Free Republic

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to donate the $1.4 million from his Nobel Peace Prize to helping students, veterans' families and survivors of Haiti's earthquake, among others, drawing attention to organizations he said "do extraordinary work." Obama is giving a total of $750,000 to six groups that help kids go to college. Fisher House, which provides housing for families with loved ones at Veterans Administration hospitals, will receive $250,000, the White House said Thursday. And the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, for which two former presidents are raising money to rebuild earthquake-ravaged Haiti, will receive $200,000. "These organizations do extraordinary work...

PEACE activists have carried mock coffins through New York to protest against President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. About 50 demonstrators walked from outside the United Nations to the military recruiting office on Times Square in central Manhattan. Walking to a slow drumbeat, they carried black cardboard coffins, the first of which was draped in the US flag. "Barack Obama does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, especially after his recent announcement that he will escalate the war in Afghanistan," said Will Travers, 30, who helped carry one of the coffins.

"As a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

US President Barack Obama has confronted the paradox of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize while serving as a war president. Accepting the speech in the Norwegian capital Oslo overnight, Mr Obama said war is sometimes needed to pursue security and peace and that violent conflicts will not end in our lifetime. He told his audience that he was obligated to protect and defend the United States and that the use of force was sometimes not only necessary, but morally justified. Mr Obama also tackled head-on the critics who say that he has been prematurely awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. "I...

US President Barack Obama has received the gold Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma in a lavish ceremony in Norway. Mr Obama accepted the prize with "deep gratitude and great humility" but warned that war was sometimes necessary despite its "acute" human tragedy. In his speech at the ceremony, Mr Obama said the United States must uphold moral standards when waging wars that are necessary and justified. He said violent conflict would not be eradicated "in our lifetimes", there would be times when nations would need to fight just wars and he would not stand idle in the face of...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Here in the land of limbo, the news of President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize landed with more of a whimper than wild enthusiasm among those waging their part in the war on terror. Most troops interviewed this week reflected the surprise of their commander in chief on waking up to the news Friday morning. More than a few hadn't heard about the award for the president who pledged to empty the prison camps here until they were asked about it in an interview with The Miami Herald. ``I've been fishing,'' said Navy Petty...

OSLO — One judge noted with surprise that President Barack Obama "didn't look particularly happy" at being named the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Another marveled at how critics could be so patronizing. In a rare public defense of a process normally shrouded in secrecy, four of the Nobel jury's five judges spoke out Tuesday about a selection they said was both merited and unanimous. To those who say a Nobel is too much too soon in Obama's young presidency, "We simply disagree ... He got the prize for what he has done," committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland told The Associated Press...

As the Nobel Prize committee was voting one way on Barack Obama's promise for the world's future, the global marketplace was holding a very different vote on America's future. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the US President the peace prize for 2009 for having "created a new climate in international politics", the citation said, in part. Yet, at the same time, the world's foreign exchanges have been busy reassessing the climate in international realpolitik. The US dollar is falling sharply against currencies around the world. Since March it has lost 9 per cent of its value against the yen, 17...

(Caracas) -- Venezuela's leader is criticizing the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. Hugo Chavez said, quote, "for the first time we are witnessing an award with the nominee having done nothing to deserve it." Although in the past, the socialist leader has praised Obama personally, Chavez has also criticized what he has described as the "imperialist" policies of the U.S. In a column, the leader took the Nobel committee to task for overlooking Obama's role in "perpetuating his battalions in Iraq and Afghanistan and his decision to install new military bases in Colombia." The remarks from...

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has taken aim at the Nobel Peace Prize committee over its decision to award the latest prize to US President Barack Obama. Mr Downer described the decision 'a farce' and said Mr Obama should have refused to accept the prize. "He has been in office for less than nine months when it is announced that he has won the prize, so they would have made the decision a few weeks ago I suppose. It does make the whole system a bit of a farce," he said. Mr Downer says it is a pity Mr Obama...

Just took a poll on facebook as to whether or not Obama deserves the Peace prize. I voted no and found that at this time, with 187,000 having voted, almost 82 per cent say... NO. (song parody on the Howie Carr show by a listener, set to Beatles tune) "Who'd give him that prize? I know who could Norwegians would..."

In a wonderfully stunning decision, the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded our president its Peace Prize. They said the award was as much for the hope that he will contribute to a more peaceful world as it was for any specific accomplishment during his first nine months in office. ... In December 2006, President George W. Bush was faced with a similarly difficult foreign policy decision. The Republicans had suffered tremendous losses in the November election, in part because of the conduct of the war in Iraq. At the time, the unpopular Republican president was being pressured by ascendant congressional...

See the video below of the Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit mocking President Obama, fresh off the surprising announcement that he'd received the Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement was met by "shock and awe" by both the Right and Left of the political persuasion.

Oslo decided to change its ways and begin giving out deferred Nobel Prizes: Win now, pay tomorrow. There's no other way to explain the bewildering, not to say bizarre, decision to grant the Nobel Prize for Peace to Barack Obama. Just like the reserved, esteemed Norwegians on the prize committee, we here, sweating and bleeding, were overjoyed with Barack Obama's election as U.S. president - black, eloquent, enchanting, striking and promising. Many an eye welled with tears, from Jerusalem to Rafah, at his unforgettable inauguration address, and even as late as his Cairo speech we still clung to his beautiful...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro lauded the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, saying on Saturday it was "a positive measure" that was more a criticism of past U.S. policies than a recognition of Obama's accomplishments. Castro said the prize made up for the blow Obama suffered last week when the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2016 Summer Games to Rio de Janeiro after Obama had flown to Copenhagen to pitch for Chicago, his adoptive hometown. The Nobel Committee announced on Friday that Obama had won the peace price for his "extraordinary...