Free Republic

First lady Michelle Obama is kicking off the holiday season by welcoming the White House Christmas tree. Mrs. Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha and first dog Bo greeted the arrival of a 19-foot Fraser fir from Peak Farms in Jefferson, N.C. The tree arrived Friday on a horse-drawn carriage. It will be displayed in the Blue Room of the White House. The first lady says the tree is "perfect."

The fourth year of President Obama’s reign maintained his traditional omission of God from the Thanksgiving address to the nation. This break from his predecessors was vigorously defended by First Lady Michelle Obama. “Why should God get the credit for blessings that He had no part in creating?” Michelle asked. “It’s federal farm programs that ensure a robust harvest each year. It’s the FDA that guarantees the food we put on our tables is safe to eat. And it’s the generous expansion of eligibility for Food Stamps that has enabled even the poorest among us the opportunity to enjoy an...

Israel decided to refrain from a ground invasion of Gaza after it was warned that such a move could spell the end of the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, Channel 2 reported Thursday. According to the report, Mossad Head Tamir Pardo, who went to Cairo as Israel's representative in the contacts that preceded the ceasefire, was told in messages from Cairo and from Washington that the peaceful relations between Israel, Jordan and Egypt were at risk. .....

This year Thanksgiving was marked by the issuance of a statement of infallibility: … (the)President issued a new constitutional declaration on Thursday in which he assumed sweeping powers that will not be subject to appeal… “The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.” Thankfully, it came from Egyptian President Morsi, where they are accustomed to such edicts.(snip) And I see the let’s-spoil-every-holiday crowd was busy yesterday taking offense over the message of the American Thanksgiving; complaining about the impropriety of celebrating the Pilgrims’ survival in the land of the First Peoples....

Among the eligibility requirements for immigration to the United States are these: Job or Employment BasedPeople who want to become immigrants based on employment or a job offer may apply for permanent residence or an immigrant visa abroad, when an immigrant visa number becomes available according to the following employment based preferences: First Preference: Priority Workers, including aliens with extraordinary abilities, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational executives and managers Second Preference: Members of professions holding an advanced degree or persons of exceptional ability (including individuals seeking a National Interest Waiver) Third Preference: Skilled Workers, professionals and other qualified...

Sources: Intel Community Didn't Rule Out Terrorism in Rice Talking PointsIt now looks as though the White House's excuse for the pre-election Libya cover-up is itself a cover up. Last week we were told by the Administration (and the compliant media) that during her now-infamous round robin of five Sunday news shows, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was only telling us what she was told by the intelligence community. We were also told that references to al-Qaeda were edited out of the talking points in order to avoid tipping off the attackers that we were on to them. According to a...

After moments of panic in the immediate aftermath of Mitt Romney's defeat, some Republicans and conservatives are regaining their equilibrium on the issue of what the GOP should do about immigration and the Hispanic vote. They're looking at key questions from the campaign, like how much of Barack Obama's victory was attributable to Hispanic support. They're also looking at the Hispanic electorate itself to see how big a role immigration, versus a wide range of other issues, played in voting decisions. The goal, of course, is to win a larger portion of the Hispanic vote, but first to take a...

President Obama's Two Hundredth Week in Office11/22/2012Community Organizer to the WorldFor Fourth Straight Year, Obama's Thanksgiving Message Doesn't Thank GodObama on Thanksgiving: 'A day to fight the overwhelming urge to take a nap' Peace, turkey pardoned by President Obama last Thanksgiving, euthanizedPictured: How Cambodia´s first lady mocked President Obama with a handshake greeting typically reserved for servantsBun Rany, Cambodia's First Lady gives Obama a "Sampeh", a greeting at a tilt usually reserved for servantsObama and Agenda 21Thanksgiving eve surprise: Feds to block off 9M acres for spotted owlBenghazi-GateGreta Van Susteren: Obama punishing Fox for Benghazi- : "grow up"Susan Rice defends initial...

“This is a response to a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world,” Rice told NBC’s David Gregory. “The best assessment we have today,” she added when talking to CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “is that in fact this was not a pre-planned, premeditated attack.” Also, if Rice really knew nothing about Benghazi, why was she out there talking about it? The tip-off to Republicans is that she didn’t only read from the script provided her about the violence in Libya, she also repeated the president’s campaign slogans. “The American people fully understand that this...

Scientists have confirmed the long-held suspicion that frequent heavy marijuana use damages the brain's memory and learning capacity. "Our results suggest that long-term cannabis use is hazardous to white matter in the developing brain. This was especially true for those who had started in adolescence, as we know the brain is still developing during this time," Lead researcher Dr. Marc Seal, from Melbourne’s Murdoch Children's Research Institute said in a university release. Scientists from MCRI, Melbourne University and Wollongong University compared MRI scans of the brain for 59 people who had been using marijuana for an average of 15 years...

Yet again, President Obama’s Thanksgiving message eschewed any direct reference to thanking God, making this the fourth straight year in which the President of the United States has ignored the central message of the holiday in favor of political grandstanding. This year, Obama’s central message was that now that he’s been re-elected, Americans should agree with all of his policies. His unity routine sounds strangely empty after a campaign in which he focused on dividing Americans: "But most of all, it’s a time to give thanks for each other, and for the incredible bounty we enjoy." "That’s especially important this...

Today, the White House officially refused to release photos of US officials during the September 11 terrorist attacks on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that ended with the deaths of four Americans. CBS News requested the photos on October 31; the White House has routinely released photos showing members of the Obama administration in their hero poses during national security crises. That happened most famously with pictures of the Obama administration key players clustered into the White House situation room during the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

CAIRO — With a constitutional assembly on the brink of collapse and protesters battling the police in the streets over the slow pace of change, President Mohamed Morsi issued a decree on Thursday granting himself broad powers above any court as the guardian of Egypt’s revolution, and used his new authority to order the retrial of Hosni Mubarak. Mr. Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt’s first elected president, portrayed his decree as an attempt to fulfill popular demands for justice and protect the transition to a constitutional democracy. But the unexpected breadth of the powers he seized raised immediate fears that...

Egypt President Morsi grants himself far-reaching powers CAIRO – Egypt's president on Thursday issued constitutional amendments that placed him above judicial oversight and ordered the retrial of Hosni Mubarak for the killing of protesters in last year's uprising. Mohammed Morsi also decreed immunity for the Islamist-dominated panel drafting a new constitution from any possible court decisions to dissolve it, a threat that had been hanging over the controversial assembly. Liberal and Christian members withdrew from the assembly during the past week to protest what they say is the hijacking of the process by Morsi's allies, who they saw are trying...

One would think hosts on MSNBC would be very thankful this holiday that the President they so tirelessly worked to re-elect prevailed on Election Day. But there is truly no rest for the weary, bitter leftists on Comcast's disgraceful propaganda outlet. MSNBC host and professional race-baiter Melissa Harris-Perry starts things off by trying to dampen our spirits by attacking the Thanksgiving story: “The kindergarten story that you learned about grateful Pilgrims and happy Indians is not even close to the historic reality of how European settlers brought violence, disease and land theft to the indigenous peoples who were already in...

November 22, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – For the fourth year straight, President Obama has omitted any direct statement thanking God in his Thanksgiving address. In 2009 President Obama made history when he issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation that failed to directly thank God. There was an outcry, and Obama’s subsequent proclamations have made prominent mention of God. However, as Ben Shapiro of Breitbart points out, his Thanksgiving addresses (as opposed to the proclamations), which he reads to the camera, have continued to eschew mention of God. In his 2012 Thanksgiving address, Obama says that Thanksgiving is “a time to give...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A Jacksonville police officer has quit after admitting he told colleagues that he would volunteer to assassinate President Barack Obama. Sam Koivisto told the Florida Times-Union (http://bit.ly/10zfc6q ) on Wednesday that his comments had been blown out of proportion and that he'd planned to retire in five months anyway. Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/20164591/police-officer-quits-after-comments-about-obama#ixzz2Czc5SK9A

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made several decrees Thursday that will shape the country’s constitution and, he says, safeguard its “revolutionary” future. They include a ruling that none of his decisions can be overturned by any authority. Morsi gave the Constituent Assembly a two month deadline to finish drafting a new constitution, ruling that no authority may dissolve it until the country's defining document is completed. He further ruled that no authority may dissolve the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt's parliament. In a move likely to bring criticism that the Egyptian president is inappropriately expanding his powers, he also...

Bun Rany, Cambodia's first lady, gives President Obama a "sampeah" greeting at a tilt usually reserved for servants.

FULL TITLE: Not just 'following orders': Nazi prison camp bosses 'took pride in what they were doing' new study claims Nazi concentration camp bosses who claimed they were just 'following orders' truly believed and took pride in what they were doing, researchers have claimed. Landmark studies on human behaviour in the 1960s and 1970s had founded the theory that people carried out evil act because they naturally follow orders from figures of authority. And Nazi war criminals famously tried the defence at the Nuremberg trials. But Scottish psychologists have challenged the fifty-year-old findings after going back and re-examining the original...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ah, Thanksgiving. A little turkey, some cranberry mold, maybe apple pie with ice cream, some football on TV. Getting together with the cousins. Catching up beside the fire. Togetherness. On second thought: Scratch that. What were we thinking? This was an election year. “The Thanksgiving table will be a battleground,” says Andrew Marshall, 34, of Quincy, Mass. Like many extended families across the country, Marshall’s includes Democrats and Republicans, conservatives, liberals and independents. And so, like many families that count both red and blue voters in their ranks, they’re expecting fireworks. Things had already gotten so bad...

Diplomacy: So amid all the colorful and flirty photos from President Obama's first tour of Southeast Asia, what did he actually accomplish? As usual, he served himself politically in what was largely a Potemkin mission abroad. It was obvious enough from the rubelike gaffes that the president hasn't been particularly interested or attentive to the affairs of Thailand, Burma or Cambodia as he made his first trip since his re-election. It was pretty much all style over substance. In his tour of Burma, billed as an historic first visit since Burma's 2007 move to democracy, it was clear he was...

There have been rumors that Fareed Zakaria is in the running to be Secretary of State in President Obama's second term. While the now leading candidate may be worse, this op-ed by Zakaria in the Washington Post makes you wonder why he was ever considered. Zakaria gives us a rundown of the region and reaches the following conclusions.. This is why Egypt, despite being under a new Islamist government, is not going to risk war with Israel. Nor are the other Arab states. They will make fiery speeches and offer humanitarian assistance. But they will not fight alongside the Palestinians...

Small minds always leap to the answers given the last time around, which is probably why Maxine Waters keeps getting re-elected. But the last time is not necessarily the same as this time. A terrorist attack is not the same as the Cold War, a war in Afghanistan is not the same as a war in Iraq, and Mitt Romney is not the same as John McCain or Bob Dole. But since the election, many conservatives seem to be coalescing around the explanation for our defeat given by Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots, who said: “What we...

The First Lady of Cambodia greeted Barack Obama like he was a towel boy. And, of course, our clueless president thought it was ‘cool.’ Investor’s Business Daily reported: So amid all the colorful and flirty photos from President Obama’s first tour of Southeast Asia, what did he actually accomplish? As usual, he served himself politically in what was largely a Potemkin mission abroad. It was obvious enough from the rubelike gaffes that the president hasn’t been particularly interested or attentive to the affairs of Thailand, Burma or Cambodia as he made his first trip since his re-election. It was pretty...

After his party’s devastating setback in the 2010 midterm elections, Barack Obama was reelected earlier this month by painting his Republican opponents as heartless in favoring lower taxes for the rich. They were portrayed as nativists for opposing the DREAM Act amnesty for illegal immigrants, and as callous in battling the federal takeover of health care. Republicans countered with arguments that higher taxes on the employer class hurt the economy in general. They assumed most voters knew that amnesties are euphemisms for undermining federal law and in the past have had the effect of promoting more illegal immigration. They tried...

The Obama administration announced with little fanfare Thanksgiving eve plans to lock up nine million acres of land for the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. The plan would double the amount of public forest lands proposed by the Bush administration for the owl’s habitat in Oregon, Washington and Northern California, and is expected to severely limit commercial activities like logging. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said he is concerned the plan will cost taxpayers millions of dollars. “Expanding the Northern Spotted Owl’s critical habitat will further endanger the timber industry, the thousands of jobs that...

... Teresa Dougherty: "I never felt that way about the other presidents. They seemed stuck up, but he seemed so down to earth. That's why I want to meet him." Ninety-three year old Teresa Doughtery is a big Barack Obama fan and asked us to get her a ticket to the presidential debates at Lynn University. Teresa Dougherty: "It would be a dream come true. I would shake hands with him and if I could kiss him, I would kiss him." I tried to get her tickets, talking to every local democratic leader we thought could help. Tried Lynn University,...

A recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s effort to nationalize the nation’s pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRA’s and 401k plans, NSC is warning. The hearing, held in the Labor Department’s main auditorium, was monitored by NSC staff and featured a line up of left-wing activists including one representative of the AFL-CIO who advocated for more government regulation over private retirement accounts and even the establishment of government-sponsored annuities that would take the place of 401k plans. “This hearing was set up to explore why Americans...

A federal investigation of how David H. Petraeus’s biographer obtained numerous classified records is focusing on whether the retired general’s staff gave her sensitive documents at his instruction, according to federal officials familiar with the inquiry. Petraeus and Broadwell have told FBI investigators that Petraeus did not provide her with classified information, law enforcement officials said. Attorneys for the two declined to respond to specific questions for this article, as did Broadwell’s spokeswoman, Dee Dee Myers of the Glover Park Group.

Ah, Thanksgiving. A little turkey, some cranberry mold, maybe apple pie with ice cream, some football on TV. Getting together with the cousins. Catching up beside the fire. Togetherness. On second thought: Scratch that. What were we thinking? This was an election year. “The Thanksgiving table will be a battleground,” says Andrew Marshall, 34, of Quincy, Mass...

Obama to Hold ‘Private’ Swear-in Ceremony for Second Presidential Term Something is not right in America, take 2. By Shepard Ambellas theintelhub.com November 20, 2012 One month from now on January 20, 2013, President Obama will be required by law to be sworn-in for his second presidential term by noon. However, something mysterious is happening again with the ceremony raising the eyebrows of some. Since the 20th falls on a Sunday, a private ceremony will be held signifying the possibility of fraud as the “public” ceremony will be held the following day. The fact is that even a deviation by...

On Thanksgiving Day, Americans gather with family, partners and friends to recount the benefits lavished upon us this past year. This day is a time to take stock of what we have gained after a long struggle of securing rights to share in the bounty that this nation has produced. Thanks to our hard fought efforts, we are grateful that we are beginning to see a better distribution of resources that hold the promise of enriching our lives. As we see needs being met by a multitude of re-distributive programs take effect, we are reminded of the indelible spirit of...

President Obama’s reelection guaranteed at least one thing for his second term – Obamacare is here here to stay. But that is not going to keep Republicans from trying to chip away at the law. House Speaker John Boehner wrote, in an op-ed, Tuesday that cuts to the president’s landmark legislative achievement should be included in efforts to deal with the looming fiscal cliff. “We can’t afford it, and we can’t afford to leave it intact. That’s why I’ve been clear that the law has to stay on the table as both parties discuss ways to solve our nation’s massive...

If Abraham Lincoln released his October 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation today, it would be panned by all sides. In the statement that is considered the beginning of the unbroken annual tradition of presidential Thanksgiving proclamations, Lincoln said that God had dealt “with us in anger for our sins.” He recommended “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” The words “sin” and “perverse” would set off the Left as overly judgmental and embarrassingly archaic. The Right would bristle at national self-criticism from the country’s commander-in-chief (at a time of war, no less). Lincoln had good reason to speak of perversity, of...

WASHINGTON—A House panel said Wednesday it believes federal courts have the authority to decide a dispute in which Attorney General Eric Holder is refusing to provide Congress with Justice Department documents about a botched criminal investigation into gun-trafficking on the Southwest border. In a 65-page filing about Operation Fast and Furious, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said federal courts have routinely reviewed the validity of congressional inquiries. The lawyers for the House said Holder's contention that courts cannot adjudicate political disputes would permanently shut the courthouse doors to virtually all disputes between the executive and legislative branches. In...

President Barack Obama must show a willingness to cut back the healthcare reform law during budget negotiations, says House Speaker John Boehner. “President Obama has won re-election, but his healthcare law is still driving up costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire workers. As was the case before the election, Obamacare has to go,” Boehner writes in the Cincinnati Enquirer. “The president’s health care law adds a massive, expensive, unworkable government program at a time when our national debt already exceeds the size of our country’s entire economy. We can’t afford it, and we can’t afford to...

Michael Gerson in the Tuesday Washington Post got it half-right: Occupy Wall Street was a big 2012 winner by defining the narrative that others ran on. Yes! You read it here first, long ago. Gerson then fell into the rightist trap claiming Obama wants to end capitalism. Nope! Too much rightist brew for Gerson. Occupy Wall Street was indeed a huge 2012 winner, defining the narrative of the winning party, while the discredited Tea Party crashed, Sarah Palin is reduced to marginal opining, Elizabeth Warren emerges as a champion, Romney's 47 percent insult was defeated by Occupy Wall Street's 99...

Caught “Game Change” on cable the other night. Read Charlotte Allen’s Op-Ed article, “Hey, GOP, take the Palin cure,” in The Times on Sunday. And what did I learn? Well, something doesn’t add up. Or, to paraphrase “I Love Lucy”: “Charlotte, you got some ’splainin’ to do.” In her Op-Ed, Allen serves up equal parts lemonade and venomade in making her case that Sarah Palin should be the Republican presidential candidate in 2016. In Allen’s view, Palin has it all: She has blue-collar appeal, she’s “tough as nails,” and best of all, she’s a woman, which, in Allen’s world, gives...

An article in the Wall St. Journal paints a gloomy picture for the future U.S. companies are scaling back investment plans at the fastest pace since the recession, signaling more trouble for the economic recovery.Half of the nation's 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders have announced plans to curtail capital expenditures this year or next, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal of securities filings and conference calls. Nationwide, business investment in equipment and software—a measure of economic vitality in the corporate sector—stalled in the third quarter for the first time since early 2009. Corporate investment in new...

The Republicans really need to lay off UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The image of a party of angry old white dudes going after an accomplished black woman will not give them the image makeover they need. Not unlike their outrageous behavior over the past four years—and this election season in particular—the party is guilty of overreach. Despite the thrashing the GOP received on election day, and the lessons they should have learned when President Barack Obama cleaned Romney’s clock, old habits are hard to break. The Grand Old Party has engaged in relentless attacks on Ambassador Rice’s intelligence and reputation,...

President Barack Obama praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday for agreeing to an Egypt-crafted cease-fire with Palestinian militants in Gaza. Obama, speaking to Netanyahu by telephone, also underlined America's unwavering support for Israel's security and said he hoped to "intensify" U.S. assistance. "The president commended the prime minister for agreeing to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal—which the president recommended the prime minister do—while reiterating that Israel maintains the right to defend itself," the White House said in a summary of the conversation.

While pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey today, President Obama absolved it with what he called a "special dispensation," making the Sign of the Cross over the gobbling turkey. It appears that Obama made a left handed, backward sign of the cross.

Returning home after two months on the road touring the country singing, speaking, writing and campaigning to defeat Obama, I felt similar to a heartbroken soldier after losing a war. I trust God, but in all candor, I felt emotionally drained. Shopping for salad stuff in Walmart, I focused on a sign “Gold Bell Peppers $1.68 each”. To my surprise, I became extremely angry. As absurd as it sounds, $1.68 for one bell pepper was the straw that broke the camel's back. It epitomized my frustration and anger over the idiocy of Obama voters. Why in the world would they...

....In the Benghazi story, we have four dead Americans. A lack of security that borders on criminal negligence. No apparent effort was made to save the lives of Messrs. Woods and Doherty, despite their pleas. The Obama administration, including the president, gave false and misleading accounts of what happened despite mounting evidence to the contrary. And the person who was wrongly accused of inciting the attacks by making a crude YouTube video is now in prison. Yet the press has, for the most part, treated this story with ambivalence and reluctance. A reliable barometer of the views of the elite...

"Catholicism teaches that it is a sin to use, provide, or otherwise support contraception." These words are not from the Catholic Catechism or a sermon by a Catholic bishop. They are excerpted from the preliminary injunction U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland issued last month temporarily stopping the Obama administration from forcing a family-owned outdoor-power-equipment company to comply with an Obamacare regulation that requires virtually all health care plans to provide women (but not men) with co-pay-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. The judge stated the Catholic teaching on contraception as an undisputed fact of the case. He...

I keep thinking, "Christie can't possibly come back from this." And then I think, "Wait, did we actually just nominate John McCain and the guy responsible for RomneyCare?"Never underestimate the Republican capacity to forgive, my friends. But behind the scenes, the intensity of the reaction from those in Mr. ChristieÂ’s party caught him by surprise, interviews show, requiring a rising Republican star to try to contain a tempest that left him feeling deeply misunderstood and wounded... The tensions followed Mr. Christie to the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Las Vegas last week. At a gathering where he...

Here I am, back in time for Thanksgiving.(snip)And there is so much to be thankful for around here. Take the other day for example; Lady M took time out of her busy post-reelection schedule to celebrate the arts and humanities in a recycled Zero + Maria Cornejo frock with our signature boob belt. To update the look from the first wearing, we matched it up this time around with ankle belts as well, and midnight blue/black nail polish with the new squared-off nail tip look. Very au courant. Big Guy got back late last night from his very successful, if...

The creator of the so-called "Unskewed" Polling site is now unskewing the actual votes. Last week, Dean Chambers — who admitted he was wrong about the polls shortly after the election — launched BarackOFraudo.com, which attempts to expose "how they stole the election." Its premise centers on the admittedly eye-popping fact that Republican Mitt Romney received sometimes as little as zero votes in certain precincts in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Chambers also alleges that there are "questions" with how votes were counted in Florida and Virginia. You see where this is going — without those four states, President Barack Obama has...

Vermont is the only state in the nation on a path to a single payer health system. That could take a while, though. And in the meantime, the state has to set up an insurance exchange to comply with the Affordable Care Act. While some states are still struggling with the basic question of whether to do their own exchanges, Vermont is moving ahead at a rapid clip, digging into the details of how much various health plans will cost on its exchange. The Green Mountain Care Board this week released the basic outline of benefit packages that will be...