kind of a framework in the bill expected to emerge next month from the Senate Finance Committee. In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run...

Grand Strand marketers turn eyes toward Europe. BY MIKE CHERNEY MYRTLE BEACH — When it comes to attracting foreign visitors to the Grand Strand, some local tourism leaders are looking to Congress for help. The Travel Promotion Act of 2009, which has been introduced in the House and Senate, would create a nonprofit corporation to advertise the U.S. as a travel destination in foreign countries. The campaign would be funded by industry contributions and a $10 fee on foreign travelers who do not have to pay for a visa. The travel industry, including the U.S. Travel Association and the American...

Washington -- President Barack Obama's landmark bill on energy and global warming squeaked through the House this week only after the White House made dozens of concessions to coal, manufacturing and other interests. As the battle moves to the Senate, Obama faces demands for more concessions, including to open the coastline to offshore oil and gas drilling. The Senate will take up issues that were glossed over or omitted from the House bill. Among them is giving the government sweeping new powers to overcome local objections and approve thousands of miles of new transmission lines to carry electricity to coastal...

When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government. "It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit," the president said. Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable. But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before...

7 more banks fail as FDIC seeks stronger rules for buyers of failed banks. BY STEPHEN MANNING and DAVID PITT WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six Illinois banks and one bank in Texas were shuttered Thursday as government regulators proposed new rules for private equity firms seeking to take over failed banks. That brought the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 52. That's more than double the 25 which failed in all of 2008 and the three closed in 2007. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of all seven. The total cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund from...

<p>When Debby Smith was diagnosed with a second tumor in her kidney, causing her renal failure, she had no way to pay for health care. So she turned to President Obama.</p> <p>The president comforted the tearful questioner at the health care town hall meeting he held Wednesday at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va.</p>

(snip) On health care, Romney pointed to the successes of his own plan but criticized Obama's for its emphasis on a public option. "The president's plan makes an enormous error by saying we're going to put government into the insurance business. We got everyone in Massachusetts insured and we did it without putting government into the insurance business," he said. "We said instead we're going to help people get private free enterprise kind of insurance they can buy from a number of different companies." He said the system led to plunging premiums while offering a healthy choice of options for...

Contrary to what we hear incessantly, marriage is not a right; it is an estate, a condition. There are conditions of life that have nothing to do with rights. One doesn’t have a right to go through puberty. One either does or doesn’t. What is the condition of being married, and what makes it possible to attain it? Franz Rosenzweig’s anthropology—in which religion is a response to man’s sentience of death, and the sentience of death is not only an individual but also an communal characteristic—may help answer that question. Humankind fights mortality in two ways. The first is to...

President Obama made a vigorous effort after the election to court Sen. John McCain, hoping his campaign rival would become a Senate advocate for his ambitious agenda. Instead, McCain (R-Ariz.) has emerged as one of the chief gadflies leading Republican opposition to Obama’s biggest legislative initiatives. Nevertheless, Obama and other Democrats still cling to the hope that McCain can be persuaded to help advance their priorities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two of President Barack Obama's top priorities -- healthcare reform and reducing global warming -- are in disarray on Capitol Hill, with no sign of bipartisan consensus, Senator John McCain said on Friday. The Arizona Republican, who was defeated by Obama for the presidency last November, said in an interview with Reuters that climate change legislation "is just dead in the water. It's not got momentum." Efforts to overhaul America's costly healthcare system need to begin anew after the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said a draft bill would cost $1 trillion and insure only 16 million of...

No excerpt allowed, story here .

The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars! That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt, says Pamela Villarreal, a senior policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis. The unfunded liability is the difference between the benefits that have been promised to current and future retirees and what will be collected in dedicated taxes and Medicare premiums. Last year alone, this debt rose by $5 trillion. If no...

Immigration is added atop heavy agenda By Alexander Bolton Posted: 06/04/09 08:17 PM [ET] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) added yet another huge task to his 2009 agenda, saying the chamber would take up a broad rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws in a year already crowded with debates on healthcare, climate change and a Supreme Court nominee. Passing immigration reform, which has eluded Congress in two of the past three years, is a mighty task and is being led this time by Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking member of the Democratic Conference leadership team. It also comes...

President Obama came off the sidelines Wednesday and laid out his healthcare reform requirements in a letter to key lawmakers. He told Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy (Mass.) and Max Baucus (Mont.) that their legislation must include a government-run insurance option that would compete against the private sector. He also reaffirmed his support for a Massachusetts-style insurance exchange.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Name a top issue and President Barack Obama has probably got a "czar" responsible for tackling it. A bank bailout czar? Herb Allison. Energy czar? Carol Browner. There's a drug czar, a U.S. border czar, an urban czar, a regulatory czar, a stimulus accountability czar, an Iran czar, a Middle East czar, and a czar for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, which in Washington-speak has been lumped together into a policy area called Af-Pak. There are upward of 20 such top officials, all with lengthy official titles but known in the media as czars, and next week there...

Underperforming Chrysler dealers targeted for closing should get more time to wind down their car dealerships, lawmakers said Thursday, as several groups urged the Obama administration to reconsider its work to restructure the faltering U.S. auto industry. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) pushed a proposal to give Chrysler dealers 60 days to close their dealerships instead of three weeks outlined by the company. Seeking leverage, her measure would prevent the Treasury Department from providing funding to an auto company that failed to give a dealership at least 60 days to wind down its operations and sell its inventory. Forum Car...

Last year I supported Sen. John McCain for president. Despite these efforts, the American public chose Barack Obama as the person they wanted in the White House to confront the worst financial market turmoil since the Great Depression and the worst recession in a generation. Regardless of whom they voted for Nov. 4, he is our president, and every patriotic American should hope he succeeds in ending the economic problems that now beset our country. Soon after his inauguration, the president signed legislation aimed at stimulating economic growth. Many good and decent people opposed this measure, and some even offered...

Republicans have laid down their marker on health care reform and it’s very mavericky. Congressional Republicans dub their plan the Patients Choice Act, but it is nearly identical to the McCain health care plan defeated by voters last November.

As the Constitution of the United States of America was drafted solely by racist, slaveowning members of the capitalist class, it is time to acknowledge that the document is morally corrupt and must be scrapped. In its place, a new order based upon the will of the oppressed worker's class will be drafted and enacted. 1) The "right" to "free" speech must be destroyed. The propaganda of the white christian capitalist class must be censured and silenced, violently if neccessary. To this end, ALL communication advocating religion, private property, and opression of the workers must be punished by execution. All...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1PEdYYv0ig

Now a U.S. Senate candidate, Crist calls backing 'pragmatic.' BY LUDMILLA LELIS DAYTONA BEACH - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, now a U.S. Senate candidate, said he would have made the "pragmatic" decision to vote for the federal stimulus bill, differentiating himself from fellow candidate Marco Rubio and the man he is trying to replace -- Mel Martinez. Speaking to a politically mixed crowd in Daytona Beach, Crist emphasized his support for the bill as practical and pragmatic, though it would have meant crossing Republican party lines. Only three Republican Senators backed the stimulus bill, and Martinez wasn't one of them....

(snip) The latest matchup: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele vs. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and a likely frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Steele cast doubt on Romney's conservative credentials Friday and said the Republican base rejected Romney because "it had issues with Mormonism" and was unsure of Romney's commitment to opposing to abortion rights. Romney's camp took issue with the suggestions that the most reliable Republican voters are intolerant and fired back Tuesday, with spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom saying, "Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you miss the target." Sen. John McCain, Romney's former rival...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators are considering limiting—but not eliminating—the tax-free status of employer-provided health benefits to help pay for President Barack Obama's overhaul plan and provide coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday that there are no easy options. Senators began grappling with how to finance guaranteed coverage for all Americans, even as independent experts put the costs at about $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Link only, per FR copyright and excerpt rules

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney headlined congressional Republicans' big new policy conclave over the weekend, stressing the need to listen to real Americans, but also appearing to slap a potential rival for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. At the National Council for a New America's first "conversation" in Arlington, Va., Romney, who ran for the Republican nomination last year and has kept his name in the conversation for 2012, joined House Republican Whip Eric Cantor and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in presiding over the panel. "I’ve learned that when you sit in a position of responsibility as you do...

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller announced Monday that voter registration fraud charges have been filed against an organization that works with low-income people and two of its employees in its Las Vegas office. The complaint includes 26 counts of voter fraud and 13 counts for compensating those registering voters, both felonies. The Association of Community Organization for Reform Now, Inc., also known as ACORN, operated a Las Vegas office that helped register low-income voters last year. Throughout 2008, ACORN employed canvassers to register people to vote in Nevada, the complaint said. ACORN paid the...

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) on Sunday defended his decision to join the Democratic Party this week and said Democrats did not promise him anything for switching. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Specter said his vote for President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package was a "critical factor" in his decision. "I bucked the Republican line," he said. "And that created a schism. My approval rating dropped 30 points with Republicans as a result of that vote." As a result of that vote and the GOP's reaction, Specter said he was "ostracized" from the party.

(NECN: Washington, D.C.) - Former governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush joined Congressman Eric Cantor to talk health care, the economy and national security at the first town hall meeting for the National Council for a New America on Saturday. But the group steered clear of abortion and same-sex marriage -- wedge issues that have led to the defection of moderates and independents. "Listening to people can make a difference. We've got ideas on how we can help people get health insurance, how we can improve our schools, how we can make our economy strong today as well as down...

He is overseeing the boldest expansion of government in a generation. Is it a 'new pragmatism' right for the times or dangerous overreach by a young president? BY LINDA FELDMANN WASHINGTON - On the basketball court, Barack Obama likes the old "up and under" move. When he has the ball, he'll fake one way, wait for the guy who's covering him to jump, then duck under him. That observation from Denver sportscaster Vic Lombardi – who lucked into a game of pickup hoops last year with the future leader of the free world – is too juicy to pass up...