Free Republic

The president’s comparison of Christianity to radical Islam defies logic. On Tuesday, the so-called Islamic State released a slickly produced video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a steel cage. On Wednesday, the United Nations issued a report detailing various “mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children, and burying children alive” at the hands of the Islamic State. And on Thursday, President Obama seized the opportunity of the National Prayer Breakfast to forthrightly criticize the “terrible deeds” . . . committed “in the name of Christ.” “Humanity has been grappling with these...

Seeing clips of that 22-minute video of the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, one wonders: Who would be drawn to the cause of these barbarians who perpetrated such an atrocity? While the video might firm up the faith of fanatics, would it not evoke rage and revulsion across the Islamic world? After all, this was a Sunni Muslim, in a cage, being burned alive. As of now, this cruel killing seems to have backfired. Jordan is uniting behind King Abdullah's determination to exact "earth-shattering" retribution. Which raises again the questions: Why did ISIS do it? What did they hope to...

The president’s disastrous foreign policy is as much a product of his own vanity as anything else. Members of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. Jihad is a “legitimate tenet of Islam.” And “violent extremism,” “workplace violence,” or “man-caused disaster” better describe radical Islamic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is just as likely caused by returning U.S. combat veterans, according to one report by a federal agency. What is the point of such linguistic appeasement? The word “appeasement” long ago...

resident Barack Obama, in his State of the Union speech, called for a minimum-wage hike and for government-mandated paid family and medical leave. "We are the only advanced country on Earth," said the President, "that doesn't guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers." On the minimum wage, Obama issued this challenge: "And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, try it. If not, vote to give millions of the...

Some things are easy to avoid. DonÂ’t want to be hit by a train? DonÂ’t play on train tracks. DonÂ’t want your kid to get measles? Get them vaccinated. CanÂ’t afford to pay your employees more? DonÂ’t advocate for raising the minimum wage. Done and done. But many granola-crunching, tofu-eating progressives think they can kale their way to a super immune system for their kids, so theyÂ’re skipping the vaccinations for measles and everything else. And other progressives are closing their businesses because the laws for which they advocated have sent them to the poorhouse. To paraphrase President Barack ObamaÂ’s...

Members of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. Jihad is a "legitimate tenet of Islam." And "violent extremism," "workplace violence" or "man-caused disaster" better describe radical Islamic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is just as likely caused by returning U.S. combat veterans, according to one report by a federal agency. What is the point of such linguistic appeasement? The word "appeasement" long ago became pejorative for giving in to bullies. One side was aggressive and undemocratic; the other consensual and...

Jordan's swift reaction to the savage murder of its young fighter pilot --the rapid execution of two terrorists-- is just the first of our ally's responses if King Abdullah was correctly understood by members of the House Armed Services Committee.The president's muted response to the latest and most gruesome ISIS atrocity outraged listeners to my radio show yesterday who are longing for more clarity and especially more seriousness from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They will be even more disturbed when they learn that the president's halting comments on ISIS are far stronger than his complete appeasement of Iran, detailed in Mike...

The President is a whirlwind of tax ideas these days. Last week, he proposed to punish individuals who were trying to save money for college by taxing the profits in Section 529 plans that were designed to encourage individuals to save for college. Last week, he also proposed to tax capital gains on death to go along with the current 40 percent tax rate on taxable estates. This change would subject hundreds of thousands of small business owners and savers currently exempt from estate taxes to a 28 percent tax on the increase in value of their assets over their...

Republicans in 2014 won the biggest majority in Congress they've had since the 1930s, so the grassroots expect them to deliver the fruits of victory. The best guide for action is the "Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority" by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), issued a couple of weeks ago. Sessions' report asks the fundamental question: "What sense does it make to continue legally importing millions of low-wage workers to fill jobs while sustaining millions of current residents on welfare?" Republicans can't win in 2016 without tapping into that unrepresented American constituency. President Obama has issued orders granting work permits...

Last September President Obama cited his drone program in Yemen as a successful model of US anti-terrorism strategy. He said that he would employ the Yemen model in his effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But just a week ago, the government in Yemen fell to a Shite militia movement thought to be friendly to Iran. The US embassy in Yemen's capitol was forced to evacuate personnel and shut down operations. If Yemen is any kind of model, it is a model of how badly US interventionism has failed. In 2011 the US turned against...

Today President Obama will deliver his whopping $4 trillion budget to Congress. President Barack Obama sent Congress a record $4 trillion budget Monday that would boost taxes on higher-income Americans and corporations, pushing past tight federal spending caps to fund an ambitious public works program and provide middle-class tax relief. Obama's budget, which will set off months of wrangling in Congress, proposes spending $4 trillion — $3.999 trillion before rounding — in the 2016 budget year that begins Oct. 1. That's a 6.4 percent increase over estimated spending this year, projecting that the deficit will decline to $474 billion. POLITICO...

Hard to miss the recently kerfuffle over the fact that the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, invited the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to speak to a joint session of Congress. This happened immediately after President Obama’s State of the Union speech where many thought he skirted over the crisis with Iran. The problem is almost all of the analysis has missed the point. It begins with trying to understand why Speaker Boehner gave the White House only a half-day notice of the invitation. In what was disclosed by the Washington Post, the Speaker previously had been left...

In the 90s, the Clinton Administration formed a bipartisan coalition to pass the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA. Nineteen states followed suit. The legislation came in response to a Supreme Court decision that had seen an American Indian suffer legally for having used a drug during a well-established American-Indian religious ceremony. RFRA's framework was common sense. "Under RFRA, the government may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion unless it can demonstrate that the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, and it is the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling interest." See Perez...

A week after his State of the Union address, political observers are still trying to figure out what President Obama's game is. That's because rhetorically and substantively, he seems to be in another world. In his State of the Union address, Obama refused to even take note of the GOP's historic midterm gains and the fact the House and Senate are now both under Republican control. On foreign policy, Obama talked as if everything was going swimmingly abroad, prompting even the Washington Post's Dana Milbank to marvel at Obama's "disconnect" from what is happening in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Russia....

There was a time, not so long ago, when interviewing the President of the United States was considered the pinnacle of a professional journalist’s career. Such an opportunity to probe the mind of the man responsible for directly or indirectly impacting the lives of virtually every person on the planet, was entrusted only to those with the qualifications and pedigree to handle such an important assignment; not to mention making the most of the president’s valuable and limited time. Not so today. Rather than a Pulitzer Prize or Peabody Award as the prerequisite for the honor of personally interviewing the...

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama was upbeat and inspiring, particularly if a listener had no prior knowledge of his many speeches that were quite similar but bore no fruit. It almost appeared that he was living in an alternate universe that bore no resemblance to present-day America and the current global stage. He boasted that the economy was doing very well and that unemployment had been cut in half since he took office. Perhaps someone should educate him about the labor force participation rate, which is at its lowest point in the past 36 years...

Kudos to Congress for inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak at a joint session on the issue of imposing tough sanctions on Iran and to Netanyahu for accepting. President Obama has continually snubbed Israel and Netanyahu -- whom he refuses to meet with in March, allegedly because he doesn't want to interfere with the upcoming elections in Israel. Obama has been alarmingly lax in his dealings with Iran in its ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Some Obama defenders are chastising Congress for breaching protocol in inviting Netanyahu, saying, "There appear to be no rules anymore."...

“Since 2010, America has put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and all advanced economies combined,” President Obama said during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday. “Our manufacturers have added almost 800,000 new jobs. Some of our bedrock sectors, like our auto industry, are booming. But there are also millions of Americans who work in jobs that didn’t even exist 10 or 20 years ago — jobs at companies like Google, and eBay, and Tesla.” While Politico pointed out that most of the companies Obama touted are big, left-leaning D.C. spenders, his choice of mentioning eBay...

So I just watched President Barack Obama deliver his sixth State of the Union address. If it didn’t involve my job, there is no way on God’s green Earth I would watch this thing, ever. Obama’s speech was like listening to a grown man sit on Santa’s lap, listing everything he wants and threatening a temper tantrum if he doesn’t get it. What doesn’t the president want? That’s not a rhetorical question. I have no idea what he doesn’t want government to do for people. Community College? That should be “free!” And by free I mean other people should be...

Enthusiastic, entertaining, energized and eminent, President Obama's demeanor and delivery at the State of the Union belied his political reality. Unbowed, unbroken and possibly unaffected by the recent midterm Republican wave, Obama displayed his great skill by delivering an emotional teleprompter-driven speech that was a throwback to his first election. Varying tempo, pitch, passion and inflection, his speech was more a theatrical performance than a delivery of a prewritten, pre-released text. He was unbounded by his political reality. Possibly no one in his staff had informed him that he had 90 fewer elected Democrats in his audience than has any...