Free Republic

Has the fumbled rollout of the federal Obamacare site finally claimed its first head? The IT chief for the agency responsible for Obamacare is leaving to take a job in the private sector, five weeks after the much-criticized launch of HealthCare.gov. Officials repeatedly refused Wednesday to answer whether Tony Trenkle, the chief information officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services, was forced out of the job that he has held for three years because of the tech issues with the Obamacare marketplace. "Tony made a decision to move to the private sector," CMS spokeswoman Julie Bataille said during...

Intimate Theology "Do you believe this?" —John 11:26 Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there He could have healed her brother; she also believed that Jesus had a special intimacy with God, and that whatever He asked of God, God would do. But— she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha’s theology had its fulfillment in the future. But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession. It then slowly emerged into a personal inheritance— “Yes, Lord, I believe that You...

Special Series: The War On Banks The Obama administration is no longer investigating just mortgage lenders for allegedly discriminating against blacks and Latinos. It's now also targeting banks making auto and student loans. Opening a new front in the war on banks, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is investigating and preparing to sue Ally Financial Inc. and at least three other major auto lenders for allegedly overcharging minority borrowers. "A persistent problem is the evil of discrimination," proclaimed Richard Cordray, the bureau's recess-appointed director. Though financial reforms don't authorize the new credit watchdog to probe auto dealers, "auto lending is...

Rosstat recently released their latest batch of demographic statistics. Nothing particularly bizarre or unexpected happened, but the data show that births have held steady at their 2012 level while deaths have modestly decreased. This means that, if the trends from the January-September period are maintained for the entirety of 2013, Russia will record natural population growth of roughly 13,000, its first natural population growth since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now in one sense natural growth of 13,000 out of a total population of 143,000,000 sounds puny and unimpressive. However, as I never tire of reminding people, it wasn’t...

The Democrats intent on taking back Texas were so desperate for a hero, they turned to pink clad Wendy Davis with, as Vogue described her, “Barbie-doll looks”. They might live to regret that.Back in 1996, Wendy Davis lost an election for the Fort Worth, TX City Council. After the election, she sued the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the local newspaper, for defamation. In short, Davis did not like being criticized by the media (something she won’t have to worry about this go round), so she sued for those criticisms claiming they defamed her.The Texas Court of Appeals and then the Texas...

Paleontologists have long believed that the platypus is one of the few species that can trace a direct line back to the beginning of time. Now, a new study is changing that image. Researchers say a tooth discovered in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland, Australia, belongs to a different, extinct platypus species. "Discovery of this new species was a shock to us because prior to this, the fossil record suggested that the evolutionary tree of platypuses was relatively linear one," Dr. Michael Archer of the University of New South Wales, a co-author of the study, said in a...

Even the DUmmies KNOW Obama lied to them about ObamaCare. Some DUmmies are angry about this and others think the ends justify the lying means as you can see in this THREAD, "Obama Defends 'Keep Your Plan' Claim." Sorry, DUmmies, but this scandal won't go away. This is a scandal that hits HOME for people. ObamaCare is now causing millions of people to LOSE their health insurance. So much for Obama's LIE. So let us now watch the DUmmies nervously analyze Obama's LIE in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, wondering how Obama is going to...

After Democrat Martin Walsh won Boston's mayoral race on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden called to congratulate him. The problem? He called the wrong Martin Walsh. “You son of a gun, Marty! You did it," Biden told the not-mayor-elect Walsh, according to the Boston Globe. But the vice president wasn't the only one to make the mistake. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak all called political consultant Martin Walsh and not mayor-elect Walsh, according to reports. A White House phone operator even rang asking him to hold for President Barack Obama before Walsh explained...

Special Series: The War On Banks Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession. But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks." Added NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and...

“Why do Planned Parenthood’s abortion centers get all the money while non-abortion centers fall apart?” Lola* knew the answer to her question but was using it to educate me about the Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Planned Parenthood clinic that she, along with several other staff members, recently quit in disgust. Lola emailed me a couple days ago, having learned about my blog, ironically enough, from bosses who mocked it during meetings. “We read your stuff and thought you were all crazy,” Lola said. “But not any more.” Lola and I have now spoken a few times by phone. She also sent me...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration appears ready to give some labor unions a break from costly fees under the new health care law, a move that drew criticism from Republicans who say it unfairly favors a key White House ally. In regulations published last week, the administration said it intends to propose rules that would exempt "certain self-insured, self-administered plans" from the requirement to pay the fees in 2015 and 2016. Labor unions have spent months complaining the new law will drive up the costs of certain health plans that are jointly administered by unions and smaller employers.

A long and contentious campaign ended late Tuesday with a narrow victory by Terry McAuliffe. But as Wednesday dawned, many Virginians may still not know what to expect from the next governor, since negative ads during the campaign seemed to crowd out both candidates' platforms. McAuliffe likely has some challenges ahead. He's never held public office, and many Virginia lawmakers perceive him as an outsider. What's more, Republicans maintained their strong majority in Virginia's House of Delegates, which means McAuliffe will have to figure out how to cooperate with the GOP if he has any hope of success. We talked...

Last week, I read that a Texas teenager made $300,000 the old-fashioned way: Maya Van Wagenen wrote a memoir about her experiences following the advice from “Betty Cornell’s Teen-Age Popularity Guide” — an etiquette book published in 1958 — and then got a movie deal. Cornell’s book details all the essentials a girl needs to know to be popular in the 1950s — from diet to clothing to being a proper hostess. I was intrigued. Would a guide to becoming a popular teenager in mid-century America still be relevant to someone like myself — a 14-year-old high school freshman living...

As you all know Dick Metcalf recently wrote an article in Guns&Ammo which was intended to be controversial. It was more than that, and in my opinion crossed over the line. In our fight for our rights, there is only black and white, there is no shade of gray. You are either wholly with us, or you are against us. Since that article was published many have vocally protested it. Some have done it on the internet. Other have done it behind the scenes. The end result is Mr. Metcalf is no longer with Guns&Ammo In addition The editor who...

Borders , language and culture !

Pope Francis has declared Catholic philosopher, author, and teacher Alice von Hildebrand a Dame Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of St. Gregory in recognition of her work. Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, formally invested her in the chivalric order Oct. 30 at a gala dinner in New York celebrating her 90th birthday. Cardinal Burke said that Pope Francis conferred the honor to recognize her “outstanding and faithful service” and “in public recognition of the esteem in which she is held in the Church.” Membership in the Equestrian Order of St. Gregory, which dates back to 1831,...

David Cameron is quietly sounding out Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny about becoming the next President of the European Union in a bid to boost his hopes of renegotiating Britain’s relationship with Brussels. Downing Street officials are seeking a candidate who can stop Socialist Martin Schulz, the German left-winger who is currently President of the European Parliament and is backed by Labour. Senior sources say Britain wants to block Mr. Schulz “at all costs” since his taste for more regulation on business would scupper efforts to make Europe more competitive. …

DENVER – There are nearly 250,000 Coloradans whose health care policies have been or will be cancelled as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the state’s Dept. of Insurance announced on Wednesday. So far, just 3,408 Coloradans have purchased new insurance plans on the exchange; many more, 34,168 Coloradans, have enrolled in Medicaid since the program expanded under the law. “To have almost a hundred health plan cancellations for every exchange sign up in Colorado under Obamacare is exponentially worse than even the most extreme skeptic could have predicted,” said Kelly Maher, executive director of the group Compass Colorado.

It looks like labor unions might be getting tax relief from Obamacare, according to a report from kaiserhealthnews.org. "Weeks after denying labor’s request to give union members access to health-law subsidies, the Obama administration is signaling it intends to exempt some union plans from one of the law’s substantial taxes," reads the report. Buried in rules issued last week is the disclosure that the administration will propose exempting “certain self-insured, self-administered plans” from the law’s temporary reinsurance fee in 2015 and 2016.

Growing a nose on a forehead or an ear on an arm is a revolutionary approach to surgical reconstruction. mages of a nose implanted on a man's forehead have been all over the Internet, like ads for some creepy horror film you probably don't want to see. Almost as jarring are pictures of an ear protruding from a woman's inner arm. They're not from some horror movie—they're real science. The nose-on-the-forehead photo depicts a nose repair in progress in China. The photo of the ear on an arm was published in the September 19 issue of the New England...