Free Republic

Secret Service has arrived, street barricades are in place, and the U.S. Coast Guard has stationed itself in the waters surrounding Kailua, Oahu. That is a sure sign President Barack Obama’s security team is preparing for the first family to arrive in the small beachside community as early as Friday night for what is expected to be a 17-day vacation. The President and his family are traveling separately to Hawaii because he wants resolve the payroll tax cut issue before leaving Washington – and his wife does not want to wait. But the advanced trip and the cost that comes...

President Obama’s appearance last night on “60 Minutes” confirms how severely out of touch he is with political reality. He has become entirely predictable, and his insincerity is unrestrained. There is the phony familiarity, a strained attempt to bond with working-class voters he’s lost. We therefore have an epidemic of missing “g’s”: He tells Steve Kroft: “Look, the — everybody’s at — concerned about inequality. Those folks in there, who were listenin’ to the speech, those are teachers and small-business people, and probably some small-town bankers, who are in there thinking to themselves, ‘How is it that I, we’re workin’...

In his extraordinary book, “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century”, the historian, Dr. Paul Kengor, stated in his introduction that “We now know that American Communists and their masters in Moscow were acutely aware that they could never gain the popular support they needed to enlist the support of a much wider coalition that could help them push their private agenda.” Most threatening, however, was Dr. Kengor’s discovery that “it was nothing short of stunning to research this book during the presidential bid of Barack Obama and hear so many of the names in my research...

ROCK HILL, S.C. - After her victory in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll last August, Michele Bachmann went from front-runner to back-in-the-packer faster than any candidate in this volatile political season. First Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, and now Newt Gingrich have risen to challenge establishment choice Mitt Romney, while Bachmann's support has been stuck in the single digits, not only here in South Carolina but in Iowa, New Hampshire and across the country. But now there's something happening with the Bachmann campaign. It's not a boom, not even a boomlet. But many Republican voters are recognizing Bachmann's sheer determination...

Virginia has a history that caused her to become the mother of FF presidents.That history still shows within the extraordinary beauty of Virginia’s constitution and statutes. Virginia’s law is still enables her to save the constitutional republic of the United States if she will first save herself from the custom of cavalier conceits of authority whose toxic culture came to the ‘Old Dominion’ with refugees from the English Civil War.Virginia appears to be the only state that has a law equivalent to VA18.2-481(5) where ‘Resisting the execution of the laws under the color of its authority’ is defined as ‘Statutory...

On Faith asks: Dr. Richard Land recently suggested that “people who campaign as traditional moral individuals are asking to be judged by different standards. If you’re going to stand up, you have to walk the walk.” What kinds of ethics, values and morals should we expect from our candidates? A: From my perspective there are baseline non-negotiable qualities and characteristics that anyone must first embody in order to be considered worthy of holding a position of leadership – at any level. These same standards apply whether or not you’re leading a Boy Scout troop, a Fortune 500 company or serving...

One of the digs at Ronald Reagan before he was president was that he lacked a keen grasp of foreign policy. The former actor and California governor had never had to grapple with those questions firsthand. Surely, critics argued, he couldn’t match the abilities of people with real-world experience like George H.W. Bush or John Connally. Once in office, Reagan demonstrated that principle and vision could more than make up for inexperience. He had a good plan and stuck to it; the rest was just a matter of details. Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is taking a page from the...

Psychiatrist Karl Menninger, founder of the Menninger Clinic, raised the question, “Whatever became of sin?” in his 1973 book title. There was a time when U.S. presidents made certain that our sin didn’t fade from our national conscience. Not this year. The Huffington Post reviewed the Thanksgiving Proclamations of 26 U.S. Presidents from Washington to Barack Obama, and concluded that they’re “strikingly the same”: "Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor..." With these words,...

WASHINGTON, November 21, 2011 ― On November 19, 2011, Carter Lee wrote an article titled, "Mr. Cain on David Letterman: Cain Simply Can't Cut It." Others who heard the same interview thought, unlike Lee, that Herman Cain handled himself well. We remain inspired by his life story and ideas. A tit-for-tat analysis of Lee's opinion would be pointless, as it is obvious from his article that he has complete disdain for Cain, with biases so complete that he couldn't find even one thing that he liked. I would just request that he comment on something more relevant in assessing a...

For some time now, many conservatives have thought that President Obama is the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter. They think that chronic 9% unemployment, creeping inflation, and a foreign policy of self-abasement and weakness will doom Obama to a single term, and that he'll slink off with his tail between his legs in disgrace, just like Carter did after 1980. Maybe they should be thinking about the election of 1996 instead. Does anyone remember the disaster that was Bill Clinton's first term? The first attempt to put gays in the military, the first attack on the World Trade Center by...

Using photoshop, can a savvy Freeper assemble my "gay Obama" photos into a single, low-rez MONTAGE photo? (to go easy on our servers) ------------------------------------------------------------ Cain is getting pounced on for made-up stuff. Meanwhile Larry Sinclaire's amazing allegations regarding fellatio & crack cocaine go completely ignored. That's unfair. Fair is fair. Last night some radio journalists re-interviewed Larry Sinclaire regarding his story, and I must say he was WAAAAY more believable than I'd thought (when I first heard the story I simply paid it no attention). I'm no closer to endorsing Larry Sinclaire's lifestyle than I was then, but now I...

Using photoshop, can a savvy Freeper assemble my "gay Obama" photos into a single, low-rez MONTAGE photo? (to go easy on our servers) ------------------------------------------------------------ Cain is getting pounced on for made-up stuff. Meanwhile Larry Sinclaire's amazing allegations regarding fellatio & crack cocaine go completely ignored. That's unfair. Fair is fair. Last night some radio journalists re-interviewed Larry Sinclaire regarding his story, and I must say he was WAAAAY more believable than I'd thought (when I first heard the story I simply paid it no attention). I'm no closer to endorsing Larry Sinclaire's lifestyle than I was then, but now I...

In this cycle, that question applies to, well, everyone except Mitt Romney, whose support has been consistent if not impressive in primary polling. Romney has clearly failed to engage the enthusiasm of the Republican base, which wants a more conservative candidate, as well as hoping for another quality they find missing in Romney. In my column for The Week, I point out the common thread of the boomlet candidates, and explain why Newt Gingrich’s rise might be the candidate that fits that quality best: One might be tempted to just dismiss the latest boomlet for Gingrich as a simple matter...

It was cold standing outside the "Big Sky Diner" in Ypsi, but it was well worth standing their for just over an hr this morning. The wait staff came out a served us coffee, which helped warm up many. While we thought we got their early the "Dr" and I just missed getting inside, but that is ok.When Herman Arrived the bus pulled in and it took a while for Herman to exit the bus. Music played on a loud speaker outside that doubled as a speaker for his speech, once he made it up the receiving line. The throngs...

Hi, folks. Here's a collection of some of the better Occutard political cartoons I've come across. Hope you enjoy! 17 Occutard 'Toons

Boots-on-the-Ground to stand in the Gap - Agreement with God in prayer support of "Constitutional Reset"IMH observation "The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries."  from http://www.constitutionparty.com/party_platform.php is entirely within the heart’s desire of "God & Country".  Is this so?IMH observation it appears that the Constitution Party is entirely in agreement with the 912 Project's  9 principles and 12 values.  Is this so?IMH observation it appears that the Republican Party of Virginia has a large enough constituency that is mostly in agreement with the Project's 9 principles and 12 values that it is moving...

The Republican Party seems to be struggling to find a candidate it can unite around. One impediment may be a mindset common among some of my fellow Tea Partiers, a false dichotomy that if you are in government you are part of the problem, and if you are not in government, you are part of the solution -- whatever those problems or solutions may be. Herman Cain says, "The folks in Washington have held public office. How's that working out for you?" It's a catchy comeback. But is government tenure, whether recent or not, the reality of the problems in...

While Mitt Romney has remained a constant in polling for the Republican presidential nomination at around 25-28%, inconstancy has been the constant among his opponents. Michele Bachmann became the first to ride a wave to Romney’s relative polling position, only to fade when Rick Perry entered the race. Now Perry has faded after a series of awful debate performances and Herman Cain has taken his place for the last six weeks. If Cain can’t maintain his momentum, who will be the next Not-Romney? Byron York reports from Iowa that it may well be Newt Gingrich: For days, there’s been talk...

Washington was all a-Twitter (literally) Monday over Politico’s story about the sexual-harassment charges against Herman Cain — and about Cain’s serial self-contradictions. Faithful Fox News viewers saw him in the afternoon saying he didn’t know the terms of a settlement reached with the complainants and then saw him tell Greta Van Susteren in the 10 p.m. hour that he did. The Politico story, quoting no named sources, described Cain’s alleged misconduct as “conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature” and “physical gestures that were not overtly sexual.” That sounds bad but not horrible. A...

The College Board and News Corp. sponsored a forum on education with four GOP presidential candidates last week, and the runaway winner was Newt Gingrich. (Truth in advertising: I moderated the session along with Joel Klein, the former New York schools chancellor who now runs an educational unit for our employer, News Corp. Each candidate received 30 minutes, which was refreshing after the 30-second trivial pursuits of the debates.) Michele Bachmann (local control), Rick Santorum (moral values) and Herman Cain (business principles) stuck mainly to their talking points, but Mr. Gingrich kept the crowd of 1,000 or so engaged and...

If the 2008 POTUS election were based upon a "proportional electoral college" what would of been the final EV total? State breakdowns and overall total. One EV for each congressional district you win. Two EVs for the overall state vote winner.

Call this post “the good, the bad, and the ugly� for Rick Perry today to start off a new week for his campaign. He clearly wanted to start with a boost, and had fiscal-conservative icon Steve Forbes on Fox News yesterday with an endorsement of the Texas governor, tied to the upcoming release of Perry’s economic recovery plan based on the Flat Tax that Forbes himself championed in the 1990s: On Tuesday, Rick Perry will unveil his economic plan which includes measures to drastically reform the tax code and lower the corporate tax rate. It will also, he says, provide...

In late September of 2009, this column observed that James Grant’s economic exuberance was very much overdone. Specifically, Grant had penned a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in which he proclaimed that the looming economic recovery would “be a bit of a barn burner.” Notably, Grant’s general presumption about recessions/rebounds was correct. With U.S. recessions having historically acted as cures for them ridding the economy of all the malinvestment and labor mismatches that had brought on the downturns to begin with, logic spoke to a major rebound from the horrors of 2008. Grant cited a research report from economist Michael...

After Herman Cain began making a big splash with his 9-9-9 plan, boldness seemed to be the recipe for this cycle’s presidential election. Ron Paul delivered his own bold plan this week to reform the federal budget and “Restore America,� as Paul titled his new plan. In my column for The Fiscal Times, I take a look at Paul’s blueprint and find some provocative and intriguing concepts — but very little explanation, and even less common sense.Paul proposes to immediately zero out funding for five Cabinet-level agencies: Energy, Education, HUD, Interior, and Commerce. Conservatives have long wanted to eliminate the...

The volunteer contact for the Herman Cain campaign in VA is: Laura Ricketts laura.ricketts@hermancain.com 540-514-1607

After months of languishing on the sidelines of the GOP presidential race, Herman Cain has skyrocketed to the top of the national polls and now looks like he might actually be a real contender for the Republican nomination in 2012. Until Cain and his "9-9-9" tax plan dominated Tuesday's presidential debate and vaulted into the national spotlight, few outside of the Tea Party know much about Cain, other than that he is black and likes pizza. That is largely because, until this week, Cain's presidential campaign was virtually non-existent. Eschewing the fundraisers and early voting state visits typical of most...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry outlined plans Friday to dramatically increase U.S. energy production and create 1.2 million jobs, taking aim at federal regulations he said are strangling the economy. Perry's announcement at a U.S. Steel plant in a suburb near Pittsburgh came as the Texas governor seeks to shore up his campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination after a series of shaky debate performances and distractions knocked him out of the front-runner position. Perry said if elected in 2012 he would sign a series of executive orders in the first 100 days of his administration to roll back...

Herman Cain's days of running a shoestring operation may be coming to an end. Responding to concerns about the lack of significant staff, Cain promised that his campaign would shortly begin hiring to meet the demands on a front-running candidate: Seizing modest momentum in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, businessman Herman Cain promised to invest in additional staff and campaign more aggressively in New Hampshire and Iowa.“We have run this very lean by design. We are now going to ramp up,� he told reporters near the New Hampshire State House Wednesday afternoon. “We now have the money to...

Two polls published today show Herman Cain leading the GOP presidential candidate field. The NBC/Wall Street Journal and PPP polls give the Georgia businessman his first poll leads of the season: PPP: Yesterday PPP released numbers showing Herman Cain leading Mitt Romney 30-22 in Iowa and our monthly look at the national picture finds the exact same numbers. Cain is up 30-22 on Romney with Newt Gingrich sneaking past Rick Perry for 3rd place at 15% to Perry's 14% with Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul tied for 5th at 5%, Jon Huntsman 7th at 2%, Rick Santorum 8th at 1%,...

In 1972, Brazilian biologist Francisco Varela introduced the concept of “autopoiesis,” which explains the process by which cells regenerate and replace themselves. According to the theory, human cells die and are replaced; so every ten years or so, you are literally an entirely different person than you were before. So if you called your car-insurance company to tell them the speeding ticket you got in 1998 wasn’t you, you’d actually be right. Seeing as how I’m reaching the end of my 30s, I figure I’m due a new body. I hope model 4.0 will be taller and skinnier; if it’s...

First, folks couldn’t identify the meaning of the acronym “GOP.� Now, they can’t name a single GOP presidential candidate. Forty-seven percent of those polled in a recent Pew Research Center survey couldn’t identify one Republican competitor for the GOP nomination. Twenty-eight percent could name Rick Perry, 27 percent could name Mitt Romney and 15 percent could name Michele Bachmann. All of the other candidates drew only single-digit name recognition. That’s not necessarily surprising. After all, I’m not sure why registered Democrats would follow the Republican primaries closely enough to be able to name all the candidates. But, at the same...

Barack Obama is so doomed politically that he sits behind his desk in the Oval Office with a vulture on each shoulder. And every day at noon, Joe Biden comes in dressed as the Grim Reaper and they all play gin. I know this because the poll gods tell me this. A recent McClatchy/Marist poll says that 49 percent of voters say they definitely plan to vote against Obama in 2012. In addition, 52 percent of Americans think the Republican candidate will win (even though they don’t know who the Republican candidate will be). And nearly one out of every...

On Wedesday, we took a closer look at Herman Cain, who is spiking in recent polls — and taking a lot of his newfound support from Texas Guv Rick Perry. “Flavor of the week,” as Sarah Palin refers to her pal, “Herb Caen.” But Herb would trade in all those temporal poll numbers for what Perry has: Lots of cold, hard campaign contributions. Perry will report $17 mi miiiiiiiiiiiiiilllion in contributions over the past three months. That’s $17 million in 49 days — and THAT keeps Perry as an A-list candidate who can afford (for now) bad debate performances and...

Herman Cain is likable, but is that enough for him to grab the Republican nomination? Meghan McCain on why the party needs to rally around a candidate soon—before it’s too late. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ As soon as the last Republican debate ended, my mother called me and asked what I thought. I told her my opinion on the candidates was pretty much unchanged with just one exception: the more I see Herman Cain, the more I want to grab a beer and slice of pizza with him. The recent Florida straw poll results show that I’m not the only one who is...

First things first: There is no 9-9-9 plan in This Is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House. But other than that notable omission, which is due to the fact that the book was written before the campaign developed the 9-9-9 tax-reform plan, the book reads exactly like the optimistic, sunny speech that brought down the house at Florida’s Presidency 5 straw poll. Sprinkled throughout the 167 pages of This Is Herman Cain! are numerous interesting tidbits for those fascinated by the pizza mogul–turned–presidential candidate: He wears gold ties because “gold is my power color,” he can see his...

Is Herman Cain a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination? It’s a question no one in the pundit world was asking until the past week. Cain has never held public office. When he ran for the Senate in Georgia in 2004, he lost the primary by a 52 percent to 26 percent margin. He has zero experience in foreign or defense policy, where presidents have the most leeway to set policy. When questioned about the Middle East earlier this year, he clearly had no idea what the “right of return” is. His solid performance in the Fox News/Google debate...

The White House hit back Wednesday against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's contention that President Obama has been a "bystander" to the nation's problems. "There were no bystanders in the Oval Office," presidential press secretary Jay Carney said. "In the past two and a half years that Barack Obama has been president, it has been one of the most substantial periods in our history." Mr. Carney went on to cite the "enormity" of the challenges that faced Mr. Obama when he took office, including a deep recession and global financial crisis. He said Mr. Obama made "a series of incredibly...

Bill Christie, Gov. Chris Christie’s father, tells National Review Online that his son will make the final decision about a presidential bid. But as the governor mulls, he can count his father as one of many Republicans who would support him, should he jump into the presidential primary. “I know he’d be a great president,” Mr. Christie says. “He has always been a leader. I think he would beat [President] Obama.” But don’t get too excited. “I’ve never asked him if he’s going to run,” Mr. Christie cautions. “I trust if it’s going to happen, I’d be hearing it from...

Yesterday, I wrote that Rick Perry needs to stop worrying so much about his competitors in the Republican primary fight and start laying out his own plans for a Perry presidency in order to claim the mantle of a front-runner. Jill Lawrence at the Daily Beast decided to take a look at Perry’s website to see what kind of argument that might be, and discovered why Perry might be a little too focused on attacking Romney: In public at least, Rick Perry is among those writing off his stumbling debate performances as a verbal problem—as in, he’s not a slick,...

It's anybody's guess as to whether Herman Cain can go the distance. But here's another item to put on the plus side of the scales. The Dems have gotten considerable mileage out of accusations of scientific illiteracy on the part of the GOP candidates. This is largely due to the healthy stand taken by most of the field against global warming panic, but has also Rick Perry's clumsiness in dealing with questions concerning evolution and Michelle B's ill-advised attack on the Gardasil vaccine. (There's scarcely a vaccine in the medical armory that hasn't been accused of causing "retardation" at one...

In the Republican presidential race, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate fact from farce. In last weekend’s season-opener of “Saturday Night Live,” a fictitious Herman Cain explained to a fictitious Shepard Smith in a fictitious Fox News debate why his experience in the pizza business qualified him to be president. “There is no better motto for the federal government than that of a pizza place,” said Kenan Thompson, playing Cain, adding, “It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and you’re high as a kite and the stuff in your fridge is weirding you out — if you order it, pizza...

A new Zogby poll puts Herman Cain​ at the top of the Republican field, as the top choice of 28% of poll respondents. (IBOPE Zogby International says the polling sample consists of “all likely voters and of likely Republican primary voters.”) Rounding out the top three are Rick Perry at 18%, and Mitt Romney at 17%. Fourth place goes to Ron Paul at 11%. Paul’s the most solid performer in Zogby’s polling history for the 2012 GOP race – his 11% might as well be chiseled in stone. Interestingly, this poll was conducted after the Orlando GOP debate, but before...

As a longtime tabloid fixture, reality TV star, and Obama birth certificate conspiracy-theorist-in-chief, Donald Trump has never had a problem finding new ways to remain in the limelight. And when Trump welcomed another major Republican presidential candidate to his gilded Manhattan nerve center on Monday, the New York real estate mogul once again demonstrated an uncanny ability to remain a part of the political conversation. Mitt Romney became the latest White House hopeful to seek favor with Trump on Monday afternoon, following on the heels of Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and prospective contender Sarah Palin, all of whom have convened...

Members of Gov. Chris Christie's inner circle said today he won't run for president, batting down increased speculation that spiked on Monday when former Gov. Tom Kean said Christie was thinking about throwing his hat in the ring. Christie's brother, a well-connected Republican fundraiser, said the governor hasn't changed his mind. "I'm sure that he's not going to run," Todd Christie said. "If he's lying to me, I'll be as stunned as I've ever been in my life." Three people close to Christie said they were surprised by Kean's comments to National Review, a conservative magazine. They said the two...

Tonight, Chris Christie will take the podium at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and give a speech on leadership, an event that some Republicans hope will turn into the launch of a bid for the GOP presidential nomination. With Rick Perry taking a beating from the Right and Mitt Romney gamely holding onto his co-frontrunner status, some conservatives see Christie as a potential white-knight candidate. New York Magazine’s Dan Amira takes a look at Christie’s record — and wonders whether Christie would solve any of the problems in the race, or compound them: Did you hear the news? Chris Christie...

Could Herman Cain actually become the person who faces President Obama in the general election? The Republican presidential hopeful is riding high after a surprising and stunning victory in last weekend’s Florida straw poll. He says that the win has given his campaign momentum and is proof that he could go on to win his party’s nomination. I seriously doubt it, but a man can dream, can’t he? Still, he’s got people talking. There’s no doubt that such a matchup certainly would be one of history’s most interesting and widely watched contests. At one point people never imagined that Obama,...

The Republicans’ presidential debate Thursday night sponsored by Fox News and Google gave primary voters and caucus-goers at least one good reason to reject every candidate on the stage. The interesting question now is whether someone else will enter the race — at just about the same point in the election cycle in which Bill Clinton entered the Democratic race in 1991. The spotlight was hottest on Rick Perry, the frontrunner in national polls since he announced his candidacy in Charleston, S.C., on Aug. 13, the same day that Michele Bachmann won the straw poll in Ames, Iowa. Perry’s problem...

Mitt Romney is an incredibly vulnerable Republican candidate, from his numerous policy reversals to his championing of the Massachusetts health care law that served as the basis from Obamacare. But for him to lose, somebody else has to beat him. And like Tim Pawlenty before him, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is blowing his chances to exploit Romney’s weaknesses. The defining moment in this debate may well have been the point at which Perry went on the attack against Romney for being a flip flopper. As I noted earlier, there’s a long file to choose from. And Perry had clearly rehearsed...

A good poll for Romney, a mediocre one for Perry, and pure devastation for Bachmann. She was at 13 percent in early August, shortly before Perry jumped in, and 10 percent in late August. Now she’s tied with Cain and Gingrich for fourth place, a good eight points behind, um, Ron Paul. Game over. Perry is stronger among Republicans and independents who lean Republican, the voters who settle nominations. In a head-to-head race, 49% say they would vote for Perry, 39% for Romney…In the poll, 44% say they definitely would not vote for Perry; 35% say that of Romney. Looked...

A non-profit group in liberal Silicon Valley is seeking to register 5 million new Christian conservative voters from across the country, who according to its research, can decide the 2012 presidential election and bring the biblical worldview to the forefront of American life and politics. Of the estimated 60 million Christians in the United States, only 30 million vote in any given election. The rest do not realize the power they hold in one single vote, says United in Purpose, a group backed by a few Silicon Valley venture capitalists that is running a project caklled “Champion the Vote.” The...