Free Republic

As if ObamaCare’s botched website, coverage cancellations, and higher costs were not bad enough, the Obama Administration has quietly dealt yet another blow – this time striking millions of the nation’s most vulnerable seniors. Specifically, the Obama Administration has decided to deeply cut funding for the Medicare program’s home health benefit as a way to help pay for ObamaCare. The Administration made this announcement very quietly, waiting to do so until the very end of the last Friday before Thanksgiving, perhaps thinking that most people would not be looking. To be sure, the timing of the Administration’s quiet announcement did...

when can a president change a law all by himself? By unilaterally declaring that certain provisions of Obamacare will not be enforced, Barack Obama is making a mockery of the U.S. Constitution. For those that have not read it, the U.S. Constitution says that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed“. So when Obama declares that he will not enforce certain provisions of Obamacare for a year, he is directly violating the Constitution. And as Stanford Law School Professor Michael McConnell wrote back in July, the Office of Legal Counsel for the Justice Department “has...

Three people convicted of crimes as a result of a terrorism-related investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) were later naturalized as U.S. citizens by the Obama administration, according to federal auditors. The March 2011 audit (released on April 21, 2011) by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), entitled Criminal Alien Statistics: Information on Incarcerations, Arrests and Costs, shows that three individuals were among “defendants where the investigation involved an identified link to international terrorism but they were charged with violating other statutes [not directly related to terrorism], including fraud, immigration, drugs,

Washington (CNSNews.com) – In what the White House calls a push for transparency, a pending executive order would require companies doing business with the federal government to disclose political contributions to independent groups, but would not place the same requirement on public employee unions or federal grant recipients that typically donate to Democrats. Entitled the “Disclosure of Political Spending By Government Contractors,” the order would implement parts of the DISCLOSE Act, which failed to get through Congress last year. The legislation sought to restrict campaign speech after the landmark Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission U.S. Supreme Court ruling that...

M. Speaker: In the introduction to his epic “Ten Commandments,” Cecil B. Demille asked the question: “Are men the property of the state, or are they free souls under God?” Congress will fundamentally address that question tomorrow. Will the federal government order Americans to buy products that government thinks they should buy, and to fine or imprison them if they refuse? Will it empower a new health Czar to make decisions over the most minute details of every American’s health care? (cont'd)

As Democrats frantically tried to cobble together votes to pass their sweeping health care reform legislation Saturday, House Republicans began a victory lap of sorts. First, in a meeting of the House Republican Conference, the GOP’s leadership rallied the troops with flourishing rhetoric about regaining the majority in the fall. “I don’t know, quite frankly, whether victory will come on the third Sunday in March or on the first Tuesday in November, but victory will come,” House Republican Conference leader Mike Pence of Indiana told Republicans Saturday afternoon. And when they emerged from the room to speak to the media...

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled their bipartisan blueprint for comprehensive immigration reform Thursday, a move hailed by President Barack Obama as progress on an issue for which he has been criticized for ignoring. “The American people deserve more than empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation. We urge the public and our colleagues to join our bipartisan efforts in enacting these reforms,” the Senators said in a Washington Post editorial posted online Thursday. The Schumer-Graham outline entails four key components: a biometric Social Security identification card for employment verification; strengthened border security and interior law...

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama has no constitutional concerns about signing a bill passed by controversial House rules that are being proposed by Democrats to pass healthcare. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, would sign a bill if it is passed by the controversial "Slaughter Solution," Gibbs said. The proposal would deem the Senate version of the bill passed after House approval without an actual vote in the House. House Republicans have cried foul, and many have questioned whether that process would be constitutional. But Obama has downplayed any controversy surrounding the procedure, telling Fox...

NUMBERS TO KNOW: $569.2 billion in tax increases $523.5 billion in Medicare cuts $48 billion more for Medicaid 1. A Job-Killing Government Takeover of Health Care. No amount of changes or legislative tricks can hide the true destructive nature of this bill: $17 billion in new taxes on Americans who do not comply with the individual mandate, $52 billion in new taxes on employers that do not provide health coverage deemed “acceptable” or “affordable” by government bureaucrats, and new taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest that will further stifle economic growth and job creation. 2. New Tax on Capital...

The latest maneuvering by congressional Democrats to make their brand of health care reform a reality has a lot of Washington, D.C. insiders scratching their heads and unable to forecast what is around the bend when it comes to this legislation. But have the media completely dropped the ball and that is allowing those in power to circumvent constitutional process? According to Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., they have. She had some harsh words for the fourth estate on conservative talker Sean Hannity's March 16 radio show. (h/t Kevin Eder) "Well yeah and the other thing is treason media," Bachmann said....

am calling to all of you freedom-loving Americans to come once again to Washington D.C. to gather on the Capitol steps on Saturday, at 12 o’clock noon. WE MUST COME BY THE THOUSANDS. Speaker Pelosi will stop at nothing to fulfill her corrupt conquests. She will bring all of the corrupt ACORN liars to try to bully all the Democrats that may be having pangs of guilt knowing quite surely what their votes can and will do. If they’re bullied into saying “yes,” it will destroy America. Be there in Washington DC at 12 noon EST so we can give...

It may be tempting to feel worn down as we take one step after another towards the “fundamental transformation of America” that Barack Obama promised. But we mustn’t let our energy be sapped, even in the face of the mind-boggling leap the Obama Administration just took that fundamentally shifts us towards more reliance on foreign energy sources. Hang on to your hat and take a look at this. Months ago I discussed Washington’s decision to allow U.S. dollars to flow to Brazil for that nation’s off-shore oil drilling projects, while D.C.’s attitude towards America’s own offshore developments appeared less-than-enthusiastic. We...

U.S. President Barack Obama did not hold back in condemning the humiliation caused to Joe Biden with the Israeli announcement of 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem during what was supposed to be the vice president's friendly visit to Israel. Instead of accepting Netanyahu's partial apology and letting bygones be bygones, Obama issued a stern warning to the Israeli prime minister and is now demanding that he take "specific actions" to show he is "committed" to the U.S.-Israel relationship and to the peace process itself. Washington did not reveal the contents of the ultimatum or the list of demands...

Senator Lindsey Graham, ever the faithful follower of uber-RINO John McCain, scored three RINO initiatives in just one week. Reminiscent of the "the band's getting back together" scenes from the movie "Blues Brothers", Graham and McCain reached back to the good old days of bipartisan shafting of conservative judicial nominees and offered the Democrats another "Gang of Fourteen"--this time to shaft the public with a bipartisan Obamacare bill. The offer must have been tempting to the Democrats who remember how "bipartisan leadership" from Graham and McCain spiked conservative guns when the Republicans were in the majority in the Senate. But...

The Obama administration’s six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday. Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama’s term even though two –thirds of the American public supports such activity, according to a December 2009 Rasmussen poll. Sixty percent also believe that gas and oil prices will drop if the government allows offshore drilling, opening up an estimate 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas On July 14,...

<p>Just announced by Jennifer Griffith in a live interview, WH has asked Pentagon for a formal assessment of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, that the Afghan Wart is no longer in our nations interest, blamed the Afghan elections.</p>