Free Republic

On May 10 former Navy SEAL 10 member Carl Higbie published Enemies, Foreign and Domestic: A Navy SEAL’s Story. The book highlights the difficulty of winning on the battle under President Obama and the equally daunting task of telling the truth of the enhanced politicization of the military post-George W. Bush. Enemies, Foreign and Domestic contains a lot of information for individuals who have wondered what it is like to be a SEAL or what the process of becoming a SEAL entails, and it provides background on Higbie and his childhood experiences. But the book ultimately turns on the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The economy is in the tank. It's confirmed. All the April economic news is out, jobs news and everything. So what does Obama do? Come out and spin it. He's doing a presser or some sort of press availability now at the White House timed exactly to coincide with the beginning of this program, which he is wont to do. Here are the numbers that you need to know: 160,000 new jobs in April, the vast majority of them part time. That is 50,000 below "expectations." The expectations are meaningless. It's a bunch of economic experts that...

Child migration is surging again. The number of families and unaccompanied children apprehended on the southern border has skyrocketed this year, according to new figures from the Obama administration. The numbers, compiled by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), reveal that child migration is on par with 2014 levels, when a wave of kids –– thousands of them unaccompanied –– arrived at the southern border. The surge of illegal immigration quickly swamped border authorities, immigration courts and health and humanitarian workers, while sparking a political battle on Capitol Hill over the cause and proper response to the crisis. The...

President Obama’s weekly remarks Hello, everybody. Today, there are some 2.2 million people behind bars in America. Millions more are on parole or probation. All told, we spend $80 billion taxpayer dollars each year to keep people locked up. Many are serving unnecessarily long sentences for non-violent crimes. Almost 60 percent have mental health problems. Almost 70 percent were regular drug users. And as a whole, our prison population is disproportionately black and Latino.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The Drive-By Media, before we get to the latest on the two campaigns, the Drive-By Media this morning is just breathless over the wrap-up of oral arguments before the Supreme Court on whether to let Obama's executive orders on illegal aliens stand. Speaking of which, there's a USA Today piece today all upset about this. All of a sudden, all of a sudden now a USA Today editorial upset at Obama's executive orders. But you know why? Well, what does this mean that Cruz or Trump might do if they're elected? Yes, siree, Bob. Now they're starting...

President Obama hosted some of hip-hop’s biggest stars for a meeting at the White House on Friday. According to a White House official Nicki Minaj, Chance the Rapper, Alicia Keys, Wale, J. Cole, and Ludacris were among the stars who sat down with Obama and some of his top advisers to talk about criminal justice reform and the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative. An official says the stars were singled out due to their work within communities to confront issues facing young people. “Through their own nonprofit work or artistic commitment, many of these artists have found ways to engage on...

You're beginning to hear this legal theory more and more as it becomes clear the Senate has no intention of taking up the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.Does President Obama have the power to appoint a justice of the Supreme Court without getting the Senate's approval? The legal theory rests on an ambiguity in the Constitution and some legal sleight of hand.Gregory L. Diskant, a senior partner at the law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and a member of the national governing board of Common Cause, penned an op-ed in The Washington Post explaining the...

Gun sales broke records yet again in the month of March. The FBI performed 2,523,265 firearms-related background checks between March 1 and March 31, according to the agency’s records. That’s a new record for the month. It’s nearly 35,000 more checks than the previous record set in March 2014. Despite the new record, March saw the fewest checks of any month so far in 2016. The March record is the eleventh straight monthly record for background checks. The unprecedented streak, which began in May 2015, has included all-time records for both monthly and yearly sales. With 7,682,141 checks processed...

resident Barack Obama, when asked to name an accomplishment for which he is most proud, said, "I'm proud of saving the American economy." Breathtaking. Let's examine the facts, using only government, left wing -- or, at least, non-conservative -- statistics, sources or analyses. In 2012, the third year of the Obama recovery, the Associated Press wrote: "Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest. ... Economic growth has...

Prosecutors won’t retry Blagojevich on 5 tossed counts

President Barack Obama said Tuesday he was dismayed by "vulgar and divisive rhetoric" directed at women and minorities as well as the violence that has occurred in the 2016 presidential campaign, a swipe at Republican front-runner Donald Trump that also served as a challenge to other political leaders to speak out and set a better example.

President Obama’s weekly remarks Hi, everybody. This week, we continued our mission to destroy ISIL. This remains a difficult fight, and the situation in Syria and Iraq is incredibly complex. ISIL is entrenched, including in urban areas. It uses innocent civilians as human shields. Despite these challenges, I can report that we’re making progress. And this week, I directed my team to continue accelerating our campaign on all fronts. Our 66-member coalition, including Arab partners, continues to grow stronger. More nations are making more contributions. Every day, our air campaign—more than 10,000 strikes so far—continues to destroy ISIL forces. And...

The federal Bureau of Prisons will now try to deport illegal immigrants rather than turn them over to sanctuary cities, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday in a bid to solve the situation that may have led to the death of Kathryn Steinle last summer. Ms. Lynch also said she'll begin an audit of sanctuary cities to see if they're violating federal law, and those that are found to be actively stymying immigration agents' work could lose grant funding.

I’ll give you the quote but you should really listen to the clip, as it’s short and oh so sweet. How often does this guy get caught by reporters with nothing coherent to say in his or his party’s defense? I thought he’d at least try arguing that Biden said what he said in June 1992 whereas Scalia’s vacancy opened up in February of this year and that makes all the difference somehow even though it actually makes no difference at all, but he doesn’t even fart out that excuse. All he can say to the fact that Obama, Biden,...

Supreme Court: Senate Democrats demanding that Republicans let President Obama pick a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia appear to be counting on the public's short attention span. But there's no statute of limitations on rank hypocrisy. "The Senate's constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president's Supreme Court nominees has remained inviolable." That was Sen. Harry Reid in a Washington Post op-ed this week condemning any effort by the GOP to block President Obama from naming a successor to conservative stalwart Scalia. He went on to write that "the consequences of blocking...

This is a no-brainer for Cruz, who came out hard against drafting women last week, but it’s interesting coming from Rubio after he declared himself in favor at the last debate. You can read his motives here as charitably or uncharitably as you like. Charitably: He’s striking a blow for legislative power at the executive’s and judiciary’s expense, a welcome corrective in an age of growing presidential power and judicial social engineering. Uncharitably: He realized belatedly that “let’s draft your daughters” isn’t a sentiment that’ll play well in a Republican primary, especially among the social conservatives he’s trying to win,...

President Barack Obama will propose a $10 per barrel charge on oil to fund clean transportation projects as part of his final budget request next week, the White House said Thursday. The proposal would have difficulty clearing the Republican-controlled Congress. Oil companies would pay the fee, which would be gradually introduced over five years. The government would use the proceeds to fund high-speed railways, autonomous cars and other travel systems. "By placing a fee on oil, the President's plan creates a clear incentive for private sector innovation to reduce our reliance on oil and at the same time invests in...

The Baltimore mosque that President Obama will visit this week to show support for American Muslims has historical ties to radical Islamic groups. The Islamic Society of Baltimore had an imam who was a leading figure in the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. The organization also is connected to the Islamic Society of North America, a Muslim civil rights group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2008 criminal prosecution in which several individuals were convicted of funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas.

Formerly eradicated diseases are surging and now we have the Zika virusWhen facing the massive problems associated with an open border, deluges of illegal immigration, and now even government sponsored surges of so-called "refugees," we naturally must discuss our concern about terrorism and violent crime. That, however, is only part of the threat. The uncontrolled and chaotic violation this nation brought to us by President Obama's immigration and refugee schemes pose a number of threats to the homeland as insidious and deadly as the Islamic jihadi. Viruses we had finally eliminated from our lives are returning, and others we should...

Last week, President Obama delivered his final State of the Union address. In the lead-up to the speech, there was a lot of discussion about the nature of the president's legacy. Less discussed, however, was that most of the president's so-called legacy may not outlast his presidency, since most of his supposed achievements have never been enacted into law.Early on in his presidency, it became clear that the president didn't have much interest in working with Congress in a bipartisan manner, and after losing large majorities in the House and Senate, he made it clear that he did not want...