Free Republic

I live in California. If you were wondering what living in Obama's second term would be like, wonder no longer. We in California are living there now. California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democratic Left enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public employee unions. The unemployment rate is 12%. California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, has added so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call it "Medi-Cal." Our K-12 schools have more administrators than teachers,...

The Jihad Will Be YouTubed by Raffaello Pantucci December 15, 2011 FOREIGN POLICY - The AFPAK Channel SNIPPET: "While clearly the technology to make such videos is something that is universal, it does seem as though it is aspirant jihadists in the West who find it easiest to use. There was no evidence that Gul was being directed by foreign terrorist organizations to produce his material, and his case shows the continued existence of young Westerners producing radical material on their own. It may indeed be the case that the virtual armies have yet to fully emerge as active warriors...

[...] And yet, here we are at the end of 2011, with Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and discussion boards still teeming with intemperate quick takes. President Obama has taken considerable heat this year, but isn't it too soon to accuse him of being an ineffectual leader? Isn't that one lesson from the Tucson incident? On a Christmas Day episode of "GPS" on CNN, Fareed Zakaria interviewed Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough, who reminded us that it's too early to cast Obama's legacy in stone. Here's an excerpt from their interview: I admire him very much, and I think that his...

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss how Obama has to choose between alienating the greens or the unions. It could doom his re-election chances. Tune in to see why!

A recent vacation in Mexico turned into a nightmare for a 79-year-old Illinois man. But it wasn't a devastating bus crash that almost killed U.S.-born Alfonso Acosta. It was his stay in one of Mexico's government-run hospitals. According to a harrowing account in the Quad-City Times, a daily newspaper, Acosta suffered a "major head injury, multiple facial fractures, broken ribs and a punctured lung." Yet for five weeks he lay "virtually untreated" at the hospital where he was taken in Toluca, about 40 miles southwest from Mexico City, say outraged family members in the United States who rushed to his...

Sacramento -- California faces deep mid-year cuts to its universities, community colleges, social service programs and public schools - which may have their year shortened - because the state will collect billions in revenue less than expected, according to a report released today. The report by the Legislative Analyst's Office says the state faces a budget deficit in the current fiscal year largely because it will collect only $300 million of $4 billion that Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature added to the budget just days before it was approved in June. Critics had called the sudden infusion of projected...

Obama hit the links today for the 76th time. (WHD) — President Obama went golfing today, heading out for the 18th time this year and for the 76th time in his presidency, but for only the first time in seven weeks, having somehow not gotten a round in FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OF JULY.

The blue chips nose-dived 513 points into correction territory, while the broad S&P 500 shed 4.8%, after anxiety over the economy sent traders racing out stocks and commodities. Today's Markets According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 513 points, or 4.3%, to 11,384, the S&P 500 tumbled 60.2 points, or 4.8%, to 1,200 and the Nasdaq Composite slid 137 points, or 5.1%, to 2,556. The FOX 50 tumbled 37.5 points, or 4.2%, to 864. Related Video Economic Concerns Drive GM Shares Down FOX Business Brief: GM and markets Related Stories For Stocks, 'This is Where it Gets...

Who needs Congressional authority when you can govern by executive fiat? “A new enforcement memo handed down by the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week has some accusing the White House of running around Congress to implement the DREAM Act – and consequent amnesty for some illegal immigrants – by executive fiat. The new memo, penned by ICE Director John Morton, directs ICE agents, attorneys and directors to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” – meaning less likelihood of deportation – for illegal aliens who have been students in the U.S., who have been in the country since childhood or...

The Obama Administration is handing out waivers far and wide for its health-care bill, but behind the scenes the bureaucracy is grinding ahead writing new regulations. The latest example is the rule for Accountable Care Organizations that are supposed to be the crown jewel of cost-saving reform. One problem: The draft rule is so awful that even the models for it say they won't participate. *** The theory for ACOs, as they're known, is that hospitals, primary-care doctors and specialists will work more efficiently in teams, like at the Mayo Clinic and other top U.S. hospitals. ACOs are meant to...

DREAM ACT: TELL CONGRESS TO HELP STUDENTS PURSUE HIGHER EDUCATION Each year, thousands of undocumented students who have lived in the United States for at least five years graduate from U.S. high schools. Among these students, with whom NEA members work every day, are valedictorians, straight-A students, and idealistic youth committed to bettering their communities. Yet, because of their lack of legal status, they are unable to pursue higher education. This week, Senator Durbin (D-IL) and Representatives Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Berman (D-CA) reintroduced the bipartisan DREAM Act (S. 952/H.R. 1842). See if your Senator is a cosponsor. The House bill...

Lawmakers in Oregon, Washington, Montana and California set the table by establishing aggressive mandates for renewable power that "ratchet higher" over the next 15 years. Oregon's large utilities are required "mandated" at rate payer expense" to serve 5 percent of their demand with "renewable" this year, increasing to 25 percent by 2025. California's standard is 33 percent by 2020, and Washington's is 15 percent by 2020.

Our southern friends live the American dream these days, a dream that’s removing them from reality. Their federal legislators, including the President, imagine a brilliant future that cannot be. None of them wants to awaken Americans from this dream. The dream? Economic recovery followed by the return of prosperity, built on borrowed money. And not just some borrowed money, but trillions and trillions of borrowed money.Like all dreams, this one has lost touch with reality. In Washington, legislators seem to accept that amassing trillions of dollars of additional debt is a bad idea. Then they argue furiously about a mere...

Cape Wind has outlasted a decade of government review, a slew of court brawls and fierce opposition from mariners, fishermen, Indian tribes and Kennedys just to win the right to sell its wind-fueled electricity. Now, all it needs are customers.

MIAMI -- The illegal immigrants who more than a decade ago were just teens hoping to forge a legal path to citizenship are vowing to make the Dream Act a campaign issue come 2012, even though they'll likely be too old to benefit if the law ever passes. The measure that passed in the House on Wednesday is unlikely go anywhere in the Senate, and the House is unlikely to revisit the issue once the new Republican leadership takes over. Groups like The National Council of La Raza and other Hispanic and immigrant advocacy groups know the prospects for comprehensive...

Google came to Syracuse’s campus to recruit new graduates when I was a senior. I attended the information session and learned which jobs I could qualify for. I created a fancy cover letter and resume, crossed my fingers and e-mailed them my documents. One week later I had an email in my inbox from Google. Google wanted to interview me! Forbes’ #1 company to work for was interested in speaking with me about an Associate Product Marketing Manager position in Mountain View, California. I called everyone I could think of, ecstatic and day-dreaming that my job hunt might end quickly...

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama (L) puts her arm around U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) fundraiser in San Francisco, California, October 25, 2010. REUTERS/Kim White

LABOR'S polling nightmare has materialised. After being seen to be the easy frontrunner in national polls for most of the campaign there is a shift in voter sentiment and the danger that a "protest vote" will unseat the Gillard government. Now, within 48 hours of the only poll that counts, Labor is panicking and desperately trying to frighten Labor voters away from protesting about the Rudd government's record of broken promises and misadventures, and the removal of Kevin Rudd himself. The real possibility of the election of Tony Abbott is now central to Labor's last-minute scare campaign to summon up...

He could be President Obama's worst nightmare – a business mastermind, a natural problem solver and a black man of "substance" who says he would "take the race card off the table" in a challenge against Obama as the GOP presidential candidate in 2012. Has Obama met his match? "We need a realistic candidate to run on the Republican ticket who can beat Barack Obama – not just beat the Democrats," Herman Cain, an Atlanta radio talk-show host, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and 2004 Senate seeker, told WND. "We've also got to beat Barack Obama." He added, "Obama is...

The American people are too simple to choose from "an array of products" in "a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do." Behold the words of Donald Berwick -- doctor, Harvard professor, and Obama's nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), arguably the most powerful position in U.S. medicine, directing the flow of almost one trillion dollars a year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Up from the briny deep of the Gulf of Mexico came a nightmare for President Barack Obama. Unlike Hurricane Katrina and its immediate, frightful images of people in crisis, the gushing BP oil well has been a slow-moving behemoth that is now taking a political toll on the president. Obama was already immersed in a long list of problems -- pushing a financial regulation overhaul, prodding Europe to stem a financial crisis, pressuring Iran and North Korea. And don't forget the 9.9 percent U.S. jobless rate, two wars and Obama's hopes for immigration and energy legislation before...

When Congress passed the Health Care Bill in March, they inserted a seemingly insignificant section that will eventually have sweeping implications. It will increase accountability for the small business taxpayer to keep accurate records and make it more difficult for business to claim improper business expenses to offset revenues during the tax year. What does it say? Section 9006 of the bill amends Section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code in the following way: SEC. 9006. EXPANSION OF INFORMATION REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the...

Paralleling Obamacare with existing government programs should stand as a bellwether for those who favor this bloated plot to undermine our basic freedoms. The Veteran's Administration (VA) provides a glaring early warning of our future, if Obamacare replaces our health care infrastructure. Personal experience tells a disturbing story. Before my father graduated from high school, he joined the U.S. Air Force for two stints of service beginning in 1944. In October of 2008, we began treading water with the VA, filing for his military pension. In seventeen months, we have provided over one hundred pages of old military documents, along...

The RINO McCain is in New Hampshire now campaigning for Kelly Ayotte, who is running for Senator from that state. According to the Nashua Telegraph, he's also co-hosting a town hall with Ms. Ayotte. The Boston Globe notes that the town hall meeting was "reminiscent of those he held during his two presidential campaigns." Fox News also reports that McCain did over 100 townhall meetings leading up to the crucial "First in the Nation" New Hampshire Presidential Primary and won, once again becoming the GOP frontrunner. So, my question for my fellow FReepers is, McCain's 2010 re-election race with J.D....

At the end of Barack Obama’s worst week since taking power a year ago, the US president’s fortunes look set only to deteriorate over the coming days. Following the shock defeat of the Democratic candidate in Massachusetts on Tuesday, a move that deprived the president of his 60-seat super-majority in the Senate and left his legislative agenda in tatters, Mr Obama has just four days to reboot the system. The US president had originally delayed next week’s State of the Union address to Congress in the hope he would get his signature healthcare reform bill enacted in time. That prospect,...

From the time he launched his campaign for president three years ago, Barack Obama had to consider how he would react to the first serious act of terrorism during the campaign, or if he won, on his watch. His fellow Democrats had been thinking about the moment even longer - since the September day in 2001 when attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon defined George W. Bush’s presidency and gave Republicans a decisive advantage on a defining political issue.

AN Indonesian villager had to be rushed to hospital after a horse bit off one of his testicles during a freak attack.

I have spent my entire 35 year professional life developing and implementing energy policies vital to our state. So it pains me to now see California taking an unfortunate misstep: embracing participation in the Western Climate Initiative. WCI, developed by seven U.S. states (California is joined by Oregon, Washington, Utah, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona) and several Canadian provinces along the western rim of North America, proposes to combat global warming – independently from their national governments. Herein lays the first reason I oppose the WCI: with the likelihood of federal pre-emption with President Obama and the 111th Congress set...

A California appellate court ruling last week supports a lawsuit challenging a state law that grants illegal immigrants heavily subsidized tuition at California public universities and colleges. The court found that the 2001 law conflicts with federal law. As I read the ruling, I asked the question the judges cannot answer - as it is a policy issue best left to elected lawmakers: Why would a state subsidize the college tuition of students who cannot work legally in the United States when they graduate? Does California not have enough educated, angry people? Or does the state have so few angry,...

Like nine other states, California allows students who attend high school in the state for three years and graduate to pay in-state tuition at public universities. Yet a group of out-of-state parents doesn't like the law. The gripe? AB 540 allows kids whose parents entered the state illegally to pay in-state tuition. So they filed a lawsuit in Yolo Superior Court. Lawmakers passed AB 540 because they want kids who were brought to California through no decision of their own and who have little or no connection with their parents' country to be educated, productive members of society. The Superior...

It turns out that the ideal vice presidential candidate for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is the same person as the ideal vice presidential candidate for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a sophisticated online survey by Affinnova Inc. For both candidates, the best running mate is Colin Powell, a former U.S. Army general and former secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush, according to the survey, which was powered by an Affinnova algorithm it calls "evolutionary optimization."

Tomorrow, after returning from the velvet opulence of the luxury yacht that was their floating refuge for eight days, Charles and Camilla will be back home and enjoying the spacious comforts of Highgrove, where he can disappear thankfully into his garden and she can be alone . . . at last. Oh dear. No one told the Duchess of Cornwall just how suffocating life at sea in a relatively confined space with the Prince of Wales was going to be. She returns from their Caribbean tour a wiser, but somewhat disillusioned, woman. It certainly wasn't the smiling and curious West...

Freddy has taken over our Free Republic! What a nightmare ...

Which spectre haunts financial advisers the most? Terrorism? Global unrest? Not even close. According to a survey of over 200 financial advisers taken in December, their biggest worry is that Hillary Clinton will win the presidential election in November: Nothing worries financial advisers more than the prospect of a Democrat's being elected president in November, according to a quarterly poll by Brinker Capital Inc. The fourth-quarter edition of the Brinker Barometer, which polled 236 advisers in December, found that 22% indicated that a "Democrat in the White House" worried them more than all other economic or geopolitical concerns. Rounding out...

SACRAMENTO -- California schools could face painful mid-year spending cuts of a $1 billion or more as a weakening economy lowers tax revenue forecasts, reducing the Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee. Non-partisan Legislative Analyst Liz Hill said last month that school funding in the current year was about $400 million above the Proposition 98 guarantee. She suggested that lawmakers look at cutting the "over-appropriation" as one way to begin closing a huge budget shortfall now reportedly estimated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to be about $14 billion over the next 18 months. Hill's estimate was made when the shortfall was believed to...

Barack Obama may have The Bomb. And it’s not aboard the Enola Gay. It’s now aboard the Obama Express campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Suddenly Hillary’s not looking invincible. The secret weapon is, of course, Oprah, the nationally adored talk-show host. She attracted a crowd estimated at almost 30,000 Sunday in Columbia, S.C., after campaigning with him Saturday in Iowa. “There are those who say it’s not his time, that he should wait his turn,” she told the crowd in Columbia. “Think about where you’d be in your life if you’d waited when people told you to.” She added,...

There are many reasons a conservative should not vote for Rudy in the Republican primary but I want to emphasize one reason that has not been stated enough on most of the websites I frequent. He will depress the conservative vote, which will impact most other Republicans running for office. That means any close race that a Republican might have won because of the conservative vote, will go down to defeat because enough conservatives stayed home and did not vote. It is a fact that many voters will not come out to the polls if they feel that there is...

IT WAS always a long shot for supporters of an immigration measure known as the Dream Act to round up the 60 votes needed to advance the bill in the Senate. But it didn't help matters yesterday when the Bush administration, having supported a comprehensive immigration reform bill containing essentially the same provision, came out against the bill on the morning of the vote. This helped quash the hopes of tens of thousands of promising young people who find themselves, through no fault of their own, in this country illegally. The failure of the Dream Act -- it got just...

<p>Wednesday Cloture Vote Set For DREAM Act Amnesty Bill (October 23) Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed to invoke cloture on S. 2205, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) new stand-alone DREAM Act amnesty bill. The cloture vote, for which 60 YES votes are necessary to prevent a filibuster on the measure, is set for Wednesday, October 24. Reid is attempting to bring this nightmarish amnesty bill to the floor under Senate Rule XIV without it ever having been debated in committee... Click here for more background on the DREAM Act.</p>

Presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., laughs as she talks to the media after meeting with Missouri clergy Oct 5, 2007 in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Fact: 54% of voters in the 2004 election were women and that’s good news for Hillary Clinton (D-NY). According to various news reports, Clinton employs six full-time staffers specifically for women’s outreach -- more than any other candidate -- to reel in the female vote. For now, Clinton leads Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the Democratic race by a 42-23% (according to the latest RCP poll) margin and will likely take the nomination for 2008. She knows how critical that female vote is, which is why she participated in a Women in Public Policy (WIPP) event yesterday. Clinton used the...

Tell your senator: Vote NO on Senate Amendment 2237Exactly one week ago, I warned about the return of the DREAM Act, which would confer special tuition benefits on illegal alien students despite federal prohibitions on such special treatment. It was September 11 and no one was paying attention, I guess. Well, now bipartisan open-borders lawmakers in Congress are poised to slip the DREAM Act (Senate Amendment 2237 text here) in during consideration of the Department of Defense authorization bill (H.R. 1585) this week. Numbers USA has the lowdown. The sponsor is Dick Durbin. Open-borders Orrin Hatch has sponsored previous DREAM...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency following the collapse of one of the San Francisco Bay area's most traveled sections of freeway, as workers began clearing debris from a fiery accident that destroyed an important commuter link.A freeway interchange that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed onto another highway ramp in Oakland, Calif., Sunday, April 29, 2007, after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and caught fire.

Does anyone else out in FR have terrorism "dreams" I started having them like 2 nights after Sept 11 2001 and they never went away. Sometimes they are soo eeerie. I had a big increase in the frequency of the dreams right before the attacks in London. I will tell you this. I have been sleeping a lot less and a lot less comfortably since the Democrats took over.

[url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20061114/pl_usnw/dnc_statement_on_giuliani_s_potential_presidential_bid331_xml]Rudy Giuliani[/url] draws large poll numbers across the country and across the board. Although their combined RINO quotient is high and could spawn a third-party revolt if they got nominated, John McCain and Giuliani would be a dream team. That is, if one of these two egomaniacs could be persuaded to take the VP slot on the 2008 Republican ticket! Despite his frankly left-wing takes on many social issues, I like his support of school vouchers as this product of parochial schools does the right thing to enable kids to escape dead-end public education, over-funded and under-delivering because of huge...

SNIPOscar-winning doc filmmaker Barbara Kopple ("Harlan County USA," "American Dream") teamed up with collaborator Cecilia Peck to co-direct a behind the scenes look at the best-selling female group of all time, "The Dixie Chicks." The film, "Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing" was initially envisioned as a much more modest project, according to the band's Natalie Maines who spoke at a press conference this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. "We originally thought of having a filmmaker [to capture footage] for ourselves or as a supplement to some concert DVD release," said Maines. But Maines' now famous off-handed comment...

The mother of a Marine corporal charged with the murder of an Iraqi along with seven other servicemen says Navy prosecutors are trying to frame the "Pendleton 8" – denying them access to evidence, attempting to coerce confessions and treating them more harshly than terrorist prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Leanne Magincalda, mother of Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, blamed leaks by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., for creating a climate of witch-hunt hysteria surrounding the case, leading to isolation and harassment of the incarcerated soldiers. She told WND the parents of the eight have seen most of the evidence against their sons, and...

The charismatic war hero who is not afraid to criticise Bush could be just the man for the Republicans NED LAMONT, the winner of the Democratic primary for the Senate in Connecticut, is a lucky man. He has both old and new money; his great-grandfather was a partner in J. P. Morgan’s bank when it was still the most powerful private bank in the world. He has made fortunes in asset management and communications. In his filing, he states modestly that his net worth is between $50 million (£28 million) and $300 million. He was able to outspend Joseph Lieberman,...

David Horowitz and Richard Poe expose the unwritten partnership between Soros and Hillary. The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party by David Horowitz & Richard Poe Nelson Current (August 2006) Hdbk., 304 pgs To condemn as false the entirety of the Left’s attacks on their opponents, the past, our culture, and capitalism is to somewhat overstate the case as, amid the sweltering cauldron of fabrication which so often is their argumentation, a few gray areas exist wherein the rhetoric is more true than false. Perhaps the best example of one...