Free Republic

In the thick of the debate over President Barack Obama’s health care reform bill, administration officials ignored warnings that one of its most controversial provisions was financially unsustainable and could leave taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars. According to a report released Thursday by a working group of congressional investigators, officials inside the Department of Health and Human Services ignored numerous red flags about the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program (CLASS) — and in some cases the officials went to work figuring out how to hide them. Now, those same officials are scrambling to come up...

WASHINGTON-- First Lady Michelle Obama is expected Thursday to announce headway in her drive to have restaurants reduce portion sizes, part of her "Let's Move' campaign against obesity. "The Childhood Obesity Task Force Report"--commissioned as part of Mrs. Obama's "Let's Move" project, "specifically calls on restaurants to, "consider their portion sizes, improve children's menus, and make healthy options the default choice whenever possible." below, from White House.... UPCOMING GUIDANCE FOR FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA Thursday, September 15 11:45 AM - First Lady Michelle Obama will make a major Let's Move! announcement related to providing healthier choices and greater variety for...

President Obama repeatedly asked members of Congress to pass the American Jobs Act last week. But when no Democrat filed Obama’s bill after he presented it to Congress, a conservative congressman swiped the name for his own legislation.

Newly uncovered emails show the White House closely monitored the Energy Department's deliberations over a $535 million government loan to Solyndra, the politically-connected solar energy firm that recently went bankrupt and is now the subject of a criminal investigation. The company's solar panel factory was heralded as a centerpiece of the president's green energy plan -- billed as a way to jump start a promising new industry. And internal emails uncovered by investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee that were shared exclusively with ABC News show the Obama administration was keenly monitoring the progress of the loan, even...

Executives from solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, which received over a half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Obama administration before filing for bankruptcy last week, are in negotations with the House Energy and Commerce Committee to openly testify before Congress next week, according to Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., the chairman of the panel's subcomittee on oversight and investigations. The company's president and chief executive, Brian Harrison, and W.G. Stover, Jr., its chief financial officer, were asked to testify as part of tomorrow's committee hearing on the questionable loans, which have embroiled the Obama administration in what Stearns deemed...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The requirement in the national health-care overhaul law that individuals buy health insurance is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday in a question that the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to settle. The suit decided by Judge Christopher C. Conner in Harrisburg is one of more than 30 lawsuits nationwide that have been filed over the 2010 law that is President Barack Obama's signature initiative. Conner, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush, said the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of authority granted to the federal...

Reflecting on the 9/11 anniversary, President Obama told NBC News this morning that there is no doubt the United States is safer now that it was 10 years ago. He said this is a consequence of more effective homeland security and the U.S. taking the fight to Al Qaeda. The president warned that Americans must remain vigilant because there are still people who want to attack the U.S. He also discussed the specific, credible but unconfirmed terror threat surrounding the 9/11 anniversary, saying this particular threat was so specific that he felt it necessary to inform

<p>Supposed to commemorate this?</p>

Barack Obama has gone to Congress asking for more money to spend. The President, in a rambling and tedious exercise mixing blame with demands, made quite a few dubious statements in laying out the case for Congress to vote for the plan which as yet does not exist. Much like Obamacare, Congress must ultimately vote for the bill to know what is in it. At one point Mr. Obama made a major gaffe; he identified Abraham Lincoln as the founder of the Republican Party. Lincoln did not join the Republicans until 1856, over two years after the party was founded....

Hundreds of protesters in Cairo on Friday were tearing down a newly built wall around the building that houses the Israeli Embassy, a show of political rage on another tense day in Egypt's capital. CNN saw soldiers and police stand by as demonstrators tried to destroy the wall, built for the high-rise building's protection. The makeshift wall surrounds another wall around the building. Protesters cheered the demolition and chanted for the ouster of Israel's ambassador. State TV said some protesters tried to scale the inner wall after they worked to take down the outer wall.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and fellow Americans: Tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless, and a political crisis that has made things worse. This past week, reporters have been asking “What will this speech mean for the President? What will it mean for Congress? How will it affect their polls, and the next election?” But the millions of Americans who are watching right now: they don’t care about politics. They have real life concerns. Many have spent months...

A human rights groups has called on the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) to stop what it says are "the arbitrary arrests and abuse" of African migrant workers and black Libyans assumed to be mercenaries. Human Rights Watch said Sunday the NTC should release those detained as mercenaries "solely due to their dark skin color." The rights organization said the NTC should provide "prompt judicial review" to any detainees for whom there is evidence of criminal activity. Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director, says "it's a dangerous time to be dark-skinned in Tripoli." She said the...

Mustafa Abdel Jalil (right) and Mahmud Jibril of the Libyan National Transitional Council in Paris on September 1. Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Libya's interim leadership gave Moammar Gadhafi loyalists one more week to surrender before they face military force in the last bastions of the strongman's power. But with the olive branch came a threat. Anti-Gadhafi forces are positioning around the former leader's hometown, Sirte, and Bani Walid, where a powerful tribe is sympathetic to Gadhafi, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, said Saturday. "This extension does not mean we are unaware of what Gadhafi's accomplices are...

ABSTRACT The United States has begun a diplomatic campaign to prevent a confrontation this month over a Palestinian plan to seek recognition as a state at the United Nations. FULL TEXT.....

We know every detail about other presidents and their families, why not this one? Onyango Obama, U.S. President Barack Obama’s uncle, was charged this week in Boston with drunk driving. Turns out he’s also an illegal immigrant. When he was arrested, he told police he wanted to call the White House. Why not? If President Obama bailed out General Motors, why not his own uncle? In one of his autobiographies, President Obama talks fondly about Onyango, calling him “Uncle Omar.” So it’s not like they were long lost relatives. But Uncle Omar isn’t the only embarrassment in the Obama family....

QUESTION: If Congress were to pass the package that the President's going to announce, unemployment would be under 9%? JAY CARNEY: Based on, when you're talking about economic predictions, yes. Economic analysts, economists will be able to look at this series of proposals and say that 'based on history, based on what we know, based on their collective expertise, that it would add to economic growth and cause an increase to job creation. In 2009, the White House said President Obama's stimulus plan would bring unemployment to below 8%.

JAY CARNEY, WH Press Secretary: "They don't give a lick about the day and time: ED HENRY, FOX News: "Why doesn't he give a speech from the oval office tonight saying here's my plan?" CARNEY: "He wants to speak before Congress because he recognizes that while there are things he can do without Congress, and he will do them, there are actions that need to be taken with Congress that require legislation to grow the economy and create jobs. And he wants to go to Congress, speak directly to members of Congress, and layout his proposals."

Vice President Joe Biden is rallying a defense of his boss, fighting slurs that President Obama is in over his head and lashing out at "Tea Party Republicans." In Oklahoma this week where Obama isn't high in the polls, the veep said the president isn't just smart, he's got strength and character. "People knew Barack was really bright, they knew Barack was straight, they knew Barack was a different kind of politician. What they didn't know was just how strong he was. Republicans spent a lot of time trying to tag him as a follower, not a leader. Well, he's...

In their quest to widen the low-road and increase its rider-ship, the liberal Washington, D.C-based Politico just offered up this hackneyed but oh so predictable headline: “Is Rick Perry Dumb?” Really? While it’s no surprise to conservatives and independents that the liberal mainstream media would pull out the old “attack Ronald Reagan” hand-book, dust it off, and use its previously discredited assaults to go after the surging Perry, a better question to be asked is: “What are they all so afraid of?” First of all, something which must be highlighted and stressed by all who care about fairness and accuracy...

On TV Now. Only way to put workers back to work he says, is to fix trans and aviation with his people. And he has jobs council identifying infrastructure projects to put people to work. (In short, he wants more stimulus money.) A preview of his jobs speech no doubt. He wants more taxes to spend on bridges, roads, etc.