Free Republic

Friday's December jobs report was a major disappointment, showing the economy gained just 74k jobs last month. Economists had expected the economy to gain around 200k jobs. The unemployment rate, however, dropped to 6.7% as 347k frustrated job-seekers gave up and left the labor force. We are in an upside-down world where a drop in the unemployment rate is a bad sign for the economy. The overall labor force shrunk dramatically last year. In December 2012, 155.4 million workers had a job or were actively looking for one. Last month, though, 154.9 million were in the labor force, a drop...

FOUR bishops in the United States have published a book, Bishops on the Border, that calls for immigration reform, and urges Christians in the US to approach the issue with compassion. Bishop Minerva Carcaño, of the United Methodist Church; Bishop Stephen Talmage, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the Roman Catholic Bishop of Tucson, the Rt Revd Gerald Kicanas; and the Episcopal Bishop of Arizona, the Rt Revd Kirk Smith, all minister in Arizona - a state where large numbers of Mexicans have illegally crossed the border in recent years. The bishops explain their experiences of the debate over...

In a blatant move, the fix is apparently in by the Obama administration. In recent days, Obama has two connections to controversial people in key positions that have a blatant conflict of interest. The first is for the attorney who is leading the investigation of the IRS targeting conservative groups such as the Tea Party. The other individual is the nomination to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. In the biggest display of cronyism seen in a long time, Obama is making sure that no matter what happens, the final report will have him smelling like...

South-central Pennsylvania has been clobbered by a nasty cold, flu, or combination thereof for all of this brief new year. So much so that the state is listed as "widespread" on the flu map published by the Weather Channel. I get that. What I don't get is why it took my adult son nearly twelve hours to obtain a Z-pack. He did the responsible thing by calling his primary physician (a truly unmercenary practitioner, who works solo and sees many of the poor who others shun) early this morning...around 10 AM. The overworked physicians office--I did say this flu thing...

Michelle Obama doesn't want jewelry or chocolates for her 50th birthday later this month. She wants to be alone. President Barack Obama returned to Washington Saturday after two weeks of vacationing with his family in Hawaii. He left with daughters Sasha and Malia. Michelle stayed behind. 'As part of her birthday gift from the president, the first lady will remain in Hawaii to spend time with friends ahead of her upcoming 50th birthday,' the White House explained in a statement. The First Lady turns the big 5 - 0 on January 17. The White House did not say how much...

"Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other elected officials?" That's the question Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) put to the National Security Agency's chief in a bluntly worded letter Friday. It seems, however, that the agency cannot categorically say no. Sanders didn't use the word "spy" lightly. He was careful to define his terms, indicating he meant the collection of phone records from personal as well as official telephones, "content from Web sites visited or e-mails sent," and data that companies collect but don't release to the public.

The New York Times had a reporter talking to attackers on the ground during the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans in September of 2012, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, and may know the identity of some the murderers and perpetrators. David Kirkpatrick, the Times reporter who wrote the story that forced the paper's Editorial page editor to defensively declare on Monday that it has not chosen to endorse Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, said that the paper had a reporter on the ground who was witnessing the attacks.

If Democrats get their way, the next phase of the Obamacare wars will see something unusual: a flood of success stories.The White House, Democratic lawmakers and advocacy organizations will launch a campaign this week to highlight real-life experiences under the Affordable Care Act — tales so compelling that they help drive up enrollment, marginalize Republican repeal efforts and erase memories of this fall’s HealthCare.gov debacle.

I used some of the most memorable moments. It's pretty good for a laugh. The pink prancing lady is my favorite although it was purely gratuitous.

We all remember when Nancy Pelosi said that Congress needed to pass the Affordable Care Act in order to find out what's in it. Well, we just found another little socialist nugget. Benjamin Franklin famously said that only three things are guaranteed in life: Birth, Death, and Taxes. Well thanks to Obamacare, we can add a fourth… Estate Recovery. Deep within the thousands of pages of law and regulations for the Affordable Care Act is a hidden provision that allows the government to take control of YOUR estate after you pass away in order to pay for any medical bills...

Americans see the 2010 Affordable Care Act as President Barack Obama's greatest achievement to date as well as his biggest failure, underscoring the controversial nature of the law that is likely to define his legacy. On balance, more Americans name the healthcare law as his biggest failure (36%) than as his greatest achievement (22%). History's verdict on Obama's presidency will not be rendered for years or decades, if even then, given the continuing revision of a president's legacy that inevitably takes place after his term ends. But after he has spent almost five years in office, Americans are certainly in...

The glitch-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul was the top news story of 2013, followed by the Boston Marathon bombing and the dramatic papal changeover at the Vatican, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors... The White House had hoped the Oct. 1 launch of open enrollment would be a showcase for the upside of Obama's much-debated overhaul. Instead, the website became a symbol of dysfunction, providing Republicans and late-night comics with ammunition, and worrying the president's Democratic allies. The site gradually improved, but a wave of cancellation notices from insurers...

<p>President Obama has enrolled in the federal health-care insurance exchanges, selecting a bronze-tiered insurance plan on the D.C. marketplace, the White House announced Monday.</p> <p>In advance of Monday’s key enrollment deadline, Obama signed up for coverage over the weekend during the start of his holiday vacation here in Hawaii in what a White House official described as a “symbolic” act to promote the Affordable Care Act, his signature legislative achievement.</p>

At midnight Monday, the official deadline arrives for Americans to sign up through the new federal health insurance exchange for health plans that begin Jan. 1. But, without any public announcement, Obama administration officials have changed the rules so that people will have an extra day to enroll, according to two individuals with knowledge of the switch. Over the weekend, government officials and outside IT contractors working on the online marketplace’s computer system made a software change that automatically gives people a Jan. 1 start date for their new coverage as long as they enroll by 11:59 p.m. on Christmas...

Support for the country's new health care law has dropped to a record low, according to a new national poll. And a CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that most Americans predict that the Affordable Care Act will actually result in higher prices for their own medical care. Only 35% of those questioned in the poll say they support the health care law, a 5-point drop in less than a month. Sixty-two percent say they oppose the law, up four points from November. The poll was conducted for CNN by ORC International December 16-19, with 1,035 adults nationwide questioned...

This is a story that has caught very little attention, but needs to be circulated as wide as possible. The world of government-managed health care is about to get very ugly for millions of senior citizens who rely on Medicare for their coverage. Quietly announced on the day after Thanksgiving, the Obama administration has decided to cut Medicare home health benefits to the tune of 14% between 2014 and 2017. Some of America's most vulnerable citizens are under attack from a liberal administration who is determined to have its way with our health care system. What does this mean for...

As a presumed constitutional scholar, Barack Obama should know that ... he or she cannot legislate through executive fiat or pick which parts of the law to comply with or decline. Article 2, Section 3, Clause 5 of our Constitution requires that the president “…shall take care that the Laws be carefully executed.” It doesn’t limit those laws or encapsulated provisions to the particular ones that he or she likes. ... Obama’s latest constitutional violation will exempt unions from a fee the law imposes upon all large group health plans. ...

As Nick Gillespie noted this morning, some of the criticism of the horrible Obamacare enrollment ads featuring the young hipster in pajamas has some subtextual nonsense tied to perceptions of the sexual orientation and identity of the model. It’s particularly silly because nobody who has had any experience dealing with actual gay men would have picked that man to sell Obamacare. Here is how Obamacare is being sold to actual gay men: [VIDEO AT THE LINK]