Free Republic

**SNIP** Ninety–four percent is an impressive number, particularly considering Obamacare is mandatory, and most readers would assume everyone kept their insurance. Which makes 94 percent a real success story. Except they didn’t keep their insurance, and it’s not a success story. The truth is (there’s that word again), over one–third of Covered California policyholders dropped their insurance altogether. Attkisson contends this is one of the worst retention rates in the nation. And for those poor souls who are still at the mercy of Covered California, the situation doesn’t get any better, 84 percent of the policyholders will be paying increased...

Which entrance into this nation is illegal? The natural journey down the birth canal or the unnatural, contrived crossing of the border? Ten senators laid down their mandate to protect the Constitution when they voted to confirm Loretta Lynch as attorney general Thursday, April 23. Having taken an oath to uphold the tenets of our founding documents, these republicans, who vowed to serve faithfully, were found faithless. There was good reason why President Obama had placed such confidence in his nominee to become the top justice official. When questioned by the Senate committee, Lynch plainly stated her intention of standing...

Kudos to TheDC’s Kerry Picket for spotting the significance of this Hillary Clinton quote: “Laws [about reproductive health care and safe childbirth] have to be backed up with resources and political will,” Clinton said. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” If one is to assume that “reproductive health care” rights are a euphemism for abortion (a fairly safe assumption), then this is quite telling. Maybe it’s because she was speaking to a friendly audience (at the Women in The World Summit), but this honest appraisal is a reminder that politics are downstream from...

Michigan Republican Tim Walberg was a Christian minister before winning election to Congress in 2010 — and he hasn't entirely changed jobs. In a rare Tuesday night committee meeting at which House Republicans advanced a bill curtailing reproductive rights, Walberg took the even rarer step of lecturing his colleagues on Scripture. "It is clearly taught by Jesus the Christ himself," Walberg preached to members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, "for those of us who believe in him — and I understand and I accept the fact that there are those who don't — but he said render...

Bloomberg - link and title only. Sub-title... "A culture war blows up, and Cruz intends to win it!" politics/articles/2015-04-24/ted-cruz-campaiA culture war blows up, and Cruz intends to win it.

David Gibson suggested this might be Hillary Clinton’s “clinging to guns and religion” moment, and he may be right — assuming she survives the corruption scandals in the first place. Last night, Hillary told the Women in the World Summit that the path to Abortion Nirvana will only open up by changing religion, culture, and values to accommodate it:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper,”...

Millions of Americans are turning to prayer over the next seven days in a bid to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold traditional marriage between a man and a woman when it considers whether states can ban gay marriage during oral arguments April 28. The effort hits Washington Saturday when a "March for Marriage" takes place featuring speeches from leaders of several religions. In addition, networks of at least 145,000 pastors, many with enormous followings, several Evangelical and pro-marriage groups and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz are leading the effort. While an easy decision for groups opposed to...

NEW YORK — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took a feminist tone on Thursday. She told attendees at the sixth annual Women in The World Summit that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving women access to “reproductive health care and safe childbirth.” “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper,” Clinton said.

Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday said "deep-seated … religious beliefs" have to be changed before the world's women will get full access to abortion. “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced,” Clinton said, according to The Daily Caller. “Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper,” she argued about abortion. “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will." “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be...

It was sort of inevitable that on his first day of campaigning as an announced candidate for president earlier this month, Rand Paul would be asked whether he supported a ban on abortions in cases of rape or incest. Reporters have been asking Republican candidates that question ever since 2012, when the Missouri Republican Senate candidate said he supported such a ban and added that pregnancies were unlikely in cases of "legitimate rape." But Paul's reply wasn't what the reporter expected. "Why don't we ask the (Democratic National Committee) is it OK to kill a seven-pound baby in the uterus?...

“Are you guys religious?” It’s a question every pro-life activist doing educational outreach has heard. The question is always leveled suspiciously, as if the truth of our abortion victim photography is contingent on whether or not pro-life activists believe in God.The response to this question is simple: Abortion is wrong because it is an act of violence that destroys a human being developing in the womb. On this everyone from the late atheist Christopher Hitchens to the pope can agree. Yes, many of us are Christian, both Protestant and Catholic. But a basic overview of embryology textbooks used in medical...

A series of pro-life banners of images of 11-week-old fetuses in the womb saw mere hours of daylight at the University of Southern California on Tuesday prior to being removed by the same university organization that had initially approved them. The light poles instead featured hand-written signs posted on them reading, “Women deserve the right to choose.” “It is unbelievable that USC removed all the posters that were put up around the school,” USC College Republicans member Jacob Ellenhorn told The College Fix. He noted that the banners went through the proper channels to obtain approval.  -snip Monique Allard, USC’s assistant provost for student engagement, responded to...

A national evangelical Christian leader has written that his fellow believers should vote for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, because she will radically reduce the abortion rate. Hillary, in whose campaign abortion industry lobbyists play a conspicuous role, favors abortion-on-demand throughout pregnancy. Yet Tony Campolo believes a second Clinton presidency will halve the number of abortions nationwide. “Hillary Clinton is one of the few candidates on the political stage who has a plan for cutting the abortion rate in America by at least 50 percent,” Campolo, a sociology professor emeritus at Eastern University, wrote in a debate on Religion News...

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the federal government in an effort to force religious organizations to provide abortions and contraception to illegal immigrants. Fox News reports that the lawsuit seeks to obtain government records regarding the reproductive healthcare policies for illegal immigrant children that are currently in the care of federally funded Catholic groups. Depending on the content of those documents, the ACLU said it could take further legal action. “We have heard reports that Catholic bishops are prohibiting Catholic charities from allowing teens in their care to access critical services like contraception and abortion — even if...

Republican Sen. David Vitter’s bid to subpoena details about Congress’s treatment under Obamacare bitterly divided his own party Thursday, with five GOP senators balking at his attempt to force the D.C. health exchange to name who signed off on Capitol Hill’s use of the city’s insurance portal. Mr. Vitter, of Louisiana and chairman of the Small Business Committee, swiftly condemned his colleagues for voting with committee Democrats to reject his maneuver, 5 to 14. He said Congress’s arrangement with the city’s small-business exchange, or “SHOP,” provides lawmakers and staff with financial perks above and beyond what regular Obamacare customers can...

(CNSNews.com) – In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. The IRS's assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan. The examples...

Well, Obamacare is now official, which means that a lot more people in the United States will have health insurance. And it also means a lot more people will be paying more taxes. (You didn't think Obamacare was free, did you?) Here are some of the new taxes you're going to have to pay to pay for Obamacare: A 3.8% surtax on "investment income" when your adjusted gross income is more than $200,000 ($250,000 for joint-filers). What is "investment income?" Dividends, interest, rent, capital gains, annuities, house sales, partnerships, etc. Taxes on dividends will rise from 15% to 18.8%--if Congress...

An estimated three to six million taxpayers will get a nasty surprise when they fill out their federal income returns this year. They will be subject to the ObamaCare tax penalty, or as it is expressed in governmentese, a “shared responsibility payment.” Just calculating one’s “shared responsibility payment” can be quite a chore. There is an online worksheet posted here. It is remarkable that ObamaCare, a bill that was promoted by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as one that should be passed so that people could learn what's in it, would have a tax penalty that would require...

Providing food and shelter to illegal immigrants isn't enough for federally-funded Catholic organizations, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing the federal government to help ensure the religious organizations provide abortion and contraception to them as well. The suit aims to obtain government records related to reproductive healthcare policy for unaccompanied immigrant children in the care of federally funded Catholic agencies, which do not believe in abortion. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “We have heard reports that Catholic bishops are prohibiting Catholic charities from allowing teens in their care to access critical services like contraception and abortion- even if the...

In a speech yesterday about working families--while trying to explain why he thinks too many women face "being reprimanded or fired for taking too many bathroom breaks when you're pregnant"--President Obama let it slip that he knows unborn babies have feet that kick. "Too many women face unnecessary difficulties on the job, like the difficulty of being paid less than a man for doing the same work," said Obama. "That’s a difficulty. Or being reprimanded or fired for taking too many bathroom breaks when you’re pregnant. Clearly that’s a man making that decision because they don’t have five pounds of...