Free Republic

Fort Hood / JimRob Connection? Much has been said about Nidal Hasan's name appearing on p. 29 of that notorious "Homeland Security" thinktank's report. But did you know that on page 34 is this? -       James Robinson (Denver Health) In all likelihood, this is one and the same JR, since it's such a rarely seen name, and since Denver is practically right next door to Sacremento. This poses some serious questions, folks! What were JR and NH doing at the same conference, and when did they know it? What does this say about N. Hasan's connection with...

Let me be clear: I don't like Romney. I wouldn't vote for Romney. I hope he never runs for President, and if he tries, I hope he never gets the nomination. In other words -- I don't like Romney! However, -- I am tired of having to scroll past an anti-Romney ad as the #1 entry on every article lately. Why does every post start with an anti-Romney ad? As far as I know, he isn't even running for anything right now. In fact, why should every article begin with an anti-Anyone ad? I've always considered most Freepers to be...

Per Fox, Massachusetts hospitals are suing the state for huge losses under RomneyCare/MassCare. Fox says that under Mini-Obamacare, hospitals get as little as 40% of the money due them for the care they provide. Massachusetts is currently running a $3 billion deficit under MassCare, which was instituted in 2006. If you like MassCare, you'll LOVE Obamacare.

If Sarah Palin runs for president in 2012, can she win? Pundits have been buzzing about the possibility since the release of her book two weeks ago, and the itinerary and politics of her book tour suggest she hasn't ruled out a bid. Palin has said she "cannot predict what doors will be open in 2012," but can recent polling provide an answer? Can Palin Win a General Election? Ultimately, the potential for any Republican in 2012 will depend on voters' future assessments of President Obama. But even if he is vulnerable, Palin will face some huge obstacles, as the...

The glib answer to this is to suggest that she'd do the party a great service by not running at all. Yesterday I wrote that she's a "wrecker not a uniter" and that she could hijack the primary season to disastrous effect. That's clearly one possibility. But there are others, including some which might actually help the GOP and not merely by demonstrating the limits of Palinism and, consequently, lancing that particular boil. Though I think he under-estimates Palin's fund-raising potential, Daniel Larison runs through some of the [reasons?] that make it most unlikely that Palin can actually win the...

While 170 or more voters might have been fooled in the 2009 Values Voter Summit straw poll, it wasn’t Mike Huckabee who came out on top in a recent Washington Post poll of the leader who best reflects GOP values. From CNN: According to the poll, 18 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say the former Alaska governor best reflects core GOP values. In second place, 5 points back, is Sen. John McCain of Arizona, last year’s Republican presidential nominee, followed by former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee at 7 percent, former Massachusetts...

I’ll just leave this here… Before a defense of any kind of religious discrimination, one ought to make all of the necessary disclaimers: of course I oppose government-sponsored discrimination, and I certainly would not support the kind of absurd treatment described by Steven Reinhart in his piece featured below. That being said, there is a legitimate case to be made for judging any candidate for office by his religious convictions. In late 2007, Mitt Romney made his somewhat-famous speech on religion, where he spoke the following words: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of...

A new analysis by a leading MIT economist provides new ammunition for Democrats as the Senate begins formally debating the historic health-reform bill being pushed by President Barack Obama. The report concludes that under the Senate’s health-reform bill, Americans buying individual coverage will pay less than they do for today's typical individual market coverage, and would be protected from high out-of-pocket costs. So Democrats will argue that under the Senate bill, Americans would pay less for more.

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - Former Republican presidential candidate endorses Montgomery's gubernatorial candidate. WSFA 12 News confirmed overnight that Mitt Romney will endorse state treasurer Kate Ivey in her Republican race for governor. Romney cited Ivey's conservative background as the main reason for his support. Ivey served as Alabama chair-person of Romney's 2008 presidential campaign.

(CNN) -- Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christian leaders last week issued a bold political statement. They intended to target the Obama administration. Inadvertently, they may have also hit probable Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney ought to rank atop the Republican candidates for president in 2012. He finished second in votes cast in the primaries of 2008. He is a candidate with immense private-sector economic expertise in a time of urgent economic debate. But Romney has a political problem: his Mormon religious faith. A Gallup survey in December 2007 found that 18 percent of Republicans would not vote for...

During the past few months, the United States has been embroiled in a debate about the government takeover of Health Care. Our friends "across the pond" in Great Britain have been discussing healthcare as well. The UK discussions are not about a government health care takeover, that has already happened, their discussions have been about how awful the medical care is in the British socialized medical system. We are constantly that a most important part of treating cancer is early detection. The newest revelation about the over-worked British medical system is up to 10,000 British lives a year are lost...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will determine what medical treatments are and are not available to you under the Senate health bill. It is quite possible she will determine if you live or die. A serach of the Senate health bill will bring up "secretary" 2,500 times,

On May 6, 2009, Meg Whitman, who is running for governor of California, told reporters that she is a huge fan of Obama green czar Van Jones.

(snip) Trey Grayson, a Republican candidate for US Senate, was the keynote speaker on the issue of global warming last year at Eastern Kentucky University as part of the National Focus the Nation event. Now, why is that such a big deal? Well, the Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation for Focus the Nation is none other than Van Jones. Yes, that's right, the self-proclaimed communist Obama hired to be the Green Jobs Czar that had to tuck tail and resign at midnight. WHOA Now, let's back up a bit. Here's a bit of history on Focus the...

The persistence and even growth of Palin's popularity and impact on the national discussion now makes unavoidable the reality of the elitists' worst fear: that there are more of us than there are of them. And we now realize it.

I ask you respectfully and as a patriotic American to look at the following troubling lines that I have read in the bill. You cannot possibly believe that these proposals are in the best interests of the country and our fellow citizens.

Sarah Palin 2012 Presidential Betting Odds: Former Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin is making headlines once again this week with the release of her already best-selling memoir “Going Rogue”, as well as much speculation that she might be the next G.O.P entrant in the upcoming 2012 Presidential Betting Odds elections. With the current state the country finds itself in and with so many Americans in disapproval of the job current President Barack H. Obama is doing, the Sarah Palin camp might be gearing up to give the leftist a run for their money in the 2012 Presidential Betting Odds. But...

Romney's Legacy: Socialized Healthcare RomneyCare

Congress is debating legislation that would do essentially what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts: impose a health insurance mandate, create a network of subsidies, and micro-manage health insurance policies. Before legislators take us down the same road, they should consider the Massachusetts experience. Citizens there are not impressed with RomneyCare.

Next time you run into a group of Democrats, offer to splash water on their faces. They've spent 2009 in a dream state, and it's time they wake up. They're convinced that they can subsidize health insurance for millions of people while also "bending the cost curve" of health care spending. They want to sign us up for the political equivalent of one of those three-step "eat more to lose weight" diets. Step one: Pile on the expenditures, regulations, taxes, and fees. Step two: Close your eyes. Step three: Pray it all works out in the end. Sorry, it won't....

The advocates of ObamaCare argue that the overhaul of the American health-care system will cost “only” a trillion dollars in its first decade. Michael Cannon at the libertarian think tank Cato says that Congress relies on significant budgetary gimmicks to get to that number, and that the true cost of ObamaCare in its first real decade is six times that amount: One gimmick makes the new entitlement spending appear smaller by not opening the spigot until late in the official 10-year budget window (2010–2019). Correcting for that gimmick in the Senate version, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) estimates, “When all this...

... The so-called purity test is a 10-point checklist -- a suicide pact, really -- of alleged Republican positions... James Bopp Jr., chief sponsor of the resolution and a committee member from Indiana, has said that "the problem is that many conservatives have lost trust in the conservative credentials of the Republican Party." Actually, no, the problem is that many conservatives have lost faith in the ability of Republican leaders to think. The resolutions aren't so much statements of principle as dogmatic responses to complex issues that may, occasionally, require more than a Sharpie check in a little square. It's...

Reversing his previously stated belief that none of the Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination have all three legs of the conservative stool, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that Mitt Romney is indeed a three-leg conservative. Describing the three legs as "national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives," Rush said, "The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way... The foreign policy crowd is obviously what it is. I don't think there's anybody on our side who doesn't care about national...

This is a surprising result from Public Policy Polling, the occasionally partisan group which nonetheless called the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races accurately. Mitt Romney’s favorable rating among Republican voters has fallen to 48 percent–a plurality, but a weak one. And the trend lines are even more interesting. Since April, when PPP started asking the question, Sarah Palin’s favorable number has moved from 76 percent to 75 percent; Mike Huckabee’s has moved from 67 percent to 65 percent. Romney, alone, has seen a statistically significant drop from 60 percent down to 48. The results are so strange that PPP’s...

A new poll shows that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney now has a less than 50 percent favorability rating among Republican voters. Public Policy Polling has released its monthly 2012 survey, which finds that while 65 percent of Republicans have a favorable opinion of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and 75 percent have a favorable opinion of former GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, only 48 percent view Mitt Romney favorably. Romney's popularity has fallen 19 points in the poll since May. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling says the healthcare plan that Romney passed in Massachusetts when he was governor...

Not a huge deal since, according to his spokesman, he’s more inclined to challenge Menendez for New Jersey’s Senate seat in 2012 than run for prez, but it’s still worth flagging given the running debate we’ve been having about third parties. Just think of me as Groundskeeper Willie. I warned ye. Didn’t I warn ye? A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that if the choice is between President Obama, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Dobbs, Obama leads 42% to 34% with Dobbs pulling 14% of the vote. With Mike Huckabee as the Republican nominee, Obama leads 42%...

Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has indicated that he might consider an independent bid for the White House in 2012, and early polling shows he could attract up to 14% of the vote. However, some of that is almost certainly a generic protest vote as an unnamed “some other candidate” picks up between six percent (6%) and nine percent (9%) of the vote in similar 2012 match-ups. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that if the choice is between President Obama, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Dobbs, Obama leads 42% to 34% with Dobbs pulling 14% of...

You can’t help but notice that just about everyone who is part of the political establishment detests Sarah Palin. And you can’t help but notice that Palin couldn’t care less. Early in the second chapter of Going Rogue, a chapter titled “Kitchen-Table Politics,” you learn everything you need to know to understand why. This is the way Palin has been wired for a very long time. During her two terms on the Wasilla City Council, followed by two terms as the city’s mayor, she consistently demonstrated a refreshing immunity to the insider mentality that tends to afflict people who serve...

Mike Huckabee, like Sarah Palin, is pitching his books and persona to potential voters. Romney and Pawlenty take a more traditional tack, focusing on strengthening ties with the GOP establishment. Reporting from Grand Rapids, Mich. - Team Huck rolls into the bookstore like a NASCAR pit crew, red shirts adorned with the corporate logos of Mike Huckabee's website, his speaker's bureau and his publisher. "Huck" is emblazoned on their epaulets. They strip the protective wrapping off the large lectern that they install at all such appearances. Huckabee doesn't sit at tables. He stands, as a president would, even to sign...

I have never understood the Sarah Palin attraction. Sorry. I just don’t I am a die-hard conservative, but Sarah Palin does not do it for me. Never did. When she was first announced as John McCain’s running mate, I cringed, but then reluctantly understood. This was a political “Hail Mary” pass for the McCain campaign. Honestly, what could the poor man do from where he stood in the polls and in the modern American environment in which he was nominated? Answer: apparently little, aside from dumbing himself down to the political environment of the times—i.e., try to match the idiocy...

Big caveat right off the bat: PPP is the same polling firm that predicted a Hoffman landslide in NY-23. But (a) they had Mitt’s favorables comparable with Huckabee’s earlier in the year, so it’s not like their data’s historically been screwy, and (b) this isn’t just a one-month snapshot but a trend dating back to July. What gives? On our monthly 2012 polls, which began in April, an average of 74% of Republicans have held a favorable opinion of Palin to 66% for Huckabee and 56% for Romney. The gap hasn’t always been that wide though. On the first three...

Every last bit of the thousands of pages of this bogus program is insane. Somehow Obama is driven by someone or something hidden behind the curtian. Someone is willing to sacrifice trillions of dollars and many political careers to achieve this prize. It is clear the Wizard behind the curtain will not take no for an answer. Who is the puppet master and what is his hidden agenda? One world government? The collapse of America? Greed? Power? Marxism? A suicide wish? It all makes no sense. Most Americans are against this fiasco. Why is it being shoved down our throats?...

Since Sarah Palin brought the point of "Death Panels" to the forefront there has been much discussion on it here. But this and other parallel issues have been discussed off an on at FR for the last ten years. However, since Sarah Palin mentioned it the tenor of the discussion has changed. Whereas before there were was sentiment for "not being a burden on our children" and discussion on the merits of spending such large amounts of public money on procedures that might have limited and short term benefits. So let's see where everyone stands. The issue of Death Panels...

Seventy-five percent of U.S. women disagree with the recommendations of a government panel that urged fewer women to get mammograms, with 47 percent saying that they strongly disagree, according to a new Gallup Poll. New guidelines issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force suggest women begin getting routine mammograms starting at age 50, rather than age 40, and that such tests should be every other year.

Via Andrew, some real talk from David Frum: I was interviewed on PBS last week about Palin's book release. I said that Palin had an especially serious problem with women voters. This is just fact, again recorded in every survey. In October 2008, Palin's support dropped furthest and fastest among women, and especially among independents: more than two dozen points among independent women in barely 6 weeks. Consistently since the campaign, every survey has shown the former Alaska governor much more popular among men than women. And yet this attested statistical fact is shrugged off with comments like, "when I...

And you thought you were sick of Sarah Palin and her book tour blitz. Washington insiders wish she’d go back to shooting wildlife in Alaska. “I just wish she’d go away,” one GOP operative told us, echoing sentiments we’ve heard and read about from others. “I’m a conservative Republican, and I’ve had enough of her.” And while Palin has some serious star power — witness those book sales — the insider thinks mainstream Republicans should think twice before trying to tap into all that Palin enthusiasm as a money/energy source for their own races. “It’s not worth it.”

After the Senate voted Saturday night to pro ceed with debate on health reform, Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the public the winner. In truth, more Americans will be losers than winners. Both Senate and House bills strip nearly half a trillion dollars from Medicare, robbing seniors to expand Medicaid. The Senate bill also spends billions on drug treatment, sex education, translators and romance and relationship lessons (p. 612) that could be used to treat heart disease, cancer and stroke -- the diseases that kill most of us.

A top adviser on Hispanic issues to John McCain’s presidential campaign said Sunday that a joint interview with McCain and Sarah Palin planned for Univision last fall had to be canceled because Palin was unprepared to discuss Latin America policy. “She did not feel comfortable speaking about issues regarding Hispanics and Latin America,” GOP consultant Ana Navarro told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in an interview. “Those are not topics that come up frequently in Alaska. So she asked to cancel the interview and, unfortunately, you were already there.”

The flap over breast cancer screening has provided a fascinating insight into the political future of ObamaCare. Specifically, the political left supports such medical rationing even as it disavows that any such thing is happening. No sooner had the Health and Human Services Department's U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommended against mammography for women under 50 than Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rushed to say don't worry. The decision had "caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women," she said, promising that no policies would change. New Jersey's Frank Pallone vowed to hold hearings, and Senator Dick Durbin leveled the...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Republican National Committee will announce Monday that veteran political strategist Alex Castellanos will assume a senior communications role at the committee, an RNC official tells CNN. (snip) "Now the RNC has a new focus and direction - the 2010 elections," Castellanos said when reached by telephone. "And I am happy to help."

Big caveat right off the bat: PPP is the same polling firm that predicted a Hoffman landslide in NY-23. But (a) they had Mitt’s favorables comparable with Huckabee’s earlier in the year, so it’s not like their data’s historically been screwy, and (b) this isn’t just a one-month snapshot but a trend dating back to July.

I am among the thousands of women every year who discover between the ages of 40 and 49 that we have breast cancer. We find out after we undergo mammograms. We find out after we examine ourselves for lumps that may signal the presence of a malignancy. And we are the women who would go without both of these routine screenings under the task force's proposed guidelines. And every day that passed without treatment would have brought me that much closer to death. As it is, I have survived only through aggressive chemotherapy and radiation, along with a double mastectomy....

Another reason to VOTE THE TURKEYS OUT IN 2010! The Preventative Services Task Force released it’s findings on the proper protocol for breast cancer screening, which suggested that mammograms be conducted semi-annually only after a woman reaches 50. The Democrats would have you believe that they are just recommendations … but if the Reid Bill were to become law, these recommendations would be law as well. Death Panels? You decide. Below Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R, TN) details how the Task Force guidelines would indeed become law, despite what the Democrats will tell you and she has chapter and verse to...

The health-care bill in its current form would create a regulatory mess estimated by one Senator to add100,000 new administrators in over 100 new bureaucracies. Many of these bureaucracies will get between doctors and patients. Others are simply a waste of money.... To pay for all this new bureaucracy there will be dozens of new taxes totaling nearly $800 billion and extending to items such as wheelchairs and hospital gowns. Almost every major recent public opinion poll has shown more Americans oppose Obama/Pelosi/Reid Care than support it. Just this week, in The Wall Street Journal, the Dean of the Harvard...

Vanity

God bless John McCain for having picked Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. McCain didn’t simply introduce a new politician into the national limelight, but someone who has already lapped him in public consciousness. Palin represents McCain’s most enduring political accomplishment. In tapping her, McCain unleashed the most volatile force into American politics since Joseph McCarthy. And unlike the saturnine McCarthy, Palin seems to succeed effortlessly at playing any role she assumes—in her latest incarnation as author, she produced a best seller even before her tome hit the bookstores, a particularly impressive accomplishment at a moment when the...

A new poll shows 68 percent of Republicans in Iowa hold a favorable view of Sarah Palin. That is only two percent lower than 2008 Iowa Caucus winner Mike Huckabee. The Des Moines Register poll proves that Palin would be the decisive factor in the 2012 Caucus, if she runs.

(To be clear, that is a relatively low bar. Republicans went into the political wilderness in a major way following Bush's re-election as he grew increasingly less popular and it became increasingly more clear that the party was either unable or unwilling to break with the chief executive in any major way. Polls suggest that the Republican brand remains badly damaged in the eyes of the American public with most people still trusting Obama far more than Republicans in Congress to solve the major issues of the day.) With 2010 right around the corner, there is significant movement in this...

A formidable coalition of 150 Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical leaders are calling on Christians in a new manifesto to reject secular authority – and even engage in civil disobedience – if laws force them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other ideas that betray their religious beliefs. On Friday, these leaders released a 4,700-word document – called the "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience." The document was signed by leaders ranging from evangelical leader Chuck Colson to two of the leading Catholic prelates in the U.S., Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. and Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New...

The conventional wisdom on Sarah Palin is that she's a divisive figure, and, from what polls tell us, that's true: according to Pollster.com's average, 38 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of her, while 49.2 percent view her unfavorably. So she's in minus territory--11.2 percent more Americans view her negatively than positively--which is bad for any politician running for office (if indeed she is). That's worse than other top-tier 2012 contenders, too, whose favorable/unfavorable splits, according to the same average, are 36.9 / 27.3 for Mitt Romney and 44.6 / 23/9 for Mike Huckabee. But among Republicans, she does...