Free Republic

President Barack Obama says the Senate's GOP-written health care bill will cause millions of families to lose health care coverage. Obama called Senate Republicans' health care bill a "massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America." He also says it "hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else." The former president says amending the GOP-written bill "cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation." "Simply put, if there's a chance you might get sick, get...

Temperature 82 degrees with occasional clouds, and lagoon waters, clear as paradise… former President Barack Obama is wrapping up his month-long vacation in French Polynesia – with Michelle by his side. On Sunday, Tahiti television station TNTV revealed photos of Michelle Obama paddleboarding while the Barack swam in a Polynesian lagoon. The pictures were taken on the island of Moorea by fellow vacationers, who spotted the laid-back couple using a small boat for a late morning excursion. They were escorted by two other boats with their security detail, the station says. The former president has been staying out of the...

Former US president Barack Obama is to make his first visit to Scotland when he addresses business leaders in the capital next month. He will also answer questions from the audience at the event, which is being held to raise money for charity. The charity was set up by leading businessman and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter. Tickets for a table of 10 at the dinner are expected to go on sale for approximately £5,000. The Hunter Foundation has previously arranged for US politicians and actors including Bill Clinton, Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney to come to Scotland. All of the...

Punk icon John Lydon, better known by his stage name Johnny Rotten, defended U.S. President Donald Trump against the “left-wing media” during a Monday interview in London. The former Sex Pistols frontman, who became a U.S. citizen in 2013, said on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” that Mr. Trump is “a complicated fellow” but doesn’t deserve being labeled a racist by his liberal opponents. “What I dislike is the left-wing media in America are trying to smear the bloke as a racist, and that’s completely not true,” the 61-year-old said. “There’s many, many problems with him as a human being, but...

President Barack Obama doesn’t expect he’ll “suddenly just vanish” once Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. He also doesn’t expect to keep quiet if his successor’s administration impedes on the “core values” of the United States. Remarking on Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims, Obama on Monday’s The Daily Show told Trevor Noah that he will “have to say something” if Trump follows through on his campaign promise, or insists on a registry of all Muslims currently living the United States. “If I thought a Muslim registry was being set up that violates the Constitution, violates who we are, and...

Colin Kaepernick is standing behind his decision not to vote in the presidential election or even register to take part in the democratic process, saying he can effect change in other ways besides through a ballot. The San Francisco 49ers quarterback has knelt through the national anthem all season to protest police brutality and the treatment of minorities, drawing criticism and acclaim alike. He took more heat for not voting last week. “I thought a lot of different things about the process and what I could and couldn’t do,” he said Tuesday. “Once again, the system of oppression is what...

As Election Day turned to Election Night, two of Ohio's top Republicans sat on big plans largely contingent upon Donald Trump going down in flames. Gov. John Kasich, who fell short in his own bid for the GOP presidential nomination, was preparing a Thursday speech in Washington, where he would outline his Trump-free vision for his party and country. It would be an early first step toward another run in 2020. Matt Borges, the Ohio Republican Party chief and a Kasich ally, was angling to be the next Republican National Committee chairman. He would build his case on his success...

Furious San Francisco 49ers fans are burning Colin Kaepernick jerseys after he refused to stand for the national anthem as part of a racial protest. One fan even played The Star-Spangled Banner as he set light to the Number 7 shirt, watching with his hand on his chest as it was reduced to ash. Another, who uploaded a video to Instagram under the handle Nate3914, called the $19million-per-year athlete an 'ignorant son of a b****.'

The rapper who posted an Instagram video threatening Donald Trump over his fear of Food Stamps being cut has been arrested. 22-year-old Demarcus Davis, who went by the name Maine Musik online, has been charged with felony possession of a stolen firearm by a felon and possession of a controlled substance codeine syrup. Media analyst Mark Dice has the story. © 2016 by Mark Dice

North Korea has released a grainy video that it claims shows American student Otto Warmbier attempting to steal a propaganda banner from a hotel — an accusation for which he received 15 years of hard labor. The short clip at the Yanggakdo International Hotel in Pyongyang shows an unidentifiable figure removing a sign from a wall before placing it on the floor. The banner in the hotel apparently says: "Let's arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong Il patriotism," referring to the isolated state's leader who died in 2011. The short security-camera footage could not be verified, and the clip shows...

A confrontation over a Trump sticker erupted on the Queens campus of St. John’s University Wednesday when a student threatened to smash a classmate's computer over her allegiance to the Donald. The anti-Trump student posted a photo to Twitter of a woman with a “Trump Make America Great Again” sticker on her laptop and asked his followers to share the image. “7000 retweets and i'll smash this b---h’s computer,” the student wrote in the post. The Trump supporter in the picture complained to the school’s public safety office, according to another student. A short time later the two ran into...

With all due respect, indeed! On the Bloomberg TV show of that name that he co-hosts with Mark Halperin, John Heilemann today reported that the current and former governors in the GOP field--Bush, Kasich and Christie--think Marco Rubio is a "punk." Clarified Heilemann: "when I say 'punk,' they have the same view that Hillary Clinton had of Barack Obama [in 2008]: line-cutter, punk, man of no accomplishment." Evidence in support of Heilmann's claim comes from Jeb's interiew on CBS today, in which he flatly asserted that Rubio had accomplished "nothing" in the Senate. Readers will remember that yesterday, Joe Scarborough...

At long last here is a photo of Chris Harper Mercer, the 26-year-old shooter in Oregon. He is most certainly a Muslim.

A 15-year-old girl has been jailed after murdering her mother after becoming obsessed with ISIS and its abhorrent hostage beheading videos.Lisa Borch was just 15 when she took a kitchen knife and killed her mum in October last year.Minutes earlier she had been watching the beheadings of British hostages David Haines and Alan Henning on YouTube, carried out by twisted terrorist Jihadi John.Lisa, alongside her radical boyfriend Bakhtiar Mohammed Abdulla, stabbed her mum Tina Römer Holtegaard at least 20 times at their home in Kvissel, rural Denmark.A court heard how the teenager fell in love with a radical Muslim, but...

The State Attorney's Office in Tallahassee, Fla., released surveillance video on Monday showing FSU quarterback De'Andre Johnson punching a female student at a bar a month ago.

Infowars on MTV? Bay Area punk band fREEX made a song and video about conspiracy radio host Alex Jones. https://youtu.be/uPfeCCFqp1M

WBRZ reporter Brett Buffington was arrested after a run-in with officers at the scene of a burglary investigation Thursday morning. According to The Advocate, the Baton Rouge, La. ABC affiliate’s reporter was booked on counts of interfering with an officer and intimidating a public official. Police placed Buffington in the back of a police unit until the area was made safe, the report says. Buffington was then issued a criminal summons and told he was free to leave, to which he told an officer, “Hope you enjoy the rest of your career.” The report says the officer took the comment...

The mother of the Boston bombing suspects says she does not believe her sons carried out the marathon attacks. “My sons were framed by the US authorities.” [VIDEO AT LINK]

You’re 25, drunk and an idiot… so what do you do for fun? You go to the beach and start calling a father’s daughters and his wife dikes and c**xxxs. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And the moron got his ticket punched by the father/husband. All it took was one punch too. Knocked the guy out colder than a mackerel and he didn’t wake up for a while. He postured and swaggered in front of daddy and got taken to the woodshed. Good for that father. Daddy’s home.

**SNIP** We are seeing this play out right now. Obama’s coalition in 2008 was relatively large—at 53 percent of the vote—but unstable. In a country as vast and diverse as ours, all such coalitions are bound to be unstable. And what we have seen is Republicans poach a critical mass of the Obama vote away, in 2010 and likely in 2014, to foil his agenda. Just as Madison might have expected. It is well known that this president likes to golf and watch hipster favorites like Game of Thrones, so he probably is too busy to read dusty old books...