Free Republic

CHILMARK, MASS. — Foreign policy crises have a way of intruding on President Barack Obama's Martha's Vineyard vacations. Obama's last three summer sojourns to this Massachusetts island have coincided with tumult primarily in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as elsewhere around the world.

Bill Clinton has father-son bonding time with pregnant Chelsea's husband Marc as they walk their dogs in New York City The former President and his investment banker son-in-law walked their dogs in Madison Square Park together on a Sunday The pair blended in with the weekend crowd despite being trailed by Clinton's Secret Service detail Marc Mezvinsky and wife Chelsea are expecting their first baby in the fall The couple celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary on July 31

Republicans say a GOP lawmaker’s comments that Democrats are waging a “war on whites” is just what the party doesn’t need to deal with ahead of the midterm elections. With a Senate majority in sight, party strategists say their office holders need to avoid a distracting battle on the polarizing issue of race, which could gin up Democratic voters and turn off independents. “There's no part of what he said that was helpful,” one GOP strategist groused of Rep. Mo Brooks's (R-Ala.) comments. Brooks made the “war on whites” comments during an interview on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham's show,...

JERUSALEM -- A captured Hamas combat manual belonging to the Al-Qassam Brigades, the terrorist organization's military wing, confirms what Hamas sympathizers and the United Nations have done their best to ignore for weeks: Hamas deliberately uses its civilians as human shields, and knows that Israel will take extreme precautions not to kill those civilians. According to the contents of the manual, posted on the IDF blog, Hamas calls civilians "pockets of resistance" that force Israeli soldiers into several sets of problems:

Hard line conservatives were the first to mention the “I” word – impeachment — in response to President Obama‘s ongoing pattern of circumventing Congress to enact desired policy, but it has been Democrats who seemed to be obsessed with the idea. In fact, the prospect of impeaching Obama has been a windfall for Democrats, with 21 fundraising emails being sent to supporters during the last week of July alone, according to The Atlantic. And Obama’s allies in the media have been just as quick to make political hay out of impeachment — the blog FiveThirtyEight.com reported the pro-Obama network MSNBC...

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian authorities say they have confirmed a second case of Ebola in Africa's most populous country, an alarming development after a man who flew by plane to the country died of Ebola.

On Face the Nation Sunday morning, senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett said that Israeli attacks on Gaza schools and hospitals were “indefensible.” “This is why the ceasefire is so important,” Jarrett said. “It’s a devastating situation. Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself, and we are Israel’s staunchest ally. But you also can’t condone the killing of all of these innocent children.” “I think everyone involved is frustrated,” Jarrett said. “But you can’t let your frustration get in the way of trying to be a constructive player here, and that’s what [Obama's] determined to do.”

Some lawmakers in Congress are too focused on partisan ideals and should work harder to put aside their differences and compromise, Hillary Clinton said on Saturday. Speaking at a conference for financial advisors in Boston, the possible 2016 Democratic front-runner reportedly lambasted politicians who come into office with unflinching objectives. “American voters should make it very clear that we will not vote for someone who says proudly he or she will go to Washington and never compromise,” she said, according to the Boston Globe. “We’re not even coming together to solve the emergency problems,” she added, referring to the crisis...

Late Thursday evening Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, with the co-sponsorship of seven other House Representatives, released a bill to finally designate the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The Breitbart News Network has obtained a copy of the potentially historic document that links the MB to Al Qaeda and the global jihadi movement. Titled the ‘‘Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2014,’’ the proposed legislation provides extensive evidence proving why the organization, which has recently been designated a a terrorist group by both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, satisfies the federal requirements to be placed on the official FTO...

House Democratic leaders warned Wednesday that softening a 2008 immigration law to expedite deportations of children would sink any effort to provide emergency funding at the southern border. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), joining GOP leaders in the Senate, has insisted that new funding to address the border crisis be accompanied by changes to the six-year-old human trafficking law to make it easier to send migrant children back home. But Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), head of the House Democratic Caucus, suggested Wednesday that his troops aren't ready to get on board. He accused Boehner and the Republicans of "making ultimatums"...

Two top government watchdogs in Washington D.C. slammed a key aide to Secretary of State John Kerry for using a private Gmail account to conduct official government business, calling it “the worst possible practice in trying to maintain transparency” and speculating whether this was “how the Benghazi talking points were developed.” The Daily Caller reported on Monday that Glen Johnson, a strategic communications advisor to Kerry, fabricated a claim about the number of times Kerry appeared on “Fox News Sunday” while attempting to force TheDC to change a report which said that the secretary had “shut out” Fox News reporter...

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that ObamaCare subsidies issued through the federal exchanges are legal, contradicting a separate ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court on the same day. Fourth Circuit Judge Roger Gregory argued that because the statutory language of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is ambiguous, courts should defer to the interpretation of the Internal Revenue Service and allow the subsides to stand. "Applying deference to the IRS's determination … we uphold the rule as a permissible exercise of the agency's discretion," Gregory wrote. The decision came just hours after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals...

EXCERPT Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas were quick to pounce on the decision as one that reveals the Obama administration’s ongoing attempts to implement the law in a way that exceeds the parameters set in the law that Democrats themselves devised and passed. Cruz called the ruling a “repudiation of Obamacare and all the lawlessness that has come with it.” “The Obama administration, through the Internal Revenue Service, has attempted to dispense revenues to the states without proper congressional authorization, robbing Congress of its constitutionally-provided power of the purse,” Cruz said. “This decision restores power to Congress and...

Obama to make statement on Ukraine at 11:30 a.m. EDT: White House by Amy Tennery (Reuters) 8:50 AM

President Obama was in Delaware on Thursday when a Malaysian airliner went down near Ukraine's border with Russia. The president was scheduled to give a speech on transportation issues, but began his remarks talking about what, at that time, was thought to be a shoot down of a passenger jet. Daily Mail: President Barack Obama provoked fury in the U.S. on Thursday by casually devoting less than a minute to the deaths of 295 people aboard a Malaysian airliner, as he began an often jokey 16-minute speech about the need to expand America’s transportation infrastructure. There are no confirmed American...

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) called the crisis of unaccompanied minors flooding the border a “disaster of the president’s own making.” Speaking on the Senate floor, Cruz denounced the president for his refusal to visit the border during his trip to Texas, despite his own administration designating it a humanitarian crisis: “President Obama today is down in the state of Texas but sadly he’s not visiting the border. He’s not visiting the children who are suffering as a result of the failures of the Obama policies. Instead, he’s doing fund-raisers . He’s visiting Democratic fat cats to collect checks and...

Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Wednesday to effectively reverse the Supreme Court’s decision last week exempting employers from having to provide insurance coverage for contraception. The law would not allow for-profit corporations to seek exemptions from the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that their health plans cover contraception costs. Religious institutions would still be able to opt out. “Our bill simply says that your boss cannot get between you and your own healthcare,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the bill’s chief sponsor told reporters. “Last week, we saw the Supreme Court give CEOs and corporations across America the green light to design...

CNN) -- "Do you want to hit this?" a man asked President Barack Obama in a bar in Denver Tuesday night. The president laughed but didn't indulge. It wasn't the only time Obama was offered weed on his night out. That's apparently what happens in Colorado, which recently legalized recreational marijuana. The man posted the exchange on Instagram for the world to see. Obama has admitted to smoking pot as a young man. He was an active member of the "Choom Gang" in high school, which perfected all sorts of techniques for getting high.

Department of Homeland Security officials are stonewalling lawmakers who try to make unannounced visits to immigrant detention facilities throughout the country and are closing off public roads along the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to keep journalists from reporting on the growing illegal immigration crisis, federal law enforcement officials told TheBlaze. The officials said senior supervisors have made scheduling visits ahead of time mandatory at detention facilities, turned back officials from unannounced visits, and that Border Patrol agents have been forced to clean up facilities and transfer illegal aliens from unauthorized holding cells before they are inspected by lawmakers. Reporters...

Not only did “Morning Joe” mention Sarah Palin’s call for impeachment of President Obama on today’s show, it also ran a snippet of the video in which Palin says “enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president” and “it’s time to impeach.”