Free Republic

Obamacare—the Affordable Care Act—is both imploding from its own dead weight and conversely exploding in the face of the Democratic Party as we head toward the 2014 midterm elections. You remember the Democrats? They were the ones who, on Christmas Eve 2009 passed Obamacare in the late hours. It’s the bill Nancy Pelosi told us had to be passed “so we can find out what’s in it.” The bad news for Democrats and worse news for Barack Obama is that, since it was signed into law on March 23, 2010, Americans have had three years to learn what a total...

On the May 16 "Media Mash" segment for Fox News Channel's Hannity program, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell hit the nail on the head, predicting that the media would quickly shift into the "Move On!" mode as they would start attacking Republicans as scandal-obsessed. Sure enough, a week later when the Media Research Center president returned for another Mash segment [watch the video embed below the page break], he had plenty of fresh material from the networks to illustrate how the liberal media are doing precisely that. After watching a montage of journalists complaining that Republicans may be guilty of "overreach"...

Despite a tough couple of weeks, President Obama's job approval ratings are holding up fairly well. As I write this, 47 percent of voters nationwide offer their approval. That's little changed from attitudes of late and essentially the same as the president enjoyed during most of his first term in office. But if you dig just a bit beneath the surface, it becomes clear that the controversies dogging the White House have had an impact. So far, there are three major issues -- the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservatives, the Justice Department's secret media probe and the circumstances surrounding...

“We have a message for Attorney General Holder over at http://huffingtonpost.com,” read a message from the Huffington Post political Twitter account earlier this evening. The website's home page is one big splash calling for Eric Holder’s exit from the Obama administration, suggesting that the news reported earlier by NBC News was the final straw for liberals who are critical of Obama’s attorney general. NBC News’ Michael Isikoff reported that Holder signed off on the search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator”authorizing seizure of his private emails. The Huffington Post page also highlights Holder’s record...

Currently on the front burner of scandals in the Obama administration are Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting of conservative groups, and the AP scandal. Of course, Fast and Furious is also still very much alive. However, over the past week, two more scandals are coming to light and may be just as big as the others. One of those involves the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Congressional Republicans are accusing the agency of giving unfair preference to environmental groups when it comes to information requests. They are comparing the behavior to that of the IRS in giving additional scrutiny...

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…” These were words President Obama never used during his speech at the National Defense University yesterday. Rather, he said anything but anything that sounded like Winston Churchill’s immortal speech about defiance in the face of the march of tyranny. In large part, there was nothing new in the counterterrorism strategy the President announced. Flash back to 2011—that was the real turning point. Before then, Obama really followed...

Even if we have often reported the presence of the F-22 Raptors at Al Dhafra, satellite imagery showing five radar evading planes parked at the main airbase in the UAE has been made publicly available for the first time recently. The aircraft, parked next to an F-15E Strike Eagle, are five of the six F-22 that had (more or less secretely) deployed in South East Asia from Holloman New Mexico, via Moron, Spain, on Apr. 20, 2012. The image is not only interesting because it shows the main U.S. Air Force plane about 100 miles from Iran, but also because...

Dear colleagues, The recent news about the FBI’s seizure of the phone and email records of Fox News employees, including James Rosen, calls into question whether the federal government is meeting its constitutional obligation to preserve and protect a free press in the United States. We reject the government's efforts to criminalize the pursuit of investigative journalism and falsely characterize a Fox News reporter to a Federal judge as a "co-conspirator" in a crime. I know how concerned you are because so many of you have asked me: why should the government make me afraid to use a work phone...

oBAMA ON CSPAN NOW.

[SNIP] Here are top line numbers from the Washington Post poll that should worry Mr. Obama and his team: Q: Changing topics, in general do you think the federal government is doing more to (protect) the rights of average Americans or more to (threaten) the rights of average Americans? 54% - threaten. 38% - protect. The Washington Post didn't ask "threaten" respondents if they connect their fears to the president. With more to come from the IRS scandal -- and with links to the White House probable -- the majority feeling threatened by government will grow. Q: Republicans in Congress...

".......Since 2006, with the beginnings of the breakaway of populist conservatives from the national Republican Party via the Tea Party movement, the GOP has been trying to figure out how to co-opt and capture it once again, just as George W. Bush did with many elements of the conservative movement in the early years of the 21st century." ".......Men and women of the Establishment Republican Party like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who previously regarded the Tea Party Movement as something unpleasant and unsophisticated, are now trying to be their friends."

Jay Leno jokes target President Obama's problems By: Patrick Gavin May 23, 2013 09:27 AM EDT On the late night talk show circuit lately, President Barack Obama has been on the receiving end of a barrage of jokes from “The Tonight Show” host Jay Leno, who has spent the past week opening his nightly monologue with a series of jokes at the White House’s expense. May 16: In reaction to news of a prostitution ring being run out of a retirement home. “Boy, that Obamacare is amazing! It just provides everything!” On a new IRS commissioner: “They’re called ‘acting commissioner’...

President Obama on Thursday will deliver a major speech on his counterterrorism policies, addressing everything from drone strikes and the status of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, to continuing efforts to fight al Qaeda and the legal framework for the continuing "war on terror." In the substantive speech to be delivered at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., Mr. Obama will announce plans to restart transfers of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to third countries. Before their transfer, the prisoners would have to be cleared for release, and the U.S. would have to be satisfied that an oversight and monitoring program...

USBC News Wire- According to a report by the Boston Globe, First Lady, Michelle Obama, is said to be eying a vacation for an "extended period" while the crisis-ridden Obama struggles on, trying to contain numerous scandals. Currently, the Obama administration is struggling to handle an increasing number of scandals. This list is long and includes among others, ethical failings from the lingering "Fast and Furious" investigations to the Benghazi inquiries continuing to Pigford abuse through to potential abuses of power in the IRS...

I received an insightful email from reader Karen Sacandy: Dear Professor Jacobson: I’m among your many grateful readers, but at this time, the Democrats are like Thomas Crown in the flick, “The Thomas Crown Affair,” who created a distraction over here, while over there, he was stealing a multimillion dollar painting. But in this case, it’s a total transformation of the American people, by immigration law changes to aid and abet the non-enforcement we’ve had for decades. All these abuses of power converging at this time are almost COMPLETELY distracting everyone who could bring pressure to bear to prevent the...

A couple of weeks ago, President Obama warned college grads about crazy people (like John Adams, for example) who warn about the constant threat of tyranny in government... He might have to give that speech to a few more groups, because a new poll suggests that Americans are going with John Adams:

The Executive Branch is out of control.As Ralph Nader points out, the Obama Administration has been serving as judge, jury, and executioner, even against some U.S. citizens.Obama’s drone policy is of dubious legality, as is the continued practice of kidnapping and imprisoning people indefinitely.He waged his war against Libya without Congressional approval. And now his Administration is overreaching domestically, though it’s unclear how much of this is with his knowledge or green light.The IRS’s witch-hunt of right wing and Tea Party groups is “outrageous,” as Obama himself properly noted. He should fire the person or people responsible. That’s what...

HAVE YOU DONE YOUR PART TO SUPPORT FR FOR THE QUARTER? Over / under Appropriate / inappropriate: 30 Any reference to investigations: 50 Ask somebody else: 25Odds “Mistakes were made” 200:1 Carney is confronted on his bald faced lies about WH role in sanitizing Benghazi talking points: 5:1Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims WH Live Stream

Leno: Obama Holds Press Conferences to Find Out What’s Going on Not Explain It By Noel Sheppard Created 05/22/2013 - 11:10am Jay Leno on Tuesday continued his humorous attacks on the current White House resident. The NBC Tonight Show host concluded a series of opening monologue jokes targeting the administration saying, “That's why President Obama holds press conferences: not to explain what's going on, to find out what's going on” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary): JAY LENO: Hey, President Obama gave a commencement address at Morehouse College over the weekend. Great speech, very inspiring....

Last week was deemed by various news outlets, including such White House-friendly outlets as The New York Times, Washington Post and ABC, as “Obama’s bad week.” U.S. President Barack Obama was bombarded by scandals — the death last September of four Americans in a terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the targeting of conservative groups by the U.S. tax department (the IRS) and the seizure of phone records from 20 Associated Press reporters. Even Time magazine columnist Joe Klein — long a sycophantic Obama apologist — compared the White House’s behaviour on the IRS file as being...

No details yet. Watch/listen if you can without feeling worse than you may already with all the destruction. Any bets on CO2/climate change/global warming/manmade(I mean man caused)/for the children/reduce pollutants/more and stronger storms than ever screeds will be mentioned? I wonder how many of these tornadoes killed a bunch of Indians in the "old days" with no news choppers on scene to report them. Kind of ludicrous to base all this alarmist talk on data from only the last 100 to 150 years of "recorded history".

On the heels of news that the Obama administration Department of Justice was spying on reporters at the Associated Press, Monday brought the startling disclosure by the Washington Post that the DOJ had also targeted Fox reporter James Rosen for surveillance in an effort to plug up leaks. Additionally, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza obtained the full application for a search warrant of Rosen’s personal email account, in which the DOJ accused him of being “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator.” As Lizza put it, “Rosen was not charged with any crime, but it is unprecedented for the government, in...

... Obama will be meeting with his disaster response team, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, on Tuesday before delivering a statement on the devastating tornado that tore through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday. Obama has declared a major disaster in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

Given last week's revelation that the IRS targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, it's worth recalling President Obama's Ohio State University commencement address. The president decried "voices" warning "that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner." It's no longer lurking. It's here. Testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee by the outgoing acting IRS commissioner, Steve Miller, as well as numerous statements by individuals claiming they have been harassed and intimidated by IRS agents, reveal a government agency out of control, or more precisely, under the control of political hacks. It's doubtful this was a freelance operation. J....

Just wondering. It ought to be something. What did Rahm Emmanuel say?

'It made him look like a butler': Retired general blasts President Obama for ordering U.S. Marine to break military rules by holding an umbrella The President unwittingly forced two U.S Marines to break protocol and regulations as he ordered them to use umbrellas Former United States Air Force Lieutenant Thomas McInerney criticized the President for making the officers look like butlers By DAVID MARTOSKO, JAMES NYE and DANIEL BATES 16 May 2013 President Obama humiliated the marine who he asked to hold his umbrella by making him ‘look like a butler’, a respected military general claimed today. Thomas McInerney, a...

To mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn on May 17 will display the rainbow flag on the Embassy building at Kentmanni 20, Tallinn. IDAHO is an annual event celebrated internationally to counter homophobia and raise awareness of the human rights discrimination faced by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) individuals. “Flying the flag,” Ambassador Levine said, “is a simple statement of our support for the LGBT community and its struggle for equal rights.” Noting the substantial progress being made, Ambassador Levine added that much of the world has come to understand that...

The head of the National Treasury Employee Union (NTEU), which represents employees of the Internal Revenue Service, met with President Barack Obama in the White House one day before the manager of the IRS’s “Technical Unit” suggested establishing a “Sensitive Case Report” for the tax-exempt status applications of Tea Party groups, according to data from the official White House visitor log and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The White House visitor log shows that NTEU President Colleen Kelley met with Obama--“POTUS,” President of the United States--on March 31, 2010. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report on...

You know things are getting rough for President Barack Obama when even The New Yorker, that bastion of liberal thought, starts ridiculing him. Reacting to how the president is distancing himself from his administration’s three emerging scandals — the mishandling of the embassy attack at Benghazi, the targeting of a right-wing group by the IRS and press snooping by the Department of Justice — the magazine’s resident humorist, Andy Borowitz, wrote a post on its Web site titled, “Obama Denies Role in Government.” To milk his point, as humorists are wont to do, Borowitz put words in Obama’s mouth: “Right...

White Americans are more likely to see anger in the facial expressions of President Obama than non-white Americans are, according to a study from the University of Arkansas that will be published in the journal Political Psychology in July.

<p>The International Monetary Fund on Monday said the United States was getting carried away with a government austerity drive, offering some of the institution's bluntest criticism yet of Washington's rush to cut its budget deficit.</p> <p>Despite high unemployment, Washington is on track to slash its budget shortfall this year by the most in nearly a half century.</p>

White House Explains: Obama Didn't Know What He Knew When Everyone Else Knew What He Should Have Known Submitted by Tyler on 05/20/2013 18:04 -0400 House Oversight Committee President Obama Treasury Department White House Yesterday, when we reported that as a result of new disclosures regarding the timing of who learned what, but most importantly when, in the White House regarding the IRS persecution (if not prosecution) of conservative groups, we made it quite clear that the narrative enacted by the White House, which could simply be summarized as "we'll make it up as we go along", was nothing more...

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns...

The Justice Department spied extensively on Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2010, collecting his telephone records, tracking his movements in and out of the State Department and seizing two days of Rosen’s personal emails, the Washington Post reported on Monday. In a chilling move sure to rile defenders of civil liberties, an FBI agent also accused Rosen of breaking anti-espionage law with behavior that—as described in the agent's own affidavit—falls well inside the bounds of traditional news reporting. (Disclosure: This reporter counts Rosen among his friends.) UPDATE: Fox News responds with a blistering statement that asserts Rosen was "simply...

A few weeks back, the Tea Party was little more than a relic of political history, and its former superstars such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann were lost in a sea of irrelevance. Now the Obama administration has gotten the Tea Party started again. The trio of scandals that are rocking Washington smack of the exact kind of government overreach and abuse of power that fueled the movement in the beginning. Suddenly, Tea Party darling and likely presidential hopeful Rand Paul is selling out speaking events from Iowa to New Hampshire, and PalinÂ’s tweets are making headlines again. The...

Don’t let anyone fool you: Everyone in politics is tempted to believe that their noble ends could justify unethical and illegal means. Those who had hoped that President Obama would usher in a new era of higher standards in Washington must be shell-shocked by last week’s revelations: -The Internal Revenue Service admitted to delaying conservative organizations’ tax-exempt status while quickly approving groups that had liberal or progressive orientations. The IRS asked these groups all sorts of invasive questions, including what kind of books they read, and leaked some information to the media. -The Department of Justice secretly obtained two months...

AF1 is getting fired up. Add another devastating, crushing event to the list that saves Obama. Hurricane Sandy, Sandy Hook, Jodi Arias verdict during Benghazi hearing, etc....now the Oklahoma devastation.

The Justice Department’s secret subpoena for AP phone records included the seizure of records for five reporters' cellphones and three home phones as well as two fax lines, a lawyer for the news organization tells NBC News. David Schulz, the chief lawyer for the AP, said the subpoenas also covered the records for 21 phone lines in five AP office lines -- including one for a dead phone line at office in Washington that had been shut down six years ago. The phone lines at four other offices – where 100 reporters worked — were also covered by the subpoenas,...

“For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal? Is the White House Visitors Log the trail to the smoking gun? The stunning questions are raised by the following set of new facts. March 31, 2010. According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that...

Well, it appears that TRADOC is now well into the process of attempting to destroy the greatest armed force that the world has ever known. Training and Doctrine Command has launched “two major efforts in support of this full integration of women soldiers.” TRADOC has started a scientific review working with U.S. Army Medical Command, U.S. Army Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and Army Research Institute to assist in the development of gender-neutral physical standards for all Areas of Concentration for commissioned officers and military occupational specialties for enlisted soldiers.In addition, the “TRADOC Analysis Center is examining the institutional and cultural...

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns...

Judge Andrew Napolitano joined FM Newstalk 97.1 morning host Jamie Allman today to discuss the widening IRS targeting scandal. Judge Napolitano told Jamie that if Obama knew his IRS was targeting conservatives during the 2012 election, and did nothing, it is an impeachable offense. "Now it has become a question of integrity. What did he know and when did he know it? Because if he knew during his campaign that the IRS was targeting his opponents and he did nothing to stop. In other words, he let the IRS do this stuff in order to help him defeat Mitt Romney,...

As Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy emerged from the IRS hearings in Congress on Friday, he was overheard to say, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." OK, so I am mixing metaphors.  But, that famous statement from the architect of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack is the most descriptive quote I can think of for what happened in the Longworth Building in Washington, D.C. this past week.  The Democratic Party, and especially the outgoing Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, must be wondering if...

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty Counsel to express grave concerns...

Move on to What? By Chris Stirewalt Published May 20, 2013 | FoxNews.com “Already, officials that would normally talk to us, and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us. They fear that they will be monitored by the government…It’s not hypothetical, we’re actually seeing impact already.” -- Gary Pruitt, president of the Associated Press, on “Face the Nation.” How does an administration move on from scandals that are still unfolding? The answer: Not very effectively. President Obama and his team tried last week...

Original title: 'As an African-American you have to work twice as hard': Obama tells Morehouse graduates he has a 'special obligation' to help less-fortunate black people ----------------------------------- President Barack Obama told graduates from the traditionally African-American Morehouse College yesterday that 'as a black man' he feels a 'special obligation' to help those less fortunate them him. In a personal commencement address to the college in Atlanta, Georgia, the president spoke about racism and how, given different opportunities, he could have ended up in prison or unemployed. President Obama also told graduates of the college, where Dr Martin Luther King Jr...

President met with anti-Tea Party IRS union chief the day before agency targeted Tea Party. “For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House Is President Obama directly implicated in the IRS scandal? Is the White House Visitors Log the trail to the smoking gun? The stunning questions are raised by the following set of new facts. March 31, 2010. According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the...

...new information has emerged from both the Treasury Inspector General’s report and congressional testimony Friday that calls into question key statements made by Lois G. Lerner... The clumsy way the IRS disclosed the issue as well as Lerner’s press briefing by phone were seen at the time as a public relations disaster. But even so, it is worth reviewing three key statements made by Lerner and comparing them to the facts that have since emerged. “But between 2010 and 2012 we started seeing a very big uptick in the number of 501(c)(4) applications we were receiving and many of these...

The IRS abused its power in targeting conservatives for harassment and probably leaking information to liberal groups during the presidential election cycle. But the IRS’s actions crossed a line from merely corrupt into sinister when it grilled an Iowa pro-life group about its religious views. During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Friday, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., asked outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about it. “Their question,” Schock said, “specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.’ Would that be an inappropriate question...

According to recent polls, younger Americans are increasingly disillusioned with government and cynical about the political process. Maybe they will finally realize that they are being played for patsies by the Obama administration. After all, on issue after issue, President Obama has fed younger voters a steady diet of high-minded rhetoric and then delivered policies that leave them holding the bag. The most recent example is Obamacare. For one, in order for the president’s health-care law to work properly, large numbers of young people will have to buy insurance. Those young and healthy individuals, with their low claims costs, are...