Free Republic

As we left it last week: I was on my way to the White House with a horsy pajama-clad leader of the free world, his toadies, Axelrod and Emanuel and three Secret Service Agents. For secrecy measures, the President had opted to make a Cessna puddle-jumper the make-shift AF1 to pick me up. After I applied a little “Godfather” shock therapy, I was about to give President Obama the advice he sorely needs to prevent his administration from descending to the bottom of the cesspool beneath history’s worst president, Jimmy Carter! As bright sunlight now pushes the mighty midget craft...

Sarah Palin is back, using her book, Going Rogue, as a prop. From all indications she ain't going away -- which may be why passions, pro and con, are so intense about her. There seems no middle ground when it comes to Palin -- some of it understandable, most of it puzzling. If she's a ditz, an airhead as some insist, someone without the depth or substance to be president, why worry about her? The electorate will catch on. So why do Democrats slag her at every opportunity? If she's a genuine threat to be a contender for power on...

Attorney general's advisers have conflicts on detainee casesThe Obama Justice Department is having problems prosecuting terrorist cases because top department attorneys have conflicts of interest. According to documents obtained exclusively by The Washington Times, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as either closed or mooted. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, made waves Nov. 18 when he demanded that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. provide a list of all the suspected-terrorist detainee cases from which...

Odds are the huge stock market rebound since March has run its course. And even though it yields nothing, it's time to raise cash. Nothing is screamingly cheap. The easy money has been made in both equities and fixed income. From the low point in March, it seems you can't pick an asset class that hasn't gained something in the area of 60%. That was some fear discount back in March. During this universal recovery, as in most post-recessionary periods, lower-quality high-yield bonds have outperformed quality issues, and lots of smart guys who had the guts and money to buy...

You have to wonder who briefed the Chief Executive for his interview with NBC News. The White House's resident admirer of Chairman Mao, Communications Director Anita Dunn, had already bailed out. Whoever it was must have been inspired by watching Alice in Wonderland. Many of us remember Alice in Wonderland. If we didn't read the Lewis Carroll classic, we at least watched the Disney cartoon version. (Some of us, parents of toddlers, may have watched it twenty times!) There's a scene in this fantasy film that I couldn't help thinking of when President Obama's interview was broadcast during his trip...

Steve Lee, of Denver, Colo., is familiar with the despondency that unemployment brings. Laid off a year ago from a medical-sales position, he admits that depression hit just a few months into his unemployment. "All I could think about was how bad the economy was and how unlikely getting a new job as good as my old one would be," he said. With tips like "start exercising" and "try to stay hopeful," cyber-counsel for the 15 million currently out of work rings hollow at best, leaving those thigh-deep in unemployment wondering where to turn for practical advice. With Thanksgiving just...

According to POLITICO, Obama’s fans in the Beltway are shocked, shocked that he and his White House minions scapegoat White House General Counsel Greg Craig for Obama’s failed promise to close Guantanamo in one year. The closing of Guantanamo – as Obama’s critics have long predicted – ain’t gonna happen, because there’s no place else to put the hardcore terrorists currently housed there. When Obama announced his dubious executive order closing Guantanamo by January 2010, the Kool-Aid drinkers were ecstatic. “See?” they said, “This is why we elected him. We were so right.” No, they were so wrong. It was...

As you all know, we are in a severe economic downturn. The official unemployment rate now exceeds 10 percent and according to many observers is actually substantially higher. Within the last year or so, our financial system has been rocked to its foundations. The collapse of the housing bubble and the numerous defaults and bankruptcies connected with it brought down major financial institutions, such as Bear-Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch. It also brought down numerous small and medium-sized banks and threatened to bring down even such banking giants as Citigroup and Bank of America. The Dow Jones stock average...

Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December. It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria. The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put...

Even his allies feel let down by the president’s lack of progress both in Asia and at home. even one previously friendly newspaper noted dismissively: “Obama goes to China, brings home a T-shirt.” Nor was the steady decline in the president’s approval ratings ... The real problem may be Obama’s friends — or rather, those among his formerly most enthusiastic supporters who are now having second thoughts. The doubters are suddenly stretching across a broad section of the Democratic party’s natural constituency. ... anti-war liberals depressed by the debate over troops for Afghanistan; and growing numbers of blue-collar workers who...

Why was it so hard for Dems even to start health care debate? By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 11/21/09 6:43 PM EST The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there is any drama in it at all. Lawmakers are simply voting to begin debate on their version of health care reform. Just begin debate -- not end it, and not move on to a final vote. If Democrats, with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, were not able to begin debate on the top Democratic policy priority in a...

The lodge where I stay in Kabul was badly damaged on Oct. 8 when a suicide car bomb exploded 80 meters down the road near the Indian Embassy. Seventeen Afghans working in photocopy shops near the embassy were killed and another 60 wounded. The Indian diplomats were unharmed. No apologies were offered by the perpetrators for the killings. Nobody was hurt at my lodge, but 75 windows were blown out. The next day I was talking with the owner, who, for the third time in three years, had to fork out $3,000 to fix his windows. I asked him what...

As Americans we are facing the most challenging era in the history of our country. Perhaps more challenging than the Great Wars and the Great Depression. The ultimate government intrusion into all of our lives and the loss of human freedoms will be the replacement of the American Medical Association (AMA) by the Obama Medical Association (OMA). This was initiated in the 1990's by Hiliary Clinton with the advent of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO's) and the other alphabetical nightmares that followed. More and more physicians are employees of hospitals and other large entities whose bottom lines have nothing to do...

The obesity bubble is in no danger of bursting. While lawmakers like to vilify insurance and pharmaceutical companies for driving up health-care costs to make fat profits, obesity is actually a far bigger reason for ballooning costs. Call it the obesity bubble, and a study out this week shows that it's in no danger of bursting. Obesity is defined as having a body-mass-index (BMI) of 30 or greater. For example, a person who is 5'8 and weighs 200 pounds has a BMI of 30 and would be considered obese. According to the study's author and the executive director of the...

[T]oday let's focus on the damage the [Senate health care] bill would do to consumer-driven health plans—the kind that give individuals more control over their health dollars and insurance choices. The 2,074-page bill crushes them with malice-aforethought. ... Start with its attack on flexible spending accounts that are an important part of many employer plans. Flex accounts let employees set aside some portion of their pre-tax pay for out-of-pocket costs or medical services that their insurance plan doesn't cover, such as a child's orthodontics or testing supplies for diabetics. The Reid bill caps these now-unlimited accounts at $2,500 per year...

When I argue that abortion under most circumstances should be illegal, I am charged with trying to legislate morality. When I say divorce ought to be harder to obtain, not easier, I am accused of trying to legislate morality. And when I say states should be free to make laws concerning adultery, homosexual behavior, contraception, or premarital sex, I am accused again of trying to legislate morality. Yet when Barack Obama and the Democrats propose making it a crime to not carry health insurance, no one seems to notice that they are very aggressively trying to legislate morality. In fact,...

It must be difficult to work at The New York Times, surrounded every day by true believers in conservative ideals. Luckily for the rest of us Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the paper’s “Book Review” and “Week in Review” sections, has emerged from that hothouse to write for us, the little people, a small book titled “The Death of Conservatism.” More in sorrow than in anger, Tanenhaus begins by claiming that, in the realm of ideas and argument, “conservatism is most glaringly disconnected from the realities now besetting America.” Oh? “Conservatives remain strangely apart, trapped in the irrelevant causes of another...

Reality Check: The "Rationing" Smear... Again?Posted by Dan Pfeiffer November 20, 2009 at 03:03 PM EST When people use arguments they know are bogus, it's probably because they know they don't have any valid arguments at their disposal. So it would seem with opponents of reform in the Senate spending today obsessed with arguments about "rationing" that were debunked months ago. Their attacks are focused on the fact that the legislation supports research into what treatments work best for patients. Before we go any further, let's just say this as plainly as possible: Under health insurance reform, this research cannot...

Worried about trying the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists and four of his close associates in a civilian courtroom? Don't be, says our president. He knows just how the trial will turn out -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed will be convicted and executed. We have his word on it. He makes the trial sound like just a formality. And here some of us thought trials didn't have a predetermined outcome, not in America. Naive us. Despite all the assurances from on high, almost every aspect of this coming trial-cum-circus troubles. From its hazy conception to, according to the president and his...

“Cost of indecision about Afghanistan is mounting.” That’s not a headline on Townhall.com. It’s the title of a column by the dean of liberal Washington pundits, David Broder.Even David Broder is concerned about President Obama’s failure to decide on a proper course of action in the war the President himself called “a war of necessity.” Broder points to the drawn-out indecision as making the war on the ground more dangerous. He believes that the American people and, most significantly, America’s allies, are being demoralized by what the White House calls a process. Our NATO allies joined us in Afghanistan because...

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee met to question Attorney General Eric Holder about his decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in criminal courts rather than military tribunals. As the father of Todd Beamer, who died on United Airlines Flight 93, I was able to attend that hearing. What transpired caused me great concern and shook my confidence in our current administration....How can we be assured that these enemies will be found guilty? Given that criminal courts are now the presumed venue for those captured on the battlefield, will soldiers need to read them their rights at...

A leading medical group added new fuel to a budding health care controversy on Friday by recommending that women delay their first cervical-cancer screening until age 21 instead of starting the test three years after becoming sexually active Continues...================================================================== Say, didn't a certain someone mention 'Death Panels'? The "U.S. Preventive Services Task Force" -- otherwise known as Palin's "mythical" *Death Panel* which oddly would cease being "mythical" if ObamaPelosiReidCare became law -- is worried that too many American women in their 40s are having their breasts examined. With precision timing, two weeks after National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the government...

One of the last three uncommitted Democrats, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, said Friday he would vote to begin debate on the Senate's health care bill; meanwhile, the Republican opposition opened a new front, arguing that the legislation would lead to health care rationing. Mr. Nelson said he would support the procedural vote scheduled for Saturday night because he didn't want to obstruct reform efforts. He also said he hoped to improve the legislation on the floor.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hid a radical health care overhaul bill behind closed doors for weeks, then finally emerged in a news conference on November 18 to proclaim that the bill somehow would cover millions more Americans while simultaneously saving money. To give you an idea of the kind of math that Reid and his allies employ, they conveniently left out of the projected cost of the bill some $247 billion -- the cost of a 10-year freeze on cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. Reid had proposed that expensive “doctor-fix” plan to buy off the American Medical Association,...

The movie Pirate Radio is loosely based on the true story of a collection of renegade disc-jockeys that broadcast rock and roll from a ship on the open seas after that music was banned from the airwaves by a repressive British government during the mid-1960s. The trailer for the comedy depicts two ominous moments interspersed among a number of hilarious scenes. The first occurs when government official Sir Alistair Dormandy (played by actor Kenneth Branaugh) responds to a colleague's suggestion the broadcasters no longer violate any laws by saying: "That's the whole point of being in government. If you don't...

A folder containing documents, data and emails purportedly "hacked" from Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) may be smoking gun proof of a worldwide conspiracy to exaggerate the existence, causation and threat of global warming.  And the list of apparent conspirators includes many of the world's leading climate alarmists -- the very scientists on whose work the entire anthropogenic global warming theory is based. In a Friday interview with Investigative Magazine's TGIF edition, CRU director Phillip Jones confirmed [PDF] that the incriminating documents, which have been widely disseminated online, are in fact genuine. Accordingly, whether indeed the labor of hackers, or...

We’re All Right-Wing Bastards Now—that is, if the NEA’s logic is to be believed. 20 November 2009 On the last day of the National Education Association’s convention this summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA’s top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at “conservative and right-wing bastards,” including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were “the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that...

Democrats are the equivalent of political suicide bombers. They have strapped political bombs to themselves and they are hell-bent on taking out as many Americans as they can with them. This is how this must be looked at. There is nothing remotely good about any of this. There's nothing compassionate about any of this. Just before they detonate their political bombs -- which is what their votes against the wishes of the people they serve are -- they may as well shout "Death to freedom!" They may as well shout "Death to freedom!" as they cast their vote....

Inability to grasp tactical and technical reality leads to sensationalistic and misleading reporting. I am no great fan of the Army's M1126 Stryker infantry combat vehicle (ICV), the eight-wheeled battle taxi hastily adopted by the Army in 2001 to provide an air-transportable vehicle offering more protection and carrying capacity than a HMMWV. It's too big (at 23 feet long and 9 feet wide, it's the size of a bus) and too heavy (about 20 tons in fighting trim) to fit comfortably on a C-130 Hercules transport plane or to be dropped by parachute. Its cross-country mobility leaves something to be...

John F. Kennedy believed that being passed over for vice president by the Democratic convention in 1956 saved his political career. That year, Adlai Stevenson, the presidential nominee, had left the selection of his running mate to the convention delegates—the last time a nominee did so. The choice came down to Kennedy and his Senate colleague Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who had lined up too much early support even for the attractive young war hero to overcome. In the end, Kennedy had it both ways. He benefited from the television exposure and was spared the blame—which as a Catholic, he...

Sometime in the next few months, a small group of experienced criminal-defense lawyers will be assigned to what is likely to be the case of a lifetime: the defense of admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or, to those enamored of sinister acronyms, KSM. Their work will not be easy, obviously. No jury on this continent is going to acquit their client, the government is certain to insist on the death penalty, and KSM will almost certainly try to put the government on trial. So what's a team of hardworking criminal defense attorneys to do? Everything they can, which, in...

A who's who of Christian right leaders, including Chuck Colson and Tony Perkins, have partnered with a handful of more moderate religious voices, including National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, to release a document that reasserts the primacy of three culture war issues for Christians in the public square: abortion, marriage, and religious liberties. A handful of those who signed the document, called "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," gathered today at the National Press Club for the launch event. The declaration reads like a throwback to the culture wars of...

My radio pal Hugh Hewitt said to me on the air the other day that Barack Obama "doesn't know how to be president." It was a low but effective crack, and I didn't pay it much heed. But, after musing on it over the last week or so, it seems to me frighteningly literally true. I don't just mean social lapses like his latest cringe-making bow, this time to Their Imperial Majesties The Emperor and Empress of Japan — though that in itself is deeply weird: After the world superbower's previous nose-to-toe prostration before the Saudi King, one assumed there'd...

During President Obama's high profile visit to China this week, the most frequently discussed, yet least understood, topic was how currency valuations are affecting the economic relationship between the United States and China. The focal problem is the Chinese government's policy of fixing the value of the renminbi against the U.S. dollar. While many correctly perceive that this 'peg' has contributed greatly to the current global imbalances, few fully comprehend the ramifications should that peg be discarded. The common understanding is both incomplete and naive. Most analysts simply see the peg as China's principal weapon in an economic struggle for...

Immigration: For illegal immigrants, the good times are back. Workplace raids have been halved, and easily fudged paperwork audits are up. Make no mistake, this is a politically driven precursor to amnesty. How times change. In 2007, an outraged public made itself heard to politicians by saying "enough" to policies that produced 12 million illegals in the U.S. It sank the bipartisan 2007 immigration bill, dismissing it as "amnesty," and demanded enforcement of the law. The result rocked the country. Arrests picked up, and President Bush took on the politically tough task of telling immigrants that reform was off the...

Health Care: Government of, by and for the people has apparently become a quaint concept to the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. Ramming socialized medicine through now comes down to cash payoffs. Jonathan Karl of ABC News has exposed what may be the biggest taxpayer-funded bribe in the history of the Republic. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana has been skeptical of her party's proposed radical transformation of the U.S. health system. "I'm not at all surprised that the public option's been sold as free health care," she told MSNBC last month, for instance. "But there is no free lunch." But...

This is the second installment of a Monday series excerpting the chapter on political implications from Thomas Sowell's latest book, "The Housing Boom and Bust."IBD Exclusive Series: Thomas Sowell on The Politics of the Housing BoomIn recent times, government officials have increasingly pressured banks and other lenders to lend to people whom they would not lend to otherwise. One of the first federal government efforts to change the process of mortgage lending by private financial institutions was the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Like many government policies or programs, it began small and grew in scope and severity over the...

Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December. It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria. The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put...

The Obama Justice Department is having problems prosecuting terrorist cases because top department attorneys have conflicts of interest. According to documents obtained exclusively by The Washington Times, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as either closed or mooted....

Sgt. Asan Akbar, a Muslim American soldier with the 326th Engineer Battalion, had an "attitude problem." According to his superiors and acquaintances, Akbar's attitude was bitterly anti-American and staunchly pro-Muslim. So how did this devout follower of the so-called Religion of Peace work out his attitudinal problems last weekend? By lobbing hand grenades and aiming his M-4 automatic rifle into three tents filled with sleeping commanding officers at the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade operations center in Kuwait. Naturally, apologists for Islam-gone-awry are hard at work dismissing this traitorous act of murder as an "isolated, individual act and not an...

Will mammograms sink the Health Care Bill in the Senate? The 16-member U.S. Preventative Services Task Force released its new recommendations on mammograms a few days ago. Talk about some outrage by its recommendations! It said they wanted to change the standard of once a year screenings for women over 40 every other year. Boy did the stuff hit the fan! Please allow me give you some quotes to aid in your evaluation of the situation; Dr. Daniel Kopans, head of breast imaging at Massachusetts General, “I think it is outrageous to reduce costs by taking away a test that...

THE UNITED STATES WILL NOT APOLGIZE FOR DEFENDING & PROMOTING LIBERTY: We do not say we're sorry to other nations, organizations, or individuals for our involvement in world affairs in defense of our citizens' life and liberty, and in defense of our national and vital interests. We count interfering with and bringing down tyrants and dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, Mao, Noriega, Hussein, the Taliban, Al Quida and others as an honor. We bow to NOONE in this regard and demand that our elected and appointed officials not do so. If similar individuals, nations, or groups threaten our...

When Mac Taylor, the Legislature's chief budget adviser, declared this week that the state budget enacted just four months ago is already billions of dollars upside down, no one in the Capitol should have been surprised. Anyone with half a brain and a hand calculator could figure out that many assumptions on which the budget was based, both spending and revenues, were unrealistic, some of them conjured out of thin air to "balance" an inherently unbalanced budget for political reasons. Taylor told legislators that the current budget is $6.3 billion out of balance and the 2010-11 budget has another $14.4...

As if hyperactive Washington politicians haven't already grabbed enough power by taking over banks and car companies and trying to control everybody's health care, now they are getting closer to centralized bureaucratic control of the entire consumer credit market. Pending legislation to create a superpowerful Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) would take an ax to financial freedom and significantly increase consumer costs. That's not what most people would call "protection." The bill already has made it through the House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat. It is expected to reach the House floor shortly after Thanksgiving....

A few weeks back, the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, said of Barack Obama, "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln." Landesman was not alone in his praise. This month's GQ has a faux-exhaustive article on "the untold story of the first man since Teddy Roosevelt to serve as author in chief." In truth, however, if Teddy Roosevelt came back to life today, he would find that he would have much more in common with Sarah...

Sarah Palin haters will stoop to just about anything to malign the woman they most fear – including lying. That's what Huffington Puffington Post columnist Max Blumenthal did Sunday when he claimed the former vice presidential candidate cited an "urban legend" in a speech when she said the Treasury Department had moved the phrase "In God We Trust" from presidential coins. Blumenthal and his pseudo-news organization characterized Palin's statement as a "rumor" that "most likely originated with a 2006 story on the far-right website WorldNetDaily." Actually, it wasn't "a rumor." It was, what we call in the news business, a...

To try Mohammed in a criminal court is to treat his act as criminal, and coming from a young administration that has already ceased using the phrases ‘terrorism’, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘war on terror’ this serves as confirmation for many who, like myself, view the struggle against terrorism and against the oppressions of fundamentalism as the most important international (and moral) task facing our nation. Trying Mohammed in a criminal court is not necessary, and one could argue that he does not deserve to be treated as even the least respected criminal by the United States. He is by every...

Our interest in a single Supreme Court case has perhaps never been as high as it is in a case currently being briefed. The issues are fascinating on several levels, and the potential impact of a ruling is big. The case is McDonald v. City of Chicago, for which the court granted cert on Sept. 30. The petitioners in the case, a group challenging a gun-control ordinance in Chicago, filed their brief with the court earlier this week. Were the court to adopt their position — something well within the realm of possibility — we could be looking at a...

Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'? Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.[snip]

Why the Greg Craig debacle matters By: Elizabeth Drew November 19, 2009 11:58 AM EST President Barack Obama is returning from his trek to Asia Thursday to a capital that is a considerably more dangerous place for him than when he departed. While he was abroad, there was a palpable sense at home of something gone wrong. A critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes for his presidency began to wonder whether they had misjudged the man. Most significant, these doubters now find themselves with a new reluctance to defend Obama at a phase of his presidency...