Free Republic

Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act marketplace is projected to fall by nearly 5 million people this year as rising premiums and higher deductibles force many Americans to reconsider whether they can still afford health insurance coverage, according to a new analysis from healthcare nonprofit KFF.The report estimates ACA enrollment could decline from 22.3 million participants in 2025 to roughly 17.5 million this year, representing a drop of more than 20 percent.At the same time, Americans who remain enrolled are paying substantially more out of pocket. According to the analysis, average deductibles have climbed by more than $1,000, while monthly...

Florida homeowners have watched their property tax bills nearly double since 2019 – and they're still waiting for relief. DeSantis just showed up in Brevard County and dared his own party to stop him. He's calling a summer special session to gut Florida property taxes and get it on the November ballot – and he doesn't care who's in his way. The Governor Who Actually Means It For two years, Rick Scott, the House Speaker, and half the Republican establishment have told Floridians that eliminating property taxes sounds great but can't be done. DeSantis walked into a roundtable in Brevard...

An autopsy of the 2024 election commissioned by the Democratic National Committee leaked Thursday. It is, in a word, “garbage.” The post-mortem, first published by CNN, elides honest self-evaluation for sloppy conclusions and self-congratulation. “At times, it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections. Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage. This highlights a fundamental and necessary truth — a brutal and efficiently delivered message will frame the choice for voters and help actually win the election,” the report reads. (RELATED: Democratic...

The Trump administration this week onboarded more than 80 new federal immigration judges, in its latest push to expedite deportation cases and further its government-wide crackdown on illegal immigration, Justice Department officials said Thursday. The Justice Department, which oversees the U.S. immigration court system, swore in 77 permanent immigration judges and 5 temporary immigration judges, a group that officials described as the largest class of immigration judges in the department's history. The additions come after the ouster of dozens of immigration judges across the country by the Trump administration over the past year. When President Trump took office, the Justice...

ALBANY — Lawmakers voted to enshrine New York’s sanctuary state status into law Thursday, imposing a sweeping ban on cooperation between local law enforcement and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The sprawling legislative package, pushed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, not only handcuffs cops from partnering with federal immigration authorities, but also bars ICE agents from most public places like hospitals and parks, and prevents them from wearing masks. The measure, which was significantly ratcheted up from Hochul’s original proposal that largely only went after specific localities, like Nassau County, that have cooperation deals dubbed “287-g agreements” with the feds. The...

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said Wednesday he suspects the spreading Ebola outbreak in Africa will spread across three new countries and become a “very significant pandemic.” “I suspect this is going to become a very significant pandemic, probably going to leak into Tanzania, leak into southern Sudan, maybe leak into Rwanda,” Redfield said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.” “So, it’s going to be very disruptive,” he added. A majority of the Ebola cases are in Congo and Uganda. Local health officials in the two nations reported 536 suspected cases, 105...

The incident – seen in a now-viral video shared on social media and officer body-camera video shared by police – began with a fight Wednesday afternoon between multiple students at Fairfield High School. Fairfield police arrested two students and confiscated two backpacks, which police said contained sharp objects. A video shared on social media, which now has nearly 50,000 views, shows an officer punching the student in the head while they are face-down on the ground.

Congressional Republicans are lashing out over a nearly $1.8 billion fund created by the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week to give payouts to those who claim to have been the target of a “weaponized” government. Discontent over the fund contributed to senators abruptly deciding to leave town for the Memorial Day weekend rather than passing a party-line budget reconciliation bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol — blowing past the June 1 deadline that President Trump set for the bill. Some Republicans are openly eyeing ways to “kill” the fund. On Monday, the DOJ created...

“Faribault has become our city,” a Somali interviewed by the Minnesota Post bragged. ====================================================================================================== Faribault, Minnesota, is a small city about an hour’s drive from Minneapolis. On paper it should have the smaller crime rate of the alphabetically similar Farmington which is nearly the same size and only a half hour away. Instead, Faribault has more than twice as much violent crime, aggravated assaults, burglaries and car thefts, 30% more rapes, and 8 times as many robberies. Farmington has no arsons, but Faribault has the most arsons of any city outside major strongholds like Minneapolis, St. Paul or Duluth. But...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea, conversation and music. I'm thinking something cold and tangy. Our AWESOME military, our AWESOME allies, and their families are welcomed and honored here. Remember those who gave all this weekend.No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a cup and start a conversation. You...

Rep. Tim Burchett Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett just left a House committee meeting Thursday, blasting Republican leadership for caving to Democrats in yet another backroom deal that’s handing the majority party’s power straight over to the radical left. The outspoken conservative firebrand didn’t hold back, unloading on the “crooked” Washington establishment for refusing to let Republicans act like they’re actually in charge, even as they hold the gavel. Burchett’s explosive exit and no-holds-barred tirade perfectly capture what millions of fed-up Americans have been screaming for years: the GOP is blowing its majority because too many so-called “leaders” are more interested...

In what would have once been viewed as career-ending rhetoric, a Democrat candidate running for Congress in Texas is now openly discussing prison camps for ideological opponents -- and doing so in a political environment where outrage, extremism, and online performance increasingly generate attention instead of condemnation. Maureen Galindo, a Democrat candidate for Texas' 35th Congressional District, stunned many Americans after comments in which she called for converting the Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for "American Zionists" and former ICE officers. Even more chilling, she suggested the facility could also become "a castration processing center for pedophiles, which...

Big Vote today (48-1!) in the Energy and Commerce Committee on a Bill including The Sunshine Protection Act, which will be making Daylight Saving Time Permanent! This is so important in that Hundreds of Millions of Dollars are spent every year by people, Cities, and States, being forced to change their Clocks. Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive! The House will be attaching The Sunshine Protection Act to ''The Highway Bill." Great work by Troy Nehls, and all of the Members...

A woman is wanted after using sleight of hand to steal an expensive watch off of a man's wrist at Parx Casino, according to the Pennsylvania State Police. Troopers say that the woman was sitting next to the man at the slot machines when she took his Rolex watch off of him on April 25, 2025, around 6:54 p.m. at the Parx Casino on Street Road in Bensalem. The woman was able to take the watch by using distractions and sleight of hand techniques, officials said. After stealing the watch, the woman ran out of the casino and jumped into...

[Catholic Caucus] German bishops vote for ‘women’s ordination,’ ask Pope ‘to decide how to proceed’Bishop Franz Jung disclosed that Germany’s bishops cast a ‘very clear’ vote favoring women deacons and said Pope Leo XIV must now determine the next steps.Bishop Franz Jung has said that the German bishops have expressed support for the female diaconate in Rome and that it’s now Pope Leo XIV’s turn to act.In an interview with the newspaper Mainpost, the bishop of Würzburg said that the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) has urged Rome to introduce female deacons.“We cast a very clear vote in Rome in favor...

The Senate is heading home until June without finishing a reconciliation bill, after Republican tensions over the package coincided with President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman posted on X: “BREAKING NEWS: THE SENATE will go home until June, leaving the reconciliation bill unfinished. THUNE just told senators in the room. All because of the DOJ weaponization fund. House is expected to follow suit soon.” Brendan Pedersen, a senior reporter with Punchbowl News, posted on X: “Thune asked if Senate Rs are responding to politics...

The Senate GOP on Thursday delayed the reconciliation vote to fund ICE and Border Patrol – and Senate Majority Leader John Thune admitted it is a political hit against President Trump. The Senators will be on recess until June. Last week, the Senate Parliamentarian struck down three key provisions of the Senate’s reconciliation bill The House of Representatives previously passed the Senate-approved package to fund the Department of Homeland Security by voice vote, ending the 75-day shutdown. ICE and Border Patrol were to be funded separately through a reconciliation package. Senate Republicans put together a $72 billion reconciliation package to...

NASCAR icon Kyle Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion who won more races across the sport's three national series than any other driver in history, has died at the age of 41, the racing series announced Thursday. The Busch Family, Richard Childress Racing and NASCAR issued a joint statement Thursday saying that Busch died after being hospitalized earlier in the day as the result of a severe illness, three days before he was to compete at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. No cause of death was given. "On behalf of the Busch family, everyone at Richard Childress Racing...

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (FOX26) — A San Francisco Superior Court judge has paused enforcement of new state cardroom regulations, finding the California Department of Justice’s gambling regulators likely overstepped their authority and that the rules could cause significant harm to cardrooms and the communities that rely on them.San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Darwin issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday that stops Attorney General Rob Bonta’s cardroom regulations from taking effect while a legal challenge brought by the California Gaming Association moves forward.The court ruled that Bonta’s Bureau of Gambling Control exceeded its authority by adopting regulations that effectively act...

The Democratic National Committee has finally released an outside review of 2024 campaign losses that the party says was delivered unfinished and full of unverified claims about problems and solutions. DNC Chairman Ken Martin, facing internal criticism for a decision to shelve the report after he received it late last year, apologized in a Substack post accompanying the report for withholding the document until now. "When I received the report late last year, it wasn't ready for primetime," Martin wrote. "Not even close. And because no source material was provided, fixing it would have meant starting over, from the beginning...