Free Republic

A bill set for fast-track passage in the South Carolina Senate in January aims to eliminate Obamacare in the state. The law could become a model for other states fed up with the federal health-care law. House Bill 3101, titled the “South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act,” passed the state House of Representatives last April by a 65-34 vote. The bill now heads to the GOP-controlled Senate with special-order priority, setting up the likelihood that South Carolina will become the first state to exempt citizens and businesses from all participation in the Affordable Care Act. State Sen. Tom...

Former U.S. vice presidential candidate, governor, best-selling author and original “Mama Grizzly” Sarah Palin returns to series television on Sportsman Channel to host a new show – the first part of the network’s “Red, Wild & Blue America” programming plan – for the fast-growing outdoor lifestyle network. Titled “Amazing America with Sarah Palin,” the weekly series will premiere in April 2014. The announcement was made today by Gavin Harvey, CEO of Sportsman Channel. Amazing America with Sarah Palin is an anthology of stories that explore some of the most original, interesting – and sometimes inspiring – people, places and pastimes...

".................When we had some Q and A a few days ago, you were about to be visited by a representative of the IRS, on Friday, December 6th. Who asked for that meeting? Did the IRS say what they wanted to meet about, before it occurred?Yes, Treasury Inspector General Robert Williams made an unannounced visit to my old office in Palatine on December 4th, 2013. I was not there so he called my cell phone at 4 p.m. that same day. I answered and he stated that 'I stopped by your office and you were not there, we noted your story...

Americans who are buying insurance plans over online exchanges, under what is known as Obamacare, will have limited access to some of the nation’s leading hospitals, including two world-renowned cancer centres. Amid a drive by insurers to limit costs, the majority of insurance plans being sold on the new healthcare exchanges in New York, Texas, and California, for example, will not offer patients’ access to Memorial Sloan Kettering in Manhattan or MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, two top cancer centres, or Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, one of the top research and teaching hospitals in the country. Experts say the...

Where Is Kim Jong-un? North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is apparently staying well away from Pyongyang in a country retreat after the ouster of eminence grise Jang Song-taek. Kim was last seen in public at a military base in Ryanggang Province on Nov. 29. The official KCNA news agency reported that Kim toured the province on Nov. 30, but he has not been pictured since. Some North Korea watchers believe Kim is still lying low in Ryanggang Province, which is on the border with China. KCNA reported on Dec. 1 that Kim sent a congratulatory message to Laos and encouraged...

They’re two of the most powerful African-American politicians in the land. And by most accounts, President Obama and Rep. Charles Rangel hate each other. The most recently revealed salvo in their war of words — Obama’s assertion that Rangel is a “hack,” according to the political tome “Double Down” — is just one element of a long-dysfunctional relationship. Rangel supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, but the seeds of mutual disdain were planted before that, according to Democratic insiders and staffers for both pols.

Anti-government protesters toppled a statue of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine's capital and attacked it with hammers on Sunday in a symbolic challenge to President Viktor Yanukovich and his plans for closer ties with Russia. The gesture rejecting Moscow's historic influence over Ukraine came after opposition leaders told hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on Kiev's Independence Square to keep up pressure on Yanukovich to sack his government. The protesters are furious that the government decided last month to ditch a landmark pact with the European Union in favour of closer economic cooperation with Moscow, Ukraine's Soviet-era overlord. Yanukovich's...

OKLAHOMA CITY - A 4.5 magnitude earthquake rocked central Oklahoma Saturday afternoon. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake was recorded at 12:10 p.m. Its epicenter was located four miles northwest of Jones, seven miles east of Edmond, nine miles north, northwest of Choctaw, and 14 miles northeast of Oklahoma City. It was about five miles deep. Residents across Oklahoma reported feeling the earthquake just after 12 p.m. Saturday. It lasted several seconds. News 9 viewers in many Oklahoma cities, including Oklahoma City, Edmond, Stillwater, Tulsa, Harrah, Mustang, and Guthrie, reported feeling the earthquake. We also felt it right...

Elian Gonzalez, the focus of a bitter international custody dispute after he was rescued at sea as a child, left Cuba on Friday for the first time since 2000, when the U.S. government returned him to the island. Gonzalez, who also turned 20 on Friday, traveled to Quito, Ecuador, as part of a 200-member Cuban delegation to a weeklong youth conference there. "Fidel Castro for me is like a father," Gonzalez said in the recent interview. "I don't profess to have any religion but if I did my God would be Fidel Castro. He is like a ship that knew...

An 85-year-old U.S. tourist detained in North Korea for more than a month for alleged hostile acts is on his way home after being "deported" to China. North Korean state media said Saturday that Merrill Newman, a war veteran, was released because he had apologized for his alleged crimes during the Korean War and because of his age and medical condition. "I'm very glad to be on my way home," Newman told Japanese media at Beijing airport. "I feel good, I feel good. I want to go home to see my wife." Newman was met by U.S. embassy staff in...

North Korea has deported a US veteran of the Korean War who had been detained in the country since October, the state-run KCNA news agency reports. It says Merrill Newman was expelled on "humanitarian grounds" after he confessed to his "crimes" against the state during the 1950-53 war and "apologised". Mr Newman, 85, had been held on charges of "hostile acts" against the North. He had been visiting the country as a tourist.

Members of the House of Commons were told that the persecution of Christians is increasing, that one Christian is killed around every 11 minutes around the world, and that Christianity is the “most persecuted religion globally”. A long list of countries in which life as a Christian is most difficult was discussed, including Syria, North Korea, Eritrea, Nigeria, Iraq and Egypt. MP Jim Shannon said the persecution of Christians is “the biggest story in the world that has never been told”. He said that although the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration...

The Obama administration is about to approve a rule that will ensure the death of golden and bald eagles for the next 30 more years. Hundreds of thousands of birds die each year flying into the deadly turbine blades atop the soaring towers that compose wind farms. The rule will give wind farms thirty year permits for the “non purposeful take of eagles-that is where the take is associated with but not the purpose of, the activity.’’ The take of eagles is also a euphemism for the slaughter of them.

The number of U.S. battlefield fatalities exceeded the rate at which troop strength surged in 2009 and 2010, prompting national security analysts to assert that coinciding stricter rules of engagement led to more deaths. A connection between the sharp increase in American deaths and restrictive rules of engagement is difficult to confirm. More deaths surely stemmed from ramped-up counterterrorism raids and the Taliban’s response with more homemade bombs, the No. 1 killer of NATO forces in Afghanistan. But it is clear that the rules of engagement, which restrain troops from firing in order to spare civilian casualties, cut back on...

A group of evangelicals in favor of passing immigration reform have a message for House Speaker John Boehner: "We're praying for you." In new ads, Evangelical Immigration Table–group that has been behind immigration reform on Capitol Hill–asks people to pray for Boehner and House Republican leadership on immigration reform and urge those leaders to listen to their prayers. The group says the ad will air on WTOP, a radio station in Washington, D.C., as well as 30 Christian radio stations in Texas and North Carolina. A Spanish-speaking iteration of the spot will also air in Southern California. "Our immigration system...

The head-scratching continues over the failure of the Obamacare rollout and how the president allowed this to happen. Sebelius, Obama More News Obama, Sebelius never met BuzzChatter Friday: KC-area pols bid farewell to Mandela When it comes to political donations, the Koch Brothers trump all Kansas and Missouri battle for Boeing with incentives Clinton notes that he never exactly DENIED smoking dope Read more The Buzz Here’s a new theory: Not enough meetings. Politico points out on Friday morning that President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius simply never met in private meetings. Get this: Between July...

Nelson Mandela, the revered statesman who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead South Africa out of decades of apartheid, has died, South African President Jacob Zuma announced late Thursday. Mandela was 95. "He is now resting. He is now at peace," Zuma said. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father." "What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human," the president said in his late-night address. "We saw in him what we seek in ourselves." Mandela will have a state funeral. Zuma ordered all flags in the nation to be...

A Hill staffer passes along this email from the Senate Disbursing office, noting wryly, “If they cannot get this right for friggin Congressional staff, the rest of the country is screwed.” ...

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Betsy Bishop and staff at the Vermont Chamber of Commerce spent much of the year on the phone, convincing business operators to bring their insurance business to the state's online marketplace. But now, they're calling back to let them know the plans they picked won't be available Jan. 1 because of bugs and delays. "And we're having a bit of trouble convincing people to come off their decision. They're saying to us now we want to stay with Vermont Health Connect, which is great but there's no way for that payment mechanism to work," Bishop said. Bishop...

One of President Obama's chief political assets has been his ability to excite young people like almost no politician in history. But the days of America's youth fawning over the president are over.A new Harvard University Institute of Politics poll released Wednesday confirms what other surveys have shown in recent months: Millennials have soured on Obama so much this year that their opinion of him largely mirrors the American public's.

You can fire 10 Martin Bashirs and it won't start to repair damage done to NBC News Martin Bashir, the embattled MSNBC show host who on Nov. 15 urged a crude and graphic form of punishment for Sarah Palin, resigned from the channel Wednesday. MSNBC could afford to do nothing less than force Bashir out in the wake of his hateful speech. Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, tried stonewalling the mounting criticism even after Bashir delivered an on-air apology, but the words and actions were too gross and hateful to allow Bashir to return. SNIP Under Griffin's leadership, MNSBC...

<p>For the first time in nearly 40 years, a majority of Americans believe the United States is less important around the world and that it should mind its own business, a stunning rejection of President Obama’s foreign policy just four years after he received the Nobel Prize.</p>

While the federal government was squeezed on one side by sequester and the other by a looming partial shutdown, the State Department was spending heavily on booze for its embassies abroad. The Washington Times reports that the department spent about $180,000 on alcohol in September and $400,000 in all of 2012—that’s three times the $118,000 spent in 2008. The booze tab reportedly has risen every year since 2008, but the end of fiscal 2012 saw a particular spike. …

The House Judiciary Committee is about to discuss what it calls “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws,” focusing on the Obamacare delays, enforcement of immigration laws, and more. As Mediaite notes, the question of whether the president can take unilateral action to cease enforcing laws stretches back at least to last summer, when President Barack Obama said he would stop deporting young undocumented immigrants, an end-run around congressional refusal to pass the DREAM Act.

Why is Iran working on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles? There is no possible peaceful purpose for ballistic missiles. Iran may claim that their nuclear program is peaceful, but they cannot possibly make that claim when it comes to ballistic missiles. The only reason to have ballistic missiles is to target enemies with high explosives and WMD. Iran’s Shehab-3 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles have sufficient range to hit Israel, Saudi Arabia and US bases in Afghanistan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait and Turkey. Why are the Iranians working with the North Koreans on multi-stage Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)? Who might the Iranians be...

The House’s chief investigator says the FBI is stonewalling his inquiry into whether the agency and the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative group True the Vote for special scrutiny, and Rep. Darrell E. Issa is now threatening subpoenas to pry loose the information from FBI Director James B. Comey Jr. Mr. Issa, California Republican, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, are leading the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s IRS inquiry. They also said the FBI is refusing to turn over any documents related to its own investigation into the IRS, which began in the days after an auditor’s report...

Bob Shlora of Alpharetta, Ga., was supposed to be a belated Obamacare success story. After weeks of trying, the 61-year-old told ABC News he fully enrolled in a new health insurance plan through the federal marketplace over the weekend, and received a Humana policy ID number to prove it. But two days later, his insurer has no record of the transaction, Shlora said, even though his account on the government website indicates that he has a plan. “I feel like this: My application was taken … by a bureaucrat, it was put on a conveyor belt and it’s still going...

Martin Bashir, the MSNBC host who has come under fire for the controversial remarks he made about Sarah Palin, is "on vacation" and will not host his namesake afternoon program on Monday, POLITICO has learned. Sources at the network said Bashir had been temporarily suspended from the network following graphic remarks he made last month about the former governor from Alaska. In that segment, Bashir suggested that Palin should be forced to endure slavery like conditions, including the consumption of feces. MSNBC spokesperson Lauren Skowronski told a different story: "He’s still out on vacation," she wrote in an email. Asked...

U.S. military authorities dispatched the first of six top-tech submarine-hunting jets to its Okinawa post near the disputed East China Sea, a move sure to ratchet up tensions among China and the United States. The Navy plans to send in a total of six P-8 Poseidon patrol craft, aimed at bolstering the United States’ ability to root out submarines in the area, Reuters reported. The deployment was planned months ago, but nonetheless comes as China declared an air defense zone above islands that it’s fighting Japan to control.

Xi strikes out, Biden comes to the plate, score tied A lot has been written in the past week about China's new Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, including by me both on NRO and Politico. Given the Obama administration's recent flailing on Iran and Syria (not to mention Obamacare), it was easy to assume that the distracted White House would try to sweep China's new policy under the rug.I'll be the first to admit I was too pessimistic, though part of me also assumed that the Chinese challenge was such low-hanging fruit that the administration...

Report: Obama Arranging Tehran Visit for Next Year Daniel Halper December 2, 2013 10:46 AM The Kuwaiti news outlet Al-Jarida reports that President Obama is seeking to arrange a trip to Tehran, Iran next year. The headline of the article reads, "Obama would like to visit Tehran, official invitation after details resolved." "Al-Jarida has learned from a U.S. diplomat that President Barack Obama is seeking to visit Tehran in the middle of next year," the report reads, based on a translation using Google Translate. "The source said that the desire to visit is shared, and that Tehran and Washington are...

A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers. Essex social services obtained a High Court order against the woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and her child to be taken from her womb. **SNIP** The baby girl, now 15 months old, is still in the care of social services, who are refusing to give her back to the mother, even though she claims to have made a full recovery.

KIEV, Ukraine –  More than 100,000 demonstrators chased away police to rally in the center of Ukraine's capital on Sunday, defying a government ban on protests on Independence Square, in the biggest show of anger over the president's refusal to sign an agreement with the European Union. Thousands of demonstrators tried to storm the nearby presidential administration building, but were driven back by riot police using tear gas and flash grenades, which produce a loud bang but are not intended to cause injury. The standoff continued, with more demonstrators arriving. The protest was led by prominent opposition politicians, who...

China will tomorrow become the first country in almost 40 years to soft-land a probe on the moon, in a huge step forward for its ambitious space programme. The nation will become the third in history to launch a lunar probe when the device, named 'Jade Rabbit' after a Chinese folklore character, launches at 5.30pm on Sunday evening, which is 1.30am local time. The mission forms part of a plan in which China hopes to build a permanent lunar base in order to launch future missions to Mars within the next 15 years.

The Obama administration claimed victory Sunday for making HealthCare.gov workable for the vast majority of users, a standard that will be tested as millions of people flood the site in the next three weeks. Sunday marked the passage of the administration's self-imposed deadline for fixing the broken ObamaCare enrollment website, which serves consumers in 36 states. The agency that oversees HealthCare.gov said "we believe we have met the goal" of making the system navigable for most people, but cautioned that more fixes lie ahead. "Dramatic progress has been made," the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) stated in a...

The terrorism threat against the United States is increasing and Americans aren't as safe as they were a year or two ago, the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees said. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said there are more terrorist groups than ever, with more sophisticated and hard-to-detect bombs. The California Democrat said "there is huge malevolence out there." Rep. Mike Rogers said there's enormous pressure on U.S. intelligence services "to get it right, to prevent an attack." The Michigan Republican said that job is getting more difficult because al-Qaida is changing, with more affiliates around the world. He said...

The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month’s interim deal in Geneva on Iran’s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told. In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs.

Iran will decide the level of uranium enrichment in its nuclear programme based on its energy and other civilian needs, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in remarks reported Saturday. His remarks appeared to conflict with the landmark nuclear deal struck with world powers in Geneva last weekend, which states that the enrichment level must be mutually defined and agreed upon by both sides in further negotiations. "Iran will decide the level of enrichment according to its needs for different purposes," Zarif said late Friday night, according to the official IRNA news agency. "Only details of the enrichment activities are...

The news isn't all bad: Users say the site looks better, pages load faster, and more people are getting through to sign up for health plans. But technical problems still affect HealthCare.gov's ability to verify users' identities and transmit accurate enrollment data to insurers, officials say. The data center that supports the site faces continuing challenges, and tools for processing payments to insurers haven't been built. Technical staff in Washington have been racing up to the end-of-November deadline. In their last public pronouncement on the effort, three days before the deadline, officials said they had much to do to get...

Remember that third recall effort out in Colorado, targeting two-term Democrat Evie Hudak? It is now moot. State Sen. Evie Hudak has decided to resign rather than risk facing a recall election that, should she lose, would flip control of the senate to Republicans, FOX31 Denver was first to report Wednesday. Later Wednesday morning, Hudak made her resignation letter public. “In the interest of preserving the progress made over the last year, I am resigning as State Senator for District 19, effective immediately,” Hudak wrote. By resigning before the signatures are turned in, she assures that a Democratic vacancy committee...

HealthCare.gov, the problem-plagued federal online site for signing up for insurance under Obamacare, will go down for extended maintenance on Friday night and overnight ahead of Saturday's deadline to have it working for most people, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said. The overnight maintenance overnight is set to last from 9 p.m. ET Friday until 8 a.m. ET Saturday. It's not the first time the website has gone done; the administration has frequently done regular weekend maintenance, usually on Sunday mornings from 1 a.m ET to 5 a.m. ET. During the maintenance checks, the website's application and enrollment...

Riffing on Hanukkah holiday, prime minister says Israel will be a ‘light unto the nations’ in dealing with Tehran should diplomacy fail Melding the Hanukkah holiday and foreign affairs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu solemnly vowed to serve as a “light unto the nations” and act against Iran’s nuclear program should diplomacy fail Thursday night. Speaking at the Western Wall for a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony, Netanyahu compared Iran’s nuclear program to a darkness that would be forced out by Israel, referencing a popular children’s song for the holiday. “We came to drive out the darkness, and the largest darkness that threatens...

Chinese state media say China has sent two fighter planes to investigate flights by a dozen U.S. and Japanese planes in its newly established maritime air defence zone over the East China Sea. It is thought the incident is separate to China's announcement that it would carry out regular patrols in its air zone.

Besides movie theaters and Wal-Mart, one place that will stay open this Thanksgiving is the new HealthCare.gov "exchange operations center." Staffers on the "tech surge" to fix the error-riddled site have just days to meet the Obama administration's self-imposed deadline for a functioning site. The pledge came from the president, the vice president, the Health and Human Services secretary, and the numerous spokespeople that represent them, like White House spokesman Jay Carney. "By November 30th, HealthCare.gov will be working smoothly for the vast majority of users," Carney has said, time and time again. But the definition of working smoothly varies,...

TOKYO — China sent its fighter jets into its newly declared air defense zone Thursday on what state media called the country’s first air patrol since it declared control of the airspace. The announcement came hours after Japan and South Korea sent their own military planes into the airspace over the East China Sea, testing China’s resolve to enforce its declaration. The announcement of the flights came just days after unarmed American B-52 bombers flew through the same zone in defiance of China. Beijing later said that it had monitored the American bombers but had chosen not to take action...

It's been a tough year for the liberal cable news outlets. Data released Tuesday show CNN shedding 48 percent of total viewers since last November and MSNBC dropping 45 percent. The numbers were even worse in the all important demographic of people aged 25 to 54 as CNN's ratings dropped 59 percent and MSNBC's 52 percent. In an off-election year, and with last November's numbers skewed higher as a result of the presidential election, it should be expected for ratings to decline. However, Fox News didn't see close to these losses. In total day, FNC is only down 18...

US now indicates Iran interim deal wasn’t quite finalized ‘Technical details’ have yet to be worked out, State Department says, meaning six-month countdown to permanent deal hasn’t started and Iran isn’t bound by any new terms Iran is currently enjoying a “window” of time before the six-month deal signed in Geneva early Sunday goes into effect, during which it is not bound to take any credible steps toward disabling its ability to produce a nuclear weapon, the State Department acknowledged Tuesday. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the six-month interim period, during which Iran would take steps to rein...

For over a decade, Iran has had a robust, active ballistic missile development program. There are new developments on this front. Before we link those, here are the basics of the Iranian ballistic missile program… Iran has several types of ballistic missiles, ranging from Short Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBM) to Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM). Some are imported systems, some are domestic copies of foreign systems and some are indigenous systems. Iran is also known to be working on ICBMs–Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. According to the Obama Defense Department’s “Annual Report on the Military Power of Iran,” published in April of...

This week in Washington, Senator Marco Rubio accused a fellow American of treason. Edward Snowden drew the Republican's ire by informing hundreds of millions of innocent people that the NSA is spying on them... Anyone familiar with the Snowden story will understand why Rubio's comments are misleading. Americans are concerned about their civil liberties because of the accurate information the former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor leaked. He isn't responsible for any conspiracy theories, except in the sense that a conspiracy is "an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act," and he exposed NSA and GCHQ cooperation on...

Marking the latest HealthCare.gov setback, the Obama administration today will announce a yearlong delay of online enrollment for small businesses looking to purchase health coverage through federal-run exchanges, according to an HHS notice obtained by POLITICO. Small businesses have been able to apply through paper applications since Oct. 1, and HHS will announce alternative sign-up methods, like enrolling through an agent or broker or directly through an insurer. “We’ve concluded that we can best serve small employers by continuing this offline process while we concentrate on both creating a smoothly functioning online experience in the SHOP Marketplace, and adding key...