Free Republic

Many people who buy their own health insurance could get surprises in the mail this fall: cancellation notices because their current policies aren't up to the basic standards of President Barack Obama's health care law. They, and some small businesses, will have to find replacement plans. Also, it doesn't seem to square with one of the president's best known promises about his health care overhaul: "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan."

In a classic case of "now you tell me," the Associated Press reports today that a whole swath of people who like their health insurance might be losing it. You see, ObamaCare requires all Americans get the equivalent of a Cadillac health plan. Millions of us don’t have Cadillac plans, which means that we are about to be in violation of government policy. State insurance regulators say many people who buy their own health insurance could get surprises this fall: cancellation notices because their policies aren't up to the basic standards of President Barack Obama's overhaul. These people, and some...

Former head of the IRS Douglas Shulman made a multitude of visits to the White House during his tenure Top IRS officials, whose agency was under investigation for targeting conservative groups, visited the Obama White House more than 100 times over two years while the probe was going on, far more often than in previous administrations and frequently enough that Republicans suspect White House officials knew about the targeting. Lawmakers now investigating the Internal Revenue Service practice zeroed in on those nearly weekly White House meetings to determine whether an IRS official — or someone higher up in the administration...

IRS official Lois Lerner said at hearing today, "I have not done anything wrong." "I have not done anything wrong," she said. "I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee."Lerner adds that she invoke her 5th Amendment right and "will not answer any of the questions or testify today":

Is expected to take questions regarding the IRS scandal and Benghazi. We will see......

Vice President Joseph R. Biden said in a wide-ranging magazine interview that gun-control legislation will pass eventually because several senators who voted against it are experiencing a public backlash. “To use the vernacular, there’s suddenly a lot of senators out there who have seen the Lord,” Mr. Biden told Rolling Stone magazine. “You find out that the senator from New Hampshire [Republican Kelly Ayotte] is in trouble; she voted no. I can name you four senators who called me and said, “Jesus, I guess you were right — maybe we can find some other way of doing this. Can we...

NOTE: Full title of article is, "In rare public Q-and-A with reporters, Obama denies knowing Benghazi terror-attack survivors have been forbidden from talking to Congress" ---------------------------------------------------- At least four career officials have hired lawyers as they prepare to share sensitive information with CongressWould-be State Department whistle-blowers claim harassment, intimidationObama: I'm not familiar with this notion that anybody's been blocked from testifying' President Barack Obama said during a rare public session answering reporters' questions that he was unaware of any efforts to prevent survivors of the 2012 Benghazi, Libya terror attack from testifying before Congress about what they experienced. 'I'm not...

President Obama gave the Senate a scolding in the Rose Garden this afternoon, declaring today’s defeat of the Manchin-Toomey background check amendment “a pretty shameful day for Washington.” He blamed “politics” for the failure of the legislation and, while standing alongside Gabby Giffords and tearful Newtown families, dismissed charges that he had used people as props for “emotional blackmail.”

(CNSNews.com) – While the Obama administration will not comment on the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, charged in Philadelphia for the murder of seven born babies and one woman, President Barack Obama said when he was a state legislator in Illinois that no laws are needed to protect babies born alive after a botched abortion.

DENVER (TheBlaze/AP) — Ratcheting up pressure for Congress to limit access to guns, President Barack Obama said Wednesday that recent steps by Colorado to tighten its gun laws show “there doesn’t have to be a conflict” between keeping citizens safe and protecting Second Amendment rights to gun ownership. “I believe there doesn’t have to be a conflict in reconciling these realities,” Obama said in Denver, where he stepped up his call for background checks for all gun purchases and renewed his demand that Congress at least vote on banning assault weapons and limiting access to large-capacity ammunition magazines. The president...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has responded to a letter dated November 13, 2012 from Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) regarding the agency's ammunition purchases. Sen. Coburn published the response on the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs website yesterday, April 1, 2013. The response, dated February 4, 2013, says that DHS buys ammunition in bulk to "significantly lower costs."

During his March 28 comments on "gun violence," President Obama once again claimed that 40% of gun purchases take place without a background check. The claim is meant to apply to new gun sales and is patently false, as Breitbart News demonstrated when Obama first used the 40% figure during a speech on Jan. 16. As Breitbart News explained then, many gun grabbers get the "40%" figure from a 2011 study by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, titled: "Point, Click, Fire: An Investigation Into Illegal Online Gun Sales."

In a fresh New Republic story, reporter Rebecca Dana profiles Phil Griffin, the boss of a surging MSNBC. It’s a sympathetic look at the network exec, complete with a detailed rundown of how he and others happened upon the programming identity that has captivated liberal Americans across the land. One aspect of the piece that Griffin himself must adore is its disavowal of equivalence between MSNBC and cable top dog Fox News. Here’s how Dana makes the case that these outlets are distinct: Still, MSNBC isn’t an instrument of the Democratic Party in the way that Fox is of

Washington (Reuters) - Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, called President Barack Obama a liar and urged her party to stand by conservative values, rousing the crowd at a conservative conference on Saturday. "Barack Obama promised the most transparent administration ever. Barack Obama, you lie," the former Alaska governor said in an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington. She was echoing a line from a Republican member of the House of Representatives who shouted at Obama during a speech to Congress in 2009 and accused him of lying about healthcare for illegal immigrants.

Appearing on CNN's The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer on March 11, Mark Kelly said he planned from the start to hand over an AR-15 rifle he purchased to the Tuscon Police Department. Blitzer then quoted a section from the March 9 Breitbart News story on Kelly's purchase, and asked Kelly to respond. Here's what Blitzer read: Breitbart News then began investigating the details surrounding the purchase, including visiting the gun store. Suddenly, Kelly announced on his Facebook page that he was not going to keep the AR-15, which he has yet to pick up from the store. Kelly responded...

...Obama on Monday tried to undercut National Rifle Association leaders and appeal directly to their membership, claiming gun owners support the "common-sense" gun control measures he's proposed -- and urging those supporters to "keep the pressure" on Congress. ....spoke in Minnesota, in his first campaign-style stop as part of a second-term push for new firearms laws... Without once mentioning the NRA by name, Obama on Monday said gun control supporters should tell their members of Congress that "there's no legislation to eliminate all guns." Despite opposition not only from the NRA but a number of Republican lawmakers, Obama tried to...

I know you’ve seen this at Drudge, appropriately posted beneath a photo of the Hopenchange crew cracking up in laughter, but some panders are so shameless and comically implausible that they must be commemorated in a post. (Unfortunately, politicians’ need to ingratiate themselves with gun owners has been known to lead to this sort of thing.)To believe this, you need to believe that O splits sharply from most ivory-tower liberals when it comes to recreational shooting. How likely is that? In what other ways, based on what we know about him personally and politically, does he stray from the path...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkUpp22fHyw

Obama: I Met Republicans Halfway On Taxes, More Than Halfway On Spending THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Over the last few weeks I've been working with leaders of both parties on a proposal to get our deficit under control, avoid tax cuts -- or avoid tax hikes on the middle class, and to make sure that we can spur jobs and economic growth -- a balanced proposal that cuts spending but also asks the wealthiest Americans to pay more; a proposal that will strengthen the middle class over the long haul and grow our economy over the long haul. During...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sees no reason to celebrate the reelection of US President Barack Obama. The US aggressively pursued and “persecuted” the whistleblower site under a Democratic administration, he explained. “Obama seems to be a nice man, and that is precisely the problem,” the 41-year-old told AFP, speaking from his room in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. “It's better to have a sheep in wolf's clothing than a wolf in sheep's clothing,” he said. “All of the activities against WikiLeaks by the United States have occurred under an Obama administration.” Assange was equally critical of the Republican, saying it “has not...