Free Republic

Robert Gibbs’ prediction that Obamacare’s employer mandate would — and perhaps should — be jettisoned shocked Democrats back in April. By July, the former aide and longtime confidant of President Barack Obama had a lot more company. More and more liberal activists and policy experts who help shape Democratic thinking on health care have concluded that penalizing businesses if they don’t offer health insurance is an unnecessary element of the Affordable Care Act that may do more harm than good. Among them are experts at the Urban Institute and the Commonwealth Fund and prominent academics like legal scholar Tim Jost....

The hostility towards Christians is reaching fever pitch in the liberal West. The rights of Christians to practice their faith has come under sustained attack from some liberals, and too often those in positions of power. The past few weeks the right of Christian parents to educate their children in the Christian faith as protected by Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights was placed under sustained attack by liberal columnists, particularly at The Times and The Guardian. Even though their argument relied on alleged discriminatory practices carried out in non-faith state schools, it seemed Christian faith schools...

Last week the Supreme Court determined that it was unconstitutional for Obamacare to dictate that for profit companies such as Hobby Lobby must provide certain forms of contraception that they object to due to their deeply held religious beliefs. This all came from the contraception mandate, one of the many Obamacare edicts that mandated companies must provide morning after pills as well as normal contraception or risk paying steep fines and potentially forced out of business. The hysteria that has resulted from the outcome of the Hobby Lobby decision have come mostly from shrieking feminists and liberal beta males seeking...

<p>"The crisis now gripping Iraq and the Middle East was not only predictable but predicted — and preventable. By looking the other way and unconditionally supporting and arming Maliki, President Obama has only lengthened and expanded the conflict that President Bush unwisely initiated. Iraq is now a failed state, and as countries across the Middle East fracture along ethno-sectarian lines, America is likely to emerge as one of the biggest losers of the new Sunni-Shiite holy war, with allies collapsing and radicals plotting another 9/11."</p>

The economy is shrinking, the Middle East burns, and our southern border is under siege, so with all of that bad news, what do Democrats do? They distort the Supreme Court's decision on the Hobby Lobby case to fan the flames of the phony Republican war on women to score political points. In the Supreme Court's dissenting opinion penned by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, "The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would ... deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage." She later continued, "The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."...

Believe it or not, it was 10 years ago this month that Barack Obama, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate, introduced himself to America with a speech that shook the Fleet Center in Boston. The main theme of that Democratic convention was the litany of George W. Bush's failures — an unpopular and unending war in Iraq, a faltering image abroad, a stagnating middle class. Obama gave eloquent voice to those frustrations, arguing that all of them could be addressed if only we reunited the electorate. Probably Obama himself would not have guessed then that he would ascend to...

Let's review RFRA: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb through 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-4 (also known as RFRA), is a 1993 United States federal law aimed at preventing laws that substantially burden a person's free exercise of their religion. The bill was introduced by Howard McKeon of California and Dean Gallo of New Jersey on March 11, 1993.[1] The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton and was passed by a unanimous U.S. House and a near unanimous U.S. Senate with...

WASHINGTON — Federal officials can’t resolve 85 percent of 2.9 million “inconsistencies” on applications for ObamaCare even after nine months of trying, according to new data provided by the administration. Most of the problems involve certifying citizenship and income, key components of the national health plan. But some of the problems are downright nutty. One unidentified state-run marketplace cited situations in which infants and young children were “erroneously identified as incarcerated, according to federal data,” the inspector general for the Health and Human Services Department revealed Tuesday. Just 425,000 problematic applications have been resolved out of 2.9 million that states...

NBC’s camera crew got an inside look at Obama’s most trusted adviser, Valerie Jarrett, and they found something hilarious. It turns out Valerie and Obama have a lot in common, they are both in love with themselves. This picture frame in her office has figurines bowing down to her…

When you think poor governance, you think liberalism. Barack Obama could fairly be called the worst President in history and one of his biggest competitors for that crown is Jimmy Carter, whose name primarily brings to mind the words "malaise," "hostage crisis," and "liberal peanut farmer." Lyndon Johnson? Other than the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which more Republicans voted for percentage-wise than Democrats, his presidency was a complete disaster. Some Democrats might point out John F. Kennedy's time in the White House, but in all fairness, he'd probably have more in common with Republicans like Scott Brown or Chris...

Given how much evil there is in the world, given how many signs of moral, intellectual, and economic decline there are here in America; and given the increasing irrelevance of America to world events, it is fair to ask why the American Left is preoccupied with the name Washington “Redskins.” The Washington Redskins have been in existence for 82 years. For about 80 of those years, virtually no one, including the vast majority of American Indians, was troubled by the name. Yet it is now of such importance to the American Left that the majority leader of the United States...

In the hyper-partisan world of Washington, it's too easy to fall into the trap of being either 100 percent Democrat or an all in Republican. But many Americans struggle to neatly define themselves on this two party spectrum, instead believing in a healthy mix of both liberal and conservative ideological truths to varying degrees. The Pew Research Center recently conducted a typological study, in which they discovered that most Americans fell within eight distinct political ideologies, outside of the standard two party system our government runs on. There groups are as follows: the Strong Liberals, who are pretty much what...

As usual, when a ruling has gone against liberals, their faux "civility" has washed away to show their true side: anger, contempt, and violent intentions. Liberals took to social media to voice their homicidal rage because the Supreme Court decided two major rulings today: that people cannot be forced by the government to provide contraception if it specifically conflicted with their religious beliefs, and that unions cannot force non-members to give them money. Like the civil people they are, liberals decided that anyone who disagrees with them deserves death and, for the heck of it, the United States itself should...

The Supreme Court won't strike down Obamacare's contraception mandate, but a ruling for the law's challengers could still render the policy toothless for millions of women. The justices are set to rule any day now in a challenge to the birth-control mandate, and any decision against the policy would have ripple effects far beyond the two companies that filed this lawsuit. Just how far, however, depends on how broadly the Court rules—and it has plenty of options. No matter what happens, the Court won't strike down the entire mandate. The two companies that brought their challenge to the Supreme Court—Hobby...

Detroit: How the Left Made Water More Expensive Than Cell PhonesPosted By Arnold Ahlert On June 24, 2014 @ 12:56 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments The latest news from Detroit, the poster child for failed progressive policies that have dominated that city for more than a half-century, is not good. In March of 2014, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced it would begin cutting off water service for customers at least 60 days overdue or more than $150 behind in their water bill payments. Activists outraged by the decision have taken their case outside the city—all the way...

David Brock has a message for liberal millionaires: Don’t sweat being called hypocrites. Brock, a former “right-wing hit-man”-turned-top-big-money-Democratic-operative, is part of a behind-the-scenes campaign to convince donors it’s OK to attack the Koch brothers for spending millions of dollars while doing the exact same thing for the left. “You’re not in this room today trying to figure out how to rig the game so you can be free to make money poisoning little kids, and neither am I,” Brock told donors this month at a conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, according to someone who attended the conference, but who...

It’s a basic human right: water. But could the United Nations soon help the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department provide the service to struggling customers? Water department spokeswoman Curtrise Garner says it’s a possibility — but for now, the water bills must be paid. “We do have programs that do help those that are just totally in need; can’t afford it — but we also know that there are also people who can’t afford it would can not pay and we know this because, once we shut water off, the next day they are in paying the bill in full....

The only thing more disturbing than the arrogance, incompetence, and lawlessness of Barack Obama's administration is that most liberals are perfectly fine with everything he's doing. It's shocking that there are so many Americans who don't know about the Constitution, the rule of law, or even what happens to the country just as long as someone they agree with ideologically is in charge. In fact, the only time liberals seem to get really upset these days is if someone criticizes Barack Obama or tries to put ANY KIND of restraint on his power. Want to know how America would...

The news: Business Insider compiled data by Clarity Campaign Labs and mapped the most conservative and most liberal cities in each state. Where do you fall on the list? The methodology: These results are pulled from an online tool that allows people to find the city in their state that aligns with their political beliefs. The results are pulled from Clarity's national models and SmartVAN Co-Op voter file, so they're pretty much as accurate as you're going to get and filtered right down to the zip code (having used similar tools before, I can tell you their system is capable...

Do you think leftists are the slightest bit troubled by the public's overwhelming opposition to their crusade to force the Washington Redskins to change their name? That was rhetorical; I give you more credit. Despite leftists' ongoing effort to convince Native Americans and the rest of us that Native Americans must be offended by the long-standing name, the polls don't seem to be moving in their direction. But that hardly deters them. They are the final arbiters of who may be (and who is being) offended. In the end, this liberal crusade has little to do with protecting the...