Free Republic

Before Healthcare.gov’s troubled launch on Oct. 1, the White House estimated nearly 500,000 people would enroll in the Obamacare health exchanges within the first month and an estimated 7 million were expected to gain private coverage by the end of March, when the open-enrollment period is scheduled to end. Now – even before the administration can deliver on its promise to release an official head count of how many people have enrolled for insurance coverage in the first full month of operations – insurance industry analysts on Monday released figures showing the government has signed up a mere fraction of...

Update #2 after numerous requests from readers to update this story. The original posting is here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3079644/posts Update #1 is here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3083078/posts And now, update #2: The last contact I made was on October 31st, asking why the promised call back after 2 business days hadn't happened. I was told that they'd escalate it again and I'd get a call back within 48 hours, not including weekends. On November 6th I called in o tell them that those two days had elapsed and no call back had occurred. I asked for a supervisor who told me that the callback standard...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in Memphis, Tenn., for an education and outreach session about the health care marketplace, when a state senator presented her with a gift she didn’t appear to be happy to receive.

Call it "Survivor: White House" edition. Over the past week, one high-profile cabinet secretary managed to dodge an onslaught of Republican demands for her resignation while a lesser-known national security aide got the boot for a series of snarky anonymous tweets. In fact, history has shown that it's actually not that easy to get fired from the Obama administration. Over the past five years, just a few of those who serve at the pleasure of the president have been forcibly shown the door. Many more have weathered controversy and embarrassment and figured out a way to hold on for dear...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday said there was "no excuse" for the cascade of computer problems that have marred the rollout of key elements in his health care law, but declared he was confident the administration would be able to fix the issues. "There's no sugarcoating it," Obama said. "Nobody is more frustrated than I am." The president said his administration was doing "everything we can possibly do" to get the federally run websites up and running. And he guaranteed that everyone who wants to get insurance through the new health care exchanges will be able to....

The much-anticipated Windows 8.1 update was finally released on Thursday. Since then, however, early reports of bricked devices and lost data from some users indicate that the release may have been premature. In response, Microsoft took its Windows 8.1 update offline until further notice on Saturday. The Redmond, Wash. company posted the following a message to its website: Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT device to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the...

ObamaCare's impact on jobs is hotly debated by politicians and economists. Critics say the Affordable Care Act, with its employer mandate to provide health insurance, gives businesses an incentive to cut workers' hours. This year, report after report has rolled in about employers restricting work hours to fewer than 30 per week — the point where the mandate kicks in. Data also point to a record low workweek in low-wage industries. In the interest of an informed debate, we've compiled a list of job actions with strong proof that ObamaCare's employer mandate is behind cuts to work hours or staffing...

President Obama vowing that Syria would “cross a red line” by using chemical weapons is far from the only marker he’s laid down or promise he’s tried to keep since running for president in 2008. The president has made more than 500 campaign-related promises alone. And just last week he re-drew a line in the sand for congressional Republicans flirting with shutting down the government over his Affordable Care Act and looking for spending cuts as part of a separate deal to increase the federal debt limit. “That’s not happening,” Obama said. “I will not negotiate over the full faith...

The same day that the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee announced last week that the Fed would continue to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and $45 billion in U.S. Treasury securities per month, the Fed also released its latest weekly accounting sheet indicating that it had already accumulated more Treasuries and MBS than the total value of the publicly held U.S. government debt amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington though Bill Clinton. Since the beginning of September 2008, in fact, the Fed’s ownership of Treasury securities and MBS has increased sevenfold. As of the close...

long story short, bank loan officer botched loan. cost incurred included: lost earnest money, moving truck fees, seller's late fees,missed work,etc.

The strategic mismatch between a seasoned KGB veteran and a neighborhood community organizer has been a disaster for America that has “reset” American-Russian relationships backwards. As former New York Mayor Giuliani told Fox and Friends: “The KGB agent is working him over… And unfortunately, he’s our president and he makes our country look so weak that it’s dangerous.” Little could we have imagined the consequences that would later unfold following Obama’s provident statement just prior to his first election: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” He has kept that promise. Not since the...

The US threatened military retaliation against Bashar Assad after the Aug. 21 gas attack. When Congress balked, Obama embraced Russia’s plan for Syria to turn over its chemical arsenal. ‘I don’t think that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has the same values that we do,’ the president said. But ‘we both have an interest in preventing chaos [and] terrorism.’ President Barack Obama sent a message Sunday to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his success in avoiding U.S. military action in Syria is not a blank check to prop up the Syrian strongman. A day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry...

LOS ANGELES, September 16, 2013—The real news of September 16th, 2013 was that there was a tragic Navy Yard shooting in Washington, D.C. There were several fatalities. Initial details were not released. While most Americans recoiled in horror at an act of evil, President Obama treated it as an inconvenience and minor annoyance. The shooter altered the news story about the day, which was supposed to be an Obama press conference where Obama would resume his role as Self-Praiser in Chief of all things Obama. This day was the five year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The plan...

President Barack Obama is damaging his presidency, weakening America’s standing in the world, and displaying “inexplicable” incompetence. The media figure making those accusations isn’t Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer or Glenn Beck. The critic doesn’t host a right-wing talk show, anchor a Fox News program, or write for the pages of the Weekly Standard. In fact, he’s not even a conservative. It’s Joe Klein, the Time Magazine political columnist. “Obama has lost some serious altitude: In the world, with the Congress, and most importantly with the American people,” Klein, a veteran journalist and political moderate, told POLITICO. Klein...

The left is on a roll. Liberals successfully pushed back against President Obama’s plan to launch airstrikes in Syria, and then quashed the expected nomination of Larry Summers as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. That one-two punch from some usually loyal Democratic allies has left Mr. Obama in a weakened political state right as he enters tough negotiations with Republicans: to keep the government funded beyond Sept. 30, and to raise the limit on federal borrowing authority a few weeks later. Republican House Speaker John Boehner is having an even harder time getting his own base to...

When President Barack Obama decided he wanted congressional approval to strike Syria, he received swift—and negative—responses from his staff. National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned he risked undermining his powers as commander in chief. Senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer pegged the chances of Congress balking at 40%. His defense secretary also raised concerns. Mr. Obama took the gamble anyway and set aside the impending strikes to try to build domestic and international support for such action. He found little of either. Congress's top leaders weren't informed of the switch until just an hour or so before Mr. Obama's Rose Garden announcement...

The Democratic uproar that sank Lawrence Summers’s chances of taking charge of the Federal Reserve suggests that President Barack Obama’s clout on Capitol Hill is eroding ahead of crucial decisions about government spending and the debt ceiling. Mr. Obama often singles out House Republicans for blocking his agenda in Congress. But as his second term plays out, he also is confronting restive factions within his own party that are uneasy with some of his policies. The liberal wing in particular has rallied against his proposed use of force in Syria, his openness to changing entitlement programs and his apparent interest...

Even putting his best gloss on the case and even outright contradicting hard numbers from his own administration, President Obama has a tough time selling the current economy as a comfy place in which to live and do business. According to the White House's own five-years-later report on the fiscal crisis and the administration's wrassling therewith, Americans remain trillions of dollars in household income behind where they were in 2008. That's when the report is being honest—it also claims a TARP profit that will come as a surprise to Christy Romero, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief...

WASHINGTON — President Obama, to his supporters, is a deliberative leader whose willingness to recalibrate his response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons potentially helped avert military strikes and further US involvement in a civil war half a world away. But to his critics, Obama is like a character in a Shakespearean comedy, where the hapless protagonist succeeds despite himself. It was, after all, only after Secretary of State John F. Kerry made an offhand comment last Monday morning in London — and Russian leaders seized on it — that renewed diplomatic discussions began. Now those discussions have led to...

WASHINGTON - President Obama says a tumultuous month as commander in chief, when his policy toward Syria took a number of unexpected turns, may not have looked "smooth and disciplined and linear," but it's working. "I'm less concerned about style points. I'm much more concerned with getting the policy right," Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on "This Week." Obama said his surprise announcement on Aug. 31 that he would seek congressional authorization for U.S. military strikes against Syria, then the abrupt cancellation of a vote this week and pursuit of a diplomatic plan led by the...