Free Republic

Welcome to America's hottest talk line! Ladies, to talk to interesting and exciting guys free, press one now. Guys, hot ladies are waiting to talk to you. Press two to connect free now." That was what some callers to California's Affordable Care Act Health Exchange website heard when they called to try and sign up for health insurance. Apparently, the number that was posted on the website had one digit wrong. As a result, customers who were rushing to sign up for Obamacare on the last day of open enrollment, ended up being offered a chance to talk dirty to...

On March 14 Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told members of the House Armed Services committee that there was no war on religious liberty. “The single biggest frustration I’ve had in this job is the perception that somehow there is religious persecution inside the United States Air Force,” the general told lawmakers. “It is not true.” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) told me the Air Force seems to be the worst offender when it comes to attacks on religious liberty. If that’s true, perhaps Gen. Welsh could explain why a Bible was removed from a POW/MIA Missing Man...

[B.O.] chooses Florida, Arizona, Louisville and Michigan State for his Final Four picks.

U.S. President Barack Obama has caused confusion after claiming yesterday that Kosovo held a UN-assisted referendum for self-determination – misleading people over the true origins of the country. The U.S. President used the example to hit out against Russia's annexation of Crimea, but experts have noted that no such referendum took place, and implied that Obama's "incredible mistake" should elicit a retraction or correction from the White House.

Chuck Hagel will travel to the Pacific next week to convene a meeting of defense ministers from Asia against the backdrop of the massive regional response to the loss of the Malaysian jetliner. Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said Thursday that Hagel will also stop in Japan and travel for the first time as defense chief to China and Mongolia. He visited Japan late last year. Kirby said the expansive search for Flight 370 is an example of nations in the region coming together to deal with a disaster, adding that the U.S. is looking for ways to...

Negative views of President Obama have hit a new high, according to a poll. The AP-GfK poll shows 59 percent of Americans now disapprove of Obama -- a point higher than the previous high set in December. Obama's approval rating stands at 41 percent. That's the second-lowest figure the poll has ever found.

Senate minority leader and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is in the midst of perhaps the greatest electoral challenge of his career, fending off a Tea Party primary challenger from his right and a charismatic and well-connected Democratic challenger from his left. He’s fighting off charges of being corrupt, a D.C. insider, and out-of-touch with everyday Kentuckians. All of this makes the fact that his latest campaign ad features a clip of Duke’s men’s basketball team winning the NCAA championship — instead of Kentucky, as is clearly intended to be the case — even more embarrassing. The mistake is incredibly brief,...

Sarah Palin believes flight 370 flew directly to heaven... how is she a senator? — DIMV (@Freshselective) March 21, 2014 The Daily Currant strikes again. The website, which calls itself “The Global Satirical Newspaper of Record,” last week claimed that Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity she believes Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 “accidentally flew too high and got stuck in heaven.” The story was cross posted to other non-satire sites and managed to fool quite a few.

In the poorest state in the nation, where supper is fried, bars allow smoking, chronic disease is rampant and doctors are hard to come by, Obamacare rolls into town in a lime green bus. It took some real convincing by the Obama administration and a leap of faith by one state Republican official to get one of the nation’s largest insurance companies — Humana — to set up shop across Mississippi. Virtually no other insurer was willing to do so, discouraged by the acute health needs here and most elected officials’ outright hostility to the law....

An anniversary passed this week that went almost completely unremarked — and for good reason. March 17th marked the three-year anniversary of the UN Security Council resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya to stop the Moammar Qaddafi regime from attacking rebel-held Benghazi and Ajdabiya, and the three-year anniversary on the 19th of the NATO war on Libya. French, British, and American planes began bombarding the Qaddafi regime, an air war that would continue for months — while Barack Obama refused to request Congressional approval for it. Later, Obama would claim that Libya represented the smart model of Western intervention....

The White House says President Barack Obama will make a statement on Ukraine before he departs Thursday for a day of events in Florida. The statement is scheduled for 11 a.m. Eastern time on the South Lawn. The U.S. imposed sanctions earlier this week against several Russian officials for their role in the crisis in Ukraine.

Ellen DeGeneres was a completely slavish toady to President Obama as he appeared on her show to sell Obamacare -- not to young people, but to mothers. The president made his pitch to "especially all the moms out there who may have young people – 26, 27, do not have health insurance, but they think they’re invincible and nothing’s ever going to happen to ‘em – what we’ve said is you never know what life is going to throw at ya." For example, a president who lies about keeping your plan and keeping your doctor

Citing the need for friends to “stand with one another,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. reassured Poland and the Baltic states on Tuesday that the United States would protect them from any Russian aggression like the actions the Kremlin has taken in Crimea. In the first of two days of hastily arranged meetings with the leaders of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Mr. Biden mixed bracing words with promises of modest military aid to shore up the NATO alliance and build solidarity in the face of the deepening crisis over Ukraine.

Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that the conflict between Russia and Western allies over Crimea is a “clash of values” and that it’s up to Russian President Vladimir Putin whether there’s “another Cold War.” “I hope there is not another Cold War,” Clinton said during the question and answer portion of an appearance in Montreal. “Obviously, nobody wants to see that. I think that is primarily up to Putin.”

...President Obama headlines a fundraising event for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the organization that raises money for Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives... Ted Deutch, who represents Broward and Palm Beach counties, is on the invite list for the Miami event, as is U.S. Rep. Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the DCCC, according to a copy of the invitation posted online by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit group that tracks government information. Deutch and Israel aren't really the draw. The hosts are Tracy and Alonzo Mourning. He's the former Miami Heat center and a major...

...Obama will correct a historical act of discrimination next month when he awards the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest commendation for combat valor, to a group of Hispanic, Jewish and African-American veterans who were passed over because of their racial or ethnic backgrounds. The unusual presentation will culminate a 12-year Pentagon review ordered by Congress into past discrimination in the ranks and will hold a particular poignancy when conducted by the nation’s first African-American president....

Cultural trends are often said to “jump the shark” when they go too far and become laughable or obsolete. The White House is in this territory with its desperate—desperate—marketing of Obamacare. Today, Lance Bass—a member of the boy band *NSYNC, which was popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s—tweeted that he was “entering the White House to meet w the President to discuss health care reform.” He added a website address: “HealthCare.org.” Politically active Twitter users quickly mocked this high-level meeting and the fact that the pop star of yesteryear didn’t even know he was supposed to be pointing...

As lawmakers press General Motors and regulators over their decade-long failure to correct a defective ignition switch, a new review of federal crash data shows that 303 people died after the air bags failed to deploy on two of the models that were recalled last month. The review of the air bag failures from 2003 to 2012, by the Friedman Research Corporation, adds to the mounting reports of problems that went unheeded before General Motors announced last month that it was recalling more than 1.6 million cars worldwide because of the defective switch.

I don't know where this is from, but it has Common Core written all over it...

Bill Clinton lent his political muscle to Democrat Alex Sink’s election campaign for the 13th congressional district of Florida, but to no avail. Sink wound up losing to her Rand Paul-supported Republican opponent, David Jolly, in what many analysts are calling a bellwether election for the impact of Obamacare on the 2014 election cycle.... Bill Clinton offered his support to Sink, recording a phone call that went out to local Democratic volunteers. The Huffington Post reports that over a half-dozen House Democrats also emailed fundraising appeals on Sink’s behalf....