Free Republic

‘It’s the law of the land.” This is rapidly becoming the preferred shorthand argument for why criticism of Obamacare is just so, so wrong. It also serves as the lead sentence of a larger claim that all attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act are really symptoms of a kind of extremist right-wing lunacy. For instance, here’s Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who walked out of the painting American Gothic to deliver this homespun wisdom: “We’re not going to bow to tea-party anarchists who deny the mere fact that Obamacare is the law. We will not bow to tea-party anarchists...

Senior White House Adviser Dan Pfeiffer compared House Republicans to suicide bombers, kidnappers and arsonists in an interview with CNN. Pfeiffer, the former White House communications director who was promoted to the senior spot after the 2012 election, explained President Obama’s unwillingness to compromise on his call for an unconditional increase in the federal debt limit: “What we’re not for is negotiating with people with a bomb strapped to their chest.” He also called Republican counterproposals “ransom demands” adding, “It’s not a negotiation if I show up at your house and say, ‘Give me everything inside or I'm going to...

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on Friday said that the Tea Party movement is just as dangerous for America as the Civil War. “A small group of willful men and women who have a certain ideology about how our country should run and what we should do cannot get their way in a normal discourse and votes,” Harkin said. “Since they can’t get their way they’re going to create this confusion and discourse and hope the public is so mixed up in who to blame for this that perhaps they’ll blame both sides.” “That is the path they see for taking...

President Barack Obama lashed out at Republican opponents of the healthcare law he pioneered on Thursday. In a feisty speech at a Washington-area college, Obama defended the 2010 Affordable Care Act against Republican critics who say it is an example of government gone too far. Obama said Republicans fear Americans will come to like the healthcare law, saying their strategy is basically, "'We've got to shut this thing down before people find out that they like it.'" "Don't you think that's a strange argument? And the closer we get, the more desperate they get," he said.

More people support the Tea Party than consider themselves liberal, and almost 3/4 of the electorate does not oppose the Tea Party. That’s not the headline you will see, of course. Instead, Gallup headlines its story about its most recent polling to emphasize the negative about Tea Party support, Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near-Record Low. Gallup:Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near-Record Low There’s only one brief time period when opposition to the Tea Party was significantly lower, but opposition now is right in the 25-29% range it’s typically been in. Tea Party support is significantly lower than three years...

With just five days to go before Americans can begin signing up for health care under his signature law, President Barack Obama on Thursday ridiculed Republican opponents for “crazy” doomsday predictions of the impact and forecast that even those who didn’t vote for him are going to enroll. With polls showing many Americans still skeptical of the law known as “Obamacare,” the president went back to the basics of explaining how nearly 50 million uninsured Americans will be able to buy coverage in new government-run exchanges while mocking Republicans for trying to block its implementation. “The closer we get, the...

An email sent to students by a University of Maryland official that cites the Trayvon Martin shooting as evidence "it is legal to hunt down and kill American children in Florida" is being blasted as the latest evidence of a left-wing bias on campus. The email, from William Dorland, director of the school's Honors College, starts by welcoming students back to campus, but then quickly veers into politics. "This year, we learned that it is legal to hunt down and kill American children in Florida," it reads, in a reference to the trial of George Zimmerman, who was cleared of...

The CBC is the Congressional Black Caucus. Remarkable video is Here. The Black Caucus attendees were gathering at their annual conference in Washington DC, and this reporter quizzed many of them as to why they thought ObamaCare was so natonally unpopular.

Defunding Obamacare is just a ruse to shut down the government, according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.“Republicans put legislation on the floor that was intended to shut down government,” Pelosi told CNN host Candy Crowley on Sunday. “For them, that’s a victory because [of] their anti-government ideologues who dominate the Republican party.”Crowley corrected Pelosi by saying the Republicans wanted to defund Obamacare, but Pelosi stood her ground.“No, they want to shut down government,” Pelosi said. “The effect of putting [Obamacare] on the bill is to shut down government. They know that. They know it has no prospect of...

“I’m not going to let anyone harm this country’s reputation!” – President Obama, Weekly Address, September 21, 2013 h/t BKeyser  No caption required.El Rushbo always says that Progs accuse their opponents of doing whatever it is they’re doing themselves. Shrinks call it “projection.” Sometimes it sounds more like blame. Either way, butt for blame and projection, Big Guy’s Big Brained team would have no offense at all. Rush also contends that in the course of their projection/blame offense the Progs always reveal who and what they fear most from the other team. Let’s spend a little time today examining...

College classrooms are supposed to be politically neutral, not indoctrination centers for liberalism. Yet, we have conservative parents who save money for decades to send their children to universities that teach everything conservatives believe is wrong. We have Republican state legislatures that fund colleges whose first goal is to teach college kids to vote Republicans out of office. We have colleges that claim to care deeply about diversity; yet they work overtime to keep conservative professors and conservative speakers off campus. It's time to draw a line in the sand and say, "Communists, bombers, criminals, deviants, and political activists masquerading...

A journalism professor at the University of Kansas (KU) turned to Twitter on Monday to suggest he would like to see the murder of children of National Rifle Association (NRA) members at the hands of a deranged gunman. “#NavyYardShooting The blood is on the hands of the #NRA,” tweeted David Guth, who is an associate professor of Journalism at the university’s William Allen White School of Journalism. Speaking with Campus Reform on Wednesday, Guth confirmed it was he who sent the controversial tweet. “Hell no, hell no, I do not regret that Tweet,” he said. “I don't take it back...

Tennessee Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen blamed opposition to gun control on voters’ affinities for “guns and the Bible” on Wednesday in an MSNBC appearance. “I got the vitriol from on the Twitter from all these people who opposed that cartoon,” said Cohen, who tweeted a cartoon that appeared to blame the National Rifle Association for the Navy Yard shooting spree on Tuesday. ”They are hardcore Republicans. This I think means more to them than — I think their guns are right there next to their Bibles. I’m not sure which they find more important to them.” Cohen’s remarks bear a...

US Study Finds Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide: Factual or Faulty?

President Obama is defending the partisan budget speech that he delivered just hours after the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. In an interview Tuesday night with the Spanish-language network Telemundo, Mr. Obama said he was fully briefed on the shooting before he went on camera to accuse congressional Republicans of trying “to hurt people just to score political points.” “I think that everybody understands that the minute something like this [shooting] happens, I’m in touch with the FBI , I’m in touch with my national security team, we’re making sure that all the assets are out there for...

'Marco Rubio threatens everything in his path'

And then, finally, now what we've got is Republicans talking about the idea that they would shut down the government.... Nobody thinks that's good for the middle class. So the question is ultimately, if you are putting the American people first, if you are prioritizing them, then this shouldn't be that difficult. And I've made this argument to my Republican friends privately, and, by the way, sometimes they say to me privately, "I agree with you, but I'm worried about a primary from, you know, somebody in the Tea Party back in my district," or, "I'm worried about what Rush...

After six years of offering the non-credit yet popular NRA-based gun safety course, the Los Angeles Community College announced that the class has been dropped due to new restrictions set up by the school’s board of trustees. The Board of Trustees Vice President Scott Svonkin, who helped to write the new resolution, told Campus Reform in an interview Monday that he felt the school had no business teaching firearms safety, but rather the facility should have the responsibility to “promote gun control.” “I believe that the NRA’s goal is to promote gun ownership, and that guns lead to deaths,” Svonkin...

As you prepare for the IRS to start monitoring your health insurance and make your medical records accessible to thousands, perhaps you also should vacuum your floor, wash the windows and lock up any weapons, should you be so unwise as to actually have them. It’s all in readiness for Obamacare, which will include home visits for many citizens, maybe even everyone, depending on the interpretation of the law.

Anyone who doubts that Hillary Clinton is already in fine fighting trim for a presidential run should consider her speech this week to the American Bar Association in San Francisco. She assailed an alleged “assault on voting rights.” She took aim at the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act and excoriated states that have recently tightened their voting laws. She declared that “anyone who says that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in American elections must not be paying attention.” Madam Secretary hasn’t missed a beat. She knows that the calling card...