Free Republic

Fiscal Policy: President Obama now says the deficit problem is all but fixed, so we can stop all this unpleasant talk about spending cuts and get on with government spending. Maybe this is good politics, but it's reckless policy. In the run-up to his State of the Union speech, Obama was running around telling everyone how we've already "cut our deficit by more than $2.5 trillion," and are now "more than halfway towards the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists . .. say we need to stabilize our debt." Clearly Obama wants all the dreary talk of deficits off...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog If Barack Obama had his way, Donna Carlyle would have been choked to death by a burglar Barack Obama is such a hypocrite. On January 10, 2013, he signed a bill that provides armed guards to himself and his wife for the rest of the lives. However, in 2004, when Obama was an Illinois state Senator, he voted against allowing people in their own homes to use guns to protect themselves and their families from rapists and murderers.In February 2013, the following happened in Illinois, as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:HIGHLAND – Debi Keeney says...

FL Sen. Marco Rubio gave the GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union address. Now, delivering the opposing party response to a SOTU address is a very difficult task. The President speaks before the assembled chambers of Congress. The responder speaks to a camera in some unrecognized office. That said, the response does allow the opposing party to lay out a governing position for the American public. Unfortunately, Rubio used his time mostly to deflect attacks made by Obama. A prevent defense can work in sports, but rarely in politics.

The family of a U.S. agent killed in a 2011 ambush on a Mexican highway and another agent who survived the attack on Tuesday sued the government and nearly two-dozen other defendants. The federal lawsuit arises from the Feb. 15, 2011, attack on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila. They were attacked in their armored sport-utility vehicle near San Luis Potosi, Mexico, shortly after picking up some equipment from another agent. Zapata died and Avila was seriously wounded. … On Feb. 15, 2011, Zapata and Avila drove from Mexico City to San Luis Potosi to...

President Barack Obama is creating a commission directed to help improve voting, a reaction to widespread complaints about lengthy waits, growing photo ID requirements and shortened early voting periods. … Obama said that when Americans choose not to vote because they can’t wait hours to cast their ballot, “we are betraying our ideals”. …

President Barack Obama wants an increase in the minimum hourly wage from the current $7.25 to $9 by the end of 2015. Obama also proposes the minimum wage be required to keep pace with inflation. … The proposal, which Obama made during his State of the Union address Tuesday, is sure to draw opposition from business groups and congressional Republicans who say higher rates increase costs and reduce employment. …

After a barrage of guidance, the IRS finally published its proposed regs on the Affordable Care Act’s “Employer Shared Responsibility” provision, along with a practical Q&A with real-life examples for employers. Here’s help making sense of it all. At this point, virtually every organization knows that all “large” employers — those with 50 or more full-time employees — must provide all full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) with health insurance or pay a “shared-responsibility” penalty. Obamacare considers individuals who work at least 30 hours each week to be an FTE, However, many employers will be surprised by at least one clarification the...

President Barack Obama wants all 50 states to provide pre-kindergarten schools for 4-year-olds, a plan that the White House says will result in better prepared students and ultimately a more educated workforce. … Obama also wants the federal government to give the states incentives to provide full-day kindergarten. …

Sen. Marco Rubio may be giving the Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address this evening and Sen. Rand Paul is giving the Tea Party response, but why wait until the president is done speaking? Sarah Palin is live tweeting her response and well she doesn’t like it. Of course that’s no surprise, but she also created her own hashtag #sotUGottaBKiddingMe She began by countering the president’s claim at the beginning of his speech that “there is much progress to report.” Sarah Palin✔ @SarahPalinUSA Obama: “There is much progress to report.” Oh really? Let's see what the...

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the United States needed to do more to fight climate change and told Congress he would do so by executive action if it failed to pursue a market-based system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago," Obama said, according to the text of his address provided by the White House.

Above: Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who has said “I have only one loyalty, and that’s to the immigrant community.”- by John HillStand With ArizonaWell it looks like crime does pay after all. At least 5 Democrats, including First Lady Michelle Obama, are bringing illegal aliens as guests to the State of the Union on Tuesday night - this despite a U.S. House rule requiring guests to provide their Social Security numbersBut a spokeswoman with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency declined to comment about whether the agency approves of this occurring at the Capitol, where Obama is set to give his annual...

“A Boy Scouts of America national board member, James Turley, who is also global chairman and CEO of the accounting firm Ernst & Young, recently said he “will work from within to seek a change” to overturn the BSA policy that bans gay scouts and leaders.” 1. But is Turley working on his own initiative, or has the White House prodded him with perks and favors? 2. Is it a coincidence that Turley came out swinging against the BSA’s century-old policy to ban gays from leadership and that he has such close affiliations with the pro-gay Obama administration? 3. Is...

Judge Napolitano on Fox: Watch for Obama in his SOTU message tonight to indicate he "can't wait" for Congress to act and thus will use EOs to circumvent the law. He will likely order the EPA to tax ammunition to pay for "the environmental damage and clean-up." In general, he believes Obama will bury Congress in a siege of EOs, knowing that Congress will not stop him. Only Congress can levy taxes, so this sets-up a fight between Obama and the so far eunich House, a fight he wants.

Barack Obama speaks at 9 p.m. EST. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) gives the GOP response after Obama speaks. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) gives the Tea Party Express response around 10 p.m.Sen. Paul's speech can be seen live on the Tea Party Express website.

On November 9th, 2012 erstwhile Maricopa County Cold Case Posse (MCCCP)“Investigator” Mike Zullo signed a massively expanded and updated second “affidavit” concerning his alleged investigation intothe identity documents of President Barack Obama. I refer to it as an “alleged investigation” because there is very little investigative work to be found within the pages of the affidavit. To the extent it recounts lines of enquiry, they without exception all end in futility. To the extent it purports to recount “facts,” they are all recounted second hand, most of them ruthlessly plagiarized from the “work” of other birthers. To the extent that...

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House Speaker John Boehner, in advance of President Obama's State of the Union address, said Tuesday that he doesn't think the president "has the guts" to seriously address the country's debt and deficit. The speaker aired his concerns during a breakfast outside his office on Capitol Hill with anchors and reporters covering Obama's address Tuesday night. He said he's pessimistic about the odds the president will tackle the country's long-term spending problem, which he sees as the biggest threat to America's future. "I don't think he has the guts to do it. He doesn't have the courage to take on...

This white paper will examine a Marxist Revolution under the assumption that the president wants to incite Marxist Revolution in America. When Vladmir Lenin came to power, he introduced a set of socialist policies that literally crashed the Soviet economy by 1921. Socialism failed, so Lenin introduced what was called, “New Economic Policy,” a modified form of socialism more akin to state-capitalism. Various industries were allowed to remain in private hands while others were wrangled into the purview of government control. As we recount the industries over which the government is now in control – healthcare, energy, education, student loans...

Last week, Neil Stevens raised the alarm about Google selling out conservatives on policy issues. He’s right, but a number of conservatives and Republicans think there is an even bigger problem for GOP. Remember that enormous, sophisticated data operation the Obama campaign had? The one that gave them massive daily data on public opinion trends in almost every segment of potential voters. It’s almost as if Democrats had access to some sort of huge database of real time information about what the public was reading or writing online. The kind of breathtakingly large, real-time data that could be used for...

(WMC-TV) – A former Boy Scout leader has been indicted, accused of molesting young boys. For the first time, an alleged victim's mother has issued a warning. MOREAdditional Links Details of William Todd Brewer's indictment were made public Monday after Brewer was served on Friday. Now we're hearing from the mother of one of the alleged victims in court documents. When former Boy Scout leader William Todd Brewer was arrested for sexual battery last July, one mother didn't want to think about what may have gone on inside Brewer's Senatobia rental home with her then 13-year-old son. "I would tell...

The reputed gang member accused of gunning down 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton last month was on the street even though he had been arrested three times in connection with break-ins and trespassing while on probation for a weapons conviction in recent months, the Tribune has learned. In two of those arrests, including one just 2 1/2 months ago, Cook County probation officials failed to notify prosecutors or the judge that Michael Ward had been arrested on the new misdemeanor charges and allegedly violated his probation.

Last week we noted that President Barack Obama has become America’s lawbreaker-in-Chief and few actions exemplify Obama’s propensity for ignoring the will of the people as expressed by the laws Congress passes than his recent executive orders and actions on same sex marriage and federal benefits for same sex couples. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) blocks the federal government from extending spousal benefits to same sex couples. However, on Monday, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expanded a list of benefits to the same sex spouses of service members as well as to the unmarried partners of homosexual service members....

Three years after the White House arranged a hero's welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of. "Betrayed is a good word," former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline." "Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of," she said. "In fact they've been neglected."...

Fraud and abuse grow after subsidized telephone program expands A federal program subsidizing phones for the poor increased from 6.8 million to 18 million recipients from 2008 — the year it was expanded to include cell phones — to May 2012. And fraud and abuse from the expansion have been far more extensive than expected, to the extent that tougher enforcement of long-existing rules is projected to bring in enough money to finance the expansion of the program to provide low-income users with free Internet service, according to the Federal Communications Commission report released last week. Up to 15 percent...

I haven't been able to pilfer an advance copy of the president's State of the Union address, but I hereby offer some guesses as to what he'll say tonight. The president will assert, against the evidence, that the state of our union is strong. He will boast that during his first term, we averted another great depression, achieved history-making reforms of health care and banking, saved the auto industry and began to conclude two wars. He will caution though, that we face great challenges. Obama will acknowledge that our economy is not as vibrant as it could be and will...

Until recently, we knew little about the evolution, life and death of skeet. A recent article now fills that great void. A scholarly treatise by Mr. Gary Abernathy, publisher of The Times-Gazette in Hillsboro, Ohio, deals with the evolution of skeet culminating in their short and pitiful lives and violent deaths. It seemed necessary to post a link and an excerpt here as quickly as possible because of the great but previously unsatisfied longing for reliable information on the subject. I do so despite my concern that it may detract from the attention otherwise likely to be paid to President...

President Obama must have been stunned at the "audacity" of Dr. Benjamin Carson in challenging his core assumptions right to his face in front of thousands of people at the National Prayer Breakfast. Obama is not used to being challenged, especially in public, even if indirectly and without being specifically named. From the look on his face, it was obvious Obama was none too pleased with Carson's message or with his "presumptuousness" in presenting it in that forum, while he had to sit still and -- remain silent. I think we can best understand Carson's message in light of his...

"Oh, Lord, give me strength to survive the current, the hindsight to respect the formers and the sense to know the difference."

UPDATED: See Important Poll Below Our political partisanship has become so predictable that the response to the official  response to the speech that Big Guy won’t deliver until tonight is already on the wires: In preparation for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, the Democratic National Committee on Monday gathered lawmakers for a conference call with reporters to offer a “prebuttal” to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s not-yet-delivered Republican rebuttal to Obama’s not-yet-delivered national address. Just as Obama's speech and Rubio's response will likely be full of focus-grouped buzzwords, the Democratic prebuttal contained typical partisan rhetoric...

Barack Obama has a habit of identifying a supposed crisis in collective morality, damning the straw men “them” who engage in such ethical lapses, soaring with rhetorical bromides — and then, to national quiet, doing more or less the exact things he once swore were ruining the country. Washington will always be a city of hypocrisies, as one would expect when astronomical amounts of money and political power collide. What is striking about the recent disclosures about Obama’s tenure is not that his embarrassments are all that different from embarrassments of other administrations, but that they are at odds entirely...

Israel is finishing the preparations for United States President Barack Obama’s planned visit in March. Plans for Obama’s visit include a trip to Yad Vashem and to Rabin’s grave, and dinners with Netanyahu and Peres. Obama will apparently not speak in the Knesset. His staff has requested that the venue chosen for his speech be large enough for a crowd of 1,000 Israeli citizens, which the Knesset is not. Instead, Obama may speak at the Binyanei Hauma conference center in central Jerusalem. His trip will begin with an official state welcoming at the airport, complete with a red carpet and...

Sequester: In his State of the Union speech, President Obama is sure to issue dire warnings about the automatic spending cuts resulting from the "sequester." But look closer, and the cuts are far less than meet the eye. As the March deadline for the sequester draws closer, Obama's rhetoric about the cuts it will impose grows more overheated. In his radio address over the weekend, he said they would be "a huge blow to middle-class families and our economy as a whole."

No presidency is complete without a constitutional crisis, real or imagined. Political critics claimed George W. Bush committed a string of high crimes and misdemeanors, from the Iraq war, to torture, to illegal wiretaps. Bill Clinton’s impeachment was not over his horn dogging, but his mendacities regarding said activities. Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages. Richard Nixon resigned over his involvement in the Watergate cover up when he forgot the president is not above the law. And, really, doesn’t every constitutional crisis start with a president believing the Constitution is a list of suggestions best left for others to follow?...

He's gutted their healthcare, plans to cut their pay and apparently, doesn't trust them either. David Codrea over at Gun Rights Examiner points out that Marines marching in President Obama's second inaugural parade recently were caring rifles without bolts, meaning they were removed.

Full Title:The newly released “ObamaCare Survival Guide” has rocketed to the No. 2 spot on The New York Times’ bestseller list for advice-giving paperbacks. This remarkable ascendance comes just one week after the book first made The New York Times bestseller list. The first comprehensive and easy-to-read road map on the 2,700-page, the “ObamaCare Survival Guide: The Affordable Care Act and What It Means for You and Your Healthcare," has already made Amazon #1 bestseller status in multiple categories with more than 150,000 copies sold.

The U.S. government spent about $2.2 billion last year to provide phones to low-income Americans, but a Wall Street Journal review of the program shows that a large number of those who received the phones haven't proved they are eligible to receive them.

DR. BENJAMIN CARSON: There are a group of people who would like to silence everybody and have everybody go along to get along, but that's not going to be very helpful for us in the long run, in terms of solving our problems. And somebody has to be courageous enough to actually stand up to, you know, the bullies.

Harvard Law School was embarrassed recently when one of its graduates, the putative President of the United States, demonstrated that he was unaware that the supreme Court has constitutional authority to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional. And after reading a recent paper by Harvard law professor Einer Elhauge, one wonders whether the academic standards (or is it the moral standards?) of that once great school have collapsed. Professor Elhauge says in “If Health Insurance Mandates Are Unconstitutional, Why Did the Founding Fathers Back Them?” (The New Republic, April 13, 2012), that Congress may force us to buy health insurance...

"Take your DACA and shove it!" - by John HillStand With Arizona Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she won't change her mind and allow illegal aliens granted administrative amnesty by President Barack Obama to get driver's licenses. And a court ruling last week has strengthened her case in doing so. Brewer's comments Monday came after she was asked if she would change her mind following a January "clarification" by the Department of Homeland Security. That memo says illegal aliens granted "deferred action'' status ("Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals", or DACA) are "legally in the country". Brewer says that didn't impress her...

Obama's national security policy has continued some of the most controversial moves of the Bush administration. Silence from much of the left.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama called Cayman Island investments "the biggest tax scam on record." Now, in 2013, President Obama has nominated Jack Lew, who had $56,000 in Cayman Island investments, to be the next secretary of Treasury. Here's Obama making the claim in 2008:

Did President Obama nominate an Islamic convert with a decades old connection to the most anti-American variant of that religion to a post no less potent than the director of the CIA? That is the hot charge against John Brennan that gained rapid viral traction over the weekend because of comments made by an ex-FBI agent known for his efforts to expose radical Islamists. John Guandolo first made the accusation during a recent radio interview. Today he repeated the charge during an interview with TheBlaze in which we pressed him to provide details that might substantiate his case. There is...

Good lord, man. What more can they do for this policy push that they aren’t doing already? You’ve got major network news bureaus using the term “assault magazines,” for cripes sake. When you’ve had a horse pulling a cart for two months, it’s humane to pat him and tell him “good job” before hitching him up again. Piers Morgan, I’m sure, would appreciate some water and a sugar cube or two. Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that those who claimed the Obama Administration was trying to take away guns from law-abiding citizens were spinning “a bunch of malarkey.” “I...

In all of his infinite wisdom and glory, President Barack Obama has waived restrictions placed on the direct funding of the Palestinian Authority. If you remember, this is the group that is run by Hamas. Going further back in your memory, you will recall Hamas is the terrorist organization that has refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. In fact, their charter calls for the destruction of Israel. -snip- If you will look at the date of the press release on the White House website, you will find it was Friday. The Obama administration is so open and transparent that...

No sooner did President Barack Obama and a group of senators separately outline proposals to revamp the nation’s immigration system than the phone lines on several African-American-oriented talk radio shows heated up with callers blasting the plans. “Amnesty,” complained Frankie from Maryland recently on the nationally syndicated “Keeping it Real with Al Sharpton.” A political payback to Hispanic voters that does little or nothing for African-Americans, reasoned Sam from Milwaukee on Wisconsin’s 1290 WMCS AM’s “Earl Ingram Show.” SNIP Still, Ingram says many of his listeners see Obama’s attempt to push forward on immigration as a reminder of what the...

Long before homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC) with the intent to commit mass murder, I warned from the rooftops that the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-Christian “hate group” propaganda might spur such bloodshed. With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.” Tragically, my deepest fears were realized. Then, in August, days after Corkins was heroically disarmed by...

It looks like the gays may have the best seat in the house at President Obama's State Of The Union address. Tracey Hepner, co-founder of the Military Partners and Families Coalition, which works as a support group for LGBT military famlies has scored a plum seat with First Lady Michelle Obama! More after the jump. The Washington Post reports: "Tracey Hepner of Arlington, who co-founded the Military Partners and Families Coalition, a support group for LGBT military partners and their families, has been chosen to sit with first lady Michelle Obama during the State of the Union address Tuesday night,...

We live in a country where the president has assumed the power to kill American citizens without due process and the Justice Department produces memos supporting the legality of it. Fortunately, we also live in a country where concerned citizens and their local lawmakers are waking up and defending civil liberties and the Constitution that protects them. For example, on February 4 the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, passed a measure declaring the use of drones in the United States to be “a serious threat to the privacy and constitutional rights of the American people. The resolution (passed by a vote...

On Jan. 17, I attended the Atascadero Democratic Club business meeting and informational forum at 7:30 p.m. on gun safety which had been announced in the Atascadero News calendar to include a field representative from Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office and a local emergency room doctor, Steven Sainsbury, with 25 years emergency room experience speaking on his perspective regarding gun safety. This program was planned after the Sandy Hook Elementary School killing of 20 first graders and six school personnel trying to protect them. As the gun control/safety issue heated up, the club found itself and meeting date right in the...