Free Republic

As 2013 slouches toward 2014, the political numbers for President Obama just keep getting worse. And – you guessed it – much of that has to do with the Affordable Care Act known as “Obamacare.” A new AP-GfK poll shows major doubts about Obama’s signature legislative achievement. Most troubling for the administration, that’s not just among those needing to sign up for new coverage through the HealthCare.gov website. Perhaps more politically significant, Americans who will continue to get healthcare coverage through their employers blame Obama's healthcare overhaul for their rising premiums and deductibles, according to this poll. Among the findings:...

About 73,000 policy holders around the state will lose their insurance in coming months because nine insurance companies are dropping some health plans that were not grandfathered under the Affordable Care Act, the Maryland Insurance Administration confirmed Monday.

Despite President Obama’s assurances to the contrary, millions of Americans are discovering that they will not be able to keep their current health insurance when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year. Reports Tuesday from CBS and NBC News document this development. According to CBS, US insurance firms have sent health policy cancellation notices to more than 2 million people, with 800,000 in New Jersey alone. NBC estimates that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million Americans .. can expect a cancellation letter, .. Mr. Obama has long insisted .. Americans who like their current health plan...

Former President Ronald Reagan's liberal activist daughter Patti Davis is asking just what many other people across the United States want to know — why she's losing her insurance. "Could the president please explain why I and others are losing our health ins. plans? Wasn't supposed to happen!" Davis posted on Twitter Friday afternoon.

When and if the Republicans fight on conservative principles, they win. Ah, but there is the rub. Newt Gingrich beat former House Speaker, Jim Wright, like a rented mule. He didn't let up. House Post Office scandal, using his position to sell blank books etc. Made a contract with America. Gingrich received a lot of grief from the naysayers but the end result was the Republicans took the House for the 1st time in 40 years. Kept the House until the Republicans sounded like Democrat lite, forgot about the pledge with America, and then lost the House. Bush the Elder...

One of the funny things about electoral politics is that you can’t always have the coalition you want, or even the coalition you think you’ll get. When the Democratic Leadership Council was thinking about how to rebrand the party in the late '80s, most figured they’d win back white southerners, like Jimmy Carter and every prior successful Democrat. But the new Democratic coalition was built on disaffection with conservatives, which was most pronounced along the coasts. So while the Republicans can dream of whatever coalition they want, the next successful Republican coalition will be built by capitalizing on disaffection with...

‘Two and a Half Men’ swaps Angus T. Jones with lesbian character “Two and a Half Men” is about to become “Two Men and a Gay Woman.” Partly as a replacement for Angus T. Jones — whose screen time will be sharply cut after he publicly bashed the show as “filth” last year — CBS’ hit sitcom is going to add a recurring and possibly permanent lesbian character named Jenny. She’s the 21-year-old illegitimate daughter of the late Charlie Harper, who was played by Charlie Sheen, who himself was booted from the show after tangling with his bosses. The role...

If we generally agree that loosing our temper at someone means that we have some more growing up to do, why would we think that God does it?

The new conventional wisdom in the aftermath of the 2012 elections is that Republicans face two challenges: first, that the United States is no longer a center-right nation, but a center-left one; second, that the country’s demographic shift away from whites will make it tougher for Republicans to win votes. The proposed solution is that Republicans must compromise on the party’s core policies, from immigration to taxation to social issues. The conventional wisdom is wrong. I once worked in South Africa for a centrist party, the Democratic Alliance, which faced the same challenges as Republicans do, only far more extreme....

For the final days of the 2012 campaign, the Democratic groups pummeling Mitt Romney on television have returned to the weapon they started with last spring: Bain Capital. The Obama campaign and its super PAC allies have spent months trashing Romney’s policies and personal values across the airwaves, branding him as a job-killing, abortion rights-opposing, Medicare-privatizing tycoon who disdains working-class and poor Americans. But with a little over a week left in the race, several of the Democrats’ top independent spenders are leaning hard into the Bain message, eschewing a pure policy message for a gut-punch reminder that the former...

Rasmussen has the Buckeye State at 48-48... and it's an unmitigated disaster for any incumbent to be under fiddy at this point in the game, as late-stage undecided voters almost without exception break towards the challenger in presidential elections. Obama's fading appeal in Ohio and Michigan has to this point been propped-up by the widespread misconception that 2009 auto bailouts 'saved' the auto industry, while Romney said he'd rather have 'let them go bankrupt'- he's been attacked by the Obama campaign relentlessly for it.  The truth is they went bankrupt anyway, but with favored parties benefiting (illegally), and to the long-term...

POLLS: Pew Research: Romney 49%, Obama 46 amongst likely voters, with women now 47-47 tie, when last month Obama led Romney by 18 points (56% - 38) among female likely voters (!). Gallup: Romney and Obama now tied (= five-point debate bump): by a 'record-setting margin' debate watchers say Romney did better last Wednesday, Independents named him the victor by a devastating 70-19 margin... ouch! Washington Times/Zogby: Romney up 45.1 - 44.5% (+9 bounce) Battleground: Romney crushing Obama with Independents 51-35% Military Times: Romney 66%, Obama 26 Military Times COMMENTARY: American Thinker: 'Why Obama Will Lose All Three Debates' Daily...

The Palestinian Authority is losing legitimacy among its people because it is not creating a state, and as a result its institutions could "eventually collapse," the UN Middle East envoy has said. "The Palestinian Authority is quickly, in my view, losing its legitimacy in the eye of the public, if it is not able to bring also the political goal forwards -- the creation of a Palestinian state which lives side by side with Israel in peace and security," Robert Serry said on Monday. The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process was speaking to students at the...

Monday morning's attack by terrorists against Israeli workers building the security fence on the southern border is further evidence of the increasing failure of Egyptian security efforts in Sinai, said Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Speaking at a meeting of his Atzma'ut faction, Barak said that several recent events, including Grad rocket attacks against Israel over the weekend, meant that Egypt needed to do more to fulfill its international obligations. “We see Monday's attack as a very serious incident,” Barak said. “It comes in the wake of an incident on Shabbat in which two Grad rockets were fired into southern Israel...

In Puerto Rico, for the price of 20 delegates, Mitt Romney sold out his conservative principles. There is a long history of Congress requiring English to be the language of government and schools for territories seeking to be admitted to the Union — e.g., Louisiana, Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. For all of the territories that had large non-English speaking populations, Congress announced before the territories voted on the question of statehood that a change in language policy would be a prerequisite for statehood. In the case of Puerto Rico, where according to the latest Census only 15% of residents...

As the 2012 election draws closer, Democrats are getting less — not more — enthusiastic about the prospect of voting for president. In a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll just more than four in 10 (42 percent) Democrats said they were either “extremely” or “very” enthusiastic about the 2012 vote. Those numbers compare unfavorably to Democratic enthusiasm number in CNN surveys from the spring and summer, when 56 percent and 55 percent of Democrats, respectively, described themselves as either “extremely” or “very” enthusiastic about voting next year. By contrast, the level of Republican enthusiasm has been high and steady for...

WASHINGTON — The risk of an unprecedented evacuation of the International Space Station will spike if Russian craft cannot resume their missions and return by November, a senior NASA official has warned. "There is a greater risk of losing the ISS when it's unmanned than if it were manned," Michael Suffredini, the ISS program manager for the US space agency, said in a conference call with Russian officials. "The risk increase is not insignificant," he added. Russia on Monday delayed its next manned mission to the ISS by at least a month after an unmanned cargo vessel crashed into Siberia...

According to Gallup, “Americans’ economic confidence plunged to -53 in the week ending Aug. 7, a level not seen since the recession days of March 2009.” The survey goes on to report economic confidence deteriorated even faster in July and the first week of August than it did in June compared with May. “This plunge in confidence contrasts with the relatively flat trend in 2010,” according to Gallup. “It also places consumer perceptions of the economy in the range of March 2009 during the recession.” In addition — and not coincidentally — the president’s job approval rating has dropped to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Yeah. You know, this is probably a good way to put this. The media, for two years has been trying to Palinize Palin -- they've been trying to destroy her -- and what's happening here is she's turning the tables on them and she's Palinizing them, and the Republican Ruling Class is furious. The Republican Ruling Class is furious that Palin, going to all these states on her bus tour, is not coordinating with local Republican organizations, and there's saying, "This ain't cool! This is not cool, because if she turns out to be running she doesn't...

How do normal American kids become Islamist extremists?