Free Republic

With nothing else working, President Barack Obama is asking religious leaders to help him sell the public on health care reform. POLITICO listened in to an Oval Office conference call Tuesday, where Obama, alongside other top administration officials, beseeched thousands of faith-based and community organizations to preach the gospel on new insurance reforms, chiefly the Patients’ Bill of Rights. “Get out there and spread the word,” Obama told leaders from across the religious spectrum on the conference call, organized by Health and Human Services Center for Faith-Based and Community Partnerships. “This is something that we’ll be able to look back...

Thanks to CATO’s Jim Harper, we discover that the slovenly work of Obama’s Congress is so bad that they are now passing bills that they haven’t even bothered to name. It’s been bad enough that the Democrats have affixed to bills names that are entirely Orwellian in nature, but now they aren’t even bothering to think that hard. In the recent past we’ve gotten bills named in ways that convey the precise opposite nature of what the bill does. We’ve had the “Employee Free Choice Act” that actually takes away worker’s choice, we’ve had the “Uniting American Families Act” that...

The nation needs a strong, independent press, the FTC argues, and so they want to find ways for government to "reinvent" journalism. If that sounds vaguely Orwellian to you, the actual language in the Federal Trade Commission’s discussion-points memo should have hairs standing on the backs of necks across the nation. It shows a wildly laughable rationale for government intervention that would prop up the failing newspaper model in a manner that would put the entire industry at the mercy of the federal bureaucracy it’s supposed to keep in check. The paper notes "experimentation" of media outlets on the Internet,...

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said Thursday that South Korea fabricated evidence implicating the North in a torpedo attack in order to pick on the North and any attempt at retaliating for the warship's sinking would be answered with "all-out war." South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed "stern action" for the attack after a multinational investigation issued its long-awaited results Thursday, concluding the North fired a torpedo that sank the Cheonan navy ship March 26 near the Koreas' tense sea border. "If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or...

U.S. law enforcement officials say there is growing evidence the Times Square bomber had ties to radical elements overseas and did not act alone. One senior official said the individuals involved "are living here and did not come from overseas to carry out the bombing." Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York's Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate. Officials declined to provide the specifics that led them to believe there were overseas links to a larger plot. ... "This...

A bill to require presidential candidates to show their birth certificates to get on the state's ballot is being set aside at the Arizona Legislature. A bill to require presidential candidates to show their birth certificates to get on the state's ballot is being set aside at the Arizona Legislature. With lawmakers working toward adjournment of their annual session, the sponsor of the bill used to resurrect the proposal says it won't get a Senate vote because some fellow Republicans don't support it. The House narrowly approved the measure last week.

It sounds like Ayers is jerking some chains. From National Journal (no link): Inside Washington Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 Who actually wrote Dreams From My Father? The book cover says Barack Obama, but one corner of the right-wing blogosphere thinks Obama had a ghostwriter—and that it was Bill Ayers, onetime Weatherman, current academic, perpetual radical. National Journal caught up with Ayers at a recent book festival where he was exhorting a small crowd of listeners to remember that they are citizens, not subjects. "Open your eyes," he said. "Pay attention. Be astonished. Act, and doubt." When he finished speaking, we...

I never thought I'd enjoy a Democratic senator from California as much as I've enjoyed Dianne Feinstein for the past couple months. … Today, she's hitting Organizing for America, the astroturf totally genuine grassroots operation of the Democratic National Committee, for misleading constituents into thinking they have scheduled meetings with her. When her offices aren't able to accommodate each constituent, they're understandably upset with her, and she's upset with the White House: Aides to Senator Dianne Feinstein have complained to the White House about a deluge of visits to her offices by constituents who thought they had an appointment after...

Latin American Marxists Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez rallied with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in Managua yesterday.Barack Obama, who supports Zelaya, did not make the rally.Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya poses with his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro (L) and Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez (R) during the Central American integration meeting in Managua June 29, 2009. (REUTERS/Miraflores Palace) The new Honduran leadership lashed out at Hugo Chavez yesterday.The Wall Street Journal reported: Hondurans are understandably afraid that, backed by Chávez agents and money, it could lead to similar antidemocratic subversion there. In Tegucigalpa yesterday, thousands demonstrated against Mr. Zelaya, and new...

Man suspected in 1982 Pan Am bombing has links to several terror groups NEW YORK - As Pan Am Flight 830 descended toward Honolulu and passengers finished their breakfast, a blinding burst of light washed over them. And then, "BOOM!" The 747 shuddered violently. Confusion erupted as the airliner nose-dived. Screams and thick smoke filled the cabin. Oxygen masks dropped. In the rear of the plane, 16-year-old Toru Ozawa lay on his back in the aisle. His lower abdomen had been ripped open, his intestines seeping out. The explosion had also sheered off one of his legs. He called out...

The US combat deaths in Iraq at 6 year low. USA Today reported: U.S. combat deaths in Iraq have flattened at the lowest level since the war began six years ago Thursday, and the Navy has not lost a member to combat in more than a year. Three Marines have been killed in combat since August, and none since December, records show. The Air Force hasn't had a combat death since April, and the Navy since February 2008. In some weeks, casualty figures for Iraq show, the number of non-combat deaths for U.S. troops topped those killed in fighting.

Last week, Barack Obama caused quite a stir when he allowed himself to be photographed in the Oval Office without wearing a suit jacket, ending the Bush tradition of coat-and-tie for the West Wing.  The New York Times reports on how Obama made that possible during a colder-than-usual Washington winter.  All Obama did was turn up the thermostat to Hawaii hothouse levels: The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr....

Looking for something to watch other than the inauguration? Here is a new YouTube video from 1970 about the Weather Underground. Actually, it is my video. Recently I became annoyed when William Ayers started blogging for the Huffington Post. Later I read a comment on a conservative web site from a troll who said William Ayers was no more controversial than say G. Gordon Liddy or Oliver North. So, I thought it was time for a trip down memory lane because I don't want this guy to be considered mainstream. I've got another video that I will upload later but...

As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office amid a media chorus of reproach and derision, there is at least one comparison with his predecessor that speaks greatly in his favor. Mr. Bush removed the most ruthless dictator of his day, Saddam Hussein, thereby offering Iraqi citizens the possibility of self-rule. Bill Clinton's analogous achievement in the Middle East was to help install Yasser Arafat, the greatest terrorist of his day, as head of a proto-Palestinian state. This is not how these events are generally perceived. The image that still looms in the public mind is that of President...

October 31, 1998 - On This Day In History Bill Clinton Released The Following Statement Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.” This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are:The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a...

<p>John Galt of Ayn Rand Lane (zip code: a nonexistent 99999) was able to donate with no problem.</p> <p>Despite the fact that the card holder's name and address do not match the name he provided.</p> <p>John McCain's website? Rejected the same non-matching-information donation.</p>

DETROIT - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama yesterday said he was outraged at being asked by the Bush Administration to bail out Wall Street for the financial crisis, but said it was a necessary measure that should be passed soon. Saying he supports the $700 billion bailout that was agreed to early yesterday, Mr. Obama nonetheless said the financial ruin threatening Wall Street was "the final verdict" on an era of greed that he laid at the feet of the current administration in the White House. And he attacked his Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, for backing deregulation policies...

Barack Obama previously admitted that terrorist Bill Ayers launched his career. Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn made headlines in Venezuela in 2005. (Flickr) Today it was reported that not only were terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn cavorting with America's enemies during wartime, but they were given rings from the North Vietnamese made from US planes shot down over Vietnam.Scott Swett and Roger Canfield have this shocking report today at American Thinker: Even before Weatherman began its notorious bombing campaign, the group's future leaders had formed relationships with others who shared their hatred for "Amerikkka." Bernadine Dohrn made...

The United States believes that senior Iraqi scientists were helping to produce elements of the nerve agent VX at the factory in the Sudan that American cruise missiles destroyed last week, Administration and intelligence officials said today. The evidence cited today as justification for the attack consisted of a soil sample secretly obtained months ago outside the factory, the Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries, the officials said. Publicly, the Administration has refused to describe its evidence in any detail, or to say how it was obtained. ... The connection with Iraq emerged as a key part of the Administration's argument for why...