Free Republic

Pope Francis praised America’s Roman Catholic church for its “unfailing commitment” to the pro-life cause on Wednesday, saying it was “the primary reason” for his visit to the country.

WASHINGTON — Hours after House Speaker John Boehner announced that he would be resigning from Congress, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz added fuel to the fire by saying he’d heard “early reports” that Boehner cut a deal with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to continue funding some of President Barack Obama’s most controversial measures. “I will say, the early reports are discouraging. If it is correct that the speaker, before he resigns, has cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to fund the Obama administration for the rest of its tenure, to fund Obamacare, to fund executive amnesty, to fund Planned Parenthood, to...

(Sep 24, 2015) The allegation of a conservative turning on his own and becoming an enforcer for Republican leadership came to light as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, arrived at a dilemma. If he sides with House conservatives and defunds Planned Parenthood in the upcoming budget bill, he will almost certainly face a government shutdown, a prospect that terrifies GOP leadership. If he doesn’t try to defund the abortion provider, that will likely trigger a brewing revolt by conservatives seeking to dethrone Boehner as speaker. And, if Democrats play along, they may have the votes. If Boehner isn’t feeling the...

As Pope Francis embarks on his historic visit to the United States, His Holiness will spread his message of hope, faith and unity in the form of a prog-rock-infused album titled Wake Up! this November. The Vatican-approved LP, a collaboration with Believe Digital, features the Pontiff delivering sacred hymns and excerpts of his most moving speeches in multiple languages paired with uplifting musical accompaniment ranging from pop-rock to Gregorian chant. Wake Up! arrives November 27th, with the iTunes pre-order now available with an instant download of "Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!," which Rolling Stone is proud to premiere.

On the day after Pope Francis spoke to Congress about the dangers of violent extremism in the name of religious fundamentalism, presidential candidate Ted Cruz, appearing at a Values Voter summit, threatened to murder Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Texas senator vowed that, if elected, he would “rip to shreds” the Iranian agreement deal recently passed through Congress, and kill the country’s leader if it didn’t give up its nuclear ambitions. “If the Ayatollah doesn’t understand that, we may have to help introduce him to the 72 virgins,” Cruz said to wild cheers from the audience of conservative Christians. The...

The spectacular rise of Donald Trump as leading presidential candidate should at last force Republicans in Washington to face the chronic ineffectiveness of their party: rank and file Republicans are turning to the Donald because he, unlike the party establishment, seems energetic, articulate, and determined to get something done. They have so long despaired of a party leadership that is inarticulate, somnolent, and inept that they are not deterred by the fact that Trump is dangerously unpredictable. The problem is not an insufficiently conservative party, as some conservatives think; a two-party system will always have a broad spectrum of viewpoints...

Why not? It worked for ObamaCare, didn’t it? The Hill reports that Speaker John Boehner’s latest strategy to thread the needle of demands to defund Planned Parenthood and yet avoid a government shutdown will take a page from the Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi playbook: Top House Republicans hope to convince their members to keep the government open by using a fast-track process known as reconciliation to try to defund Planned Parenthood.House Republican leaders are planning to target Planned Parenthood’s funding by immediately drafting a fast-track reconciliation bill, according to a senior House GOP aide.Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants...

Sources tell Breitbart News that several members of the House of Representatives are saying “the rumor is Boehner cut a deal with Pelosi.” According to those sources, outgoing House Speaker Rep. John Boehner and Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi agreed that her Democratic caucus would join Boehner along with a handful of Boehner loyalists and moderate establishment Republicans to continue Planned Parenthood funding, along with a few other budget items President Obama says were must-haves, in order to avoid a Government shutdown. Boehner resigned because he knew that after he cut that deal, conservatives in his own party would be...

House Speaker John Boehner’s time with the big gavel may be coming to an end in the next week or so. The Hill reports some Republican lawmakers think they have a shot at getting Boehner out, if the government shutdown over the funding of Planned Parenthood doesn’t happen. “That’s what tells you there’s something afoot. You know there’s some drops of blood in the water, because all the sharks are starting to circle,” said one conservative lawmaker who backs Boehner’s ouster. The key word in all this is “may” because there’s no guarantee it will happen. North Carolina Congressman Mark...

Pope Francis's address to Congress may have voters on both sides of the aisle seriously considering supporting Donald Trump’s immigration plan.  The pope stated that we must "not be taken aback by the numbers" of illegals he calls "refugees" invading our country.  Rather, we must apply the Golden Rule to the 11-30 million people openly defying our nation's rule of law. Unfortunately, Francis's "do unto others" dictum does not apply to cash-strapped lower- and middle-income Americans.  He says we must see the “refugees” as “persons … seeing their faces and listening to their stories,” but he exhibits no such...

Two of those Republicans, Rand Paul and Tom Cotton, opposed the bill not because of its Planned Parenthood provisions but because it didn’t meet their priorities on other government spending. Paul voted no because it would lead to another $400 billion in debt; Cotton opposed it because spending on defense wasn’t high enough to suit him.I haven’t seen explanations from the other six but five of them are among the most centrist members of the caucus. (Ben Sasse is an exception.) Did they take issue with some element of spending too, or was this in fact a vote to...

When the nuns first hit the road in 2012, their mission was to collect stories of economic oppression in protest of the Paul Ryan budget — in defiant response to Pope Benedict XVI's startling decision to launch an investigation into the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group that represents more than 80 percent of religious sisters in the United States. The investigation was an outright attack on women's role in the Church and was referred to as "a crackdown on American nuns." Their alleged transgression was spending too much time on social justice issues, and promoting "certain radical...

We all remember the promise – President Obama famously told us time and time again that ObamaCare would lower health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year for families. But unless you’re receiving a giant subsidy from the government for your insurance, you’re not paying less in premiums, in fact, for employer sponsored plans, premiums have risen nearly $5,000 since Obama promised to cut them. What about deductibles? They haven’t decreased either. But don’t just take my word for it.A new survey finds that in 2015 deductibles on employer-provided health plans actually rose by almost nine percent.According to a new...

I don't see any other logical reason for him speaking the way he did.

Employer-based health insurance premiums climbed 4.2% this year for family plans, according to an annual Kaiser Family Foundation report. That's up from 3% the year before. Since 2008, average family premiums have climbed a total of $4,865.

For decades, liberal activists yearned for a European-style, single-payer health system that they argued would lead to more affordable, efficient, and comprehensive medical coverage for all citizens. When Vermont four years ago enacted a landmark bill to establish the nation’s first single-payer health care system, they saw their long-sought dream about to be fulfilled. But reality hit last month. Governor Peter Shumlin released a financial report that showed the cost of the program would nearly double the size of the state’s budget in the first year alone and require large tax increases for residents and businesses. Shumlin, a Democrat and...

Pope Francis today suggested to reporters during an airborne press conference that he is not a left-winger. “Some people might say some things [I said] sounded slightly more leftish, but that would be a mistake of interpretation,” the Pope said to journalists, according to Time.

Amid high unemployment and a weak economy, employers have been shifting health care costs to workers, according to a study released Thursday. The premiums that employees pay for employer-sponsored family coverage rose an average of 13.7 percent this year, while the amount that employers contribute fell by 0.9 percent, the survey found. For family coverage, workers are paying an average of $3,997, up $482 from last year, while employers are paying an average of $9,773, down $87, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.

Employers are leaving a bigger chunk of the bill for care to workers who use their health insurance, and benefits experts see few signs of this trend slowing. Most companies now offer health coverage that requires employees to pay an annual deductible before insurance kicks in, and the size of that deductible has soared in the past decade, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. The average general deductible for workers with single coverage totaled $1,077 this year, compared to only $303 in 2006. That deductible has climbed nearly seven...

In October 2013, Oregon was just another state whose Obamacare exchange failed to achieve lift-off when its Democrat governor attempted to abet the President in the launch of his “signature domestic achievement.” Shortly thereafter, Governor Kitzhaber earned two additional distinctions not enjoyed by Obama’s other accomplices: He was the first to abandon his constituents to Healthcare.gov, and resigned pursuant to an ethics scandal. Before leaving office, however, Kitzhaber made what may be the most outrageous decision of his tawdry tenure—he sicced his Attorney General on the IT firm that built the exchange as well as some of its employees. And...