Free Republic

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is being called narrow by some analysts, but that’s true only in that Hobby Lobby got everything it wanted and nothing more. In her blistering dissent Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg correctly called it “a decision of startling breadth.” The question before the Court was twofold: Do corporations enjoy the same protections for religious liberty as individuals do? And if so, does providing contraceptive coverage in an employee health plan – as required under the Affordable Care Act – violate that liberty? Justice Samuel Alito, writing for all of the Republican-appointed...

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that people cannot be forced by the government to provide contraception if it specifically conflicted with their religious beliefs, and that unions cannot force non-members to give them money. Liberals showed their knowledge of current events by saying that the justices who ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby were "five white men," despite the fact that one of them, Clarence Thomas, is black. In case you are liberal and don't know who Clarence Thomas is, here is a picture of him: Despite the fact that Mr. Thomas is not white, uneducated liberals (who, I remind...

In the past few primary elections the Tea Party has won some and lost some. Lately it's been more "lost some" than "won some." Several months ago I wrote that the Tea Party was founded on an act of impersonation based on an act of deception. They named themselves and patterned themselves after a bunch of so-called Boston Patriots who decided to rebel over a tax on tea by sneaking aboard a vessel that had received a shipment of tea and dumping the tea into the Boston Harbor. In order to conceal this criminal act from the authorities they dressed...

"We believe that Americans don't lose their religious freedom when they open a family business," said Barbara Green, who owns Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby has over 500 stores with more than 15,000 employees. The company covers 16 types of contraception. But the owners object to including four types, versions of the morning after pills and IUD's, because they consider them to be a form of abortion. The Obama administration and supporters of the health care law. Argue that a woman should be able to decide the type of contraception she uses, not her boss.

~snip~ In Minneapolis, Obama will meet with “Rebekah,” one such letter-writer. And in other cities and towns, the president will doff his suit jackets, roll up his sleeves, lead town-hall discussions, and press the flesh during “impromptu” stops at local eateries, where he’s guaranteed to favor pie. Message: I care. Postscript: Unmarried Women, Please Vote in November for Democrats. With his job approval drifting to a near-record low of 41 percent, Obama is a drag on his party, even as he raises millions of dollars for Democrats at fundraisers around the country. His aides say he doesn’t plan to stump...

The prospect of electing an intemperate Tea Party candidate who was openly nostalgic for Confederate days was so repellent to many black voters in Mississippi that they did a remarkable thing on Tuesday, crossing party lines to help give the Republican Senate nomination to Thad Cochran, in office for 36 years. Now it’s time for Mr. Cochran to return the favor by supporting a stronger Voting Rights Act and actively working to reduce his party’s extreme antigovernment policies.

In politics, it's called The Pivot. When the news is bad, or if you don't want to answer the question, ignore it. Change the subject. Wisconsin Republican leaders are leaving divots as they pivot from U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb's decision voiding the state Constitution's ban of same-sex marriages. Many of the same Republicans who drafted the constitutional amendment, pushed it through two consecutive legislative sessions, and then in 2006 got voters to approve it, had no reaction to Crabb's ruling and no defense of their old position. The May 15-18 statewide poll by Marquette University's Law School may offer...

When CNN rolled out the red carpet for Hillary Clinton’s town-hall interview with Christiane Amanpour, they did more than just build a set and invite an audience to participate. According to the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, who attended the event, CNN warmed up the crowd for Hillary and even coached them on how to cheer and make noise to demonstrate enthusiasm for the former Secretary of State. Note the whoops at the beginning of the broadcast, and near the end of this clip when Amanpour asks about her decision on running for President — cheers that were part of the...

Hillary Clinton is doing it. Glenn Beck did it too. And Dick Cheney? Not so much. This is the season for admitting you were wrong on Iraq in 2003. And all Republicans who either regret their vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq, or who were silent on foreign policy matters back then, should take this occasion to step up and say they'll never make the same mistake twice. To them I say: Do it for the sake of your conscience, and if not that, at least for the sake of your career.In the Obama years, Republicans have habituated...

Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, firmly lamented gun violence as a women’s issue as their political action committee, Americans for Responsible Solutions, gears up to support candidates in the 2014 midterm elections. Giffords and Kelly visited the Hearst headquarters in New York on Monday morning to speak with Ellen Levine, editorial director of Hearst magazines. During their presentation they revealed a number of startling facts: American women are eleven times more likely to be killed by guns than in any other high-income country, and every month, nearly 50 women are shot to death by a...

Between Rick Perry, Ted Cruz and Wendy Davis, Texas politicians in recent years have lived up to their state's reputation for producing larger-than-life characters. That makes the Texas political scene a natural for the Hollywood treatment. HBO has given God Save Texas, a drama about the state's often raucous political culture, the green light for development. It's set to unfold at the Texas statehouse, a perennial flashpoint for national debates about issues ranging from abortion to gun rights to the size and role of government. According to an early description first reported by Deadline.com, the show will follow an "idealistic...

The platoon was, an American military official would assert years later, “raggedy.” On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, they were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems. But the unit — Second Platoon, Blackfoot Company in the First Battalion, 501st Regiment — might well have remained indistinguishable from scores of other Army platoons in...

Four months ago, Sen. John McCain said he would support the exchange of five hard-core Taliban leaders for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. "I would support ways of bringing him home," he told CNN, "and if exchange was one of them I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider." But the instant the Obama administration actually made that trade, McCain, as he has so often in the past... SNIP Though we criticized the administration for ignoring the law in not informing Congress of the transfer of the Taliban detainees 30 days in advance, leave it...

World War II veteran Nick Gozik says that the bravest soldier he encountered during two years of combat was the one he saw executed for desertion. That soldier proved to be the only one of more than 20,000 convicted deserters during that war to suffer the death penalty. The last deserter to be executed had been during the Civil War. There have been no others.

White House Administration official apologizes for tweets suggesting Bergdahl platoon 'psychopaths' Published June 05, 2014 FoxNews.com WASHINGTON – An Obama administration official apologized Thursday after suggesting on Twitter that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s platoon might have been filled with “psychopaths” – in an apparent attempt to defend Bergdahl against criticism from his fellow soldiers. Brandon Friedman, deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, sent out a series of tweets Wednesday night questioning those soldiers trying to “smear” Bergdahl for abandoning his post in 2009. The first said: “Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the...

Despite President Obama’s claim Thursday that he’s “never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in Washington,” the administration and its fans are struggling to tamp down widespread criticism of the deal that traded one soldier — who fellow infantrymen say deserted them — with five top Taliban prisoners held at the U.S. prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It’s a fair bet, given President Obama’s triumphant announcement in the Rose Garden featuring Bowe Bergdahl’s parents, that those in his inner circle severely miscalculated how such a presentation would go over with Americans. As they scramble to respond, they’ve made...

An Obama administration official has floated the idea that Bowe Bergdahl was justified in deserting his platoon in Afghanistan and joining the Taliban over disagreements with the platoon's leadership. Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a series of tweets Wednesday evening in which he speculated that Bergdahl deserted over bad leadership of his platoon and that is why his fellow soldiers were smearing him."Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)"" What if he grew...

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Wednesday evening lashed out at “un-American” rush to judgment over the military record of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, following an all-senators briefing on the prisoner swap that led to the soldier’s release. One of the last senators to leave the two-hour meeting with administration officials, McCaskill said she hopes that eventually all the facts surrounding Bergdahl’s service are declassified “in fairness to the soldier and his family.” “What’s unfortunate is that many people have spoken out about this episode without having all the facts,” McCaskill said in an interview. “I’m not going to make a judgment....

Just when it seemed like the outrage on the political right over Benghazi had subsided to the point where only the announcement of House hearings put it back in the headlines, the exchange of captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl for five senior Taliban fighters at Guantanamo Bay came along. Now President Obama finds himself amid another foreign policy and national security controversy with fresh legs that even features Susan Rice — the White House official who played a prominent early role in the Benghazi controversy — making an encore. While it's still too soon to know whether the trade for...

Acting as a stenographer on Wednesday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd parroted the Obama administration's new attack against critics of the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange: "They did not expect this backlash on Bergdahl himself. I've had a few aides describe it to me as, 'We didn't know that they were going to swift boat Bergdahl'.... MSNBC quickly seized on the "swift boat" line, with Last Word fill-in host Ari Melber declaring Tuesday night: "We're gonna look at the right-wing play book for the newly released American POW, a wounded man who isn’t even out of the hospital...