Free Republic

Republican strategist Karl Rove says the GOP should quit while it's not as far behind as it could be. Appearing Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record," Rove said Republicans fighting for concessions on Obamacare and entitlements are weakening their position the longer they hold out. "At some point you have to focus on, as Ronald Reagan said, getting as much of the pie as you possibly can get," Rove said. Republicans aren't even going to be able to get 80 percent of what they want now, he said, because they have been weakened over the last two months...

Here’s some free market advice to GOP legislators at all levels thinking about introducing bills supporting the state health exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA): Be prepared to wear the “Care” moniker around your name. You know? As in HillaryCare, RomneyCare or ObamaCare. Colorado’s Amy Stephens, a Republican state representative from El Paso County, was once considered a future Lt. Governor, or member of Congress. Instead, she may have flamed out her career by sponsoring a bill that would opt Colorado out of ObamaCare by implementing a so-called “health exchange” under PPACA. Yet that didn’t stop...

Breitbart News reported that House Republicans have offered a new deal to the White House to end the fiscal stalemate. The GOP plan, authored primarily by House Budget Chair Rep. Paul Ryan according to Hill sources, would meet Obama's demands in exchange for negotiations on a longer-term budget agreement. At least two high-ranking Capitol Hill sources have told Breitbart News that Ryan’s plan would also help protect Obamacare as it is currently implemented. Ryan's office deny the claims. “What your sources are attempting to attribute to Congressman Ryan is not accurate,” Kevin Seifert, Ryan’s spokesman, said in an email. But...

In a heated radio interview with Texas-based Matt Patrick of KTRH Wednesday, Senator John Cornyn awkwardly defended himself from charges that he did not support Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in their efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as nicely laid out by Matthew Boyle of Breitbart. According to Boyle, a "a senior congressional staffer" told Breitbart that "Instead of helping Cruz with their power as Senate GOP leaders, [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and Cornyn are working against him." Indeed, the staffer did not mince words and said, ““To be clear, nobody is...

House Republicans, and notably Ted Cruz in the Senate, led the fight against Obama's signature health care law. They made defunding or delaying Obamacare a demand in legislation the House repeatedly sent to the Democratic-controlled Senate, only to see it die there. Apparently, it's now dead in the House, too. "That's currently off the table now," Republican Rep. James Lankford said in an interview on "The Lead with Jake Tapper." "That's obviously not going to happen at this point." Lankford did say that Republicans will now instead ask for a one-year delay on penalties for those who don't sign up...

One mystery of the government shutdown is why Republicans are so apoplectic about the Affordable Care Act, a piece of legislation that aims to make health insurance more affordable for millions of Americans. One theory is that the Republican leadership is scared that Obamacare actually won't be as bad as they have been saying it will be — that, in fact, Americans (including Republican constituents) will quite like it. If Americans like Obamacare, the theory goes, this will be a big blow to the Republicans' big sales pitch over the past 30 years, which is that more government is always...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), or "the joint speaker of the House" as Harry Reid calls him, argued Friday that Republicans have already offered Democrats a concession in their stand against reopening the government by demanding not a full repeal of Obamacare, but merely the defunding of President Barack Obama signature health law. “The House of Representatives has repeatedly compromised already," said Cruz, who already who spoke against funding the law on the Senate floor for 21 hours earlier this month. "The House began -- it is the view of every Republican in this body, and indeed every Republican in the...

The hard-line stance of Republican House members on the government shutdown is generating increasing anger among senior Republican officials, who say the small bloc of conservatives is undermining the party and helping President Obama just as the American people appeared to be losing confidence in him. “Fighting with the president is one thing,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri. “Fighting with the president and losing is another thing. When you’re in the minority you need to look really hard to find the fights you can win.” And on Wednesday at a private luncheon, several Senate Republicans — Dan Coats...

SALT LAKE CITY — Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said before giving a speech at the University of Utah Wednesday that shutting down the government is the wrong way to oppose the nation's new health care law. Romney repeated his concerns about the strategy against the Affordable Care Act employed by some Republicans in Congress, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, that led to the shutdown of the federal government on Tuesday. "My view is that Republicans, elected Republicans, almost universally agree that Obamacare is problematic for the economy and for the American family," he said in response to a...

.............Cruz responded to the anonymous comments by directing the conversation back toward the government shutdown and Obamacare, telling Politico, “It seems that there is nothing the media likes to cover more than disagreements among Republicans, and apparently some senators are content to fuel those stories with anonymous quotes. Regardless, my focus — and, I would hope, the focus of the rest of the conference — is on stopping Harry Reid’s shutdown, ensuring that vital government priorities are funded, and preventing the enormous harms that Obamacare is inflicting on millions of Americans.” It is evident that no matter what Cruz’s strategy...

That amount – $328 per month – is the national average for the mid-tier “silver” premium based on HHS calculations for approved plans in 48 states. The challenge, of course, is that like all of healthcare itself, your mileage will vary. Both individual and family insurance rates will vary dramatically based on a host of variables. Those variables – age, marital status, geographic location and income – will each have a significant impact on the final monthly amount. The most difficult single component in the equation is income – which determines the amount of Federal subsidy any given taxpayer will...

After three years of getting ready, yesterday the nation signed on to get Obamacare only to have websites across America crash. The ones that were not crashing were scam sites designed for identity theft. Amid all of that, if you tried to get Obamacare through an internet search engine, you probably got scammed. “[S]ome of these scam sites actually have better search-engine rankings than official sites,” reports UPI. This is the backdrop to the fight to defund Obamacare. Some pundits claim if it were not for the shutdown the press would have covered the disastrous launch. A press that has...

Texas Senator John Cornyn is in trouble with the tea party. At the Texas Tribune policy conference last weekend six tea party leaders were asked if want a strong candidate to challenge Cornyn in the Republican primary. Five of them said yes. Listen 0:003:09Story airing on KERA 90.1 Included in that group were former gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, who now heads We Texans a limited government group; Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party President Julie McCarty; and Republican state representatives Matt Krause from Fort Worth and Jonathan Stickland from Bedford. The fifth and most vocal critic was JoAnn Fleming. Her email...

I explained to fellow Texans in a note last Friday why they shouldn’t support John Cornyn. Today comes further evidence. In an effort to further mislead Texans, and in an attempt to pretend his cowardice hadn’t been, this deceptive politician, this un-Texan, has posted a phony poll on his website asking a question based on a false premise. The question itself is a lie. He asks: “Do you agree with Senator Cornyn’s vote to De-fund Obamacare?” The truth is that he didn’t vote to de-fund Obamacare. Instead, he voted to permit Harry Reid and the Democrats to prevail. His poll...

Perhaps Obama was onto something when, as a young author, he zeroed in on the term "audacity" to (subconsciously) telegraph his ambitious designs to fundamentally transform our beloved America. What word could describe better than audacity Obama's refusal to accept responsibility for his dreadful policies; his standing before the American people -- even today -- in the face of the avalanche of evidence proving how terrible Obamacare is and continuing to lie about what it will do; his persistence in mislabeling his unaffordable monstrosity "the Affordable Care Act;" his failure to address the legitimate, undeniable complaints about Obamacare and his...

Earlier today, the United States Senate voted to fund Obamacare. There were 25 Republicans who betrayed their principles and voted for cloture, giving Democrats the power to implement this terrible law. This is a disappointing loss, but the bill now goes back to the House where Republicans must hold their ground and refuse to fund Obamacare. Here are the 25 Senate Republicans who voted to allow Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Democrats to fund Obamacare today: Alexander, Lamar (R-TN) Ayotte, Kelly (R-NH) Barrasso, John (R-WY) Blunt, Roy (R-MO) Boozman, John (R-AR) Burr, Richard (R-NC) Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA) Chiesa, Jeff (R-NJ)...

A state court judge said in a ruling Friday that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry in New Jersey, and that the rights given to them under the state’s civil unions law are not equal to federal benefits now granted to married gay couples. Judge Mary Jacobson granted a summary judgment requested by Garden State Equality, which had claimed that the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of the federal Defense of Marriage Act meant that same-sex couples in civil unions in New Jersey were being denied equal protection. …

A unique new survey of health care professionals finds that 56 percent oppose Obamacare, with more than nine in 10 believing that there could be major negative impacts such as a drop in quality care. A shocking 19 percent believe Americans will die earlier.

Republican tensions grew Thursday as Tea Party-aligned senators rejected a bid to speed up the vote on a bill to fund the government while defunding ObamaCare, with one senior lawmaker accusing his colleagues of posturing -- as the chances of a government shutdown increased. The flurry of activity occurred late Thursday afternoon on the Senate floor. With lawmakers facing a Sept. 30 deadline to pass a spending bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to get approval to hold key votes on Thursday, in order to give the House more time to consider the legislation. But Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah,...

When Wendy Davis filibustered for abortion in Texas it was inspiring! She was so strong standing there for all of us in her pink running shoes! What a hero for women everywhere! Now when Ted Cruz filibusters to hold up a bill that he can't stop if only to send a message that most of America doesn't want this? Idiot. Wacko bird. Terrorist. Anarchist. Holding America hostage. This is not helpful. GOP: We will not support this. The difference is striking, no? Dems circle the wagons even to protect adulterers, rapists, embezzlers and people with federal drug charges. The GOP...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) criticized anonymous Republican Congressional staffers who allegedly provided Fox News host with Chris Wallace with “unsolicited research” to discredit the Texas senator’s doomed attempt at filibustering Obamacare Tuesday on the Senate floor: TED CRUZ: You know it’s quite interesting in the course of this debate there have been more than a few newspaper articles, more than a few attacks, from our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle and from our friends on the Republican side of the aisle. I’ve told my wife I now pick up the newspapers each day to learn what...

Sen. Ted Cruz is responding to the news that some of his GOP colleagues wanted Chris Wallace to hammer him in an interview, with the Texas Republican saying that they are afraid of anything that “changes the clubby way Washington does business.” “I mean folks can do whatever they want to resist change, and there are a lot of people that have been in Washington a long time that are fearful of change. They’re fearful of risk, they’re fearful of anything that changes the clubby way Washington does business,” Cruz said Monday on Fox New’s “Hannity.” After an interview with...

On “The O’Reilly Factor” Monday night, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume explained how conservative radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin can cause serious problems for the GOP. “I’m not sure you’d say they’re calling the shots, but make no mistake about it, Bill — some of these radio talk show hosts have real influence,” Hume said. “They have a huge following particularly in very conservative areas where they are most popular and where the many members of Congress who inhabit those areas are not worried about getting reelected if they can get...

A source in Congress tells Breitbart News that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn are using their leadership positions to pressure other Republicans to oppose Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in his campaign to defund Obamacare. "Right now in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn are actively whipping Senators to shut down debate on the House continuing resolution so that Harry Reid can gut it with just 51 votes,” a senior congressional staffer with intimate knowledge of the situation said in an email to Breitbart News. “Unbelievably, they actually are leading the fight to fully...

This is not some sort of bait-and-switch where the Palin-hating liberal swoops in with a zinger, this is for real: Sarah Palin is actually right about something. Furthermore, she’s not just a little bit right, she doesn’t just have a point, the former Alaska Governor is absolutely, 100% right. While you arrange your lambs in snuggly positions with your lions, let me explain. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace revealed, yesterday, that “top Republicans” had sent him unsolicited oppo research and questions for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Former Governor Palin (R-AK) tweeted, on Sunday, that Wallace ought to reveal which...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) broke with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Monday, revealing that he won't filibuster legislation to fund the government in service of conservative goals to defund Obamacare. The Republican leader's decision is a major blow to the push by Cruz and powerful conservative activist groups, who wanted Republicans to unite and filibuster a continuing resolution until Democrats caved agreed to gut funding for the Affordable Care Act. "Senator McConnell supports the House Republicans' bill and will not vote to block it, since it defunds Obamacare and funds the government without increasing spending by a penny,"...

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace made the rather odd admission Sunday morning that GOP leaders had contacted him with opposition research on Ted Cruz (R-TX) ahead of the Senator’s appearance on the show, driving home just how angry Republicans were over Cruz’s defunding-Obamacare antics. Cruz now has one prominent GOP figure in his corner: Sarah Palin, who tweeted: [Tweet] Palin is no bigger fan of anonymous sources than Cruz is—read all about it here!—and praised Cruz both in an op-ed for Breitbart and an appearance of her own on Fox News Sunday afternoon. “Someday I’m going to tell America...

Chris Wallace offered viewers a real Washington whodunit yesterday on Fox News Sunday. Wallace told viewers that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has so angered some of his fellow Republicans with his strategy and public statements on defunding ObamaCare that “top Republicans� rushed to offer him “unsolicited research and questions� for his interview with Cruz that morning. Panelist Karl Rove argued that Cruz’ colleagues see him as grandstanding rather than attempting to build a real united front, which has infuriated Cruz’ colleagues in the Senate as well as the House:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO “This has been one of the...

Don’t be fooled by this political theater going on in Washington, DC. The fix is in and both sides are trying to fund ObamaCare while saving face. The whole of House Republican Leadership thinks you are stupid. They have passed a bill that they know will be changed by Harry Reid before it goes back to the House in a few days. The smoking gun will happen when Boehner allows a Senate passed government funding measure to come up in the House minus the provision defunding ObamaCare. You wait and see. Also, know that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is...

@FoxNewsSunday Keep it TRULY fair & balanced. Release the GOP names encouraging you to trash @SenTedCruz. No more anonymous sources.— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) September 22, 2013 As Twitchy reported, Fox News’ Chris Wallace revealed that he was sent unsolicited oppo research on Sen. Ted Cruz. By “top Republicans.”Sarah Palin, who recently told GOP senators to “woman up” and stand firm on Obamacare, continues to have Sen. Cruz’s back.At least someone has a spine. Fight like a girl? You betcha.Will Chris Wallace reveal the names? Stay tuned.Related:‘See your filthy paw prints, Rove’ Who sent oppo research on Ted Cruz to...

Ted Cruz and Mike Lee stand as the Senate's dynamic duo for conservatives, crusading against President Barack Obama's health care law while infuriating many congressional Republicans with a tactic they consider futile, self-serving and detrimental to the party's political hopes in 2014.

On Friday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer mocked the Republican tactic of using the budget process to defund President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform law. Krauthammer called the House’s vote to defund the law “Kabuki” and warned that it would come back to haunt congressional Republicans. “I think the Boehner speech is what you would expect,” Krauthammer said. “He didn’t want to do it. He had to do it, so he had to defend it, and that’s Kabuki. I think it’s going to go to the Senate and if we end up...

Video at link.

Via Mediaite, this guy’s going to be a barrel of laughs at the debates in 2016, huh? The CNN clip below was recorded yesterday afternoon but he was still throwing jabs this morning: Peter King (R-NY) on today's CR vote: "Hopefully it will be a major step in letting people know that Ted Cruz is a fraud"— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorpNBC) September 20, 2013 Sean Duffy, who appeared with King on Blitzer’s show, was also still punching today: “What I see happening now is people coming out and calling them out for the hypocrisy of these big, tough conservatives who...

It’s not just House members who are taking shots at Ted Cruz on Twitter: One of his Senate colleagues is turning on him as well. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Thursday took a whack at Cruz over social media for leading the charge to push Republicans to back only spending bills that defund Obamacare, which many in his own party have predicted will result in a government shutdown blamed on Republicans. “I didn’t go to Harvard or Princeton, but I can count — the defunding box canyon is a tactic that will fail and weaken our position,” Corker said, a...

A Morning Joe kind of Republican? With Joe Scarborough absent today, was Nicolle Wallace assuming the role of the Republican who gets more satisfaction from ripping fellow members of her party than in criticizing Democrats? Wallace mocked congressional Republicans who are trying to defund ObamaCare, analogizing them to two-year olds on scooters racing into traffic against a red light. She suggested that the "adults" in the party need to restrain them. View the video here.

The Examiner's David Drucker reports many House Republicans are angry and disillusioned with Sen. Ted Cruz. The Texas Republican has been traveling the country encouraging people to support a move to defund Obamacare. But now that House Republicans have committed to passing a continuing resolution that does just that, Cruz has admitted Republicans don't have the votes to succeed in the Senate."Harry Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution," Cruz said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. "And right now he likely has the votes to do so."The truth of that was obvious. Democrats...

Faced with a politically risky push by some Republicans to defund ObamaCare, other party members are turning to an alternative strategy: delay it instead. Republicans are divided on how to confront the Affordable Care Act. Some, such as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, are pushing to permanently defund it. But attaching such a measure to a resolution that funds the government after Oct. 1 runs the risk of a government shutdown if it doesn’t pass. If that happens, Republicans fear they would be blamed. Former White House chief of staff Karl Rove told Fox News...

We all know Obamacare is coming down the pike. October 1 is just around the corner and the Obamacare "navigators" are itching to start signing people up and move them into the health insurance exchanges that are such a big part of the legislation. We have heard countless speeches from President Obama, all of them telling us his signature legislation is a good thing for all Americans. He has told us that repeatedly and at the same time, accused the Republicans of wanting to prevent Americans from obtaining the health care insurance they need. That's out of the left side...

Two new detailed polls out today, from The Wall Street Journal and the Pew Center, confirm and deepen the grim state of public opinion on Obamacare. The law remains as unpopular as ever. There is a massive intensity gap between opponents of the law and supporters (41 percent of Americans strongly disapprove, against just 26 percent who strongly approve). And the main characteristic of public opinion is that people have no idea how the law works. Lack of knowledge about the law has always been closely associated with opposition. Most of the provisions of the law, when described to people,...

This report is coming from The Hill and relies pretty much on “Republican lawmakers” and staffers “speaking on condition of anonymity” so factor that in. But given what we’ve heard from some other members over the last couple of months, I wouldn’t find it terribly surprising if this were true. Republican lawmakers are growing increasingly frustrated with what they say is a lack of communication from their leaders. Both centrist and conservative members in the House believe that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants could have done more earlier this year to counter the Tea Party’s effort to defund...

Death Panels by a thousand cuts. No one could have seen this coming, no one. From the L.A. Times, that hotbed of right-wing scare-tactics, Insurers limiting doctors, hospitals in health insurance market: The doctor can’t see you now. Consumers may hear that a lot more often after getting health insurance under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. To hold down premiums, major insurers in California have sharply limited the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state’s new health insurance market opening Oct. 1. New data reveal the extent of those cuts in California, a crucial test bed...

With the Supreme Court giving a major boost to gay marriage, liberals face fewer impediments to their relentless push for fatherless (and motherless) families. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. In a speech for Father’s Day 2008, Barack Obama was emphatic in championing fatherhood: “We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home,...

I first learned of this story at Asylum Watch and I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said it surprised me. At this point in the game, nothing our government does surprises me. The sad thing is, this is coming from someone who is supposed to be on our side. That would be Speaker of the House John Boehner. Clearly, he has his own agenda in play, namely keeping his position of power. He seems to that taking a real stand against Obamacare and the rest of the liberal agenda endangers that. Otherwise, why would he stoop to what...

When Trader Joe's announced it was dropping health benefits for part-time workers, it reassured them that they'd be no worse off as a result. "We believe that with the $500 from Trader Joe's and the tax credits available under the (Affordable Care Act), many of you should be able to obtain health care coverage at very little if any net cost to you," noted CEO Dan Bane in a memo to employees revealed this week. In other words, Trader Joe's — like some other companies — has decided to shift its health care costs onto federal taxpayers via the subsidized...

A new CNN poll is out. Strikingly, it shows that only 39% of Americans support all or most of Obamacare, which is drastically below the 51% mark the same polling found at the beginning of the year. More and more Americans see themselves, their family members, and friends losing jobs, losing benefits, and losing security. But Republicans refuse to fight to defund the legislation. We are reduced again to Senator Mitch McConnell engaged in head pats for conservatives designed to generate seal claps from activists. Senators McConnell, along with Senators Cornyn of Texas, Coburn of Oklahoma, Coats of Indiana, Alexander...

The October 1st start date is only a few weeks away from a dramatic reduction in personal liberties and greater taxation and growing government power. The Affordable Healthcare Act (aka, Obamacare) started with Hillary Clinton in her aborted efforts when Bill Clinton was President. It was dubbed “Hillarycare” and deemed to be a disaster (just ask economist Brad DeLong). While George W. Bush was President, Hillarycare was transformed under the guidance of the Center for American Progress. This became Obamacare with the election of Barack Obama. After meetings with lobbyists, Congress, the Administration and the Center for American Progress (behind...

The federal government granted Indiana a year-long Obamacare waiver on Tuesday, allowing the state to continue to run its own Medicaid pilot program, The Washington Post reports. Indiana, along with Iowa and Arkansas, requested major exemptions from the law, and is the first state to receive one. “Securing a waiver to continue the Healthy Indiana Plan is a victory for Hoosiers enrolled in this innovative program and will ensure that Indiana remains at the forefront of consumer-driven healthcare in the United States,” Republican Gov. Mike Pence said in a statement. Pence will now consider expanding Medicaid under the state’s “Healthy...

Sarah Palin is sick of hearing about Syria. A little more than a week after the former Alaska governor suggested the world "let Allah sort it out" in Syria's civil war, Palin posted a video to her various social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to ignore "this foreign fiasco distraction" and "get back to work." "It is time to bomb Obamacare," Palin wrote on her Facebook page above the video. The message, posted late Monday, has generated more than 56,000 likes. The two-minute video, titled "Just Sayin'," includes clips of political pundits debating Palin's controversial claim that the Affordable Care...

Obamacare was sold on the promise of affordable, universal care with no increase in the debt. Oh, and you were going to keep your insurance. It is none of these things. Even Obamacare’s most ardent defenders (who actually bought the Congressional Budget Office hooey about the impact on the debt) are forced to recognize that Obamacare will leave 30 million Americans uncovered. Considering the taxes, increase in debt, dislocation and cost increases inflicted on the American people, it seems we are getting very little bang for billions of bucks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------snip---------------------------------- A market-based reform agenda could deliver much more positive results...