Free Republic

Citing ObamaCare as a reason, the the University of Virginia has announced that spouses of University employees who have access to health insurance through their own jobs will no longer be eligible for health insurance coverage. In its announcement, President Obama's healthcare plan is specifically mentioned by UVa as a reason for the rising costs that forced the university to drop working spouses. ObamaCare is expected to add $7 million to the university's health care costs. UVa was also a public supporter of ObamaCare: Working spouse provision: Starting Jan. 1, spouses who have access to coverage through their own employer...

Barack Obama wanted to fundamentally change America. He is. The Obamacare law is already destroying full-time jobs in America. Democrats rammed through a law that will destroy at least 2 percent of all full-time jobs in America. We are already seeing jobs disappear. Even Reuters can’t hide the truth any longer: U.S. businesses are hiring at a robust rate. The only problem is that three out of four of the nearly 1 million hires this year are part-time and many of the jobs are low-paid. Faltering economic growth at home and abroad and concern that President Barack Obama’s signature health...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Gallup. Now, the headline to this story: "Obama's Economic Approval Slips to 35%." That's not the way to look at this, because they have a chart here. Let me read to you the lead from the story. "Despite President Barack Obama's renewed focus on the nation's economy this summer, he scores worse with Americans on the economy than he did in June. His approval rating on the issue, now 35%, is down seven percentage points, and his ratings on taxes and the federal budget deficit are each down five points. During the same period, his overall approval...

On Thursday, CNN senior reporter John King said that the Obama Administration’s most recent delay of a key Obamacare provision that was supposed to limit consumers’ out-of-pocket expenses on deductibles and co-pays could prove seismic come the 2014 midterm elections. “This one particularly though could have a huge political impact,” said CNN reporter John King. “Because as you mention, hidden in bureaucratic language, the end result is that when these changes kick in, the Administration promised for most Americans your costs would go down. Now it is saying, at least in the short term, your costs could be higher than...

Vice President Joe Biden is calling Democrats to action to stop grassroots conservatives from electing more Republicans in the mold of Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). In a fundraising letter for the Democratic National Committee, first reported by Ed Krayewski at Reason, Biden wrote told prospective donors that a “group of freshmen senators are running the show in the Republican Party” and played up the possibility of a government shutdown over ObamaCare.

A (New) Lost Generation: As the media focus on a slight drop in unemployment, an ugly trend gets ignored: the declining participation of young Americans in the job market. We'll pay for this for decades to come. We keep hearing the job market is "improving" or even "solid," with 162,000 new positions created in July and unemployment falling to 7.4%, the lowest since 2008. But one group is sitting it out. And it's the one that most enthusiastically embraced Barack Obama in both of his presidential elections: America's young. Their unemployment rate is a shocking 16.1%. Increasingly, those ages 18...

Texas Congressman Steve Stockman announced on Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now refusing to transmit to the House of Representatives the amnesty bill, which the Senate voted on and passed two weeks ago. According to Stockman he believes Reid fears it will be returned to the Senate on a “blue slip” resolution, which he threatened to use to kill the bill in the House. “Even Harry Reid now admits the Senate’s amnesty bill is unconstitutional and cannot become law. Any bill that raises revenue must start in the House” said Stockman. “By creating their own amnesty taxes...

...After running the PRISM Internet surveillance program for roughly three-quarters of its existence, expanding phone record seizures to include everyone with a phone — not just terror suspects and their contacts — and expanding the drone assassination program to levels never before seen, Obama owns all of this. All of it. Barack Obama is the anti-civil-liberties president — the surveillance-assassination president. America needs to wake up quickly and undo his legacy — and that of his recent predecessors, because they contributed to the problem, too....

Imagine you’re a red-state Democrat contemplating a run for Senate. Here’s what you’ve seen during the opening months of President Obama’s second term: A still-tepid economic recovery, a culturally polarizing agenda on immigration and guns, and fears of Obamacare’s possibly haphazard implementation. The White House’s uneven second-term start shows little sign of improving. Questions about what administration and State Department officials knew about the origins of last year’s deadly attack on a consulate in Benghazi have hounded them since last week’s congressional hearing. The explosive revelation Friday that the IRS targeted conservative non-profit outside groups seems certain to put Obama...

The last check and balance on President Obama is the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. He has made clear that he intends to remove that check on his power in the 2014 elections. Our Founding Fathers wisely provided for a free and independent press as an additional check on government power. But the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, CBS and ABC decided they had a better idea. They concluded that it is more important to behave voluntarily like the old Soviet press did under government compulsion, when the socialist party is in power. Of course, we...

There are two schools of thought on whether the implementation of Obamacare will be a drag on Democratic fortunes in 2014 - especially in the Senate. Both are legitimate scenarios. The first theorizes that no matter how bad things get in the implementation of Obamacare, that the president and Democrats will turn the tables and successfully blame Republicans for the snafus by claiming they obstructed the smooth roll out of the law. The reality is that the GOP is a stink bomb in the public's mind right now and they may be willing to believe anything Democrats say about them....

NY Gov Andy Cuomo’s once stratospheric approval ratings have hit a slide — the gun-control law Cuomo pushed through the Legislature in January following the Newtown massacre helped drive the Democrat’s job approval ratings from 74 percent last December to 55 percent last month in Quinnipiac polls......he was losing in the New York suburbs and upstate to GOP Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey in a hypothetical presidential run. The GOP believes Cuomo's politically exploitable missteps, include: * Delaying on the natural-gas drilling technique known as fracking, which has divided the state. * Obtaining luxury seats for himself and top...

The Congressional Budget Office is now projecting that the U.S. economy will never achieve full employment during the eight years Barack Obama serves as president. That would make Obama the only American president during the post-World War II era who never presided over a year in which the U.S. economy offered full employment to the American people. The CBO defines “full employment” to be when the national unemployment rate is at or below what it calls the “natural unemployment rate.” …

The Democrats knew what they were doing when they deferred the implementation of most provisions of Obamacare until after the 2012 election. What is surprising, really, is that Obamacare has been so unpopular, given that most of its baleful effects have not yet been felt. But it won’t be long now. The Associated Press reports that health insurers are warning of massive price increases beginning next year: Some Americans could see their insurance bills double next year as the health care overhaul law expands coverage to millions of people.

After a meeting yesterday with Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Dianne Feinstein learned that her controversial assault weapons ban mess will not be part of the gun control bill package heading to the senate floor next month.  The AWB could be offered up as an amendment, but the bill was already considered a long shot, as senate democrats will be facing a competitive election cycle for 2014. Many face constituents back home who do not support such legislation.