Free Republic

Edward Klein’s new book about President Obama, The Amateur, has already made some news, particularly with regard to allegations that an ally of Obama’s offered the odious Reverend Jeremiah Wright a $150,000 bribe to keep his mouth shut during the 2008 presidential campaign. And the title of the book is a quote from Bill Clinton, who was said to be urging his wife to challenge Obama for the Democrat nomination in 2012. That’s pretty sensational stuff, but the media has been studiously ignoring Klein’s book. NewsBusters noted on Tuesday that none of the mainstream media networks have interviewed Klein on...

President Obama's budget suffered a second embarrassing defeat Wednesday, when senators voted 99-0 to reject it. Coupled with the House's rejection in March, 414-0, that means Mr. Obama's budget has failed to win a single vote in support this year. Republicans forced the vote by offering the president's plan on the Senate floor. Democrats disputed that it was actually the president's plan, arguing that the slim amendment didn't actually match Mr. Obama's budget document, which ran thousands of pages. But Republicans said they used all of the president's numbers in the proposal, so it faithfully represented his plan. Sen. Jeff...

Boy, Ed Klein’s new book has more panties in a bunch around here than even Jodi Kantor’s did – and I didn’t think that was possible. President Obama famously claimed to know more about policy than his policy directors, but he didn’t mention First Lady Michelle Obama, who comprises one half of a “stealth co-presidency” according to a new book on the Obamas. It’s not as if Lady M wanted to be co-president: Michelle Obama practically vetoed the choice of Hillary Clinton serving as vice president. “Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in...

In a shocking interview yesterday on the Sean Hannity Radio Show, author Ed Klein said Barack Obama’s former pastor helped Obama accept Christianity without having to renounce Islam. The Daily Caller reported: Klein also said Wright told him he “made it comfortable” for Obama to accept Christianity without having renounce his “Islamic background,” which Klein said he has on tape. -snip- Klein spoke more on this in a separate interview with NewsMax: Klein says Obama originally sought out Wright to discuss community activism. “Quickly the conversations turned from picking up garbage on the street and getting streetlights put up on...

Edward Klein's new book on Barack Obama, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, is a withering portrayal of a radical adrift, in over his head, drowning in his own incompetency -- while being weighed down by a small circle of "advisers" who are compounding the problem of the Amateur in the White House. Klein's book begins with a talisman-like quote uttered by Barack Obama when his recently appointed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tried to boost Obama's ego by telling him, "Your legacy is going to be preventing the second Great Depression." To which Barack Obama responded, "That's not...

As all of America knows by now, Obama has aggressively sought to "fundamentally transform" America -- one of the few promises he has kept from the days of 2008. Five trillion dollars of borrowing, ObamaCare passed over the objections of the majority of Americans through legislative legerdemain and special deals made with resistant politicians, failed stimulus, green programs failing left and right as taxpayers are left holding the bag, a recovery that is the most anemic on record, an America that has been sundered by the man who promises to unite us, America weaker abroad and at home -- yes,...

In a revealing new book, The Amateur, author Edward Klein interviews President Barack Obama’s physician, Dr. David Scheiner, MD, who blasts the president’s health care plan and says that President Obama has an “academic detachment” that he could never break through. The doctor fears that if the health care plan is “the failure” he believes it will be, because of runaway costs and other problems, then any health reform will be set back for years to come. These are only a few of many reveals in Klein’s book, which makes the case that President Obama is not the political machine...

In a potentially ominous Super Tuesday setback for Rick Santorum, a campaign filing mishap in Ohio could leave him ineligible to be awarded 18 Buckeye State district delegates -- more than a quarter of the total at stake there, ABC News reported Friday. Ohio has 66 delegates total, with 63 at stake on Tuesday. Santorum failed to qualify for any district delegates in three Ohio congressional districts representing nine delegates because he didn't turn in names there. ABC News reported that in six other congressional districts, the former Pennsylvania senator's campaign submitted fewer names than required to be eligible for...

UPDATED: COLUMBUS, Ohio — Even if Rick Santorum wins Ohio on Super Tuesday, he won’t be able to claim all of its delegates. In fact, he is at risk of forfeiting more than one-quarter of them. In three of the state’s 16 congressional districts, including two that are near Ohio’s border with Pennsylvania, Santorum will lose any delegates he might have won because his campaign failed to meet the state’s eligibility requirements months ago. Those three districts alone take 9 delegates out of a total of 66 off the table for Santorum. But it gets worse: Nine more Ohio delegates...

An amateur sleuth armed with determination and intuition helped cops crack the murder of Leiby Kletzky by tracking his path to doom. Yaakov German isn't a cop or a private detective. He's a property manager and father of 12 with a reputation as a do-gooder. By banging on doors and scrutinizing grainy video, he uncovered crucial clues that led cops to confessed killer Levi Aron. "At the end of the day, he should be given the credit for the cracking of the case," said Rabbi Jack Mayer of the NYPD's Clergy Liaison Program. His investigation into the disappearance of the...

President Obama does so many things that don’t make sense. Until you put them all together: Create a More Violent Middle East Obama refused to help pro-democracy protesters in Egypt. Muslim Brotherhood (footnote 1) steps into power vacuum left by America. Christians are being slaughtered the in streets today. Obama ignores Iraq & Afghanistan & draws down troops. Results: protests on Iraqi streets & slaughter of Christians. Taliban resurges as does the influence of Muslim Brotherhood. Director James Clapper states that Muslim Brotherhood are peaceful and secular despite heavy evidence to the contrary. (footnote 2) Obama responds by calling on...

The continued stalemate in Libya is not good news for Samantha Power widely seen as one of the architects of the Libyan intervention. Power, who works with the National Security Council, has been touted as the next secretary of State if Obama is re-elected but if Libya continues to be a stalemate it will not help her case... But the original script went wrong from there with rebels advancing, then retreating like a bad Charlie Chaplin scene before the current stalemate. Stalemate is not good in that corner of the world, and a leaderless state, like Somalia can soon become...

A fiery President Obama insisted Tuesday that if he and congressional leaders couldn’t reach a deal to avert a government shutdown, “I want a meeting again tomorrow here at the White House.” “I will invite the same folks that we invited today,” he added. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll invite them again the day after that. And I will have my entire team available to work through the details of getting a deal done.” Obama’s team may not include the president himself. Despite the impasse in Washington over federal spending, the president as of early Wednesday was scheduled to...

Barack Obama tried to convince Univision last night that the US has an exit strategy from the Libya conflict, and that strategy is to, er, stick around and fight. Jake Tapper calls it a Lewis Carroll moment, while others might consider it more Orwellian: In an interview with Univision Tuesday, President Obama re-defined the term “exit strategy,” and said our exit strategy in Libya would begin this week. “The exit strategy will be executed this week,” President Obama said, “in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment. We will...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A month shy of his election in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama outlined a doctrine for American military force that included crises in which the United States has a "moral obligation" to intervene. As commander in chief, he soon will have to decide whether Libya fits the bill. Obama is facing the sternest test yet of his philosophy of humanitarian intervention, which he has described as an imperative to prevent atrocities against civilians.

Egypt's foreign minister has rebuffed calls from Washington to speed up the pace of political reform. Rejecting a US demand to lift a state of emergency, Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Washington should not "impose" its will on "a great country".

Amid calls for President Hosni Mubarak to not wait until the end of his term to step down, the U.S. special envoy to Egypt told the Munich Security Conference that the 30-year ruler needs to stick around fro now. Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt deployed there this past week to apparently urge Mubarak to hand over the reins, said Saturday that the transition "is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward." Wisner spoke to the conference via video link from New York. "We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next...

Less than a week after a State of the Union address that relegated foreign policy to an almost parenthetical concern, the turmoil in Egypt serves reminder yet again how global events can surprise and demand a presidency's attention nonetheless. ... Finally, as my former NSC colleague Elliott Abrams points out, Egypt vindicates President George W. Bush's strategic insight in his 2003 speech to the National Endowment for Democracy: Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased...

What can you do with a good ol' boy like Bubba? He only does what Bubba does. You probably shouldn't blame a distracted and overwhelmed Barack Obama, either. But that was a remarkable show the two presidents put on at the White House the other day. No one remembered such a remarkable abdication of authority since Edward VIII, as goofy as Alfred E. Neuman, gave up a throne, several palaces and the royal grouse hunts to keep at his side "the woman I love." Or at least since Johnny Carson stepped aside for Jay Leno. What's next? Will the president...

“The student-athlete’s father (Cecil Newton) and an owner of a scouting service (Kenny Rogers) worked together to actively market the student-athlete as a part of a pay-for-play scenario in return for Newton’s commitment to attend college and play football. NCAA rules (Bylaw 12.3.3) do not allow individuals or entities to represent a prospective student-athlete for compensation to a school for an athletic scholarship.”

Basketball star Ed O’Bannon and quarterback Sam Keller each earned most valuable player awards during their collegiate careers. Now, years after playing their final games, they are pursuing what they consider a more significant collegiate legacy. They are attempting through federal lawsuits to force the NCAA to share its annual revenues with student-athletes. “There are millions and millions of dollars being made off the sweat and grind of the student athlete,” O’Bannon said. “Student athletes see none of that other than their education.” O’Bannon’s lawsuit seeks a share of the money the NCAA earns from licensing former players’ images in...

Of all the slips of the tongue and unintentional admissions by this administration, Robert Gibbs’ “professional left” comment may well be the one they wish they could squeeze back into their collective windpipe the most: I hear these people saying (Obama) is like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. … I mean, it’s crazy. … The professional left … will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality. … They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.

Last week's flap involving Gen. Stanley McChrystal was notable for many things, but what stands out most in my opinion was how it reflects the declining respect that so many Americans have for those in leadership positions. While decorum can be imposed by fiat, it is genuine respect that prompts teams to achieve in all fields, and which must be earned. I'm not going to defend the general, who clearly overstepped his bounds and had to be dismissed to maintain civilian control over the military. But he was (and I am) clearly frustrated with micromanagement of the Afghan campaign by...

One wonders... Did the inhabitants of galaxy NGC 891 duck when Comet McNaught flew past the edge-on spiral on the morning of June 8th? Mike O'Connor and Tristan Dilapo took this picture of the cosmic close encounter from Colden, New York: (click on photo to enlarge) "The comet was only 10 degrees above the horizon," says O'Connor. "Nevertheless, we got a good picture using a 12-inch telescope and an SBIG ST9-E camera."And, no, the denizens of that distant galaxy did not flinch, flee, duck or take notice in any way. NGC 891 is 30 million light years away, far removed...

Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's gulf oil spill. Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his "boot on the neck" of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet. Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts "so...

Day 57 Obama gave his first Oval Office address tonight, but it sounded more like a political speech than a presidential address. First, the fingerpointing. From the White House transcript: One place we’ve already begun to take action is at the agency in charge of regulating drilling and issuing permits, known as the Minerals Management Service. Over the last decade, this agency has become emblematic of a failed philosophy that views all regulation with hostility -- a philosophy that says corporations should be allowed to play by their own rules and police themselves. At this agency, industry insiders were put...

In the past week or so, there has been much discussion about President Barack Obama's level of anger and his attempts to appear suitably enraged over the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the ongoing catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But like most things Obama, this manufactured issue is merely a diversion meant to distract the American people from the real issue...and it's working.

Frankly, if I hear the phrase "Obama's Katrina" one more time to refer to the President's response to the oil spill, I think I will scream. It reminds of the annoying need that many feel to stick the word -gate on the end of any presidential scandal. I lament this really lazy habit of the media. We can understand each situation well enough to make our own judgments without constant and faulty comparisons to old scandals or problems. This is not Obama's Katrina, its Obama's oil spill. Now it should go without saying that I do not believe that government...

The president has three principal problems. He is well to the left of the public and of what he promised the voters in 2008, and his is an old, passé leftism — one that is authoritarian and deviously presented, and was discredited in this country decades ago; it featured the sort of nostrums that caused Bill Clinton and others to become “New Democrats.” Obama is increasingly perceived as having credibility problems and of being cold, cocksure, narcissistic, and intoxicated by what he modestly called “the gift” of his own articulateness. And, as president, he has been quite, and quite surprisingly,...

All of these photos are from WH Photographer Pete Souza and uploaded on the White House website, it not only shows Obama's lack of respect for the Oval Office and the White House, it shows their arrogance that they would upload them on the WH page...

Debra Medina against all odds is quickly becoming a viable candidate the implications are enormous. Scott Brown's shocking victory is a mixed blessing for the cause of freedom. On one hand it has put a major roadblock in the path towards Obama Care. On the other hand Scott Brown is a big government Republican. So far there are no signs that true reform is taking place in the GOP. The people in control of the party during the worst two consecutive election cycle defeats in GOP history are still in control of the leadership nationally. This is why a Debra...

From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes for his presidency began to wonder whether they had misjudged the man." They once held "an unromantically high opinion of Obama," and were key to his rise, but now they are concluding that the president isn't "the person of integrity or even...

This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment. From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The Gallup poll will announce -- they effectively have announced it -- the Gallup poll will announce that for the first time in their poll Barack Obama's approval rating has fallen below 50%. In fact, a little story about this. This from Ben Smith at The Politico: "His approval numbers have bounced down to the 50% mark several times, driven by weaker support from independents and Republicans, but hadn't crossed it. The slide is worrying for the White House, but it's probably not yet panic time. Ronald Reagan's approval numbers dropped well below 40% during the depths...

Jeffrey Lynn Graybill, 40, of Phoenix is accused of pretending to be "Dr. Robert Richardson" and soliciting sperm donors for the nonexistent Fertility Clinic of West Los Angeles. Graybill was brought back to Los Angeles after being arrested Wednesday in Arizona, investigators said. He had moved from Marina del Rey to Phoenix in August. Investigators believe that there may be more than two dozen other victims in California and Arizona. Although he had no medical license, Graybill allegedly advertised himself as a physician through Internet listings on Craigslist and solicited potential clients, offering up to $4,000 monthly for sperm donations...

AMERICA may break its promise to shut its military prison in Guantanamo Bay by January, officials have admitted. White House insiders warned that their self-imposed deadline was slipping as they struggled to work their way through thorny legal and logistical questions. US President Barack Obama is said to remain committed to closing the facility, a camp for international terror suspects at an American base on Cuba opened by his predecessor George W. Bush after the attacks of 11 September 2001. Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that they still hoped to meet the January deadline by stepping...

1st Successful Amateur Hi-Def Video from The Edge of Space.Tomoya came to Canada from Japan to have us send his HD camera to the edge of spaceand has another video on his web page. The BEAR 3 & 4 balloon flights were featured on the Discovery Channel, Daily Planet TV show on Sept 18/09which can be viewed online at the Discovery Channel Web SiteHelp support future flights by making a Donation and receive a DVD in appreciation with 2-1/2 hrs. of the best of the 4 hr. 22 min. HD Video. The balloon and camera were launched at 7:44 AM, the...

What are you getting? You’re getting the same thing you got when he sold out Honduras to Chavez over that non-coup “coup” they staged: The warm fuzzy glow of knowing that George Bush would heartily disapprove. But some members of Obama’s own party, however, had a simple question for the administration: if this was a return to realism, and a concession to Russia’s long and vocal opposition to the missile program, what, exactly, was the U.S. getting in return for fundamentally changing it? And almost certainly, the answer leads back to Iran… But Russia has given no ground on those...

Getting your ham radio license is an idea well worth considering if you think comunications might be restricted under some circumstances.

After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust. When that person is the President of the United States, the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited. Many people are rightly worried about what this administration's reckless spending will do to the economy in our time and to our children and grandchildren, to whom a staggering national debt will be passed on. But if the worst that Barack Obama does is ruin the economy,...

The Obama administration seems to have gotten just about everything wrong about the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Wrong on the law. Wrong on the politics. Wrong on the foreign policy. On the law, Miguel Estrada, the brilliant attorney whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was blocked by those who abhor a truly wise Latino conservative, actually has read the Honduran constitution. He finds that it specifies that it cannot be amended to change the limit on a single four-year term for the president. And it further provides that trying to amend the constitution “constitutes treason.”...

That's a stunning indictment of President Obama and one of the more overt pieces I've read about the complete lack of trust the left now has in Obama. Yes, he will still have his die-hard supporters who will never admit they were wrong in backing such an amateurish candidate, yet every day we are seeing another major backer question whether or not Obama is up to the job. By throwing in a Hillary quote they throw a little salt in the wound as well by showing that not only us on the right were correct in our assessment but that...

Look, he's like Lincoln! No, he's like Reagan. Or like Truman maybe... Welcome to the Obollywood administration: trying hard to imitate great American Presidents but ultimately only succeeding to embarrass our nation. Read on

Barack Obama's offhand approach to Gordon Brown's Washington visit last week came about because the president has facing exhaustion over America's economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told. Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest. British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a...

Emanuel: White House not 'amateur hour' Jon Ward (Contact) Defending the White House in the wake of Sen. Judd Gregg's withdrawal as Commerce Secretary, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said it is not "amateur hour" and that the Obama administration is still doing better than President Clinton was at this point. "Some may call it amateur hour. Having been in two separate White Houses, I'm more than — and within our third week given this set of accomplishments — measure them up," said Mr. Emanuel, who served as a senior adviser in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 1998....

<p>SAN FRANCISCO – The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.</p> <p>Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself. Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.

Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder explains how the natural tinkerers who built the web are starting to hack the world. Last week, while browsing the Popular Science archives (which recently became available on Google), I noticed that the earlier issues of this 138-year-old magazine contained quite a few articles devoted to amateur science. The 1940s and 1950s were a heyday for basement-based research, with experiments such as making hydrogen gas, building a photomicrographic camera out of a stovepipe, constructing a Geiger counter, making a tiny oil refinery, and superheating steam to a temperature high enough to light a cigarette. It’s fun...

LAHORE, Pakistan | Barack Obama may be winning in the U.S. and most global popularity polls, but he's a loser in Pakistan. Dozens of students interviewed at two top universities in this country's second-largest city, a cultural melting pot known for its liberal leanings, rejected Mr. Obama as "too aggressive," "irresponsible" and an "enemy of Muslims" whose stated policy toward insurgency-plagued areas would make a bad situation worse. The anti-Obama sentiment stems from assertions on the campaign trail that the senator from Illinois, if elected president, would authorize U.S. forces to enter Pakistani territory to hunt down Taliban and al...

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee criticized the Bush administration's war against terrorism Friday, delivering a bold and potentially risky speech that could establish the former Arkansas governor as the maverick among top Republican candidates and test his party's loyalty to President Bush. "This administration's bunker mentality has been counterproductive both at home and abroad," Huckabee said in opening a broad indictment of Bush's style and policy.