Free Republic

Retired Rear Admiral George Worthington, former commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command, told The Daily Caller that there are many people more worthy of a ship bearing their name. “Here is the issue. There are a lot of dead Marines out there whose names could go on anything that appears to be an amphibious ship,” he said, explaining that a past recipient of the Medal of Honor, Dakota Meyer, might be a good candidate. Worthington added his email “inbox” has been filled with messages from military friends who are “shocked and angered” by the decision. “We think fallen Marines...

Politico is a bit upset about the recent investigative journalist piece done by The Daily Caller on Media Matters. In that piece they spoke to many former staffers at Media Matters, and what did they find? Yet those same interviews, as well as a detailed organizational planning memo obtained by The Daily Caller, also suggest that Media Matters has to a great extent achieved its central goal of influencing the national media. Founded by Brock in 2004 as a liberal counterweight to “conservative misinformation” in the press, Media Matters has in less than a decade become a powerful player in...

The Secretary of the Navy announced on Friday that a new littoral combat ship will be named after former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The announcement comes the same day that President Obama signed the last piece of legislation sponsored by Giffords, a bill aimed at reducing drug trafficking along the American borders with Canada and Mexico. Giffords, who recently stepped down from office, was the target of a shooting rampage in early January 2011. “The name this ship bears and the story represented by that name will inspire all those who come in contact with her,” said Navy Secretary Ray...

President Barack Obama, in a bid to reconcile with the Teheran regime, has blocked legislation that would hold Iran accountable for the Hizbullah bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983.

Its a tough time for hundreds of coal miners across southwest Virginia. That's because they're getting pink slips from A & G Coal, which is owned by Southern Coal Company. Mark Whooten is a spokesman for Southern Coal. He told News 5 who made the decision. "These layoffs are a decision by our corporate headquarters. They are market driven due to metallurgical coal market fluctuating violently at the present time." The company wouldn't tell us how many jobs they have cut, but we do know its sizeable according to the manager of the local employment office, Gary Hale. "On Monday...

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chaired by Darrell Issa (R-CA) is set to begin a hearing on the morning of February 1 on President Obama's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). During the hearing, titled "Uncharted Territory: What are the Consequences of President Obama's Unprecedented 'Recess' Appointments?", constitutional attorney David Rivkin will assert that the appointments are unconstitutional.

The theme President Obama gave to his State of the Union address was “An America Built to Last.” But his vision would be better described as an “An America Built to Be Last.” As the president asked us to be patient and keep drinking the same kool-aid he’s been serving up for three years, the New York Times reported that the Federal Reserve’s latest assessment of our economy is that “…a full recovery is years away.” Even his most loyal constituency, black Americans, is losing patience. In Gallup’s latest tracking poll, black approval rate for Obama was 79 percent. This...

Hundreds of angry Libyans on Saturday stormed the transitional government's headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, carting off computers, chairs, and desks while the country's interim leader was still holed up in the building. Libyans have grown increasingly frustrated with the pace and direction of reforms in the country more than three months after the end of the civil war that ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Those concerns spurred residents in Benghazi, where the uprising against longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi broke out in February, to begin protests nearly two weeks ago to demand transparency and justice from the country's...

(MEMRI) — Yassir Al-Burhami: Appointing infidels to positions of authority over Muslims is prohibited. Allah said: “Never will Allah grant the infidels a way [to triumph] over the Believers.” We are not afraid of losing the elections or of not getting votes. We are not trying to ingratiate ourselves before the people. Can the Christians of Egypt be compared to the Jews of Al-Medina? The case of the Jews of Al-Medina is one example of the relations between the Muslims and the infidels. The Muslims can implement any form of conduct used by the Prophet Muhammad. When the Prophet Muhammad...

Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) - In what appears to be a last ditch attempt to halt Newt Gingrich's late momentum in South Carolina, a fake CNN Breaking News alert was emailed to state Republican activists early Thursday morning claiming that the former House Speaker pressured his ex-wife to have an abortion. CNN did not send out the email alert. It's not clear how many people received the fake email, though at least two members of the South Carolina GOP Executive Committee, who did not want to be named, were among those who found the missive in their inboxes this morning....

President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is an act of national insanity. It isn’t often that a president makes a decision that has no redeeming virtues and — beyond the symbolism — won’t even advance the goals of the groups that demanded it. All it tells us is that Obama is so obsessed with his reelection that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances. Aside from the political and public relations victory, environmentalists won’t get much. Stopping the pipeline won’t halt...

In January, Hovensa entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department in which the company agreed to invest $700 million on pollution controls after a series of chemical releases affected people living downwind from the refinery. Hovensa also agreed to pay a $5.4 million penalty for violating the Clean Air Act. It is unclear how the agreement will be affected by the closure.

An organization that investigates and fights government corruption announced this week that it obtained records detailing costs associated with a trip made by President and Mrs. Obama and key members of the administration to Copenhagen, Denmark, for the expressed purpose of securing the 2016 Olympics for the city of Chicago. Expenses for the two-week trip appear to have far exceeded $467,175, in light of the fact that costs associated with the aircrafts ? two Boeing 747s and several Air Force cargo planes – have not been made available. According to the records obtained from the Obama Department of Defense (DOD),...

Former US ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday blasted President Barack Obama's sanctions-driven approach to curtailing Iran's nuclear ambitions in an op-ed he wrote for USA Today. “A nuclear armed Iran will be his most lasting legacy,” Bolton – a long-established proponent of a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program – wrote of Obama. "Sanctions have long been touted as the answer, but they are not," Bolton explained. "Sadly, we have been behind the curve for years, and recent Obama administration claims about slowing Tehran down are little more than re-election propaganda." Noting that Iran's alliances with China, Cuba,...

The following is edited from remarks given at the Nov. 11, 2011 meeting of the Communist Party National Committee.2012 is a big election year and as we know the stakes are very high. The right-wing Republican opposition unashamedly defends the wealth and privilege of the 1% over the 99% that includes tens of millions who are struggling to survive. These self-proclaimed patriots are willing to wreck our country in order to defeat Barack Obama in 2012 elections. Our party and youth league are an active part of the great democratic mass that is standing against them. These so called patriots...

Bill Daley leaving the Obama administration was big news for ten minutes. But as my friend Streetwise Professor and I discussed on Twitter after the news broke, this really signals a big change in direction on how Obama will campaign. It’s going to get really ugly. How ugly? Think of the election cycle from 1796-1804. It will be that ugly. The culmination of those election cycles was a duel by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, with Hamilton losing his life after the gun battle.Both Hamilton and Jefferson manipulated the press of that time to scandalize the other side. Character assassination...

From Sen. Obama’s Floor Speech, March 20, 2006: The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt...

Bill Daley tells ABC News that he resigned last week as chief of staff, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times. Senior administration officials confirm that Jacob “Jack” Lew, the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, will be the new chief of staff. Daley was brought in to replace Rahm Emanuel, but in November his role was “changed,” with more power given to senior adviser Pete Rouse. At the time White House officials insisted the move was in no way a demotion, but it certainly wasn’t a vote of confidence. [...]

Bill Daley was never a great fit inside the West Wing. He had an even rockier relationship with key Hill Democrats, especially Harry Reid, so the tears aren’t exactly flowing today — even though most White House staffers bear no personal animosity to Daley. (Here’s my initial story on the friction, including anger at Daley among junior White House staffers.) Seven quick observations, culled from White House staffers, former Obama administration officials and other Democrats, in the wake of Daley’s sudden departure: 1. Daley’s departure really did stun Obama, who didn’t have a successor immediately in mind (Apart from Lew,...

Defense: The administration announces a leaner version of our military involving the cutting of tens of thousands of ground troops as a leading defense contractor closes a major plant due to budget cuts. In an unusual appearance at the Pentagon on Thursday, President Obama laid out his plans for a "leaner" military based on the need "to renew our economic strength here at home, which is the foundation of our strength in the world." In other words, failed domestic policies require us to cut our military in a dangerous world. Obama insisted that even after the currently budgeted $460 billion...

National Security: Portrayed as just a shuffling of priorities, the president's defense cuts reduce our two-war strategy to maybe one war and cross your fingers. Champagne corks are popping from Beijing to Tehran. Imagine a scenario in the not-too-distant future when an Iranian Shahab missile mated with an unexpectedly ready nuclear warhead is test-fired and detonates somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The next day Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz as China announces a blockade of Taiwan. The administration's defense cuts, or shifts in priorities as President Obama would have us believe, leaves us woefully unprepared for the unexpected in...

GOP: Could Obama make a recess appointment overnight or on weekend?By Pete Kasperowicz - 01/06/12 03:01 PM ET Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking the Obama administration whether recess appointments overnight and on the weekend are possible after the president's decision this week to appoint four federal officials despite pro forma sessions by Congress. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Grassley and seven other Republican senators on Friday pressed the Obama administration for more details about its decision to make the controversial recess appointments. Grassley's letter said the White House broke with 90 years of precedent on Wednesday...

About the only people having a Happy New Year in the Muslim world aren't the Christians who are huddling and waiting out the storm, but the Islamists who use a different calendar but are having the best time of their lives since the last Caliphate. The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking up carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia's elections, Turkey's Islamist AKP Party purged the...

Bank foreclosures and abandonment are causing high home vacancy levels in neighborhoods across the country. Scott Pelley travels to Cleveland, a city that’s fighting back against blight. Chances are the home you’re in isn’t worth what it used to be. You may not have indulged in the real estate bubble with its liar’s loans and Wall Street greed, but you were stuck with the bill. Home values have dropped so far, so fast, that nearly 25 percent of mortgage holders today owe more than their house is worth. And with unemployment so high, so long, many face foreclosure. If you...

Starting in 2012, the government will charge a new fee to your health insurance plan for research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best. But what will Americans do with the answers? The goal of the research, part of a little-known provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, is to answer such basic questions as whether that new prescription drug advertised on TV really works better than an old generic costing much less. But in the politically charged environment surrounding health care, the idea of medical effectiveness research is eyed with suspicion. The insurance...

Obama will announce Tuesday that he plans to nominate a Harvard University finance professor and a former private-equity executive to fill the two vacancies on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board, a White House official said. The nominees are Jeremy Stein, 51 yeas old, an economist who did a five-month stint in the Treasury and White House in the early months of the Obama administration, and Jerome Powell, 58, who was undersecretary of the Treasury for domestic finance in the early 1990s during the George W. Bush administration.

One of the best ways to destroy American military capabilities would be to convince career military personnel -- both officers and enlisted -- that their commitment to service will not be rewarded with the retirement benefits they have earned by their faithful obedience to orders, no matter the personal cost or risks they endure. The Obama administration seems to be ready to destroy the belief that service will be rewarded as faithfully as duty was performed, one step at a time. The latest step in that direction is the announcement that 157 Air Force majors will be terminated prior to...

Stocks closed in negative territory in thin, shortened trading Friday as investors were reluctant to go long ahead of the weekend and amid ongoing worries over the euro zone. The Dow and S&P posted their worst Thanksgiving week since the Great Depression on a percentage basis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average erased their gains to finish lower, led by H-P [HPQ 25.39 -0.39 (-1.51%) ] and Chevron [CVX 92.29 -1.46 (-1.56%)]. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also ended lower, logging a seventh consecutive decline. Some traders are watching for 1,150 on the S&P as the next key level. The...

Lisa Fithian–the radical organizer whose role in Occupy was first exposed at Big Government–has apparently confirmed that ACORN-linked organizations are leading the Occupy movement’s next major protest action against banks nationwide. Fox News reported earlier today that remnants of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the radical community organizing group that collapsed after its corruption was exposed by Big Government, are playing a “behind the scenes” role in organizing the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. The Fox News investigation followed Matthew Vadum’s report two weeks ago at Big Government that ACORN was paying people to attend the Occupy Wall...

Former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, who resigned in August, admitted late Tuesday that he leaked a document aimed at smearing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson, an Operation Fast and Furious whistle-blower. “Dennis regrets his role in disclosing the memo but he’s a stand-up guy and is willing to take responsibility for what he did,” Chuck Rosenberg, Burke’s lawyer, said according to NPR. “It was absolutely not Dennis’s intent to retaliate against Special Agent Dodson or anyone else for the information they provided Congress.” Rosenberg claims Burke is cooperating with congressional investigators.

Occupy DC protesters violently injured peaceful Tea Party go-ers (some elderly) and attemped to force entry into the Washington Convention Center on Friday (Nov 4, 2011), where Americans for Prosperity is hosting their "Defending the American Dream Summit." The protesters also formed roadblocks, surrounding the convention center and only allowing non-luxury cars to pass. Parents with their children were caught in the violence. Some injured... Auto/pedestrian accidents occured as Occupy protestors rushed into the streets hurling profanities at drivers and attempting to block drivers' paths. This has to stop...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, finally I find some sound bites here that are not about me. Okay. We're gonna start at number 15. Folks, I'm sorry to do this but I just got the sound bite roster and I'm going through here and it's all about me. It's got Sharpton talking about me, Brokaw talking about me, everybody talking about me -- and I don't want to play those. So 15 through 19 is where we'll start, and after that, you know, I gotta play it by ear. How you doing, folks? Great to have you... (interruption) Oh, I'll play...

Just twenty or so years ago, Barack Obama wouldn’t just have supported the Occupy protests. He would have organized them. From Stanley Kurtz’s essential Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, pp. 117-8: In fact, Obama personally helped plan one of UNO’s most confrontational actions of the eighties [in 1988]: a break-in meant to intimidate a coalition of local business and neighborhood leaders into dropping a landfill expansion deal. We know of Obama’s involvement in this demonstration only because his supporters in 2008 felt it necessary to rebut charges that, contrary to his claims of inter-racial healing,...

Some highlights from White House press secretary Jay Carney’s Q&A with reporters on Monday: -- Carney said that “you’ll be seeing more of” the use of executive orders. “Why use it? Because we have to do everything we can,” he said of the economy.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, according to reporters on the ground in Libya, Colonel Khadafy's body -- there's one good thing about this guy's death, and that is the tombstone. We're finally gonna find out how he spells it. There are about 120 different versions of the spelling of Khadafy's name. (interruption) Oh, they did? AP's got a story on how he spells it, it's in the stack here? Oh cool, we know that. So we don't have to wait for the tombstone. Fine. Not what I was going to say anyway. That was just a random thought. According to reporters...

In an interview that will be aired tonight on ABC News, President Obama continues to express his commitment to the Occupy Wall Street protesters. “The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded,” Obama tells ABC News. “And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their...

President Barack Obama is taking his bus tour to the Virginia cities of Danville, Charlottesville, Newport News and Fredericksburg this month to pitch his jobs package to the people. A senior Democrat said the four cities are part of his pitch to voters in key battleground states to pressure congressional Republicans to approve his $447 million economic revitalization bill. The Democrat, speaking anonymously, had not been authorized to disclose the locations.

Many of you have seen the new bumper stickers from various conservative groups that goes something like this: OBAMA = One Big A$$ Mistake, America! That definition has now been added to UrbanDictionary.com, and with your help, it can be "thumbed-up" to the top-ranking position. Left-wingers succeeded in labeling Bush as a "failure." But we can turn the tables and get America to realize that Obama really is one big mistake! Click here to give this new definition the "thumbs-up." Thanks!

NEW ORLEANS -- An Uptown neighborhood was clogged with cars Wednesday morning as 60 people showed up outside a home on Calhoun Street, demanding the removal of a sign of President Barack Obama in a diaper mounted on a fence. The people gathered outside the home just off St. Charles Avenue said they came to express their frustrations over the "offensive" poster. In the crowd was former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, and he said he already talked to homeowner Timmy Riley -- but the sign hasn't been removed. Many residents said the poster is distasteful and disrespectful to the...

Media headlines about General Motors trumpet events that would lead one to believe that the company has successfully transformed itself into a self-sustaining, profitable American corporation. Readers are to believe that thousands of jobs are now being created at GM and the taxpayers are on their way to reaping the rewards of their so-called "investment" of $50 billion in an ownership stake of the company, even as Wall Street pricing of GM shares indicates otherwise. However, there is a portion of Americans who do not buy into the GM success story and now refuse to purchase vehicles from the...

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told members of the National Restaurant Association on Monday that Americans need to “adjust” their tastes so that they like the kind of food the government believes they should eat—and “we have to make sure that what we do is create the appropriate transition.”

"Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President" by Ron Suskind, to be published tomorrow, could not have come at a worse time for Mr Obama. His popularity remains in the doldrums, he is struggling to implement a new economic plan and he faces a tough challenge to be re-elected next year. Larry Summers, a former top economic adviser is quoted as telling Peter Orszag, then Mr Obama's budget director, at a dinner in Washington's Bombay Club: "We're home alone. There's no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes." Mr Summers was US Treasury...

The Democratic Party’s rare loss of a congressional seat in its urban heartland Tuesday, accompanied by a blowout defeat in a Nevada special election, marked the latest in a string of demoralizing setbacks that threatened to deepen the party’s crisis of confidence and raise concerns about President Barack Obama’s political fortunes. In New York, Bob Turner(R) soundly defeated Democrat David Weprin in a House contest that – in the view of party leaders, at least — featured an anemic urban machine, distracted labor unions, and disloyal voters. In Nevada, a consequential state for the president’s re-election strategy, Democrats suffered a...

On the mantle above my fireplace there sits an old picture of my grandfather, Joe Dee Adams, Sr. The picture was taken some time during the Great Depression when he was a professional musician. It was actually his promo picture for the radio show he hosted on WSGN in Birmingham, Alabama. In it, he is holding an old Gibson acoustic guitar. No one in our family has any idea what happened to that old guitar. It was lost along with his purple heart from World War I some time before he passed away in the fall of 1978. His death...

Zvi Mazel, who served as Israel's ambassador to Cairo between 1996 and 2001, expressed his concerns on Sunday over the events that took place in the Israeli Embassy in Cairo on Friday night. An angry Egyptian mob tore down the security wall that had been built around the embassy, and then proceeded to enter the embassy, where they nearly broke into a room where six Israeli security men were holed up. Egyptian commandos eventually rescued the guards who disguised themselves in keffiyas, Arab head gear, and in Muslim clothes. The guards, along with the Israeli Ambassador to Egypt and other...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke personally three times during the night to the security guards trapped in the besieged Israeli Embassy, in Cairo with only a metal door separating them from the mob that had destroyed the building's security barrier and managed to climb up to a waiting room. Channel 10 reported that one of those holed up in the building, the chief security officer in the embassy, had asked the prime minister to be sure that if the incident ends badly, his parents are informed in person and not by telephone. "You are an exceptional human being", answered Netanyahu....

Presidencies can go through various stages in terms of their effect on the opposition – from eliciting respect and some amount of fear, to provoking anger, to becoming the object of ridicule. Barack Obama has reached the third stage.Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has written a column in which he cites passages from Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last night and then chronicles the reaction among congressional Republicans, which included chuckles, guffaws and giggles. Hostility to Obama has given way to indifference to what he says; witness the fact the GOP did not even feel the need...

It was an ordinary night, August 26, at the Exxon Tiger Mart at South Polk Street and Interstate 20 in Dallas. C.J. Thomas, the store's clerk, was behind the counter when a rush of customers came through the door at 10:12 p.m. "There was more coming in than going out," Thomas said. "Once they realized how many were in there, one of the students started throwing stuff and screamed out. Everything after that went crazy." Store surveillance cameras from different angles show bottles being thrown. Seconds later, Thomas ran to the front door. He tried to close it, but he...

Gibson CEO: Obama Administration Told Us Our Problems Would Go Away If We Used Madagascar Labor (Audio).......KMJ Radio host Chris Daniel interviewed Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz on Wednesday. Juszkiewicz told Chris that the Obama Administration told them, “Your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor.”