Free Republic

Insurance companies challenged GOP orthodoxy on Obamacare. It’s not going well.The pressures facing insurers and pharma are emblematic of tensions across corporate America as companies scramble to navigate an administration that has upended traditional levers of influence and free market orthodoxy while triggering a record windfall for K Street, Washington’s lobbying corridor.“This president has decidedly chosen to bring insurance and pharmaceutical industries to the table, to make them do things they don’t want to do. That’s a really different world,” said Peggy Tighe, a former insurance representative who now lobbies for providers and patient groups at Powers Law.Two roads diverged...

Researchers have analyzed a sample of DNA believed to belong to Adolf Hitler, which they say reveals the dictator of Nazi Germany had a genetic marker for a rare disorder that can delay puberty, according to a new documentary. The research, which took more than four years to complete, was led by geneticist Turi King, a professor at the UK’s University of Bath who is known for identifying the remains of King Richard III. King said she verified that a piece of material taken from a couch in the bunker where Hitler shot himself in 1945 was soaked in the...

Irate Trump supporters have slammed Saturday Night Live for its brazen skit mocking the president's response to being named in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Saturday night's cold open sketch sparked outrage among conservative critics for depicting Donald Trump inadvertently admitting to a damning relationship with the disgraced sex trafficker. 'You people are sick!' one X user reacted to the five-minute satirical segment. 'Hope [Trump] sues the hell out of them,' another chimed in. 'SNL makes fun of Trump. Water is wet. Predictable and boring,' one critic bluntly called out the show. Set at a press conference, Trump, played by James...

The arrests of MLB and NBA players could be just the tip of a massive iceberg.The sports world was rocked again this week when two pitchers for Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians were arrested on charges related to gambling. Coming on the heels of the recent indictments of numerous current and former NBA players and a head coach on similarly disturbing allegations in October, the already heated debate about increasingly widespread legal wagering on pro sports has intensified. The overriding concern is about the potential damage it will cause among bettors, not to mention those consuming sports simply for pleasure,...

Police say the 53-year-old man was cleaning his shotgun when his dog accidentally set it off, shooting him in the lower back.SHILLINGTON, Pa. — A 53-year-old man shot in the lower back by one of his dogs is expected to survive, police say. The shooting happened Tuesday, Nov. 11 around 11 p.m. in Shillington, Pennsylvania. Shillington Police Department Captain Michael Schoone said the man was cleaning his shotgun when one of his dogs jumped on the bed and the gun went off."He's not sure what stage of cleaning he was in at the time, so it's unsure if the dog's...

It was, and remains, fashionable in some quarters abroad and even here at home, to question the concept of American exceptionalism after the 2024 election. Naturally, some of those feelings were driven more by the man who won the contest rather than a dispassionate understanding of what has made America so special and unique since its founding. European intellectuals often see America’s patriotism and success as attributable to luck or some sort of cosmic accident that would be impossible to reproduce. But anyone looking to discount America’s economic success is liable to be sorely disappointed as we approach 2026. Three...

Despite the blow, it has now been reported that Disney has its eye set on remaking another old cartoon: Sleeping Beauty. He also claimed that it will be set in Mexico instead of France, where the original took place. Sleeping Beauty followed princess Aurora, who had been cursed by an evil fairy named Maleficent, forcing her to fall into a deep sleep that can only be broken by true love's kiss.

https://babylonbee.com/news/shoe-manufacturers-rush-to-design-new-nickel-loafersU.S. — With the penny no longer being minted, shoe manufacturers announced that they were working hard to replace the old penny loafer slip-on shoe design with an exciting new nickel loafer. Penny loafers got their name from teenagers in the 1950s who placed pennies in the leather slots stitched across the saddle of the shoes. But with pennies now obsolete, shoe companies were rushing to design the world's first nickel loafer. "Things change, and we have to change with them," said shoe manufacturer Tom Shoemaker. "Pennies may no longer be in production, but we can't just stop making loafers....

Former first lady Michelle Obama said in a conversation published to her YouTube page Friday that the country is not ready for a woman president, adding that the U.S. has “a lot of growing up to do.” “As we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready,” Obama said. “That’s why I’m like, don’t even look at me about running, because you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman. You are not.” “You know, we got a lot of growing up to do, and there’s still, sadly, a lot of men who do not feel like they...

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:35 — 26.3MB)Subscribe: Android | RSS | MoreThe United Nations is once again attacking homeschoolers in an attempt to control the education of youth to embrace collectivism, climate hysteria, social-emotional learning, and globalism, explains Alex Newman for The New American’s Behind The Deep State. A new UNESCO report, prepared under the supervision of a literal North Korean totalitarian, explains that homeschooling, if not done by the UN’s standards, can violate a student’s “human rights.” Therefore, all forms of education must be viewed through a “rights-based” lens.This invasion of parental rights and educational...

I’m probably in a minority of one, but I’ve concluded that Michelle Obama is a pitiable woman because she is incapable of happiness. Mind you, she’s not a harmless woman, because she uses her bully pulpit to spread her misery by making other people, especially women and minorities, equally dissatisfied, paranoid, and hate-filled, but there’s still something pathetic about a woman who has everything yet still sees herself as the victim. Michelle’s latest rant was about hair. (snip) But for Michelle—because she’s a leftist and the personal is always political—the fact that the current style is for lustrous straight hair...

What did Jesus really know about the Book of Enoch and the Nephilim giants? Does the Bible hint at “extraterrestrials” cohabiting with mankind in a forgotten golden age? Glenn Beck sits down with ‪@TimothyAlberino‬ for a mind-blowing conversation that connects the dots from Genesis 6 to the coming post-human apocalypse. As futurists like Yuval Harari openly declare the end of humanity, gene editing, artificial wombs, IVF, and transhumanism are rapidly remaking man in a new image. Alberino issues a chilling wake-up call to Christians: “There’s only one qualification for redemption at the cross of Christ — you must be human.”...

..... If you were to believe the press and social media, we’re in the midst of a ‘killer whale uprising’. But claims about their murderous intent are blatantly untrue. The evidence doesn’t stand up. Killer whales do attack, and sometimes kill, trainers in captivity (not surprisingly) but, unlike polar bears, great white sharks and many other top predators, they have never killed a person in the wild. How many attacks have taken place? So what’s happening? Since May 2020, there have been more than 500 reported attacks on sailing boats, as well as some fishing boats, RIBs and motorboats. It...

New York Jets cornerback Kris Boyd was shot and critically wounded in Midtown early Sunday morning and is now clinging to life at Bellevue Hospital, police and sources said. The shooting took place on West 38th Street near Seventh Avenue around 2 a.m., according to police, who did not identify Boyd as the victim. However, sources said it was the 29-year-old NFL cornerback. Cops said there have been no arrests and the shooting is under investigation. Boyd, a 5-11 defensive back for Gang Green joined the team this year after coming up with the Minnesota Vikings before the 2019 season....

My wife age 81 recently developed the need to see a cardiologist for A-fib (non-valvular) which has been releasing blood clots into her lungs causing pulmonary edema and inability to breathe on two occasions requiring EMT intervention and hospitalization. These events have also caused her to lose most of her ability to ambulate and have also caused loss of mental clarity. The hospital has not provided us with a referral to a cardiologist only saying my wife needed to see one on an out-patient basis, and this despite having referred her the second time to a skilled nursing facility for...

America stands at a crossroads. The greatest crisis we face is neither foreign invasion nor financial ruin nor even the factional strife that now masquerades as governance. The gravest danger before us is trust, that “main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad,” as Madison warned in Federalist Number Forty-Nine. The American people have been deceived, misled, manipulated, and betrayed by the very institutions designed to be their safeguard. These departments, much like the unchecked branches Publius feared, have grown ambitious beyond their constitutional boundaries. And now, at the...

Nothing was going to stop Alexa Anderson from stepping off the medal podium that night on May 30. Not when a biological male would be there up too. Anderson had just finished in third place in the girls' state championship high jump, marking her final Oregon high school track performance after four intense years of competition and training. But she wouldn't see the medal for all that hard work for several months, she claims.

In the final days of 1943, a damaged American B-17 struggled to stay in the air — its crew wounded, its engines failing. Then, out of the clouds, a German fighter appeared. What happened next became one of the most extraordinary acts of mercy in World War II.

The McCaughey septuplets were the equivalent of a viral sensation when they were born in 1997 as hysteria around the huge brood saw them thrown into the spotlight. Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey welcomed Nathan, Kelsey, Brandon, Joel, Natalie, Alexis, and Kenny Jr on November 19, 1997, in Des Moines, Iowa. The babies became the first septuplets in the world to survive infancy. They were born within six minutes of each other, nine weeks premature and only weighed between two and four pounds. Mom Bobbi was born with a malfunctioning pituitary gland that struggled to produce hormones to stimulate ovulation. She...

If ICE or other immigration agents go out of bounds, the place to fight them is the courts, not the streets —and New York pols from Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on down are courting chaos if they play the issue otherwise. Consider City Councilman Shaun Abreu’s smear Wednesday, posting an inflammatory video that he claimed showed Homeland Security officers pulling a migrant out of an SUV in Washington Heights without due process. Abreu blasted the arrest as “deeply disturbing” and part of a “despicable pattern of intimidation,” huffing that agencies “carrying out [President Donald] Trump’s agenda of detaining people without due...