Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Health care was already a vulnerability for President Donald Trump before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now his lack of a plan to fix the system is coming under a new microscope as the crisis costs many Americans their coverage and overwhelms providers. The clarity in Trump's health care vision begins and ends with repealing the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, also known as Obamacare. His budget proposals would strip away funding for the law, and he has endorsed a lawsuit to wipe it off the books. But the president hasn't thrown his weight behind a replacement bill or...

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration's decision to let states chart their own responses to the coronavirus crisis rather than impose a national strategy will cost thousands of lives and is likely to result in an open-ended outbreak rolling across the country, a dozen public health experts told NBC News. The only way to win what President Donald Trump has called a war against an "invisible enemy" is to establish a unified federal command, the experts insist - something Trump has yet to do. So far, the federal government hasn't leveraged all its authority and influence to dramatically expand testing and...

Newt "evolves" on gay marriage

ANALYSIS/OPINION: You know you’re running a lousy presidential campaign when you get bitten by a penguin. The Newt’s presidential campaign has got to be one of the worst ever run in American history. Last May, when Newt was casually campaigning, as is his way, he found himself exhausted. He had, after all, been at it for weeks. So, he did what any pooped-out candidate would do: He split on a luxury cruise to the Greek Islands with Wife No. 3 (22 years his junior — he was already out of college when she was born). Newt rose during the debates...

Even as Newt Gingrich’s campaign teetered on the edge of collapse in March, the wife of a casino mogul gave a pro-Gingrich super PAC another $5 million. The contribution brought the Adelson family’s pro-Gingrich tally to $20 million — a figure Sheldon Adelson himself was floating in December, POLITICO reported. The Adelsons almost single-handedly funded Winning Our Future’s operations since its inception in December, but in recent days, Adelson has signaled he will put his wealth behind establishment Republican candidates. The super PAC, Winning Our Future, ended last month with $5.76 million in its account, having raised $5.05 million while...

The world arrived here more than a century ago with the gold rush and later the railroad. Yet one aspect of American life did not come to town until 1996, the year Sarah Palin ran for mayor and Wasilla got its first local lesson in wedge politics. -SNIP- Anti-abortion fliers circulated. Ms. Palin played up her church work and her membership in the National Rifle Association. The state Republican Party, never involved before because city elections are nonpartisan, ran advertisements on Ms. Palin’s behalf. Two years after Representative Newt Gingrich helped draft the Contract With America to advance Republican positions,...