Free Republic

For years, President Barack Obama railed against the surge of unlimited spending flowing into American political campaigns, arguing that average voters were being shut out of a secretive system that lets special interests bankroll elections. Now, as Obama enthusiastically raises money for Democratic super PACs, he's embracing some of the same secretive elements of that system, drawing charges of hypocrisy from good-governance advocates who say the public deserves to know what Obama's saying and to whom he's saying it when donors pay for a few minutes with the president.

Dawoud Bey’s photograph of the man who would soon be president was taken on a Sunday afternoon in early 2007, at Barack and Michelle Obama’s Hyde Park home in Chicago. The portrait is at once stately and informal. Mr. Obama’s hands are folded gracefully in his lap. He wears an elegant suit and white shirt, but no tie. He stares intensely into the camera. The photographer and his subject were comfortable with each other. Mr. Bey recalls that he asked Mr. Obama, who intended to be photographed in shirt sleeves, to put on a jacket. The photograph depicts its famously...

While President Obama was raising hundreds of thousands of dollars at two Bay Area fundraisers Wednesdays, protesters urged him to keep a promise he made to ensure that the Internet remains a level playing field. Back in 2007, then-candidate Obama said during a campaign stop at Google that as president he would “take a backseat to no one” in terms of his commitment to preserving net neutrality. But Obama’s appointments to the Federal Communications Commission don’t back up that commitment. In May, three Democrats he appointed to the agency voted to allow broadband carriers to provide an online “fast lane”...

Has the Obama administration competently and effectively managed the government? A Fox News poll released Wednesday finds a majority of American voters says no -- including about a third of Democrats. A 58-percent majority says the White House has not been competent at managing the federal government. Some 32 percent of Democrats join 67 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans in holding that view.

The White House likes to use a phrase of tingling adventure to describe the president's recent penchant for wandering the country talking to people: "The bear is loose." There are three problems with this unbearable metaphor: Barack Obama is not in captivity, he's not a bear and he's not loose. As Voltaire said of the Holy Roman Empire, it was "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." When our whippetlike president travels on Air Force One from staged photo-op to staged photo-op and then to coinciding fundraiser to coinciding fundraiser, encased by the White House travel behemoth and press centipede,...

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer who raised campaign money for him in the 2008 and 2012 elections as ambassador to Finland. The lawyer, Charles C. Adams Jr., is the managing partner at the Geneva office of the international law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. He was among a group of Obama fundraisers in 2008 that raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the campaign. In 2012, he was among Obama's top fundraisers, bringing a minimum of $500,000 to the president's re-election effort.

A veteran who collapsed in an Albuquerque Veterans Affairs hospital cafeteria, 500 yards from the emergency room, died after waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance, officials confirmed Thursday. Officials at the hospital said it took a half an hour for the ambulance to be dispatched and take the man from one building to the other, which is about a five minute walk. VA spokeswoman Sonja Brown said Kirtland Air Force Medical Group personnel performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. She says staff followed policy in calling 911 when the man collapsed on Monday. "Our policy is under expedited review," Brown...

The Quinnipiac poll getting buzz this week may be worthless, but the general topic of evaluating Barack Obama is another opportunity to make an important point: almost everything about Obama's presidency can be explained by saying he’s a Democratic president. He’s an interesting man, but as president he’s become about as generic as possible. By saying he’s a generic Democratic president, I’m not arguing that he’s performed perfectly; I’m saying that his performance is neither significantly above or below par. Let's hear it, Obama critics or Obama supporters. Where have his particular skills, preferences or personality produced anything that sets...

Monday on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown," host Chuck Todd discussed the complete failure of President Barack Obama's reelection goals named the "year of action" saying, "Let's face it there hasn't been much." Todd dubbed the presidents lack of accomplishments a "six-month stalemate. "The president has largely failed to meet even those modest goals wether it was raising the minimum wage signing a trade agreements, or getting an immigration reform done," he said.

There's little good news for President Barack Obama or the rest of U.S. government, according to a new Gallup poll. When asked about their confidence in the president, only 29 percent said they had confidence in Obama in his sixth year. That's down 7 percent from last year, and is a 22 percentage point drop from his first year in office. It's also lower than George W. Bush's rating in his sixth year (33 percent) and Bill Clinton (53 percent). It was during Clinton's sixth year in office that he was stuck deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Discussing a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that shows President Barack Obama hitting his lowest foreign policy number in the history of the poll, NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd said on Morning Joe Wednesday morning that the poll reflected the public making a damning verdict about Obama’s presidency. “This poll is a disaster for the president,” Todd said. “You look at the presidency here: lowest job rating, tied for the lowest; lowest on foreign policy. His administration is seen as less competent than the Bush administration, post-Katrina.” “Then on the issue of do you believe you can still...

More than 150,000 people have been forced to flee Iraq's second city of Mosul after Islamist militants effectively took control of it. Troops were among those fleeing as hundreds of jihadists from the ISIS group overran it and much of the surrounding province of Nineveh. Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki responded by asking parliament to declare a state of emergency to grant him greater powers. The US said the development showed ISIS is a threat to the entire region.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. Obama and Biden's plan will help create lasting stability in Iraq. A phased withdrawal will encourage Iraqis to take the lead in securing their own country and making political compromises, while the responsible pace of redeployment called for by the Obama-Biden plan offers more than enough time for Iraqi leaders to get their own house in order....

A new CNN poll of Americans finds falling support for President Obama on every policy issue. On no single issue does a majority of Americans approve of Obama's position. On many important issues, e.g. health care, immigration and foreign policy, his approval ratings have reached new lows. Perhaps surprisingly, however, his approval ratings are worst among America's working class. Those earning less than $50k and those who haven't been to college have turned decidedly against Obama. On voters' top issue, the economy, 61% of voters disapprove of Obama's performance. Just 38% approve. Obama's numbers are 7 points worse than they...

First lady Michelle Obama got a little carried away with her title Monday, correcting herself after suggesting to supporters that she, too, got elected in 2008. At a Democratic fundraiser in Boston, Mrs. Obama asked the audience to remember “when we took office.” Then she said, “Well, when Barack took office and I was there.” She said the president has accomplished a lot of the “change” he promised in 2008.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its...

President Barack Obama’s second term was supposed to be a crowning opportunity to make his mark on the world stage, but instead he's leading an intense effort to redefine his foreign policy record – and the odds look stacked against him. An administration-wide public relations blitz, which Obama launched with a big foreign policy speech this week, has done little to quell critics who frequently pan his global approach as rudderless, as the White House lurches from crisis to crisis. With just two and a half years left in office, Obama’s chances of forging a successful foreign-policy legacy by the...

It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That's where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence. We need a leader who demonstrates...

He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the Heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations--something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you! He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedys trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and freedom are safer tonight! He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes! Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit Harry...

Gingrich opposed to U.S. strike on Iran By Ralph Z. Hallow THE WASHINGTON TIMES September 1, 2006 ROME -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich this week moved a step further toward casting himself as the conservative alternative to Sen. John McCain in a possible run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. In an impromptu speech during a Mediterranean cruise that hosted scores of conservative donors and activists, the Georgia Republican expressed unexpected skepticism about prospects of military intervention to halt Iran's nuclear program. "I am opposed to a military strike on Iran because I don't think it accomplishes very much...