Free Republic

On July 18, President Obama held an event at the White House to promote Obamacare. It was Calculated Deception writ large, which is Obama’s rhetorical style of taking advantage of what he shrewdly calculates the great majority of average Americans will not know, and what he is certain the so-called mainstream media will not tell them. That smacks of third world style, authoritarian propaganda. Obama falsely claimed, “In states like California, Oregon, Washington, new competition, new choices, market forces are pushing costs down.” I have already discussed in prior posts the misrepresentation regarding proposed premiums for 2014 on the California...

AMES, Iowa — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is the subject of endless 2016 presidential speculation, and if he does decide to run, he’s already learned one important lesson. “You all had the opportunity earlier this afternoon to get to know my father. And as you saw, my dad is very soft spoken,” Cruz joked during a speech in Iowa this weekend. “I will confess, I am today violating what has been a cardinal rule, which is never, ever, ever follow my father at the podium.” Cruz and his father, Rafael, a Texas pastor, both addressed a gathering of Christian conservatives...

The IRS official in charge of the exempt organizations office in the Cincinnati branch at the time conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status were unfairly targeted just got a promotion. Cindy Thomas has been appointed to the senior technical adviser team for the Director of Exempt Organizations. Thomas, a 35-year IRS veteran, will fill the spot vacated by Sharon Light. Light, a one-time close adviser to Lois Lerner, is the sixth senior IRS official to leave the agency. Lerner is the employee at the center of the political storm that hit the nation earlier this year. She was the first...

White House press secretary Jay Carney defended the National Security Agency's spying activities saying that “only a small percentage of Internet traffic is being monitored.” “Is there any question that the vast majority of what people do on the Internet is mindless drivel?” Carney asked. “I mean, the number one topic is porn. Only a tiny fraction of the activity represents matters of interest. That's the activity we've got every right and obligation to monitor.” One of the “tiny fractions” Carney maintained merits scrutiny “is the communications of persons hostile to the Government—including so-called Tea Partiers. Let me remind you...

It's like 1980 all over again. There's a war in Afghanistan, the economy is lousy, Paul McCartney has a new record coming out, and some people are calling for the United States to stay away from the upcoming Olympics in Russia. When the first talk of another Olympic boycott arose, no one took it very seriously. It came from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who enjoys far more face time on Sunday morning talk shows than influence over U.S. policy, and who is upset about Edward Snowden. But the idea could be gaining traction. Some gay rights advocates, from both the...

 The Casual Wons arrive, sans boob belt and suit, respectivelyThe Casual Wons finally arrived on the Vineyards yesterday afternoon, following a morning  touchdown in Orlando where BO, with Lady M’s help, threatened rallied the retired troops: (SNIP “It’s hurting our military. I made it clear that your veteran’s benefits are exempt from this year’s sequester,” the president said to the applause of hundreds at the Disabled American Veterans' convention in Orlando, Fla. “But I want to tell you going forward the best way to protect the VA care you have earned is to get rid of this sequester altogether.” (SNIP) Also...

PRESIDENT OBAMA proved himself a great segue artist Friday, as he smoothly glided from his previously unassailable position on the matter of surveillance to his new unassailable position on the matter of surveillance. There is no moral high ground that he does not seek to occupy. As with drones and gay marriage, he seems peeved that we were insufficiently patient with his own private study of the matter. Why won’t the country agree to entrust itself to his fine mind? Yet while Barry is in the thick of it, the air is thick with Hillary. From the sidelines, she is...

There is no connection, of course, between the prosecution of Whitey Bulger and the recent spate of scandals and revelations roiling the Obama administration. Or is there? * * * The corruption of the federal government was a key element in Bulger’s trial, as it was in so much of his sadistic career. Officials charged with defending the public from gangsters like Bulger used their considerable influence to defend the gangster instead. * * * The Bulger trial, the IRS scandal, and our surveillance state are the latest reminders that even the best government in the world depends on human...

In a cascade of mutual recriminations over the past three days, President Mansour and his prime minister, Hazem Biblawi, described two senior American senators, sent as emissaries of President Barak Obama, as “delusional” and “liars.” The two senators arrived with demands to release all Muslim Brotherhood leaders being held under arrest and to integrate the party into the new revolutionary government. Otherwise, they warned, the Obama administration will cutoff all financial and military aid to Egypt. Spokesmen for both the presidency and the prime minister immediately took umbrage, joined by an array of press commentators, who accused the two Americans,...

Move would allow Obama administration to institute policies that would better integrate communities The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new plan to change U.S. neighborhoods it says are racially imbalanced or are too tilted toward rich or poor, arguing the country's housing policies have not been effective at creating the kind of integrated communities the agency had hoped for. The proposed federal rule, called "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing," is currently under a 60-day public comment period. Though details of how the policy would specifically work are unclear, the rule says HUD would provide states, local governments...

Coal industry lobbyists and politicians have been urging the Obama administration to ease up on its regulatory agenda and craft carbon dioxide emission rules that would allow the coal industry to survive. All the while, reports indicate that hundreds of coal plants are slated to be shut down in the coming years. The unveiling of President Obama’s plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants earlier this summer stoked the fears of coal supporters who have already been hit hard by stricter environmental regulations. However, the industry is not going down without a fight. Coal lobbyists met with...

U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama sent their warmest greetings to Muslims celebrating Eid al-Fitr around the world, calling it "part of a great tapestry of America's many traditions." "Michelle and I send our warmest greetings to Muslims celebrating Eid-al-Fitr in the United States and around the world," Obama said in his message. "For millions of Americans, Eid is part of a great tapestry of America's many traditions, and I wish all Muslims a blessed and joyful celebration. Eid Mubarak," Obama said. Eid is being celebrated on Thursday in the Arab world and most of the East...

Shelton Orders Shutdown of Space Fence By Mike Gruss | Aug. 6, 2013 A two-mile array that makes up a part of the U.S. Air Force Space Fence. Credit:Navy photo/SpaceNews artist's concept UPDATED 1:45 p.m. EDTWASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is shutting down a key part of its network for tracking satellites and orbital debris, possibly as soon as Oct. 1, according to an Aug. 1 memo obtained by SpaceNews.Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, “has directed that the Air Force Space Surveillance System be closed and all sites vacated” effective Oct. 1, the memo said. The...

Having declared an end to the War on Terror, the US president no longer has any clear idea of his country's global role The West can no longer rely on American leadership in the world. For the remaining duration of the Obama administration, Washington’s judgment and effectiveness in foreign policy cannot be trusted. It is quite an achievement for the one remaining superpower to appear as ineffectual and wrong-footed as the United States has managed to do in the past week. But there it is. The president’s global strategy in his second term was based on two resounding premises. First,...

Dr. Kamil Sedik, secretary of the Congregational Council in Alexandria, has condemned repeated attacks by Islamist groups against Coptic Christians in Egypt, saying that authorities are permitting the violence by not providing adequate security for vulnerable Copts."Copts are subjected to violence by criminals, who were released from prison by deposed President Morsi, because of their [Copts] ideological affiliation," Sedik told Mideast Christian News. Moreover, Sedik accused government officials of failing to cope with criminal attacks against Copts. "The government does not provide security for Copts, but it tolerates prisoners who are under investigation," he said in reference to the meeting...

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he can “dis” the United States without repercussions, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said in an interview with CNN.  Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) told Wolf Blitzer late Friday that Putin “intends to stick his thumb in the eye of the United States every time he can.” “I think there was an opportunity with the past leadership in Russia,” Royce said. “But right now, clearly, Putin intends to ... stick his thumb in the eye of the United States every time he can. And so it's a difficult situation. He's trying to undermine...

Sarah Palin joined Eric Bolling on Fox News this morning to take a mini-victory lap over some Democrats suddenly embracing the idea she put forth years ago over health care “death panels.” Palin felt somewhat vindicated, but didn’t want to “condone them… for trying to jump off the Obama train wreck.” She told Bolling that rationing was in the health care law from the beginning, and the Democrats who didn’t notice it until now did not want to look like “buffoons.” Palin also took the media to task for wasting an opportunity at President Obama‘s big press conference to grill...

When President Obama said during his press conference Friday, "The one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment is making sure that 30 million people don't have health care," the liberal media predictably echoed his sentiments. Yet if they did a little research, such folks would find that almost half of that 30 million are those being forced to buy health insurance against their will. One such clueless individual is the Washington Post's Nia-Malika Henderson who said on MSNBC's Politics Nation Friday, "I think that Obama framed it very nicely today when he said that they want to...

Gallup tracks daily the percentage of Americans who approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Daily results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 national adults; Margin of error is ±3 percentage points.

The Labor Department on Friday issued regulatory guidance to affirm that same-sex married couples can take a leave from their jobs to care for an ill spouse, the first of several moves the agency said it would make after the Supreme Court struck down a law denying federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. At the same time, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management said it would extend benefits to federal employees in same-sex marriages. Labor Secretary Tom Perez announced the changes in a memo to the department's staff on Friday, calling the Supreme Court's June decision in United States...

SNIP SNIP The narrative here would seem to be that Obama is dumb and doesn’t even know basic geography. But no one really believes that and even Obama’s most ardent critics have never questioned his intelligence. Instead of the hapless dunce in the mold of liberals’ anti-Bush caricatures, conservatives see Obama as a conniving radical. Or an out-of-touch, former law professor, ivory tower elitist. Either way, not dumb. Ted Cruz said today that he modeled his campaign after Obama’s because it was so smart and effective. Meanwhile, “downplaying the threat of terrorism” is plainly not a gaffe — it’s an...

As I wrote about in my earlier post....the whole system was designed to fail and either lawmakers were too stupid to understand this or knew it from the beginning, and wanted it: From the administration’s point of view, conceding that key parts of Obamacare cannot be implemented isn’t a failure if the effect is to swell enrollment on the exchanges. The insurance subsidy entitlement, administered through the exchanges, is the single-payer scheme at the heart of the law. If you peel away provisions like the employer mandate and Medicaid expansion, what’s left is a universal health care entitlement—enforced through the...

Barack Obama delivered one gaffe after another in his August 6 interview with Jay Leno, but the networks that usually mock every mistake or slip of the tongue made by Republicans ignored the President's verbal mishaps. ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’s This Morning and NBC’s Today show, on Wednesday morning, all bypassed the chance to criticize Obama for: downplaying the threat of terrorism; falsely claiming Vladimir Putin once ran the KGB; placing the Atlantic coast cities of Savannah, Charleston, and Jacksonville on the Gulf of Mexico; confusing the Winter Olympics with the Summer Olympics. First up, on the August 6...

WikiLeaks founder: Obama surveillance changes vindicate Edward Snowden By Keith Laing - 08/10/13 10:40 AM ET The founder of the WikiLeaks website said on Saturday that President Obama’s announcement of changes to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program this week vindicated Edward Snowden’s release of information about the program. “Today the President of the United States validated Edward Snowden’s role as a whistleblower by announcing plans to reform America’s global surveillance program,” WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange said in a statement. “But rather than thank Edward Snowden, the president laughably attempted to criticize him while claiming that there was a...

President Barack Obama was a lawyer before he became a politician, but on Friday he broke one of the most basic legal rules: He publicly discussed a sealed indictment. Speaking at a White House press conference about government surveillance, terrorism, and other topics, the president was asked about his past statements that the people who attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year would be brought to justice. “We have informed, I think, the public that there’s a sealed indictment. It’s sealed for a reason. But we are intent on capturing those who carried out this attack, and we’re...

The intensity of the Obama administration's participation in this cover-up became clear in May 2012. At that time, Congress had placed a clause inside the Defense Appropriations Act requiring the Pentagon to award Purple Hearts to Ft. Hood's victims. Rather than accept this eminently reasonable demand, which simply required the administration to acknowledge reality, Obama's emissaries announced he would veto the appropriations bill and so leave the Pentagon without a budget unless the clause was removed. SNIP THE SAME is the case with regards to the September 11, 2012, attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. Already on the day...

Normally I would recap yesterday’s presser for you, butt in this case, the Daily Mail did it for me: Presidential media cattle call includes questions on Obamacare, national security, immigration, terrorism and the Winter Olympics While 'core al-Qaeda' is decimated, he claimed, offshoot groups 'can drive a truck into an embassy wall, and kill some people' 'There's always been some tension' between Washington and Moscow, Obama explained, promising to 'calibrate the relationship' 'I'm comfortable that the program is not being abused,' he said of the NSA surveillance that has put his White House on defense The East Room press conference...

But there is more that is far from funny. Not only did I publicly detail the misfeasance of Magistrate Judge Robinson in dismissing the indictment against the fugitive Elizabeth Duke in my Petition, I requested in my Motion to Expedite that the Court let me file ex parte and under seal information which would explain "why" the Obama Department of Justice took the extraordinary step -- in violation of their own regulations -- to orally move without explanation to dismiss an indictment against a fugitive terrorist.

When is a coup not a coup? When it's "a complex and difficult issue." That was the unconvincing word from White House press secretary Jay Carney when he was asked about Egypt's latest coup. Poor Jay Carney. He may be the least credible White House press secretary since Ron Ziegler, who had the sticky job of defending the indefensible Richard Nixon as the truth closed in on his boss during the late unpleasantness known as Watergate. . . When is a coup not a coup? When it's "a very fluid situation," according to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, demonstrating that...

CNN reported that up to 35 intelligence operatives were on the ground near the US consulate in Benghazi Libya at the time of the terror attack. Their mission was to smuggle arms from Libya armories to the Muslim Brotherhood backed, al-Qaeda affiliated rebels in Syria. Such an operation was mentioned soon after the 7 hour, Sept 11 attack that resulted in the murder of four Americans at the poorly defended facility. If the CIA agents were smuggling arms they had to be given the execution order to conduct such operations by the President or the real power in the White...

Syria, in 2013. Compilation videos on the subject of tanks. The tanks in the fighting in the city. Tank battles in Syria in the first person.

What really happened to Navy SEAL Team 6? In August 2011, the elite special forces unit suffered the worst battlefield calamity in its history. A Taliban fighter shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying 22 Navy SEAL Team 6 members in Afghanistan. All 38 persons on board — the Navy SEAL warriors, other U.S. military personnel and seven Afghan soldiers — were killed. Grieving family members have been demanding answers. They may now get some as Congress finally opens an investigation. Navy SEAL Team 6 has attained international prominence for one reason: They were responsible for killing Osama bin Laden. They...

Arizona's top politicians blasted the Obama administration and federal officials over the denial of aid in the wake of the state's deadly wildfire. The Yarnell Hill blaze killed 19 firefighters, called "hotshots," in late June, when it changed directions and engulfed them. The Federal Emergency Management Agency denied the state's request for assistance based on insurance rules, it said in a statement Friday. It determined that not enough uninsured private individuals had become victims to warrant a payout. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer directed her criticism directly at the president. "I am deeply troubled by the Obama administration's decision to deny...

Promise the impossible, confess impotence, point fingers. Repeat.I’ve been putting off unpacking President Obama’s answer on Obamacare at his press conference today, so packed full is it of straw men and misrepresentations and fantasy and smears and straight-up lies. But here we go. The Cliffs Notes are the sentence above, if you should prefer to refer to them.The takeaway is that, despite there being literally no way to wring good news about Obamacare from any question to any poll with any demographic, the president has decided his continued confidence in the program, which reality proves to be increasingly misplaced every...

The much anticipated "we will ask him about the phony scandals" news conference came and went. Unfortunately, we still don't know what the White House means by a "phony scandal". Hopefully, they will ask him about the "phony scandals" when he goes on Leno or MTV. Another press conference and a total waste of time. And frankly more evidence that The White House Press Corps is stealing money from their editors. The members of the media looked like a bunch of people who couldn't wait to go home early on a Friday afternoon. I was hoping to hear something about...

In an appearance on the Tonight Show, President Barack Obama criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for what he labeled a “cold war mentality.” At issue was Putin's grant of asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden and his refusal to allow the US to extradite him. “The whole idea of the 'reset button' was that our two governments would cooperate with each other,” Obama lamented. “Now, instead of doing what we ask the Russians have suddenly developed scruples against spying on citizens. They invented spying on citizens. They're such hypocrites.” The fact that the US has granted asylum to many defectors...

Arizona, rejected by the feds. Friday night, we learned the request for federal money to help rebuild the town destroyed by fire was denied. It's not the news the people of Yarnell wanted to hear. They are still reeling from the devastation left behind from the Yarnell Hill Fire. And it was just a few days ago, Governor Jan Brewer personally asked President Obama to secure federal aid. They were face to face on the tarmac at Sky Harbor. That was where she reminded the president about her request for federal funds. Specifically, to help the victims in Yarnell rebuild...

... Obama said yesterday that he would pursue reforms to open the legal proceedings surrounding government surveillance programs to greater scrutiny, the administration’s most-concerted response yet to a series of disclosures about secret monitoring efforts. At his first full news conference in more than three months, Obama said he intends to work with Congress on proposals that would add an adversarial voice — such as a lawyer assigned to advocate privacy rights — to the secret proceedings...

People who have no substance in their arguments have only one thing to fall back on. When the positions they have taken, be it on political, societal, or religious issues, have no basis in fact, they can only do one thing. How else can they argue their points, if they have no real argument? Their only option is to use demagoguery to drown out their opponents. Many liberals are masters at demagoguery, but none are as adept at it than President Obama and Harry Reid. To get a sense of what I mean, we need to look at the definition...

If the mainstream media were a college class, Republicans would be taking advanced calculus taught by a short tempered professor from South Korea with bad English, while Democrats would be taking remedial reading pass/fail. In other words, as long as liberals don't do anything to embarrass the Democrat Party, they get treated with kid gloves while all Republicans should assume reporters would just as soon punch them in the throat as ask them a question. What this means is that Obama seldom has to deal with tough questions a Republican in his shoes would have to hear asked on an...

The email service reportedly used by surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden abruptly shut down on Thursday after its owner cryptically announced his refusal to become "complicit in crimes against the American people."Lavabit, an email service that boasted of its security features and claimed 350,000 customers, is no more, apparently after rejecting a court order for cooperation with the US government to participate in surveillance on its customers. It is the first such company known to have shuttered rather than comply with government surveillance."I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or...

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he hopes Republicans who oppose the president do so “based on substance and not the fact that he's an African-American.” The comment came during a wide-ranging interview Friday with Las Vegas-based National Public Radio affiliate KNPR, in which Reid lamented Republican filibusters and claimed opponents do everything they can to make Obama fail. … Reid’s comments went unchallenged by the program’s moderator, but not by Newsmax contributor and Conservative African-American columnist Clarence V. McKee, who said there was no reason for Reid to bring up the race issue during the interview. … He...

The chill in relations between the US and Russia grew still frostier yesterday as President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister told the White House to start behaving like "grown-ups". Sergei Lavrov chided the US administration two days after President Barack Obama scrapped a summit with Mr Putin when Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, the fugitive US spy.

President Barack Obama on Friday urged people not to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics taking place in Sochi, Russia over the country’s new law against gay rights activism. “I want to just make very clear right now: I do not think it’s appropriate to boycott the Olympics,” Obama said. “We’ve got a bunch of Americans out there who are training hard, who are doing everything they can to succeed.” …

ObamaCare: Some Democrats are signing on to bills repealing the powers of the Independent Payment Advisory Board to effectively ration health care for seniors. So Sarah Palin was right about those death panels after all? Palin was mocked by liberals when at a Tea Party rally in Reno, Nev., in late 2010, shortly before the GOP retook the House of Representatives, she told attendees: "Don't be thinking that we've got victory for America in the bag yet. ... We can't party like it's 1773." Leftist know-it-alls insisted that 1776 was the correct year, when in fact Palin was right: The...

Russian President Vladimir Putin tends to think of the U.S.-Russia relationship in Cold War terms, according to President Obama, adding that the two leaders have a good personal relationship despite Putin’s bad body language when they’re together. Obama said Putin has increased tensions between the United States and Russia since he returned to the presidency. “We saw more rhetoric on the Russian side that was anti-american [and] played into the old stereotypes about the Cold War,” Obama told reporters during a press conference. “I’ve encouraged Mr. Putin to think forward as opposed to backward on those issues, with mixed success,”...

The Brain Dead American Media missed this veiled threat in Obama's opening statement: "We shouldn’t forget the difference between the ability of our government to collect information online under strict guidelines and for narrow purposes, and the willingness of some other governments to throw their own citizens in prison for what they say online" Tell that to the arab who made a movie and posted it to the Net and who was blamed for creating the Benghazi Attacks ? Tell that to all those who have been surveilled by federal agencies using the NSA databases ? Obama often uses words...

President Obama said Friday that he believes Edward Snowden – the whistleblower who revealed that the National Security Agency was collecting metadata and phone records of every American – was not a patriot for his leaking of classified documents. Obama, speaking at his first news conference since April, was responding to a question from NBC’s Chuck Todd about Snowden. “No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot,” Obama said before reiterating that as a senator he called for a review of the Patriot Act. “If in fact he believes that what he did was right, then, like every American...

As President Obama offered greetings from the White House to Muslims celebrating the feast that ends the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the Catholic school he attended in Jakarta was hit with a terrorist attack. Asia News said the attack Wednesday came amid an escalation of tensions on the eve of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr. Two Molotov cocktails were thrown inside the walls of the Saint Francis of Assisi Catholic School in South Jakarta by an assailant on a motorcycle, Asia News reported. The attack on the school followed the double bombing of a Buddhist temple Sunday, which...

This is how Democrats say thanks– Today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went on KNPR in Las Vegas to discuss current affairs. One question he faced was about union uproar over Obamacare. Harry Reid said it’s time for them to give up their Cadillac plans and “put some skin in the game.” “Let’s understand where we are with the unions. One of the things we’ve learned with all of the hearings we held, dozens and dozens of them, is that if you have insurance you have to be able to have some skin in the game as we say in...