Free Republic

Dec 18 (Reuters) - Michigan Governor Rick Snyder on Tuesday appointed a financial review team for Detroit, the latest development in a process that could lead the city to file for biggest-ever U.S. municipal bankruptcy. "Given the financial crisis that continues to grip the City of Detroit, we must move quickly to ensure city residents have continued access to essential services they expect and deserve" Snyder said in a statement. Frustrated by the slow pace of fiscal reforms and worried by Detroit's long-term outlook, state official earlier this month launched a state review. Last week, the first part of the...

Michelle Obama: 'I'm the hostess in chief' Comments () By DONOVAN SLACK | 12/19/12 9:00 AM EST Today Show correspondent Jenna Bush Hager interviews Michelle Obama about Christmas in the White House, and the first lady explains her role during the holidays is "hostess-in-chief:" "This is the most special time to be in the White House. It’s the one time of the year when we really open up the White House. We have thousands and thousands of visitors just streaming through every day. It's beautiful, everything looks great, the smells are magnificent. So it's just special, very special," Obama told...

The rumored nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense may be in trouble. Senate Republicans are signalling they may oppose his nomination based on his anti-Israel views. Weekly Standard: _____________________________ Asked about Hagel's 2008 statement that the "Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people here [in Washington, D.C.]," South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham said Hagel will "have to answer for that comment" if he is nominated. "And he'll have to answer about why he thought it was a good idea to directly negotiate with Hamas and why he objected to the European Union declaring Hezbollah a terrorist...

Absurd and Existential...by Samuel Beckett and referred to as possibly the most important play of the 20th century, it presents a powerful metaphor for the OBAMA ELECTORAL BLOC who is sure that JOBS/GODOT will be arriving any moment....no plan in place The dithering and senseless behavior of the two primary characters who wait for Godot represent Longterm Unemployment Benefits.....a distraction and placeholder Problem today is, the OBAMA BLOC actually believes that Obama wants to create jobs......the last laugh really is on them, tragically at our civilization's expense

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Charles Schultz was rather shrewd with his cartoon strips of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick. Nothing encapsulates and mocks better the chicanery of the political processes of our government. Of course Nancy Pelosi is Lucy. Or it could be Harry Reid or Obama or any democrat or media hack. They draw lines in the sand just to draw another when stepped across. The ball will always be yanked on our republican Charlie Browns. Boehner is our Charlie Brown of the moment. Surely, Lucy won’t yank the ball if I propose the same taxes on the rich...

In the wake of past mass shootings, when the “national conversation” has focused exclusively on guns, I have argued that our appallingly inadequate mental-health system was a better subject of reform. At least half of the shooters in the rampage killings that are ripping our hearts out are young men with serious mental illnesses, and our system has neither the legal nor the financial resources to get them the treatment and restraint that they, and we, desperately need. This time, mental-health reform has received passing mention, along with the usual pleas for gun control, better security at schools, and so...

SALT LAKE CITY — More guns in the hands of teachers and administrators could effectively make schools safer and better prepared for active shooters, a Utah gun instructor said. It's in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that left 20 children and six workers dead. It's also as state school districts are reviewing their security policies and lawmakers are expressing interest in revisiting state gun laws. "Just one person with one firearm and perhaps one round of ammunition could have changed the entire outcome of Sandy Hook Elementary," said Clark Aposhian, chair of the Utah...

Barack Obama told fellow democrats today that he’s “amused by the tea party protests.” The Hill reported: President Barack Obama struck a hyperpartisan note Thursday, telling Democrats that he was “amused” by the Tax Day Tea Party rallies. Obama, addressing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser in Miami, did little to endear himself to the Tea Party groups protesting around the country, saying “they should be saying thank you” because of the tax cuts he has signed into law. The president went as far as to say that this week’s special election in Florida, which was won by Democrat Ted...

In the wake of the Auroro, CO "no-guns" theater shooting, Buckeye Firearms Association published an article entitled "How long is too long to wait to defend the Second Amendment?," in which we discussed the dilemma we face each time another deranged lunatic decides to murder as many people as they can in a "no-guns" zone. In the article, I outlined how the media and gun control extremists had begun trying to score political points within just hours after the event. Each time there is another such attack, I explained, we are forced to weigh the dangers of responding too quickly...

In an interview that will be aired tonight on ABC News, President Obama continues to express his commitment to the Occupy Wall Street protesters. “The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded,” Obama tells ABC News. “And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their...

The fiscal frenzy that has seized French socialists is not only grinding France’s economy to a halt; it is also attacking the very foundations of French society by destroying entrepreneurship and responsibility. Taxes are raining down on French citizens, and the promised shelters often disappear before they have even been introduced. The French government’s 2013 finance bill has announced confiscatory tax rates on incomes and capital gains, and payroll taxes will be increased as well. But the socialists are shooting themselves in the foot, as such tax rates will destroy wealth and drive out entrepreneurs, capital, businesses, and young people....

If one were to look at pictures of the Occupy protests that are spreading in major cities all across the world, the one group of people you can’t afford to miss out are the people wearing the Guy Fawkes masks and holding up quotes from Alan Moore’s famous graphic novel V for Vendetta. So who is Guy Fawkes? Well, he belongs to early 17th century England and was part of the Gun Powder plot in 1605. The Gun powder plot was by a group of English Catholics who wanted to assassinate the protestant King James.The conspirators sought to blow up...

President Barack Obama has been named "Time Magazine" Person of the Year. "Time" says the U.S. is in the middle of big changes and President Obama is the symbol of what they call "a new America." "The Protester" was Person of the Year in 2011. President Obama was also on the cover of this anticipated issue of "Time" back in 2008, the year he was first elected to the White House.

There's a lot of talk right now about an impending fiscal cliff. But we already went over a cliff economically in this country a long time ago. The current debate over tax hikes is an empty one built upon a false premise. The debate is whether raising tax rates will address our current crisis. The premise is that it is a lack of taxation that has led to the crisis. Both are hopelessly wrong. President Obama's proposed tax increases on the top 2% of earners would fund the federal government for about eight days. Even if we taxed Americans earning...

The mandatory State Department internal inquiry into the deadly Sept. 11 terror attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, slams bureaucrats for “grossly inadequate” security but says that poor leadership could not be punished under department regulations. [snip] The failures, at State’s Diplomatic Security and Near Eastern Affairs Bureaus in Washington, left the diplomatic post with security “that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place,” the report states. [snip]The report does not name any of the officials concerned, but an investigation by House Republicans found that Deputy Assistant Secretary of...

The review of the assault on the mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans faulted systemic failures of leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department, according to an unclassified version posted on the department’s Web site Tuesday night. The report also concluded that, contrary to initial reports by the Obama administration and by media outlets, there was no protest outside the outpost ahead of the attack and that the assault on the diplomatic compound and the CIA annex was carried out by terrorists. In the immediate...

Ever since a relative of Newtown, Conn., shooter Adam Lanza suggested that his mother, Nancy Lanza, was a "survivalist" who stockpiled food and weapons, "preppers" have gone online to express concern that they may become targets of unwelcome attention. "She prepared for the worst," Nancy Lanza's sister-in-law, Marsha Lanza, told reporters last weekend. "Last time we visited her in person, we talked about prepping—are you ready for what could happen down the line, when the economy collapses?"

CNN's Piers Morgan has been on a rabid anti-gun rant since July's Aurora, Colorado, shootings that has gotten even more venomous after Friday's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. On Tuesday, he rudely and disgracefully tore into guest Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, calling him "an unbelievably stupid man" who's "dangerous," concluding the interview by saying, "You shame your country" (video follows with transcript and commentary): PIERS MORGAN, HOST: The AR-15, as we've now seen from the last three mass shootings in America, Aurora, the shopping mall in Oregon, and now at Sandy...

The murder of 20 innocent children and 7 adults in Newtown, Connecticut, horrifies all Americans. President Obama eloquently expressed our collective feelings of “overwhelming grief” and our response to “hug our children a little tighter, and we’ll tell them that we love them, and we’ll remind each other how deeply we love one another.” Progressives now are arguing for stricter gun control. America, however, is founded on the “consent of the governed.” Americans’ sympathy for gun control, when polled by Pew after the Aurora atrocity, was about equally split between the restrictionists and those favoring the protection of the right...