Free Republic

Nearly six months ago, President Obama sought to temper outrage over the nation's mushrooming surveillance programs by pledging new steps to balance privacy and safety. "It's not enough for me, as president, to have confidence in these programs," he said. "The American people need to have confidence in them as well." In other words, no government, not even one led by a liberal constitutional lawyer, can shield bad policies with empty promises. It's not enough to say, "Trust us," while curbing sacred liberties -- and yet that still appears to be Obama's position. [snip]Embracing "the spirit of reform" is euphemism...

President Obama has problems with credibility, as the world well knows after he disingenuously insisted, “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan” about two dozen times in public. [snip] During a Senate committee hearing Jan. 23, 2013, when asked what caused the death of four Americans in Benghazi, Clinton responded indignantly, “At this point, what difference does it make?” WND asked King if he had an answer for her. “The reason it makes a difference, Hillary Clinton, is because this administration lied to the American people. Her voice was one of those voices that...

How about a bailout for the American people from ObamaCare? Check it out:Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to ( health insurance companies)—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers.For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature of...

[snip] Invoking predecessors Thomas Jefferson and Timothy M. Kaine, his good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton standing directly behind him, McAuliffe promised transparency and a renewed commitment to finding consensus in a GOP-dominated state Capitol.

[snip]The federal government will recognize the marriages of same-sex couples performed in Utah during a brief period in which same-sex marriages were allowed, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday. “I am confirming today that, for purposes of federal law, these marriages will be recognized as lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same-sex marriages,” Holder said in a <"http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/10/obama-administration-to-recognize-utah-same-sex-marriages/">( video statement). On Dec. 20, federal District Judge Robert Shelby struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages. Monday, the Supreme Court halted new same-sex marriages pending Utah’s appeal of Shelby’s decision. Between Dec....

Suppose you're President Obama. Who would be your ideal candidate to head up the Justice Department's investigation into IRS targeting of conservative groups? How about someone who gave thousands of dollars to your senate campaign as well as your presidential races? The confidence that the president and AG Holder have in the press ignoring this IRS "investigation" must be so great that they simply don't care who knows that it's set up to be a whitewash.[snip] Bosserman donated a combined $6,750 to President Obama's election campaigns and the Democratic National Committee between 2004 and 2012, according to federal campaign finance...

CompleteColorado.com reports that emails show U.S. Senator Mark Udall's (D-CO) office pressured the Colorado Division of Insurance to downplay the number of insurance cancellations caused by the rollout of ObamaCare. A full 249,199 Colorado citizens were victimized by ObamaCare's cancellations. According to the emails, Udall's office hoped to change the definition of a "cancellation" as a way to lower the number. All of this occurred late last year as the storm around cancellations was (engulfing Democrats and the president.) From an email inside the Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI), Director of External Affairs Jo Donlin bluntly stated to her colleagues:...

Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of impoverished people in the U.S. has declined only slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama. [snip] Although the president often rails against income inequality in America, his policies have had little impact overall on poverty. A record 47 million Americans receive food stamps, about 13 million more than when he took office.

With the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program facing a bleak future in the Democratic-controlled Senate, President Obama is taking the lead in pressuring Congress to temporarily restore benefits for the 1.3 million long-term unemployed Americans who were cut off when the program (Long-term unemployed face life without emergency benefits) on Dec. 28.Mr. Obama will continue a public show of support for an extension in a speech Tuesday, where he will be accompanied by Americans who have lost their benefits. In addition those who have already been dropped from the program, 1.9 million Americans will lose benefits in the next six...

Have you picked up your free Ready for Hillary bumper sticker yet? Please take a moment to read this special message from General Wes Clark. Ready For Hillary PAC is solely responsible for the content of this message. Grassroots movements happen when neighbors talk to neighbors and tell them to get involved.

A snow day; Christmas dinner -- anytime is the right time to concentrate on health insurance, the Obama administration says. Particularly if you’re young and healthy. On Friday evening, at the end of a “snow day” in the Northeastern United States, the Health and Human Services Department posted the following “get covered” reminder aimed at the Facebook crowd:

There was a great article at the Save America Foundation recently. The author does a great job detailing the collusion of big government and the media as they attempt to give the impression that Obamacare is a colossal success. While it can be argued that many people are awakening to the totalitarian nature of the ACA, it can also be said that the fight for restoring liberty is about to take an ugly turn. In this article, David Mckalip points to the facts that a refusal to enroll in Obamacare is now being portrayed as unpatriotic, selfish and a failure...

Obama lied? We could start an Obama lie of the day site. Check it out: Cato education scholar Neal McCluskey revealed how a little-reported feature of the Affordable Care Act uses shady accounting to hide its overall cost. “The change in student loans was part of Obamacare — and why was it part of Obamacare?” McCluskey said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller. “So that the profit they were supposedly making from the student loans could then be plugged into how much money would come from Obamacare, so it didn’t look like it cost as much.” In the...

Truth to tell, The Scrapbook has gotten as good a laugh as anyone out of the saga of John C. Beale, the retired Environmental Protection Agency official—Princeton grad, onetime deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation, congressionally certified expert on global warming—who has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for stealing nearly a million dollars from the federal government. As often happens, Mr. Beale began his life of crime on a modest scale: padding expense accounts, arranging first-class travel for himself (at EPA expense), and taking off one day a week—allegedly on government business—to relax at...

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged Congress to quickly pass an extension of federal jobless aid. The former New York senator took to Twitter to reflect on her part in helping to extend a similar program a decade ago.[snip] Clinton has sporadically weighed in on the news of the day since leaving the State Department. During the government shutdown in October, she criticized lawmakers who govern by ideology for pushing the government from crisis to crisis. ,p . Jobless benefits for nearly 1.3 million people expired Saturday after Congress left the extensions of long-term unemployment aid out of a budget agreement...

A&E has placed Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson on indefinite hiatus following anti-gay remarks he made in a recent profile in GQ. [snip} The news comes after Robertson compared homosexuality to bestiality in an interview with the magazine. He'll likely appear in season four, which bows Jan. 15, since production is largely wrapped.

<p>John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a trusted Democratic operative, will join the White House staff as a senior counselor to President Barack Obama, two persons familiar with the move said late Monday.</p> <p>Podesta will take his place at the White House at a critical time for Obama as his health care law tries to shake itself off from a disastrous enrollment rollout and as the president seeks to re-establish his agenda going into a midterm election year.</p>

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai lashed out at the United States, accusing it of making threats in the dispute over an agreement to keep U.S. troops in the country beyond 2014.

Shhh! Don't talk about this. If you do, gay activists such as San Francisco city official Theresa Sparks and author Chris Stedman will condemn you for being "Islamophobic."[snip]The mujahideen of Tatarstan (Bulgaria-Russia) region have warned of "some surprises" during the 2014 European tour of British singer-songwriter Elton John, according to a jihadi forum. The Pakistan-based Jhuf.net republished a letter from Abu Umar, who is described as the representative of the "Mujahideen of the Emirate of Bulgaristan [Tatarstan]", warning against Elton John's visit to Kazan.

Many of our Soldiers in Afghanistan are required to carry this paper in a pocket at all times. Troops are expected to memorize the talking points and cough them up to any journalists coming through. We decided to help headquarters spread their message. Many complaints about poor morale are coming from Afghanistan. Most troops are kept on base, where they undergo mindless inspections and even small ‘parades’, and of course rocket and mortar strikes. It has been estimated that in 2014, the cost to taxpayers to keep one troop in Afghanistan for one year will be more than $2 million....