Free Republic

Early in his administration, President Obama, pledged to cut the federal deficit in half. But his recent budget proposal, to say Obama has not kept his promise is an understatement. Determined to keep Americans drowning in debt, Obama proposes to accelerate federal spending $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $5.8 trillion in 2022, a whopping increase of 53 percent. By spending more than $45 trillion in the next 10 years, the most generous accounting would assume $6.7 trillion would be added to the federal deficit, bringing debt-to-GDP ratio who a crushing 76.5 percent. The slow ending of the Afghanistan war gave...

RUSH: There are some things happening today that are downright scary. The regime, led by Barack Hussein Obama, is weighing options for reducing our US nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80% in the number of deployed warheads -- 80%. Folks, this is staggering. Meanwhile, the Iranians are nuking up. Iran announced today that they're gonna cut off oil to six countries that have opposed its nuclear program, and more importantly, Iran also announced that they have installed domestically made nuclear fuel rods in their Tehran reactor. Now, if that's true, this is significant because the sanctions that...

President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to consider cutting U.S. strategic nuclear forces to as low as 300 deployed warheads—below the number believed to be in China’s arsenal and far fewer than current Russian strategic warhead stocks. Pentagon and military planners were asked to develop three force levels for the U.S. arsenal of deployed strategic nuclear warheads: a force of 1,100 to 1,000 warheads; a second scenario of between 700 and 800 warheads; and the lowest level of between 300 and 400 warheads. A congressional official said no president in the past ever told the Pentagon to conduct a review...

The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.

Leadership: Two top Democrats in Congress say the legislature doesn't really need to pass a budget. Excuse us, but passing a budget isn't optional; it's required by law. Is this the future of rule under the Democrats? House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer is tired of passing budgets as the law demands. He thinks Congress can just keep spending money without any sort of budget. "The fact is, you don't need a budget," he said last Tuesday. "We can adopt appropriations bills. We can adopt authorization policies without a budget. We already have an agreed-upon cap on spending." Actually, "the fact...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday accused President Barack Obama of actively seeking ways to allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapon and suggested that the administration had betrayed Israel by publicly disclosing what may be a plan to attack the Muslim nation. Santorum drew connections between the administration's opposition to the Keystone pipeline project, which would bring oil from Canada to U.S. refineries, and American dependency on foreign oil and U.S.-Israel relations. "We're throwing Israel under the bus because we know we're going to be dependent upon OPEC," Santorum said during a speech in...

It's now quite clear that Obama is playing chicken with Israel on Iranian nukes. That is why Leon Panetta came out with a statement this week accusing Israel of planning to attack Iran. If that statement is true, it's the worst kind of sabotage, undermining the advantages of surprise. If it's false, it is intended to place Israel at the focus of Iranian rage. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The goal of Obama's nuclear brinkmanship is to drive Israel into making dangerous territorial compromises. This is a Carteresque policy: blame the victim, and arm her enemy. Jimmy...

Last Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about his role in the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. However, instead of answers, Congress got more defiance, more arrogance, and more wasted time with an attorney general who clearly feels no sense of obligation to the American people or our rule of law. But for all the stonewalling, there was at least one telling moment at this hearing, and it should concern law-abiding gun owners and all Americans who expect accountability from our government. In a rash attempt to...

US Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg tells Egyptians: Don’t look to the “OLD US Constitution” for guidance in drafting a new constitution. Justice Ginsburg holds in high esteem the constitution of South Africa and Canada.

Republican presidential contender Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) said Monday that the sanctions put in place against Iran are "terrible" for the United States and its allies. "I voted against them and I think they're terrible and I think it's going to hurt the people who are trying to overthrow [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. People, when they're attacked from the outside and made to hurt, become more nationalistic," Paul said on Fox News's "On the Record" Monday night. President Obama issued an executive order Monday calling for new sanctions against Iran and its central bank, which were included in the defense authorization...

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — An Army officer ordered a court-martial Friday for a low-ranking intelligence analyst charged in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history. Military District of Washington commander Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington referred all charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning to a general court-martial, the Army said in a statement. The referral means Manning will stand trial for allegedly giving more than 700,000 secret U.S. documents and classified combat video to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks for publication.

In response to weekend reports that the United States is close to a deal for the release of five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo prison, Rep. Rohrabacher issued the following statement: “The Taliban is a terrorist organization responsible for the death and maiming of hundreds of Americans in Afghanistan, and were in league with al-Qaida when 3,000 people were murdered in the U.S. on 9/11,” said Rohrabacher. “While President Obama refuses to talk to America’s natural allies in Afghanistan, the Northern Front, he is in the processes of making one-sided concessions to the Taliban that will put some of its worst...

In his Loyal Opposition blog, New York Times ed page editor Andrew Rosenthal goes after the Justice Department’s decision to prosecute former CIA officer, former Democratic Senate staffer and Huffington Post blogger John Kiriakou for leaking classified information — including the names of CIA operatives — to journalists. Rosenthal writes, That may seem simple: CIA officer, classified information disclosed, prison. But take a closer look. He’s been charged with revealing that two men accused of organizing the Sept. 11 attacks, Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, were tortured. So the man who blew the whistle on torture may go to...

A former staffer for Bay State Sen. John F. Kerry has been charged with leaking the names of CIA operatives, including one who was involved in the interrogation of terror suspects held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and Kerry’s office.

The U.S. Air Force has decided to scrap its Northrop Grumman Corp high-altitude unmanned surveillance plane program and keep its Cold War-vintage U-2 spy planes flying into the 2020s, according to a government official and a defense analyst. Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the Air Force decision was based on the cost of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned planes, and said the service would investigate using a marine version with different sensors that Northrop is developing for the Navy. The Navy is proceeding with its plans to buy 68 of that version of the...

Kiriakou, 47, was a source for stories by The New York Times and other news organizations in 2008 and 2009 about some of the agency’s most sensitive operations after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. ......... that the information Kiriakou supplied to journalists ... enabling defense attorneys there to obtain photographs of CIA operatives suspected of being involved in harsh interrogations. Some of the pictures were subsequently discovered in the cells of high-value detainees.

President Obama plans to head out on a 3 day trip arriving in Las Vegas Wednesday afternoon and staying overnight well into Thursday. That afternoon he will leave for Denver and then Detroit. The president plans to promote his State of the Union address. With this action, President Obama intends to ignore a legal judicial subpoena from the state of Georgia requesting him, by name, to appear in court January 26th 2012 at 9am in Judge Michael Malihi's courtroom. Barack Obama's attempt as a candidate to be on the state ballot in Georgia has been officially legally challenged by state...

This week an Iranian Lawmaker released details from a letter President Barrack Obama wrote to the country’s supreme leader warning against closing the Strait of Hormuz and calling for direct talks with the Islamic Republic’s tyrant. Oil According to Iranian Lawmaker Ali Motahari the letter, sent through private channels, threatened the republic if they attempted to cut off oil from the Persian Gulf, days before rejecting the Keystone pipeline from Canada. The Iranians are seeing the President asking for direct talks as a sign of weakness from the man responsible for the West’s economic troubles. Iran has made it clear;...

It appears that Barack Obama has again ignored the rule of law by signing a defense appropriations bill that prohibits him sharing vital United States leading-edge strategic US missile technology with Russia, yet he has told both houses of Congress that he plans to share the US missile technology anyway. Why is this important? Because it goes light-years beyond partisan politics and into an area where our national defense will be put at unreasonable risk. It is believed that the Russians will pass this technology onto China, Iran and North Korea. I find it bitterly ironic that this president pushes...

MOSCOW -- A deal with Washington to assuage Moscow's concerns about U.S. missile defense plans in Europe is still possible, but time is running out, Russia's foreign minister said Wednesday. Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed that Moscow will take retaliatory action if moves by Washington to deploy missile shield components around Europe pose a threat to Russia. ... Moscow agreed in 2010 to consider NATO's proposal to cooperate on the U.S.-led missile shield, but the talks have run into a deadlock over how the system should be operated. Russia has insisted that it should be run jointly, which NATO has rejected. ......

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that emerged from the Department of Homeland Security in November, Washington has written permission to collect and retain personal information from journalists, news anchors, reporters or anyone who uses “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.” According to DHS, the definition of personal identifiable information can consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” RT adds: "Previously established guidelines within the administration say...

President Barack Obama has been increasing the national debt during his presidency by an average of $4.24 billion per day ($4,240,506,004.34) putting him on a pace to increase the national debt by $6.2 trillion ($6,195,379,272,340.74) by the end of his term on Jan. 20, 2013, according to the debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.That $6.2 trillion is more debt than was accumulated by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined. In fact, the U.S. national debt did not eclipse the $6.195 trillion level—the amount Obama is on pace to increase it in one term—until August 19,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Army officer recommended a general court-martial Thursday for a low-ranking intelligence analyst charged with causing the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history. Lt. Col. Paul Almanza's recommendation to try Pfc. Bradley Manning on all 22 counts, including aiding the enemy, now goes up the chain of command for a final determination. Almanza sent his report to Col. Carl Coffman, garrison commander of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall near Washington. Coffman will make a recommendation to Military District of Washington commander Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington, whose decision is final. The military did not provide a timeline...

Appeasement: From ObamaCare to recess appointments, honoring the Constitution has not been an administration hallmark. But when it comes to betraying secrets to mollify the Russians, it becomes a document the president hides behind. It was bad enough that the 2012 defense authorization bill signed by President Obama set America on a downward spiral of military mediocrity. He also issued a signing statement, something he once opposed, saying that language in the bill aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on the U.S. Standard Missile-3 — linchpin of our missile defense — might impinge on his constitutional foreign-policy authority. Section 1227...

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...

President Obama signaled Congress this week that he is prepared to share U.S. missile defense secrets with Russia. U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could compromise the effectiveness of the system by allowing Russian weapons technicians to counter the missile. The weapons are considered some of the most effective high-speed interceptors in the U.S. missile defense arsenal. There are also concerns that Russia could share the secret data with China and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to help their missile programs defeat...

I have warned and written about this particular subject for over three years—since before Obama was elected—aka “coronated.“ It is only now that many others finally seem to be getting the message. However, this is not something to be criticized. It is to be applauded, as it means they are finally and inexorably awakening to the truth. They are to be applauded and not insulted. I noticed this morning that—after a few of the latest Obama assaults on the US Constitution and liberties of We-the-People—some in the media

President Obama’s recess appointment of three members of the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau continues to reverberate. The most compelling legal analysis on the subject is offered by conservative legal figures, most aptly today by Todd Gaziano of the Heritage Foundation and former attorney general Ed Meese: Article I, Section 5, of the Constitution states that neither house of Congress may adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other house. The House of Representatives did not consent to a Senate recess of more than three days at the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration plans a rule change to help reduce the time illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from citizen relatives while they try to win legal status in the United States, a senior administration official said Thursday. Currently, illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission. The official said the new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask...

President Obama signaled Congress this week that he is planning on providing Moscow with US missile defense secrets. The Washington Times reported: President Obama signaled Congress this week that he is prepared to share U.S. missile defense secrets with Russia. In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority. As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the...

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports that President Barack Obama has indicated he is prepared to convey information about secret American missile defense technology to Russia: In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority. As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could...

ATLANTA (AP) - A Georgia judge has denied a motion by President Barack Obama that sought to dismiss a complaint that would keep his name off the state's ballot during the March presidential primary. The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports (http://bit.ly/wa7YJs ) that California lawyer Orly Taitz filed a complaint in November on behalf of a Georgia resident arguing that Obama isn't a natural born citizen and is not eligible to be president.

President Obama will challenge Senate Republican foes of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by naming Richard Cordray as its director while Congress is out of town, according to a senior administration official. Testifying before Congress in September, Mr. Cordray said he would make judicious use of lawsuits to enforce financial regulations. That would allow the agency to establish new regulations over financial institutions, putting into effect elements of the financial regulatory overhaul that was one of the administration’s main achievements in Congress. Mr. Obama’s exercise of constitutional powers to name top officials without Senate confirmation while Congress is...

by John Hill Stand With Arizona As if Obama's plan to cut National Guard troops on the Mexican border by 75% at a time when there has been a sudden surge in border crossers wasn't leaving the United States vulnerable enough, now a report has revealed a new insanity - lowered standards for granting immigration visas: Higher-ups within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are pressuring rank-and-file officers to rubber-stamp immigrants’ visa applications, sometimes against the officers’ will, according to a Homeland Security report and internal documents....A 40-page report, drafted by the Office of Inspector General in September but not publicly...

Fox News is the latest news organization to pick up on the revelation, first reported by AIM, that Ron Paul had praised WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning as a hero and patriot. Directly referring to WikiLeaks and Army soldier Bradley Manning being held in detention, Paul said, “Should he be locked up in prison or should we see him as a political hero? Maybe he is a true patriot—who reveals what’s going on in government.” The comment drew strong applause from Paul supporters. Video of the event, officially posted by Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty organization, also shows the Republican presidential...

After 19 months in military prisons — much of the time in solitary confinement — Pfc. Bradley Manning finally emerged over the past week from the netherworld to which he has been confined since his arrest in the largest breach of classified information in U.S. history. Seven days of hearings at Fort Meade, Md., produced what the prosecution called “overwhelming” evidence that the low-ranking Army intelligence analyst was the one who sent hundreds of thousands of military reports and diplomatic cables to the transparency website WikiLeaks. But the hearing also produced equally compelling evidence of the larger issue that is...

From Stand With Arizona's Facebook page: PHOENIX (KPHO) - Sheriff Joe Arpaio had his first run-in with a group of suspected illegal immigrants since things heated up with the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice recently revoked his deputies' ability to check immigration status inside Maricopa County jails. Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Lt. Justin Griffin says they pulled over a vehicle and have eight people in their custody for human smuggling at 35th Avenue and Durango. Griffin says they attempted to give four of the detainees to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but MCSO says ICE is refusing to...

Well. So Ron Paul is picking up steam in Iowa. May even be a frontrunner. And here he is (beginning at 4:06 in the video) saying of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who leaked thousands of pages of classified U.S. government documents to Wikileaks, that Manning is a "true patriot" and a "political hero." I kid you not. Here’s the link to the video. Wait 'til Newt, Mitt, Rick, Rick, Michele, and Jon hear about this.

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) -- The prosecution has completed laying out its case against an Army intelligence analyst blamed for the biggest leak of U.S. classified information in American history. The government on Tuesday called a former hacker to testify. He told the military court that the depth of Pfc. Bradley Manning's confession in Internet chats compelled him to alert authorities. Shortly after Adrian Lamo's testimony, the government rested its case. Manning is accused of providing a massive trove of U.S. secrets to the WikiLeaks website. The hearing is to determine whether the 24-year-old from Oklahoma should be court-martialed. The...

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) -- An Army witness says the intelligence analyst blamed for the largest-ever leak of U.S. secrets boastfully declared he was changing history in a letter adjoining some data he allegedly sent to WikiLeaks.

We either kill them or we don’t, you can’t negotiate with these animals. (Reuters) — After 10 months of secret dialogue with Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents, senior U.S. officials say the talks have reached a critical juncture and they will soon know whether a breakthrough is possible, leading to peace talks whose ultimate goal is to end the Afghan war. As part of the accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy, Reuters has learned, the United States is considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody. It has asked representatives of the Taliban...

The US soldier accused of leaking thousands of government secrets struggled with emotional problems and gender issues, a court has heard. Private Bradley Manning faces 22 charges of distributing state secrets to anti-secrecy site Wikileaks. But his defence have questioned whether he should have been given access to the sensitive documents in the first place. The hearing, at Fort Meade army base in Maryland, will determine whether Pte Manning should face a court martial. (SNIP) The defence says Pte Manning was suffering from stress, as a homosexual soldier at a time when soldiers in the US military could not be...

The American soldier alleged to have leaked vast numbers of classified documents to Wikileaks was prone to tantrums and at one point struck a female superior, a court heard today. Captain Casey Fulton, an Army intelligence officer who worked in the same secure facility as 24-year-old Bradley Manning, described a violent outburst in May 2010 at their secure office or SCIF (Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility). Fulton said she ordered a derogatory report against Manning, who is charged with downloading hundreds of thousands of sensitive files from the military's classified network when he was a U.S. Army intelligence analyst in Iraq,...

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) -- The young Army intelligence specialist accused of passing government secrets spent his 24th birthday in court Saturday as his lawyers argued his status as a gay soldier before the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" played an important role in his actions. Lawyers for Pfc. Bradley Manning began laying out a defense to show that his struggles as a gay soldier in an environment hostile to homosexuality contributed to mental and emotional problems that should have barred him from having access to sensitive material. Manning is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive items...

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) -- The military court case against the young soldier blamed for the largest leak of classified material in American history resumed Saturday after an Army appeals court rejected a defense effort to remove the presiding officer. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was back in a military courtroom Saturday, his 24th birthday, to hear prosecutors begin presenting their case against him as the source for the WikiLeaks website's collection of U.S. military and diplomatic secrets. The purpose of the hearing is to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to bring Manning to trial. Manning's lawyers tried to oust...

He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. The real reason we can't be trusted with the truth about Pearl Harbor; the reason we can't be allowed to know about the treason of FDR boils down to one current fact; the democrat Party is merely a front for worldwide Communism. If every school child learned the truth about FDR's treason, the democrat party would never win another national election.You may wish to bookmark this article because it's rather long because footnotes are used to document this most tragic chapter of American History....

That’s a good question — and according to former VP Dick Cheney’s contacts, Barack Obama didn’t lack for options to keep the highly-classified drone from falling into the Iranian military’s hands. In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Cheney wonders why Obama didn’t order an air strike on the downed aircraft while he still had the chance: (VIDEO AT LINK) “The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it,” he said on CNN’s “Out Front with Erin Burnett.” Instead, Cheney said, “he asked nicely for them to return it....

  This is bigger than just Wisconsin! As we feared, Obama is launching his 2012 campaign by mounting a powerful attack against Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin.  What is he after?  The winner of the Gov. Walker Recall will have momentum and will likely also deliver Wisconsin's 12 electoral votes in the presidential election to their party.   Whoever wins the presidential election, will likely need to win in Wisconsin. We have been warning you that this is not a local organic battle between conservatives and liberals, but a union backed effort with much of their support coming from out of...

BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas (AP) -- The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence. This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade. By the spring, kiosks could open...

Terrorists from several Middle Eastern groups have infiltrated Latin American countries -- especially Mexico -- in order to plot and carry out attacks against the United States, according to an alarming exposé broadcast this week by the world’s largest Spanish news network.