Free Republic

Yes, everything is about Barack Obama. From the beginning, he has built his career on his own personal story, and the funeral service of former Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye at the National Cathedral on Friday apparently struck him as an opportune time to remind the world what that story was. In his 1,600-word oration, Obama even managed to work in the fact, as though someone in the universe might not have heard, that he had "a white mom [and] a black father" "and was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." The problem, however, is not just that Obama used the word...

What the republicans and their supporters don't understand is that Obama is playing them as if they are opponents in a "playground basketball game" where intimidation, trash talking, humiliation, and below the belt blows are the predominant rap of the winning team Nothing better demonstrates this simple analysis than the following quote: "At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, "I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?" "You get nothing," the president said. "I get that for free."

Here we are the Sunday before Christmas when our thoughts should be turning towards peace on earth,goodwill towards men and what do we get instead?A snarky little piece in one of our most reliable left-leaning propaganda outlets.In an article titled“Today we are gathered…to hear more about me”,the author notes that“Obama likes to see events through the lens of his own life’s chronology.”And then she impertinently proceeds to demonstrate: Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is not Year One, the date around which all other events are understood. His much-noted,...

Obama Golfing in Hawaii With Pal Arrested in Prostitution Sting HONOLULU, Hawaii — Taking a break from the fiscal cliff negotiations, President Obama is spending the first day of his holiday vacation golfing with friends and aides, including longtime pal Bobby Titcomb, who was arrested last year on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute. After arriving in Hawaii late last night, the president spent this morning at his family’s vacation residence along the shores of Kailua, a quiet town on a stretch of beach on the east end of Oahu. Shortly before noon, the president made the trip to the Kailua...

With President Obama's triumph in November, many political observers sounded the death knell for the "full repeal" movement fighting against ObamaCare. Despite lingering controversy and general unpopularity, the president's victory and a large Democratic majority in the Senate made the law appear safe at last. Is it? In a sense, it is. Full repeal almost certainly won't happen while President Obama is in office, and attempts to reform the law will struggle to gain traction as long as progressives keep their hold on the Senate. If the law won't be repealed before its true implementation in 2014, and if reform...

Barack Obama flew to Hawaii this week after fiscal-cliff negotiations stalled, in part for a Christmas vacation, and in part to attend the memorial service for the late Senator Daniel Inouye. Obama offered a eulogy for Inouye, which usually means offering insights into the deceased’s life and character. Instead, as is Obama’s wont, he talked more about himself than the man whose life was supposed to be the center of attention.Even Slate noticed the problem, and blasted Obama for his narcissistic streak: Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is...

Just one day after President Obama tapped Vice President Joe Biden to lead an initiative on gun violence, Jon Adler was at its first meeting, along with Cabinet secretaries and organizations representing law enforcement. Not much lead time, but no matter: Adler, national president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Assn., had a list of policy changes — from legislative to regulatory to "tactical" coordination — at the ready, with granular detail. He cited, chapter and verse, the law that makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly possess a firearm in a school zone. He wanted that upgraded to a felony....

For years, voices have cried in the urban wilderness: We need to talk about gun control. Yet the guns blazed on. It took a small-town slaughter for gun control to become a political priority. Now, decades' worth of big-city arguments against easy access to guns are finally being heard, because an unstable young man invaded an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., with a military-style assault rifle and 30-bullet magazines. Twenty young children and six adults were slain....

Montgomery Blair Sibley, the disbarred lawyer who once represented the so-called "D.C. Madam" and today spends his time attempting to disprove President Obama's birth certificate, is upset that a federal judge is not acknowledging his hobby. In a news release, Sibley says that Judge John D. Bates of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia "continues to ignore court rules" by not ruling on his motions to hold Obama, Harvard Law School, the Social Security Administration, the Selective Service System and the State Department in contempt. He also claims that he now has "photographic evidence" that someone tampered with...

Puzzling me for a long time is the inconsistency between two claims by gun and Second Amendment supporters. One is that what they worship is critically needed to defend themselves against a government that they would view as oppressive and unacceptable. The other is their belief that the US government has already become awful, stealing their liberties. Why then, I keep asking myself, have we not seen a violent uprising among the untold millions of Americans owning guns to take back their government? Why do we not see what goes on in European nations, namely violent public uprisings against governments?...

President Obama says that income taxes must be raised on the rich because they don’t pay their fair share. The indisputable facts from official government sources say otherwise. The CBO reports based on official IRS data that in 2009 the top 1% of income earners paid 39% of all federal income taxes, three times their share of income at 13%. Yet, the middle 20% of income earners, the true middle class, paid just 2.7% of total federal income taxes on net that year, while earning 15% of income. That means the top 1% paid almost 15 times as much in...

Sen. John Kerry is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations responsible for oversight of US State Dept., execution of foreign policy and oversight of diplomatic facilities. But in Oct. 2012, Kerry was also acting as Obama's debate coach when Obama prepared for the 2nd debate, the foreign policy debate at which Romney was expected to grill Obama over the Benghazigate disaster. Did Kerry violate the separation of powers and ignore a conflict of interest in being both Obama's foreign policy debate coach and Chair of the committee? Kerry's committee in the legislative branch is supposed to provide...

President Obama has threatened House Speaker John Boehner that if no deal is struck on the “fiscal cliff,” he will use his Inaugural address and State of the Union speech next month to blame Republicans, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the Journal’s behind the scenes account of how fiscal cliff talks between Obama and Boehner hit a wall, what comes across is that the president is emboldened by his reelection and eager to extract more concessions from Boehner than he was willing to accept during last summer’s debt limit talks. This excerpt from the piece is revealing: Mr....

If President Obama and Senator Reid were actually negotiating in good faith, then one could argue that Speaker Boehner's Plan B was an acceptable, if unpalatable, compromise. After all, it permanently extended the current tax rates for very nearly all Americans, eliminating the annual game of chicken in Congress over whether our taxes will automatically increase. But the President and Senator Reid made very clear that they are not interested in compromise, and that Boehner's offer was dead on arrival in the Senate because it did not raise taxes on enough people. This is not a negotiation on President Obama's...

Obviously, most won't admit or recognize that they're afflicted with Stick-it-to-The-Man-e-osis. In their feverish state, many Obama-supporters believe that they won a "mandate" to Obama-money, whether it grows on trees or piles up in bottomless stashes of The Man. But some have woken up from their delirium to find, instead of gas in their car's tanks and paid-off mortgages, pink slips in their mailboxes or reduced working hours. Others will find that they will probably not be able to keep either their doctor or their insurance, and that a very powerful Man -- Uncle Sam -- has invited himself into...

HONOLULU, Hawaii — President Obama is golfing at Mamala Bay Golf Course at Hickam Air Force Base in a group that includes White House travel director Marvin Nicholson and Hawaiian pal Robert “Bobby” Titcomb, who was arrested in April on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute. In April, Titcomb was one of four men arrested in an undercover prostitution sting operation, according to Honolulu police. Titcomb, an airline employee and commercial fisherman, has been friends with the president since they attended Honolulu’s elite Punahou School together in the 1970s.

Today, the same elite media who no doubt send their own kids to private schools that employ armed security, just can't stop howling ridicule at the NRA's idea to give every student in America those same protections. Because the NRA's idea is so appealing, as I write this, the media's going overboard, mocking it as bizarre, crazy, and out of touch. This is how the media works to silence and vilify the opposition and to ensure that only their ideas control The Narrative. The media doesn't care about securing our schools; they only care about coming after our guns and...

Our “Constitutional Law Professor” in Chief was born to parents that openly hated America, raised by an atheist mother that despised America, idolized an absentee Kenyan father that deeply hated America, later raised by atheist grandparents that hated America and whom personally appointed a known Communist Party agent to be Obama’s personal mentor. He was “spiritually counseled” for 20 years by an anti-American Preacher of Black Liberation Theology, a preacher of hate that eventually introduced our esteemed President to a woman that admitted to never being proud of America a day in her life. There can be no doubt Barack’s...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is resisting pressure from Republicans pushing for the Senate to take a more active role to avoid the “fiscal cliff” after House legislation stalled Thursday. Reid has rejected Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) assertion that avoiding the fiscal cliff now depends on President Obama working out a deal with the Senate. Reid’s allies said it is unrealistic to expect him and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to step in and hammer out an eleventh-hour agreement. On Friday, Reid dismissed McConnell’s proposal that he bring to the floor legislation extending tax rates that could be...

“Closed until next year” It’s a good thing Big Guy doesn’t have Jake Tapper to kick around any more.(snip)As I noted the other day, just because Big Guy said “I don’t think I’ve been on vacation,” doesn’t mean he hasn’t been. (snip)the balance of this post is dedicated to your recipes for Sweets and Treats.This is my traditional Christmas bread because I’m always so busy this time of year I forget to eat the bananas and they all turn black and mushy. As it turns out, that is the key to: Best Ever Banana Bread 2 ripe bananas mashed (by...