Free Republic

During a Brookings Institution panel in April 2006, then-Sen. Barack Obama claimed he had “stolen” ideas from a gang of liberal economists and academics, including the now-infamous Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber. “You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles, many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally,” Obama said. “People ranging from Robert Gordon to Austan Goolsbee; Jon Gruber; my dear friend, Jim Wallis here, who can inform what are sometimes dry policy debates with a prophetic voice.” Despite Obama’s attempt to distance himself and his unpopular signature health care legislation from Gruber,...

A snippet of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber speaking candidly has resurfaced, but this time it’s about himself rather than American voters. “I’m an ivory tower guy at heart and do my thing and figure I’m an honest guy and people will trust it,” Gruber told Politico in Jan. 2010. The self-description is likely to resonate with the public after several videotaped recordings surfaced this week of Gruber calling Americans “stupid” and bragging about how “a lack of transparency” was necessary to pass Obamacare. Gruber called himself “an ivory tower guy” after it came to light that he had been paid...

The Obama administration told federal immigration lawyers to release illegal immigrants with “old” drunken-driving convictions and those found guilty of stealing other people’s identities, according to a lawsuit filed by one of the lawyers at the center of the operation. Patricia M. Vroom, a top attorney for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona, filed a 67-page discrimination complaint that details repeated battles with agency higher-ups who told her to close cases and not deport people whom President Obama deemed low-priority

".......Gruber’s comments have been much-remarked-upon, particularly on the right, not only for confirming what Obamacare critics have said for five years but also for capturing at least in part the ethos of modern progressive liberalism: smarter-than-thou zealotry masquerading as for-the-greater-good pragmatism. (That he did it at sound-bite length is simply an added perk.) But for a movement that touts its stratospheric intelligence, the response to Gruber’s comments from his longtime supporters, both on Capitol Hill and in the media, reminds observers of something else: that liberalism tends to handle its PR nightmares with an iron first. Consider what is happening...

While Obamacare’s proponents continue to insist that the program presents no threat to Americans’ healthcare, new comments from Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber demonstrate that Obamacare was designed to do just that. Gruber stated: You get a law which said healthy people are going to pay in, it made explicit that healthy people pay and sick people get money, it would not have passed…Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage and basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically, that was really, really critical to get this thing to pass. In other words,...

A senior Navy intelligence officer has been removed from his position due to comments made regarding aggressive Chinese military movements that ran counter to the Pentagon’s talking points on the issue, according to the Navy Times. Capt. James Fanell was removed from his position as the director of intelligence and information operations at U.S. Pacific Fleet. Fanell was reassigned within the command. Though neither the Navy nor Fanell commented on the reason for the personnel change, it is widely believed to be due to an internal investigation of his comments on China, according to the report. Fanell warned during a...

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO (Congressional Budget Office) did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. … So it’s written to do that,” Gruber said, suggesting “it would not have passed” if the law “made it explicit” that healthy people would “pay in” and the sick would get money. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber continued. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. I wish...

The University of Pennsylvania which had originally posted this has now pulled down the video from their site. But this is an attempt on the part of Jonathan Gruber and company to pull their pants up after they got caught. I think it's comical that these people still believe they can say whatever they want in public, but then flip out if anyone quotes them. It also appears that the Snopes.com mafia has been called in to cast doubt upon the incident as conservatives have reported it. They call this claim a Mixture of true and false. Here's their lame...

President Obama has come out in support of reclassifying internet service as a utility, a move that would allow the Federal Communications Commission to enforce more robust regulations and protect net neutrality. "To put these protections in place, I'm asking the FCC to reclassifying internet service under Title II of a law known as the Telecommunications Act," Obama says in a statement this morning. "In plain English, I'm asking [the FCC] to recognize that for most Americans, the internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life." "The decision is still up to the FCC" There's been...

A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a “government-related entity” that planted classified documents on her computer. In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” at what the analysis revealed.

I have yet to find the words to describe the overwhelming sense of satisfaction I felt on Nov. 4, 2008 when Obama won the popular vote by 53 percent. With tears in my eyes, and joy in my heart, I stood alongside people of color across the nation as we celebrated America's first inauguration of a black president. As a young black man, I felt a true sense of patriotism as I witnessed our country rally together to show, finally, that we are more concerned about who is the most qualified man for the job, regardless of race or age....

REVERE, Mass. (WHDH) - Some parents in Revere were angry when they learned students were being taught about Islam and the Muslim religion. "No religion should be taught at school. In their paper it says Allah is their only God. That's insulting to me as a Christian who believes in just Jesus only," said Anthony Giannino. A section of the textbook describing the beliefs of Muslims says, "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah." Giannino immediately pulled his son out of the classroom. "We don't believe in Allah. I don't believe in my son learning about this...

Conservative radio host Mark Levin warned the American public during a Fox News television appearance that President Obama has nothing to lose in his last couple years in office and will press forward with aggression and fervor to realize his agenda. Mr. Obama will go “full Mussolini” after the November elections wrap, in comparison to the past few years, when he’s been mostly a “statist,” Mr. Levin said.

Suppose you were the President Obama, in the Oval Office, or more likely at the golf course, wondering how to save the Obola administration before Ebola flushes it down the toilet. You would think: I need someone who is a cool head in a bad situation. He would be someone that has a history of turning around failing operations. He needs to be a man that inspires trust, and he needs to be the kind of person that would be prepared to set everything aside to help his country. “There is only one man in public life who fits the...

Nashville Police Chief: Secret Service Tried to Fool Armed Homeowner with Fake Search Warrant By Robert Farago on October 16, 2014 “Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson recently sent a letter to Congress alleging that Secret Service agents asked Nashville police to falsify a warrant so that the agents could search the home of a Nashville resident who had posted about President Obama on Facebook,” benswann.com reports. More specifically, “in January of 2013, Secret Service agents working out of the Nashville field office visited the home of the resident who made the Facebook postings and knocked on his door. Then, an...

In a presidential action issued on Friday, proclaiming Oct. 13 as Columbus Day, President Barack Obama noted that a “new history” launched by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the new world included the history of American Indians, which he said is “marred with long and shameful chapters of violence, disease, and deprivation.” “In a new world, a history was written,” said Obama’s proclamation, required by a 1934 Congressional Joint Resolution. “It tells the story of an idea – that all women and men are created equal – and a people´s struggle to fulfill it. “And it is a history...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Kremlin-backed Russia Today news network has rolled out a provocative ad campaign that takes a sharp poke at U.S. media and the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The pitch is aimed at convincing Americans of the merits of Russia Today - or RT - as an alternate news source to U.S. networks. Featuring a stylized image of former U.S Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations, one ad reads: "This is what happens when there is no second opinion. Iraq War: No WMDs. 141, 802 civilian deaths." The campaign includes two other...

Federal Court Says the Government Can Impersonate You on Social Media — and There’s Not Much You Can Do About It Imagine finding out you have a Facebook page that you didn’t actually create. It has your name, your private photos and all of your personal information — none of which you posted. That’s the discovery New York resident Sondra Prince made. Prince, formerly Sondra Arquiett, alleges that after she was arrested on drug charges in 2010, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used the photos on her confiscated cellphone to create Facebook profile in her name and without her consent....

Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the world's largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they don't want you to know is how they made all that money. The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and...

Search for the word “fat” on Twitter and you’ll likely find a torrent of criticisms, insults, and jokes at overweight people’s expense. Now researchers have undertaken such an experiment in a much more systematic way, across a variety of platforms — and what they’ve found may give the public health community a look at the reality of being overweight online.