When will Republicans Understand Free Market Healthcare?

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Photo Credit: WND

Healthcare is one of the most complex policy issues. The lack of free market healthcare, engendered by endless government interventions (and secondary interventions to fix the original interventions), has made policy solutions even more cumbersome. But the overarching principle of any reform must begin with the understanding that federal intervention in the healthcare industry has inexorably driven up the cost of healthcare and health insurance. As such, no healthcare policy panacea can begin with growing government and further distorting the already grossly-altered healthcare market.

Instead of proposing more free market solutions, Republicans are offering pale-pastel versions of Democrat government intervention as solutions. Here are two examples.

Last week, Congressman Larry Bucshon (R-IN) introduced the Orwellian-named “Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013” (HR 1427) – a bill that forces optometrists to disclose all their licensing and qualifications in all advertising. It grants wide latitude to the Federal Trade Commission to regulate and penalize offenders. The bill is heavily backed by special interest hustlers like the AMA and American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). The ophthalmologist lobby doesn’t want competition from cheaper healthcare providers (optometrists), and they want to use the boot of the federal government to ensnare them in red tape.

It is this sort of anti-free market special interest legislating that has crowded out choice and competition from the marketplace. The reality is that there are already strict laws in most states to punish those optometrists who step outside of their scope of service beyond their qualifications. There is no reason, beyond special interest politicking, for the federal government to get involved. The bill was introduced on April 9, a day before the AAOs national meetings in DC commenced.

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Snubbing Thatcher's Funeral? No, Obama Is Consistent!

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Photo Credit: roberthuffstutter

Is President Obama snubbing Lady Thatcher’s funeral in London? No, he’s simply being consistent. Mrs. Thatcher was a great defender of democracy. Mr. Obama is not.

Mr. Obama went to London in 2009. There, he bowed to that desert despot, Saudi King Abdullah. It was Abdullah who refused in 1998 to give the U.S. access to Madani al Tayyib, the financial kingpin of al-Qaeda. So, of course, Mr. Obama would bow to Abdullah.

Back home, the new president tossed a bust of Winston Churchill out into the snow. The brave champion of freedom who resisted Hitler’s “Nozzies” triumphed over tyranny.

Mr. Obama extends his hand to tyrants.

And, after all, he did give an iPod with recordings of all his speeches to Britain’s Queen. It was a most thoughtful gift — just in case Her Majesty was having trouble with insomnia.

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Reuters Accidentally Publishes George Soros Obituary

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Publications often prepare obituaries for famous living individuals, particularly ones who are near death. Publications don’t, however, generally prematurely publish them.

Thursday evening, Reuters accidentally published its obituary of the wealthy liberal business magnate and political financier George Soros, who is alive and well at 82.

“George Soros, who died XXX at age XXX, was a predatory and hugely successful financier and investor, who argued paradoxically for years against the same sort of free-wheeling capitalism that made him billions,” his obituary reads. It went live at 5:41 p.m. EST and was up for about 10 minutes.

The obit continued to say that Hungarian-born billionaire was known as the “man who broke the Bank of England” for “helping force the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, which devalued the pound,” but put $1 billion in Soros’ own bank account in 1992.

He was also blamed for the Asian financial crisis of 1997, when Soros Fund Management sold the Thai baht and Malaysian ringgit short.

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Scarborough says GOP ‘Moving Toward Extinction’ after Blocking Gun Legislation

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough says the senators who voted against expanded background checks for gun buyers on Wednesday are providing “the opportunity for terrorists, for gang members, for criminals, for violent rapists” to purchase firearms.

The former Republican congressman also predicted that new gun control measures would eventually be passed.

“Most of the time, I know, when you lose, you lose,” Scarborough said Thursday. “I agree with Howard Dean on this one — we have only begun to fight. This is just the beginning. With every violent act that occurs in the future, and with guns being shipped from one gang to another. With terrorists going on the Internet advertising how easy it is to kill Americans because of our weak background check system, Mike [Barnicle], this has just begun. This will not end until we have a background check system that keeps our families and Americans’ families safer.”

Scarborough also criticized Senate Democrats for not pursuing filibuster reform at the beginning of the Congress and warned New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte that her vote against background checks would come back to haunt her.

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Man Witnesses Boston Marathon Bombings – then Watches Deadly Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion after Returning Home

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Photo Credit: AP

People keep asking Joe Berti if he feels unlucky.

A bomb exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon moments after Berti finished the race. Two days later, he was in his home state of Texas when he saw a fertilizer plant explode near Waco.

“I was just like, ‘I can’t believe this!’” said Berti, who said he had never witnessed an explosion before. Then he thought: “I just want to get out of here and get away from all these explosions.”

But Berti, as it turns out, is far from unlucky. Instead, he feels fortunate. He left both tragedies unscathed, while members of his running group and his wife – who was closer to the Boston explosion than he was – were also unhurt.

“It’s a miracle,” he said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “People keep saying, ‘Don’t you feel unlucky?’ and I was actually the opposite – saying not only do I not feel unlucky, but I feel blessed that my wife could be 10 yards from the explosion and not have a scratch.”

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Why GOP Must Have a Senate Majority in 2014: Harry Reid Promises to Bring Back Gun Control Bill

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday announced that the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate would shelve its gun control legislation — for now.

“Yesterday, President Obama said it was a shameful day for the Senate, and it probably was, I agree,” Sen. Reid said. “But we should make no mistake: This debate is not over, in fact this fight is just beginning.”

The Nevada Senator said that the legislative body would “take a pause and freeze the background check bill where it is” and “return to it at an undetermined date,” according to the Washington Post.

“We’re going to come back to this bill,” Reid said…

“The underlying bill hasn’t been defeated and is still technically on the legislative calendar. As majority leader, Reid can bring up the bill again at a moment’s notice,” the report explains.

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Another View: Rubio's Immigration Bill Allows Lawsuits to Gut Border Security

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According to the Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll, the Schumer-Rubion Immigration Bill has serious problems. Mr. Carroll maintains that either “Sen. Marco Rubio failed to stay awake in his civil procedure class at the University of Miami Law School, or Sen. Chuck Schumer’s lawyers pulled a fast one on him.” Here are his concerns with the bill:

1) If liberal activist groups can challenge any of the bill’s security triggers in court, then, after 10 years, the secretary of homeland security can grant currently illegal immigrants permanent legal status anyway. That’s what the bill currently says. If Rubio does not like it, he should introduce an amendment to remove this section of the bill.

2) The border fence is the only border security item that the bill exempts from nonconstitutional challenges. Challenges to any other security measure in the law are still vulnerable to suit.

3) Nothing in the bill stops the secretary of homeland security from granting legal status to currently illegal immigrants if the E-Verify and visa entry-exit systems are not up and running. The secretary can just say that they are, no matter what the facts on the ground actually are. If you don’t think this is possible, just remember how Obama ignored Congress and the War Powers Act and bombed Libya anyway, despite the fact that his own lawyers determined the bombing was a military action.

Until there is a citizen suit provision in the bill, empowering U.S. citizens to challenge the secretary’s determinations that the security measures are in fact in place, there simply is no guarantee that they will ever happen.

Kansas Enacts Nullification: Governor Sam Brownback Signs Radical 2nd Amendment Protection Act into Law

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Today, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed into law Senate Bill 102 (SB102), formerly HB2199 – the 2nd Amendment Protection Act. In the wake of increased federal interest in restricting the right to keep and bear arms, the new Kansas law is the most comprehensive nullification of such acts thus far.

The new law nullifies a wide range of federal attacks on the right to keep and bear arms in the State of Kansas. It states, in part:

Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas

In conjunction with Section 6a (quoted above), the bill defines what is meant by “the second amendment to the constitution of the United States,” and that it isn’t based off a decision of the supreme court.

The second amendment to the constitution of the United States reserves to the people, individually, the right to keep and bear arms as that right was understood at the time that Kansas was admitted to statehood in 1861, and the guaranty of that right is a matter of contract between the state and people of Kansas and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Kansas in 1859 and the United States in 1861.

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Egyptian Cleric: 'Soon We Will See the Flag of…Allah Flying Over the White House…They are Already Holding [Islamic] Prayers' There (+video)

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The following is from a March interview with with Egyptian cleric Abu Islam on Al-Kahera Wal-Nas TV:

Abu Islam: We have four large Islamic groups: The Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Al-Gama’a Islamiyya. These are the four significant powers.

Is there anyone more qualified to lead the country than the Muslim Brotherhood? Then let the Muslim Brotherhood assume this responsibility.

Who should be in charge of religious affairs in Egypt? The Salafis. Is any group more qualified than the Salafis to regulate ideology? I choose the Salafis to run Al-Azhar and the Ministry of Religious Endowments.

We are left with the army and the police. Which is the best to run the police? The Muslim Brotherhood? No. The Salafis? No. Al-Gama’a Islamiyya is the best for the job. This leaves the army for the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

This is how disagreements can turn into pluralism, and I pray to Allah that this will be accepted by all, and the various powers of the Islamic nation will come together…

Interviewer: What about all the other people?

Abu Islam: What people?

Interviewer: All those people who do not belong to these four groups.

Abu Islam: Tell me exactly who you mean. The Communists?

Interviewer: For example…

Abu Islam: They have ruled for a long time. They have had enough. The liberals? They have ruled for a long time and have had enough too. Let’s give Islam a chance for once…

Trust me, very soon we will see the flag of “There is no god but Allah” flying over the White House. They are already holding [Muslim] prayers in the White House.

FBI Releases Images of Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombing (+video)

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Photo Credit: FBI

The FBI today released images of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing the bureau still considers to be “armed and extremely dangerous.”

At a press conference, FBI special agent in charge Richard DesLauriers referred to the two men as Suspect 1 and Suspect 2 and said Suspect 2 was spotted dropping a bag before a bomb exploded at the second bomb site. The two men appear to be “associated,” DesLauriers said.

DesLauriers asked the public for their help identifying the suspects, but asked the public not to approach them. Though the men are considered armed and dangerous, the FBI said they still do not believe there is an imminent danger in the area.

A few hours later, an FBI official cited a large volume of calls as a result of the photos and DesLauriers’ appeal for help.

A source close to the investigation told ABC News authorities have “good confidence” that the men in the photos perpetrated the crime. The degree of confidence, the source said, comes from a “revealing” reaction Suspect 2 had to the detonation of the first bomb, which was captured on surveillance video.

Watch video here:

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