Free Republic

A seat on the U.S Federal Reserve Board, carries tremendous power. The seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. A full term is fourteen years. During that time, a board member can influence the financial policies of the world's most powerful economy. In some ways the seven men and women, have more power than Congress or even the President himself. That's why appointments to the Federal Reserve Board deserve as much scrutiny as those to the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama recently made three nominations...

We all knew Obama winning the election would be bad. But did any of you really believe it could be this bad? Every day is just another astounding move of stupidity, treason, or both. Witness: If you were president of the United States, would you hire an alleged former spy for Fidel Castro to be ambassador to El Salvador, a country teetering on the brink of hard-core socialism? President Obama just did. On Dec. 9, Obama nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador, despite the fact that in the late 1990s, the FBI discovered that she...

The Democrats’ ongoing quest to topple the president. The new House Intelligence Committee report finds no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The former FBI boss tasked with finding the collusion, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, recently announced that President Trump is not his target. This has left many observers puzzled, but one Russian actor may be able to put things in perspective.   In the 1981 Fort Apache the Bronx, police officers throw a man off a roof. Many American viewers were horrified but Russian actor Yakov Smirnoff had a different take. “This is nothing,” Smirnoff said. “In Russia,...

A three-judge court panel ruled Wednesday that a World War I memorial in the shape of a cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, is unconstitutional, a decision that a legal scholar says could imperil other similar memorials. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the 40-foot cross erected 92 years ago violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. “The monument here has the primary effect of endorsing religion and excessively entangles the government in religion,” Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote for the majority. “The Latin cross is the core symbol of Christianity. And here, it is 40...

President Barack Obama’s choice to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico has withdrawn from consideration. The White House says Maria Echaveste cites a prolonged confirmation process as well as her family’s best interests. …

Obviously as a reward for committing theft of classified documents for the democrats, Barack Obama has named Alissa Starzak to the legal department at the Pentagon. It’s a position she has never achieved on her own and is a large promotion over her previous jobs. But why put someone with a history of stealing classified secrets to a job where she could steal the country’s most guarded secrets? It’s a reward. Republicans in both houses of congress have accused her of making copies of documents and carrying them out of the Pentagon for use by Diane Feinstein and her committee...

When asked to explain my belief that Obama’s presidency was a construction created from approximately 10 years of pre-thought exquisitely planned detail, many people are puzzled by my reasoning. If you peel back the layers to the Milli Vanilli roadshow – what you will notice is the strategy of putting specific ideologies into the legal affairs offices of all the “non-political” constructs. The Pentagon office of legal counsel, for example, can handcuff the activity of the Pentagon with legal opinion in opposition to the traditional goals of the organization (See Jeh Johnson). Likewise the CIA office of legal counsel, can...

Senate Republicans are throwing up obstacles to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) plans to confirm a batch of executive and judicial branch nominees this weekend. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said if Reid wants to confirm 12 pending federal district judges, he will have to run them through the regular floor process, which could take days. Grassley noted that Republicans don’t have enough votes to block the judicial nominees but they can drag out the process, which may force Reid to bring the Senate in next week if he wants to get the...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. President Obama's choice to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was approved by the Senate on a vote of 63-34, with thirteen Republicans voting to confirm him. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) created quite a stir with his 13-hour filibuster against the Brennan nomination. Not until he received written assurances from Attorney General Eric Holder that U.S. citizens would not be targeted for killing by drones on U.S. soil would the doughty Kentuckian stand down. Good for him. John Brennan then proceeded to take the Oath of Office, as administered by Vice...

U.S. special operations forces in Libya could have saved Americans killed in the attack last Sept. 11 on the consulate in Benghazi but were told to stand down, a State Department whistle-blower has told congressional investigators. The testimony by Gregory Hicks, who will appear before a House panel on Wednesday, contradicts previous testimony by administration officials who have said all U.S. forces in Libya were deployed the night of the attack. Hicks was in Tripoli during the attack and became the top U.S. diplomat in Libya when Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. He said the special operations team was ready...

Multiple foreign corporations that have bypassed or attempted to bypass United States and European Union sanctions against Iran are funding the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank chaired by defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel. One council sponsor, Italian oil company Eni, has vehemently defended its trade with Iran, saying it was “proud” of its cooperation with the regime. “Given the existence of foreign pressures, implementation of most projects in Iran is challenging and complicated,” Eni’s Executive Vice President Guido Michelotti told reporters during a 2011 visit to Iran. “Yet, we have always been interested in cooperation with the Iranian side...

This column was co-authored by Bob MorrisonSen. John Kerry has a long and dubious record in foreign policy. In the 1970's, he testified against his fellow Vietnam War veterans before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He charged that they were violating the Geneva Conventions every day in Vietnam. Some POWs were outraged at Kerry's disloyal statements. They said they had been tortured by their Communist captors trying to force them to make such untrue statements. Worse, Kerry went to Paris in 1971. There, he met with North Vietnamese Communists. We need to see all his notes from those meetings....

Obama considers Republican for one of two seats on FedBy Neil Irwin, Published: August 12 President Obama is considering nominating two economists with backgrounds in finance — one of them a Republican — as Federal Reserve governors, according to a source familiar with the decision making. The White House is looking at Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economist, and Richard Clarida, of Columbia University and the bond investment firm Pimco, to fill two vacant slots on the seven-member Fed Board of Governors. Clarida served in George W. Bush’s Treasury Department as an assistant secretary. Stein did a brief stint at Treasury...

"Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher had a news story yesterday about President Barack H. Obama’s latest nominee with tax problems, Lael Brainard. We think he left out two pretty important details. First, Ohlemacher’s report says Brainard “is the fifth presidential nominee to reveal tax issues during the congressional vetting process.” The key to the partial truth in that sentence is “during the congressional” vetting process. While Ohlemacher likely is factually correct, the sentence certainly is misleading. One reads it and thinks, “Oh, that’s the 5th appointment he made with tax issues.” That is not true. In fact, it doesn’t count...

Now that Hillary Clinton has been confirmed as Secretary of State, the Obama administration will announce Thursday two high-profile appointments -- former senate majority leader George Mitchell (D-Me.) as Middle East envoy and former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke as envoy for Afghanistan, Pakistan "and related matters," sources close to the administration said. Mitchell will be charged with rebuilding the Middle East peace process in the wake of the three weeks of violence between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Holbrooke will take on the difficult job of soothing relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, whose border is a haven for...

This arises out of the Elian Gonzalez mess back in the Clinton years when the boy was forcibly removed from his home at gunpoint by federal agents. Then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder flatly denied in an interview with Fox News that the child was taken at gunpoint. Judge Andrew Napolitano nails him. More . . .