Free Republic

Free Republic is a great resource to visit and browse, but it also is valuable to use as a searchable resource. It is very useful to see what FReepers have to say on various subjects, as we come from wide array of backgrounds, and have lived practical lives in the very-real world. Hence, one of the ways I access FR is via Google's search engine. I do a search, but specify to ONLY get results from Free Republic by appending "site:freerepublic.com" to the search term(s). In the past, this would guide me to the pages hosted on freerepublic.com, full of...

Name one high-profile issue that’s going well right now for Secretary of State John Kerry. Russian troops are still sitting on the Ukrainian border, and Russian-backed militants haven’t backed off inside the country. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is still taking Kerry’s calls, but not seeming to care much about what’s being said. Syrian President Bashar Assad announced Monday he’s running for re-election, unopposed, eight months after firing nerve gas over President Barack Obama’s red line. Kerry’s attempted peace process reboot between the Israelis and Palestinians has stalled out. And then, “apartheid” — what the future could hold for Israel...

Two months after KPIX 5 ConsumerWatch first reported about some doctors listed on the Covered California exchange were actually not accepting the plans, insurer Anthem Blue Cross admitted that nearly 1,000 doctors were erroneously listed. According to a statement by the California Medical Association, the insurer recently notified 965 physicians that they were wrongly placed on the exchange’s list. The notice, which was posted on April 9th, stated that the doctors were “inadvertently” listed for “a certain period of time” during the open enrollment period.

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama is getting a number of critical report cards on his foreign and domestic policies lately. Here at home, Janet Yellen, in her first monetary policy address as the head of the Federal Reserve Board, said the labor markets were still weak, and that it will likely take two years or more before the U.S. fully recovers from its recession. Ouch. If Yellen's forecast proves right, this means it will have taken Obama's administration nearly eight years to lift our economy out of its long and painful lethargy.

I would like to share the best rules that place ignorance at the most unsuspected limits. I’m positive you’ll recognize someone close to you who appears to be a true professional but who, in reality, isn’t anything more than an unqualified beginner. These are, in my opinion the most important rules:

What could go wrong? A lot, if you consider the former peanut farmer and president’s last intervention in Venezuela.Joshua Goodman of AP reports on Carter’s expressed interest in going to Caracas: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is expressing concern about Venezuela's escalating political crisis and wants to meet with leaders on both sides in an upcoming trip. Carter, a mediator of past political conflict in the deeply polarized South American nation, made the offer in private letters he sent this week to President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Expressing "grave concern" about the loss of life in recent...

A White House official emailed some reporters to say that President Obama's team met today to discuss the ongoing situation on Ukraine. It appears President Obama did not attend. "The President's national security team met today to receive an update on the situation in Ukraine and discuss potential policy options. We will provide further updates later this afternoon," reads the full statement.

In an appearance on The Daily Show, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) insisted that “none of the problems of the Affordable Care Act are my fault. The bill we passed was over 2800 pages. I didn’t have time, no one had time to carefully read all of its provisions to see if there might be any glitches.” “Beyond this there is always the problem of bureaucratic incompetence,” Pelosi continued. “Time after time we have passed legislation aimed at helping people—veterans benefits, medicare, medicaid, and now universal health insurance—only to see treatments bungled, services denied, and money wasted. It’s criminal.”...

This appearance by Nancy Pelosi on The Daily Show starts to run off the rails almost immediately. Jon Stewart starts off by asking Pelosi about why people talk about politics rather than policy, to which Pelosi answers by … complaining about Republicans. Stewart doesn’t take the bait, though, and starts pressing Pelosi for answers as to why big-government politicians can’t produce competent government — and gets stunned by her admission that she can’t explain why ObamaCare failed: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO The Daily Show Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook Stewart said that Democrats...

Still littered with abandoned cars, Atlanta struggled to find its way back to normal Thursday while the mayor and governor struggled with the political fallout from a snowstorm that trapped some people in their cars more than 24 hours. Mayor Kasim Reed assured people on Tuesday, in a message on Twitter before the snow began to fall: “Atlanta, we are ready for the snow.” On Thursday, he acknowledged that authorities made a mistake by not staggering their orders for people to go home — schools first, then private businesses, then government employees. Instead, hundreds of thousands of people poured onto...

Top Capitol Hill lawmakers on Sunday expressed concerns about terror attacks at the upcoming Olympic games in Sochi, Russia, amid nearby terror attacks and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assurances that his country will “do whatever it takes” to protect athletes and visitors. “The threats are real,” Texas GOP Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told ABC’s “This Week.” McCaul is among those who think an attack during the games next month will most likely occur outside of the Olympic city and that terrorists will go after “soft targets” such as roads and transportation systems. McCaul, who...

A recent Gallup poll revealed that the number one problem facing America, according to those polled, is “the government.” Twenty-one percent listed this as the worst problem facing the nation. Rounding out the top five problems were the economy (18%), unemployment (16%), healthcare (16%), and government debt (8%). These poll results were dramatically out-of-sync with President Obama’s declaration that “income inequality” is this nation’s chief problem. Only 4% of the poll respondents agreed with his assessment. As one poll respondent explained, “my work hours have been cut and my health insurance canceled. My wife has been unemployed for three years....

JERUSALEM, Israel -- While U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry presses ahead with trying to create a Palestinian state by this spring, a senior Israeli government minister says Kerry doesn't know what he's talking about. "The only thing that can 'save us' is for John Kerry to win a Nobel [Peace] Prize and leave us in peace," Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said. Ya'alon made headlines Tuesday over remarks he reportedly made in private conversations both abroad and at home, according to the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. "Secretary of State John Kerry, who came here very determined and operates based on...

Many of us can identify with the frustrating experience that Karri Kinder, a mother of two from Auburn, Alabama, has had with Obamacare. She penned this open letter to share her story:

The Obama Administration's cadre of experts in charge of the Afghan War testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week and revealed a profound ignorance of what is going on. None of the witnesses had any idea on what the war cost last year or how many Americans have been killed in the last 12 months. James Dobbins, The State Department’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, complained that the questions were unfair, “No one told us there might be a quiz. Anyway, isn't there some website where people can get these statistics? Why should we be expected to...

Politico writer David Nather says the Obama Administration's announcement that the small business Obamacare system will not be ready for the website's Saturday relaunch dashes all Democratic hopes for declaring the relaunch a victory.

A crucial system for making payments to insurers from the federal Obamacare marketplace, HealthCare.gov, has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning that a significant fraction of that online insurance marketplace has yet to be constructed. (Read more: Low-bamacare enrollment) Getty Images Henry Chao, deputy CIO and deputy director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of Information Services, testifies during a hearing before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We still need...

If you've read this, or this, or this, or this, today's Washington Post report is hardly a shocking bulletin: Software problems with the federal online health insurance marketplace, especially in handling high volumes, are proving so stubborn that the system is unlikely to work fully by the end of the month as the White House has promised, according to an official with knowledge of the project. The insurance exchange is balking when more than 20,000 to 30,000 people attempt to use it at the same time — about half its intended capacity, said the official, who spoke on the condition...

An internal government memo, obtained by CNN today and written just days before the Obamacare website opened, warned of a "high" security risk because of a lack of testing of the website. "Due to system readiness issues, the (security control assessment) was only partly completed," said the memo from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "This constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated to support the Marketplace Day 1 operations."

Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif) blamed the contractors hired by the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department for the website failures that are bogging down the launch of Obamacare. “These private sector sharks exploited Secretary Sebelius’ ignorance and sold her a bad product,” Waxman contended. “In effect they bilked her and America out of millions of dollars with a shoddy piece of merchandise.” CGI, one of the principal contractors for the website contested Waxman’s characterization. “There were numerous checkpoints every step of the way,” said CGI’s Senior Vice President Cheryl Campbell. “We have hundreds of invoices signed by various HHS personnel...