Free Republic

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Within weeks, the top lawyers in a dozen states may file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s controversial requirement that all insurance plans include access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, the attorney general of Nebraska told LifeSiteNews. Jon Bruning told LifeSiteNews.com that 12 states had signed onto a scathing critique of the mandate and were preparing to take more serious action. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning On Friday, ten state attorneys general addressed a scathing letter to President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis....

While I understand that only a fraction of the population of this nation is directly affected by what you are about to read, I would never-the-less like to remind you that the remainder of the population is affected coincidentally. While the majority of the American population probably never even considered the Armed Forces as a possible career objective, there are those who never considered life without serving their country, in uniform, on a field of combat. Most of these young men and women never take the time to internalize some idealized vision of charging death for God and Country,

A top official with the National Rifle Association said Friday that President Obama will move to "destroy" gun rights and "erase" the Second Amendment if he is re-elected in November. While delivering one of the liveliest and best-received speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the president's low-key approach to gun rights during his first term was "a "conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep." "All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his...

Today, the Obama administration hastily called a press conference to announce a change to its HHS mandate for employers to cover contraception at no cost, including religious organizations whose doctrines oppose contraception and abortifacients. Instead of religious organizations footing the bill directly, the revised "accommodation" now says that insurers must cover the costs, which changes --- nothing: The revised Obama mandate will make religious groups contract with insurers to offer birth control and the potentially abortion-causing drugs to women at no cost. The revised mandate will have religious employers refer women to their insurance company for coverage that still violates...

Is Rahm Emanuel floating gun control ideas to Obama for use during his “second term?” Does former Presidential advisor and current Chicago machine politics confidante Rahm Emanuel, with his own personal team of bodyguards, really believe that requiring a $65.00 per handgun registration fee every five years for every handgun owned in Illinois will really have any impact on gun crime in Chicago or anywhere in Illinois? Grooming himself for a run at the Governor’s office, Emmanuel claims that such a gun registration scheme will make the streets safer. He even thinks that this registration will cut illegal gun sales....

HANCEVILLE, Alabama, February 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lawyers for the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) say that the broadcasting network has taken the Obama administration to court over a mandate forcing Catholic employers to pay for birth control, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced that it had filed suit Thursday morning on behalf of EWTN, considered the largest religious media network in the world. “The federal government cannot force people to violate their religion like this,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund and a constitutional law professor at the Catholic University of...

One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD. “We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just...

Obama says he deserves re-election, job's not done WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says he deserves re-election, despite the nation's economic troubles. Obama said in a pre-Super Bowl interview on NBC that his administration is creating more than 250,000 jobs a month, the most since 2005, and a reversal from the 750,000 jobs the economy was losing three years ago. The president said American manufacturing still needs a boost and "We have got to make sure we are pushing American energy, not just oil and gas, but clean energy." Obama also said the country needed to return to "old-fashioned...

Protestant and orthodox Jewish leaders join in opposition to HHS contraceptive mandate. Today, more than 40 non-Catholic religious organizations including Protestant-affiliated colleges, National Association of Evangelicals, Focus on the Family, Assemblies of God, Northwest Nazarene University, and Eastern Mennonite University, sent a letter to the White House demanding religious protection against the newly issued HHS contraceptive mandate. “We write not in opposition to Catholic leaders and organizations. We write in solidarity.” Says the coalition letter. “Leaders of other faiths are also deeply troubled by and opposed to the mandate and the narrow exemption.” In a letter sent December 21, 2011,...

How many speeches has Barack Obama given on jobs? How many times has he said the economy is his number one priority? Unfortunately, his rhetoric doesn't match his actions. The only suitable job worth creating to him is a government job. When it came time to approve the Keystone Pipeline, a project that would transport oil from Canada to the refineries in the Gulf states, Obama said no. Tens of thousands of jobs would have been created, but politics won the day. Now, GOP members of the U.S. Senate are using the Constitution in an attempt to approve the pipeline...

Longstanding tension between Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Democratic President Barack Obama flared into the public spotlight Wednesday just after Air Force One touched down in Phoenix. Brewer, who was on the tarmac to greet Obama, hand-delivered a letter before engaging the president "intensely" for several minutes, including pointing her finger directly at him, according to Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown, acting as a pool reporter for other media outlets.

Late-night comedian Conan O'Brien opened his monologue last night with this: "The National Hockey League Champion Boston Bruins visited the White House today. President Obama told them he loves hockey as much as any black guy who grew up in Indonesia." True enough, Obama is no fan of hockey. He's been to Wizards games and Nationals games and college games. But he didn't attend any Washington Capitols games, even when the NHL team was in the playoffs just a few blocks from the White House. Still, every president needs regular doses of photo ops with him getting another personalized jersey...

President Obama will pledge in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address to work with Congress where possible in forging “an economy built to last.” But he will warn his opponents that he will “fight obstruction with action,” and promise to “oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place,” according to excerpts of the speech released by the White House. The speech, to be delivered at 9 p.m., is the president’s third such address and comes amid a tumultuous Republican battle to see who will challenge his bid...

President Obama will use his election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday to define an activist role for government in promoting a prosperous and equitable society, hoping to draw a stark contrast between the parties in a time of deep economic uncertainty. ...Mr. Obama will call for changing the corporate and individual income-tax codes so the wealthy pay more, both to finance government investments and to alleviate the rise in income inequality in recent years. Republican presidential candidates have countered that government should get out of the way.

Wednesday the United States Supreme Court delivered a knockout blow to the White House in the cause of religious liberty. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a unanimous court swatted away the government’s claim that the Lutheran Church did not have the right to fire a “minister of religion” who, after six years of Lutheran religious training had been commissioned as a minister, upon election by her congregation. The fired minister -- who also taught secular subjects -- claimed discrimination in employment. The Obama administration, always looking for opportunities to undermine the bedrock of First Amendment religious liberty, eagerly agreed....

<p>President Obama is putting plans in motion to give the Commerce Department authority to create an Internet ID for all Americans, a White House official told CNET.com.</p> <p>White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt told the website it is "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet.</p>

Sorry, defense authorization isn’t opening the door to a liberal police state Can a mundane defense authorization law create an Obama dictatorship? Many people on the political right and left have been alarmed by language in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that they argue authorizes the president to use military force to capture, detain, torture and kill Americans at home and abroad. The furor centers on Sections 1021 and 1022 of the law, which deal with detaining terrorist suspects. Specifically at issue is to what extent the law allows the government to treat American citizens like enemies of...

Here is the operating motto of the Obama White House: "So let it be written, so let it be done!" Like Yul Brynner's Pharaoh Ramses character in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments," the demander in chief stands with arms akimbo issuing daily edicts to his constitution-subverting minions with an imperious wave of his hand. His entourage of insatiable usurpers never rests. Can't delude legislators into adopting a $1.5 billion Kabuki summer-jobs makework boondoggle? Create an unfunded program through executive fiat. Can't muster up a filibuster-proof majority for radical nominees? Czar-ify 'em. Can't get Congress to approve vast wild lands...

During his opening remarks to students at Shaker Heights High School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, President Obama got laughs when he told students that they inspire him.

President Obama released a signing statement with the omnibus spending bill that was passed late last week. In that bill, a provision stated that taxpayer money cannot be used to promote or advocate gun control. President Obama released a statement concerning those provisions.

President Barack Obama and his family spent a warm and sunny afternoon at one of the most popular snorkeling spots on the island of Oahu, where they released four green sea turtles into the water. The Obamas arrived at Hanauma Bay on Tuesday after a scenic, 40-minute drive from their multimillion-dollar rented vacation home on Kailua Beach. During their two hours at the bay, the Obamas released four green sea turtles raised in captivity into the clear blue water. Hanauma Bay is a favorite destination for the Obamas during their annual Christmas trips to Hawaii. The first family always goes...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement condemning the terrorist attacks on Christian churches in Nigeria on Christmas Day: “These attacks are designed to strike at the foundation of a civil society by massacring innocent civilians at worship. These savage acts are part of a disturbing trend of attacks on Christians extending from Nigeria to Egypt to Iraq. Americans should not be afraid to express solidarity with these Christian communities, and to recognize their persecution for the evil that it is. “The United States should stand with our allies to support the Nigerian government in the aftermath...

The Transportation Security Administration isn't just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country... The TSA's 25 "viper" teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year. According to budget documents, the department spent $110 million in fiscal 2011 for "surface transportation security," including the TSA's viper program, and is asking...

HONOLULU – It may have been a week later than he had hoped, but US President Barack Obama finally hit the links in Hawaii Saturday on his first full day of vacation. Obama touched down in the Aloha State Friday night after signing a bill in Washington extending the payroll tax cut for two months. The president had delayed his departure for Hawaii amid the tax cut stalemate, with his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha leaving as planned on Dec. 17.

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” President Obama, September 12, 2008 Beginning January 1, 2013, ObamaCare imposes a 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned income of “high-income” taxpayers which could apply to proceeds from the sale of single family homes, townhouses, co-ops, condominiums, and even rental income, depending on your individual circumstances and any capital gains tax exclusions. Importantly, the “high income” thresholds are not...

And Obama again proves that only gullible, stupid people vote for him. [VIDEO AT SITE] Posted on the pomposity that is the site of the "Office of the President Elect" it says this: Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack...

Excerpt....On Thursday Eric Holder and the Department of Justice filed suit against Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s office run by the outspoken and flamboyant Joe Arpaio who’s made it a personal crusade to uphold U.S. immigrations laws when the feds won’t. Eric Holder and the Obama Administration are applying the full weight of the federal government’s resources into trying to stop the new Arizona immigration law, but that’s only one of the multi-front attacks they’ve setup to make sure states are stripped of their ability to enforce U.S. immigration laws. Now the DOJ is suing the most active and largest sheriff’s...

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION at the link below to show you Stand With Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and AGAINST the political witchhunt of Obama's Department of Justice. This Administration and its open-borders allies La Raza, MALDEF and the ACLU, will stop at nothing to try and destroy the most prominent national symbol in the fight against illegal immigration. Sheriff Joe will not back down. Please sign the petition to show we stand behind him. [Note: The opposition already has a petition AGAINST Joe with 3,400 signatures. Let's blow past them with 5,000 signatures or more by the end of today!]

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution guarantees the American people the right to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, exactly 220-years ago today.

Obama is certainly the most arrogant president in American history. This clip from the end of the entire 60 Minutes Obama interview didn't make it on air.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ah, you know, you people are so lucky. All you have to do is listen to this. I have to be the one to actually do it. And that's okay. This is Wednesday. Right. Okay. Pearl Harbor Day. A day that will live in infamy, absolutely right, Pearl Harbor Day. Of course yesterday was Pearl Harbor Day number two: The attack on the country by the president of the United States in that speech in Osawatomie Kansas. As I promised yesterday, we have the audio sound bites from that speech. I've studied it. It's depressing to actually...

(CNSNews.com) - In a speech delivered at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama argued that while a limited government that preserves free markets "speaks to our rugged individualism" as Americans, such a system "doesn't work" and "has never worked" and that Americans must look to a more activist government that taxes more, spends more and regulates more if they want to preserve the middle class. "'[T]here is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. 'The market will take...

Adopting a sharply partisan and populist tone, President Barack Obama on Tuesday painted a picture of the American middle class under siege from wealthy interests, drawing an explicit comparison to the industrial monopolies of an earlier era. In a gamble, Mr. Obama largely put aside optimism about the U.S., a tone he struck at his State of the Union address in January, and instead worked to embrace the anger and skepticism emanating from much of the electorate. Too many children can no longer expect to join the middle class, the president said, no matter if they work hard and play...

Republicans on a private Republican National Committee conference call with allies warned Tuesday that party surrogates should refrain from personal attacks against President Barack Obama, because such a strategy is too hazardous for the GOP. "We're hesitant to jump on board with heavy attacks" personally against President Obama, Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of Tarrance Group, a Republican polling firm, said on the call. "There's a lot of people who feel sorry for him." (snip) On the call--which Yahoo News was invited to attend because of a mistake by someone on the staff of the Republican National Committee--Ari Fleischer, the...

President Obama's slow ride down Gallup's daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history. Since March, Obama's job approval rating has hovered above Carter's, considered among the 20th century's worst presidents, but today Obama's punctured Carter's dismal job approval line. On their comparison chart, Gallup put Obama's job approval rating at 43 percent compared to Carter's 51 percent. Back in 1979, Carter was far below Obama until the Iran hostage crisis, eerily being duplicated in Tehran today...

Guys, our country is on the verge of failing. We CAN NOT reelect Obama. We can not. If he loses, those couple months will certainly be a thorn. A sharp one at best. If he wins, all bets are off. The occupiers won't know what his them. America is armed and ready. We're not going to be told what America should be. WE ARE AMERICA, WE LIVE FREEDOM.

Obama pardons turkeys

A top Russian female newsreader has caused a stir after appearing to offensively show US President Barack Obama her middle finger during a live newscast. Online footage of the incident, which occurred earlier this month during an afternoon news bulletin on the privately held REN TV channel, is being avidly viewed in both Russia and the United States. In the footage, Tatyana Limanova, an award-winning senior newsreader at the channel, can be seen briskly reading out an item about how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has just assumed the rotating chairmanship of the Asia Pacific Cooperation organisation. She is then heard...

WASHINGTON, DC, November 22, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The U.S. Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) most recent data on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases reveals that among homosexual black men the syphilis rates rose a staggering 134% between 2009 and 2010. During the same time frame, syphilis rates among the general population fell by 1.6%. CDC data “show a significant increase in syphilis among young black men who have sex with men (MSM), suggesting that new infections among MSM are driving the increase in young black men,” the CDC report stated. “The finding is particularly concerning as there has also...

First it was Keystone, now it’s coast-to-coast. Scared to affront his base in an election year, Obama has imposed a five-year drilling ban on a majority of offshore areas. This is particularly disappointing given America’s persistent unemployment. Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise. Obama’s recent decision to punt on Keystone may have effectively killed the project, and the thousands of jobs needed to complete the pipeline. Like Keystone, the Department of Interior’s five year lease plan leaves hundreds of thousands of jobs on the table. The Institute for Energy Research’s Dan Simmons points out a few facts about offshore oil...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday he doesn't think taxpayers will recover much of their $528 million loan to bankrupt solar firm Solyndra, calling the situation "extremely unfortunate" while continuing to defend his actions to prop up the company before its failure. Chu testified Thursday for the first time before the House committee investigating the Solyndra loan. He insisted that the decision in late 2009 to approve the loan guarantee was his own and "absolutely was made only on the merits." He said it was not influenced by political considerations. But he acknowledged that chances are dim for taxpayers to...

You don't need a poll to tell you who's hot on the Republican primary side. Whoever is hot is hit. It's a full-fledged take-'em-out media approach, and the only guy who is immune to this is Mitt Romney. Mitt is not hit. They're saving that up for later. It was Herman Cain, it was Sarah Palin before Herman Cain, and it was Michele Bachmann when she won the Iowa straw poll. They think they've taken Herman Cain out. They're still hitting Herman Cain, and now they've moved on to Newt -- and if somebody comes along and replaces Newt at...

The Blue Dog Coalition of moderate lawmakers endorsed a bill put forward by House Republicans to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The endorsement puts them at odds with President Barack Obama, whose administration said it opposed such an amendment. "We do not need to amend the Constitution for only the 28th time in our nation’s history to do the job of restoring fiscal discipline," the Office of Management and Budget said on Tuesday. Speaker of the House John Boehner said he was "disappointed" in Obama for opposing the bill — which is certain to fail in the...

US president Barack Obama Wednesday said he would be pushing for greater efforts by emerging economies on global warming at coming climate talks in South Africa, which he warned would be a "tough slog". Obama described Australia's carbon tax, passed into law last week, as a "bold strategy" to tackle pollution and said he would be advocating that countries like China and India take greater responsibility at Durban. "The advanced economies can't do this alone, so part of our insistence when we are in multilateral fora, and I will continue to insist on this when we go to Durban, is...

Even if ObamaCare survives Supreme Court scrutiny next spring, its trials will be far from over. That's because the law has a major glitch that threatens its basic functioning. It's so problematic, in fact, that the Obama administration is now brazenly trying to rewrite the law without involving Congress. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act offers "premium assistance"—tax credits and subsidies—to households purchasing coverage through new health-insurance exchanges. This assistance was designed to hide a portion of the law's cost to individuals by reducing the premium hikes that individuals will face after ObamaCare goes into effect in 2014. (If...

Over the weekend at the Asia-Pacific Economic Coperation (APEC) Summit in Honolulu, President Obama raised a few eyebrows when he criticized a lack of ingenuity on the part of Americans in attracting foreign investment: But we've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We've kind of taken for granted -- well, people will want to come here and we aren't out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America. President Obama's choice of words was at best peculiar and at worst pedantic. Forty-eight hours earlier, the Obama Administration delayed approval...

Obama took his You Don’t Love Me Enough reelection tour on the road to the 57th state this weekend on his way to a less hostile, foreign audience. No, the stopover wasn’t in Kenya. It was in Hawaii on his way to Bali, Indonesia, as a part of a new election strategy that aims to capture the entire foreign vote for Obama and the Democrats.   Hey, and why not? No one has done more for those thrifty, industrious, hard working foreign countries than Obama has. And under Obama’s executive amnesty program it’ll be easier than ever for foreigners to register...

Americans “aren’t feeling real good” about Republicans in Congress who have blocked his $447 billion jobs bill, President Obama said late Sunday night. “The American people, at this point, are wondering about congressional leadership in failing to pass the jobs bill — the components of which the majority of Americans, including many Republicans — think are a good idea,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Hawaii at the conclusion of a Pacific summit. He said Republican lawmakers are likely to pay a price at the polls next November for standing in the way of his proposals, which include...

HONOLULU -- People curious about where President Barack Obama was born can visit the hospital here where his mother gave birth to him, he joked Saturday. "This is my birthplace. I know that was contested for a while," Obama said at the start of a session at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he was being interviewed by Boeing CEO James McNerney. "I can actually show you the hospital if you want," Obama said. "If you want to go down there." In all his time living in Hawaii -- where he lived with his grandparents through his teen years --...