Free Republic

Regulars at the Vineyard Golf Club in Martha’s Vineyard were gob-smacked when President Obama unexpectedly strolled onto a nearby green and they were immediately frisked. “There was no warning he was coming,” sniffed a guest. “There was security on the way in, but no word as to why they were there.” The member added, “While eating, overlooking the golf course, guests had to stand up and be wanded.” One asked if he could finish his hot soup first, and an Obama security man cracked, ominously, “So, you’re not cooperating?” But Obama did, “go around and shake everyone’s hand waiting on...

President Obama must really be teed off. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his once-loyal secretary of state and his likeliest successor, has gone rogue, criticizing his foreign policy as too timid.

The old adage that the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree seems to be playing out with a vengeance in the family of legendary left-wing academic Noam Chomsky. We’ve devoted considerable ink to the sage of MIT over the years and his affection for movements revolutionary and governments totalitarian. His daughter Aviva, an historian, is following in his footsteps at Salem State University. “My recent work has been in three main areas: the Cuban revolution, northern Colombia’s coal industry, and immigration and undocumentedness in the United States,” her university page proclaims. “Thematically, I incorporate the issues of economic...

When it comes to tax relief, I am a committed Friedmanite: I embrace the teaching of the late great Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics, who often declared that he was "in favor of any tax cut, under any circumstances, in any way, in any form whatsoever." Friedman's premise was that the best way to curb raging government spending was to curb the government's income, and that the best way to do that was to reduce taxes. So I suppose I should be glad that the Massachusetts Legislature has designated next Saturday and Sunday as the Commonwealth's annual sales-tax...

As conflict continued in Iraq, President Barack Obama waged a different kind of war during his vacation at Martha's Vineyard - on the golf course. Obama was escorted to the Farm Neck Golf Club, in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, by a huge motorcade, which included a SWAT team and two snipers who peered out of an open trunk. Sporting a United States Secret Service baseball cap, Obama seemed reasonably relaxed despite the hefty protection, laughing and chatting with his golfing buddies in between holes. Obama fled Washington for his family's familiar vacation spot yesterday for a two-week summer break.

While some city residents were enjoying a weekend highlighted by a bright Supermoon and the successful Springfield Jazz and Roots Festival, others found themselves involved in spats of violence that kept first responders and doctors at the Bay State Medical Center busy. The city's 9th homicide of the year took place Saturday around 5 p.m. when police arrived at William DeBerry Elementary School on Union Street in the city's Old Hill neighborhood to investigate after a Shotspotter activation and 911 calls. The victim, 26-year-old city resident Lamar P. Kelly, was found with a single gunshot wound and was, according to...

...Shortly after arriving, the President turned up at the Farm Neck Golf Club. Wearing a baseball cap, white shirt and grey pants, Mr. Obama could be seen at one of the early holes and some onlookers tried to snap a photo on the street. “It’s so exciting to see him play golf,” said Trayce Hillman of Brockton. The presidential visit brings excitement to the island and businesses hope for a visit from the famous family.

BOSTON — Warning against a new U.S. war in Iraq, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday stood by President Barack Obama’s decision to authorize targeted airstrikes to help defend Americans in Erbil, Iraq, and provide aid to a religious minority taking refuge in the Sinjar mountains. “It’s a complicated situation right now in Iraq and the president has taken very targeted actions to provide humanitarian relief that the Iraqi government requested, and to protect American citizens,” Warren told reporters. “But like the president I believe that any solution in Iraq is going to be a negotiated solution, not a military...

As he headed out for a two-week vacation Saturday, President Obama told Americans that the U.S. military could face more fighting against Islamist terrorists in Iraq.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin gave a "commonsense conservative" response to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) progressive commandments on her SarahPalinChannel. Long before Warren and Republican Dave Brat, Palin was attacking the bipartisan permanent political class and their embrace of crony capitalism. That is why Palin has always appealed to Reagan Democrats and independents fed up with both parties. After Palin's landmark 2011 speech in Indianola, Iowa, Republicans who enabled the cronyism associated with George W. Bush and the GOP-controlled Senate were forced to slowly combat it. So it is only fitting that after Warren introduced her 11 progressive commandments at...

President Barack Obama will headline a fundraising dinner for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee while he’s vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO. The event will be hosted by Berklee College of Music President Roger Brown and his wife, Linda Mason, on Aug. 11, according to the invitation.

President Barack Obama and his family are heading to the wealthy island resort of Martha's Vineyard for vacation starting Saturday, a near-annual ritual that islanders say is a boon to local businesses even if it comes with added hassles for vacationers during what's typically the busiest tourist month of the year. At Big Al's, a sports memorabilia store in Oak Bluffs, owner Alex McClusky prominently displays "I vacationed with Obama" T-shirts he's sold since the family's first visit in 2008.

Not content with imposing the highest corporate tax structure in the “free” world, Democrat hacks in the legislature are now asking the Imperial President to unilaterally take action. A group of tax happy corporate protectionists are hoping the President uses his "pen and his phone" to start punishing American businesses that have the audacity to lower their corporate tax burden. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), Dick Durbin (D-Ill), and Jack Reed (D-RI), have crafted a letter (yeah… It took three of them) to President Obama requesting that action be taken toward businesses that have sheltered themselves from some US taxes. According to...

The idea that the streets in America are paved with gold has always been a nearly undefeatable idea in the Third World. The hope that if one can just get to the promised land – the American land of opportunity – that earning money will be easy and relative riches will literally be handed over. I’m sure it’s a belief that brings about the necessary hope that is required to make it through a difficult life of poverty; in fact, I’m certain that’s the case because I have personally heard those laments over the telephone and in e-mails or Facebook...

Renaming a branch of the Boston Public Library for William Bulger, one of the more sordid Massachusetts politicians in recent decades, may not be the worst idea City Council President Bill Linehan has ever floated, though offhand I can't think of one that tops it. Linehan proposed the tribute to the former president of the Massachusetts Senate and the University of Massachusetts this week, hailing Bulger's "commitment to service, to the people of South Boston, Boston, and the commonwealth."That's not quite the way I would describe the vindictive pol who put loyalty to his serial-murdering brother above any commitment to...

In an echo of 2008 — when Ted and Caroline Kennedy backed upstart Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton — members of the Kennedy clan have been quietly wooing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and encouraging her to throw her hat in the ring, sources tell me. The question of whom to back in the 2016 presidential race has split the Kennedys down the middle. Robert Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, and their eldest son, former US Rep. Joe Kennedy II, favor Warren — the darling of the party’s left-wing base who now sits in Ted Kennedy’s old seat — while Bobby Jr....

Complete Headline; Here comes the bride... HOURS late and in a very summery cocktail gown: A beaming Cheryl Hines marries Robert Kennedy Jr in a star-studded ceremony after rain causes chaos at family compound Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tied the knot with actress Cheryl Hines Saturday afternoon in a star-studded, heavily guarded event attended by hundreds of their friends and family. In front of a crowd including matriarch Ethel Kennedy, RFK Jr. and Cheryl said I Do at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts - after massive headaches caused by the horrible weather. [Snip] Ted Kennedy Jr led the...

<p>John Kerry is upset by heavy criticism from Israelis — left, right and center — of his recent ceasefire diplomacy. But that’s only half the story. More significant is the consternation of America’s Arab partners, starting with the president of the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas was stunned that Kerry would fly off to Paris to negotiate with Hamas allies Qatar and Turkey in talks that excluded the PA and Egypt.</p>

Former Democratic congressman Barney Frank has some tough words for President Barack Obama about his handling of Obamacare. "The rollout was so bad, and I was appalled -- I don't understand how the president could have sat there and not been checking on that on a weekly basis," Frank tells the Huffington Post in a recent interview. "But frankly, he should never have said as much as he did, that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it. That wasn't true. And you shouldn't lie to people. And they just lied to people."

LAWRENCE – When confronted by Secret Service agents, Stephen Perrotti said he wasn't going to lie and admitted to threatening U.S. President Barack Obama, according to police. One threat specifically threatened "I am going to kill Obama even if it takes a lifetime," a prosecutor said yesterday. Perrotti, 28, of 118 Byron Ave., was arraigned Friday in Lawrence District Court on nine criminal firearms charges associated with this threats against Obama. He was ordered held without bail on the charges, which led to police seizing an AR-15 assault rifle, three scopes and four high-capacity magazines and ammunition, according to police...