Free Republic

A tentative murmur of hopefulness among some American conservatives is threatening to explode into joyous optimism. A few rough days for the Obama administration, combined with Obama's lame duck status, seem to have created an intoxicating elixir of wishful thinking, and a surprising number of people are quaffing this elixir without reserve. I feel like a teetotaler at a Dionysian bash, watching everyone else progressing from gaiety to hysteria, and wondering how they could be so careless as to set themselves up for the horrible morning after that awaits them. Obama is finished, the revelers exclaim. His agenda has run...

As President Obama prepares his State of the Union Address and the nation looks forward to a Presidents Day holiday, Americans should consider the warning examples of our worst chief executives. While few of Washington and Lincoln's successors could hope to replicate their epic achievements, every president can — and must — focus on avoiding the appalling ineptitude of John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and their feckless fellow travelers on the road to presidential perdition. The common elements that link our least successful leaders teach historical lessons at least as important as the shared traits of the Rushmore Four:...

"I'm going to get in trouble for saying this," said a prescient Joe Scarborough. Less than an hour after delivering a devastating take-down of the Obama economic record that surely pleased many conservatives, Scarborough made remarks about Marco Rubio that are bound to outrage many of the same folks. Commenting on Marco Rubio's response to the State of the Union, Scarborough declared that Rubio "is not ready to be President of the United States" and that "Republicans pushing him out there are making a big mistake." View the video here.

Action is something Americans of both parties demand of their presidents these days. This is natural for Democrats, whose heritage is all action, starting with Franklin Roosevelt and his Hundred Days. But Republicans like energy and a big executive as well. Over the course of the campaign this past year, any number of political stars, including Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, argued that only an energetic candidate would be up to the job of managing the U.S. fiscal crisis. Mitt Romney worked hard to let voters know his party could beat the Democrats in the legislative arena. He swore up...

He's already being treated like the 2016 GOP presidential front-runner, and now there is another reason Republicans are excitedly buzzing about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: He alone would reverse the party's slide among Hispanic voters. A new nationwide poll from JZ Analytics found that Rubio would get 48 percent of the Hispanic vote, about twice what Mitt Romney won in 2012. Republican strategist told Secrets that a win among Latino voters that big would assure Rubio the presidency, since he would also likely keep the regular GOP base. "If he does that good, then he's the next president," said a...

On November 6, 2012, 3.2 million fewer Americans voted for Mitt Romney than President Obama. 61.8 million Americans voted for Obama, while only 58.6 million voted for Romney. Despite losing the popular vote 51% to 48%--not a landslide for Obama by any means, but on the other hand not the “neck and neck” outcome many predicted--Mitt Romney would be President today if he had secured 333,908 more votes in four key swing states. The final electoral college count gave President Obama a wide 332 to 206 margin over Romney. 270 electoral college votes are needed to win the Presidency. Romney...

Barack Obama may have won the election, but it is a victory devoid of triumph. Obama ran a lackluster election campaign, one distinguished more by harsh attacks on his opponent Mitt Romney than by pride in his own accomplishments. Just how narrow the victory was can be seen in the popular vote count. While the incumbent easily defeated his challenger in the Electoral College, he only managed to eke out a razor thin majority of total votes cast. Republican candidate Romney proved instead to be an opponent who will quickly be forgotten by history -- an inept, even awkward politician.

Obama reveals his true feelings when the teleprompter is off. He describes what this election means to himself, his Marxist cabal in DC and useful idiots Hollywood. Affirmative action presidency? No. O.J. Presidency? Yes. Here's Why:

And then it all changed. At a certain point he lost the room. Books will be written about what happened, but early on the president made two terrible legislative decisions. The stimulus bill was a political disaster, and it wasn't the cost, it was the content. We were in crisis, losing jobs. People would have accepted high spending if it looked promising. But the stimulus was the same old same old, pure pork aimed at reliable constituencies. It would course through the economy with little effect. And it would not receive a single Republican vote in the House (three in...

Back in the spring of 2011, House Republicans had refused to raise the nation’s debt ceiling unless the president first conceded to massive spending cuts—a gratuitous game of chicken that put the global economy at risk and defied decades of bipartisan Washington tradition. At the time, many Democrats, including Bill Clinton, were urging Obama to go it alone. I’d raise the debt ceiling on my own, “without hesitation,” Clinton told a reporter. “[I’d] force the courts to stop me.” But the White House insisted that unilateral action was “not an option.” Instead, Obama spent 44 days trying to forge a...

Our White House has been residence to Unitarians, at least one likely Deist, and multiple Freemasons. Is Romney’s Mormonism really any weirder?

The United States will face major challenges over the next four years. For the first time in history, its citizens confront the prospect of handing down to the next generation a nation that is less wealthy, less healthy, less secure and less in control of its destiny. President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have both laid out plans to avert such national misfortune. . . . We believe President Obama has demonstrated a better grasp of the essential issues and offers a better vision for the United States. Voters should give him a second term in the...

.....We could spend hours quoting disparaging reviews of Obama's performances from journalists who were never as head-over-heels as Matthews and Sullivan, but we like to pretend as if we have space constraints, so we'll just take one representative example,...Tunku Varadarajan writes: "My God, in the four years that we've seen him in the White House, I don't think we've ever seen the president so flaccid, so dull-brained, so jejune, so shifty, so downcast."This columnist has to disagree. Obama's lame performance last night seemed typical to us. We can think of a few occasions in which we've seen the president less...

Much is being made of the devastating blow that Mitt Romney administered to President Obama in the first presidential debate Wednesday night. Romney was masterful; Obama was incomprehensible. Romney was presidential; Obama was incoherent. Romney schooled Obama; Obama responded by doing the hand motions to "The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round." Republicans and conservatives alike were cheering. Even Romney skeptics like me happily conceded that Romney was the right guy all along. There will be an October surprise from the Obama camp, but they got one themselves Wednesday night. Obama was rambling, fumbling, stuttering. He was terrible....

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks. In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family. Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in. Gray told The Daily...

Full title: Obama feels the squeeze - now call security: President gets bear hugged off his feet by fan on same day he reveals Romney's health care will cost retirees $60k more President Obama got a lift on the campaign trail today after a visit to a Florida pizza shop. Scott Van Duzer, owner of the Big Apple Pizza, is clearly a fan of the president after he lifted him off the ground in a manly bear hug to show his appreciation. Obama could not contain his delight as he laughed heartily with the pizza shop owner after he was...

He has done more than any other pRresident before him and has an impressive list of "firsts" as his "accomplishments": First pRresident of the Oval Office to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner. First pRresident of the Oval Office to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in. First pRresident of the Oval Office to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States . First pRresident of the Oval Office to violate the War Powers Act. First pRresident of the Oval Office to be...

John R. Lott Jr. and Grover G. Norquist are the authors of Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future. Lott, a former colleague of the president’s at the University of Chicago Law School, answers some questions about the depth of the debacle and the way out from National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: John, you say that when you were a faculty colleague of Barack Obama, he tagged you as “the gun guy” and announced that “I don’t believe people should be able to own guns.” That...

Allen West on Obama: 'The Resurrection of an Imperial Presidency'1:21 PM, Jun 18, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER Speaking this morning to talk radio host Laura Ingraham, Florida congressman Allen West, a Republican, blasted President Obama's immigration plan to use prosecutorial discretion not to go after young immigrants who came to the United States illegally. Obama announced his new immigration plan on Friday. "What country did we wake up in on Friday?," West asked. "It just causes people to ask, where are we? You know, the last time we had this was with King George III, and we didn't like...

As President Barack Obama approaches the final hundred days before his election, events have forced his campaign to adopt a new political strategy: hoping Americans forget the first hundred days of his presidency. Back then, pundits proclaimed the dawn of a golden age of government not seen since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt graced the White House. With Speaker Nancy Pelosi reigning in the U.S. House of Representatives and a filibuster-proof majority dominating the Senate, Obama let then-House Republican Whip Eric Cantor know who was boss in January 2009. “Elections have consequences,” Obama said. “I won.” Any doubt about those consequences...

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood planned a mass climax to its presidential campaign on Sunday, hoping to sway undecided voters and clinch victory in this week's election when Egyptians will choose their leader freely for the first time. On the last day of official campaigning, the Brotherhood told Egyptians to "book your place anywhere in Egypt" for evening rallies in support of its candidate Mohamed Mursi. Brotherhood supporters seem unfazed by surveys that show their unfancied contender trailing rivals who entered the race earlier and are spending heavily in the dash for votes. In one poll published last week in al-Masry al-Youm...

“In a second term,” Mitt Romney darkly warned in a speech to the National Rifle Association last month, President Obama “would be unrestrained by the demands of reelection.” But Romney was cagey about what, exactly, that would mean: His only specific prediction was that Obama would “remake” the Supreme Court. So it was helpful when, at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner a week ago, the president opened up about the “secret agenda” he has planned. “In my first term,” he joked, “we ended the war in Iraq; in my second term, I will win the war on Christmas. . . ....

MARK LEVIN: "Obama, it would seem, wants to deny to others what he will not deny to himself. He wants to deny to the children of others what he will not deny to his own children. He wants to amass riches, but he doesn't want you to amass wealth. He doesn't mind private school for his own children, but he minds it for your children. He doesn't mind eating whatever he wants to eat, but he minds what you eat. He doesn't mind taking that 747 one frivolous trip after another, one self-serving fundraising after another, but he minds what...

Former Democratic vice presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman says he’s not endorsing anyone – Republican or Democrat – for president in November. "I'm going to try to stay out of this one," Lieberman told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who caucuses with Democrats, famously endorsed his friend Republican John McCain over Barack Obama in the 2008 election. Wallace joked that that endorsement "didn't work out so well the last time." "I'm not running for re-election," Lieberman countered. "I'm enjoying not being involved in the nastiness of campaigning in America these days." Lieberman...

John F. Kennedy's famous Houston speech on church and state during the 1960 presidential campaign elicited Rick Santorum's after-the-fact disgust. Though Santorum misrepresents the speech in some ways--Kennedy didn't say anything about limiting religious institutions and leaders from speaking on public issues--he is right to find the speech theologically lame. In trying to assure Protestant voters that they had nothing to fear in voting for a Catholic as president, JFK stressed that his religious views were "his own private affair." He laid out his vision of a chief executive whose public acts would not be "limited or conditioned by any...

......................."So. Media Matters, we learn, is having weekly strategy calls with the White House, they meet with Obama aide Jarrett and ex-aide Dunn, who returned to the White House for the meeting after she departed. Anita Dunn also "became a regular presence" in the Media Matters offices, the then-president of Media Matters "lunched with her, met with her and chatted with her frequently on any number of occasions." And what else? What raises the specter of Tony Ulasewicz? This. From Media Matters' Karl Frisch: "We should hire private investigators to look into the personal lives of Fox News anchors, hosts,...

The buy-out industry is under attack for destroying jobs. Its returns to investors are the real problem IF STEVE SCHWARZMAN thought it was valid in 2010 to compare Barack Obama’s “war” against business to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, what can he be thinking now? Private-equity executives must be hoping the boss of Blackstone will keep his opinions to himself. More bad publicity is the last thing the industry needs. Other Republican presidential candidates are competing to see who can say the most damning thing about Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital. Newt Gingrich’s supporters have even made a sort of...

CHARLESTON, S.C. – A new furor rocked politically active Christians today as news leaked that the founder of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson, may have cast aspersions on Callista Gingrich, wife of GOP contender Newt Gingrich, at a key moment before evangelicals voted in Texas to support Sen. Rick Santorum in the GOP presidential primary race. The effect of the disclosure on the race, especially on uncommitted Christian voters, is still unclear. The comment happened at last Saturday’s meeting of influential evangelical leaders who had gathered at the Texas ranch of Judge Paul Pressler to discuss the GOP...

John Bolton announced a few minutes ago that he has endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2012 election campaign. He believes Romney is the strongest conservative, who is electable. Bolton has informed himself of romney's writings and beliefs, and considers him the best conservative in the race. Greta's show repeats on Fox a 1 a.m.

One of the greatest gifts that America has given to the world is the idea that the leader of a nation should be chosen freely by its people. Well, perhaps the notion did not originate in America, but the Yanks certainly showed the world how to do it. More spectacularly and more originally, the United States pioneered the following novel concept: when the favor of the people transfers from one faction (as Madison called them) or party to another, then the defeated incumbent gracefully steps aside as his victorious opponent peacefully and lawfully takes his place as the new leader....

The Donald is at it again. After citing his possible independent presidential bid as the reason only two GOP candidates agreed to attend his Newsmax-sponsored debate, which he backed out of moderating on Tuesday, Donald Trump is continuing to stoke the rumors that he will launch a presidential bid, this time as a possible Americans Elect candidate. "Thousands of e-mails from folks urging me to seek the Americans Elect Presidential nomination," Trump tweeted from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account Wednesday morning. Americans Elect is the first online, independent presidential nominating convention that aims to gain ballot access in all 50 states....

President Obama is a socialist and a vapid demagogue who has been educated beyond the level of his intelligence. He is the choice of a puerile and spoiled electorate who want to be taken care of and obtain handouts from a parental figurehead. I can't believe the West won the Cold War. The Cold War was a competition of economic ideologies. In the 1960s, we used to have sincere debates about which economic system was better -- a socialist, centrally-planned economy, or a capitalist, free-market economy. The debate is over. By 1990, even the Russians and Chinese were forced to...

What was it that the prophet Jeremiah said about his mission, or was said about it in the bible? Jeremiah was sent among his people to confront falsehoods; he came to challenge the corrupt powers-that-be. Jeremiah came first to "root up, and to pull down" before building and planting. So might be Herman Cain's role among the nation's African-American communities, should he secure the GOP presidential nomination and win the presidency. President Herman Cain could prove to be a terrifically creative destructive force among the nation's 38 million African-Americans. A Cain presidency would be an incalculable danger to the interests...

The US has pulled terrorism manuals referencing Islam following complaints from terror-linked advocacy groups.eputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday the Obama administration was recalling all training materials used by the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam. “I recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security,” Cole told a panel at the George Washington University law school. The move comes after complaints from Muslim advocacy organizations, including the Council on American Islamic Relations...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton once again quashed rumors that she's still interested in running for president, this time in an interview with NBC’s Today on Monday. “I'm really old-fashioned. I feel I have made my contribution," Clinton said. "I’m very grateful I’ve had a chance to serve, but I think it’s time for others to step up." Writing, teaching, and working on issues that affect women and girls will be in her future, Clinton assured NBC's Savannah Guthrie; that and relaxing at home. Clinton shrugged off speculation that she should run against President Obama in 2012—or that she...

Hard-Headed Idealist The man who drafted the Bill of Rights later helped Thomas Jefferson conduct a back-channel propaganda war.. Yes, George Washington was the father of our country, but who fathered its politics? Certainly not Washington, who detested the very notion of partisanship and did his best to govern as First Magistrate, above the interests of "faction." His successor, the honest but hyper-irascible John Adams, was temperamentally incapable of cold political calculation, one reason that he was so vulnerable to attack during his single presidential term. Thomas Jefferson, who cultivated an above-the-fray, nonpolitical persona, had a keen private appreciation of...

Does Mitt Romney, an elder and former missionary of the Mormon Church, believe he will one day be a god ... equal to Jesus ... ruling his own planet? Does he agree with Mormon teaching that Jesus and Satan are brothers? That America is the Promised Land where Jesus will return one day to rule from the Garden of Eden, which Mormons believe to be Jackson County, Missouri? And do American voters have the right to know this? When Barack Obama was running for president, he assured us he was a Christian. Pastor Rick Warren brought Candidate Obama to his...

A funny thing happened to Bob Dole in 1996.During his campaign for President, liberals and independents saw him as angry, scowling, humorless & scary. It was only after he had been SAFELY DEFEATED, that they noticed what a warm, wise man he (always) was. It's because they were afraid of him being President. When he was no more a "perceived threat" to them, they became willing to listen to what he had to say and found that they liked him. It's a mega-important point and the reason I bring it up is because......For the first time since her National debut...

Are we better off now then 3 years ago when Obama trash-talked the Bush economy? No. All measures are worse: Poverty, Employment, Income, Health Insurance Premiums, The Price of Gas, Home Values, Deficits, Debt ...

Is it possible that Palin is in a kind of standoff with Evita? I mean... has the abysmal performance of "O", the likelihold of his being ommitted from the next national election and Evita possibly running for the DNC nomination herself, something that has kept Palin from announcing her intentions by now?

Vladimir Putin declared on Saturday that he planned to reclaim the Russian presidency in an election next March that could open the way for the former KGB spy to rule until 2024. The announcement, greeted by a standing ovation at a congress of the prime minister's ruling United Russia party, ended months of speculation over whether he or President Dmitry Medvedev would run. The two have ruled in a power 'tandem' since Putin was forced by the constitution to yield the presidency in 2008 after serving a maximum two consecutive terms, and Putin said they had agreed several years ago...

President Barack Obama faces a litany of bad news. The president’s job approval rating, his favorability, and his rating on the economy have hit all-time lows. To compound matters, three in four Americans still believe the nation is in a recession and the proportion who thinks the country is moving in the wrong direction is at its highest point in more than a decade. President Barack Obama According to this McClatchy-Marist Poll, the president’s approval rating is at 39% among registered voters nationally, an all-time low for Mr. Obama. For the first time a majority — 52% — disapproves of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJEvxgfcOFw The conspiratorial connection that will blow your mind! ;)

This is not the time to play nice with the side who has levied on us the highest tax and debt burden in our history. This is not the time to play nice with the leaders on the other side whose agenda is not economic growth and freedom but the destruction of the very core of our capitalist system. Big government and debt are the goals of the other side. It's time to take a stand and choose sides...there is only one Republican leader with the tough talk and conservative record and ability to deliver the message and energize the...

What if Barack Obama served on the Supreme Court and Clarence Thomas were president? What if some miracle — some “Freaky Friday” Disney moment — on January 20, 2009, the two most politically powerful black men in Washington switched jobs. What then? We know what Justice Obama would have become: Another mediocre liberal drone spitting out the predictably contradictory and vapid decisions that slowly corrode our rights and undermine our nation and our society. Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer and Obama are an interchangeable lot. They want to hollow out our Constitution. But what kind of president would Clarence Thomas, a...

I'm a fan of both politics and sports. They're of interest because they have so many similarities. The competition angle is obvious, of course, but the skills, personal qualities and uniqueness of the players in both arenas of combat are what really catch the fans' attention. But I've been focusing on the careers of politicians very closely, simply because the sport of politics is the bread and butter to every one of us. Two members especially catch my eye, for at first glance they seem to have a bit in common. Congressman Allen West and President Barack Obama, when brought...

Here is a very interesting and revealing article (exerpt) about Obama's personality and how it affects his presidency. "Barack Obama is unique in American presidential history. By virtue of his biracial identity and international upbringing, Americans believed they were breaking the mold when they elected the first African American president in 2008. Yet, for all the distinctiveness of his life experiences, there is still something else that sets Obama apart in the hall of presidents - his innate, natural temperament. According to personality psychologist David Keirsey, temperament is the part of our personality that we are born with. It is...

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry is running for president, a spokesman confirmed Thursday, a move certain to shake up the race for the GOP nomination much to the delight of conservatives looking for a candidate to embrace. Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the governor would make his intentions known on Saturday while visiting South Carolina and New Hampshire just as most of his presidential rivals compete in a test vote in Iowa. Official word of Perry’s entrance into the race came just hours before eight candidates, including GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, were to appear on stage during a...

In an Austin interview with Mark Halperin, Rick Perry says he has decided he wants to be president, talks about the advice he got from George W. Bush, and says he would compete against Barack Obama in California.

Few Americans needed Standard & Poor to confirm the mismanagement of the United States government and its finances. The downgrading of American credit will raise interest rates on America’s huge debt and ultimately on all Americans. Popular polls say that most Americans blame Congress—but that’s too simplistic. As much as Barack Obama would like to shift that blame onto Congress, the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of President. It is first and foremost a leadership problem that is crippling America—and the leader is President Barack Obama—not the many members of Congress. No matter how many speeches he makes, the...