Free Republic

Yes, this is a politically difficult moment for President Obama. But everyone needs to chill out. Ah, now this is what politics is supposed to be like: Ruthless Republicans, gleeful at the prospect that they might increase the net total of human suffering. Timorous Democrats, panicking at the first hint of political difficulty and rushing to assemble a circular firing squad. And the news media bringing out the "Dems In Disarray!" headlines they keep in storage for just this purpose. The problems of the last couple weeks "could threaten Democratic priorities for years," says Ron Brownstein. It's just like Hurricane...

Obama has apologized for claiming "if you like your health plan you can keep it," but Democrats to his left are standing their ground. Nancy Pelosi was unrepentant at a press conference on Friday, Politico reports. She said Obama had no need to apologize because his claim was "absolutely" precise. "There's nothing in the Affordable Care Act that says that your insurance company should cancel you," she told reporters. "That's not what the Affordable Care Act is about. It simply didn't happen."

Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid issued the following statement regarding President Obama’s fix to the Affordable Care Act:“Today we saw a clear contrast: Democrats are working to fix and improve the Affordable Care Act, while Republicans still want to go back to the days when insurance companies could deny people coverage for pre-existing conditions, treat being a woman as a pre-existing condition, and watch health care costs drive families into bankruptcy. The fix proposed by President Obama today is an important step towards addressing a problem that has arisen and if we need to do more, we will.“Republicans should stop listening to...

Wow!  Even our senate lapdogs are beginning to bare their teeth. OK, who brought the props? Kitty dropped by to chat about Obamacare and they immediately started bringing up embarrassing issues about Healthcare.gov like those “ginormous security holes” Navigators needed: Apply Today! and the “mini-ormously small number of people actually enrolling in Obamacare. Butt we’re counting every one of them! At least they weren’t talking about Big Guy’s “little white mis-misrememberings,” so I think we’re making progress. And did you see how smoothly Kitty denied knowing anything about the big old security black holes in Healthcare.gov. Even though we now...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on the federal insurance exchange website and other issues related to the Affordable Care Act. Her testimony comes exactly one week after she appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee where she apologized to the public for what she called the "debacle." Secretary Sebelius and other administration officials have said that problems with the healthcare.gov website will be fixed by the end of this month. During her testimony today, she talks about the progress being made in that effort. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) chairs the committee...

GEORGE WILL: Someone has to tell the president it's not clever to be seen trying to be clever. In all the prevarications and the equivocations of politics, one tries to be economical in the use of the word lie. That's why Churchill once said an opponent was guilty of terminological inexactitude. Well, it's hard to avoid the feeling that even if the president really didn't know on September 26th what was going to happen on the first of October, now he knows what he actually said then, and he's not telling the truth about what he said then. In the...

My fellow blogger Pundit Pete has brought my attention to President Obama's 2009 Joint Session of Congress speech on Healthcare. What exactly did Obama say about those warning Obamacare would killed their health insurance plans? If you misrepresent what's in this plan, we will call you out. Now that millions of Americans are losing their health insurance thanks to Obamacare after President Obama repeatedly promised they could keep plans they liked "no matter what," will he call himself out? Will Obama call out fellow Democrats who helped push a lie to the American people in order to get Obamacare passed?...

"The fact of the matter is, the president went out and said, I think he said what he believed to be the fact and what was substantially was the fact, because 90, whatever, 95, 96, 97 percent of Americans are in the position where they can keep the insurance they have and they're going to see no changes," Axelrod explained to MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Monday night. Axelrod dismissed people currently losing their health plans as a "small group" of people who bought "substandard policies" in the individual market.

Making up a story about your mother to score political points and push an agenda doesn't exactly seem like a good idea...but when did Barack Obama ever think bad ideas weren't good ideas? According to the New York Times, yes, the New York Times, while campaigning in 2008, then Senator Obama lied about a "dispute" he had with a health insurance company so he could pull the sympathy card with voters by saying the insurer wouldn't give her coverage because her cancer was a pre-existing condition. Turns out, the insurer did give his mother coverage and reimbursed her medical costs....

President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least 29 times. The videos show Obama promising 300 million Americans that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.” (snip)

President Obama's former press secretary, Robert Gibbs, says it was "certainly" wrong for the president to continuously promise that people would be able to keep their health care plans under Obamacare ..."Well, look, I don't recall significant discussions around some of the verbage on this, to be a hundred percent honest with you," said Gibbs this morning. "But do you agree it was a wrong move?" "Oh, well, certainly," said Gibbs. "I mean, I don't think anybody dealing with this today finds what was said. Now, I do think some explanation in terms of the fact that policies that were...

As CNN points out, that is simply false: Sebelius is actually legally allowed to get insurance over the exchange but she would have to forego the employer contribution to her premiums. In the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, that employer contribution accounts for a majority of her premiums. In order to get a private health insurance plan through Obamacare, Sebelius would have to pass up what surely amounts to more than $10,000 in annual compensation.

Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on the hill, Wednesday, concerning healthcare.gov’s problems since its October 1 rollout. She’ll answer questions before the House Energy & Commerce Committee. This is the committee’s second hearing related to the website problems. Last week, four government contractors hired to help build the site testified. Tuesday, Marilyn Tavener, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator, appeared before the Ways & Means Committee. CMS is responsible for setting up the federal marketplace for insurance exchanges and the Medicaid expansion. Rep. Fred Upton chairs the committee and Rep. Henry Waxman serves as Ranking...

On Piers Morgan Live Tuesday, guest Bill Maher openly admitted Obama “lied” about Americans keeping their insurance plans, but insisted that he had to because of unified Republican opposition—and the increasingly “stupider” American public. Morgan trotted Maher on for a number of political issues, including the Obamacare meltdown and the most recent episode in the NSA scandal saga. Morgan opened by asking Maher if the scandal-failure-filled week was “any worse than it’s always been?” Maher said, in essence, yes: Well, I think the country in general is on a decline. Rather than citing the failure of the administration though, Maher’s explained he believes...

Gone is yesterday’s equivocating defense on the millions of distributed insurance cancellations currently shattering the great ObamaCare myth that was “If you like your plan, you can keep it.” After Valerie Jarrett‘s… er… “creative” contribution to the discussion last night, Carney was much more prepared for the question at today’s White House briefing with a more shrewdly crafted offensive strategy — because as we’re all well aware by now, unintentional concessions (don’t even think about apologies, not gonna’ happen) rarely last long in this administration before giving way to well-rehearsed, righteously indignant spin-doctoring. (Be sure to check out Sebelius’s planned...

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday denied President Obama had misled the public when he said that consumers could keep their health insurance plans after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Carney said that consumers who "had a plan the day before the Affordable Care Act passed and signed into law" and who had not either dropped their coverage or "been thrown off the plan" by their insurance companies were "grandfathered in and can keep that plan." "If you've kept it, you can keep it forever, as long as your insurer offers it," Carney said.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) removed a Facebook post Monday that alleged a House GOP leader told President Obama “I cannot even stand to look at you” at a private meeting. Durbin said he did not immediately take down the post after it was proven false last week because he wanted to leave it in the proper context. "If I'd have raced to take it off, [the media] would have done that story too: `Durbin races to take this off.' I wanted to put into context how I got into this situation," he told the Associated Press. After Durbin...

Piers Morgan used a fake news site to mock Sarah Palin on Twitter on Thursday. He linked to the satirical news site The Daily Currant saying that Palin claimed Jesus celebrated Easter. "And she's back!" Morgan gloated, with absolutely no mention that the article was fake. When critics told him the website was satire, Morgan answered that he knew it was. Yet he praised the notion that it was believable. "That's the beauty of it," Morgan wrote when someone tweeted that it was "hilarious even if its fake. Why? I believed it." That wasn't the first time Morgan has derided...

First official acknowledgment that the Benghazi attacks last year involve at least two suspects who are members of “Al-Qaeda core”, which is based in Pakistan and led by Ayman al-Zawahiri. ... reports of recorded phone conversations that took place between then Egyptian president Mohammed Mursi and al-Qaeda number one, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who sits at the top of “Al-Qaeda core”. These conversations reportedly include discussions about releasing al-Qaeda terrorists into Egypt, to form terrorist camps. These camps were formed in the Sinai and along Egypt’s border with Libya. These developments may constitute the strongest evidence yet that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was interrupted during a Wednesday night speech at a university in New York by an angry heckler who blamed her for the deaths of four Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. "Benghazi, Benghazi, you let them die," the heckler screamed, for fully 40 seconds while Mrs. Clinton tried to ignore it and continue her speech, The Daily Mail reported.