Free Republic

As the November elections approach, we’ve heard nothing but deafening silence from the GOP as to why the electorate should put Congress in its hands. Now, I have nothing against the ages-old stratagem of not interrupting an enemy in the process of making enormous mistakes. But, we’re not simply considering a ‘my team good’ vs. ‘their team bad’ situation, as if the outcome was nothing more than a sporting event to be remembered until the next big game. Some fundamental American freedoms have been under assault for decades, and Obama and his party have accelerated the trend. Where is the...

According to Latter-Day Saints (LDS, Mormon) President Orson Hyde, Jesus was married to several women, including Mary Magdalene, and had biological children. "..[In John 2,] Jesus was the bridegroom at the marriage of Cana of Galilee, and he told them what to do. Now there was actually a marriage; and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. ... We say it was Jesus Christ who was married, to be brought into the relation whereby he could see his seed, before he was crucified. ... I do not despise to be called a son of...

Allowing same-sex marriage in Georgia would pump nearly $80 million into the state’s economy, according to a study released Thursday by the UCLA school of law. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 21,318 same-sex couples live in Georgia. Half would choose to marry within three years, the law school’s Williams Institute estimates, based on similar patterns in Massachusetts and other states where same-sex marriage is legal. Highlights of the study include: - Spending on wedding arrangements by the couples, and their out-of-town guests, would add $78.8 million to the state and local economies over three years.

A federal judge declared a portion of Utah’s polygamy ban unconstitutional late Wednesday, essentially decriminalizing polygamy in the state.U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups ruled the phrase in the law “‘or cohabits with another person’ is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is without a rational basis under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by reality TV polygamist Kody Brown and his wives, who left Utah fearing prosecution. They sued the state, arguing that the ban violated their right to freely...

Recent news about Obamacare hasn't exactly been good, but the press has been pretty effective in keeping it quiet. To name just a few items, Enrollment is shrinking, because perhaps as many as 20 percent of enrollees aren't keeping up with their premiums. Rising costs have moved insurers to beg for bailouts, which appear to be forthcoming. Then there's this: Just last week in Massachusetts, where the state-run health insurance got its start under Republican Governor Mitt Romney eight years ago, the state's exchange announced that everyone currently enrolled in 2014 or who should have enrolled and didn't is going...

Nicolle Wallace, former adviser to the McCain-Palin 2008 presidential campaign who worked with Steve Schmidt, appeared on The View on Thursday (3/10/2014) and gushed over Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and even Bill Clinton. Predictably, however, she trashed Sarah Palin.

When the fight for gay marriage began to gain traction back in the early years of the last decade, social conservative critics usually went beyond denying that marriage could be redefined to include same-sex couples. Many of them argued that homosexuals were much less inclined than heterosexuals to valorize the ideal of monogamy. Allowing gays and lesbians to marry would therefore introduce a polyamorous option into the institution, and adultery would come to be viewed as an acceptable option for all marriages.A spate of recent articles explicitly making the case for polyamory would seem to vindicate those conservative predictions and...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in a close contest against potential GOP rival, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul in a 2016 general election matchup in New Hampshire. Clinton has single-digit leads against New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. She has a wider lead over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. But, only against Cruz is Clinton supported by more than 50% of New Hampshire voters. Clinton does better than each of her potential opponents among independent voters. The gender gap in all of these matchups is wide....

Mitt Romney loyalists are trying to gin up the narrative that Republicans just can't get enough of Romney.“Democrats don’t want to be associated with Barack Obama right now, but Republicans are dying to be associated with Mitt Romney,” Spencer Zwick, "a longtime Romney confidant who chaired his national finance council," claimed to the Washington Post. The Chamber of Commerce, which has vowed to wage war on the Tea Party and push through amnesty legislation, glowingly praised Romney, alleging he would be in a "commanding position" if he entered the 2016 race. Romney is reportedly set to make trips to West...

Last Saturday, Breitbart News uncovered three reports and analysis written by Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist and chief architect of Obamacare, stating that subsidies or tax credits will be provided to individuals “to purchase health insurance from private companies through state-organized exchanges.” These reports were discovered after a video clip surfaced of Gruber making similar comments on the clip. Gruber said his remarks were a "mistake" made while "speaking off-the-cuff." One of the three reports, titled “The Facts Straight on Health Care Reform,” was written by Gruber for The New England Journal of Medicine in December 2009. Breitbart has since

Nobody has ever rooted for that scrappy Romney kid to overcome the odds. Until, maybe, now. Perhaps it says something about us that our most interesting presidential candidates swear they won't run for president. This is true of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and it's increasingly true of Mitt Romney. As regular readers of this column know, I've never been much of a Romney booster. I've also expressed skepticism about the notion he would run again. But let's not let "a foolish consistency" cloud our judgment. There is reason to believe that a third try wouldn't be an absurd venture. First, in...

Yesterday's majority opinion in the Virginia same-sex marriage case obviously is getting all the press, but Judge Paul Niemeyer raised an interesting issue in his dissent. "The plaintiffs also largely ignore the problem with their position that if the fundamental right to marriage is based on 'the constitutional liberty to select the partner of one’s choice,' as they contend, then that liberty would also extend to individuals seeking state recognition of other types of relationships that States currently restrict, such as polygamous or incestuous relationships," he wrote. Ridiculous? Yes, it's easy to dismiss this reasoning as preposterous. But, of course,...

Republican lobbyists are working to persuade GOP lawmakers to change their position on same-sex marriage and revise the party's official position that "traditional marriage" is between a man and a woman. Gay marriage advocates say their efforts are paying off as an increasing number of members of the congressional delegation are diverging from the party line, The Hill reported. "The issue is losing its toxicity, from a Republican perspective," Kathryn Lehman, a top GOP lobbyist and partner at Holland & Knight, who helped write the Defense of Marriage Act, told The Hill. She has been visiting dozens of Republican offices...

UNKNOWN QUESTIONER:“Um, you mentioned the Health Insurance Exchanges for the States. And it’s my understanding that if the States don’t provide them, that the Federal Government will provide them.”M.I.T. economics Prof. Jonathan Gruber:“Yeah, so these Health Insurance Exchanges —once you go on MA-HealthConnect.org and CRS [is] in Massachusetts—will be these new shopping places. And they’ll be the place that people go to get their subsidies for health insurance. “In the law it says [that] if States don’t provide them, the federal backstop will. The Federal Government has been sort-of slow in putting in this backstop, I think partially, because they...

Liberals are now in damage control mode on the heels of the discovery of not one but two videos of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber claiming in January 2012 that the subsidies for that program were limited to exchanges set up by the states. Their contention is that while Gruber might have worked closely with Congress to create the Obamacare bill, he is still not Congress. The other claim is that there is no document that backs up what they consider to be merely a Gruber "Speak-O." Newsflash folks! Your humble correspondent has come upon a 2011 General Accounting Office report...

... It seems to us Gruber has an awfully broad definition of "typo." A typo is when you write "established by the Stake" when you mean to write "established by the State," not when you write "established by the State" when you mean "." Nonetheless, many ObamaCare supporters agree with Gruber that the passage in question was, as others have put it, a mere "drafting error"--that Congress could not possibly have meant to exclude the federal exchange from the subsidy program. Many, but not all. One who disagrees is Jonathan Gruber, who not only is a supporter of ObamaCare but...

Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT, is widely is regarded as the architect of both Romneycare and Obamacare. Following the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Halbig, he asserted that the provision of Obamacare limiting subsidies to the state exchanges was a “typo.” Indeed, he found it “criminal” to suggest that Obamacare was intended to work this way. But William Jacobson (via one of his readers) has unearthed video from 2012 in which Gruber explains why Obamacare limits subsidies to participants in state exchanges — the view of the statute he now finds “criminal.” Gruber stated: “I think what’s important to remember...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday said Utah is not required to recognize the marriages of roughly 1,000 same-sex couples there while state officials pursue appeals. The court’s order was two sentences long and said only that a lower court’s ruling “is stayed pending the final disposition of the appeal” by the federal appeals court in Denver. Friday’s order came in a different case, one concerning the status of what the state calls “interim marriages,” meaning those entered into during that period in December and January when same-sex marriage was briefly allowed. The case seeking recognition of the 1,000...

WICHITA, Kan. — Moderate Republicans have been kicked around by the tea party for years in Congress and the states. Here in Kansas, they’re fighting back. A moderate GOP uprising is in full swing against Gov. Sam Brownback, the fierce fiscal and social conservative whose policies led to a purge of middle-of-the-road Republicans from the legislature early in his tenure. In a rare and surprising act of political defiance on Tuesday, more than 100 Republicans, including current and former officeholders, endorsed Brownback’s opponent, statehouse Democratic leader Paul Davis. Polls show the challenger with a surprisingly strong shot at taking out...

Deep in the Bible Belt, new signs emerged this weekend of evolving views among Republican governors on gay marriage. While the Republican Party's religious conservatives continue to fight against same-sex marriage, its governors appear to be backing off their opposition – in their rhetoric, at least. For some, the shift may be more a matter of tone than substance as the GOP tries to attract new voters ahead of the midterm elections. Nonetheless, it is a dramatic turn for a party that has long been defined by social conservative values. "I don't think the Republican Party is fighting it," Wisconsin's...