Free Republic

In the months and weeks leading up to the election, I had been thinking about the situation this country is in by likening it to being on a crashing plane. On the one hand, we had the current pilot who wasn’t able to control the plane, and the fact that it was crashing was due in large part to his piloting incompetence. On the other hand, we had a passenger who had a great deal of piloting experience, who was volunteering to take the controls. In his previous piloting experience, this volunteer had saved another plane from crashing. If we...

Given the situation in the Middle East–four murdered American citizens, U.S. embassies and consulates attacked, embassy staffers desperately issuing an apologia for American values–one might think that Obama might settle down and do some actual Presidentin’, to calm the storm and slow the rising waters, so to speak. But one would be wrong, of course. Charlie Sperling of the Washington Examiner highlighted an interesting quote from an interview Obama did Wednesday night with CBS. His statement make it clear that he is now trying to rewrite his administration’s initial reaction to the Arab “Sprung”. “[The Embassy statement] didn’t come from...

Do not buy into the narrative:“Well, President Obama inherited the largest set of problems of any president in history, perhaps except FDR and maybe Abraham Lincoln…” (Wasserman-Schultz) “…Obama reiterated that he had inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression…” (Robert Reich) The excuse of inheriting a bad situation is simply another false narrative being foisted upon the public by those who ought to know better (and undoubtedly do). Barack Obama sought the job of the Presidency with his eyes wide open. It doesn’t matter what he inherited. He knew he was going to inherit it. He wanted it. He...

As you probably know by now, the House of Representatives will vote this afternoon to determine whether U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is in contempt of Congress for obstruction of the Oversight Committee’s Fast and Furious investigation. While those on the left are trying to spin this vote as election year politicking, the fact remains that it was Mr. Holder’s choice to refuse to produce requested documents for more than a year, stonewalling on every demand. Of course he ended up hiding under the umbrella of that ultimate refuge, President Obama’s grant of Executive Privilege. For me, this is the...

So once again we have a president blaming his problems on nefarious figures who work in the shadows (see also Bill Clinton’s Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy): "Shadowy conservative groups pledge $1 billion to take down the President..."Courtesy of conservatives on Twitter, we now have a wonderful hashtag of all those #ShadowyConservativeGroups: Voters with IDsInvestorsBitter ClingersWest Virginia The list goes on , and you can see who many of these shadow figures are on Twitchy (or simply check out the hashtag on Twitter). I must say that Conservatives have truly become the stars of Twitter these days. If you doubt it, just...

In the past few days, the Left has made much of the “war on women” meme being bandied about online. They’ve accused the Right of “inventing” it as a way to tar the Left, decrying any use of the phrase as right-wing smears. (Oh, except poor Joe Biden, who apparently didn’t get the memo.) The latest salvo in this non-existant war on women came after Hilary Rosen commented about candidate Mitt Romney’s wife Ann that she had never worked a day in her life… For a women who raised a family of five boys, this would come as something of...

Now that the dust is settling in the Republican candidate stakes, it looks like Mitt will be our nominee. And I’m fine with that. Really. I am. After four years of President Downgrade, we will need to do some fast damage control if we hope to regain even a bit of our former standing in the world community. With that in mind, I have several suggestions for actions President Romney can take very soon after he is sworn in: 1.Contact someone in England and suggest that, because of the very special relationship that exists between the two countries, we’d really...

Great Bill Whittle video here

Worthwhile video at link, can't embed!

You may already have heard what the First Lady had to say when speaking with David Letterman (David Letterman?) the other night about raising kids in the White House: “For us, it’s the values. The thing that we try to do is make sure — the residence is on the second and the third floor of the White House. And what we want to have happen is when they get off that elevator and walk in to our residence that it feels like the south side of Chicago, the same values, the same rules, the same sense of responsibility…” She...

I was enjoying the response to the MoveOn.org flowchart at iOwnTheWorld when I noticed an advertisement on the sidebar for Alan Grayson. “Put Progressive Champion Alan Grayson back in Congress!” the ad crowed. But given Mr. Grayson’s recent troubles, I took the liberty of modifiyng the ad slightly. Much better!

Who’s Your Buddy?Well, if you’re a member of the US International Longshoremen’s Association, that would be Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Yes, you heard me correctly; an American union (snort) awarded the leader of communist China the title “Best Friend of the American Worker.” China Daily reports: ILA Vice President William McNamara said his association was honored to give the award to Premier Wen to thank China for its great contributions to creating more job opportunities for American workers. The award ceremony coincided with the 10th anniversary of the first direct vessel call to the Port of Boston by China Ocean...

The Lifetime Television Network claims to be for women. Its mission statement claims: Lifetime Networks is a diverse, multi-media company, committed to offering the highest quality entertainment and information programming content that celebrates, entertains and supports women. Through its award-winning public affairs initiatives, the Company also advocates a wide range of issues affecting women and their families. Nowhere in their statement do they mention the well-being of little girls, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that this network would choose to produce an episode of a show called “Dance Moms” in which little girls are basically taught...

Imagine you come upon a child under 10 years old who, along with his friends, is in obvious distress. Now imagine, when you ask that child what you can do to help him, he turns to you and says, with all seriousness, “It is better if you can kill us…” What in the name of all that is holy could cause a child that young so much stress and fear in his life, that given a choice, he would have you kill him as an act of kindness? Meet Jacob, the unsuspecting star of Youtube’s most viral video to date...

It was bound to happen sooner or later. For a crew who uses thug tactics as a matter of course, this should come as no surprise to anyone: "The Obama presidential campaign is launching an effort to collect Republican email addresses by inviting its supporters to submit information about their Republican associates to the Obama 2012 website. The effort in question is found on the Obama campaign donation page, and suggests a little bit of mean-spirited but ultimately innocent fun... Of course, it goes deeper than that. It could be that the Obama campagn wants your email address so that...

President Obama still doesn’t grasp the idea of American exceptionalism. Many of us remember his comment in a press conference in Strasbourg in 2009 when reporter Ed Luce from the Financial Times asked the President about it. Obama’s response: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism…” While not necessarily in response to Obama’s remarks, the inestimable Bill Whittle hit the ball right out of the park with his video on the subject. Clearly, the President doesn’t follow Mr. Whittle, because more than two years...

We’ve all seen the video: The Man (in the form of local police) pepper spraying a long line of apparently peaceful “Occupy” protesters on the campus of University of California-Davis. Of course, you can always count on the usual suspects (in this case, Joy Behar and her Weird Sisters of The View) to leap to a grossly overstated moral equivalence: “A lot of people watching are too young to remember Kent State in this country, where the police shot a couple of students,” observed Behar. “It’s outrageous, this type of behavior cannot be tolerated by the police!” Right. Useful-idiot college...

My long-time friend Giuliana called me from San Diego on Sunday. She mentioned that a friend of her Navy SEAL husband stationed at Coronado Island had tickets to a very special NCAA basketball game that was played on the Aircraft Carrier USS Carl Vinson out in San Diego on Veterans’ Day. You may recall that it was the USS Carl Vinson that handled the disposal at sea of Osama Bin-Laden’s body recently. She was told that because the tickets were for “special VIP” seats, she would be subjected to an intensive background check. Why a background check for an NCAA...

A friend and I were having a discussion last week, and politics crept in, as it usually does. It was a robust conversation, with attempted comparisons between the current Occupy “rallies” and the Tea Parties (he considered them at least somewhat if not heavily fringe), and concerns about the crop of Republican candidates, with particular attention given to Michelle Bachmann. My friend (let’s call him “Robert”) ultimately had to leave, but I subsequently sent him an email with links to information he was bound to find interesting and which would no doubt change his point of view about the Tea...