Free Republic

Government economists revised upwards their GDP estimates for the fourth quarter of 2013. And guess what? We did much better than anybody thought possible! The Commerce Department revised GDP upwards to 2.6% growth from the 2.4% growth that they had previously estimated for the fourth quarter. So while everybody was bemoaning the fact that the Christmas shopping numbers that came out in December were adversely affected by weather, it's clear now to government economists that the effects of fourth quarter weather were put off until the first quarter of 2014. Or something. “Robust consumer spending on services,” says Bloomberg, “particularly...

You only have 5 to 7 days or maybe 30 days to comply with the law and this time they mean it. Kind of. And once again Obama has shown us that his basic problem is not one of governance but one of math. After sternly vowing there would be no more delays for Obamacare, Obama and company sternly vowed to delay, and delay, and delay until every man woman and child in America is sick to death of Obama's signature legislation. "According to a Health and Human Services official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about decisions that...

In our current age of spin and counter-spin, there is no contortion too great for a politician to attempt. On occasion, however, the threads of one story become entangled with another in a manner that should deeply embarrass, if the media were sharp enough to catch it. This happened last week in response to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) bombshell report on how Obamacare incentives could reduce the size of the labor force by more than two million workers by 2017. While the report did not reflect the Republican spin (that the law will cause employers to kill jobs -...

The big headline from USA Today says it all: Democrats beginning to support Obamacare delays. Of course, what the article does not say is that a delay of Obamacare is exactly what conservatives have been demanding for months. The intrepid reporter also forgot to mention President Obama’s refusal to discuss even a miniscule delay caused parts of the federal government to shut down. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel proclaimed this week “a turning point” because “After 16 long days of vowing to Republicans that they would not cave in any way, shape or form on ObamaCare, Democrats spent their...

Earlier this week, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski tried to call the HealthCare.gov helpline and got an operator. That's right: an operator! The call went through! MSNBC, the unofficial AV department of the Democratic Party, had a scoop. The network tweeted out the big news along with a link to the video: "Mika called the Obamacare hotline and got through with no problems -- right on air. WATCH." It's a sure sign that the bar has been lowered to curb height when spinners are touting the exciting news that phone calls actually go through. Someone picked up the phone! Quick, hang...

<p>For liberals, it is a cruel twist of history that Harry Truman's dream of universal health coverage, carried forward by generations of committed Democrats, should fall to the Obama administration for its fulfillment.</p> <p>Barack Obama seems to have adopted this cause in January 2007 as a last-minute speech insert. "We needed something to say," one adviser told Politico. "I can't tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good." Eventually, the Affordable Care Act was passed by a partisan vote, draining the law of legitimacy outside the Democratic Party. Over the next three years, Obama proved incapable of explaining Obamacare's virtues and its popularity fell. Then its implementation was entrusted to a Cabinet secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, who gratuitously alienated religious groups and massively bungled the law's rollout.</p>

I can't believe I'm writing this sentence, but Obamacare's exchanges appear to somehow be more deeply corrupted and broken than previously known. If there were words more impactful than "meltdown" and "trainwreck," I'd use them. Instead, I'll simply present the facts as they continue to come to light. USA Today: The federal health care exchange was built using 10-year-old technology that may require constant fixes and updates for the next six months and the eventual overhaul of the entire system, technology experts told USA TODAY....Recent changes have made the exchanges easier to use, but they still require clearing the...

A follow-up to this morning's post chronicling Obamacare's myriad failures; CBS News surveys the wreckage and renders an unavoidable verdict (via Hot Air): CBS Calls Obamacare Website Launch 'Nothing Short of Disastrous' "The president's signature achievement has become the butt of late night jokes...no one knows how many people have managed to enroll, and the administration refuses to release those numbers. The website's launch has been nothing short of disastrous. Media outlets have struggled to find anyone who's actually been successful." If a one-year delay of the Obamacare mandate tax is good enough for Jon Stewart, Wolf Blitzer and...