Free Republic

A President can deal with being disliked, even despised, by his opponents. But when he becomes a laughingstock among his own supposed supporters . . . On today's Morning Joe, Dem Sen. Joe Manchin openly mocked President Obama's failure to communicate with Congress. Asked by Joe Scarborough whether the President is disconnected from the Senate and House, Manchin sardonically said "everybody has a different style." Queried as how often he talks to the prez by phone, Manchin sarcastically replied "I'm sure he's very busy." The panel had a good laugh at Pres. Obama's expense, until a mortified Mika Brzezinski couldn't...

House Republicans are pouncing on President Obama’s apology for cancelled insurance plans to push him into backing legislation that would change ObamaCare. The president on Thursday said he was “sorry” that Americans were losing their healthcare plans despite his frequent assurances that individuals with insurance could keep them. Obama said he was seeking an administrative fix, but Republicans say they have a ready-made solution in the Keep Your Plan bill that they plan to bring up for a vote next week. A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the president can’t address the problems plaguing the healthcare law through...

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) Montana Senator Max Baucus (D) Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran (R) Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) Massachusetts Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D) Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) Minnesota Senator Al Franken (DFL) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan (D) Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe (R) Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson (D) Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) Kentucky...

Starting next year, West Virginia University will require all students to be covered under healthcare before they can attend class, and is suggesting that students sign up for Obamacare. An email circulated by Ken Gray, the university’s vice president for student affairs, and addressed to”WVU Parents, Students, and Families” states: “Beginning academic year 2014-15, all WVU students will be required to have health care coverage. Many universities around the country use this model to ensure that students are protected against unforeseen and catastrophic medical expenses.” The email stresses that “Because health problems can interfere with academic success, West Virginia University...

Charleston , Kanawha County , West Virginia While U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller's supporters were listening to his celebration at the Civic Center Saturday, another Democratic leader was being protested outside. The Citizens Defense League gathered to protest U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin. The group is the state’s largest pro-gun lobbying group, and advocates for lawful hunting and to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Lately, they've been upset with the decisions Manchin has made when it comes to guns and the federal government in general. "We made a promise to him, that if he continued to push for gun control legislation...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The spouses of gay and lesbian National Guard members cannot get military ID cards at most National Guard locations in West Virginia, which U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says is a violation of federal law. The ID cards are necessary to get benefits, such as health care, that all military spouses are entitled to. The West Virginia National Guard issues ID cards at nine locations across the state, according to its website. Four of those locations -- the four run by the federal government -- are issuing ID cards to same-sex spouses. However, the five state-run facilities...

Senate Democrats vented their frustrations over the faulty rollout of the Affordable Care Act in a meeting Thursday with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior officials. “There’s a lot of frustration, everywhere,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said after the meeting. McDonough tried to assure angry senators he is personally taking charge of the disparate federal offices in charge of implementing the massive law, which has been plagued by technical errors. “He gave us the impression that he’s taking charge of the different elements and cracking the whip. He said to let him know if we had...

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli joined other top Republicans in taking to the Capitol on Tuesday with thousands of other critics of the Obama administration’s so-called war on coal. Cuccinelli, trailing in the polls just a week before Virginia voters cast ballots, was one of a host of politicians to make appearances at the rally, which was timed to coincide with a day of pro-coal, anti-regulation hearings inside the Capitol. Other speakers included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), both facing potentially tough reelection fights in 2014. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ken-cuccinelli-coal-rally-99059.html#ixzz2jGHFPzak

Regulation: More than 3,500 coal supporters descended on Washington Tuesday to protest environmental rules requiring technology that doesn't exist, designed to turn the Saudi Arabia of coal into the Bangladesh of energy. Members of Congress, union members, miners and their families stormed Capitol Hill to air their grievances about President Obama's policies that make it harder to burn or mine coal. They were protesting the government shutdown that hasn't ended — that of the coal industry in pursuit of environmental goals that ignore global temperatures that haven't budged in 17 years and greenhouse-gas emission declines that have occurred as a...

The Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Miners from West Virginia, Virginia and other states are joining 30 members of Congress in Washington, D.C., to rally against regulatory polices they say are killing jobs in coal country. Count on Coal's Rally for American Energy Jobs is Tuesday outside the U.S. Capitol. National Mining Association President Hal Quinn says the administration needs to hear from workers who produce the coal that creates 40 percent of the nation's electricity.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, W.Va. - Some members of a local West Virginia Tea Party are speaking out after being asked to leave a workshop at the Jefferson County Commission public meeting room last week. Patricia Rucker, president of the Jefferson County Tea Party, says she wanted to learn about running for office and brought her kids to last week's Jefferson County Democratic Association workshop. The meeting was run by Delegate Stephen Skinner at the Jefferson County Commission Public Meeting Room. "You need to do the steps, to know what those steps are a head of time, so you can make in...

".........Why? “Honestly, because everybody in this county hates Barack Obama. That is the biggest reason,” Mitchell said. Animosity toward President Obama runs high here. He lost Wyoming County by nearly 56 percentage points last year, despite the fact that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1. But as Mitchell and her friends talked more about it, their conversation turned to fears and anxieties that had little to do with party or politics. They discussed the well-paying jobs that had vanished with the coal industry; the crime and drugs that followed; the changing culture that mocks what they hold sacred....

CONSOL Energy will sell five of its longwall coal mines in West Virginia to a subsidiary of Murray Energy Corporation which is based in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

Sen. Joe Manchin III, a critic of the troubled Obamacare rollout, believes the program can work if everyone gets on the same page and joins “Team America.” .... "We can make this happen, but we’ve all got to be on the same team right now, and that’s Team America to make this happen."

Sebelius the 'laughingstock of America,' says senator By Elise Viebeck - 10/27/13 11:02 AM ET A Republican senator called Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the "laughingstock of America" after she was lampooned on "Saturday Night Live." The sketch, which aired Saturday, poked fun at Sebelius's attempts to downplay serious problems with ObamaCare's enrollment website. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) referred to the skit Sunday during an appearance on ABC's "This Week." "She's lost considerable credibility," Barrasso said of Sebelius. "She's the laughingstock of America." Sebelius has experienced a wave of scrutiny since HealthCare.gov debuted with major problems on...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was dismissive Thursday of comments by Sen. Joe Manchin endorsing a one-year delay of the new health care law's individual mandate. "The fact is you have to make the system work," Carney told reporters during the White House press briefing. The argument, by Manchin and others, is that such a delay would be only fair to the American people after the Obama administration granted a similar delay to large businesses in their reporting requirement for providing health insurance to their employees. To that, Carney and other Obamacare supporters argue that the individual mandate is...

(CNN) - Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, called on the president Saturday to delay the individual mandate in the health care law that requires Americans to obtain insurance or face a penalty. The GOP-controlled House passed a bill this summer urging the administration to do so, but the bill has no future in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The administration already announced it would delay a provision requiring businesses with more than 50 employees to provide insurance. "It’s time for your Senate to pass – and for you to sign – the House’s bipartisan delay of the individual mandate," the congresswoman...

If you were a resident in the state with the nation’s highest poverty rate, wouldn’t you think you’d be aware of that fact? That a higher percentage of your family, friends, neighbors and others in your community struggled to make ends meet than the same folks in any of the other 49 states? Of course. But here in California, where the incompetence of the media can scarcely be exaggerated, almost nobody is aware that the Golden State is no. 1 in economic misery. This malpractice is nothing new. ... on poverty, why isn’t the fact that California is worse off...

Technical difficulties are still plaguing the federal website for health insurance sign up, but that hasn't stopped dozens of Charleston's homeless residents from signing up for health insurance over the last two weeks. The non-profit agency has a drop-in center for homeless people, some of whom live outside or in shelters. As trained community assisters, Herlihy and other Covenant House staffers were supposed to connect their clients to other helpers that were to actually lead people through the application process. But directing their clients, many of whom have mental illnesses, to other agencies would have been more difficult than leading...

John Kasich repeated his well-worn routine of calling billions in new federal spending “our money” and insisting the Obamacare Medicaid expansion is “what the Lord wants” during a speech this morning at the Cleveland Clinic. “It’s our money! This is not, like, somebody else’s money,” Gov. Kasich said of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion funding he seeks to spend in Ohio... this — like other talking points the Republican governor has used to justify his flight from fiscal responsibility — is not true. “Bringing our dollars back and helping these people to get their lives back is so right,” Kasich said...