Free Republic

The assault on US consulates/embassies in Cairo, Egypt and in Benghazi, Libya recently puts the lie to the claims that Islamic nations can exist as democratic nations that contribute something to the rest of the world -- something other than war and bloodshed. The whole thing smacks of Jimmy Carter and the US embassy take over in Tehran. I had one flashback after the other as I watched the stories flooding out of Libya. And why not? The causation is the same -- incompetence by the then -- and current -- presidential administration of the United States. Obama looked and...

Obama's Foreign Policy Failure Less anyone doubt the fact that President Obama's weak wristed foreign policy is panning out to be an unmitigated disaster a quick perusal of recent headlines should serve as a clarion call for November: Cairo protesters scale U.S. Embassy wall, remove flag Romney calls Obama administration response to Libya attacks ‘disgraceful’ U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack US and Israel in open feud over Iran White House declines Netanyahu request to meet with Obama The Cairo-Tehran Express Egyptian-Iranian intelligence meeting prompts fears of a new Middle East terror axis Senkaku islands dispute escalates as...

RUSH: All right, admit it, folks, nobody really knows what to think about this speech until I weigh in on it, right? Even though you all have your opinions, the most often asked question across the country this morning is, "What does Rush think about it?" Well, I thought it was incoherent. I thought it was incoherent because his policy is coherent. He didn't even announce a policy other than to get out of there. It's all political, the whole thing. He didn't use the word victory. He didn't talk about winning anything. He talked about bringing it to a...

The Obama administration's support for its Islamist allies means lack of U.S. support for their enemies, or, more properly, victims—the Christian and other non-Muslim minorities of the Muslim world. Consider the many recent proofs:According to Pete Winn of CNS: The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that it released on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline Congress set for the release of these reports. The new human rights reports—purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered—are also the human...

RENO, Nev.— President Obama today argued that his foreign policy has ushered in a “new era of American leadership,” while suggesting that Republican rival Mitt Romney has not shown he is ready to be commander in chief. “Four years ago, I made you a promise. I pledged to take the fight to our enemies and renew our leadership in the world. As president, that’s what I’ve done,” Obama said at the national convention for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “As you reflect on recent years, as we look ahead to the challenges we face as a nation

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden held a news conference to announce the U.S.-Mexico Border Security Policy. They spoke to reporters and .. Read More 31 minutes

Barack Obama ran for president as a pro-Israel candidate -- but his record tells a different story.

In a blistering election year attack on his political foes, President Barack Obama charged Thursday that Republicans are "licking their chops" over painfully high gas prices that threaten the fragile economic recovery. "Only in politics do people root for bad news and they greet bad news so enthusiastically," he said in a combative speech at the University of Miami. "You pay more, and they're licking their chops." The defiant rhetoric came after days in which the White House has worked to get off the defensive over high gasoline prices, insisting that Obama has done everything he can to bring those...

Charles Krauthammer responds to President Obama's suggestion that the U.S. turn to algae for energy production. After making his case, Krauthammer goes head-to-head with Washington Post columnist Charles Lane who defends Obama's energy policy. "I was impressed by the president's analysis of this situation where we have no control over the global price of oil," Charles Krauthammer said. "We're dependent on oil from unfriendlies. And he says, as we heard, drilling for oil to relieve our dependency is not a solution, it's not a plan. He said we have to go to clean energy. He talks about something really revolutionary...

Biden to helm China policyBy BYRON TAU | 1/2/12 10:22 AM EST The Atlantic's Steve Clemons reports that Vice President Joe Biden will take the lead in formulating the Obama administration's China policy: While the Departments of State and Treasury have held important functional roles in conducting the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings, raising the bilateral status of US-China relations with ongoing meetings between two senior US Executive Branch officials with two of China's most senior leaders, Vice Premier Li Keqiang and State Councillor Dai Bingguo, there has been a general sense that neither Timothy Geithner nor Hillary Clinton...

Clint Bolick looks like any other high-powered lawyer, for the most part. But glance down at his index finger, which sports a scorpion tattoo, for first-hand evidence of his unconventional streak.Mr. Bolick has fought for the right of Arizonans to have their toes nibbled. After successfully defending a tattoo artist, he celebrated by having himself inked. From his perch here at the Goldwater Institute, a high-powered libertarian think tank, Mr. Bolick has even picked a fight with an entire professional hockey team.From a conservative point of view, there is no end to the government interference in individual liberties going on...

The plaintiffs in the lawsuits and other opponents of the current policy allege that its language, which instructs staff to stay neutral on discussions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender topics in the classroom, perpetuates a hostile environment for the GLBT community in district schools. Several teachers have also said the policy is difficult to interpret and apply. But the majority of school board members have stood behind it, saying it is an important policy to keep teachers neutral on a controversial and sometimes polarizing topic. The new policy states that "teachers and educational support staff shall not advocate personal...

Too many people in Tennessee are asking for antibiotics and too many doctors are prescribing them — a practice that renders once-powerful drugs ineffective against infections, according to a recently released study......“Unless we do something really radical and different, we’re going to lose these drugs,” said Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist and economist in Washington, D.C., who was a co-author of the study. “It’s not like we’re going to. We already have in many instances and things are just getting worse...” (Excerpted) http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111118/NEWS07/311180046/Tenn-ranks-3rd-antibiotic-use

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) held their 26th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) in Chicago this year. I have missed the last few events and was excited to attend this year's conference. I'm not sure how many I have attended, but for me, this was the best. Many criticized going and spending money in Chicago, Illinois, which is enemy territory for gun owners. Illinois is the only state with no legal concealed carry, with Chicago leading the fight against gun ownership in that state. But you don't win wars by playing defense. You must play offense to score points....

At the end of World War II, the U.S. defense and national security apparatus faced a variety of challenges left over by the conflict. One of the most important was the formulation of a process to collect, collate, evaluate, analyze, produce and disseminate strategic intelligence to guide decision-makers in the formulation of national policy. Implicit in this search was the need for a professional cadre of analysts able to carry on this process with impartiality and with full awareness of their own psychological limits, able to forge strategic intelligence products with minimal institutional bias – thus the Central Intelligence Agency...

Alaska Rep. Don Young suggested Tuesday he plans to introduce a bill to repeal every regulation that's been put into effect in the last 20 years, an idea that could have huge implications for everything from aviation safety to oil drilling if it actually happened. "My bill is very simple, I just null and void any regulations passed in the last 20 years," Young told the Anchorage Downtown Rotary Club. "I picked 20 years ago because it crossed party lines and also we were prosperous at that time. And no new regulations until they can justify them." At least some...

Thanks to Mark Vanderberg and Doc Wesson of the Gun Rights Radio Network you can see the entire two days of the conference here:

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind in a pro-Israel rally in New York: Obama's administration doesn't understand Israel's problems. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) spoke on Tuesday in a pro-Israel rally in New York City, ahead of the vote in the United Nations on the Palestinian state. It was the same rally in which Texas governor Rick Perry also spoke, blaming President Barack Obama and his Middle East policies for the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral statehood bid.

It is currently reported that Obama intends perhaps on Monday, to propose a minimum tax on millionaires, a "Buffet tax," sounding conceptually like a new version of the "alternative minimum tax." It has already been acknowledged that even if enacted into law such proposed minimum tax on the wealthy is not likely to have a significant impact on US tax revenues. It may, however, along with other tax proposals by this administration or as part of current law, have significant economic impacts. Under the often ignored principle that proposed legislation should be entitled according to its most essential impacts if...

The blood of the ongoing murder of migrant blacks in Tripoli has a name on it many will never see: President Barack Obama and his Foreign Policy. Gadaffi is gone; his family safely ensconced in Algeria and the Obama-supported rebels left in charge are now conducting a “large scale cleaning in the areas under their control with the extermination of all blacks in the capital”, according to The Independent. Without the permission of Congress and minus the blessing of We the People, Obama took the US to war in Libya. He sided with the rebels and ultimately, in effect the...