Free Republic

Looking over the final voter tallies, the winners and losers for state and federal offices, there remains one undecided gubernatorial contest: Vermont. Unlike other states, if a gubernatorial candidate, whether incumbent of challenger, fails to win a simple majority, the state legislature appoints the next governor out of the top three contenders. Incumbent Democrat Peter Shumlin, won by 2,000 votes, yet got less than half the total vote in the 2014 election. Presently, the legislature sits firmly in the Democratic camp, although Republican gained a few seats. Still, Shumlin has weathered some troubling controversies in Vermont. In his 2014 State...

With the recent defeat of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu — which leaves three Democratic Southern U.S. Senators — the common wisdom is that Democrats should bid farewell to the South. Even with favorable changing national demographics that benefit Democrats, an abandonment of the South and, on a larger scale, a viable moderate wing would be a mistake. Recently, writer Michael Tomasky argued that the South, a “reactionary, prejudice-infested” region, should be left to Republicans to create a “free market Jesus paradise.” Few sentiments better show what is wrong with Democrats today and why ironic Republican arguments that it is the...

If you’re looking for a state with a reliable Leftward tilt, you’d be hard pressed to do better than Vermont. After all, this is the place which has repeatedly elected Bernie Sanders – a man who considers the Democrat Party too conservative for his tastes – to statewide office since 1991. So in terms of socialist experimental laboratories, this is the spot where you’d want to launch progressive initiatives and take them for a test spin. That was the plan for Governor Peter Shumlin, who had promised his constituents that they would soon be enjoying the first in the...

The leftwing New York Daily News blasted President Obama on its cover Thursday morning. Referring to the federal government's appallingly incompetent response to the American Ebola outbreak, the front page headline next to the president's photo read, "For God's Sake, Get a Grip." After three weeks of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) happy talking its Ebola preparedness and wrist-flicking the potential threat, 3 people in America have been infected with Ebola, two nurses and the man they cared for -- who died last week.

NEW YORK (RNS) In the latest clash between the Catholic hierarchy and one of the church’s leading anti-abortion crusaders, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan accused the Rev. Frank Pavone of continuing to stonewall on financial reforms, and Dolan said he is cutting ties with his group, Priests for Life. In a Nov. 20 letter to other U.S. bishops, Dolan said he did not know if the Vatican would now step in to take action against the New York-based priest, who for years has angered various bishops by rejecting oversight of the organization by church authorities and for refusing to sort...

Jonathan Gruber should have been Time's Person of the Year. The magazine gave it to the "Ebola Fighters" instead. Good for them; they're doing God's work. Still, Gruber would have been better. Time's Person of the Year designation has lost a lot of its stature over recent years. Part of its decline can probably be attributed to the fact that it's come to be seen as an honorific. It was originally conceived to recognize the person who, "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year." So Adolf Hitler (1938) and Josef...

Finally. James O'Keefe interviews the gentleman that exposed Gruber and happens upon the true reason for ObamaCare. I've been thinking this for over a year. ObamaCare is nothing more than turning back the the provision of healthcare coverage paid for by employers that was brought about by FDR's wage & price controls implemented in the 1940s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabilization_Act_of_1942 There you have it. It's just about the money coming out of your pocket.

Gov. John Kasich’s Obamacare expansion has put 450,941 Ohioans on Medicaid, outpacing his administration’s projections by 24 percent. Instead of tempering leftist support for the expansion, budget-busting enrollment is portrayed as good news for Ohio; Obamacare sticks federal taxpayers with 100 percent of Medicaid expansion benefit costs through 2016. Kasich — who expanded Medicaid over the General Assembly’s express disapproval — told attendees at a Dec. 4 infant mortality summit to march in favor of more Obamacare expansion spending, but critics are encouraging legislative opponents to stand their ground. “Kasich is threatening to organize protests to ensure the state continues...

Jeb Bush is exploring a 2016 presidential bid. The former Florida governor said in a post on Facebook Tuesday that over the Thanksgiving holiday there was a lot of discussion about the future of the nation. “As a result of these conversations and thoughtful consideration of the kind of strong leadership I think America needs, I have decided to actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States,” Mr. Bush said. Mr. Bush said he plans to establish a Leader PAC next month to “help me facilitate conversations with citizens across America to discuss the most critical...

Jeb Bush, the pro-life former governor of Florida, announced today that he is forming an exploratory committee to examine a potential Republican presidential bid in 2016. Bush is known for signing pro-life legislation and a bill to try to save the life of Terri Schiavo. Bush, the brother of pro-life President George W. Bush, made the announcement on Facebook, saying he and his wife and family had long conversations over Thanksgiving about whether to run for president. “We also talked about the future of our nation. As a result of these conversations and thoughtful consideration of the kind of strong...

No one should take their health care interactions for granted any longer. Be careful what you say, who hears you say it, and what they write down. Not too far in the future, we will look back on the concept of medical trust and the sanctity of the exam room as a quaint anachronism. Your best long-term bet is to stay as healthy as you can and as far away from the medical care industry as you possibly can.

2014 is the Year of the Liberal Lie By Kyle Smith Bowe Bergdahl. The IRS’s missing e-mails. Lena Dunham. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Jonathan Gruber. GM and that faulty ignition switch. Andrew Cuomo and that anti-corruption commission. The Secret Service and that White House intruder. Rachel Noerdlinger and her “disabled” son. Rolling Stone and gang rape. 2014 was the year when truth was optional. 2014 was the year when convenient fabrication was the weapon of choice for celebrities, activists, big business and politicians. 2014 was the Year of the Lie. In each case, the liars used their powerful positions to...

Jonathan Gruber’s health care forecasting is failing in Colorado as Vermont’s Gov. Peter Shumlin prepares to use the economist’s math for single-payer health care. As Vermonters anxiously await a Gruber-modeled financing plan for Green Mountain Care, modeling done for Colorado’s health exchange by Jonathan Gruber Associates has proven wildly erroneous. In 2011, following Colorado’s decision to set up a state health exchange for Obamacare, the state hired Gruber to forecast enrollment trends from which the state and federal government could estimate costs. According to a presentation delivered to the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange Board on Sept. 16, 2011, and provided...

Two Democratic presidential candidates with national campaign experience are stumbling. A Republican candidate who has run only municipal campaigns is confounding expectations, calling into question some assumptions about Republican voters. Regarding the Republican race, for many months commentators have said that when the Republican base learns the facts about Rudy Giuliani's personal life (an annulled first marriage, a messy divorce, then a third marriage) and views on social issues (for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, in each case with limits), support for him will evaporate. But such commentary is becoming self-refuting. The insistent reiteration of it during Giuliani's...

The passionate stand by Americans across the country in protesting the failure of grand juries to indict policemen for killing two unarmed people – both poor, black men – is revving up the demand for a political response from Democrats in Washington. Young people of all colors, but mostly blacks, Hispanics and immigrants, are the primary source of that pressure. Their political agenda extends beyond outrage over the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York. They also want Democrats in Congress to get busy defending ObamaCare. But their rising political engagement is best seen...

The Affordable Care Act is spelling the demise of free healthcare clinics across the country, The Wall Street Journal reports. Of clinics across 28 states, almost a dozen in the past two years have cited Obamacare as their reason for shutting their doors. Both The Good Samaritan Free Clinic in Rock Island, Illinois, and the Ninth Street Ministries Free Medical Clinic in Polk County, Arkansas, shut their doors this year saying their missions were complete. Now that most of their former clients have medical insurance, many through expanded Medicaid, they are no longer needed, they say. …

Reclusive billionaire David Koch, a powerful donor in American conservative politics, says he’s a “social liberal.” “I’m basically a libertarian, and I’m a conservative on economic matters, and I’m a social liberal,” Koch told ABC News’ Barbara Walters.... Koch, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, said he isn’t concerned with candidates he supports who don’t share some of his views. He said his primary concern when choosing a candidate to support is their fiscal policies.

Okay, the second half of that headline is not true — yet. But after being catapulted to national stardom for her pink athletic shoes and abortion extremism, Texas Democrat Wendy Davis has been trounced in her bid for the Lonestar State governor’s mansion by Republican Greg Abbott. Fox News has called the race for Abbott with 43 percent reporting. The victory comes after Davis’s myriad campaign missteps, from declining to answer whether she thought her wheelchair-bound opponent was exploiting his disability for political purposes, to questioning his fidelity to the right to interracial marriage, despite the fact that Abbott himself...

Now that Republicans will control both houses of Congress, they will have an opportunity to deal with Obamacare. What should be done? They can begin by repealing the worst features of Obamacare. They can do that by keeping three promises many of them made to voters during the last election: Keep your job; keep your health insurance; and keep your doctor. The most direct way to get rid of all the anti-job provisions of ObamaCare is to repeal the employer mandate. The most direct way to insure that people can keep insurance they like is to repeal the individual mandate....

(CNSNews.com) – In New York City, 77.56% of the abortions in 2011 were performed on Black and Hispanic babies, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Abortion Surveillance report published by the CDC, for which the latest abortion numbers are for 2011, show there were 76,251 abortions in New York City that year. For that total, 9,550 abortions were of white babies, which is 12.5% of the total; 35,188 babies were black (46.1% of total); 23,959 were Hispanic (31.4%); and another 7,554 “other” abortions, 9.9%, which includes Asians and Native Americans, as...