Free Republic

Ronald Reagan, together with Margaret Thatcher, stood up to Moscow, and brought the Soviet Empire to its knees. In contrast, Barack Obama has gone on his knees to grovel before the Russians. The exchange between President Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Seoul was a display of supplication before a major strategic adversary on an issue of great importance for US national security – missile defence. -excerpt- Barack Obama’s comments are disturbing on several levels. First, they display a willingness to placate America’s enemies, and cede ground over issues of national interest. Second, Obama is linking foreign policy...

Have you ever heard of the "L" Prize? The Department of Energy's (DOE) "L" Prize challenged the lighting industry to develop high performance, energy-saving replacements for conventional light bulbs that will save American consumers and businesses money. Initiated in 2008 during the George W. Bush administration, DOE's first "L" Prize category was the 60-watt bulb because it is one of the most widely used types of light bulbs by consumers. The "L" Prize was meant to hasten manufacturers' production of more efficient light bulbs in order to ease the transition away from inefficient incandescent light bulbs to more efficient Compact...

What does a Koran cost? You can get a full color one for the Kindle for only 99 cents, just don't expect it to feature any pictures of old Mo. If you want to go deluxe, you can get a hardcover edition that runs three different translations side by side for around 40 bucks. But if you want to be more practical about it, the price of a Koran is the lives of six American soldiers. That butcher's bill doesn't count the soldiers who burned the Korans, who despite following procedure will be penalized on orders of the White House...

The Energy Department isn’t working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe. Instead, DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget. But Americans need relief now, Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) said — not high gasoline prices that could eventually push them to alternatives. “I can’t look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration the...

<p>Some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay will soon have a new, larger soccer field to help keep them occupied...</p> <p>The U.S. military has nearly completed a new recreation yard in Camp 6, the camp where more than 80 percent of the 171 prisoners are held. Besides a soccer field, it will have a walking trail and exercise equipment. Screened fences block the view of the nearby Caribbean Sea.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration plans a rule change to help reduce the time illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from citizen relatives while they try to win legal status in the United States, a senior administration official said Thursday. Currently, illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission. The official said the new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask...

WASHINGTON – A radical jihadist group responsible for nearly 50 attacks on American soil is operating 35 terrorist training camps across the nation, but the U.S. government refuses to include the organization on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists.Jamaat ul-Fuqra, known in the U.S. as “Muslims of America,” has purchased or leased hundreds of acres of property – from New York to California – in which the leader, Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, boasts of conducting “the most advanced training courses in Islamic military warfare.”

About the only people having a Happy New Year in the Muslim world aren't the Christians who are huddling and waiting out the storm, but the Islamists who use a different calendar but are having the best time of their lives since the last Caliphate. The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking up carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia's elections, Turkey's Islamist AKP Party purged the...

A couple of days ago Conunderground.com was the first to point out that the circumstances surrounding the “crash” of the top secret RQ170 Sentinel drone simply didn’t add up. And we were tight! The story continues to develop and it doesn’t look good! To recap, first we were told that Iran might’ve shot it down and then the story changed to “the drone crashed on Iranian soil ” After realizing that the Iranians were about to parade a perfectly functional drone with nary a scratch on it, the official story changed to “the drone landed because it wants to live”...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to make a statement to reporters Monday after the deficit-cutting supercommittee announced that it had failed to reach an agreement.

It is arguably the job of any U.S. President to be our cheerleader-in-chief. That’s why President Obama’s recent comments blasting the business community for being asleep at the switch have the rest of the country reeling. “We’ve been a little bit lazy over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — ‘Well, people would want to come here’ — and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America,” he told the corporate chiefs who gathered at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. But with millions of Americans out of...

“Congressional Republicans are trying to expand the scope of questions over the disastrous ATF gun-sting operation ‘Fast and Furious’ to Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano, asking her why she never investigated even after suspected guns showed up at the scene of a dead U.S. Border Patrol agent,” The Washington Times reports. “Napolitano responded that her immediate concern was finding the killers of Agent Brian Terry and that she didn't know until the spring of this year that there were indications his death involved weapons that were part of the federal gun trafficking probe,” Politico explains. The first day of...

Axelrod On CNN: Republicans May Be Trying To Tear Down The Economy On Purposeby Josh Feldman | 4:25 pm, October 30th, 2011 On CNN’s State of the Union today, former Obama advisor David Axelrod expressed his frustration on Congressional inaction on many important issues related to the economy and, more specifically, the inability of Republicans to come together with the president on issues they normally agree with. Candy Crowley highlighted a quote from White House Chief of Staff William Daley, saying in part that the Republicans and Democrats have been going at it and making it hard for President Obama...

A proposed revision to Freedom of Information Act rules would allow federal agencies to lie to citizens and reporters seeking certain records, telling them the records don’t exist. The Justice Department has proposed the change as part of a large revision of FOIA rules for federal agencies. Specifically, the rule would direct government agencies who are denying a request under an established FOIA exemption to “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist,” rather than citing the relevant exemption. The proposed rule has alarmed government transparency advocates across the political spectrum, who’ve called it “Orwellian” and...

What the mainstream media reports tell you about the "Occupy Boston" protests is, as usual, only part of the story. MassResistance went down last week and found out the rest. We saw a political ideology of communism, socialism and anarchism, with additions of anti-Israel, pro-Muslim, law-breaking, and other radical advocacy. Plus, like so many left-wing venues after a few days, the park they've taken over is now filthy and smells of urine. The "protesters" are portrayed as idealistic young people sacrificing for meaningful change in an economic crisis. But their real goals are more disturbing. The gushing support of them...

BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - The Coast Guard in Boston confirmed that a woman in uniform was harassed and spat upon near Occupy Boston protesters. The woman was walking to the train and said protesters spit on her twice, called her foul names and even threw a water bottle at her. Now, the Coast Guard is warning all staff working on Atlantic Avenue to avoid those protesters while in uniform. Devon Pendleton, a spokesman for Occupy Boston, doesn't believe that those male protestors are actually part of the movement. However, Pendleton wants to be clear, that if protestors are...

As part of its 2012 Diversity Visa program, the U.S. State Department is considering 5,662 applicants from countries deemed ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’ – Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. In 2011, the State Department awarded 2,427 Diversity Visas to people from Iran, Syria and Sudan -- 1,842 for Iran; 553 for Sudan; and 32 for Syria.

High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars. In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad...

Barack Obama’s Department of Justice will ask the Supreme Court to eliminate a long-standing legal precedent that protects religious organizations from government regulations. The department “is going against what almost every court has decided … it has has taken an outlier position,” said Richard Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law & Religion at Emory University. On Wednesday, lawyers will present their oral arguments to the Supreme Court in “Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.” Cheryl Perich taught religion and...

In a conference call this morning with Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, reporters were told the Attorney General in Mexico has confirmed at least 200 murders south of the border happened as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. Eleven crimes in the United States have been linked to Operation Fast and Furious up to this point. Issa said he expects as the investigation in the operation continues, more crimes connected to Fast and Furious will come to light and be exposed. This is not surprising, considering out of 2500 weapons the Obama Justice Department allowed to...

WASHINGTON - "Watch your back," the gun dealer warns the ATF Agent in an audio recording obtained by CBS News. The secretly recorded conversations are between the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation, Andre Howard, and lead case ATF agent Hope MacAllister. Howard owns Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. Secret recordings raise new questions in AFT 'Gunwalker' case As CBS News first reported last February, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to "walk" onto the streets without interdiction into the hands of suspected traffickers for...

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson has revealed a recent document submitted by the Department of Justice to congressional investigators. The document shows that guns linked to Operation Fast and Furious are responsible for at least three more murders in addition to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry: Weapons linked to ATF’s controversial “Fast and Furious” operation have been tied to at least eight violent crimes in Mexico including three murders, four kidnappings and an attempted homicide. According to a letter from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the...

U. S. Border Patrol agents seized six assault rifles, one rocket launcher, a grenade launcher, and three packages of what appeared to be C-4 explosives Tuesday near the Rio Grande. Agents patrolling the river near Fronton spotted a black bag in the brush. Inside, agents found the guns, rocket launcher, grenade launcher and explosives, along with a lower receiver for an assault rifle and 20 ammunition magazines. Too bad the Obama Administration can't blame law abiding gun shop owners in the United States for this one. Why? Because you cannot buy rocket and grenade launchers at their stores.

Weapons linked to ATF's controversial "Fast and Furious" operation have been tied to at least eight violent crimes in Mexico including three murders, four kidnappings and an attempted homicide. According to a letter from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the disclosed incidents may be only a partial list of violent crimes linked to Fast and Furious weapons because "ATF has not conducted a comprehensive independent investigation." When added to the guns found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in the U.S., the newly-revealed murders in...

Fox News is reporting that a third gun apparently found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was linked to Operation Fast and Furious, but its existence may have been deliberately concealed by the FBI to protect the identity of an informant “who works inside a major Mexican cartel.” That informant, according to the report by Fox reporter William Lajuenesse, “provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry.” This tends to support statements made by Kenneth Melson, former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to congressional investigators in a...

Protesters won’t face U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcementby GARY L. WRIGHT / Charlotte Observer WCNC.com Posted on September 8, 2011 at 6:40 AM CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Mecklenburg jail officials said Wednesday they determined that 10 of 15 protesters arrested at an immigration rally Tuesday are in the country illegally. But the protesters won’t be turned over to federal immigration officials for possible deportation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told jail authorities Wednesday not to put detainers on the protesters, said Julia Rush, the spokeswoman for the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office. The detainers are used to keep defendants in jail while immigration...

The sign on the wall reads “Schoolbook Printing and Storage Warehouse,” but the fact that the double gates in the wall have been crudely ripped off suggests that something more interesting might be inside. It turns out that the only books to be found in any of the three large buildings in the walled compound are manuals — how to fire rocket launchers and wire-guided missiles, among others. The buildings are actually disguised warehouses full of munitions — mortar shells, artillery rounds, anti-tank missiles and more — thousands of pieces of military ordnance that are completely unguarded more than two...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has acknowledged an Indiana dealer’s cooperation in conducting straw purchases at the direction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  Exclusive documents obtained by Gun Rights Examiner show the dealer cooperated with ATF by selling guns to straw purchasers, and that bureau management later asserted these guns were being traced to crimes. From the confidential source providing the documents: The dealer…was sent a "demand letter," based on the number of traces to him, which was retracted after his attorney pointed out they resulted from his cooperation with ATF. (Strangely, he...

See anything different about the two buses? Which bus would you like to ride in? What bus most resembles all that's patriotic and good about America? In 2008, Obama didn't want to wear a flag pin, didn't want to salute the flag-- in 2012 he refuses to have any patriotic symbols on his rolling black menace! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBeqRqOdjGg&feature=player_embedded

“These guns went to ruthless criminals,� Carlos Canino, ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico said in testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday regarding the scandal-plagued Operation Fast and Furious. “It’s alleged that over 2,000 guns were trafficked in this investigation. To put that in context, upon information and belief, the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has approximately 2,500 rangers. That means that as a result of this investigation, the Sinaloa cartel may have received almost as many guns that are needed to arm the entire regiment. Out of these 2,000 weapons, 34 were .50-caliber sniper rifles. That is approximately the number of...

With Friday's vote over, senators quickly moved to vacate the floor. Cars were waiting outside to whisk members to airports to take flights home. Though the Senate was originally scheduled to be in session, Reid, D-Nev., noted that would not be the case and no votes would be taken before Monday afternoon. Reid said that the session wasn't necessary because Obama and Boehner were working on a compromise measure. He said he understands the plan addresses both taxes and revenue, and therefore must originate in the House, giving the Senate no reason to work. Another person hot about the talks...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Libya has become a new source of smuggled weaponry for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday. With eastern Libya largely held by rebels who rose up against Muammar Gaddafi in February, arms were being brought across the border, through neighboring Egypt, to the Islamist Hamas-ruled territory, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said. "Weapons are available in Libya as a result of the unstable situation there, and Hamas has exploited it to buy weapons from Libyan smugglers," he told foreign journalists in a briefing, without elaborating on the kind of munitions involved.

ATF Acting Director Ken Melson's testimony shows just how far the DOJ has gone to impede the investigation and to protect political appointees.Attorney General Eric Holder continues to duck responsibility for Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed more than 2,500 weapons, including thousands of AK-47 variants and .50 caliber sniper rifles, across the Mexican border and into the hands of the cartels. The weapons were used to murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and an estimated 150 Mexican nationals. In May of this year, Holder was called to testify in front of Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Committee on Oversight...

ISTANBUL — The United States formally recognized the rebel leadership in Libya as the country’s legitimate government on Friday, allowing the rebel government access to $30 billion in Libyan assets held in the United States. It is not yet clear how and when the money would be released. Enlarge This Image Osman Orsal/Reuters Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton attended the meeting on Libya in Istanbul on Friday. Multimedia TimesCast | Libyan Rebels Recognized Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at an international gathering held to discuss the Libyan conflict...

(CNSNews.com) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.” The administration’s plan to raise the tax rate on small businesses is part of its plan to raise taxes on all Americans who make more than $250,000 per year—including businesses that file taxes the same way individuals and families do. [........] “We're not doing it because we want to do it, we're doing it because we see no alternative to a balanced approach to reduce our...

Over at the Lawfare blog, Jack Goldsmith has some thoughts on the Obama administration’s war powers argument. Whatever you think of the War Powers Act, Goldsmith’s second point is of particular interest: The Administration argues that its operation is legitimated and limited by the U.N. Security Council Resolution. It does not really explain why it thinks this. But in any event, the “no danger to troops” theory, combined with the heavy reliance on the Security Council Resolution, suggest that the Administration is creating a principle of unilateral presidential war power for U.N.-sponsored interventions from a distance. In practice, this principle...

Video at link. (CNSNews.com) - Louis Fisher, a scholar in residence at the Constitution Project who served for 40 years as a constitutional law expert at the Library of Congress, says Americans and members of Congress should understand that President Barack Obama committed a “very grave offense” against the Constitution in taking military action in Libya without congressional authorization. “I am not going to recommend that the House Judiciary Committee hold impeachment hearings, but I would like members of Congress and the public to say that nothing would be more impeachable than a President who takes the country to war...

The White House is telling Congress that President Obama has the legal authority to continue American participation in the NATO-led air war in Libya, even though lawmakers have not authorized it. In a broader package of materials the Obama administration is sending to Congress on Wednesday defending its Libya policy, the White House, for the first time, offers lawmakers and the public an argument for why Mr. Obama has not been violating the War Powers Resolution since May 20. On that day, the Vietnam-era law’s 60-day deadline for terminating unauthorized hostilities appeared to pass. But the White House argued that...

Jefferson County resident Jonathan Stewart said he laughed in shock after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) claimed the house his family lost in the deadly April 27 twister was ‘not unsafe to live in’. Displaced families in tornado-ravaged Alabama are outraged after being denied federal aide to rebuild their flattened homes – due to ‘insufficient damage’. The devastating reality is the house is now a concrete slab surrounded by rubble. Mr Stewart told AL.com a FEMA inspector saw first-hand the Pleasant Grove residence he shared with his wife, Lisa, and their two children was ripped from the ground. Three...

WASHINGTON — Legal experts across the political spectrum predict Texas’ new law requiring a photo ID to vote could run into resistance from the U.S. Justice Department. But some speculate that the Obama administration will ultimately set aside any objections and OK the law to avoid a fight that might....

President Obama is in deep water, well over his head, in the misbegotten Libya adventure into which he dragged America. His public statements reveal the degree of the debacle.On the 18th of March 2011, ABC News reported: President Obama told a bi-partisan group of members of Congress today that he expects the U.S. would be actively involved in any military action against Libya for "days, not weeks" after which he said the U.S. would take more of a supporting role. Later in the same week in Brazil per MSNBC: He portrayed the relatively limited U.S. role as a cost-saving measure...

PLEASE COPY AND PASTE BELOW AND E-MAIL OR FAX Speaker Boehner http://www.speaker.gov/contact/ FAX- 202-225-5117 Email:speakerboehner@mail.house.gov __________________________________________________________ Speaker Boehner, This is a plea for you to exercise your responsibility to control our rogue Administration and it’s arbitrary decision to use U.S. planes and arms against Khadaffi in Libya. The sixty days for Congressional approval have ended. The implications here are monumental and disastrous for our democratic republic. Our president, who is showing clear signs of becoming a traitor, has used his own simple judgement to turn the might of our military against another country, Obama’s enemy du jour. He does not...

House members side with Netanyahu House lawmakers from both parties are siding with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over President Obama in their differing approaches to the Israel-Palestine border dispute. Obama last week called for Israel's 1967 borders to mark the "foundation" for renewing stalled peace talks between the two sides – a concession to Palestine that Netanyahu has bluntly rejected, including in remarks to a joint meeting of Congress Tuesday. "The vast majority of the 650,000 Israelis who live beyond the 1967 lines reside in neighborhoods and suburbs of Jerusalem and greater Tel Aviv," Netanyahu told lawmakers in his...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quick on the draw Thursday in voicing clear displeasure with President Barack Obama’s mideast policy speech. “Israel appreciates President Obama’s commitment to peace,” the response began, curtly. “Israel believes that for peace to endure between Israelis and Palestinians, the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.” “That is why Prime Minister Netanyahu expects to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004, which were overwhelmingly supported by both Houses of Congress.” “Among other things,” Netanyahu reminded...

Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine’s last-minute attempt to return an imprisoned murderer to his native Germany, where he likely would have been freed in two years, is threatening to emerge as a key early issue in one of the most anticipated U.S. Senate races next year. National Republicans are in hot pursuit of records from Mr. Kaine’s last year as governor that they say could shed light on why he tried to return Jens Soering to Germany instead of allowing him to serve a life sentence in a U.S. prison. The former University of Virginia student is serving two life...

In an effort to allay fears that S&P’s judgment — one the White House has called “political” — will weaken global confidence in the U.S. economy, press secretary Jay Carney flatly dismissed the pessimistic assessment of how realistic a bipartisan deficit reduction agreement really is. When it comes to politics, Carney said, the White House knows better than S&P or the financial markets about what is possible in Washington. “We simply believe that that process is better,” Carney told reporters on Monday. “We believe that the political process will outperform the S&P’s expectations.”

Just weeks after House Republicans held a hearing looking at the dangers of radical Muslims in the U.S., Senate Democrats are countering with a hearing of their own, scheduled for after Congress returns from a 10-day vacation, to examine Muslims' civil rights. Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, announced the subcommittee hearing Tuesday, saying there has been a spike in anti-Muslim bigotry in the last year that demands closer attention. (edit) The hearing will be the first ever before the Judiciary Committee's new subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and human rights, which Democrats created this year. Mr....

Continuing to face down questions as to why the U.S. Justice Department went easy on prosecuting members of the New Black Panther Party who stood armed with nightsticks outside a Philadelphia polling location during the 2008 presidential election, Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his personal frustration over the criticism that race played a role. During a hearing of a House Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday, Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, accused Holder’s DOJ of failing to cooperate with a Civil Rights Commission investigation into the decision to dismiss the case. Holder seemed to take personal offense when Culberson read comments from former Democratic...

Wednesday, Feb. 2, President Barack Obama delivered an ultimatum to Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman and the army and security chiefs: Mubarak must be removed in the coming hours or else US aid to Egypt will be cut off, debkafile's Washington sources exclusively report. Pressure on the Egyptian armed forces to oust the president forthwith was further applied by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who called Vice President Omar Suleiman, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates who called Egyptian defense minister Mohamed Tantawi, and US armed forces chief Adm. Mike Mullen in a telephone call to the Egyptian chief of staff...

Tighe Barry, left, and Medea Benjamin of Code Pink protest in Washington, D.C. On the heels of a Big Government article asking whether the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Mubarak organizations in Egypt have been learning their tactics from Obama allies Bill Ayers and Code Pink (as a result of connections made in Egypt one year ago) comes news that Code Pink is in Cairo and is involved in the protests. An audio file of a phone call by leftist activist David Swanson that day to Code Pink agitator Tighe Barry in Cairo was posted late Friday. Barry, in Egypt...