Free Republic

The Senate Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act voted 7-4 today to reject expanding Medicaid, which was a crucial component of Obamacare. This along with the recent rejection by the House Select Committee on PPACA ends the chances of Medicaid Expansion, at least for now. Senator Joe Negron, who chairs the Committee, was quoted as saying "I oppose the Washington plan, and I want a Florida plan." The Committee did decide that Florida should create its own program that helps the uninsured buy private insurance policies, and plans to work with the House Committee to work...

Bottom line: Romney 315, Obama 223. That sounds high for Romney. But he could drop Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still win the election. Fundamentals.

(Rasmussen Reports [scott@rasmussenreports.ccsend.com]; on behalf of; Rasmussen Reports [update@rasmussenreports.com]) Dear Friends, Please find a special message from our paid sponsor, Wall Street Daily. Sponsorships like this help to allow us to continue to send you our Daily Update free of charge. We appreciate your interest in our work. Rasmussen Reports Dear Concerned Voter, Mitt Romney, whose estimated net worth is $250 million, was reluctant to release his 2011 tax returns... Meanwhile, Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan… Well, his net worth exploded by up to 130% over the last 10 years. “It’s absolutely stunning,” says political intelligence expert, Robert Williams “What...

The Taliban hardly needs to dress up like American Soldiers to hit our jets when enough real Soldiers do worse, all on official business. The Army pretends to have the luxury of sending liabilities to Afghanistan who have little better to do than post on Facebook, play at being journalists, and then claim to be under combat stress. Meanwhile, real combat troops go toe-to-toe with the Taliban 24/7.

[snip]Simply put, most of this dispute comes down to the NFLRA opposing the NFL’s attempts to make refs contribute to their own pensions.[snip] [snip]Of course, there are other, less contentious issues being negotiated: the NFLRA wants the NLF to increase the $18.6 million it currently splits among its 121 referees. The NFL will only go as high as $19 million. Also, the NFL wants to hire more refs and make the ones they have full-time employees. Wait, wait, wait! Professional NFL refs are part-time employees? Yup. In fact, a lot of them work other jobs in the offseason. This means...

Oops? President Barack Obama's re-election campaign washed its hands Wednesday of an independent group's vicious (and misleading) ad effectively blaming Mitt Romney for the death of a laid-off steelworker's wife from cancer. Campaign officials flatly denied any knowledge of the facts in the case—but it turns out the widower told the same story on an Obama campaign conference call in mid-May. (The Obama campaign responded late in the day: See update below). "We have nothing, no involvement, with any ads that are done by Priorities USA. We don't have any knowledge of the story of the family," Obama campaign spokeswoman...

Cass Sunstein, administrator of the powerful Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, will return later this month to his previous post at Harvard Law School, the White House will announce Friday. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79347.html#ixzz22cdcmFyu

. . . . . According to Adams, the micro-blogging service—which partnered with NBC for the summer games—alerted him of the reinstatement via email. "We have just received an update from the complainant retracting their original request," Twitter wrote, according to Adams. "Therefore your account has been unsuspended." . . . .

Is it me or is there a comparatively high amount of news stories comparing the U.S. unemployment rate to those of the E.U. When I first started to see these I wondered to myself; Is there someplace that details how those European countries calculate or derive those numbers and how do they compare to the phoney way they are calculated here? Seeing that the real number in this country is somewhere close to 15%, when counting everyone who has fallen off the compensation rolls or the underemployed looking for full time work and can't find it, are we really better...

Being a member of the 2011 Rolex GT Champions who had to come from the back to win it: CONGRATS!

In his only public appearance of the day, Cain told Kimmel during the late-night interview that he got angry and disgusted as he watched Bialek and Allred. He said his wife didn't watch it but that he called her immediately afterward.

House Democrats Thursday called on the Justice Department to investigate whether large banks are coordinating new fees in violation of antitrust laws. Representative Peter Welch said public statements by big banks and trade groups raise questions about whether financial firms have colluded on fee increases to make up for revenues lost because of a new cap on debit card swipe fees. The letter is the latest battle over the Durbin amendment, which went into effect on Oct. 1 and cut by nearly half the amount banks can charge merchants when customers swipe their debit cards.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's jobs bill, facing a critical test in the Senate, appears likely to die at the hands of Republicans opposed to stimulus spending and a tax surcharge on millionaires.

President Obama is working hard to stay outside of the blast radius if House Republicans and Senate Democrats are unable to cut a deal to keep the government open when current emergency funding expires at midnight Friday. Congressional Democrats have noticed that in his efforts to avoid blame for what is shaping up as a procedural pileup, the president has increasingly been highlighting their failure to pass, or even put forward, a budget last year. This week, Obama has mentioned multiple times that the current debate was over an issue that should have been resolved “six months ago.” That was...

I have always done some of my best "out of the box" thinking while driving and may have come up with a logical explanation on the way to an appointment yesterday, of why the Democrats, AKA Progressives, Communists, Socialists, etc, seem to be bending over backwards to placate Islam. All while Islam sees it as their divine destiny to destroy our country and its freedoms. We here at FR, and I'm sure many others in America, are going crazy trying to apply logic to a totally illogical scenario of the left in this country continuously excusing and even coddling those...

He told New York City television station NY1 that he was no longer able to continue paying his legal team. "I have exhausted my abilities to raise the funds which are necessary to move on (with representation)," Rangel said. "All I do is just ask for the time to be heard and I am conficent that at the end of the day my constituents' faith in me, as demonstrated by their overwhelming vote, will be well-founded." Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/11/15/your-guide-rangel-ethics-trial#ixzz15Mbjfeez

Since the LVRJ is named, I did not want to add to the headaches for Jim and the legal team by pasting antying in here.

"God bless aides at DE GOP whose job it is to try to kill off Christine O’Donnell’s candidacy"

A message to all members of First Coast Tea Party September 4, 2010 Marco Rubio's father dies Posted: September 4th, 2010 11:23 PM ET (CNN) - Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio's father has died, his campaign announced Saturday night. The Republican's campaign will be placed "on temporary hold" for a few days, according to a statement. Citing his father's deteriorating health, Rubio on Friday withdrew from a debate with Democrat Kendrick Meek that was scheduled to take place Sunday morning on NBC's "Meet the Press." Read Rubio's statement, after the jump: "My father knew hard work and struggle from very...

'I'd rather lose with Pat Toomey than win with Arlen Specter any day." That's South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint defending his Senate Conservatives Fund, a new PAC that has taken Washington by storm.