Free Republic

It was recently announced that yet another green energy firm supported by massive amounts of US taxpayer money had gone bankrupt. Ener1, which Vice-President Biden once incorrectly, but perhaps presciently, called “Enron1” filed for bankruptcy. Only a year ago, Ener1 received $118 million in stimulus funds...

Give him points for cleverness. President Obama’s birth control “accommodation” was as politically successful as it was morally meaningless. It was nothing but an accounting trick that still forces Catholic (and other religious) institutions to provide medical insurance that guarantees free birth control, tubal ligation and morning-after abortifacients — all of which violate church doctrine on the sanctity of life. The trick is that these birth control/abortion services will supposedly be provided independently and free of charge by the religious institution’s insurance company. But this changes none of the moral calculus. Holy Cross Hospital, for example, is still required by...

Seeking to overturn a DOJ judgment that its voter photo identification law, passed in May 2011, violates the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), the state of South Carolina recently announced that it is suing the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder in federal court. The decision by South Carolina comes as the DOJ is vigorously working to stop the spread of states enacting or implementing voter photo ID laws, prompting fears that the Obama administration is undermining the integrity of the upcoming 2012 elections. In December 2011, the DOJ blocked South Carolina’s new voter ID law from taking effect...

Early in his administration, President Obama, pledged to cut the federal deficit in half. But his recent budget proposal, to say Obama has not kept his promise is an understatement. Determined to keep Americans drowning in debt, Obama proposes to accelerate federal spending $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $5.8 trillion in 2022, a whopping increase of 53 percent. By spending more than $45 trillion in the next 10 years, the most generous accounting would assume $6.7 trillion would be added to the federal deficit, bringing debt-to-GDP ratio who a crushing 76.5 percent. The slow ending of the Afghanistan war gave...

RUSH: There are some things happening today that are downright scary. The regime, led by Barack Hussein Obama, is weighing options for reducing our US nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80% in the number of deployed warheads -- 80%. Folks, this is staggering. Meanwhile, the Iranians are nuking up. Iran announced today that they're gonna cut off oil to six countries that have opposed its nuclear program, and more importantly, Iran also announced that they have installed domestically made nuclear fuel rods in their Tehran reactor. Now, if that's true, this is significant because the sanctions that...

The firestorm of controversy over the January 20th HHS mandate requiring Catholic and other religious organizations to pay for contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs for their employees shows no sign of abating. This is notwithstanding the Obama administration's "accommodation," announced last Friday, that will permit insurance companies to pass the cost of contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs along to Catholic and other religious employers - as long as they do so surreptitiously, of course. Catholics bishops and countless others have characterized this regulation as direct government interference with the free exercise of religion and thus unconstitutional. In this, they are...

President Obama heads west today for a three-day, three-state swing aimed largely at filling the coffers of his re-election campaign and honing his message to supporters in key states. Obama will headline eight fundraisers across California and Washington through Friday night. The events are expected to net at least $8.6 million for the Obama Victory Fund. Much of Obama’s focus will be on mingling with some of his wealthiest – and most famous – supporters in Los Angeles and San Francisco, who will play a key role in underwriting his bid for a second term. Later he’ll dine with 80...

While headlines yesterday crowed and complained of the small rise in the budget and the focus on taxing the wealthy - which admittedly given the peak polarization in political parties is unlikely to actually move into legislation anytime soon - JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest finds perhaps the most controversial part of the proposal hidden deep in the report. While the JPM CIO notes the CBO baseline and alternative scenarios, it is the difference between the $293bn benefit (CBO estimate from last year) and the Administration's new estimate of $584bn that caught his eye as buried on Page 73 of the...

Decrying "a decade of deficits" on Monday, President Obama declared that "my budget lays out a path for how we can pay down these debts." It is hard to see how that can be true, since his plan would add $6.7 trillion to the national debt during the next decade. Obama thus begins his fourth year in office the way he began his first, preaching prudence while practicing profligacy. Back then, you may recall, he promised to cut the deficit, at that point estimated to be $1.3 trillion, "at least in half by the end of his first term," as...

El Presidente had issued is edict and it is out of the closet. "Let me be clear, I will do whatever I want, when I want, by passing Congress, the Courts, The Supreme Court, for the good of the American People, whether they want it or not. Sometimes, I must make the tough decisions for you. These decisions may be hard to swallow, like overspending, laying off military personnel, and crony capitalisim. Let me be clear. Parents know better than their children. Therefore I as your President, will do anything to hold onto power till the course I have laid...

President Obama released his FY 2013 budget [Monday] morning. By his own numbers, his budget raises net taxes over the next decade by $1.56 trillion (Table S-9, page 225). As a percentage of the economy, tax revenues would rise all the way to 20.1% of GDP in 2022, far higher than the historical tax revenue average of 18.3% of GDP (Table S-1, page 205). Here are some of the tax lowlights: All 20 of the new or higher taxes in Obamacare are assumed to take place. That means that there will be a 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income....

Obama and his campaign masterminds in Chicago are using the Recall against Gov. Walker in Wisconsin to ensure Obama’s re-election victory! Tea Party Express has been keeping you informed about the Obama Campaign’s covert strategy - it is a dangerous plan that aims to silence conservatives, while promoting Obama’s extreme liberal agenda, and it unfolds in front of us today. . . The White House has announced that Obama will be making a taxpayer-funded campaign trip to Wisconsin where he will take credit for Walker’s success in growing the state’s economy. He will probably go even further since his...

President Obama's proposed 2013 budget contains a decade-long surge of tax hikes that, if approved, would affect everything from income to investment to inheritance. The budget blueprint contains roughly $2 trillion in new taxes and fees. When other tax cuts and credits are counted, the net impact from the proposals is still about $1.5 trillion. Though Republicans already are mounting a vigorous campaign against the proposal, many of the tax provisions still could become law unless Congress takes action to stop them. ,,,, But the budget also imposes various fees, such as a hike in the airline "security fee," as...

Desperate to win re-election, President Obama is taking inspiration from a tactic used by China’s Chairman Mao during so-called "Cultural Revolution."In order to spread his ideology, he creates his own army of brainwashed propagandists who are supposed to popularize talking points sent to them directly from the White House. Modern days hongweibings (Chinese for red guards) are called the Truth Team, and if everything goes as planned, the president will have an army of over two million Americans on his side.The Obama administration unveiled on Monday a campaign created to crush the GOP competition come November, a mission that...

RUSH: I want to move on to this Dick Morris business and the attack on the Catholic Church last week by Obama. I want to ask you, if you remember back in January there was a presidential debate, a Republican debate in Manchester. Do you remember -- 'cause this is a setup for what's coming -- do you remember, we were all perplexed here. George Stephanopoulos kept hounding Romney on contraception. It had not come up, nobody had said anything about it, and we were all confused, as was Romney, what the deal was. Well, it is Dick Morris' theorem...

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Within weeks, the top lawyers in a dozen states may file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s controversial requirement that all insurance plans include access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, the attorney general of Nebraska told LifeSiteNews. Jon Bruning told LifeSiteNews.com that 12 states had signed onto a scathing critique of the mandate and were preparing to take more serious action. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning On Friday, ten state attorneys general addressed a scathing letter to President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis....

Two months after successfully marshaling public support to extend a payroll tax cut for all Americans, President Obama today is attempting to do it again. At the White House this morning, Obama will showcase supporters who were among the thousands that spoke out online and over social media in December to pressure Congress to compromise. But the deal was only temporary. Taxes will rise on 160 million Americans at the end of the month unless lawmakers act again, and congressional negotiators remain at impasse. “Your voices changed the debate and reminded Washington what was at stake,” Obama says in a...

The Obama Administration claims their new budget contains $2.50 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. Their 2.5:1 ratio is bogus. The President’s team is (1) playing a timeframe game and (2) counting interest savings from tax increases as spending cuts. The President’s team is playing at least two games to generate their 2.5:1 ratio: They are cherry-picking their timeframe to make the ratio look at high as possible; and They are counting all interest savings as spending cuts. Why did they start measuring in January 2011? Because that was the start of the Republican Congress, because last...

President Barack Obama unveiled his budget proposal at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va., Monday morning, saying, “The main idea in the budget in this: At a time when our economy is growing and creating jobs at a faster clip, we’ve got to do everything in our power to keep this recovery on track." He said his proposals would “invest in the things that will help grow our economy right now. We can’t cut back on those things that are important for us to grow. We can’t just cut our way into growth. We can cut back on the

Did you see President Obama's new 2013 budget? It's filled with $1.5 trillion in tax increases for the rich. It appears that the president and his leftist cabal believe we are all stupid. They believe if you tell enough lies, the lies become fact. They spend all day, every day, trying to convince Americans that taxes on the rich are too low. The reality is taxes are not low at all. If you think they are, you've either been brainwashed, or you aren't paying taxes. The truth is: The taxes are too damn high. We do have a serious problem...

President Barack Obama is hailing pay-as-you-go budget legislation he signed Friday night as one in a series of crucial steps needed to snap Washington out of a destructive pattern of overspending. “Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else,” Obama said in his radio and Internet address released Saturday morning. “After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard...

President Obama sent Congress a $3.8T budget proposal Monday that he says is a “reflection of shared responsibility” and aims to pour billions of dollars in increased spending into the down economy to inject some immediate life there. Appearing at Northern Virginia Community College, Obama — who continued to hammer home his policies aimed at helping the middle class — said that while the budget he put forward included “some difficult cuts,” it aims to help the economic recovery accelerate. “The economy is growing stronger, recovery is speeding up and the last thing we can afford to do right now...

President Obama's re-election team on Monday rolled out a campaign to recruit two million supporters to help debunk attacks on the president's record and hit back at his Republican rivals. Called the "Truth Team," the new effort will engage Obama supporters online and in person, encouraging them to communicate with undecided voters about the president's record. "People don't just want to hear from campaign statements or ads -- they want to hear from the family and friends they trust," Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Obama's deputy campaign manager, wrote in an email to supporters. Obama for America, the president's re-election team, will...

You have to hand it to Barack Obama. He has unmasked in the most thoroughgoing way the despotic propensities of the administrative entitlements state and of the Democratic Party. And now he has done something similar to the hierarchy of the American Catholic Church. At the prospect that institutions associated with the Catholic Church would be required to offer to their employees health insurance covering contraception and abortifacients, the bishops, priests, and nuns scream bloody murder. But they raise no objection at all to the fact that Catholic employers and corporations, large and small, owned wholly or partially by Roman...

Americans don't want a king — which was as true in 1776 as it is today.If George Washington had not been sitting in the room, it’s likely many of the delegates to the federal convention of 1787 would have supported a multi-executive model for the new Constitution, rather than a solitary president. After all, just upstairs in the Pennsylvania State House where they met that summer was the chamber where the Pennsylvania executive council met, led by a president who they changed annually. But Washington’s unquestioned integrity, submission to civilian rule over the military, and willingness to lay down his...

(Reuters) - Airlines and their passengers would pay up to $32 billion in new air traffic and security fees over 10 years, and grants to big airports would fall sharply under White House budget proposals on Monday aimed at deficit reduction. The Obama administration wants major carriers, their passengers, business jets and airports to pick up more of the costs of air travel and airport improvements that for years have been borne by taxpayers. New fees are sure to trigger strong opposition from airlines and other aviation groups who argue that the industry is already over-taxed and over-regulated. Ideas quietly...

The federal debt has increased by $4.47 trillion since President Barack Obama released his first federal budget on Feb. 26, 2009. That budget was entitled, “A New Era of Responsibility.” On Feb. 26, 2009, as Obama released his budget for fiscal 2010, the national debt stood at $10.88 trillion (10,881,159,722,022.36). At the close of business on Feb. 9, 2012, the national debt stood at $15.36 trillion ($15,355,838,921,022.16). That represents an increase in the debt of $4.47 trillion ($4,474,679,198,999.80).

Twenty-five Notre Dame faculty members--led by the university’s top ethics expert, and including some of the school’s most eminent scholars--have signed a statement declaring that President Barack Obama’s latest version of his administration’s mandate that all health insurance plans in the United States must cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions, is “a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand." The statement—put out on the letterhead of the University of Notre Dame Law School--is also signed by leading scholars from other major American colleges and universities, including Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, Brigham Young, Yeshiva and...

Although Barack Obama is the first black President of the United States, he is by no means unique, except for his complexion. He follows in the footsteps of other presidents with a similar vision, the vision at the heart of the Progressive movement that flourished a hundred years ago. Many of the trends, problems and disasters of our time are a legacy of that era. We can only imagine how many future generations will be paying the price — and not just in money — for the bright ideas and clever rhetoric of our current administration. The two giants...

Obama Reelection Campaign Trying To Make Him “Cool” Again… Barack Obama had all the 2008 cool. Now he’s trying to get at least some of it back. A video of Hollywood A-listers singing a Will.i.am song about him, a Shepard Fairey painting with “HOPE” beaming in bold letters beneath his face, constant buzz on social media — the Obama cultural phenomenon four years ago lit up the youth vote like no campaign before. So as the president gears up for a reelection run that’s going to struggle with independents and moderates, his team is looking to revive the cool appeal...

While I understand that only a fraction of the population of this nation is directly affected by what you are about to read, I would never-the-less like to remind you that the remainder of the population is affected coincidentally. While the majority of the American population probably never even considered the Armed Forces as a possible career objective, there are those who never considered life without serving their country, in uniform, on a field of combat. Most of these young men and women never take the time to internalize some idealized vision of charging death for God and Country,

President Barack Obama tried to console frustrated supporters by placing blame for the slow pace of change on the nation’s “founding fathers.” “You and I know what needs to be done to bring social justice to every American,” the President observed. “But our enemies in Congress and the states are exploiting loopholes left in the Constitution by our nation’s early leaders. The requirement that laws must be approved by both houses of Congress enables obstructionists to block the mandate I received from voters in 2008. The autonomy granted the states under the Tenth Amendment insulates them from total compliance with...

Lest we forget: http://offgridblogger.wordpress.com/

President Obama has created a new commission charged with promoting "global development" -- a move that comes as the Middle East continues to churn with uprisings rooted in the Arab Spring. The Global Development Council, created by executive order, will be administered by USAID, the agency that provides economic and humanitarian aid abroad. The panel appears to be an effort to come up with a more focused strategy toward working with other countries in a new era of upheaval. The council would bring together representatives from nonprofit advocacy groups and charities, as well as colleges and businesses. The secretary of...

Obama's Trampling On God's Turf Now Patrick J. Buchanan 02/10/2012 Yes, Virginia, there is a religious war going on. It is for the soul of America. And traditional Christianity is besieged. In a January visit to the Vatican, American bishops were warned by Benedict XVI that "radical secularism" posed "grave threats" to their Catholic faith. Your religious freedom is being circumscribed, said the pope. The U.S. government may seek to force you to collaborate in what are "intrinsically evil practices." No sooner had the bishops returned home than President Obama instructed them that, under Obamacare, all Catholic schools, hospitals, orphanages,...

"The edict President Barack Obama passed down today—that every health-care plan in America must pay for sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions--is an act of tyranny. To individual American Catholics, and those who share the Catholic religious and moral conviction that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are wrong, Obama said: I am ordering you to buy a health insurance plan that violates the teachings of your faith and your conscience."

A top official with the National Rifle Association said Friday that President Obama will move to "destroy" gun rights and "erase" the Second Amendment if he is re-elected in November. While delivering one of the liveliest and best-received speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the president's low-key approach to gun rights during his first term was "a "conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep." "All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his...

Now on Cavuto. Obama struck-out twice as badly as before on mandating contraception coverage for religious institutions. First, analysis. Pat Caddell indicates that Obama is in twice the trouble he was yesterday with religious groups, esp. Catholics. Today's decree from Obama just doubles-down on mandating that Catholic organizations offer contraception to all its members. Organizations are pissed! Second, business. Insurance companies are outraged that they now have to pay for universal contraceptive coverage without ever even being asked. This just drives the insurance companies farther from the Libs/Dems. Third, religion. Mons. Jim Lisante on Cavuto. He says the Church is...

...In the scenario addressed by the Obama administration’s cockamamie “compromise,” religious organization employer (call it “A”) wishes to purchase health insurance from B insurance company for C, its employees, but not cover birth-control services that violate A’s religious principles and that the First Amendment protects A from having to subsidize. Obama is telling A that it can pay B and that the payments will not cover birth control services for C; he is then telling B to cover the birth-control services for C — but only because A is making the payments. A is thus deceived by Obama’s representations into...

WASHINGTON (AP) — All of a sudden, abortion, contraception and gay marriage are at the center of American political discourse, with the struggling — though improving — economy pushed to the background. Social issues don't typically dominate the discussion in shaky economies. But they do raise emotions important to factors like voter turnout. And they can be key tools for political candidates clamoring for attention, campaign cash or just a change of subject in an election year. "The public is reacting to what it's hearing about," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. In a political season, he...

Today, the Obama administration hastily called a press conference to announce a change to its HHS mandate for employers to cover contraception at no cost, including religious organizations whose doctrines oppose contraception and abortifacients. Instead of religious organizations footing the bill directly, the revised "accommodation" now says that insurers must cover the costs, which changes --- nothing: The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost. The revised mandate will have religious employers refer women to their insurance company for coverage that still violates...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I'm realizing some of you might not a-heard it if the local EIB affiliates cut away to cover the president who also appeared shortly after this program began. And one of the themes my opening comments was reacting to everywhere I'm seeing in the media that Obama finally backed down. "Obama caved. Yes, he did! We talked him back down. He no longer... He can't tell the Catholic Church what to do. Obama got the message. Obama, he's slinking away in shame." I said, "No, he's not," and no, he did not cave in any way, shape,...

CONGRESSMAN PLEDGES INVESTIGATION, SEES PATTERN OF OBAMA ADMINISTRATION FAILING TO AID U.S. ALLIES The Obama administration rebuffed a senior Chinese police official in southern China who sought to defect, turning him away after his presence became known to Chinese security forces. An administration official familiar with China affairs said the botched defection of Wang Lijun, a vice mayor and chief crime investigator in Chongquing, was mishandled not only by local American officials in China but also by White House and State Department officials in Washington unwilling to upset China by granting Wang refuge in the consulate. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R.,...

Is Rahm Emanuel floating gun control ideas to Obama for use during his “second term?” Does former Presidential advisor and current Chicago machine politics confidante Rahm Emanuel, with his own personal team of bodyguards, really believe that requiring a $65.00 per handgun registration fee every five years for every handgun owned in Illinois will really have any impact on gun crime in Chicago or anywhere in Illinois? Grooming himself for a run at the Governor’s office, Emmanuel claims that such a gun registration scheme will make the streets safer. He even thinks that this registration will cut illegal gun sales....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Everybody's reporting that Obama's caving on this mandate that the Catholic services provide abortion and all. There's not a cave here! There may be an accommodation, but there's no big cave-in here. It's still the government mandating this stuff happen. They're just changing the provider. It's not done by the church. He says he gave them a way out of it by mandating the insurance companies do it, but that's not the point here. Great to have you. It's Friday. Let's go to! JOHNNY DONOVAN: Live from the Left Coast at our satellite studios in Los Angeles,...

The Obama administration will attempt to accommodate religious groups that are unhappy with a new mandate that forces them to offer health insurance that covers contraceptive methods. With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House — possibly President Obama himself — will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups. The move, based on state models, will almost certainly not satisfy bishops and other religious leaders since it will preserve the goal...

WASHINGTON, February 10, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The White House announced today that, instead of forcing religious employers to pay for birth control, it will force insurance companies to offer the drugs free of charge to all women, no matter where they work. The plan, touted as a concession to freedom of religion and conscience, was immediately denounced by pro-life Rep. Chris Smith. “The so-called new policy is the discredited old policy, dressed up to look like something else,. said Smith. .It remains a serious violation of religious freedom. Only the most naï or gullible would accept this as a change...

When Barack Obama entered office in January, 2009, the labor force participation rate was 65.7%, meaning nearly two-thirds of working age Americans were working or looking for work. When the recession supposedly officially ended in June, 2009, the labor force participation rate was still 65.7%. In the latest, much celebrated, unemployment report, the labor force participation rate had plummeted to 63.7%, the most rapid decline in U.S. history. That means that under President Obama nearly 5 million Americans have fled the workforce in hopeless despair. The trick is that when those 5 million are not counted as in the work...

Even the worst of presidents cannot stop the best of times, and it's beginning to look as if an unprecedented energy boom just might save President Barack Obama's re-election, despite his undying efforts to thwart energy development. He's worked hard at it, you know, and few things I've read sum it up better than a Wall Street Journal article by Stephen Moore. He interviewed Harold Hamm, an oil-company CEO who first discovered the Bakken oil fields in Montana and North Dakota, which was a bit like discovering gold in California in the 19th century but more than that. This is...