Free Republic

Peter Barker has written a column for the NY Times in which he compares Barack Obama to George Bush: Obama’s Turn in Bush’s Bind. For Times readers, that’s like comparing Obama to Hitler. It means that the Times is wondering if this White ...uh ... Authentically Black Knight is for real. He starts: Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of President George W. Bush finds himself cast as a present-day Mr. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country’s core values in the name...

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom. There are those who have never ceased to say very earnestly, "Something is going to happen to the American form of government if we don't watch out." These were the innocent disarmers. Their trust was in words. They had forgotten their Aristotle. More than 2,000 years ago he wrote of what can happen within...

In the past several days, we’ve learned about how you too can gain a degree of public sympathy if you plan to embark on a killing spree and then go into hiding as you bide your time waiting to kill again: Write a “manifesto” dominated by anti-police rants, a “progressive” outlook towards Second Amendment freedoms and support for leftist politicians. That’s what former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner, who is accused of killing Monica Quan, Keith Lawrence, and an as yet unnamed LAPD officer while wounding two others, has done. His sympathy-by-manifesto strategy has been alarmingly successful. Dorner’s...

President Obama will use his State of the Union speech on Tuesday to reinvigorate one of his signature national security objectives — drastically reducing nuclear arsenals around the world — after securing agreement in recent months with the United States military that the American nuclear force can be cut in size by roughly a third. -snip But Mr. Obama, according to an official who was involved in the deliberations, “believes that we can make pretty radical reductions — and save a lot of money — without compromising American security in the second term. And the Joint Chiefs have signed off...

Most analysis of drone technology from libertarian futurists these days is pretty pessimistic. They’re generally treated as part of a larger techno-fascist scenario, like the U.S. global hegemony (enforced by orbital lasers and remote-controlled UN teletroopers) depicted in Ken Macleod’s Fall Revolution novels. That’s an understandable temptation. After all, drones (combined with mobile operations like the assassination of bin Laden in May 2011) seem to have given the United States an unprecedented ability to take out the leadership and many of the rank-and-file of networked resistance movements like al Qaeda, far more cheaply than the old model of counter-insurgency warfare....

President Obama is considering a series of new executive actions aimed at working around a recalcitrant Congress, including policies that could allow struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages, provide new protections for gays and lesbians, make buildings more energy-efficient and toughen regulations for coal-fired power plants, according to people outside the White House involved in discussions on the issues. **SNIP** The administration declined to provide details on timing of the possible actions; one White House official said the moves to boost housing, retrofit buildings, offer same-sex protections or issue new environmental rules were not imminent. Obama may touch on some...

Sen. John McCain, a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is calling on President Barack Obama to provide leadership to end the standoff over sequestration and the looming budget cuts for the Pentagon. "What I would like to see is the president call the [party] leaders over to the White House and say, 'Look, we've got to solve this problem,'" McCain said on "Fox News Sunday." "All he does is go out and make speeches." Tens of billions of dollars of spending cuts under sequestration will kick in on March 1 unless Obama and Congress act to prevent...

Before the 2012 presidential election, gun dealer Jami Nolan maxed out credit cards and took out a home-equity loan to order over 250,000+ semi-auto rifles (AR's).

President Barack Obama’s annual addresses to Congress offer a glimpse at a leader whose rhetoric on energy and the environment has changed dramatically over the past four years — from his calls to pass sweeping climate legislation in 2009 to a full-throated embrace of natural gas last year. The speeches also matched the ebbs and flows in Obama’s political fortunes. Four years ago, as a popular president with Democratic House and Senate majorities, Obama told Congress that his greenhouse gas proposals would “transform our economy, protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change.” But in...

The funeral for Chicago shooting victim Hadiya Pendleton, the 15 year old who had performed with her band at the Inaugural, was held yesterday. Big Guy’s “never let a crisis go to waste” team members begged him to come “home” in order to bring national outrage attention to the problem of unemployed gang members gun violence in his “hometown.” Unfortunately he was busy testing his new miniature handheld drones.Or something. So he sent Lady M and Val Jar in his place. Today’s question: which of these looks would MO feel most appropriate to wear? The posthumous medal of Honor cocktail...

This week the Department of the Interior grandly announced plans for its March oil and gas lease sale in the Central Gulf of Mexico, off Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The announcement might have been more fitting for Groundhog Day. DOI: 38 Million Acres in Gulf of Mexico Up for Grabs To follow through with President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to expand domestic energy production, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced that the upcoming Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 227 will offer 38.6 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama for oil and gas exploration and development. … “The...

Can the President possibly believe that the Grand Bargain he proposed less than two years ago is somehow a raw deal? He is acting as if that's the case. Progressives are once again claiming the problem in deficit negotiations is intransigent Republicans. But looking back at the outlines of the deal the President himself proposed, it's Democrats who are not negotiating in good faith. This is true in at least two important ways. First, the President is not abiding by the balanced approach of spending cuts to taxes he identified. In April 2011 the President published his Framework for Shared...

What would Obama say in his inauguration speech if he wasn't an America-hating Marxist traitor? Here it is! This is what a real president would sound like, someone who understands our freedom, our founding, and our great American principles...

Reuters has an interesting piece on President Obama’s second term economic plans to be announced at The State of the Union address. “Obama previewed his economic growth plan in a speech to House of Representatives Democrats this week, telling them he would stress the importance of education, development of clean energy, and infrastructure. There were no details on the new initiatives for infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education, elements first reported by the New York Times.” Isn’t this the same plan from his first term? Clean energy was a costly bust, and he still wants to have government control education...

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will describe his plan for spurring the economy in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, offering proposals for investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education, a senior administration official said on Saturday. In the annual presidential address to Congress, Obama plans to show he has not lost sight of the economic woes of middle-class Americans - issues that dominated the 2012 election campaign but have been overshadowed recently by efforts to cut the deficit, overhaul immigration laws and curb gun violence. "The potential success of his second term is hugely dependent...

Petty rulers do not appreciate ridicule. In his memoir Fear No Evil, Jewish Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky recounts the mind games the KGB played with him as they tried to entrap him in “confessions” of treason. What allowed Sharansky to survive was his ability to anticipate their moves in a game that began with transparent lies from his government, ones he recognized from kindergarten. This month, as evidenced by the release of a photo supposedly showing the president engaged in skeet-shooting, we have similar mind games being played by the Obama administration and with all the sophistication of junior high...

The main purpose of US President Barack Obama's visit to Israel in the spring is to warn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against attacking Iran, unnamed officials told Army Radio on Sunday. According to the officials, the urgency of the trip is because in his speech to the United Nations in September, Netanyahu had flagged the spring of 2013 as a significant time in the context of the Iranian nuclear threat.

A new administration policy? Barack Obama disarmed the US Marines at the Inaugural parade this year. Dishonored and disarmed: Bolts are clearly missing from these Marine rifles during President Obama’s inauguration parade. This is an unmistakable insult to the honor of the Marine Corps ... It’s not the first time the Obama Administration disarmed US Marines at an event. In March 2012, US Marines were told to leave their weapons outside the tent during Leon Panetta’s speech in Afghanistan.

It ain't easy being green. But the rewards can be many.Much of the information for this report was provided by one of my confidential informants on Middle Eastern affairs, Sheik Mohamed ali-Baba. In the interest of full disclosure, the Sheik on October 16th announced the al Qaeda endorsement of President Obama for reelection as necessary for the survival of the United States under Islam. According to the Sheik, he is the only candidate who understands the beautiful truths of Islam and hence of al Qaeda. That endorsement doubtless played a major role in President Obama's overwhelming victory. * * *...