Free Republic

Video at link - 3:20 minutes The extent to which GOP lawmakers are ridiculed by the MSM for trying to get to the bottom of Benghazi is unbelievable. If you missed Sen. McCain on Meet the Press today with David Gregory, it’s well worth watching now. After explaining to Gregory that there are still a number of unanswered questions regarding Benghazi, McCain concludes by saying there’ s been a massive cover-up. Gregory is confused: “A massive cover-up of what?” The crux of the interview, however, came when McCain asked Gregory whether he even cared that four Americans died (transcript via...

The White House press corps is expressing frustration over its lack of access this weekend to President Obama, who was on a golfing vacation in Florida.

Barack Obama is a terrible president. That's obvious to everyone who isn't chronically ignorant or incurably liberal. By "liberal" I don't mean the classic definition of the word which has to do with being open-minded and objective. I mean the modern version of liberal: self-centered, emotional, illogical, and void of reason. Unfortunately, in 2012 ignoramuses and liberals represented the majority of those who voted. I'm not worried about offending them with my harsh words. My very existence offends them, and so does yours if you don't buy into their worldview. From economic policy to energy policy to environmental policy to...

Racial resentment is increasing, and it plays a major role in how Obama—and the Democratic Party—is perceived. Thomas Edsall has a fascinating column in today’s New York Times on the persistence of racial resentment in the Obama-era. For those not familiar with the term, “racial resentment” is defined as the convergence of anti-black sentiments with traditional American views on hard work and individualism. It’s measured using questions that focus on race and effort. People who answer in the affirmative to questions like this—“Irish, Italian, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the...

In the states, Republicans are governing successfully. At the think tanks, conservatives are arguing intelligently. Around the country, activists are organizing energetically. All well and good. And important. But not enough... ...resistance in Washington today has to be central to the agenda for a conservative future tomorrow. If Republicans in Congress lack the nerve to stand up to President Obama, or the moxie to do so effectively, all other admirable efforts could end up being for naught... It’s not a new insight that at times resistance is a necessary prelude to revival and reform. Our British cousins have centuries of...

Standard climatological and economic techniques, combined in an investment appraisal of the proposed Sanders/Boxer carbon dioxide tax (U.S. Senate, 2013), show that even at a zero inter-temporal discount rate the cost of the Bill’s proposed CO2 mitigation if applied worldwide over ten years is 15 times greater than the benefit in the cost of warming-related damage avoided by the intended cut in CO2 emissions, which is here assumed to be – but is in reality unlikely to be – achievable at the stated cost. Fraction of global CO2 emissions abated: By 2023, on business as usual, U.S. CO2 emissions will...

If nothing else, the congressional break for the week of Presidents’ Day is a cooling-off period for the fight over former Sen. Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be secretary of defense. Questions about President Obama’s handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans, including the US ambassador – an issue, by the way, which Mr. Hagel had nothing to do with – are being answered to the apparent satisfaction of Republicans … at least to the point where they’re willing to end their de facto filibuster of Hagel’s nomination. snip Sen. Graham, along with Sen. John McCain,...

The seemingly endless budget fight is sucking much of the air out of Washington, but another big initiative - immigration reform - is slowly taking shape. A draft of a comprehensive White House immigration proposal was obtained yesterday by USA Today, and one key Republican senator immediately deemed the president's plan "dead on arrival." Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a Hispanic lawmaker involved with a bipartisan group of Senators crafting a compromise proposal, said it was a "mistake for the White House to draft immigration legislation without seeking input from Republican members of Congress," calling the proposal "half baked and seriously...

The video is alarming to say the least. It raises serious questions about why Obama would be compelled to pick John Brennan to head the CIA.

The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), thinks Chicago's embattled police superintendent dug himself deeper into a pit of controversy today by claiming that lawful firearm owners are agents of political corruption. Appearing on a Chicago Sunday morning talk show, superintendent Garry McCarthy expressed his conviction that firearm owners who lobby their elected representatives or who donate money to political campaigns are engaged in corruption that endangers public safety. McCarthy went on to express his belief that judges and legislators should rely on public opinion polls when interpreting our Constitution. After totally dismissing the citizen's right to redress grievances, McCarthy trained...

Guns Don’t Kill People, Obama Voters Kill People February 17, 2013 By Daniel Greenfield Try and control these guns Gun control works. That’s why Chicago, which came out for Obama, and has strict gun control laws, is trying to set some kind of gun violence record, while Salt Lake City and Fargo, where guns are legal, isn’t. It seems as if guns don’t kill people. Obama voters kill people. According to police data reported by the Sun Times, Chicago experienced a shooting every 3.57 hours in 2012.The Sun Times reports that the number of murders in the city of Chicago...

Earlier this week in his State of the Union address President Obama made some observations on climate change so brimming with falsehoods I'm surprised his nose didn't fall off. It really doesn't matter where he himself was deliberately lying or whether he was merely lending the gravitas of his office to the deliberate lies of others. The point is that the President of the USA has access to any number of fact checkers and advisers and if he stands up and addresses the nation with a farrago of complete untruths then the buck stops with him. This dissembling and mendacity...

Ah...the Obama economy. Smells like, well, crap: Today, there are now 2.6 million more people living below poverty.Food stamp rolls under President Barack Obama have risen to more than 47 million people in America.Over 8,803,335 Americans are on disability up from 7,469,240 in February 2009.The median household income has dropped $4,520, or about one month’s average wages, since President Obama took office.US incomes fell more during the so-called recovery than the recession.Gas prices have doubled.Taxes have ballooned.This year alone working Americans making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent – or up to $1,784.Obamacare will punish working Americans with more taxes. Given all that you...

When we saw the headline "Four Ways ObamaCare Could Still Fail," our reaction was that it sounded like an unrealistically low estimate. But we were intrigued enough to read the article because of the source: TalkingPointsMemo.com, a news site with a strong (and acknowledged) liberal Democratic slant. Its framing as friendly criticism makes the piece, by congressional reporter Sahil Kapur, a powerful indictment of ObamaCare. To be sure, it's not clear Kapur intends to indict ObamaCare, and if he does, he downplays it, presumably in order to avoid alienating his liberal readers or his liberal editors. In his lead paragraph,...

The photo embargo of Lady M and the Wee Wons enjoying themselves in the exclusive enclave of Aspen has been implemented with magnum force (can I say that?). So instead, how about I share a little more about our romantic Valentine’s dinner at Minibar, the very exclusive D.C. restaurant, just before we left on our our separate butt equal mini-vacays? This is the whole restaurant: looks more like a movie set than a restaurant doesn’t it? Let me begin by explaining that many consider chef/owner José Andrés’ experimental culinary exploits to be high art. These same suckers sophisticates consider Basquait...

That's why you can have polling data that show 55, 60% of the people oppose Obama's agenda and still support him. They don't associate his agenda with the problems in the country. They don't believe, they don't understand, they don't think that Obama's policies have had any of the negative impact on the country. Somebody else did that, other presidents did that. They view Obama as trying to fix it. So this led to a discussion of the theory on Fox News yesterday. Megyn Kelly had a couple of guests. The first is the Talk Radio News Service president, Tony...

Remember Ray's Hell Burgers, the burger joint Obama visited a couple of times early in his first term? Dead. Kaput. The latest victims of the Obama Kiss of Death, in which seemingly every business he personally visits - especially those he touts as New Economy success stories - goes bankrupt. Sometimes this is understandable, as in the case of those green energy losers he keeps picking. But other times it really does seem like a curse.

President Obama is golfing in Florida Sunday with Tiger Woods, according to a press report. The news was first reported by Tim Rosaforte, a writer for Golf World. "The President is arriving at The Floridian range. Awaiting is Tiger Woods and club owner Jim Crane. Historic day in golf. Their first round," Rosaforte said on Twitter. Read

Today, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) President Karen Ignagni issued a press release in support of bipartisan legislation (H.R. 1370, S.1880) co-sponsored by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Jim Matheson (D-UT) to repeal the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health insurance tax. While much of the dialogue on healthcare reform centers on the federal mandate of health coverage for all Americans - which many conservatives call the largest tax increase in U.S history - less attention is being given to the massive sales tax increase on the purchase of health insurance also implicit within the legislation that will dramatically escalate costs...