Free Republic

...Worst of all for the repute of today’s decision, the Court’s reasoning is largely self-defeating. The Court predicts that making tax credits unavailable in States that do not set up their own Exchanges would cause disastrous economic consequences there. If that is so, however, wouldn’t one expect States to react by setting up their own Exchanges? And wouldn’t that outcome satisfy two of the Act’s goals rather than just one: enabling the Act’s reforms to work and promoting state involvement in the Act’s implementation? The Court protests that the very existence of a federal fallback shows that Congress expected that...

On Thursday, the Supreme Court released its long-awaited decision on Obamacare’s IRS subsidies under federal health insurance exchanges. And, as expected, the Court rewrote the statute to help President Obama’s signature law. With each passing day of Supreme Court decisions, conservative principles begin to feel more and more like the survivors of the Scream films: it’s only a matter of time before you are next for the knife. In King v. Burwell, four citizens sued over Obamacare, alleging that they had been forced to purchase health insurance; they said that the federal health exchange set up in Virigina in absence...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the nationwide tax subsidies under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, in a ruling that preserves health insurance for millions of Americans. The justices said in a 6-3 ruling that the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live, under the 2010 health care law.< The outcome is the second major victory for Obama in politically charged Supreme Court tests of his most significant domestic achievement. It came the same day the court gave the administration an unexpected victory by preserving...

Six are the Chief, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.

Obamacare’s apologists, tired of being laughed at for claiming “it’s working,” have adopted a new talking point that they hope will produce less mirth. They now claim the law is such an integral part of our health care system that it is no longer susceptible to repeal or even revision. As President Obama recently put it, “This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another.… This is health care in America.” This is a perfectly absurd claim to make about a law that has been in effect for only a year and a half. The...

RUSH: Here's how the Regime's doing it. The Regime and the Drive-Bys are trying to intimidate the court, trying to influence the court, trying to shape the court. Josh Earnest, press briefing at the White House today. A reporter said, "One of the justices this morning suggested the court could give states time to prepare for the impact if it decided to rule against the government in this case. I'm just wondering if you have any response to that, Josh. Would that be feasible? Just wait 'til next year for a decision like that to take effect?" EARNEST: It's important...

John Adams, in a 1775 essay referencing the Roman historian Livy and other sources, wrote that a republic was “a nation of laws, not of men.” As recently as fifty years ago, most Americans would have intuitively understood his point and why it was relevant to their lives. Today, it isn’t clear that the President of the United States, the leaders of the Democratic Party, or the members of our “news” media would grasp the meaning of Adams’ words, much less that they still matter today. We will soon discover if the same can be said of the Supreme Court....

Prince Andrew Sex Scandal: Virginia Roberts claims FBI have videos of her having sex with high-profile people **SNIP** Addressing 200 leading figures from the worlds of business and politics, the 54-year-old said: "I just wish to reiterate and to reaffirm the statements which have already been made on my behalf by Buckingham Palace." The latest revelations come a week after Epstein hit out at 'outlandish attacks' by the 'gossip media' over the case. The former financier was jailed for 18 months in 2008 for soliciting paid sex with minors under a secret deal which saw more serious federal charges dropped....

There might soon be thousands more licensed drivers in the Grand Canyon State. The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Arizona must offer driver’s licenses to thousands of young immigrants who entered the United States illegally but were protected from deportation by a presidential order in 2012, The Associated Press reports. In a 6-3 decision, justices denied Gov. Jan Brewer’s request for a stay on a circuit court ruling. Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have granted the stay.

Sports fans who bristle at all manner of anti-capitalist leanings in the political or business world routinely side with leagues and team owners when it comes to capping salaries for players who could and usually should earn far more than they’re making. Sports fans who pair face-painting and American flag lapel pin-wearing suddenly turn into crusty old Bolsheviks when it comes to taking free-market enterprise out of the sports they love.

In at least two polling locations, voting machines are changing votes for Pat Roberts to votes for Greg Orman. The machines were located in Overland Park, Kansas. Both changed votes to Orman, but did not change votes from Orman to Roberts. According to a local report, voters who noticed that their votes were changed were allowed to vote again. The Johnson County Election Office confirmed that they were aware of the issue and were looking into the matter. They said "the voter was allowed to vote on another machine" and the broken machine, which they said was calibrated wrong, was...

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kans.) is in the fight for his political life. Current polls show him barely trailing his opponent, which would make Kansas look like a golden pickup opportunity for Senate Democrats, right?Not so much. In early September, Democrat Chad Taylor suddenly dropped out of the crowded Kansas Senate, leaving a two-man race between Roberts and Greg Orman, who insists that he’s totally an independent and not a partisan Democrat. Orman even swears that he has no idea who he’ll support for Senate Majority Leader if he wins the election next Tuesday. That’s how independent he is.But if Orman...

In the tight race between incumbent Republican Pat Roberts and "independent" candidate Greg Orman in Kansas, the Democrats are implicitly pro-Orman. The two-way race between Orman and Roberts has been close ever since Democrats pressured the official Democratic candidate to drop out of the race. But now, the Kansas Republican Party has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the Kansas Democratic Party for illegal "in-kind" contributions to the Orman campaign. Kansas Democrats have hung pro-Orman signs at official Democratic Party offices which, according to the GOP's complaint, is illegal: Parties have traditionally used the volunteer exemption for...

November 1, 2014 Kansas Republicans Take Strong Lead in Early Voting Ky Sisson 10/30/2014 8:00:00 PM - Ky Sisson It was a sad day last night in Kansas when the Kansas City Royals lost the World Series in Game 7. Today, the GOP in "The Sunflower State" have something to celebrate as early voting results show positive turnout from Republicans.  Of the 153,436 early votes cast so far this election 82,739 or 54% were cast by Republicans. In comparison only 47,468, or 31% were cast by Democrats. The remaining votes were cast by unaffiliated or libertarian voters. The blood red state of...

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- The image some conservatives have of Greg Orman, the wealthy businessman running as an independent against veteran Republican Sen. Pat Roberts here in Kansas, is that Orman is, in the words of a recent Weekly Standard story, a "vacuous cipher." Watching Orman's performance in a recent debate with Roberts before a business group in this large suburb of Kansas City, it's safe to say that image is wrong, or at least incomplete. Calling Orman a cipher suggests he has no positions, or nothing to say. But on some important topics, Orman outlined policies in more detail...

Former Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s political wisdom that “All politics is local” has been a staple in political thinking for many years. But the truth of the matter is that, regarding elections for national office, politics is really, today, a national business. And this is what voters in Kansas should be thinking about in the current close Senate race between Republican incumbent Pat Roberts and Independent challenger Greg Orman. Roberts has not been shy making the point that regaining the Senate by Republicans is crucial and this is what Kansas voters should be thinking about in this election. And...

Dozens of cows trumpeted in the pens out back as Sen. Pat Roberts made his pitch to attendees at a livestock market. Pat Roberts Finds No Place Like Home“When we get a Republican majority, I’ll be chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and we are gonna put the livestock producer first,” Roberts told the crowd from a room behind the then-empty cow pen, where the auctioneer had briefly paused his chant to allow the state’s senior senator to address the crowd. The lone man in a suit jacket in a crowd of denim, plaid, cowboy hats and baseball caps, Roberts...

This week the AFL-CIO threw its considerable weight behind Democrat-turned-independent Greg Orman in his bid for U.S. Senate in Kansas. This came on the heels of a debate that was all about defining who Greg Orman really is: ... The AFL-CIO won't run TV ads for Orman, spokesman Jeff Hauser said, but his campaign will now be incorporated into the union's extensive ground game there. The AFL-CIO had previously endorsed Kansas's Democratic Party's gubernatorial nominee, Paul Davis, who is locked into one of the country's most competitive gubernatorial contests with incumbent Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. During Wednesday's debate, incumbent Sen....

Liberal Greg Orman Says He's Pro-Choice, Abortion Not Important At Debate - VIDEO:

If Sam Brownback wins re-election as Kansas governor, the world will not end. If Pat Roberts wins re-election to the U.S. Senate, for sure the world will not end. If independent candidate Greg Orman upsets Roberts for the U.S. Senate, again the world will not end. If Kris Kobach wins re-election as Kansas secretary of state…well, that’s another story. Kobach would fill the secretary of state’s seat for four more years, where he will continue to ignore his duties and spend his time in courts fighting one thing after another. But that’s only the beginning of the havoc he would...