Free Republic

Russell and Patricia Caswell are a hard-working couple who may soon have their American Dream taken from them by the unholy alliance of local and federal law enforcement officials seeking to cash in on the Caswell’s property. The Caswells face this dilemma even though they have broken no law and have spent their entire professional career working to combat crime with the very police force that now seeks to take their property though civil forfeiture. What is happening to Russ and Pat, however, is by no means an isolated instance and local law enforcement’s end-run around state laws designed to...

Progressive activists played a big role in helping President Obama get elected. But in the years since, the big story of political activism has been the conservative Tea Party movement.<snip>"It has been a tough couple of years," says activist Van Jones, who served briefly in the Obama administration. "We can't get up here and lie like everything's cool. We went from hope to heartbreak in about a minute."Jones was forced to resign from the administration in its first year amid criticism from conservatives over controversial statements he'd made in the past.While calling the Tea Party's ideas wrong for America, Jones...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says anyone running for president must support the entire U.S. military, including gay service members. Obama's comments targeted Republican presidential candidates. He says they should not have allowed a crowd to boo a gay service member who asked a videotaped question in a debate last month.

An indication of what you go through if you live in New Orleans and wish to express your political views in graphic form. Reily’s been threatened, he had an urban radio station gin up protestors outside of his house, he’s had Herman Cain yard signs stolen and now he’s got a left-wing fascist city councilwoman trying to stop him from expressing his first amendment rights.

The 2012 Obama Campaign Season Should Be VERY INTERESTING! Simply, Where Will He Campaign? He knows he will be heckled&maybe have shoes thrown at him in Pennsylvania,Ohio and Michigan. Every swing state has primarily white/hispanic/independant voters.Florida has alot of angry Jews that want to see Obama step down ASAP!So much for North Carolina{Cancel The Elections!} Aside from Cally,New York,DC and Chicago, Obama has no place to campaign without an angry crowd awaiting to throw a few thousand commemorative plates back at his podium. (and their shoes).

If Barack Obama were president of a major U.S. company, he’d be fired by now. That’s what American voters think -- by a 52-38 percent margin. Fifty-six percent of independents think a corporation’s board of directors would have already handed Obama his pink slip. Nearly a quarter of Democrats also believe Obama would be out (23 percent).

President Obama of late is making the rounds of aggrieved Democratic constituencies. Next up, a Saturday address to the Human Rights Campaign. "Some LGBT rights supporters are hoping that Obama will take advantage of the opportunity to endorse marriage equality and to denounce initiatives that would ban marriage rights for same-sex couples in Minnesota and North Carolina," reports the Washington Blade. Probably not, for at least two reasons: While Obama has said his stance opposing gay marriage is "evolving," he has given no signal it's fully evolved since he declined to endorse gay marriage in June.

Election 2012: Hispanics, blacks and others among President Obama’s base may be abandoning him, but Muslims are holding fast. Apparently, theirs is a special bond born of shared interests. When Barack Hussein Obama first stepped into office in January 2009, he had 92% approval among blacks, 75% approval among Hispanics and 58% approval among whites, according to Gallup. Since then, his monthly approval has dropped eight points among blacks, 27 points among Hispanics and 25 points among whites. Blacks are frustrated with Obama's failure to create jobs in a recession that has hit African-Americans hardest. Discord is so bad that...

Two men of Bangladeshi origin were caught by Customs and Border Protection illegally crossing the US-Mexico border last June and admitted they were members of a terrorist organization that allied with Bin Laden against America. Now, it appears at least one of those men is free after posting bail and claiming asylum. And the Department of Homeland security has no idea where he is. The information is according to a report this week by Pajamas Media, which gives some background on these suspected terrorists: “The two men, Muhammad Nazmul Hasan and Mirza Muhammad Saifuddin, were intercepted near Naco, Arizona, not...

When President Obama came into office, we were assured that our relationship with Islamic nations would improve. Islam is really a religion of peace. He said the following in his remarks to the Muslim world, delivered on June 4, 2009 in Egypt. “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress;...

09-24) 06:25 PDT DENVER (AP) -- People like Christine Alonzo are keeping President Barack Obama afloat and giving his political team hope that he can win re-election despite high unemployment and sour attitudes about his policies and the country's future. Alonzo volunteered for Obama during the 2008 campaign. A few months after Obama's victory, she lost her job. She's still looking for work. Instead of blaming Obama for the economic crisis, she's volunteering full time to help him capture a second term. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/24/national/a062218D89.DTL#ixzz1Yt5KLq6S

President Obama needs to fire a lot of people. That’s the conclusion of longtime Democratic strategist and TV pundit James Carville, who unloaded on Obama Thursday for failing to change his White House team despite months of lagging poll numbers and stagnant economic indicators. “For God's sake,” Carville wrote on CNN’s web site , “why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It's not working.”

Liberal firebrand Michael Moore called on President Obama to respond to the U.S. credit downgrade by arresting the leaders of the credit-ratings agencies. On his Twitter feed Monday, the Oscar-winning film director also blamed the 2008 economic collapse on Standard & Poor’s — apparently because it and other credit-ratings agencies did not downgrade mortgage-based bonds, which encouraged the housing bubble and let it spread throughout the economy. “Pres Obama, show some guts & arrest the CEO of Standard & Poors. These criminals brought down the economy in 2008& now they will do it again,” Mr. Moore wrote.

Cpt. Pamela Barnett: Obama said that he visited Pakistan in 1981 in trying to boast his "international" experience. However, according to school records Obama was not attending Columbia University as he has said. SO WHERE WAS OBAMA IN 1981???? Obama was most likely on an Indonesian passport when he visited Pakistan as the DHS and DOJ redact all records that point to him being adopted by Lo Lo Soetoro. Obama was in Pakistan when a murderous muslim ruler was in control of Pakistan and warring with the Soviet communists.

Only weeks ago, Obama signaled intentions to cut $400 billion from Defense, but key Democrats are already talking about even large cuts of $1 trillion to Defense. Such a move would signal a broad American retreat from the world and erode our national defense for many years to come. Obama's military budget shenanigans are yet another reminder that the key characteristic of Obama’s involvement in any aspect of U.S. life--economics, policies or participation on the world scene—is that Obama's policies have left Americans with a weaker world presence as a result of his involvement. The Gang of Six proposal called...

Youtube video - Obamaville http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp9rX03e9lo

James Pethokoukis of Reuters published a chart Tuesday demonstrating exactly why all the hysteria about a debt default or missing Social Security check payments is a bunch of nonsense. If America's news outlets were actually interested in disseminating the truth rather than fear-mongering, this chart or something like it would be part of every report involving the debt ceiling: What this chart created by the securities firm Goldman Sachs perfectly demonstrates is that there are ample tax receipts coming to the Treasury in August to pay the interest on our debt, Social Security, Medicare, and "essential" defense costs.

President Barack Obama is finally setting goals to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's about time. Americans are coming around to the futility of all that killing and dying. The timetables are admittedly loose and flexible. Some interests would keep us in the hostile sites forever. We still have troops in Japan and Germany - thousands of soldiers are still there, so many years after World War II ended. We also have 700 military outposts around the world, some big and some small. Why? We have yet to hear the real reason we invaded Iraq. I have heard several...

Helen Thomas is troubled by the lack of leadership from the top in Washington. At an appearance at Busboys and Poets bookstore on Sunday, Thomas was asked her opinion on the state of the country. "I went through the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan. What the hell is going on? Don’t we ever learn anything? I think that we are — there is no inspiration from the top. President Obama doesn’t have enough courage to do the right thing. And I think there is no real leadership in this country and there...

High school seniors in Maryland will have to be literate on environmental matters to graduate from now on. Maryland’s Board of Education passed the environmental literacy graduation requirement on Tuesday. Gov. Martin O’Malley says Maryland is now the first state in the nation to have such a requirement. The No Child Left Inside Coalition, which pushed for the requirement, says 48 other states are considering similar requirements, a sign of the increasing popularity of environmental education. Under the graduation requirement, public schools will be required to infuse core subjects with lessons on conservation, smart growth and other environmental topics. School...