Free Republic

Some have called it the worst summer ever. This may or may not include the summer when an asteroid crashed near the Yucatan peninsula, almost extinguishing life on earth. But, with Labor Day past and the kids going back to school, it's time to reflect on the summer of 2014.

Obama administration officials claim they had to bypass congressional oversight and rush a deal because of concerns about Bergdahl's health and "a window of opportunity." That window, and the hurried nature of events, was almost certainly Barack Obama's current trip to Europe.

A Russian intelligence-gathering ship has been operating off the U.S. East Coast and near the Gulf of Mexico for the past month, the Pentagon said Thursday. “We are aware that the Russian ships Viktor Leonov and Nikolay Chiker are currently operating in waters that are beyond U.S. territorial seas but near Cuba,” said Lt. Col. Tom Crosson, a Pentagon spokesman. “We respect the freedom of all nations, as reflected in international law, to operate military vessels beyond the territorial seas of other nations.” The Leonov is an intelligence gathering ship outfitted with high-tech electronic spying gear. The Chiker is an...

For far too long, opponents of the Affordable Care Act focused on a malfunctioning website, which is akin to complaining that a guillotine's blade isn't sharp enough. The process doesn't really matter, if folks end up with their heads on platters. Even as Barack Obama does a NASCAR-like victory lap, claiming 8 million enrollees, there are ominous portents for his multi-trillion-dollar "signature" program. Mr. Obama might want to check the lug nuts before he spins another donut. Early reports show that folks signing up for health insurance through ACA exchanges are less healthy than expected, and that the high cost...

A review of Barack Obama's statements shows that Barack Obama Tuesday night lied to the American people, live on nationwide TV, about his response to the attack in Libya. In perhaps the debate's most heated exchanged, Obama claimed that the day after U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi he called the attack on the U.S. consulate "an act of terror." He did not. (Snip.) His was a carefully parsed, umbrella statement. It does not declare that the Benghazi attack actually was an act of terror. Instead it merely espouses general platitudes about "acts of terror."

Think the deck for Tuesday's town hall debate might have been stacked? The firm hired to select the audience asking questions is under pressure from the Obama Justice Department, and some observers suggest may have already succumbed to that bullying.

Democrats convened in Charlotte, NC, will double down on their claim that Bain Capital is really the Bain crime family. They will accuse Republican nominee Mitt Romney and Bain’s other “greedy” co-founders of stealing their winnings, evading taxes and lighting cigars with $100 bills on their yachts. But Bain’s private-equity executives have enriched dozens of organizations and millions of individuals in the Democratic base — including some who scream most loudly for President Obama’s re-election. Government-worker pension funds are the chief beneficiaries of Bain’s economic stewardship.

First, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy last month endorsed a biblical definition of marriage, thrusting the chain in the middle of the debate on gay marriage. Supporters came out in droves to its stores on Aug. 1, driving records sales, according to Chick-fil-A. Now, San Antonio’s Whataburger Restaurants LLC is taking a stand of a different note by suing one of the country’s largest debt collections agencies.

In a move that could have chilling First Amendment consequences, the Obama regime this week showed that it's willing to use the full weight and power of the Justice Department to pummel any media outlet that doesn't toe the party line. Within days of the Gallup Organization issuing, essentially, a veiled warning to the Obama gang about tinkering with unemployment numbers, Obama's DOJ jumped, jackboots first, into a multi-million dollar legal action against Gallup, in a case initiated by a former Obama operative.

The Gallup Organization had some bad news for Barack Obama on Friday. It's not that Obama fell behind Mitt Romney by two points in Gallup's daily tracking poll, although that couldn't have helped the the O-Team's spirits heading into the weekend. Between now and the election, polls are likely to be less stable than Joe Biden's thought process. The really bad news for the Chicago mob is that Gallup's unemployment survey shows the Obama economy is getting even worse. Gallup reported an uptick in joblessness in their latest survey of 30,000 households.

Swimmer Ryan Lochte claimed the first gold medal for U.S. athletes at the London Olympics on Saturday. But Barack Obama has a message for Lochte, and other American medal winners: You didn't win that.

Declining jobless numbers, sprouting lately from the Obama administration like so many spring crocuses, have left even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve puzzled over figures that are "out of sync" with the overall economy.

Just when you thought the Obama-Kool-Aid-swilling media couldn't sink any further into their foul muck, along comes ersatz expert-on-everything and Obama sycophant Fareed Zakaria. Attempting to defend Obama's imperious effort to force Israel back inside its indefensible pre-1967 borders, Zakaria has tried to link Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with a central figure in one of the most vicious anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli regimes in history.

It could be argued that Osama bin Laden is roasting in hell right now largely despite, not because of, Barack Obama. Had Obama gotten his way, the world would likely have watched a far different spectacle play out in lower Manhattan on Thursday: the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, rather than an Obama photo-op, 'spiking the football' at the death of Osama bin Laden.

As many as 100,000 Americans who lost their jobs, or will soon, because of GM and Chrysler dealership closings can thank Barack Obama and his "mandate for shared sacrifice," according to a top Obama official. In a scathing report on the federal auto industry bailout, Special Inspector General Neil M. Barofsky notes that the Obama administration rejected initial automaker plans which would have required relatively minimal dealership closings, insisting instead on far more drastic cuts -- as many as two thousand dealerships between the two corporations. (snip) And Barofsky's report even questions whether the closures would lead to any real...

Sure, it sounds like a trick question. Or the setup line for a joke: Why do ethics cost more in the Obama White House? - Because they're so hard to find. But the question is one of many that spring to mind after reviewing the most recent list of White House salaries.

The video of New Jersey teachers drilling schoolchildren to chant paeans to "Barack Hussein Obama"--adult Obamatons training impressionable children to become little Obamatons--proves that conservatives were right to oppose Barack Obama's nationwide speech to school children... But what was apparent then, and the New Jersey video proves now, is that Obama's unfettered direct access to students was part of an effort to inculcate a cult of personality about Obama. After all, Obama was elected primarily because the media worshipped at the cult they created around him. Well, that and about a billion of George Soros's dollars. 'Hope' and 'change' being...

The Democrats' Big Media comrades are circling around South Carolina's representative Joe Wilson like vultures over fresh road kill. When Barack Obama claimed during his Wednesday night set piece that his health industry power grab would not cover illegal aliens, Wilson shouted, "You lie!" In doing so, Wilson showed unusual common sense in noticing that the emperor's clothes seemed somewhat lacking, but he also showed....

You can bet your grandma's iron lung that under ObamaCare neither she nor you nor I will receive the end-of-life care provided to Kennedy... Democrats have proposed that health care reform legislation be named after Kennedy, to memorialize his voluminous efforts for nationalized health care. If so, conservatives should take note of another, darkly appropriate chapter of Kennedy's life and demand that any end-of-life provisions be called the Mary Jo Kopechne Rider.

U.S. Brewers Say Meeting With Professor, Policeman Should Be All-American Affair The president's plan to toss back a few cold ones with some high-profile guests at the White House has the American beer industry hopping mad. This afternoon, Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor and race-relations expert, and James Crowley, the police sergeant who controversially arrested Mr. Gates, are to stop by for a round of brews that President Barack Obama hopes will promote racial comity. The meeting is raising some sensitive issues, such as: What kind of beer? Late Wednesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs hinted the presidential...